Now as far as heroics, i have a well geared mage (5399gs 232ilvl or better other than abyssal rune) and a slightly less geared priest (just over 5k still with some valor badge stuff) When i get into a heroic random i use GS for a few things.

First on my mage i used it to pace my dps, if the tank is geared around a certain level i know how much i can do without blowing up their threat gen, if they have low gear but then show they can keep up, then i scale with that player’s skill.

On my priest i used it to pace my heals on the tank, since a lower GS tank may need more attention, and once or twice i’ve run into non defcapped tanks who needed me to work really hard to keep up.

Outside of heroics i use it to get an idea of where i stand among other people in a raid, and i use the database tool to look up friend’s gear sets so i know if i need to kick them to roll on some loot. (my guild is an all RL friend thing so we only rarely raid)

GS is a tool, how it is used is another matter.

GS can define a lower bar for TOC, TOGC, ICC …
But most people don’t really have a realistic sense of what those bars should be.
So maybe instead of giving a number which has been and will continue to be badly misinterpreted I’d like to think the author of GS could turn it into colors (Red, Yellow and Green) for an instance.

Personally, I don’t use it. I like Trackwarcraft better as it gives me an idea of gear level that has more innate meaning by presenting average ilvl of gear and then if
I see a low average ilvl I can drill down and determine if they have experience in the area we are visiting. Personally I’d prefer experience over great gear.

i’m geared for ICC25, so 5man’s are rarely a challenge, unless i have a group that is all low 3k (or less) gear. having said that, i still run (and never drop from) 5 mans. my gear hasn’t always been like this… other ppl with better gear ran me through instances; helped build me up. i feel it is my responsibility to help others in the same manner.

all i use GS for is a quick glance to see what i might expect from a player that i am randomly queued with. if the gear is really low, then that person will likely need to be watched a little closer for heals, beyond that…. lets go! I’m ready to run.

Also got some nice complements on my tanking considering my gear and saying to me that skill > gear, always good for my ego. Anyways, nice friendly ppl do exist still in pug raids.

All I ask is you say something at the beginning. Best DPS’er in the world I met a few weeks ago in a 5 man. Zones in and the first words out of his mouth are not Hi, but “Please excuse my low dps, I just ding’d yesterday. I’m trying to get geared as fast as I can. If you feel like I am that much of a hinderance, then I will be more than happy to leave.”
I look him over and see that he is honestly trying. One of the other DPS starts to whine about it and I clearly state I would rather 3 man it with this fresh 80 than a whiny epic whore. I start the pulls and low and behold, the fresh 80 did 100 more dps than the epic’d out guy. The epic’d dps leaves the party as fast as he can, at which point I reroll a lvl 1 to whisper him (not my finest moment, but couldnt resist!)
“Wow, for someone whining so much about DPS, you let the tank and the fresh LVL 80 beat you, and if there was a lil more trash, the healer would have caught you to!”

Random heroic on my shammy (who is perfectly happy with netherdrake so I never bothered to actively pursue the glory) we get to moorabi, I’m slightly bored casue people are not taking much damage and things are dying quickly, so I pop ele, BL next thing I know – achievemnt pops up for the entire group. We started laughing, becasue none of us were even trying for it, I just halfheartedly interrupted what casts i could and I think someone did as well on third cast.

worst part? few days later – heroic gundrak again. I do the same strategy again….and it works. again. achiv pops up for couple of people, DK comments that his MAIN doesn’t have that achievemnt.

what..the heck? I’ve given up trying to understand it…I just go with the flow.

/hate at gearscore and people who mindlessly abuse it.

a nice number to run original Wrath heroics, according to the description i found is actually 3000ish. anything more is nice and will speed things up, but frankly? overkill.

I ran a random Heroic HoS the other day where the tank opennly started the run with “I’m skipping bosses, you can deal with it or leave.” If you choose to leave the run, your penalized for 15 minutes for choosing to not agree to random conditions placed on your group which you didn’t really sign up for. Some people did leave that group, and the tank berated them for doing it. I nthe same line of reasoning, I don’t want to be subjected to this for a Naxx10 that you should be able to do in blues. I want to pitch something at the wall when, on my warlock, I see a Naxx10 Weekly Raid 5k+ GS or 5k+ dps only.

I’m totally fine with Gear Scoring ICC or ToC, but heroics are designed for gearing, using it as a justification for kicking people or leaving is stupid.

Gearscore in pug heroics is ridiculous, though it is sometimes fun seeing people with 5000 GS faring worse than others in 3000. Skill > gear any time, and you need very little gear for heroics: we all started in blue quest rewards, remember?

Only exception to the general rule (GS= BAD) is if you are trying to form a pug raid. In this case you won’t have time to check every whisperer on the web sites, and the addon give you a chance to quickly decline the heavily undergeared.

An unskilled /undergeared character in a raid may waste a few hours of 9-24 people – there is nothing wrong making sure that no one, or just a couple of new alts, are carried in raids. But in random heroics, please accept the dice roll and go with what you’re given without becoming obnoxious.

I have tried the addon and still load it sometimes (never in raids), but I have never even thought of using the info to drop from a heroic. A few times it has showed me I had to slow down my attacks, as my main (spriest) has 5500GS and may have been annoying for a well-meaning tank in starting gear.