Some people still don't get why the gemless M&S deserves instant kick. They compared kicking him (without giving him a chance to prove he is good) to the gearscore madness, when people demanded high gearscore from anyone joining their group.
The first, theoretically largest but practically irrelevant difference is that the gearscore worshipers believed that high gearscore is needed for adequate performance. They did not consider gearscore/ilvl a signal of performance, they thought that without top gear even the best players couldn't perform. The undergeared project got so much attention because we did something that they considered impossible. Some even made mathematical "proof" that Gormok, or Anub or Marrowgar, but above all, Festergut cannot be done in blue gear, even with perfect play. Needless to say, they all went down with less than perfect play. When Blizzard introduced ilvl demands for dungeons, they supported this view, disallowing new lvl 85s to join the HC dungeons, despite the DPS requirement for these can be met by a 83-84. Of course on the tail of the "serious" GS-worshipers, there came morons who demanded higher GS than the instance could provide, believing that you just can't do Ulduar without ToC gear.
OK, let's ignore those who believe in the "need" of gear, and just mention the light version: "gearscore/ilvl is a signal of being good". Why is this statement worse than the "gem/enchant is a signal of being good"? At first let's compare some items of the same niche. I choose mail spirit bracers, feel free to do it with any other slot/type:
Assuming that intellect is twice as good as either secondary stat, the value of the bracers (int + spi/2 + secondary /2) are 246, 280, 317 and 378. The bracers have no gem slot, so let's see the values of one-socketed intellect-mail belts: 346: 345, 359: 392, 378: 469.
Bracers can get +50 intellect enchant, while belts can have 2*40 intellect gems. A peek on the numbers say that an enchanted/gemmed item is better than the item one tier above it without gems and enchants. So choosing between itemlevel over enchant/gem is simply wrong.
The above two are still not the cardinal points while we should not use ilvl but gems/enchants as signal of being good. The real reason is availability. A fresh 85 has no chance to have high itemlevel gear. On the other hand gems and enchants have no playing time prequisite, they are readily available from the AH.
So ilvl is the function of playing time and being good player (he chooses his playfield well to provide him upgrades), while gems/enchants are the function of being good player alone. It is obvious that the latter is better indicator of being good player. Also dungeon is the place where items, but not gems or enchants drop. So one can say: "I need this run exactly to get higher ilvl boots", while no one can say "I need this run to enchant my boots".
The point is that there is no other reason than stupidity and/or lazyness for being ungemmed/unenchanted. The test have no false positives, just false negatives (a gemmed/enchanted can still be stupid or lazy). On the other hand low ilvl/gearscore have several other reasons, above all: play time.
PS: the lolspeak filter of the guild is similar. There is no other reason for lolspeak then being a lolkid, granted the lolspeak has weaker correlation to being good player than gems and enchants.
The first, theoretically largest but practically irrelevant difference is that the gearscore worshipers believed that high gearscore is needed for adequate performance. They did not consider gearscore/ilvl a signal of performance, they thought that without top gear even the best players couldn't perform. The undergeared project got so much attention because we did something that they considered impossible. Some even made mathematical "proof" that Gormok, or Anub or Marrowgar, but above all, Festergut cannot be done in blue gear, even with perfect play. Needless to say, they all went down with less than perfect play. When Blizzard introduced ilvl demands for dungeons, they supported this view, disallowing new lvl 85s to join the HC dungeons, despite the DPS requirement for these can be met by a 83-84. Of course on the tail of the "serious" GS-worshipers, there came morons who demanded higher GS than the instance could provide, believing that you just can't do Ulduar without ToC gear.
OK, let's ignore those who believe in the "need" of gear, and just mention the light version: "gearscore/ilvl is a signal of being good". Why is this statement worse than the "gem/enchant is a signal of being good"? At first let's compare some items of the same niche. I choose mail spirit bracers, feel free to do it with any other slot/type:
| ilvl and link | Intellect | Spirit | haste/mastery/crit |
| 333 | 149 | 107 | 87 |
| 346 | 168 | 112 | 112 |
| 359 | 190 | 127 | 127 |
| 378 | 227 | 154 | 148 |
Assuming that intellect is twice as good as either secondary stat, the value of the bracers (int + spi/2 + secondary /2) are 246, 280, 317 and 378. The bracers have no gem slot, so let's see the values of one-socketed intellect-mail belts: 346: 345, 359: 392, 378: 469.
Bracers can get +50 intellect enchant, while belts can have 2*40 intellect gems. A peek on the numbers say that an enchanted/gemmed item is better than the item one tier above it without gems and enchants. So choosing between itemlevel over enchant/gem is simply wrong.
The above two are still not the cardinal points while we should not use ilvl but gems/enchants as signal of being good. The real reason is availability. A fresh 85 has no chance to have high itemlevel gear. On the other hand gems and enchants have no playing time prequisite, they are readily available from the AH.
So ilvl is the function of playing time and being good player (he chooses his playfield well to provide him upgrades), while gems/enchants are the function of being good player alone. It is obvious that the latter is better indicator of being good player. Also dungeon is the place where items, but not gems or enchants drop. So one can say: "I need this run exactly to get higher ilvl boots", while no one can say "I need this run to enchant my boots".
The point is that there is no other reason than stupidity and/or lazyness for being ungemmed/unenchanted. The test have no false positives, just false negatives (a gemmed/enchanted can still be stupid or lazy). On the other hand low ilvl/gearscore have several other reasons, above all: play time.
PS: the lolspeak filter of the guild is similar. There is no other reason for lolspeak then being a lolkid, granted the lolspeak has weaker correlation to being good player than gems and enchants.
49 comments:
The only reason I required ToC gear in my Ulduar pugs was because I knew that despite my best efforts I wouldn't be able to do a perfect run. People would get frozen on Hodir, mess up on Mimiron, die to Yogg, etc, but requiring ToC gear meant that our DPS was higher to compensate. Of course, the tanks and healers were guildies and friends who knew the content and wouldn't make us wipe; all I had to pug was DPS, and thus I chose to take overgeared players interested in achievements, badges, and occasionally gear (trinkets, an off-slot, etc).
Also, I have done dungeons with players who were hacked and thus were wearing greens and the occasional blue. The good ones DPSed over the tank, and one memorable retadin got his gear in the mail mid-run. Since he was an engi, he popped a mailbox and proceeded to wipe the floor with the mobs. It's the only time I've seen a good player not have full gems and enchantments at the start of a run, but it was notable.
Gemming and enchanting is a necessity on raids, and I'd kick anyone missing those from a raid without a doubt.
Zandalari hc's are not that hard, and we have a limited number of kicks available thanks to Blizz. I would not waste a kick on someone before they show they can't do it by failing a lot. And in all honesty, if I had 4 guildies + pug I doubt we'd kick at all because it just wouldn't matter, unless the pug was the tank. It's happened before we get a pug who goes afk for 20 min and can't be kicked - I'll save my kick for these, jerks and people who grief the group on purpose. This is not "leniency" towards subpar dps, it's self-presevation agaisnt seriously bad pugs.
I'm curious though if you can't see that people are not so much objecting to you wanting to kick him as the manner in which you behaved?
What I did not like about your first post was how you
1) called him a _retard_ and said he wont be able to do enough dps
2) when he did reasonable dps on trash went on to say it's only because he used CD's (so? why cant you use CD's on trash? I do, makes it faster)
3) in general behaved like a whiny jerk - if you had a bad day, don't take it out on random people in-game...
And the matter wasn't helped by one of your guildies doing subpar dps and getting no heat for it assumedly because he was a guildie...?
If you want to kick someone because they're not up to your standard, do. And it's great to give them a reason. But calling people names right on zoning in based on their enchants is just childish and silly.
Tl:dr: You have your standard and sure you can vote kick anyone who doesn't meet it, although there's no need to be nasty about it - some of the players are 13 year old kids, you know. But some of us preserve the kicks for utter morons because those are in there too and having kick right on CD truly sucks in those cases.
You know what would make the best addon ever? One that evaluates a player not by ilvl, but by evaluating their gems and enchants and giving you the moron/slacker score. For example, for a protection warrior, it would dock you a lot of points for a missing enchant or gem, a lot of points for int or agility gem/enchant, it would dock you a smaller amount for haste or crit gem/enchant. It could have an optional check to make sure they are wearing green or better, and are wearing plate armor and not something else(to make sure some wise guy doesn't try to fool the addon). All you would need to do is mouseover the player, and it gives you the M&S score.
"a gemmed/enchanted can still be stupid or lazy"
That's actually a false positive. Your test came out positive but the player does not exhibit what you were testing for. A false negative would be a non-lazy player not having gems and enchants, which is much less likely.
If I can get the DPS needed to clear an instance at 83, why would I bother wasting my gold on enchanting gemming my blues if I am only going to do dungeons and I know I pull the needed amount?
You assume because I have no gems and enchants, I cannot do the above.
Some may not, indeed and deserve kick. But one who can pull his weight with crap gear because he is good shouldn't be kicked.
Someone with enchants and gems can suck at his rotation and do sub-optimal DPS.
There is no optimal, default route.
Stop thinking like a computer and deal with each situation as it arises. Wanting a default pattern for everything reminds me of how they used to (and some still teach them that way) teach autistic kids.
Wanting a "default program" to deal with everything is lazy and prone to mistakes. You are human, they are human. Deal with the situation the most effective way, not the default way you want. It's contrary to your Goblins belief of Maximum Effectivity to use a default method of principles, because that method will not give the maximum effectivity in all situations.
It's called adapting yourself to your environment. If you stay stuck of wanting one way, despite it clearly not works...
I miss your posts from back in the day. They used to be harder to logically dismiss.
A better analysis would seek to answer the question: does replacing this random person with a guildie increase the group performance?
when replacing him with a guildie you get
+ a gemmed and enchanted player
- loss of the 5% lucky buff on the current 4 guildies
- a 15% lucky buff on the player in question
essentially if:
2*1.05*mean guild dps + 1.15*random dps < 3*mean guild dps
then kick, otherwise keep.
Taking the 10k example provided, this kick level is 7.8k
I start to wonder if you do this for a reason, or can you just don't notice how picky you are with your examples. Just 4 out of 14 slots for gear may have 2+ sockets, on low ilvl most pieces don't have sockets at all. On average gear set you have 9 sockets and one meta, 2 of them is 1/5 of the total value you can aquire with gems at all. 50int enchant is on the same side - it's one of the most powerfull enchants, and again some pieces can not be enchanted. Do you chant your alt bracers or to-be-replaced piece with 50int at all? I would use 50 haste.
Also, what effect being lazy does on ability to dps or heal? When i played my alt on low-pop realm i didn't want to farm gold for chants and gems, and sometimes even green versions were unavailable or overpriced. So i healed for some time with one or two empty sockets and missing chants. It didn't make me any worse as healer though, so i might fall in your false-positive part.
Let's try an analysis of what happened:
1. Player without proper gem/enchant in group (dps)
2. Player performs ok on first trash (using cd)
3. Player is called a retard for 1
4. Player claims to report (probably for 3)
5. Player cites evidence that he can pull his weight (2)
6. discussion
(i leave out the details of the discussion here for now)
So, (1) is a valid problem. He could do better but he does not. However, this is completely up to him. The same as it's completely up to Gevlon to say that he doesn't want a job that pays better (he claims he could have one if he wanted).
While this is a signal Gevlon himself either proved several times that it's either not a good enough signal or he's himself M&S in reallife (not getting as much as you could, is actually a pretty good signal there).
He did ok (2) not stellar dps, but still almost 50% more than Adanedar and 150% more than the tank. So most likely he won't go sub tank. A good signal that he can pull his weight.
At this point we have one signal that he can pull his weight and one signal that he can't.
At (3), he is now called a retard even assuming that this is right, doing this is against the rules (set up by Blizzard). By doing so, Gevlon puts himself in a bad position in the first place. The best outcome now can be that the other side does the same, so any report will be either dismissed or both will be punished.
(ok, retard most likely won't get you banned but warned, still bad position).
So, in my opinion, Gevlons reactions were highly suboptimal.
1. not all obvious signals were used.
2. just waiting for a second trashmob (where Player has no cd's he doesn't have for every pull) would have given a way better result.
3. Gevlon broke the rules (was the first to break them).
So yes, while gems are a signal at least use all signals available to get to a conclusion, especially if they are readily available.
This doesn't mean to try someone till the first boss or whatever, but if you want to kick on equip alone (be it glyph, gem or whatever), then do it either before the first pull, or use the data of the first pull aswell.
Once data is generated, it can't just be ignored. Before the first pull, you might be wrong with the heuristic, but it's valid. After the pull, if he showed the heuristic to be wrong, you can't use it anymore without risking to show you are wrong.
"there is no other reason than stupidity and/or lazyness for being ungemmed/unenchanted"
I am not sure if it is goblinish to kick someone who is lazy. It's only a reason for kicking if you suffer because of the other player's laziness. But in your example, where the player could pull his own weight, you do not suffer. Sure, you could argue that he wastes your time because you could finish the dungeone quicker with someone who has gemmed gear, but you do not have any guarantee that the random replacement player will have better performance (even if the replacement is neither stupid nor lazy).
I still have the impression you kicked him, because you could not bear that he did not put in as much effort into his character as you did, so it would be unfair that you would have to "boost" him. That sounds like very social reasoning to me.
@Anonymous formula:
some minor mistakes:
1. you don't calculate randomdps *1.15 because that's already in his measured dps.
2. your mean is wrong, as the last (Jeho) is most likely tank
3. the formula should actually be:
kick if he is the worst of the group of guild-dps + the one that would be replacing him
after multiplying the guild-member dps by 0.952
or
does hold back the group by being stupid.
This post got me thinking about making an addon called FailScore, that starts you at 0 then deducts points for fails like wearing the wrong class of armour, or having missing gems. I wrote a blog post about it.
There is one extra reason for being ungemmed / unecnanted and that's being unwilling to spend money on items that will get replaced soon anyway.
For example, i wouldn't put any sort of enchant on ZA weapons, because i know soon enough i'll have a crafted one 15 ilvls higher.
This might still fall under "slacker", but you really can't blame a person for wanting to be optimal with his gold.
@"Waiting for optimal" slackers: Why are you in the dungeon at the first place? No "optimal stuff" drops here. Go raid in unenchanted/ungemmed 333!
The reason why you are here is that you are too weak to go where the "real stuff" drops. You need 353/359 just to get in the raid. However exactly because you are weak, you should improve your strength in every available way.
Your (untold) idea is "I slack and get boosted to VP, JP (=359) and 353 drops". The point of the series is exactly that I won't boost you and suggest everyone else to refuse to boost you!
@"The point of the series is exactly that I won't boost you and suggest everyone else to refuse to boost you!"
and the overwhelming response is 'why not?', to which you have yet to provide much of an answer. it sounds again like you making a stand on the principle of the matter and not based on the goblin principle of doing what is best for yourself.
@ Gevlon: "The first, theoretically largest but practically irrelevant difference is that the gearscore worshipers believed that high gearscore is needed for adequate performance. They did not consider gearscore/ilvl a signal of performance, they thought that without top gear even the best players couldn't perform."
Almost all of your serious critics have acknowledged your use of his gemming as a signal of performance. Only your defenders pointed out that 'gemming shows you're doing your best', and that's where the conversation deteriorated into stats and ilvl.
However, performance is the best correlation of performance - 1.00 correlation, in fact. You had the opportunity to either a) test his performance, or b) draw correlations about his performance and instead, twiddle your thumbs and waste 15 minutes of your time. You chose the latter.
There is nothing wrong with choosing the latter. What *is* wrong is in attempting to name and shame someone on the basis of correlation, not performance. I've said it in the previous blog posts - you would have done nothing wrong if you simply didn't blog about it, seeing as you had your 'player cap' on at the time.
"The reason why you are here is that you are too weak to go where the "real stuff" drops."
However, that doesn't mean they are too weak to do a troll heroic. At one point we all ran the trollics in 346 gear and we din't (usually) feel like we we're carrying someone. According to your own calculations the ungemed/unenchanted legs have roughly the same performance than a green-gemed/low-enchanted 346 legs.
So, why do now you feel entitled to ask for a better performance? After all, "we" (raiders) are the ones invading their property, because we can't cap our VPs from the content that is meant for us.
If Blizzard bribe us with VPs for running Stockades, what would be your requierements for the puggers? DPS above tank?
Take this into account: as bad as it is to be unenchanted/ungemmed, and as much as you prove that ilvl < enchanted/gemmed, what people look in trade when they search for player is the first one, ilvl, so people tend to get better ilvl faster than they care about enchanting/gemming, cause ilvl is what it's expected from them in order to get a spot, not because it's more optimal.
As a raidleader, I give a sigle advise - once - to fresh 85'ers prospects to our raids and how they take is my first litmus-test as to how they will come about: "Get that therazane and your head-enchant faction rep up first!"
What do the idiots do? They promptly grind rep for those factions that got "them shiny epiczz"
The fact that getting the head and shoulder enchant will on average provide them with twice as much of their primary stat as getting an ilevel 351 epic over a 346 heroic blue in the same slot, seems to have totally escaped them - as have the oppotunity of ever setting foot in my raids.
Every argument you use here could also be used to say that anyone who shows up to a dungeon without a flask is stupid or lazy. Flasks are readily available the instant you ding 85 and provide a much bigger boost than a couple of upgrades. For many people a flask is a bigger boost than all their sockets combined. One could even extend the argument to buff food, which is like two additional sockets. Since you are not saying you refuse to run a 5-man with someone who does not have these items, it looks like you are drawing an arbitrary line in the ROI spectrum: "this side of my line is acceptable, that side is lazy/stupid". What you do in your own groups is your own business, but if you continue to insist that everyone should agree to your arbitrary line instead of being concerned with results, then you will continue to be unsuccessful.
While fundamentally I agree with the core idea and really hate having awful retards constantly failing in my group, there are a number of flaws in this whole history:
* First of all this is not blog material. You calling someone a retard the moment they zone in and say "hello", inconclusive evidence about his shortcomings, etc.
* Second of all, because of the limitations of vote kicking, you are unable to votekick everyone that doesnt meet your standards, especially if these are high. So the optimization around this is: Is this guy so much deadweight that he deserves the spare kick.
What would have made a better point for your argument is that the guy would be that bad that he was failing at boss mechanics thus wiping the group and then still demand that you boost him. This would have actually proven your point.
Your actual post did not prove anything about that guy or the ideas you try to spread, it proved something about you: you are so obsessed with these so called M/S that, with arbitrarily set thresholds for asserting one's value, you start bashing them left and right. It is all very irrational. Which is the opposite of what goblinism should be about.
Are you like that in real life too? Or with the people in your guild? Imagine how ridiculous a guy is who goes on a crusade against idiots in real life. Especially with arbitrarily set standards, based on different correlations between what seems and seems not worthy of being deemed useless in a human being. Especially when looking at mundane tasks like doing a heroic, or their irl equivalents like being in traffic, going to the market, etc.
The rational response to the situation you described in your initial blog would simply be: notice the ungemmed moron, monitor his dps during trash (if abysmal initiate vote-kick w/o saying anything), monitor his dps and behavior during boss fight(i.e. stand in fire, ignore boss mechanics etc) - if he fails silent vote-kick. If not, finish said heroic w/o saying a word to him because he wasn't a big hindrance after all.
There is one extra reason for being ungemmed / unecnanted and that's being unwilling to spend money on items that will get replaced soon anyway.
No, this is not a valid reason.
Noone is requiring you to put the best enchant on your temporary stuff, but something like 50 crit on bracers only costs 2 small essences and 4 dust. There is no reason at all not to put the cheap enchants on any ilvl 300+ item.
Why would any raidleader give you a 359 item to replace your 346 if you can get a better upgrade just by enchanting your 346?
Gevlon, you haven't addressed the main point of the "waiting for optimal" counterargument.
If a level 83 is capable of meeting the dps requirements, and a level 85 is capable of tanking or healing a normal heroic in greens, why bother enchanting & gemming? You yourself have said that when you're leading a raid, you have no problem taking someone who has green quality gems and second tier enchants instead of the high end, pricey stuff. You pointed to the much lower return on the additional investment in expensive gems & enchants vs cheap gems & enchants to justify your stance.
My question is, when choosing free vs. cheap vs. expensive gems, how do you justify saying "Cheap is mandatory, but expensive isn't?" Why wouldn't my differing standard, "Free is fine," be just as valid?
I do agree that looking at someone's gems & enchants can tell you whether they're a bad or not. However, I think that checking for having the *wrong* gems is a much better test than checking that they have gems at all. An ungemmed frost DK with no enchants who's in your RFD Deadmines run might be a bad, but it also might be me on my fresh alt, and I'll certainly hit the 8-9kdps mark on a fresh 85 with questing gear. However, if that DK is gemmed for stamina in one socket, you can be sure that it's not me.
Gear shows experience. Gems, enchants and reforging show effort.
I assemble semi-pug raids, still for Tier 11 content.
I check on players gear during wipes. (I know - I should check first, but oh well). I use an addon called PlayerScore
I use it for quick checks of missing gems, enchants, PVP gear. It apparently allows you to check for more things.
(A similar but far simpler addon is bimbo)
While I'm not wiping I don't care. Once I start wiping, I look for avoidable damage (or other failed tasks), and failure to 'shine your gear'.
I don't ask for the most expensive enchants or gems. As far as gems go - put in something vaguely useful (uncommon is OK to start with - mixed colours are fine too).
If you are the boosting type (and I have been), then the single biggest boost you can give is to send the player to www.askmrrobot.com
I'm not a fan of the minimum gearscore argument either. You nailed it on the head with having gems and enchants readily available on the AH, though. There is no excuse for a lack of gems unless you are wearing a piece that is obviously going to be replaced in an hour, but even then, there are usually loads of lower quality (and hence really cheap) gems to give a little boost on your gear.
Even though I think the player is more important than the gearscore, if a player is talented enough to noticeably outdo his/her gearscore, they will have a very short timeframe where they actually have low gear.
@ pheredhel:
@Anonymous formula:
"1. you don't calculate randomdps *1.15 because that's already in his measured dps."
Of course you are right if looking at the recount within the dungon. What is calculated above is "target dummy DPS" to show the difference that gems would have to make for this to be an issue. In other words, someone should be able to pull 8k on a dummy without gems.
"2. your mean is wrong, as the last (Jeho) is most likely tank"
I just used the standars set, the tank is not included, but anyone is free to set any standard.
"3. the formula should actually be:
kick if he is the worst of the group of guild-dps + the one that would be replacing him
after multiplying the guild-member dps by 0.952"
It would be interesting to extend this for decision making if we also included the available replacements dps. I am sure there could be circumstances where it is better to remove the lowest performing guild member instead of the random dps.
"or
does hold back the group by being stupid."
That's the real trick, and the best way to make decisions. Unfortnately, these types of things are only known after something went horribly wrong
IMO the only real identifiers of "bad people" are hidden in social cues, and require significant social interaction to ferret out. But we all know your opinion on that.
But, to explore your opinions, it would seem to me that with all your resources you could pay for some real research.
Offer to pay guildies to collect data on solo PuG runs.
You would be much more convincing (to me) if you had data that showed, for instance, PuGs wipe more often if at least 2/5 players have lol names. Or that a single poorly itemized, or ungemmed/unenchanted player on average increases time to completion by 15 minutes.
[i]@"Waiting for optimal" slackers: Why are you in the dungeon at the first place? No "optimal stuff" drops here. Go raid in unenchanted/ungemmed 333![/i]
There is a difference between troll dungeons and raids. I can only do 1 raid a week, but i can do as many troll dungeons as i want.
Therefore, i am more or less guaranteed to get all the loot in a troll dungeon over a maximum of week of intensive farming. Whereas for raid drops may not happen for months.
Because of this, "best in slot pre-raid" concept exists. That's the gear i'll bother gemming and enchanting, and i'll put the best ones available on it, too, because that's the gear that will be worn for weeks or possibly months.
[i]The reason why you are here is that you are too weak to go where the "real stuff" drops. You need 353/359 just to get in the raid. However exactly because you are weak, you should improve your strength in every available way.[/i]
The best way to improve my strength is to get the 353 / 359 / 368 available outside of raids and enchant and gem these with best items available. Telling people to be content with going to raids in enchanted blue reputation gear and greens is giving them excuse to slack on getting the really best pre-raid gear.
[i]Your (untold) idea is "I slack and get boosted to VP, JP (=359) and 353 drops". The point of the series is exactly that I won't boost you and suggest everyone else to refuse to boost you![/i]
In a world where everyone would refuse to boost me, the only thing that would accomplish is having me waste the resources on cheaper enchants and gems. Resources which might have went towards getting my high end enchants sorted out faster once i get my best pre-raid gear.
The worst part is that you have me waste these resources to prove that i'm not a part of a poorly defined social group.
@ Yaggle
Elitist Group allows this: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info15573-ElitistGroup.html
"If you are the boosting type (and I have been), then the single biggest boost you can give is to send the player to www.askmrrobot.com"
Rawr and SimCraft are much more accurate according to my compares.
Hi Gevlon!
I still think you're missing the point a bit. Of course a given player will perform better with gemmed/enchanted gear. That's non-controversial.
Choosing whether to kick someone should be based on whether they are already above the average performance of a random pug. An ungemmed/not enchanted pug that still performs well is preferred over a gemmed/enchanted pug who performs poorly.
As a goblin you need to be rational and choose what will most benefit you. To intentionally reduce your group's effectiveness on a matter of principle seems a very social choice to make. You were less interested in finishing the run than you were in letting the lazy guy know you didn't approve of him.
FWIW, I'd imagine if you were to chart the performance of people with ungemmed gear, you'd see a graph with two distinct groups. A peak at the low end of performance for all the terribles who will still be bad even if they get gear enchanted. A second peak at mid to high end for alts of serious players who are lazy and don't want to gem gear they intend to replace, but who still will have high performance as they are already skilled and have run the instance on their main. For that second group, gemming and enchanting will make them better, but they're already better than average to begin with.
Don't have the data to show it, but from that perspective, gemming is a horrible indicator of predicted performance. Bads that gem are still bad. Goods who are too lazy to gem are still good. :P
Skimming through the replies here, I have a hard time understanding the logic of some people here, the "my dps is enough, why should I bother to enchant/gem etc.?" argument.
Why play a game and be "good enough" when you can so easily be really good, just by adding some enchants or gems? It looks to me like lack of ambition.
Of course the minimal dps requirement for a successful boss kill is very low. Blizzard did this intentionally to allow as many players as possible to succeed in the game. However, I don't think this should become a reason for not trying to improve your character by skipping all gear optimisations.
Gevlon, all you really need to say is that goblins don't care about fairness.
The point is not to meticulously ensure that all and only M&S get kicked. The point is just not to group with M&S.
(Unless that is the point, for some reason.)
When someone doesn't have gems, 95+% of the time, they're a M&S. It's not worth letting the remaining 5-% prove themselves.
For comparison, how would I react to your comment?
Something like this:
"I can go buy gems right now if it bothers you that much.
However, calling me a retard isn't a good way to convince me I should have to."
And indeed, that's entirely different. Roughly what your 5-% has to do. Not that I have any ungemmed toons that would get caught in the filter.
And seriously, what kind of idiot reports, that is, whines to blizzard as a solution? "Mommy! Someone called me a bad name!"
I also like the, "I reported you, therefore let me stay in the group." Uhh...what?
Two thought experiments:
1) Suppose you're putting together a run of Scarlet Monastery for the guild achievement and somebody offers to bring an 85 to make it quick. When he gets there, you discover that his gear is completely ungemmed and unenchanted. Do you instantly kick him?
2) You queue for a troll heroic as the healer and get the following 3 DPS. One is in 333 blues and some PVP gear but has every slot with high quality gems and enchants. The second is in a mix of heroic 346 gear and some T11, fully gemmed and enchanted but with mid-quality gems/enchants. The third is in spec-appropriate Firelands 378 PVE gear but surprisingly lacks any enchants or gems. Whom do you kick?
Well highest chance to meet people with 353 unenchanted items is when they are doing back to back troll dungeon and farming stuff in between queues.
You wouldn't bother going ogrimaar just so you can show some random guy you bother enchanting items, when there is no need if you play your class right. Most dps drop is because of bad rotation or just completely missing GCDs.
So makes alot more sence to enchant the items after you are done farming.
You think this case is not common?
Bah, post too long
Here is TLDR
Gemming all sockets can be done for aproximately 200g, buy 10 stacks of ele ore, and have a friendly jc help you out. even if you take all sockets with a green lvl gem in your main stat forgoing all socket bonusses thats allready 270 stat increase
Taking enchants even if they're not the best around will still increase your performance. You don't need + 50 int for 1500g, you can make do with + 50 haste, or take a wotlk one for 35 int. 11 enchantable items. ( counting beltbuckle as enchant )
Again significant improvement
About buff food and flasks. I use them in every group. But i can understand that some players are unwilling to spend an additional 100 - 150 g per run on food and flask. So even though i think they're all slackers, i'll accept that. Mainly as these are short time buffs that need to be replaced every time ( granted 1 hour per flask, but you understand )
What i don't get is how a player refuses to spend a 1 time 200g to get all his gems, wich will permanently increase his stats. Or to get enchants, same reason.
There will always be a better piece of gear, and not doing this is just making the life of your party members harder. If everyone behaved like this, we would still be CC ing on every pull, and wiping if a patroll comes near.
Your refusal to gem - enchant makes the total damage done lower, it makes the time the healer has to last longer, and forces mainly healers to work harder.
In fact, in a mix of greens blues 333 / 346 without enchants and gems. Healers will struggle to get over 5 - 6k hps. And you can easily clear an old HC with 5k hps. But it means CC ing on every pull, wiping if adds show up. And allows for no player error in the whole party at all.
Think on that, and see how you would like runs like that. The argument, I'm pulling my weight, its enough on average, look other guy with less skill does even less, is completely useless. You are not doing the best you can, and with minimal effort you can do a lot better. If you refuse to put in that effort, then go run in guildruns or with friends rather then bothering LFD. I'm saying this to protect the folks in LFD, the ones that can't do better, the ones that don't have anyone who wants to play with them. By behaving they way you are, intentionally making life harder on the rest, you deserve to be kicked. I'd kick a 10k dps thats ungemmed and unenchanted, over a 7k dps that works his ass of anyday. Out of the two, who deserves to be in that run more?
@last anon
It might be, and it excuses some slots. However, not having any gems, enchants at all is unlikely. Especially when they're 346 Heroic items. Unless you've replaced ALL your gear that farm run, you should have a couple of enchanted items. Besides, the gear you had in there should be enchanted aswell. Just show that if ppl bother you, tell them you've been farming, this is what you started out with, stuff got replaced, and your guild jc / enchanter isn't online yet.
At anon above previous one
SM is a lvl 40 run, a lvl 85 can solo it. So no need for enchants or gems, or even lvl 85.
second post
troll hc requires 346 ilvl average hardcoded into DF.
so 333, with a few 348 pvp to set it off doesn't give you the gear to enter it. You'll achieve the Ilvl, but at the cost of a ton of itembudget in resi. this guy needs to farm some normal heroic first progression wise, Regardless of his enchants he's not ready for the troll hc's he would be my first candidate, Purely for trying to "game" the ilvl requirements of the instance.
( rephrase to 346 blue's from normals )
He's ok now, no pvp items, Good enchants, and the minimum ilvl. I expect him to be at bottom of meters though.
#2 guy, 346 - 359, cheap enchants
He is outgearing the instance, and has his stuff enchanted, should be able to pull his weigth,
# 3 guy ( 378, PVE spec appropriate, no enchants )
He is still outgearing the instance, His ilvl suggests however that he can play well enough to complete raids. He should not have a problem in the troll hc. However due to his missing enchants he will most likely be pulling slightely higher dps as the #2 guy.
So first guy would get kicked, in the situation you describe, but that is for using PVP items, to "boost" his ilvl enough to enter. 358 PVP blues have around the same usefull stats in pve as 333 blue's. Meaning he is severly undergeared, to the point that LFD would not even let him in. If he wasn't using PVP items to screw LFD tool, but had fully enchanted 346 blues i would let them all stay though.
Yes, i agree, in some cases, encahnts, gems, aren't required to complete an instance. If ILVL is high enough, ( and since 378 drops from raids, the guy is likely to have some understanding of class and rotation ) He can be in a troll hc and still able to pull his weight, AND provide a boost. I would however preferr him to wear his 359 gear that has the best gems, and enchants on it. As he's likely pulling more dps in that, and considering he has the newest raid on farm, he's likely to have that aswell.
However, this is not the case in a ton of situations. You're unlikely to see a full 378 ilvl unenchanted in a troll hc. You're much more likely to see the #1 guy, ungemmed and unenchanted. boosting his char with pvp items. Or worse, wearing a couple of greens in there still, and having bought some Spec inapropriate 359's from rep vendors for those slots to crank ilvl up.
I think a lot of people are missing the point. It's not the performance that matters. Sure, someone with ungemmed unenchanted gear could DPS well. But that's not the point. The point is that you show up to play prepared. If you're taking a college course you need a textbook. If you're going to work you need to be dressed in uniform. And the list goes on.
If you're going to run a heroic dungeon you need proper gear. If you can't be bothered to do this, why are you running a heroic in the first place? Go do daily quests or something. DPS already have a 30 minute queue time, this time can easily be spent getting your gear gemmed/enchanted/reforged/optimized. There is simply no excuse.
"1) Suppose you're putting together a run of Scarlet Monastery for the guild achievement and somebody offers to bring an 85 to make it quick. When he gets there, you discover that his gear is completely ungemmed and unenchanted. Do you instantly kick him?"
You could walk into SM naked, or wearing RP gear and it would be a cakewalk. This is a pretty lousy example as there is a zero chance of wiping.
"2) You queue for a troll heroic as the healer and get the following 3 DPS. One is in 333 blues and some PVP gear but has every slot with high quality gems and enchants. The second is in a mix of heroic 346 gear and some T11, fully gemmed and enchanted but with mid-quality gems/enchants. The third is in spec-appropriate Firelands 378 PVE gear but surprisingly lacks any enchants or gems. Whom do you kick?"
You don't kick any of them. You leave, accept the deserter debuff and queue again. Or better yet, queue with guildies/ good people who you know are not morons and slackers!
However exactly because you are weak, you should improve your strength in every available way.
Actually, no. According to goblin principals, which used to be a central part of this blog, it is ideal to put only the minimum effort required to achieve a goal - any extra effort above and beyond necessity is wasted and inefficient uses of your time/gold. Fundamentally, that is the subconscious problem I have always had with your overriding M&S focus: getting boosted by definition is the most efficient use of your time, so a true goblin would appear M&S when it is convenient, and non-M&S when it's not.
And seriously, what kind of idiot reports, that is, whines to blizzard as a solution?
In-game harassment is in-game harassment. I report people like that all the time, not because my feelings were hurt, but because I find empty bravado annoying and they hand me control over their account by typing their garbage. Gevlon has already been suspended before, which means he is plenty deep in the penalty volcano - I fully expect a "I got banned" post from him within the year, if that prior post was any indication of how he acts in-game.
I had a chuckle at this post and some comments. Gems/enchants is the most basic skill and anyone missing a host of them is an idiot. Back when I was a noob, I even realised that I should socket at least green quality gems even if I'm going to replace the piece fairly soon.
As for the GS worshipers, it's not that they believe that ToC gear is needed to do Ulduar. It's just that from experience, the average trade pugger is not skilled and gear is needed to compensate for them.
Whether Rawr or Simcraft are more accurate or not isn't the issue. A hard mode guild will care about the difference, but your average casual won't.
The advantage of AskMrRobot is that it is simple enough for anyone playing Warcraft to use - no installs required.
Also, Elitistgroups is discontinued. Playercraft seems to be the closest maintained program that seems to fill that spot. (though I do miss the quick group check)
My experience is that gear/ilvl is not that predictive. What would be really cool is an addon that recorded when a player was kicked or sucked extremely and distributed the information to others in the same battlegroup. Call the addon Karma. That would really reduce the number of M/S.
"Actually, no. According to goblin principals, which used to be a central part of this blog, it is ideal to put only the minimum effort required to achieve a goal"
No? You totally misunderstood the goblin principle. You put your best effort when required. Unless severely overgeared (full ilvl 378 without gems/enchanted means overgeared, doing SM at lvl 85 means overgeared. Or overlevelled) any DPS who doesn't put their best effort in an instance is putting burden on healer. Guess who the healer was in Gevlon's group? Right, Gevlon.
When someone does what you argue I put minimal effort into boosting that guy.
A slacker who is aware of his bad performance and manipulating his way into staying in the group (arguing defending slacking, popping CDs on trash then linking DPS) is exactly what Gevlon stumbled upon. When the slacker was caught red handed he had several choices. He could've gone to the AH (or enchanter/JC friend). He could've left the instance trying again his trick perhaps this time with people who wouldn't notice his slacking (IOW: morons) or some readers of this blog who'd tolerate him (won't insult you calling you a moron for fear of getting reported). The slacker didn't opt for such. Out of spite he _chose_ to waste not only his own time but that of 4 others as well. Hardly goblinish. And _he_ couldn't get out of instance and do business and questing. If he'd do that for more than 3 min he'd get kicked.
Now, there are probably people who are more socially skilled than Gevlon. They'd have talked this guy into leaving the instance. Perhaps. Because if your first sentence in communication with someone you never met before contains insults you're not going to get business done. In that regard I do agree with what some have expressed before although if you felt insulted from someone calling you a retard I'd say: good, you had it comming. If you knew full well you were wrong, slacking, you'd accept such an insult. So grow some skin.
"My experience is that gear/ilvl is not that predictive. What would be really cool is an addon that recorded when a player was kicked or sucked extremely and distributed the information to others in the same battlegroup. Call the addon Karma. That would really reduce the number of M/S."
PlayerScore (formerly the dreaded GearScore) does this. There is no way to verify any of the input data though. You can moderate any person you played with in any way you like. Maybe because you didn't like the gnomes haircolour.
This is a little low of me but I just can't resist...
Read the OP and check out his armory
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2423046033
See the guild and server? Notice the 7 unenchanted items? If you were to go into a random with this guildie, would you kick him? Call him a retard?
@Anonymous: I sometimes find guildies in group without enchants. I tell them to leave. I DID votekick guild member or dropped group on guildmembers after finding no enchants or bad rotation. The WoW norms are of slacking and stupidity. The people adapt slow. They need several reminders.
Still no reply on the difference between gems and flasks. There is an obvious difference in scale, but not one in kind. To not demand and use flasks means that you agree there is a cut-off point where expense and effort don't justify the temporary nature of the bonus. You can't objectively argue that your cut-off point makes more sense than someone else's.
As you said, someone could know for a fact that this run gives them a new pair of boots. If they know that then enchanting their boots would only be good for one run, and a flask would be both cheaper and better - yet you kick for the lack of enchant and not for a lack of flask.
But probably the worst part is that you are trying to argue that no gems is a reliable way of guessing whether or not someone will perform. Do you know what a more reliable way of guessing whether someone will perform is? *Play with them and see if they perform.* Don't invite ungemmed people to your guild raid - that's fine. But when you have decided you are going to wait 15 minutes to do another run, how about spending 1 or 2 of those minutes figuring out whether that is a reasonable thing to do? If it turns out the person performs, you saved yourself 13 minutes. Why use a somewhat reasonable proxy when you can easily measure the actual data?
Sthenno, when someone underperforms in terms of output (not tactics) in a run (BH, LFD; where you normally don't flask/eat) I tell them to flask and get food buff. If they still fail, they can sod off.
If only new boots drop it is simple: you don't enchant/gem them and that is only one item. Such is in no compare to Gevlon's case where the guy was barely gemmed/enchanted.
If you expect various items to drop you enchant yours cheap. For example boots can be enchanted cheap with Earthen Vitality, and all the green gems are very cheap.
My experience is that players who don't enchant/gem their gear are morons or slackers. People who don't have food buff or don't flask still perform. If you don't want to be put in the same group as M&S its simple: enchant and gem your gear.
This is different from excluding a black man because of his skin because you have the choice to enchant and gem your gear whereas even if the excluding of the black man is justified based on racism the black man does not have the choice to have a different skin.
This is also different from demanding achievement for a raid you are about to do: its a circular argument. The same for demanding ilvl 359 for a Cata 4.0 raid: to get ilvl 359 full you need to do these raids. The RL is essentially asking for a boost here, and if you inspect the RL (which you should) you will sometimes find the exact reason why they are forming the raid: they don't have the achievement, they are crap geared, and making a boost run to boost themselves.
Anonymous, that all sounds fairly reasonable, but there is still no clear line between flasking and gemming. Like you said, if someone was all gemmed/enchanted except their boots then you probably wouldn't worry about it. What if someone is missing their meta? What is someone used uncommon gems instead of rares? What is someone used purple gems in red sockets to save money?
There is a huge sliding scale, no hard and fast rule that no gems means useless player. In order for Gevlon's point to be valid he needs a *very* strong argument that no gems = bad player, not a reasonable-people-can-agree argument.
When you are in a group with 4 guild members and a random, presumably you are expecting that things will go relatively smoothly unless the random is atrociously incompetent. For regular raiders, the random would have to be so bad as to be an active detriment if they are going to seriously impair your ability to finish. Not being able to progress, and having to wait until you can get a new random is the *worst case* scenario.
Gevlon advocates choosing to accept the worst case scenario for himself and three of his guildmates based on a perceived correlation rather than spending a minute figuring out how bad it really is. In fact, his guildmate's "10k or kick" comes across as pleading, not with the random, but with Gevlon to just calm down and move on with the run (this may not be the case, but that's how it looks when I read it). Gevlon decided to waste a combined hour of his guild's time in order to punish someone who was bad without even being willing to assess whether they were bad or not. So a lack of gems in some pieces and a lack of enchants had better be a near 100% predictor of failure of the entire run - otherwise its just being a jerk on principle.
If I were in the PuG I would certainly be happy to do guild groups for dailies with Gevlon included. However, if there were only three of us, I would rather play with two randoms than pick Gevlon up as a fourth given this behaviour. There is just too much of a chance he would waste my time by throwing a fit about our random not gemming when we could just win the instance instead of complaining.
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