Gear vs. Skill
by Zach Yonzon 
Feb 10th 2009 at 8:30AM
This is an old and valid argument. In many cases, some raids or instances just require a certain level of gear in order to beat it. Take Archavon, for example. He's the easiest raid boss in the game, but players will need to bring a minimum DPS in order to kill him before he enrages. It's a simple fight, and players don't need much skill to do it (step out of the clouds), but there's just a modicum of gear required to pump out enough DPS to beat him. No matter how good you are, weapons and gear scale your DPS upwards or downwards and there's a ceiling you just won't be able to break.
On the other hand, no matter how well-geared some players are, some AFK their way through things and that's just not the kind of player you'd want on your team, is it? Gear isn't an indication of skill. It's just an indication of what a player is at the minimum level. Unfortunately for Bell and other skilled players, there's nothing to quantify skill as easily as gear. The closest thing would be to lay claim to either The Undying or The Immortal as a healer, but even that's no guarantee (but it's pretty damned good!).
This argument of gear vs. skill isn't going to end, really. There are merits both ways. All Bell asks for is that players should give other people a chance. So while the struggle to obtain gear might be arduous for some, getting there will be part of the experience. A good player will always make an impact to a group, particularly a good healer. True enough, skill will always outweigh gear, but a skilled player will always get good gear in the long run. Needless to say, a skilled player in excellent gear is the best combination of all.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Instances
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Will Feb 10th 2009 8:35AM
Bell was smart to get invited to H Ahn'kahet - an undergeared druid healing the last boss is far preferable to an overgeared paladin, or your sub-par DPS will be wiping trying to take him out. I had a group where myself and the healer were in full Naxx 25 and the tank and DPS were not, making this nearly impossible.
Also, first :)
Elladrion Feb 10th 2009 9:13AM
Healing H AN as a pally isan't THAT hard, I've done it a few times myself and I'm only partially naxx geared. Just beacon yourself and HL spam when the adds come, dodging the tentacles and cleanse if ya have spare GCDs, otherwise just heal trough it. If you're pally can't do it he needs to consider respeccing. This might change though if that divine plea nerf is real.
Will Feb 10th 2009 9:24AM
No, you misunderstand - healing is not the problem (and you prove my point as you're only partially geared out). The problem is that during Insanity, (spoiler alert) our comparatively undergeared tank and DPS cannot kill the paladin or prevent him from healing the other copies back up to full. Even in full epics, I had a hard time taking down the paladin who was spamming heals on himself and all the other copies. I actually had our two top raid healers each try and neither was able to keep the group alive. (Yes, I know this was because the tank was undergeared - my point was that the OP paladin healers were an issue during Insanity.)
Hoggersbud Feb 10th 2009 9:31AM
I agree. A good healer on Insanity is just a pain in the ass to deal with, no matter who you are. Had a healer in my guild say "Oh you don't want me, I'm badly geared" and I said oh hell yes I do! That's why!
Trebonious Feb 10th 2009 10:05AM
Or you simply bring a class with interrupts. Warrior should have shield bashed and stunned to hell.
Ogre Feb 10th 2009 10:11AM
Just a point, Insanity no longer works the way you think it does I suspect. It no longer punishes groups for bringing one overgeared player. Health is now fixed to 12k for everyone, including the tank, and spell power is locked at around 1200 (EJ posted exact value from tests). This was to make the fight much easier and brutal than it once was, when it forced certain classes to go into pvp mode. (Rogues using mind-numbing+wound, etc)
On a sidenote, doing Arch with bad gear is still totally possible. The skill required to survive is almost non exsistant, but the skill to max your class dps is still key. While some classes that's easy, some it isn't. I remember the first time I went in the first 2 weeks of LK, geared in all the blues I had gathered from 77-80 with almost no dungeon runs yet, and still pulled 3k dps in my mostly junk gear. (Mut Rogue fyi, not a hunter)
VSUReaper Feb 10th 2009 10:23AM
"Or you simply bring a class with interrupts. Warrior should have shield bashed and stunned to hell."
This is what i do. Hell, I have macros for targeting my healers. Charge interrupts the first heal, bash the next, shockwave the next, should be dead by now, and if not I still got 2 more stuns/interrupts, with another coming off of CD.
Deadly. Off. Topic. Feb 10th 2009 10:56AM
Sounds like the fault was with failing to bring someone with interrupts.
Ghimborak Feb 10th 2009 1:54PM
@Ogre
lol wut, 3000dps in blues? Pics or it didn't happen. I'm a iLevel200/213 fury warrior and I can do 3200ish dps with recount on vault and usually only lose to mages. There's no way a blue rogue could that.
James Feb 10th 2009 8:37AM
People seem to forget how the expansion started. We ALL started off on the low end of the spectrum back when everyone was first hitting 80. I'm pretty sure my +heals where about the same, yet my guild and I ran every single heroic with very few problems. The dungeons aren't tuned for people in full T7, they are tuned so that heroics are challenging once you pop 80.
DanH Feb 10th 2009 10:00AM
I think this ties into a much bigger problem actually, which is that so many people don't want to actually *try* in instances at all. People are usually just grinding things for quests/rep/resources and would rather get somebody overgeared and faceroll it than actually run the thing as intended. And perish the thought that you might consider running something *a man down*.
You get this at all levels. I was in a Ragefire Chasm pickup a couple of weeks ago where one of the players kept insisting that he should log off and get his level 40, because then everything would go much faster.
Hendrata Feb 10th 2009 10:05AM
I completely agree, but there is another factor you didn't consider. Some / many people ding 80 in one of the lower zones (Grizzly / Zuldrak) because they want to earn gold from the remaining zones' quests. For these people, their gear will be equivalent to that of level 75 or 76, although they have base stats and spells of a level 80. If your WHOLE group is in that level of gear, you're going to find heroics quite hard.
Also, there was a post once here in WowInsider that a fresh 80 should not try to attempt heroics right away. Go run Oculus, Strat, HoL, HoS on normal mode, and complete the chains in storm peaks / icecrown to get some level 80 blues, THEN you'll be ready for heroics
Rob Feb 10th 2009 11:06AM
You know, i did what i never thought i'd do. I did all the lower level zones in northend, dinging 80 in grizly hills, and ran heroics with level 75 gear . It wasn't that bad. (shock). (I'm a hunter, and have hundreds of days /played on them). I was doing 1400 dps or so, in my crappy gear, and at the end of a marathon run of guildies (I would not PUG in crappy gear, i won't stoop that low), I ended up with blues with ilvl 185 or above. Now my dps, while isn't stellar, is at least in the ballpark of doing heroics like I should.
Yes I was carried (if you mean 1400 dps is being carried), no I don't care. Our guild helps people gear up, it what we do. I know I have a long way to go, some others are doing double or triple my dps, but point being its quite normal to get to 80 and discover your gear is absolute crap. But being able to play your class will go a long way to help alleveate this issue. My guild knows me, and knows I'm not an idiot. I guess that helps.
But really who would you rather bring? The guy who is the multi-year vet who just hit 80 or the 12 year old who has been facerolling the entire time and doesn't know CC to save their lives?
Another issue for a another topic, but what about fun? I do guild runs with a guild that isn't that good, and they are funner than the guild runs with the guild who is hardcore epic everything (i have two 80s in two different guilds with different lifestyles). Not facerolling content = fun for me.
Kaphik Feb 10th 2009 11:56AM
I also agree. People tend to forget the first year of TBS when you had to get to a certain rep level just to get into heroics, virtually guaranteeing you had a certain gear level and familiarity with the instance. Then once arena gear became easy to get, even if it was a season behind, and it enabled people who had no idea what the concept of crowd control or letting the tank gain aggro means do succeed well enough in heroics to at least clear them.
Then paladin tanks became popular, and people just brute forced their way through instances. Once 3.0 came out, and everybody and their sister was able to AE tank, people really got lazy because we were all overgeared for heroics.
Now Wrath comes out, people were able to hit 80 in their Season 2 arena gear, but the top end gear available in game right now is relatively easy to obtain. Naxxramas is nowhere near as difficult as Karazhan was this early in the expansion's lifecycle. People have been able to gear themselves up pretty quickly, which isn't really a bad thing. The problem is many of those people are the people who were carried through heroics back at 70, or more commonly the gear elitists. They don't want to try, to push themselves, they just want their easy badges.
When my shadow priest hit 80, I was in a mixture of crafted items, instance drops and quest rewards. But I know the class and spec very well. I knew where I could go, and what I had to do. I got myself hit capped, although my unbuffed spellpower was slightly above 1200. Well, I would pug heroics with players in full Naxx gear, death knights and ret paladins especially come to mind, and BLOW AWAY their dps. It's a matter of knowing your class, know how to play it well to maximize your performance.
I have seen many other people do the same thing. Undergeared compared to others, and just blowing them out of the water. The sad thing is many of these well geared people just don't take a few minutes each day to find out how to do better. They just want to faceroll.
Every one of us was new at this game at some point. I give inexperienced and/or undergeared people more of a chance than a lot of people I have seen. Especially so if they show that they are trying, and willing to learn how to get better. I have been in pugs where the tank is brand new to tanking, and just at the minimum gear level. I don't mind a whole bunch of wipes, or not even being able to succeed if I can help that person learn. That's part of the fun of the game.
Microtonal Feb 10th 2009 11:57AM
"The dungeons aren't tuned for people in full T7, they are tuned so that heroics are challenging once you pop 80."
This.
I thought heroics were fun and interesting...two months ago. Now they're boring, because me and my guild outgear them by so much that all we're doing is grinding badges and completing leftover achievements.
Once you hit a certain gear threshold, you either have to find ways to make them interesting or just quit doing them entirely. A week or two ago, I four-manned heroic Old Kingdom with a guildie healer and two non-guild friends. Really, we were just going for the achievement where you kill Taldaram with four or fewer. But we were bored, so we did the rest of the instance with four, too. Doing it with a full group would have been pretty dull, but we had a lot of fun figuring out how to get the Jedoga achievement with only four people (which we did).
Insanity was a HELL of a lot easier, though.
Eisengel Feb 10th 2009 2:20PM
@Kaphik
I entirely agree. Knowing your class does a lot. When you have lower end gear you can play well, but when you have higher end gear the results can be spectacular.
I currently run #1 overall/fight in Naxx on my Spriest except for a few fights where casters with instant casts and lots of dots have an advantage. At this point I have close to ilvl 200 in all slots and I can easily solo the 82 elite giants in Icecrown. In fact in Naxx the other night I pulled aggro on a mob in the Military Quarter and just drain-tanked it. It was 81 elite with only about 65k health... that's lunch (nom nom nom).
I was getting annoyed last night that some of the 5-man group quests in Icecrown I can't solo because of the mechanics. Like the one where you have to neutralize a cauldron of Plague...I can handle the elite zombies that spawn, but the quest requires you to throw more neutralizer in before the cooldown on your vial is up... which requires you to have more than 1 person.
Kyver Feb 10th 2009 8:40AM
Agreed. Skills > Gears
Tanks, do the healers a favor, if you've < 20K health, run normal to gear up, replace your green gears before getting a group for heroics....
DPSers, if you're undergeared for timed CoS. Don't expect the Tank and Healer to run you through....
Pretty please?
Drow Feb 10th 2009 10:02AM
Haha, it's funny you say that! Most my guild had gotten the drake and had no interest in running it, so I pugged it with a PuG healer I found. The Healer had gotten it, and we continued to run it each day in hopes I would soon get it. Day after day, I would keep them alive, and put out my 3k DPS, enabling us to get there in time. The other DPS in the group would be thrilled, "OMG I can't beleive we made it! I never got the timer!" and then during the roll I lost everytime to the 900 DPS Rogue. Ahh...but so is the way of the PuG's and the RNG, kind of like Pugging a Vault25, and pushing the #1 DPS spot EASILY and then the 1200DPS Hunter got the Deadly gear...what can ya do lol.
Prometheus Feb 10th 2009 8:40AM
As a druid healer in a mash up of T 7.5, rep items and heroic gear I am usually the 5th or 4th healer on the healing charts. I don't shine when the sham, pally and druids in my guild are full enchanted and in full T 7.5. I DO shine when in situations that need flexibility and a quick mind. (IE Kel'Thuzad, OS).
A healer that can take a near wipe and make it a boss downing > a healer who just stands around and spams.
Ness Feb 10th 2009 8:42AM
I'll take skill over gear almost any day. As long as you're not in AH-bought greens and have put at least some effort into what you're wearing, I'll take you along. I definitely think your talents and, even more importantly, your ability to use your spells effectively are far more important.
That being said, there are some minimums for some classes. Tanks need 535 def for heroics, that's non-negotiable, unless you have one heck of a healer. But since I'm the tank in my guild, I've got that more than covered.
I've run into plenty of "bad skill" people since hitting end game in Wrath a couple weeks after launch. The BM Hunter that's only putting out 800dps in heroics because he's just auto-shooting with level 65 ammo and is using a crab for a pet. The SPriest that breaks CC on purpose just to speed things up and then only does 900dps at his best. They're out there, and their gear had nothing to do with why they sucked.
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