There. It needs to be said. Everyone that plays World of Warcraft should recognize this. Those that don’t, then it’s worth recognizing if you intend to find good players for Mythic+ Dungeons.
An IO Score does not, will not and will never reflect a player’s level of experience. It’s simply a value that has been calculated based on the highest level M+'s a player has reached in their current season.
The Wrong Approach
- You are referring to the Raider IO Addon without checking the Raider IO Web page. This is basically the equivalent of simming item upgrades with Pawn, rather than Raidbots.
- You base a player’s potential solely off their Item Level.
- You assume 1,500 - 2,000 IO is a good player.
Anyone that joins in on Mythic+ will have a Raider IO Profile. It’s pulled from the Armory. The Party Leader will then use that information to determine your potential for starring their Keystone. This information will then be shown on the Raider IO Webpage, including Mythic+'s marked as Complete/Incomplete, whether you were a Tank, Healer or DPS, the Affixes associated to that M+, Etc.
The Right Approach
(Example: Freehold +10 Keystone.)
- Has the Player completed a +10 Keystone in Season 3?
If Yes: Did they 1*, 2* or 3* that Dungeon, or was it marked as Incomplete? Can you see multiple +10’s on their Profile? Can you see an 11+ on their Profile? If you are running a +15 Keystone and their highest completed Keystone is a +10, are they going to be capable of a +15?
If No: Alright, so the Player is building their IO. Can you see multiple +9s on their Profile? Were those 1*, 2* or 3*?
~
- What is their highest Freehold Completion?
Assume a 440 Rogue is attempting to join your group. They’ve 2*‘d multiple +10 Dungeons, but only a +2 in Freehold. What do you do? They’ll probably be called upon for Shroud, rushing in to activate the Arena, popping Stealth after the bridge to activate the Council o’ Captains, Etc. Of course, they could be playing an Alt, which means the Player’s IO Addon might also show multiple IO Scores, but are you confident based on that player’s statistics that they can traverse a high-level Freehold Keystone?
~
- When was that last time that Player ran a Mythic+?
You can expand a Dungeon by clicking on it to see when they ran the corresponding Mythic+.
~
- Does that Player run Mythic+ as DPS, Tank or Healer?
Each completed Dungeon will have an icon next to it. A Sword indicates DPS, a Shield indicates a Tank, and a “+” indicates a Healer. These can be filtered via the tabs above the “Dungeon” Header, as players can often interchange their role. If a Demon Hunter has completed a +12 Keystone as Havoc and they are joining up in Vengeance Spec, have they completed a +12 Keystone in Vengeance Spec, too?
~
- What Classes do you need for your Mythic+?
Dungeon Affixes will change weekly and can play a huge factor in determine your need for specific Class Roles.
These are basic guidelines that will assist in determining player potential. Keep in mind that a player will not hang around in the Queue while you spend 3-4 Minutes looking at their Raider IO Page. You’re looking at basic information to get a grasp on their past experiences running Mythic+ to help determine their potential for completing your Keystone. You won’t find all of this just by looking at their IO Score.
2 Likes
Nice wall of text
Now please provide your replacement metric that group leaders can look at a glance to estimate the competence of pure pug players they want to invite to their group.
As for role-specific scores yes I certainly hope you are checking that before inviting people. Just because someone has a 1.5k healing score does not imply they know much about DPSing effectively at a similar difficulty level.
7 Likes
Initially i reading the title i thought is some rant against io score, well turn up is some nice guide on how to properly use io score to invite member. Well this is all the experience that i accumulated when i failed my own key multiple times, now the success rate is much better after following rules above.
I will had to agree to biggest trap is some player applied the group with high io score of doing other role, dps/healer applied as tank. With the difficulty of the dungeon in bfa, leader also need to think what kind of class you looking to smoothen the run (no, not rogue’s shroud and not rdruid’s brez). For example, i always bring at least 2 melee dps to shrine to kick all the casting, never bring 3 melee dps on quaking affix week.
Another thing i want to point out is be vary when inviting those FOTM class to the group, as most of them got highly inflated io score that does not necessary reflect their true skill level.
1 Like
People looking for a quick carry will just go based off of io score from the add-on
People who are actually wanting to push their key with minimal difficulty actually look up potential players via the site.
So they’re not “using io wrong” - it’s just a fast way vs an in depth way
2 Likes
I’ve timed multiple 18s as heals, but when I queue for a 18 as dps I usually don’t get invites. This is because the io addon has a handy gradient scale showing I have minimal experience as dps. It’s partially built in.
Curious as to what the inciting incident was for this ridiculous PSA style rant.
2 Likes
Doesn’t stop people from being drunk or high on mdma that’s for sure, ive seen it all in Legion, used to run keys 24/7. Lol you could have +18 cleared across the board but if you are high as crap then gg.
I find the best way is to inspect and talk to each player and make sure they reply fairly quickly and not in some jumbled drunken statement every 2 minutes.
Probably someone rage whispering the OP telling him/her that they are suitable for X role because they have significant M+ experience in Y role, when the two are not remotely equivalent.
I get that all the time when hosting groups.
2 Likes
/whisper: invite me, 1800 main alt.
You’re a 403 with a score of 289 and this is a 10 key. I don’t care what your main is, it’s not linked and theres no proof. Puff your chest up somewhere else
4 Likes
That’s a lot of words to say “hey you know IO provides more granular info than a number, right?”
And people do use that. I’ve gotten Monday night 10 invites immediately followed by the 3-4 guildies commenting to each other that my low score was from a few dungeons never attempted, and everything there was good 10s.
1 Like
I prefer to say “your main is not here, your alt is” then I decline them.
If you think I’m going to invite you to my pug +15 key (which are much more valued over 13/14 keys) with a 1200 score because your listed main has 2k score, nope no chance because I don’t know you
4 Likes
If IO went away tomorrow, do you seriously not think that the community would come up with some other way to vet potential group members?
1 Like
TBF he isn’t actually trashing IO, just people who look at the top number and don’t pay attention to the individual runs that IO also exposes. Which is valid to an extent – someone who has 700 because they never run KR/Shrine/whatever but 2/3-chested 10s on Grievous is probably a better pick than someone who farmed out all their 1k+ on something trivial like Raging/Volcanic.
But in my experience, people have been exposed to enough of the latter that they generally do look a bit closer at anyone in the 700-1200 range.
Maybe, maybe not
Maybe because they never ran KR seriously they will stand on the axe swirl on the third boss and die within 1-2 seconds
You can’t assume such things safely when hosting M+ pug groups
On a side note I was in a FH16 on my prot warrior last night and the group leader invited a 1.6k boomkin who according to the addon was mostly healing score (faded sword icon). This group leader was then surprised when most of the time this boomkin was below me on damage, resulting in a guaranteed failed timer.
Again it is REALLY important to check role-specific scores.
2 Likes
Oh yeah, I totally understand not taking someone with 0s in certain dungeons to those dungeons.
This happened to me last night. Plans got canceled so I had a few extra hours to kill. Decided to hop on my Rogue
430 - multiple 10s and 11s completed. Was wondering why I kept getting denied to these dungeons I was applying for (10-12s). Turns out I was completely missing 3 dungeons all together. ML, Siege, ToS.
So I did the easy thing and preyed on the weak lol let the meta and ilvl get me instant invites to those dungeons at the 8-9 level.
So when I log in tonight my Rogue will be over 1k io woth decent “experience” for 10s in all dungeons
The Raider IO System has a lot of flaws that could easily be improved, not so much in the sense of adding additional features, but more in making better use of the ones they already have. I don’t think the development team really cares at this point though since they don’t have much competition at this point.
The IO system doesn’t need changed.
It’s not blizzard sponsored, it’s not blizzard supported. It is basic human instinct to apply a number to anything to rank their desirableness or value. That used to be itemlevel, that’s now showered to everyone in the masses, it got replaced.
Replace IO, you just get another score in the future.
If you want to PUG, you’re going to deal with a system if not IO then something else. Don’t want to deal with it? Join a static.
3 Likes