I could not agree with this specific part of your post more. This is also why I have a grp 110 warrior, that I use to play when my main raid warrior is finished with the expansion. Being as casual as I am personally, I like to feel like walking threw bazaar at any moment them da## dirty merchant's could leap out an just take a stab at me. I enjoy the rush of absolute thrill of the danger of it ! !
That's not really true. You can give someone raid gear. If they don't push their buttons, they will be absolutely owned by group content. You can have Ngreth, Absor, or any other dev magically summon them raid gear from the next expansion... and if they don't push their buttons they will STILL get absolutely owned by group content. Sorry, but gear doesn't magically make them dominate anything.
Yes you can give a 5 year old raid gear in group content and they may struggle. You have a very negative outlook of the player base if you think this is actually the case. An incompetent player in raid gear does not make a competent player in raid gear any more or even less "hardcore" If you want to pretend that a 20khp and 300 ac advantage doesn't make a huge difference in the group game your absolutely out of your mind. Even for casters the focus effects and heroics in raid gear is a substantial boost not mention for non pure casters they have weapon ratios genrally not matched for 2-3 expansions. you put a raid gear toon of any class in with some group geared folks the differences are night and day. even in your scenario that player who doesn't know how to do anything is gonna be able to tread through more content in that raid gear than they could in group gear. Just look at whulfgar. an established top end raid geared fellow who has his non raid group geared box set to go do stuff without raid gear just to make it more challenging. if it wasn't more challenging(fun) that way. he wouldn't bother with it. if your struggling with group content in raid gear that group geared folk in the same class are not. then you might want to reevaluate your playstyle. I have no problem with raid gear folk having an easier time with group content . its one of the perks that come with raiding but at the same token. don't try to convince yourself that the raid game isn't giving a huge edge on group content or demean what those group geared folk are able to accomplish in the group settting.
I don't think anyone's demeaning a good group geared player who gets stuff done in their group gear. I often bring my (old raid gear - I play them on casual raids) cleric in to heal group geared tanks on stuff. The tanks do just fine. The tanks have to do just fine, because when they fail it's obvious. Yet when I heal the tank and also out parse a ranger as a cleric, it's because raid gear. I push buttons. If the ranger pushed buttons my dps wouldn't even be in the conversation. They'd be asking me if I accidentally turned attack on it would be such a gulf between us. Edit: If a cleric is out parsing a ranger, I assume they have less than defiant gear. if I'm doing it while keeping a tank alive. ....
In my experience that's a lazy ranger who likes to hit one key maybe two if they don't know how to do a macro including assist and autofire. I have grouped with rangers who never cast a single spells and don't use any AA's or anything and it would drive me nuts (at the time my main was a ranger). At one point in time I was that ranger but it took someone (my guild leader) to push me harder to get better at playing this game and not just hit one button and think I am playing. I have no issues with people that want to play this way solo or with friends who don't mind them slacking and basically doing nothing but I don't care to group with these people unless they are willing to learn and become better. If they are willing to become better at their class I will spend and have spent countless hours helping them with spell lineups, macros, figuring out their AA's and the such. The fact that you could out parse a ranger as a cleric while healing deserves a serious teaching moment if the ranger is willing to actually listen and take advise.
people would be surprised how many returning players we get who last played pop era or and don't pay attention to their aa activatables etc I have had to show at least 2 monks in the last month how to split pull. I could easily see these guys get on up to 110 without learning to do so. that is a reason why I am not a fan of the FM and ha groups that one higher powered toon just grinding xp for these guys all the time isn't really doing them any favors. I don't mind helping the lower levels(yes even at 103 there are lower levels than me) get a quick level or two here and there but they need time to be in their role and performing that role in a group setting. some of these guys don't differentiate the difference between their 10+ minute disc refresh and the below 5 minute refresh disc. perhaps we need some Hardcore mentors
I entered a top level raiding guild 3 years ago and was astounded by the lack of effort / knowledge of some players who had been there for years. In group gear I quickly topped the parses not just of my class, but quickly the entire guild, at a time when my class was not a chart-topper. Gear means nothing if you're not a knowledgable and committed player, and ( except tanks ) you can compete at a top tier level without any raid gear at all. If you're a tank it matters, for all other classes it doesn't matter.
For sustained dps or healing gear can make a huge difference. I know the short time I was able to raid it was noticeable going from group gear to raid gear on my cleric in terms of being able to keep ahead of the mana game for healing. With that I also learned better healing rotations and made better use of mana recovery tools and such since I literally learned to play my cleric as a raider (had only been in a box group spam healing light heals and group heals before that) so my skill also improved. In reality the whole debate of gear mattering or not mattering is all relative to the skill of each player. If you have two players of equal skill then yes the gear will matter and make a difference in separating them. If you have two players of different skill I agree skill will make the person with lessor gear better in most situations. Really both are two separate equations that come to formulating the potential success or failure of an individual. No skill <------------> Superior skills + Bad gear <---------> Superior gear = Success/failure rate I would say skill probably makes up 70% of the equation (could be higher or lower depending on the class) but you cant neglect your gear also in this game and expect to be doing end game content at a reasonable pace or success rate either.
