Link Achi/Gear score

How many people have gotten to 80 going yes finally I can do some sweet raids only to be stonewalled by Gear score and Achievements?

Egamad is my first 80, even though I may have read through all strategies understand each fight and very capable at my class/role I still need to jump through hoops. Now I'm not saying it's outright bad as sometimes GS is a good guide to what you can do, and Achievements mean you know what your doing......or at least should know.

The main reason I dislike this is because it becomes incredibly hard to 1) get the achievement as you need it to get into the raid group. 2) gear score is more a reference to time spent on that toon than skill. Seriously its not hard to get geared from random heroics with the triumph sets now is it? Granted you may get kicked by people who expect more but ultimately with triumph badge tier gear your atleast 4.5k gs (plus any upgrades looted) thats more than enough for any weekly and should be enough to get you into a lot of raids maybe not ICC but at least the TOC and TOGC level runs.

For random heroics I'm happy for 3k gs on DPS or Healers, and even the tank as long as the DPS understands they need to ease up at times. The main problem now and with cataclysm will be guilds. You really can't get anything done without a guild, and as we see the expansion change things even more it's likely it will be harder to get into certain types of guilds. As well as PUG's requiring you to meet there standards, where as a guild is happy to take under geared but skilled members through and "carry" them a little.

You need a big Guild, some only take 80's that have a GS and Achi requirement, so your still getting stonewalled, others are leveling guilds that don't do much at 80 and are more active at lower levels.

Foo, My guild leader understands this, that people don't want to leave the guild "family" but still want access to all content, and has started to talk to other small guilds about a semi amalgamation for the purposes of raiding. I like this idea as it means I still get to help a guild I like and not have to go find another and get a physical check up.

Back to my main point though, GS/Achi whispering, it is a pain, really it is, but its part of wow. You can lie and say your on an alt without the achi my main has it (which i have done) or can say I don't have the achievement is it still ok. You really are limited without the guild support/love that this level of ignorance from long time players brings. They forget that 5k GS wasn't the end all be all of wow, that to get the achi you had to run the raid.

Thats just me, I think people need to take a step back and look and realize that they got where they where over time, and maybe just maybe, they should help others get there to, after all the more people you can raid with the more raids you can do.

Egamad of Caelestrasz.