With the latest update on Moonwell, Gearscore has appeared: a measure of how well-equipped a character is. It runs on the server side; you don’t need to install addons.
When a player joins your group, a chat message appears with their spec and Gearscore. This will be handy for raid assembly and for finding a arena partner: instead of inspecting gear manually, you can just look at a single number.
How Gearscore is calculated
Gearscore grows with the quality of the equipped items. It is based on item level (itemlevel): usually it reflects the item's value quite accurately, but not always. For example, for Illidan’s followers it is undercounted, so we count some items differently. Items that aren’t useful for your talent specialization (for example, a weapon with Strength for a mage) don’t contribute to Gearscore. As a result, in the top gear Gearscore across classes is roughly the same: in a full Sunwell Plateau set it is about 2750. If not all sockets are filled or there is no enchantment, Gearscore decreases.
How to find your GS
Type the command .gs in chat
Does Gearscore affect anything?
Not yet. The system is new, and we are testing it. In the future we will tie Gearscore to the matchmaking for battlegrounds and arenas to make fights more balanced.
What else is new?
Gearscore is just one of several important updates. You can read the full list on the website.