Quote Originally Posted by Zekander View Post
This, exactly this, is my entire point. You take people who you already know can clear the content. You say that if someone gets their gear up to snuff they will be included. Yet you yourself admit you will not take anyone new. Why then do you think anyone else will?
Actually, that's not the case.

I meet new people and witness how they play. If a player seems to perform reasonable, be prepared, and yes--have the gear to be able to perform--I'll bring them with but I also know who I either can't rely on or is just simply not geared enough to be there. If they're exceptional DPS but always the first to die, I'm not interested in bringing them. I don't do the hardest content all day long, I encounter a lot of people.

There's a semi-undergeared player right now that I'm very interested in. He comes as prepared as can be, asks questions if he doesn't know and admits when he makes a mistake. He also plays a WHM so the bar is a little lower on gear requirements (doesn't NEED to be able to debuff the boss, especially since another mage probably can).

You know what else he does? If he doesn't feel like he's geared enough to be there, he'll bow out.

Another guy the other day, pretty nice guy and in fresh gear. He saw an abjuration drop that he wanted but HE deemed that that one piece of gear wouldn't turn him into an amazing performer so he'd pass it on to someone who could use it more*. Completely and totally respect him for that.

* A random example: +50 more accuracy will do more for the guy at 1150 acc than the guy at 850. The second guy will still be whiffing non-stop. So you see, it's not carrying someone through one thing, it becomes necessary to carry them through everything or they can put work into their own character and actually contribute.

For instance, if you're opening (or closing) darkness for the BLMs to MB, I barely care how much your WS did to create the SC, as long as it hit, but I do expect your ws's to land, otherwise you really don't belong there (and when dealing with undergeared people, I try to find multi-hit weaponskills to help them out--I'll favor Requiescat over CDC if the skillchain can work with either).