Well no, but it's not about obligations. It's about self-interested investment in the community for indirect long term payoffs in the form of a generally more positive random group experience.
I only just started frequenting the forums, so I really have no sense of the general experience over time or otherwise, just my own, which has generally involved friendly and helpful people and still generally involves helpful and friendly people. On occasion someone is cranky or unnecessarily antagonistic towards someone else in the group, but these things are isolated. I just hope it remains that way.
I wouldn't say "mentors" are kicking new players. That's a bit misleading don't you think? This sort of thing has happened since forever and it's not fair to attribute it to the mentorship status alone.
I'd say, ill-intentioned people are kicking newer players from dungeons and, is these specific cases, they happened to be mentors. So just follow with the standard procedure: report them. No need to feed this "all mentors are bad/elitist" stereotype anymore.
Oh my gods can you stop with the misinformation? There is no item level sync in Sohr Khai and the OP was not undergeared for that dungeon. She would have been worse off stat wise in full 200 ilvl Aiming gear.
Explanation:
What the OP was wearing (iirc):
250 Teak Composite Bow HQ
150 Chimerical Felt Coif of Aiming NQ
250 Star Velvet Tabard of Aiming HQ
250 Hemiskin Gloves of Aiming HQ
230 Torrent Belt of Aiming
250 Hemiskin Trousers of Aiming HQ
250 Hemiskin Leggings of Aiming HQ
150 Chrysolite Earrings of Fending HQ
150 Citrine Choker of Aiming HQ
150 Chrysolite Bracelet of Fending HQ
150 Chrysolite Ring of Aiming HQ
150 Chrysolite Ring of Fending HQ
Stats: 776 dex, 867 vit, 383 crit, 168 det, 328 sks, 308 acc. Total secondaries 1187.
What someone in their minimum required (200 item level) gear could be wearing: Void Ark left side, Ardent right side, one Gordian ring and Antiquated Berimbau.
Stats: 720 dex, 524 vit, 326 crit, 260 det, 282 sks, 247 acc. Total secondaries 1115.
The OP had 56 dexterity, 343 vitality and 72 secondary stats more than someone who uses all 200 gear (+one 210 ring), and their weapon had more damage than a 200 ilvl bow would have. None of this gets scaled down because there is no item sync in that dungeon yet. Even though some items had the word "fending" on them she had more dps stats (dex+secondaries) than is minimally required and was therefore not undergeared for that dungeon. The effect of the weapon and left side gear is much bigger and so the OP was right to upgrade those first.
The gear was not optimal but it was adequate and in fact better than the minimum requirement stat-wise. What a mentor isn't supposed to do is get pissy and kick someone from an easy story dungeon for their gear when it's adequate. Just give tips on how to find some fast upgrades, or alternatively throw away the crown icon if you don't want to be helpful to new players. I don't know what her performance was like but going by the expectations here for everyone to overgear any dungeon it's likely that the mentor's expectations for dps were higher than is reasonable for that content.
On a more general note, I find it extremely funny that most people would consider expert dungeons to be faceroll easy even on the day they are out and beg from the devs for more difficult things to do, and yet so many in this thread go straight for the throat of someone who doesn't overgear a dungeon by a large margin. So are the level 60 dungeons difficult or not? Make up your mind.
Personally I have experimented with expert dungeons and healed Antitower in DF wearing nothing but a weapon and a robe while it was current content. My average item level was around 60-80 (yes double digit) and no one noticed/commented because it doesn't make a damn difference as long as your weapon is good.
I mean... if it's a mentors job to help players with basic job rotations in lvl 60 content then shut up and take the advice! Far FAR too many times people are snippy little twits when given unsolicited help. So... we get real frikkin tired of telling drgs in lvl 50 - 60 content to use heavy thrust and have it ignored.
So we can tiptoe on eggshells adding even more time to the run.
Give you a tip and get yelled at
boot you or
Tell you to learn your class and leave it at that (knowing the majority WONT and force this onto the next group)
Lvl 60 isn't the place to learn the basics. DF isn't the place either. Learn on your OWN time like we did or don't be babies when we DO give you advice
ilvl has surprisingly little impact on overall DPS.
If your DPS is noticeably low, it really doesn't matter who is bringing it up, mentor, non-mentor, novice, GM for all I care, it matters not. The important bit is it's brought to your attention. You can't improve if you aren't aware you're doing something wrong or inefficiently.