How important should Raider.IO scores be when forming groups in World of Warcraft?

If you’re playing WoW and running Mythic+ dungeons, you’ve likely heard of Raider.IO. It’s a site (and addon) that scores your character based on what dungeons have been completed, at which level key, and in how much time. More dungeons at higher difficulties (and in time) means a higher score. Raider.IO is typically the deciding factor for PUG leaders looking to fill group slots. Gone are the days of just linking achievements and ilevel — this score now speaks for the player.

But the Raider.IO website carries a lot more information than just a number. It shows the player’s gear, ilevel, breakdown of dungeon times, their accomplishment in raiding, and their average DPS. If this is an alt, it will also show statistics for their main character to help give a better overall idea of what the player has done.

Of course, Raider.IO scores have their limitations. For starters, it’s easy for a high-scored leader to mask the fact that the rest of a PUG has a lower score. Similarly, a person can pay people from Trade Channel to run them through +15s to inflate their IO score, when they do not have the experience or gear to handle higher level dungeons.

Some players complain that having these scores keep them from running Mythics. How can they PUG a Mythic+ to get their score up when they don’t have the score to get into a Mythic+? It’s a catch-22 system. There is too big of a divide between Heroic and Mythic, and there needs to be a way to properly queue for Mythics to ensure they eventually get into a group regardless. Some of the other information shown may not help them, either. For example, knowing the dungeon as a ranged DPS does not mean someone can tank that dungeon on a different character. And while the player may know what they are capable of, that’s not enough reassurance to the four others that are relying on them. This is all the information the group has to go on, and they have to trust the score.

What are your thoughts on the Raider.IO system? How does it compare to requirements used for group finding previously? And how much should this be used for raiding?