What is best in life? Gear, plain and simple. As part of the upcoming stat-system revamp, we plan to introduce a new tool that will let World of Warcraft players know exactly where they stand in comparison to other players: the Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number.

With this new system, you’ll no longer have to wonder about your perceived or actual worth as a player. Your Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number, automatically derived from the quality of the gear you currently possess, will be placed on your character sheet and in the Armory, and also displayed over your character’s head in-game as an easy-to-read bar-like object that steadily grows as you acquire loot. Thanks to this new system, no one will be able to ignore the fruits of your long, hard journey toward gear perfection.

How Your Number Is Determined
Here's how it will work: With every new piece of gear you obtain, your number will grow; if you attain a high enough number, you'll graduate to the next tier (more on that below) and gain access to exclusive rewards. If you’re looking to boost your number even more, activities such as earning raid and Arena achievements or realm-first titles will help you get it up, and you'll also begin receiving in-game mail with exciting offers for additional ways to enhance it.

Player Potency Tiers
To complement this system, we plan to use an updated version of the phasing technology introduced in Wrath of the Lich King to automatically place players in segregated tiers based on their number. Each tier will comprise all players within a certain number range, and players will only be able to group with, talk to, or see other players in the same tier as themselves. To ensure players with a smaller number will not be shafted by this new system, we plan to introduce a wide variety of new solo content for less well-equipped players.

Rewards
Those with sufficiently large numbers can earn in-game rewards such as a permanent bonus to "need" rolls, the ability to cut to the front of the queue in the Dungeon Finder, a larger ignore list, a much shorter dungeon deserter debuff, or -- if your number is exceedingly impressive -- a new non-combat pet, Binky the Mechano-Rooster.

As your number grows, the game world will tailor itself to you in other subtle ways: as the pool of players you interact with becomes more and more exclusive, you’ll no longer need to stand still in prominent locations quite so often to allow others to inspect your gear; you’ll have fewer time-wasting calendar invitations to sift through; and your friends list will become increasingly more manageable, reducing needless scrolling time. Any negative repercussions of these changes will be offset by the satisfaction you’ll receive knowing your equipment is significantly more impressive than average.