Gearing Up For Gearscore

So I don't know who Professor Beej is, but Tobold said he's been having some trouble getting into PUGs because of his Gearscore.  I've heard this song and dance a thousand times -- "I can't get into ICC because of Gearscore, and I can't improve my Gearscore because I can't get into ICC" -- and I'm not buying it anymore.

I'm not buying it because I saw my friend,, who didn't even start playing until December and now easily gets into ICC 10 and 25 PUGs, go through this, and rather than whine about it on his blog, he just found his own ways to deal with it.

So to all of you other people whining about "Gearscore ruined the game," I present you to this 5-step plan on how to beat the system.

1) Get the upgrades you can get.  So you've been farming some emblems of Triumph and you've got some ilevel 232 gear.  Great, but there's a difference between "some ilevel 232 gear" and "a lot of ilevel 232 gear."  Maybe you're still using a necklace, off-hand, or trinket from your leveling days.  Well, for almost every item slot there's a decent item available from Triumph emblems, Trial of the Champion/Crusader, the ICC 5 man dungeons, or as a BOE on the Auction House.  Sometimes you still get idiots that want a 5200 GS for ToC 10, but for the most part the requirements are a lot more reasonable.

2) Get your hands on every frost emblem you can.  My friend couldn't get into an ICC run to save his life, but after a couple weeks he was still able to start picking up Tier 10 pieces.  He consistently did the daily heroic, raid weekly, and got into VoA 10 and 25 runs.  After a month he was able to buy Tier 10 shoulders and he won Tier 10 legs in VoA.

3) PUG with a friend.  When my friend got geared enough to be do respectable damage in ICC 10 and 25, I'd get us both into PUGs by sending the PUG organizer my own Gearscore and achievements, and then saying, "invite my friend too, he's a good priest."  And I'm pretty sure every single time my friend got an invite too without asking for him to do the same.

4) Use Underacheiver or equip some items you'd never actually use to pass inspection.  Sure, it can be considered underhanded and sneaky.  But is your goal to get into a PUG or take the moral high ground?

5) There are PUGs that exist that will take you, you just have to find them.  Hang around Sunday or Monday in Trade Chat, and you're likely to find a lot of, "LFM ICC 10, doing 4/12."  They're likely players like you, just trying to scrounge up some frost emblems before the raid week resets.
My friend did all of the above, and within a month he had enough gear to easily get into anY ICC PUG.  Blizzard has done a great job reducing the "ramp up" time it takes to get into endgame content, but the ramp is in fact longer than "do a handful of heroics, few some upgrades, then kill the Lich King."  So instead of complaining, be resourceful, get those frost emblems, and stop blaming Gearscore.