Gear Score in New World MMORPG is a fast way to measure the overall “coolness” of the items. The more advanced armor, weapon, and other items you have equipped the higher your overall GS will be. Every item you can equip has a GS. It doesn't affect any combat characteristics. It just indicates how good the item is.
Asking for a total GS it's a very fast way to find out how well a character is equipped. Imagine you wish to gather a party to go and destroy a serious enemy. You know that your own character has 5500 GS and you want your future teammates to have the same level of strength. Taking much weaker players in your future party is not a good idea, because you know that the enemy/boss is tough. Weak allies may put your mission at risk and wipe the whole party. This is where GS will help.
You just write in a chat something like this: “Looking for a tank and a healer to kill a boss. GS > 5000.”
All the players who see this message will know, that you a looking for specific characters with a specific level of gear. Thus, all the players with lower GS will hardly bother you. This can save you a lot of time because you don't need to examine the gear of every volunteer and decide if his gear is good for your mission or not.
Some people may say that measuring players by their GS is a bad idea. Well, if you think so you can ignore it and use other criteria for recruitment.
This metric becomes more important in the late stages of the game. High-level players may have absolutely different itemization. A player who has just hit the cap level usually has worse items than a player who had hit that cap a long time ago. Recruiting players just by their level is not a wise decision in this case.
Open your inventory and hover any item that can be equipped. You will see the score of this item in a tooltip.
Right now there is no way to check your total GS. I hope developers will make such a counter in the future.
There is only one way to increase your Gear Score: you need to find better equipment for your character. You can either craft, loot, or buy the equipment from a vendor. The source doesn't matter. Usually, if the item has a higher Tire or higher Rarity than your current item, it also has a higher gear score.
Crafting is a pretty nice and interesting way of getting gear. You may focus on one of the professions and create items for yourself. It may also become a very good way of making money. Read our Crafting guide for more details.