Becoming a Raider

[Azrogol 0]

I started WoW in mid-late 4.2, as a pretty casual player, but i always wanted to get into the hardcore raiding scene. But since 4.3, when I forced my casual guild to do the Hour of Twilight dungeons so we could get geared for Dragon Soul, I'd never had an opportunity to raid. I jumped between terrible, flimsy guilds who promised raids and never delivered. I joined a guild in Mop, and we had started some, aldmittedly, shoddy progression on Heart of Fear when it was released, but I had to stop playing because I ended up moving around a lot and my laptop broke. I haven't played since. I checked on my guild on the armory, and none of them have been on since then, either. Now that I'm stable, I'll probably start playing wow again in the next month or so. I feel like I'm an above average player, and once I come back I plan to pour hours of playtime into my main to better myself. Should I try to join a top US guild, or even a guild that's downed heroic Garrosh, or a guild that's progressing and working their way up? Are there any certain milestones or benchmarks guilds are looking for when recruiting (heroic kills, proving grounds, certain acheivements, etc)? I really want to be a top US raider and eventually a top world raider, but I don't know how to go about it.

[Belloc 6]

The way your post reads, you're a very inexperienced player when it comes to raiding. I'm going to temper your expectations here and now: You will not be able to get into a heroic guild with your current experience/gear. Indeed, you'll probably not be able to down heroic Garrosh during this expansion unless you pay for it.

 

If you want to be a top raider, you're going to have to start at the bottom. I'd suggest making an account on Openraid.us (or .eu) and finding some normal mode Throne of Thunder or HoF/ToES/MSV runs. You don't even need to join other groups -- you can set up your own and recruit members on Openraid (though, I don't recommend this at your currently experience level). After you start getting the hang of raiding, find some SoO flex runs. Once you've got that down, start joining normal mode SoO pugs and, once you've cleared that, you'll be ready for heroics.

 

You don't have to join a guild for any of that stuff, except for the last part (heroic SoO). Your absolute best shot at getting into hardcore raiding is to get all the experience you can RIGHT NOW and join a heroic guild after you've fully cleared Normal SoO.

 

If you pull all of that off, you'll be in a decent spot to join a decent guild in WoD. Keep working your way through better and better guilds and eventually you'll be able to app and possibly get accepted by some top-end guilds.

Best of luck!

 

 

p.s. Don't go into a raid without reading strategy guides here or watching strategy videos on Youtube.

 

p.s.s. Do Not, I repeat, Do Not go into another group's raid and make strategy suggestions, even if it's something you saw in a video, a guide, or in another group. Doing so will almost always piss off the raid-leader and hurt your chances of continuing with that group or getting reinvited.

 

p.s.s.s. Always bring full consumables. I generally carry around a full stack of 300 buff food (275 food is fine, too), about 100 potions (int/str/agi, whatever your class uses), and a full stack of flasks (20). Once you drop under 20 potions (which should last you a decent amount of time, assuming you aren't constantly wiping), refill your supply. Under 5 flasks? Refill.

Edited April 11, 2014 by Belloc

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

 Should I try to join a top US guild, or even a guild that's downed heroic Garrosh, or a guild that's progressing and working their way up? Are there any certain milestones or benchmarks guilds are looking for when recruiting (heroic kills, proving grounds, certain acheivements, etc)? I really want to be a top US raider and eventually a top world raider, but I don't know how to go about it.

sorry to disappoint you but no " top guilds" will take you currently. heart of fear was Tier 14 in terms of PvE raid progression. then tot ( Throne of Thunder) This raid represents Tier 15, in terms of progression, and  their is soo(Siege of Orgrimmar)This raid represents Tier 16, in terms of progression. If you stopped playing in tier 14 you have a lot of work to make up to be even accepted in to a normal raid guild. a good place to start is getting your Legendary Cape. it is a must have for any real "hard core" raider. you have a ways to go. guild that's progressing and working their way up is your best for now. start gearing up your toon. try and get throw normal. if you wanted to try for a Top guild i would suggest waiting tell wod come out because the top guild are going from 25 man to 20 man so there slimming down on the people they need. im sure there are lists out there about the top guild in the world and what server they are on. be prepared to put a lot of time in to raiding and have no personal life. back in bc i was in the #4 guild in the us. it was intense. also be prepared to pay money to transfer your toon to different server. also you cant transfer form a us to eu server

Edited April 11, 2014 by ClaytonMcKown

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

The way your post reads, you're a very inexperienced player when it comes to raiding. I'm going to temper your expectations here and now: You will not be able to get into a heroic guild with your current experience/gear. Indeed, you'll probably not be able to down heroic Garrosh during this expansion unless you pay for it.

depend on the server but it can range up to 150k g. but ya i agree belloc it read like he or she is an inexperienced player. it will take a lot to get him or her up to a normal set of raid.

[Belloc 6]

I forgot to mention that hardcore raiding can really blow ass. It sounds fun and looks fun, but it's very frustrating, time-consuming, and requires a lot of skill and experience.

 

OP: Work yourself up and if, when 6.0 hits, you've killed 8+ heroics in SoO, you'll be a in a decent spot to find a guild for WoD. End/beginning of the expansion is usually the best time to find a new guild.

Edited April 11, 2014 by Belloc

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

also be prepared for what it like to be in a top guild. you eat and breath wow. you really have no life out side of wow. it a hard life over all to be in one of the guilds. there is no real give if you f up 1 time with your rotation or any thing you will be put on the side lines

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

I forgot to mention that hardcore raiding can really blow ass. It sounds fun and looks fun, but it's very frustrating, time-consuming, and requires a lot of skill and experience.

 

OP: Work yourself up and if, when 6.0 hits, you've killed 8+ heroics in SoO, you'll be a in a decent spot to find a guild for WoD. End/beginning of the expansion is usually the best time to find a new guild.

 except their trimming from 25 man to 20 man for wod so you might not even get a spot

[Kazistrasz 216]

As someone who's gone from clearing normal modes to running his own normal mode guild to being 14/14 HM, allow me to offer you some more solid advice based on my own experiences.

 

Before you can be anything, you need to make sure you set yourself up to truly be worth anyone's time. This means you need to go and learn everything about your class there is to learn. If you haven't played since T14, start from the ground up. Look back at every single ability you have. Look at every guide you can find about playing your class. Read every resource we have and ask everyone here that's reasonably far into the tier any special things that can help you get better at it. Gear only holds you back so much - when I go into flex there are people in 540-550 gear that I'm outDPSing on my alt at 525.

 

You need to adopt the mindset of having something to prove - even if it's only to yourself. You should at all times be looking to make yourself better and playing like your very reputation depends on it (because it does). If people see you playing like crap, even if you're doing things that don't matter like previous tier content or LFR, they're going to assume that's what you are. If people see you playing serious mode, they'll know you're a serious mode type of guy. Log everything you do, and learn to go in and analyze your logs. Zagam has a guide in these forums to help you learn to look through logs. Compare your logs to logs of top raiders and see what you need to improve on. If you're not confident in your ability to analyze your logs, ask someone in our class forums to help you.

 

Find people to run with. Doesn't matter if that means getting into groups on Open Raid or just finding people on your server that have an alt run or pug. Just start getting yourself some content. Go through flex, then work on normals. Do not ever show up to a fight you have not looked up to know like the back of your hand. Ever. 

 

Once you've gotten yourself through normals, it's time to start looking to apply for guilds. PUT MORE EFFORT INTO YOUR APP THAN YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE IN THE GAME. Really. If someone submits an app to us and its poorly written, we don't even pay attention to what they say we simply decline it. Always apply to multiple guilds. Treat it like applying to colleges out of high school. Apply to one or two you know you're qualified for, a few you think you're qualified for, and one or two you think are a little out of your league.

 

Work your way up the ladder. Gear will come when you show a good attitude and dedication. Go for a leadership role if one opens up. If that guild ends up not going anywhere, jump ship. There are about five or so months left in the expansion. You have more than enough time to get yourself an honest Garrosh kill, but you have to go about it with the right attitude.

 

Being a heroic raider isn't about putting in 40 hours a week raiding (who raids that much anyway). It isn't about having no life outside of the game. It's largely about your attitude and approach to the game. Even if you don't have the skills, having the right attitude can take you pretty far.

[Azrogol 0]

Hey thanks Belloc and Clayton, I was at work when I made that post, and I just got off so I'm really able to read and absorb all of this. It looks like the biggest thing I'll have to do is get the meta\cloak. How long does that usually take? As far as the Garrosh kill, I would never ever buy a carry, for anything. If I can't do it myself I don't deserve the rewards you know? That being said , I should expand a bit: even though I did only start late 4.2, I did get DS down and I managed to get some progression pre-nerd (though most of it was post, my raid timing was still poor). I got some MV done as well but again, late start = HoF was released halfway into it, so the guild prioritized that over finishing. I definitely have no idea what the rigors of hardcore raiding are like, and I really appreciate the input. It's giving me a decent mental image of what to prepare for. Kazistrasz especially, thank you for the detail. One of my biggest concerns was gear inflation revolving around dps; with SoO lfr gear being what, 50 points below the highest tier available of the current content, I was worried that I wouldn't honestly have a chance to be competitive until I was at least full normal. This is a lot of info to take in but again, thanks for taking the time out to reply; this is exactly the kind of info I've been looking for. All I've been doing for the past few months is checking logs and reading guides and forums so that I can keep up with patch notes and class changes, and still retain a general idea of how to play decently (as decently as I can without actual practice, that is!)

[Kazistrasz 216]

Don't get me wrong. Gear is going to hold you back when you're compared against other people that know what they're doing. When you're comparing yourself to run-of-the-mill players, though, it's easy to out-DPS people that out-gear you.

 

Meta and cloak are pretty big deals. What class do you play? As far as a timeline goes... the entire thing is about two weeks at most to get the sigils for the 500 stat gem. Then you have to get 3000 valor (not reach the 3000 cap, actually earn 3000 valor so it takes 3 weeks) to get the item to add a prismatic socket to a sha-touched weapon or weapon from Throne of Thunder. After that you have to collect 20 sigils, which drop off of all 12 bosses in ToT and the first 8 bosses in SoO. The last boss in ToT and the 4th boss in SoO are guaranteed drops. This will take you probably 3 weeks. Your cloak is then getting 12 secrets which drop off the last 6 in ToT and the first 8 in SoO, with the same two guaranteed. This will also take probably 3 weeks, 4 at most.

 

Those are things you just have to work on. As far as what to look at - weapons and trinkets are the biggest deals right now for everyone. Trinkets from SoO are really OP. Even the LFR versions are good when you start getting them, though you will want to upgrade them of course to higher ilvl.

[Azrogol 0]

So essentially, if I'm lucky, hopefully around 2-3 months. I think I have like 2 sigils from MV :| I strictly mained a DK, and dabbled here and there with feral; did some feral/guardian progression in DS, and arms as well, but most everything else was done on my DK; I pretty much only progressed as blood during MV/HoF because we lacked another tank, and that kind of sucked (not because I don't like blood, I love it, but because I wanted to dps and rank, and I worked my ass off for the dmf trinket) but it was more progression than I'd ever done, during a time where the content was current. I've researched all 3 of those classes in depth, so I'm not sure what I'll main when I come back; I've been seeing posts about "why would people even bring a DK" and it's pretty disheartening, and it seems like we've been parsing a little on the lower end (single target at least) compared to other classes. I'm still excited for blood (tanking in general, really) and I wanna get challenge modes done (on all 3). Feral looks good, and the ReRo reforging seems neat and I've always liked how the work you out into feral dps really pays off if you give the effort. Not 100% sold on guardian. Super pumped for prot warriors (gotta thank Estarriol for that) and fury looks slightly more appealing than it did before (thanks ragebarr and sajakain). That was probably a lot more info than need, sorry!!! Tldr: I'll most likely main DK since it's my only current 90.

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

"fury looks slightly more appealing than it did before" it is currently the best war dps spec. but it can be hard to mast.

 

Hey thanks Belloc and Clayton, I was at work when I made that post, and I just got off so I'm really able to read and absorb all of this. It looks like the biggest thing I'll have to do is get the meta\cloak. How long does that usually take? As far as the Garrosh kill, I would never ever buy a carry, for anything. If I can't do it myself I don't deserve the rewards you know? That being said , I should expand a bit: even though I did only start late 4.2, I did get DS down and I managed to get some progression pre-nerd (though most of it was post, my raid timing was still poor). I got some MV done as well but again, late start = HoF was released halfway into it, so the guild prioritized that over finishing. I definitely have no idea what the rigors of hardcore raiding are like, and I really appreciate the input. It's giving me a decent mental image of what to prepare for. Kazistrasz especially, thank you for the detail. One of my biggest concerns was gear inflation revolving around dps; with SoO lfr gear being what, 50 points below the highest tier available of the current content, I was worried that I wouldn't honestly have a chance to be competitive until I was at least full normal. This is a lot of info to take in but again, thanks for taking the time out to reply; this is exactly the kind of info I've been looking for. All I've been doing for the past few months is checking logs and reading guides and forums so that I can keep up with patch notes and class changes, and still retain a general idea of how to play decently (as decently as I can without actual practice, that is!)

3 months if you can stand how lfr has become because of the free 90.it could be longer.

 

Being a heroic raider isn't about putting in 40 hours a week raiding. no it not  but he is talking about being in the top guild progress in the us. you do have to spend a lot of time learning and knowing every thing about your class. if you ask people from one of the top guild in the us they will tell you you will put in a lot of time. you will also put in a lot of money ( to get a gaming computer). i would suggest taking the time to think about if you really want to put in that much time

Edited April 12, 2014 by ClaytonMcKown

[Kver 65]

 

"fury looks slightly more appealing than it did before" it is currently the best war dps spec. but it can be hard to mast.

 

3 months if you can stand how lfr has become because of the free 90.it could be longer.

 

Being a heroic raider isn't about putting in 40 hours a week raiding. no it not  but he is talking about being in the top guild progress in the us. you do have to spend a lot of time learning and knowing every thing about your class. if you ask people from one of the top guild in the us they will tell you you will put in a lot of time. you will also put in a lot of money ( to get a gaming computer). i would suggest taking the time to think about if you really want to put in that much time

 

Not really. Raiding at that level means that there are simply periods where you have to invest more time, i.e. when new content is released, or when your class is being changed to the point that you actually need to learn it anew. 

 

People forget what raiding guilds actually look at. If you write a perfect application which profiles you as an interested, hard working raider with the ability to research things by himself then you'll have more chance than a 580 14/14hm raider who says "lol i wunt to join".

 

Keep in mind that the raid leaders we are talking about know everything about log analysis. If they see your LFR log then they know what to look for, and they can tell how good you are. Gear in this case has nothing to do with skill, you can be 580 and fail to use a cooldown on Sha when it matters and be dead after the first swelling pride(Just an example), or you can stay alive perfectly fine until the end. 

 

If you truly want to raid; find some guides, find some knowledgeable people, maybe find a guild that's already clearing normal(They always welcome flex-geared players) and get your meta gem and legendary cape. Once you have that, a bunch of 560s can probably do the first few heroic bosses, and then you're already doing the fights you can use to prove how great you are as a player.

[Azrogol 0]

Here's a question that I hadn't thought about: when I logged out, I was sitting at ~480 ilvl. How do I go about getting gear quickly? I know doing the raids for the legendaries will probably get me some pieces, but will that be enough for siege lfr/flex?

[Kver 65]

Doing all LFRs and some Timeless Isles should easily gear you up. Siege LFR gear is definitely enough for flex.

[Azrogol 0]

Timeless is the 535 ilvl gear, correct? Is that farmable?

[Kver 65]

Timeless is the 535 ilvl gear, correct? Is that farmable?

Yes, and yes it is. Kill rares, lots of rares.

[Orthios 271]

For gearing up, I'd say run ToT lfr a few times for the 502 gear, timeless isle is 496/535, and SoO lfr is 528.  All the while running whichever raidds you need to progress on the legendary quest line for the meta/cloak.  Around 520-522 ish is where you probably want to start getting into flex groups.  Also, when you get to the timeless isle, look to see if the celestials are being fought.  With the recent hotfix, as long as someone is fighting one, you can join in and hope for either a 553 tier legs/gloves or 550 PvP piece.  

[TIme987 3]

Timeless is the 535 ilvl gear, correct? Is that farmable?

496 if you dont have a burden then it goes to 535

[Azrogol 0]

And in a perfect world, I should be running LFR, Flex and a Normal if I can get in, weekly, since they don't share lockouts, right?

[Gwenymph 414]

And in a perfect world, I should be running LFR, Flex and a Normal if I can get in, weekly, since they don't share lockouts, right?

 

Yes.  At some point though, that perfect world will let you stop running LFR b/c there will be no upgrades available to you from there.  If I missed it browsing through the posts, it's worth mentioning to do your best to hold off on spending Warforged Seals until you can get into Normal Mode runs.  Don't spend them in LFR unless you are going to max out at your 10 capacity and you have no hopes of spending them in Normal or Flex.

[Azrogol 0]

The seals weren't mentioned. All I know is that gear works different than it did in cata; it used to be lfr < normal <heroic, and now (if I'm correct) it's lfr < flex <normal < warforged <heroic <heroic warforged? And even tho flex wasn't available in DS, you went from LFR (or the previous heroic tier) to normal; but since it's implemented now, i'm guessing the item levels have skewed slightly, so theres a bigger gap between lfr and normal, so flex is essentially a requirement? (I apologize for the terrible syntax)

[Gwenymph 414]

Correct, for pugging Normal in lower iLVL gear, raid leaders will want to see a 14/14 Flex clear in most cases. 

 

You are able to earn 3 Seals per week by turning in 50 Lesser Charms which can be easily farmed on the Timeless Isle.  They will give you a bonus chance at loot when you kill a boss.

Edited April 12, 2014 by Gwenymph

[Zovak 0]

And in a perfect world, I should be running LFR, Flex and a Normal if I can get in, weekly, since they don't share lockouts, right?

At most you'll probably only be running two of those per week. You won't really be able to start doing normal effectively until you have almost full flex gear. You won't be able to start doing flex effecively until you have almost full LFR gear. And you said you are ilvl 480 right now? You can't start doing Siege of Org LFR until you are ilvl 496. To get to 496 you need to be farming timeless gear from rares (as well as the one time use chests on the island) and doing ToT LFR for 502 gear.

 

It's most likely going to take you awhile to even be able to start flex, let alone normal. You can be doing everything you possibly can each week to gear but in the end it comes down to your luck with getting the loot that you need. As it's been said though your first priority right now should be to start the legedary cape quest. Chances are you won't be able to get it for at the least 3 months.

 

Probably not what you want to hear, but in all honesty you might not even be able to get into a good heroic guild before the expansion comes out. Your best bet is to just raid as much as you can now for practice, become a master at your class and be ready to start raiding in WoD with everyone else.

 

Also, be sure you are getting your 3 warforge seals per week. If you don't know what those are make sure to learn about them. Basically each week you can turn in 50 lesser charms of good fortune for 3 warforged seals. These seals can be used to roll for an extra chance at loot in SoO. While you are still doing Throne of Thunder you should also get some Mogu Runes of Fate. They essentially do the same thing but for ToT but you can buy as many of these as you can hold (I believe 10 at once) for 1,000 timeless coins.

 

Hope some of what I said helped. Feel free to ask any other questions and I'll see what I can do to help answer them.

[Azrogol 0]

You guys have all been so helpful, I really appreciate more than i could probably express.  I wish I'd made an account here sooner!

Should I be prioritizing 25 man over 10? I think i read somewhere that you have a better chance to get warforged gear that way, but I could be wrong.