Guide for New Raiders

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Whether you've just reached the maximum level, or you're just preparing and looking forward to it, you're in for a challenging and exciting new stage of the game.  Raiding, also known as the "end-game", is the pinnacle of content in WoW, and a place for players to refine their skills and test themselves against difficult challenges.

Overview 

• Am I ready to raid?
• Preparing to Raid
• Come Prepared (What to do on the big day, and every day)
• Conclusion

Am I ready to raid?

The true answer is likely "No".  Many players reach level cap and immediately ask if they can go along on a raid.  Unless you're already an experienced raider, from previous versions of the game, you have probably not been exposed to the level of skill refinement and gear tuning necessary to pull your own weight in raid.

Prior to raiding, the game is very forgiving and tolerant of what would be considered poor performance in the raid environment.  The journey from level 1 to maximum level is meant to provide enjoyment, and the opportunity to slowly grow into a large, and complicated, set of abilities and talents.  Gear bonuses also increase in complexity as you level.  If, after reaching level cap, you have a good understanding of what abilities your character has, how your different talents / trees affect how your character plays, and know what role you'd like to play with your character, you are ready to begin preparing to raid.

Preparing to Raid

Before you'll really be ready to step foot in a raid for the first time, and be able to do your fair share of the "work" in that raid, there are a couple areas that you will have to improve on:

• Player Skills (60%): You will need to do a lot of work to improve your playstyle, and to maximize the effectiveness of your new talents and gear.  This has the single largest effect on your performance, and is much more difficult than getting gear.
• Gear (30%): You will need to get the best gear that is available to your character in the pre-raid environment.
• Talent Spec (10%): You will need to learn more about the three talent trees available to your character's class, about the specialties of each, and examine some example talent builds that have worked for other experienced raiders and why.

Player Skills

How well you play your character has the most extreme effect on how well you perform in your designated role.  An excellent player can perform well even in mediocre gear, but a poor player will not perform well even in the best of gear.  This fundamental idea can not be stressed enough.  If you thought you were a good player before, prepare to realize you weren't as good as you thought you were, and hopefully to improve a lot.

You should run dungeons at every opportunity.  This will also help get you gear.  Run all the most difficult 5-man dungeons repeatedly.  Ask around and find out what some of the easier heroic 5-man dungeons are, and, if you have enough gear for it, run those too.  If you can get in on a lower level raid run, do it, but ONLY if they intend on seriously completing it.  (Most lower level raid runs are started by kids, are doomed to failure from the start, and are an epic waste of your time.)

Run dungeons that you will complete fairly smoothly.  Don't run only dungeons that are 10 levels below you, but don't spend 4 hours wiping in something that becomes apparent is above your skill level.

Find websites that are dedicated to your character class, or that contain detailed information about the character you play.  Most of these will talk about, what is commonly referred to as, a "spell rotation".  A spell rotation is the series of abilities that you most commonly use, to achieve maximum performance.  Coming up with a good spell rotation involves taking into account many factors (e.g. talents, the types of stats commonly found on your gear, cooldown times, and benefits that some abilities gain from the use of others), and, while it's possible for you to come up with your own, people that spend way more time thinking about this stuff than you already have done the hard work for you.

Talk to the guild class-leaders that have experience raiding with the class you play, and to other successful raiders of your class.  They have a wealth of experience and knowledge to share with you. 

Keep striving to achieve your best performance.  If you are DPS, learn to watch the threat meter, and how hard you can DPS without pulling aggro.  If you are a tank, learn to generate as much threat as possible, on as many targets as possible.  If you are a healer, learn how long in advance you need to heal to keep people from dying.  This is the time to really consider the nuances of what you do, how to do it better, and to learn to push the envelope further.  It's only going to get more difficult once you actually start raiding, so doing your best at this stage benefits you more in the end.

Gear

Gear is twice as easy of a problem to solve as improving your player skills, but still demands some careful attention and research.

One thing that you should accept immediately, is that your days of getting gear upgrades that immediately produce significant performance increases are basically over.  You will certainly be getting better gear, there is no doubt about that.  But unlike you're used to, gear changes will come with very small upgrades, and trade offs.  Because raiding is really a tuning game, it's all about little changes here and there.  You also can't expect to just walk right into dungeons that are way too hard for you, and get big gear upgrades, because when you're approaching the top of game play, there are fewer and fewer people above you to carry you, or pull you along.  It's completely normal to get a nice piece of gear, and it only increases your stats by 5 points.  But you put that piece on, get it enchanted, get gems for it, and inch your way toward the next piece of gear that will increase your stats just a few more points. 

Find out what the most important stats are for your class and talent spec, and don't assume that you already know.  Often the stats that really maximize performance include stats that are almost non-existent, or only do in insufficient quantities, on gear not designed for raiding (e.g. hit, expertise, critical strike).  Talk to the guild class-leaders that have experience raiding with the class you play, and to other successful raiders of your class.  Find websites that are dedicated to your character class, or that contain detailed information about the character you play.  If you are DPS, your class will have a "hit cap", which is a specific amount of hit rating you want to achieve before stacking other stats.

Compile very specific lists of gear pieces that are upgrades for you, and where they drop.  There are many websites available, as well as other resources, to help you. You can find many good sites in the "Links" section of this site.  Go after those particular pieces whenever possible.  When gear does drop, check to make sure it really is a proper upgrade before you roll on it (and ask for more time to decide, if you need).  You will earn a very bad reputation for yourself if you roll on gear that isn't really appropriate for your class/spec, and you will be taking gear from people who it is best suited for.  After all, we are a team and need to work together.

Make sure that all your gear is gemmed, and enchanted.  Does that suck?  Yes.  Gems and enchants make up a significant portion of your ability to custom-tune your gear to your play, and thus have an unexpectedly large effect on performance.  So at first, when your gear is not very good, compromise by not getting the absolute greatest [which usually come with a premium price tag].  Don't spend 1000g to get an enchant on a piece of gear that you will probably replace in a week or two, if there is a 30g version that is only 20% worse.  Get the cheaper one now, and once you get a nice epic piece that you will keep a while, go for the big one.  And yes, some of the enchants will cost you 1000g [worth of mats], and some gems will run 200g.  Sometimes you can get enchants cheap, or free, from enchanters that are trying to level skill points.  Also, save any enchanting mats that you get, you will need them, and would be foolish to sell them.

Be sure to check the guild bank for anything you can use.  There are lots of items, mats, etc. that may be helpful to you.  Just make sure to remember that it is a community resource, so try to supply to the guild bank things that are easy for you to get, while you take things that were easy for others to supply for you. 

Talent Spec

Having the proper talent spec certainly increases your performance, but is changed so infrequently that it's not really an active factor in performance.

Talk to other guild members that share your class/role about their spec, and why they chose some of the individual talents.  Read websites that focus on your specialty for ideas.  There are even websites that compile data about the most popular specs, from the WoW Armory (see the "Links" section).  All these are great resources for really putting some polish on your talent choices.

As you start to refine your player skills, you should periodically go back and look over your spec, and read up on new information.  You may find that some choices you made didn't really work out the way you intended them.  For instance, you may have chosen a cool ability, but now realize that you don't use it very often.  These types of insights only come from lots of experience, so at first it's best to keep it simple. 

Come Prepared (What to do on the big day, and every day)

After a while, the attention to detail required for raiding will become your routine way of playing.  Until then, start now by making sure to keep "topped off" and prepared, even for 5-man dungeons.

• Be sure to keep your character repaired.  Nobody likes waiting around for people to repair their broken armor after one death.  After you finish a run, your first stop should probably be to go repair.
• Be sure to keep a healthy stock of any consumables you use.  Do you normally use 1000 bullets in a 5-man dungeon?  Keep 2000 on hand at all times.  Stock up on potions, scrolls, food, reagents, and anything else that improves your performance, or is required for you to play.
• Read the strategies, and watch strategy videos on sites like YouTube, for the bosses where you are going.  You will do much better if you have at least some idea of what is going to happen.  If you're not sure who you will be fighting, ask.  This applies to dungeons and raids.

Conclusion

Raiding is an exciting opportunity to find lots of challenges in the game.  It doesn't come without a price, though.  Becoming a respected and accomplished raider will involve a lot of dedication to refine your skills, get the right gear, and perform your best in tough situations.  Nobody wants to be the person that has to be "carried", or is brought along just because there was nobody else.  We all want to be picked first.  Following some of these simple ideas can set a good foundation of habits, that will help lead to success in the future.