[WoW] How to get into PuG Raids

[Ualaa]

Crossposting from D-B.com
Original post by Svpernova09.



I see tons and tons of people wanting to pug raids. A lot of the time I'll armory them just for the lols. After a lot of laughing and many armories, I've come up with a bit of info I wanted to share for people who want to raid, or even people who may *think* they're raid ready.

So you want to raid? Great. But there are a few things you need to do before hand to not look like a total noob. I've often found that your Gems and Enchants will often make up for a lower GearScore in the eyes of a raid leader. Your enchants and gems speak *volumes* about you and how much you know about playing your toon.

Shoulder Enchants:

Sons of Hodir - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

[Greater Inscription of the Axe] Melee
[Greater Inscription of the Crag] Healer
[Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle] Tank
[Greater Inscription of the Storm ] Caster

Doing the entire quest line gets you to Honored according to WoWWiki. I just did this a couple weekends ago on my Paladin, and I didn't even finish the quest line and was past honored. I don't think that the WoWWiki article has been updated since they sped up the rep gains in 3.3. My paladin was also human, so that may have helped as well. The dailies are not very multiboxing friendly, so if you want to skip the daily grind, just turn in relics from Honored to Exalted it only takes 510 [Relic of Ulduar] per toon. With as cheap as they are / have been recently in the AH. There is no reason you don't have 5x toons exalted. The enchants are now all BoA. You only need 1 toon on each account exalted to be able to buy the enchants for your alts. So if you don't have ANYTHING at all, it's going to take you probably 1 or 2 hours to do the quest line + 2,550 [Relic of Ulduar] to get to exalted.

Helm Enchants:
[Arcanum of Burning Mysteries] - Casters - Kirin Tor (revered)
[Arcanum of Blissful Mending] - Healers - The Wyrmrest Accord (revered)
[Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector] - Tanks - Argent Crusade (revered)
[Arcanum of Torment] - Melee - Knights of the Ebon Blade (revered)

You are already doing instances, wear the right tabard.

Poor man enchants (helm and shoulders): (use these until you can get the above, IE "better than looking like a noob with unenchanted gear")
[Arcanum of Triumph] - Melee (head) - Wintergrasp
[Arcanum of Dominance] - Caster (head) - Wintergrasp
[Inscription of Triumph] - Melee (shoulders) - Wintergrasp
[Inscription of Dominance] - Caster (shoulders) - Wintergrasp


Leg Enchants:
[Icescale Leg Armor] - Melee
[Brilliant Spellthread] - Caster
[Frosthide Leg Armor] - Tank

Note about [Sapphire Spellthread] and [Earthen Leg Armor]: IMHO no matter what the DPS class, [Sapphire Spellthread] is useless. You might as well get the SPI from [Brilliant Spellthread] instead of stam (The only exception here is for Shaman, Paladin healers where SPI really is useless). This isn't PvP, if you pull aggro, l2threat. Yes it's always your fault. (well, not *always* hehe). [Earthen Leg Armor] = PvP I don't care that you think your getting Resilience as a defensive stat, use [Frosthide Leg Armor] More stam is good mkay? AGI scales with kings. Resilience doesn't. The mats for these are very trivial if you are clearing heroics. Usually the highest price item is the arctic fur, but even these days that is trivial since you can trade leather for arctic fur.


Gems:
Gems are essential to any character at some point in time. You need to know what your main stats are, and what stats you should gem for, and why. I'm certainly not an expert on every class so I won't even begin to tell you how to gem your toon aside from a couple things. Hit rating. If your going to raid, you need to know what your hit rating cap is. If you are not hit capped, gem pure hit until you are, it really is your best stat. Not every socket bonus is worth it. +6 stam or +3 mp5 is not *crucial* for your caster, throw a pure SP gem or a pure hit gem (if you're not capped) instead. Your gear is not the technicolor rainbow, don't gem it that way. Meet your meta requirements and then gem your best stat(s). Tanks: Get a [Nightmare Tear], they're damn cheap and 10 stats is sexy time + it counts as any gem color. Easy way to meet your meta. DPS: [Nightmare Tear] may not be ideal, but may not be bad in a clutch.

Activate your meta! ...and KEEP it active! If you don't understand how meta gems work, you need to look the gem and it will tell you what colors you need to have to "activate" it. If you mouse over your gear, and your meta gem is greyed out, it's not active! Activating your meta is always your first gemming priority.


Research your class:
The best rotations, best gem selections, best enchants and a lot more can be found at Class Mechanics - Elitist Jerks Reading is Hard l2research.

Research the Encounters:
http://www.tankspot.com has GREAT videos that are tailored for entire raid groups, not just tanks. They give great explanations and often update their videos with patch changes and best practices. Being able to talk about the Twin's special abilities as well as the different kind of Lady Deathwhisper adds will make you really look good to a raid leader.

Enchant ALL of your gear:
Not that I've ever raided ICC10 with no enchant on my gloves ::COUGH:: But make sure everything you can get enchanted is enchanted. It all adds up and it makes you look like you actually give a damn about your toons.


BUT SVPER! Enchants are expensive!: Do dailies. Do professions. Gold is hard to get. No really. There are TONS and TONS of NPCs out in the world, they have question marks on their head, they want you to go do something really REALLY easy, when you complete their task, THEY GIVE YOU GOLD!!!!!omgzomgGOLD! Often, these GOLDGIVINGNPCS will send you to OTHER GOLD GIVING NPCS! What do they want? THEY WANT TO GIVE YOU MORE GOLD!!!1111

BUT SVPER! gems are expensive!: You can buy them with honor. No really.
BUT SVPER! I don't like to quest: Suck it up.
BUT SVPER! I don't want to suck it up: Go back to AV, this info is for people interested in PvE.
BUT SVPER! I know, I know, Fenril likes men, he's still cool though.
BUT SVPER! No seriously go quest. It seems really dumb to me that people who hate to quest play an MMO that is mostly quest centered. /mindboggle I understand wanting to PvP level, everyone needs a break from questing. But ffs. If you don't have a flying mount at 80... I heard questing was hard.

[EaTCarbS]

TY for the copy/paste

[Tim]

I think the biggest thing really just depends on how you ask and the server you are on. I remember doing Naxx25 on Blackrock by simply asking nicely when my druid was in level 78 craftable PVP gear.