Need some help getting back into the game

Hello everyone!
I need some help to get back into this wonderful game :)

First, I'll just say something about my WoW career. I started playing in the beta and once vanilla launched the first char I made was a undead priest. I leveld him to 60 in (what was at the time a good pace I think). and once I hit 60 I started raiding, I really fell in love with raiding, was the big passion of mine back then. I managed (together with an older friend) to start our very own raiding guild, I was kind of a nice officer while he was the guy you dread to have as a guild master and raid leader (screaming at you on vent that you suck and stuff like that, haha). I do think that that was needed back then to keep all 40 in raid in check.

Well, after some nice raiding, clearing almost all avalible content ( we just couldn't down the four horseman... damn I still hate them, haha). And tbc was released, my friend quickly powerleveled to 70 and starting shouting at the rest of the guild to get to 70 aswell. But most of us were pretty tired from raiding and I among others quit the game.


So here I am, a couple of years later, and I started playing again. This time I decided to roll a tank (I was always jelous of our tanks, being up and personal with all those huge and awesome bosses, while I just stood 4 hours staring at green bars :/ ). And I decided on a paladin tank because for me, that is still something pretty new, as i've never even played with a paladin before, let alone AS one :D.

Now, I've hit 80 and started grinding hc's, rep and leveling my professions. I want to tank endgame content, and good be among the best, if not in the world, then alteast on the server I'm playing on.
But, i'm having a hard time gettin gruops for anything, I know for a fact that I am a good tank, and I enchant/gem properly ( I read almost everything I can about paladin tanks and how to gear/spec and play them to their fullest). But all I get is this "lolz you don't have GS over xxxxx" or "WTF!? 36k hp." (shortly followed by a "you've been removed to gruop/raid).

What should I do? there is only one item i've got left at the triumph vendor to get (the 245 helm, using the t9 on atm) and other then that I can't get better gear outside of hc's, I need to raid to get it. I can't do VOA and hope for a drop (cause of "lol to low GS") and I'm not even allowed into toc pugs (which is kinda dumb isn't it? I mean, tier 9 was the best gear when TOC was the highest level of raid).

Is there anything I can do to improve my chances?

Anyone got some tips for someone who just feels lost in this GS crazy world? (OH and lets not forget about achiv's).


Any help is greatly appreciated :)

Cheers!
-gurkan

Try to get into a guild, also try crafting some tanking items. They are pretty easy to get now.

On my server most raid pugs for icc want a minimum of 5k. This to me is perfectly acceptable as it only takes one player to kill a raid these days especially in icc.
Get yourself into a decent raiding guild there's bound to be shouts going up in the cities for wanted players.
Apart from that keep farming those frosties and get the gear as u get enoug.

Kinda yeah about 5k GS, reason is why?
-Well you pretty much gaining most of ICC5 heroic, Triumph gear along thies your gears GS should be least around 4,8k GS then few upgrade on Frost / ToC25.
Youll get to 5k GS.

Its pretty basic to make a view that shows up that players have dedicated a few days to gain the best gear to hit the new content.
Thats why the 5k GS is so important to others.
Still you cant gain experience on newly made bosses without actually fighting them. You can watch all guides / + read info about the bosses.

Still there will be things that actual experience conquers readed statictics or theory, because the smallest things.
That you supose to know. As newbie on new content might kill yourself and worstcase senario whole raid.

To my view of option: Is that its rather good to have minium GS of 5k, because you want to have people that least supose to know their how the classes work.
-Proplem is, that there are people with high GS that know "(#/ about their classes. They suddently appear on PuGs and suck the arse there.
That just wonders, how can some people not give a "(#/ and waste up to 24 peoples time on internet, while they actually just wanted to have fun at raiding.

As I am seriously having doupt some realms on my Battlegroup on heroics that how far they actually went on raiding.
Aswell on PuG raiding offcourse if people are trying their best, but havent read anything or learned about their classes.
"-Just dont bother to waste others time."
Specially when if your DamagePS/ThreatPS/HealingPS meters arent high enought or you feel unpleased on the group. (PS = Per Second)
Just do not continue and try with another group, if this fails up three to five times, you should be having doupt about if your doing it right.
-Offcourse meaning if your supose to do something or you keep dying too early each encounter of bosses.

People that can actually learn about their mistakes, good. If not, try PvP around BGs where nothing matters.

The best advice I can give (since I'm trying to worm my way into the raiding scene again) is to try and make some friends in some big guilds. Dole out some favors, help tank daily heroics on your main with their alts.

The best thing I ever did was make friends with people in a good friendly guild. Occassionally, when the timing is right, I get offered open spots in the VOAs and even that can help, especially with easy achieves.

It is hard to give advice without seeing how you are currenlty geared, talented, etc to see why they may be acting this way without giving you a shot.

As to the overall picture without anything specific to your toon: Take a look at your gear. Take a loot at your achieves. Remember what it was like raiding back in vanilla. Largely, raiding requires a different/higher skill set than heroics. If all of you gear is from heroics, crafting and emblems and you have no achievements, it is reasonable for them to assume that you are new to raiding and be concerned about your skill set. I honestly find that the tank is the least affected by this difference but since the tank is so important to the outcome, they fall under the same scrutiny. For instance, on Lord Jarraxus, the tank just stands and tanks and uses his cds or utility smartly. Warriors can interrupt casts, pallys can cleanse the debuff from themselves, etc. The real challenge is for the dps and healers. Yet the tank will still be scrutinized for the "experience" as closely as the dps and healers who have the real responsibility in this fight.

I think the above comments about making friends and finding a guild are the best course to going farther. When I PuG well, I get invites to fill in on thier guild runs or other PuGs. Finding a guild has been the biggest difference for me. I am no longer that tank with gear that can be obtained by anyone of any skill level with enough time to run heroics. I think this makes a big difference in how I am viewed when I do PuG. It's not just the quality of my gear. It is that some of my gear has been obtained from raids and therefore I obviously have raiding experience. Put that together with smart gearing that shows I know the right way to gear, and the social expectations become much easier. I can't count the number of times I have been invited to a PuG such as VoA with a clear message that I will be OT, but once we zone in and I have been inspected, I am asked to MT.