Is my gear ready for the starter raids?

[BryceE]

I've been looking at my gear and according to wow-heroes, I should be focusing on the raids now. I've gemmed and chanted the gear I have except for a few pieces because my server doesn't have any of the enchants yet for some reason or they're like 2k+ in the auction house.

Trying to get some guildie blacksmiths into heroics to get chaos orbs so I can get my waist and chest pieces made because I can't afford the 1k-2k price people wanna charge PER chaos orb.

Other than that, is my gear ok to attempt some of the beginning bosses in say blackwing descent? And how the hell do you find baradin hold? I went all over tol'barad and couldn't find it. Where is it located at on the map?

And why does raid browser say I'm not high enough level for raids yet?

Character: Galook - Nazgrel US

[Insahnity]

As before, Skill > Gear. Things haven't changed that much.

I will admit I haven't armoried you, but for your gear, if there are still upgrades in heroics, then you still need to keep grinding them. It's only when you are down to the last 1-2 pieces of upgrades in heroics that you can start considering entering raids.

TL;DR - Use wowhead to look for heroics upgrades. If you find some, then there is your answer.

[Quinafoi]

And why does raid browser say I'm not high enough level for raids yet?

The raid browser is currently bugged from what I've noticed. You are able to browse raids, but you are unable to list yourself as eligible for particular raids. I do not know if this is caused by a flaw in the system where it "thinks" you are undergeared or not. I still have this issue myself despite average item level being higher than heroics which leads me to believe the system is broken. If you consider when it says you are "ready" to start heroics at about 4 item levels below all gear pieces being maxed for the tier prior (333, or normal dungeon difficulty) then you would expect the first tier to follow a similar suit and say you are ready at very close to 346 or heroic gear, probably around the 342 item level. I'm at around 350 item level and still have this issue you describe which leads me to believe the system is broken. You can browse people looking for raid, but are unable to list yourself for as looking for a raid (which naturally means when you browse you won't find anyone either).

Anyway, back to your original question. If you were in a strong group you would be fine, but right now you may still be slightly undergeared for a raid. Try to use the item level tiers as a guide. You should be very close to the item level of the prior tier, in this case heroics which are 346 before heading into the next teir of raiding which is 359. I mentioned the number 342 as a generic number based on how high you had to be in order to queue for heroics.

Raids however don't really have a set requirement. As such if you are actually able to put forth the necessary DPS, Tanking, or Healing in your current gear, then you are ready. For each individual it will be different. For you personally I think you should probably spend a little more time in heroics and try and get over 340 item level, but if you think you're ready and can get a strong group by all means.

Baradin Hold is on the Southern Island of Tol Barad in the center of the zone, the enterance is on the west wall (looks like a cellar enterance). That is the actual PvP zone fought over every two hours, not the questing only Northern Island. If your faction controls the zone this is by far the easiest raid encounter to start with.

[Warwench]

isnt there a forum for this ?

[Quinafoi]

Yeah, this probably should go in the HALP! forums, which is where character audits (am I doing ok, what do I do next, what am I doing wrong) questions usually go. Wouldn't surprise me much if an admin moves it as soon as they find it.

[BryceE]

I'm at 337 ilvl. Guess I'm going to run a few more heroics and get it to about ilvl 340.

For Baradin Hold, it's just 1 boss in there right? What would be an ideal group makeup for that raid? 2 tanks, 1 tank healer, 2 or 3 raid healers and 6 dps?

EDIT: My bad. At first I thought it should go in Raid forums, then figured it might go in the Help section, couldn't decide so I stuck it in General figuring it was about a bunch of things.

The raid browser is currently bugged from what I've noticed. You are able to browse raids, but you are unable to list yourself as eligible for particular raids. I do not know if this is caused by a flaw in the system where it "thinks" you are undergeared or not. I still have this issue myself despite average item level being higher than heroics which leads me to believe the system is broken. If you consider when it says you are "ready" to start heroics at about 4 item levels below all gear pieces being maxed for the tier prior (333, or normal dungeon difficulty) then you would expect the first tier to follow a similar suit and say you are ready at very close to 346 or heroic gear, probably around the 342 item level. I'm at around 350 item level and still have this issue you describe which leads me to believe the system is broken. You can browse people looking for raid, but are unable to list yourself for as looking for a raid (which naturally means when you browse you won't find anyone either).

Anyway, back to your original question. If you were in a strong group you would be fine, but right now you may still be slightly undergeared for a raid. Try to use the item level tiers as a guide. You should be very close to the item level of the prior tier, in this case heroics which are 346 before heading into the next teir of raiding which is 359. I mentioned the number 342 as a generic number based on how high you had to be in order to queue for heroics.

Raids however don't really have a set requirement. As such if you are actually able to put forth the necessary DPS, Tanking, or Healing in your current gear, then you are ready. For each individual it will be different. For you personally I think you should probably spend a little more time in heroics and try and get over 340 item level, but if you think you're ready and can get a strong group by all means.

Baradin Hold is on the Southern Island of Tol Barad in the center of the zone, the enterance is on the west wall (looks like a cellar enterance). That is the actual PvP zone fought over every two hours, not the questing only Northern Island. If your faction controls the zone this is by far the easiest raid encounter to start with.

[Quinafoi]

The normal raid composition for a 10 man in Baradin Hold is currently:

2 Tanks
2 Healers
6 DPS

There is naturally some flexibility depending on the skill level of those involved. For example if you have 5 exceptional DPS you can do it with 3 Healers to make their load slightly less. Right now though it seems most groups only use 2 healers.

As for tank versus group healers the raid shouldn't take all that much damage until the bosses special attack. The raid is split into two camps. A healer would likely be responsible for a group, not a role. The healer would catch up on group healing while the other groups tank is actively tanking. You could split it in to tank and raid healing but this would probably result in one healer being taxed more heavily than the other. I haven't healed the encounter so I don't really know the distribution of healing load personally.

Watch the encounter guide.
http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...de-to-Argaloth

[Fetzie]

Most boss fights require around 10k dps as an absolute minimum (we killed maloriak 9 seconds before berserk with 87600 rDPS: 2 tanks, 3 healers, 5 dps).

tanks need about 140k unbuffed life (some fights are very punishing, especially with the low avoidance we have right now).

Bottom line is, blizzard gave beta testers premades with full 346 gear for a reason. That is the gear you are expected to have going into the raids. A few 333s are OK, but if your entire raid has less 346 than 333 you will have a massive problem.

Example. The first week we went into blackwing descent we were having problems with healer mana and damage, after 8 minutes the omnitrons were barely under 15 million life (they start at 32 million). This week, after grinding heroic after heroic, they died in just over 8 minutes and the healers had at least a little mana left spare to res a guy that died to a poison bomb. It really is important for your raid to be prepared to wipe, to flask, and to gear up in 5 mans.

[gacktt]

Unless you're one of those high end guilds that absolutely must raid on the first week, you're better off farming gear to 340+ at least. Makes it tons easier regardless of player skill. Why magmaw melees for 55k on 10man @ 42k armor eludes me especially considering he's just brainlessly spamming 30k lava spits on the whole raid.