Finding the right raid

[Chimalli]

Hey I am having an absolutely awful time trying to find a guild for myself. I've been playing WoW since vanilla but never got serious about raiding til the end of WotLK when I just did 10-mans with a group of IRL friends. Now, in Cata, I've switched over to DK tanking from shaman healing and it seems that every guild I find is either completely full on tanks (groups 1 and 2 full, backup spots taken) or is having too many problems to down even easy mode shannox and beth. My IRL friends have all quit for the most part except for 2 and they both went PvP.

TL;DR I'm getting pretty frustrated with not being able to find a raid/guild to run with.

Any tips on how I can find a guild that is on par with my level of play, yet still has a spot available? I was once told I should start one myself, but I simply don't have the gold to keep a guild running with the necessary repair bills and things.

Thanks for all the help,
~Chim

EDIT 8/10/11 @ 9:24 a.m MDT: I don't think my gear is holding me back from a raid spot, but here's my armory link if you want to take a look: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...himalli/simple

[Lumines]

Well, looking at your realm, it hardly appears to be a backwater. My initial response on reading the post was going to be "don't restrict yourself to your current server if you want to find the best fit for you" but it looks like you have plenty of guilds who have killed at least 3 bosses in Firelands.

Do your homework - have you been through every one of those guilds, checked their websites for recruitment info, found the ones with suitable raid times for you, etc. etc? Also consider your (potential) application from a guild's point of view: you have no Firelands experience and your armoury doesn't suggest hugely extensive experience of the previous tier of raiding either. This isn't intended as a criticism; I'm just pointing out that you might have to temper your expectations, because a 6/7 or 7/7 guild would need a very, very good reason to take on someone of your level of progression right now.

And if none of the guilds on your own realm are suitable, consider looking further afield. I wouldn't personally recommend moving to a low population server and/or poorly progressed server because if - for whatever reason - the guild you transfer for doesn't suit you, you'll be stuck on a rock and out of pocket for the privilege.

[marklar]

or is having too many problems to down even easy mode shannox and beth.

tbh, if you don't have FL experience, this is the kind of guild you're going to be getting a raid spot from. be patient; you're now in it from the beginning and you're going to be one of the people helping the guild to grow and advance.

so you're having trouble with the first 2 bosses? no biggie, just keep at it and make the changes necessary - that's how everyone starts. soon, you'll be mowing them down and working on the next.

trying to find a raid spot from a guild that's already 4/7 is going to be much harder.

[Quinafoi]

Contrary to popular belief... raid <> guild.

While it's more common for a raid to be from an individual guild, there is nothing that says it has to be. My 10 man raid consists of people from 8 different guilds. This isn't a pug, it's an organized group, one of several raids in a raiding alliance (an organization that forms raids together without regard for guild tag). You won't find groups like that on wowprogress but they are still out there as well. If what you're looking for is a raid, look for a raid. If that raid happens to be a guild raid, then you may have found yourself a guild as well.

If you're looking specifically on your own realm, then your realm forums would be a good place to start.

Any tips on how I can find a guild that is on par with my level of play, yet still has a spot available?

What is "your level of play"? It is possible you are simply being held back by the people you've grouped with, however many people often overlook the fact that maybe they are exactly where they should be in progression. There is nothing in your armory that says "this character is 1/7 but should be 5/7 already if others weren't holding him back". At the same time however, maybe 1/7 is exactly where you are supposed to be at "your level of play". I can't determine that.

[Chimalli]

What is "your level of play"? It is possible you are simply being held back by the people you've grouped with, however many people often overlook the fact that maybe they are exactly where they should be in progression. There is nothing in your armory that says "this character is 1/7 but should be 5/7 already if others weren't holding him back". At the same time however, maybe 1/7 is exactly where you are supposed to be at "your level of play". I can't determine that.

Well my t11 progress can be explained by the fact that I hit 85 on my Death Knight about 2 or 3 (can't remember) weeks before 4.1 ended. I have, however, been raiding on my shaman since vanilla but went pvp with him during Cata to retain the ability to play with friends.

As an attempt to defend my "level of play", both of my Beth'tilac kills were with a raid group from <The Blooded> and the first time we wiped once because the upstairs healer DC'd and the second time we 1-shotted her. The group I'm in right now is partly from <Insomniacs> and they consider it their second group, but 3-4 of the players are from all around. With this group, I spent 8 hours over the last two days wiping in phase 1 of beth'tilac because of spiderlings being eaten by drones, but I can't do much other than give advice to the other players as my role was set as the upstairs tank. My tanking partner for this group has never raided on any toons before Cataclysm.

Thanks for the help everybody. I'll go check out the realm forums but its looking more and more like dumping this and going back to healing might be the ticket. There's just not enough tank spots available these days I guess.

EDIT: Also, I've gotten my dailies trinket and my last BoE drop since I posted the thread so I'm now sitting at 370 item level equipped, which shouldn't be holding me back that much.

EDIT2: Yes, I have a viable DPS offspec for anybody that was thinking of asking .

[leethaxor]

Okay, I ran into a similar problem shortly into cata and have bounced around guilds A LOT.

So when you look for a guild there are a few important things:

1) Times: When do they raid. Self explanitory really, if you can't show up then don't raid that time. I've passed up more progressed guilds to be in my current simply because I don't want to raid that much, or want to stay up until 230 am.

2) Gear: a 370 tank isn't going to get pulled into a 5/7 H guild. You'll get one shotted by the boss and everyone will laugh at you. So you should aim at or just slightly above. The worst thing a guild can say is no, and often they really don't like to in the age of 10 man guild, if they need somebody like a tank they will lower standards a bit.

3) Skill/Attitude: Your skill/attitude needs to be same as the guild you join, or you will just feel out of place. When you join a guild of the right skill and attitude you will think stuff like:
"Gee that makes sense why didn't my old guild do that"
when its wrong you think stuff like :
"Why are they so lazy?"
"Why am I here?"
"Why are we still wiping on this?"

For example, my last guild switch I was faced with this choice:
Guild 1: 4/7 H, raiding 24 hours per week, 4 pages guild policies.
Guild 2: 2/7 H, Making me compete for my spot in a 16 person roster for a 10 man.
Guild 3: 2/7 H, Asked me if I like fish sticks in my mouth during my interview.
I joined guild 3 btw.

Attitude is everything, find like minded players and you will have a blast.

[elehisie]

I might be repeating what those guys said on top of me, specially leeth. But you have to consider more than what you stated. For me, you seem to think you are better than the guilds you've been to, and even if you are right, it seems to me like your biggest mistake. I am not at the moment, for a number of reasons, but I used to be leader of a raiding guild, and also a raid leader. So I have some light to shed onto the matter of why every guild seems full of tanks, and why you never get a spot.

First of all, why do you feel you are better than everyone else?
- For me, you are going in the wrong guilds, and your choices of guilds are leading to that. The more progressed the guild is, the harder it will be to get a spot. You have to stick around long enough, you have to show the leadership that you are skilled (on top of being geared) for what they are doing. If you go to less progressed guilds, you will easily get a spot if you show you really know what you're doing, but you will have to deal with a bunch of unexperienced ppl. Live with that. You will either BE the "the noob" at least for a while, or deal with them. Choose your side carefully. It's a lot easier to take up on the task of teaching ppl to raid and deal with unexperienced raiders than to try and get a spot in the core of a top raiding guild.

Why are all guilds full of tanks?
When you look into getting in a more progressed guild, you need to realize they have their teams set up in a certain way that is simply too hard to let someone else get in the team. So, sometimes, they will prefer to cancel a raid when their main tank can't come, instead of getting a new tank join them. In a strongly coherent team, every one knows thei part so well that a simple change ( like swtiching a dps person ) is difficult, and may cause wipes. Now changing the tank (off or main) can be a total disaster. The tanks aren't the most important ppl in the raid, but they are the ones who can set the pace of the fights, and the ones who need to be aware of the most stuff, most of the time. Keeping that in mind, you will soon realize that lots of tanks are also raid leaders. And it's not coincidence, it's just tank are usually ppl who love to control stuff. But this means that tanks are the most difficult people to replace in a raid group, the hardest to recruit ppl ever, and the ones you have to trust the most. Therefore, guilds will try to keep as many tanks as they can around, hence the feeling all guilds have 30 tanks. On top of everything, you have the cutest cherry: it's not easy to balance the right tank with the right healer, and it's not easy to balance tanks together as a "couple". Some ppl are overall good but they just won't fit together. To help you out here, keep in mind that most of the time ppl will try to fit tanks of different classes (to lesser roll problems), and tanks with different specs: while a tank speced for aoe will be most likely getting the off-tank spot, a tank speced for interrupts is a better choice for main tank.

Is it gear?
Gear is so freaking overrated. I mean it. It's true you just can't do things unless you have a minimum gear, but having the gear ain't a guarantee that you will be a good tank. You need raid awareness in a higher level than everybody else, and if you are the off-tank you need a higher sense of the environment and shit happening in the background of fights than even the main tank does, simply cuz it is your freaking job to pick up whatever the MT misses, or just can't grab. So good guilds won't let you tank Ragnaros right off your recruiting day. There are ways to figure if the new guy can tank shit or not, and one of the most basic steps is to see the new dude's attitude in heroics, vent and whatever. So, invite ppl in your new guild for zeroQ times and youll notice the raid/guild leader will soon hop in your party. One thing I learned both as raid leader and tank is that when the wipes are your fault you should be the one pointing it out and saying youre sorry. Both to show you failed that time, but know what you are doing, and to show you actually care for the group. When ppl realize you can tank heroics and not yell at ppl you might make it into important raids.

The off-tank and the main tank: a love story.
Try to think about it for a sec: is your spec a MT or OT spec?
The decision between making someone MT or OT isn't actually based on who is the best tank, it's based on gear, availability, survivability, awerness and spec. I often switch with other tanks in the guild between OT and MT spots. When I raid with the Core group I'm mostly OT and when I run raids in my own group (the third in the guild) I'm mainly MT. One thing to consider is that the OT will have to hold less damage overall, so they can be less geared, but for some fights, they need to be even more skilled as players than the MT. AOE oriented specs will lead into OT spot, cuz you will be more able to handle a bunch of adds, while nowadays the MT is expected to interrupt a lot in some boss fights. So when you just aren't skilled enough to trap the dog, but you don't have enough gear to take shannoxx damage in the face, you wont get a FL spot. While Onyxia's tank should be aware of where to tank, when to move her, Nefarian's tank need to be able to spot him on the fly, aggro it fast and position him even faster. Get it? So me and my tank partner have this setup where I most often do Onixya (cuz im slow, but better at moving her than he is) and I most often do the dogs on Shannoxx cuz I have developed a method for the traps that just work, on top of being lesser-geared.

Availability isn't just being able to show up see?
The last but not least important thing to consider is availability. And I mean it in the whole sense of the freaking word, not in the sense that you will show up for raids you were assigned. Thing here is: You might be geared enough, you might be a good tank, you might be choosing the right raiding times, and still not be the tank that particular guild is looking forward to have. Different guilds will require tank with different attitudes. While top raiding guilds will often tolerate bad attitudes from players, smaller and slower paces guilds will value the ppl they raid with a lot more. So check if your attitude is right for the guilds you have been choosing. And never forget that it simply doesn't matter how early on you showed up for your raid, if you just go afk all the time for example. The tank is the guy that every one will be waiting for, which means you have to be the example in your guild. I mean.... Tanks just have to be there prior to the invites, ready with flasks and repairs done. Tanks have to be the ones who will stay in the group when all the bad shit happens, and they have to be the ones who leave last. So jsut don't join the raid if you can't stay till the end. Don't rage quit on your guild. Don't be the one who goes afk first. Cuz if your whole guild is constantly waiting for you, they will soon look into replacing you entirely.

After all this pondering if you still think you are so much better than your guild, do try to get a new guild. Try to run your own if you can't fit anywhere. But if you don't address your own problems before doing so, they will jsut stay there. Figuring out who you are, where you stand in your guild, and if you are the right person for the spots you are trying to get can be painfull, but it is all part of the ebst raiding experience.

For myself, as much as I wanted to be in the top-top guild ever, and be the first in the realm to down heroic Ragnaros I simply don't have the attitude, the time, the gear or the skill a guild like that needs me to have. So I stick to the realistic. Right now Im the second best dk tank in my guild, only after the GM, and for me, that is enough. It also means my guild might not down Ragnaros before he gets nerfed to his boots, but as long as I am having fun....

[leethaxor]

Gear is so freaking overrated.

If a guild considers it self 'a progression guild'. They very quickly look at your gear, then just as quickly look away. A good raiding guild has the approach of "Bring The Player."

[Reev]

If a guild considers it self 'a progression guild'. They very quickly look at your gear, then just as quickly look away. A good raiding guild has the approach of "Bring The Player."

A progression guild will look at your gear primarily to see if you have any idea how your class works. It's rarely about your ilvl as much as it is your choices in gearing, gemming, enchanting, and reforging. If you can show them World of Logs reports with flawless play, high tps, and strong cooldown/debuff usage, along with wise gear/spec choices, that goes a much longer way than having a 380 ilvl.

Basically, if you want to get into a strong raiding guild, KNOW YOUR SHIT, and be prepared to show PROOF of your capabilities.