"I really think Blizzard needs to give their raid dungeon finder the same functionality as the 5-man dungeon finder, so we can get raids together without some overdemanding PuG raid leader kicking us out."

It's not like Blizzard aren't aware of it, or don't want to do it. They've already said that the reason there is no equivalent to the LFD tool for raids is a technical problem (raid lockouts, etc.). I'm sure they'll get around to it sometime, although it probably won't be before Cataclysm since there aren't any more major patches planned before its launch.
 

Have you tried pulling the "done it on my main, know the fight, just don't have the achievement on this alt" line.

Does it help?
 

Tobold, try leading a PUG to Trial of the Crusader, and then see what you think and whether you'd like to check that people are geared and know the instance before you invite them.
 

It's that mentality of a 12 year old that worries me about WoW. I had to try WoW four times until I started liking it, and I like it mostly because of the dungeon finder (I love dungeons!).

I hope that by the time I'm geared for raids (let's say in 2014), there is a comparable tool for raids, because I don't have the energy to have an illogical discussion with a 12 year old after coming home from work, I want to hit a button and be playing something fun, which is what the dungeon finder can do.

EverQuest was tough in that regard too, but usually raid leaders kept you out of their raids because they knew your character couldn't survive them, not because you hadn't done them before :P
 

It's supply and demand. Probably tanks are oversupplied while raids are undersupplied. So a raid leader can raise requirement's bar.
 

Players who don't invite players - especially tanks - with no experience in a raid dungeon act 100% rational.

Random Raids are hard enough - especially if there isn't somebody who wants to be responsible and tell the people where to go and what to do.

To have a tank in front of you who has no clue about what to do next, but has to be told what to pull next and how to do it is just terrible. Be prepared for 50% of the people with not raid experience not having TS and you need to write everything into the chat!!

Raids are not 100% trivial (like dungeons with nowadays equip). Especially Malygos can hardly be outgeared. The people need to know what to do. Then it isn't hard. But have fun trying to get 10 people together who don't know Malygos and then trying to outgear him.

Have fun trying any raid dungeon - even Naxx with 10 players who have no experience at all. Gears isn't everything.

If you want to get raiding you need to socialize. You need people to start to trust you and your abilities. This is an MMO - remember? The other players aren't just player controlled NPCs. They are humans.

Alternatively:
Start the raid yourself. start inviting people. Everyboy - no matter wether he knows the instance. Then, please, write about your experience on this blog.
 

If they ever introduce something like a LFR I will not use it. There is a difference between a dungeon-lockout for one day (where nobody needs anything except achievements) and a raid-lockout for one week just because some idiot (not meaning you Tobold, obviously) wiped the raid.

On 5 80s it happened to often to me, so I'm with those "raidleaders" in weekly-PuGs that require an achievement-link and gear/talent/enchant-inspection in dalaran center.

If you have any friends on your server you will have a chance to find a group to get that achievement. I have another 4 80s coming and I have no doubt that they will be in ICC10 2-3 weeks after they dinged.
 

Tobold, try leading a PUG to Trial of the Crusader, and then see what you think and whether you'd like to check that people are geared and know the instance before you invite them.

@spinks: I think you missed the preceding part of the discussion where *I* said I would like to try organizing a Naxxramas raid, and my readers said that with my gear I should be doing ICC / ToC.

The answer to "I have never been to raid dungeon X, what should I do to get an invite?" can certainly not be "organize a raid there yourself", because at least the raid leader should know the dungeon well. The only raid dungeon I know well is Naxxramas. So are you suggesting I never go anywhere else?
 

Underachiever addon is your friend (It lets you link fake achievements)
 

There is a difference between a dungeon-lockout for one day (where nobody needs anything except achievements) and a raid-lockout for one week just because some idiot (not meaning you Tobold, obviously) wiped the raid.

I think the lockouts need to be part of the solution. The random heroic from the Dungeon Finder does *not* lock you out, and neither should the "random raid finder".

I would argue that for some raid dungeons the lockout is obsolete anyway. Why does Naxxramas need to have a mechanism to prevent people from "farming it for epics", when everybody is already busy farming all those other places for epics that don't have a lockout, like random heroics, or normal Icecrown 5-man dungeons.
 

This also works in reverse, I recently answered a raider on trade that asked specifically non-boomkin dps to link their achievements. I liked him tribute to insanity, and when he asked me what class I was I said boomkin.

After he calmed down from being upset of me bein boomkin, he did accept me into the raid - a classic fail pug with RankWatch flaring almost on every second spell of everyone and wipefest all around.

We didn't even pass Gormok. It is just sad really, some people who get boosted and get achievements (or use underachiever) can get into raids they have no place in.
 

Sorry, for pugs making a tank your first raiding character is rough and not recommended.

There is a lot on the tank, you basically lead. The maly pull is annoying and the tank can really mess this fight up on phase one.

It's actually a lot less about gear for maly and more about experience. Especially the final phase.
 

Just two days ago the weekly raidquest was ignus.
We went here with a 25 men raid full of people pretty much outgearing Ulduar.

What followed was two horrible wipes from obviously people who hadn't got a clue what was going on and an offtank who didn't know what to do with the adds. Even though he said he did.

Also people in gear averaging about ilevel 245 doing less then 3k dps on basically what is a tank and spank. DPS below the tank on a fight where there is no targetswitching nor movement is unacceptible.

On the third try I took over the lead and used a lot of raidwarnings telling very simple what to do: "stack under the boss ass and dps/heal".

Bam, kill nobody died cheers for me.

But for me, I don't like to command like that. I hate it when people go into a fight unprepared. The bad thing about the "new" players that I often see is that not only do they have less skill and less gear: also they do less effort: hardly ever do I see flasks or buff-food.

Yes Tobold, your gear might be ToC 10 ready. But do you really want to burden a random person with being your personal trainer who teaches you?
 

I've actually found healing to be a great way to learn new raids. Compared to tanking, it's much easier to learn the fights on the fly, for three reasons. First, the difference between knowing the fight and not knowing the fight is smaller as a healer--even if you don't know what's going to happen, you can keep HoTs on the tank and heal the DPS reactively. Second, there's more shared responsibility with the other healers, which means that your mistakes won't be catastrophic. Third, you get a much more comprehensive view of the fight than you would as a tank.

Anyway, I've had good luck getting into PuGs as a healer without the "required" achievement. Skim the Wowwiki article, ask other healers for tips, and otherwise wing it. Even if we aren't successful, I learn enough about the fights to be more useful/confident when I return.

IIRC, you've got a healer as well, so maybe you could try out some of the new raids using that other character. Then you can use Carson's line as a tank.
 

fights like Malygos or ToC require certain tank maneuvers of varying difficulty. It's totally different from a 5-man where most encounters are tanked by 1) AoE Ability 2) ???? 3) Profit

It's not that the PuG leader thinks you're bad, it's that the raid group doesn't want to take the time to teach the encounter to you.

Fortunately there's this invention called guilds...
 

When they make LFG work for raids, I might reactivate my account. But they'd have to abandon instance saving to do that, and then people could farm raids, and then they'd "finish the game" so fast that Blizzard might lose its customers.

That's one scenario, at least. Maybe they're just too unwilling to recode the system.
 

"Why does Naxxramas need to have a mechanism to prevent people from "farming it for epics""

Because even "old" raids do have elusive drops and Blizzard would degrade their value if everybody could farm a raid-instance. Think about everybody running around with a thunderfury, flying around on a phoenix or having the title "the Undying". I know my healers would love to farm naxx25 for the healer-trinkets. It's all part of "how-do-I-keep-my-customers-busy-and-paying".
 

I think you missed the preceding part of the discussion where *I* said I would like to try organizing a Naxxramas raid, and my readers said that with my gear I should be doing ICC / ToC.


And they were right about the gear.
But if there is no willing raidleader who trusts in your abilities you cannot run ICC/ToC.

There's no contradiction here.
 

On the third try I took over the lead and used a lot of raidwarnings telling very simple what to do: "stack under the boss ass and dps/heal".

Bam, kill nobody died cheers for me.

But for me, I don't like to command like that.

On a pug the raidleader has an immense influence. I, too, have seen raids that's failed miserably transformed into flawless just because somebody took over the lead.

I, myself, I don't like to lead that much. It is a lot of work. I usually don't do it. But during holidays I do it quite often and it almost always pays off.

The worst thing that can happen to a pug is a bad raid leader or even nobody who wants to carry the burden of responsibility. I usually leave these raids after the first wipe, unless I feel like I want to lead myself.
 

I always found it to be ridiculous to ask for the "I've done this instance" achievement. Or only accepting people who are overgeared for the instance.

Why would people who are overgeared for the instance or who have run it twenty times still be interested?
 

This all comes down to people being, frankly, too lazy or bad at communication to explain tactics for bosses.

It's perfectly possible to run a ToC PUG without requiring people to know it before - I've done it a bunch of times. It's also possible to wipe a bunch of times with people who theoretically do know the instance - indeed, Twin Valks 25 virtually assures this with any PUG going in with a "u kno tacs k" attitude.

But an awful lot of people seem to find explaining what are, frankly, not exactly rocket science tactics deeply unpleasant. For these people, "link achiev" means they can assume that people don't need their raid leader to actually, you know, lead. Of course, they then wipe a lot because everyone knows slightly different variants of the tactics and no-one's communicated which one they're using (remember Thaddius?), but that's OK, because it's not the raid leader's fault then, because everyone knew the tactics, right?



A friend of mine wrote an excellent piece on this over at http://www.worldofmatticus.com/2009/11/20/a-pugs-doom-knell-link-achiev-or-no-inv/
 

I am not spinks, but I agree with him and would have put it exactly as he did. Thus, I will reply to your comments, Tobold, since they could have been easily aimed my way:

"I think you missed the preceding part of the discussion where *I* said I would like to try organizing a Naxxramas raid, and my readers said that with my gear I should be doing ICC / ToC."

Start forming a group for ICC / ToC then.

"The answer to "I have never been to raid dungeon X, what should I do to get an invite?" can certainly not be "organize a raid there yourself", because at least the raid leader should know the dungeon well. The only raid dungeon I know well is Naxxramas. So are you suggesting I never go anywhere else?"

No. Your options are:

* persuade a raid leader that you know the fights, possibly citing your main,
* find a guild that does 10 mans and get an achievement with them,
* go with a desperate PUG on the last day before the reset,
* start a raid by yourself.

There might be other options as well.

A raid leader of a PUG is in no position to know that you won't be that dumbass who'd keep wiping the raid on trivial things. He is simply trying to assure the success of his raid, the success which is anything but guaranteed with a PUG. You can't blame him for doing that. He's absolutely reasonable, too, in that he doesn't ask for something exorbitant, just some proof that you have completed the raid you are queueing for. He did call you a "noob", which is something I wouldn't do, but other than that his actions are completely justified.
 

Even having enough faceroll dps isn't enough, you'll still have idiots failing on the drakes in phase 3.
 

Wow. Some interesting responses.

Asking a player to link the achievement is lazy, bad leadership and unsocial.

Why?

Lazy. The more randoms you have, the more chance that they know slightly different tactics. If you take time to explain how you want everyone to work as one unit, you have less chance that your raid will wipe due to multiple sets of tactics being used.

Not only that, if you take time to explain what you want, you'll teach the new guy. The new guy will then be able to go on and provide expertise and whatever-his-role-is to the server in the future. He may also become a resource for your future runs, as the more time you invest in him now the better he'll become and the more loyal he'll be as a sign of gratitude.

Also - honestly? Learn the fight before you go to it? Yes, you can read and watch videos. But most players won't really *get* X fight until they've tried it.

Bad leadership. Why? Sure, you want people who have done the run before. But things don't happen the same way twice. Don't assume that Joe will perform the same as when he completed the instance. Maybe your group doesn't gel like his last one did. Maybe he's sick as a dog today. Maybe he got that achievement using a different spec.

Unsocial. Why? What on earth is wrong with communicating, or just plain talking, to people? Doesn't the community side of WoW mean anything, or is it really about the quickest and easiest route to epics and badges these days?

Tobold: Keep it up. I hope you find raids willing to take you in the near future, and that they're fun places to be.
 

Terrtran - it's perfectly possible to successfully lead a raid on an instance you've never done before, provided you can read fast (or read up beforehand) and communicate reasonably well. I don't think Tobold's going to have a problem with either of those things.

(Again, it's something I've done multiple times, starting with ZG back on vanilla content. )
 

Oh and for reference on my comment, My guild make a point of PUGging and I *do* lead them. I fully explain tactics. Said runs have a high success rate and tend to have people inquiring about future runs.
 

@Carra "Why would people who are overgeared for the instance or who have run it twenty times still be interested?"

5. Emblems. of. Frost.

The weekely awards 5 Emblems of Frost which all us need hundreds of for T10 gear. It's the only reason you see overgeared people in a weekly raid or even a daily heroic. We just want the Emblems of Frost to get gear to better prepare us for the fun stuff of ICC, which has been a blast so far.
 

Malygos is a huge fail from a PUG perspective. It took me 3 groups and probably around 10 tries to down him. No one knows what to do in phase three and there isn't time for everyone to read their drake abilities. Making it even worse is the fact that after a wipe one or two people leave, and the next people in also don't know the fight. I'd recommend an achievement for Malygos, and I'm pretty against achievements. I would settle if someone could atleast explain what buttons they will hit in phase 3..."1112" or whstever.
 

I think I saw a post on the main WoW forums by someone saying that, instead of asking for the achievement, he would ask people for a random bit of tactic from one of the bosses. I suspect he got an awful lot of nasty whispers, and probably not a little linking of achievements, but more power to him for using a better metric to find his group.
 

It's a double edged sword. Raiding requires more coordination than a random dungeon, so I understand somebody not wanting to take a new tank into his first raid. (Although I don't condone name calling and immature behavior).

On the other side, don't many of us experience this in real life with a job interview.

"Sir, I know that I have never done this exact job before, but just give me the chance to proove myself, you won't regret your decision."

If you haven't been there then you probably never had a job interview or had everything handed to you. Ultimately I am comfortable with the raid leader making the decision on who to bring and what criteria to use, but at least these 12 year olds can learn some manners before rejecting.

Tobold, like others have said, go start your own and get your own experience.
 

Some interesting responses here. I think it needs to be said that Tobold has experience in raids, just not in tanking them.

It's facinating that a number or responses boil down to "get your guild to train you to tank a raid because I will never take you on a PUG raid without the achievement on your tank". How many of you are in a guild that will do that?

But to the more general point: You have a guy who's done all of the raids multiple times as dps or a healer. He's done his time in heroics to learn how to tank. What in particular is going to be different about being the MT for a raid that would make him useless? He already knows about any "don't stand in the fire" attacks from his dps character and DBM along with a quick strat read should let him know when to use his cooldowns. What's the problem?

(Being offtank I could see issues with: that's not a role you get to practice in a heroic)
 

It's one thing to PUG a DPS that doesn't know the fights, but tanks are important. I don't blame that guy one bit. I would never, ever PUG a tank to a raid that had never done it before. Learn the fights with someone else's repair bills.

Tanking on Malygos is important too. You need to reposition him so the sparks can be killed in the center before the boss absorbs them.
 

As others said, a raid is very much different to a 5-man group. The encounters are simply designed to be unique, each with their own little twist that requires learning and executing, whereas in a 5-man gear overwhelms all other factors.

ToC is not a hard raid, it's actually quite easy. However if you don't have experience, any experience at all in it, I would not invite you as my tank either Tobold. No offense, but you HAVE to know what's going on with the different encounters, what to expect, where to position yourself, when to taunt and so on.

There is a huge difference between:

"PuGRaidleader replies: Link achievement
Tobold: But I've never been there!"

and

"PuGRaidleader replies: Link achievement
Tobold: I don't have the achievement on this character, but I've been there on my priest main lots of times and know all the fights, and my gear is quite good for the instance."

I would argue the second approach would yield a lot more positive responses.

Tanking is by far the most important aspect of raiding, their working knowledge (and execution) of the encounter makes or breaks the fight. A healer or a DPS can coast by virtue of their gear alone, eventually with a few basic pointers (dont stand in fire!), but a tank cannot expect to do so. This is compensated by the fact that tanks are by far the most in demand class.
 

I'm surprised that no-one offered up what to me is a clear way to get around this particular problem:

Join a ToC 10-man as a DPS (and presumably complete the instance). Then whenever anyone asks you to link the achievement you'll have it. No-one will know what role you played.

I think you'll have better luck persuading a raid leader to accept you without the achievement as a DPS than as a tank. If I were looking to start running ToC I'd want to see the the instance a few times before I felt comfortable tanking it.

You do have dual-spec right?
 

I do have one question. Do you believe that you could tank the raid with out any wipes.

The reason I ask is because if you feel you can that most guilds would be happy to bring you on a off tank if you can prove yourself in a pug.

Now if you are unsure then I think its your responsibilty to step down and say "hmm maybe I should prove myself to a guild first then sign up as a off tank for a guild run".
 

I'm an altaholic with lvl 80's - tank, heal, dps.

I'm also progressing slowly through raids on my tank. I don't progress out of order. I don't DPS on my tank. To all the pugs out there - I remember.

I will link that I have finished the previous step, and state that I did it as a tank. If you don't like it - I will remember, and will refuse to run with you. If you do like it - I will also remember - and by preference give you invite you next time.
 

so we can get raids together without some overdemanding PuG raid leader kicking us out.

I used to say the same thing about normal grouping and people nay sayed it and said it had to go the way it was. So since that wasn't the way it had to be and changed, you'll probably get what you want as well! :) Sadly it'll be a matter of time, but I'm sure it'll come.
 

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/allenes-fake-achievements.aspx

number 1 reason linking achievements is dumb.

On the other hand just use that and away you go.
 

I think I know what you mean

You got to level 80, ran heroics and got good tanking gear. Then you want to raid.

You got the gear, knowledge (reading) and just need to run the raid...

The raid leader ask for achievement. You don't have one. How to get one. Do the raid.. Ok lets do the raid... LINK ACHIEVEMENT... Just like running in circles.

WoW snatched the achievement idea from Warhammer. However in Warhammer the achievement is for yourself only, and their achievement system looks way much better than WoW. Now when WoW had the achievement system people started abusing it.

I remember when they introduced leve 80 Onyxia one fool was spamming in trade looking for more people to do Onyxia and asking for achievement on the very same day the instance launched. First of all most people didn't get the achievement yet, and even when they got the achievement they have to wait for the raid rest!!!