Wipe Insurance: Am I Prepared?

Welcome to the first edition of Wipe Insurance, Waranvil.com’s new raiding column. This will be posted every monday, so make sure you come back every week for new strategies, tips and tricks! This week we are going to discuss when you are ready to raid. So you’ve just dinged 80 and all you’ve heard about since level 5 is endgame raiding – many people will tell you its where the real game is, you level up and may even do some raids at your level along the way. But entering the current endgame raiding is different. Theres tiers, caps, stat weights, enrage timers, gearscore, jerks, death knights in full tier 9 doing 2k dps (Theres a lot of them…), casual, hardcore, no-lifers, hard modes…its enough to make your head spin.

What should you run?

The number one thing I can recommend to people who want to start raiding is to know your limits.
The way blizzard tunes instances (Gearwise anyway) is so that it is just hard enough for people wearing gear from the last tier of content (and assuming a reasonable amount of skill). The problem with this is…people want the newest gear and freshly dinged 80′s want to run ICC. If you get into that ICC 10 group in your Naxx 10 or Uld 10 gear, there is a very (very) good chance you will not be up to the minimum requirements for that instance. This, boys and girls, is a carried player. Being carried will not get you invited back to runs, and it will most likely put you on a few players ignore lists, hurting your future raiding attempts – even after  you have the gear to pull your weight. Stay in your bracket and get gear, it doesn’t take long to move up the ladder.

Disclaimer: The badge leap

When WotLK first came out, there were 2 badge types you could get: Heroism and Valor. You got heroism from running heroics, and the 10 man tier 7 raids. The gear you got from badges was on par with running the raid content. These days, you can get a full set of tier 9, and its 25 man counterparts (245 gear) just from chain-running heroics. Thats great, its a great way to gear up -  but I still suggest doing the tier 7/tier 8 raids before jumping straight into ToC or ICC, they give excellent experience in your class and in raiding techniques. Below are the raid tiers and a dps mark of where you should be to do them. These are numbers are based on the way the encountered are tuned and failure to meet them may lead to your raid having difficulty. Think of it this way – if you dont meet the minimum, everyone else in the raid has to work harder to make sure it succeeds.

Tier 7

• Tier 7 is the entry level raiding tier in wrath – as such, the gear requirements are lax and you can pretty much jump into these raids with heroic gear.
• This tier comprises of Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum and The Eye of Eternity. To run tier 7, you can pretty much be a fresh 80. A few heroic drops, some level 200 craftables – your good to go. The main purpose for these raids is to wet your feet in raiding, give you a taste of its glory. By the time you have completed these raids and gotten a few pieces – you will be ready for the 25 man version of tier 7 and the 10 man Tier 8 stuff.
  • Fasttrack: The ToC 5 man dungeon will drop Naxx 10 level gear in normal mode and Ulduar 10 in normal. The ICC 5 man dungeons also drop Ulduar 10 level gear on normal. These are a great way to get gear without raiding the tier 7 stuff.
  • DPS Mark: 1.5-2.5k

Tier 8

• Tier 8 is comprised of the Ulduar raid, which is an amazingly well done raid that most players these days will never do. The prerequisites for this tier are gear from Tier 7 or higher.
  • Fasttrack: The ICC 5 man dungeons drop ToC 10 level gear on heroic. If you are in mostly Tier 7 or ToC 5H/ICC 5N gear these heroics are manageable and an excellent way to gear up.
  • DPS Mark: 2.5-3.5k

Tier 9

• Tier 9 is comprised of Trial of the Champion , which gets a real bad rep, and Onyxia’s Lair 2.0 (Which is easy if you understand the basics of movement) . Once you have farmed tier 8 or heroics, this will probably be where most of your upgrades are. As I said before, I highly suggest you do the previous tier raids before this. There is not a whole lot of room for error in these fights – you need to know how to play your class, what your utility is and how not to stand in the fire/slime/cloud.
  • DPS Mark: 3.5-5.5k

Tier 10

• Tier 10 is the final tier of raiding in Wrath, and is comprised of Icecrown Citadel and the soon to be released Ruby Sanctum.|
  Icecrown Citadel is the culmination of all that  you have done in wrath, and the fights are great – but some of them come with serious gear and skill checks.
  • DPS Mark: 5.5k-7.5k

With the badge changes in this expansion, it will be easy to get geared in a matter of time, but until you meet the gear requirements – try to resist the urge to go into runs you are not ready for. Now, I am a firm believer that skill heavily outweighs gear, and that a 200 piece can be better itemized than a 219, it happens. This brings me to my next point.

Know your class.

I know you know your class, but do you really know your class? Do you know what buffs you bring to the table? Is your spec giving you the best tools you need to do your job? Are you stacking stats that give you more of what you need to do your job?

Ok, I’m probably going to catch some flack for the numbers above, but if you are in a gear setup that the instance is tuned for (see above), you should not have problems meeting these numbers. If you are in all ToC 10 and 25 gear and can just barely hit 3k, ask yourself – “Do I really know my class?”. Blizzard tunes the enrage timers and add health around what they expect (from lots of data gathering) players wearing a certain gear setup to put out.

If you happen to be a tank, here are some numbers that are good checkpoints to START tanking a specific raid.Keep in mind these numbers are unbuffed. As you can see, health requirements scale up significantly, this is due to bosses progressively hitting harder as you go up in tier.

Minium Tank Requirements per instance: (ALWAYS at least 540 defense.)

• Heroics/Naxx 10: 20-23k health, 20-30% avoidance, 20-23k armor.
• Naxx 25/Ulduar 10: 23-25k health,30-40% avoidance, 22-25k armor.
• Ulduar 25/ToC 10: 27-29k health, 40-50% avoidance, 25-27k armor.
• ToC 25: 33-35k health, 45-50% avoidance, 27-28k armor.
• ICC 10: 35-38k health, 45-55% avoidance, 29-30k armor.
• ICC 25: 39-44k health, 50%+ Avoidance, 30k+ armor. (The icecrown numbers reflect the current 20% buff).

Be prepared.

There are mountains of information out there regarding raids, bosses and abilities. Videos, if you like to watch – text guides otherwise! Its all out there, It will even be here in this column. Theres no excuse for going into a run dry – if you have at least a passing familiarity of what the encounter is like, it will go a little smoother when you attempt it. Also, if this is content that is challenging for you (or geared towards you) be prepared with consumables. Bring your own flasks, pots, elixirs and food. Most groups will provide fish feasts, but is that the best food buff you can get? Always try to do your best.

Ok,I’m Ready! I got my flasks, know my class, and studied the encounters!

Great! Come back next week when we discuss the art of being a good pug, and until then happy raiding!