Wow, Grats on 80! All those long hours grinding quests, instancing, etc, have paid off, and you have reached the top! Naxx here you come!

...Right?

Wrong. Sadly, you still have quite a way to go before Naxx, lol. You need gear!

Take a good look at the picture below.

Stare at it, get used to it, and accept it, because you will be seeing it, A LOT.

Having said that though, the purpose of this post is to help you die/wipe as little as possible. You can do this by following two simple guidelines.

1: Be a good player, and only play with other good players.
2: Know what you can do, and don't bite off more than you can chew.

How to be a good player

Know how to read.
Be willing to read.
Read.
You can't learn everything about how to play ingame. There is a huge amount of information online, and the best players are always the ones who take advantage of it. There is a forum for each class on the official World of Warcraft website. Links below.

And here are a few other useful sites.

elitistjerks
tankspot.com
wow-heroes.com
maxdps.com

How to spot a good player

This is harder. On a pug you really have no idea. You can inspect them to see their gear, if they have almost no greens and a couple purples they are definitely well geared enough to put out good dps in a heroic, but the other 20% is skill, and on that you have no clue!

If you are grouping with guildies, you can just look at their player note to see what they are capable of. We explain the stats and what they mean below.

How to know what you can do:

While you were leveling, all the instances had level ranges they were recommended for. Heroics and raids are similarly easy to difficult. The only difference is, they don't have any simple level ranges posted online! We've divided heroics into two groups below, and given you some stats to aim for in order not to repeatedly die in them. The last two groups are stats to aim for to be prepared for entry level and more difficult raiding.

I'd like to note, that yes, it is possible to do the heroics listed below with stats far below the ones listed below. But then the others in the group would be carrying you. These stats apply to similar geared people, all with average skill capabilities in the game - these are what you aim for if you want to actually pull your weight in a run. These are the stats to aim for if you want to get in on guild runs as well - we expect all of you to pull your weight in guild heroic runs.

DPS: If heroics aren't really working for you, you can totally skip over the first two stages by hitting up the battlegrounds. Full PvP gear puts out similar DPS to what you get from heroics for dps, and no repair bills!

There is also purple player crafted gear for every class. Click here for a full list. Be aware that runed orbs drop in Ulduar and cost about 1k gold a pop if you are lucky. The rest of the mats for this gear can be obtained through our Guild Points System. At level 80, farming the materials for player crafted gear or farming cash to buy it can sometimes be quicker than daily doing a heroic with a 20% drop rate on the gear you need.

More on Stats:

We rank based on what you are capable of. So we need all of you to keep your player note updated with your current stats. This makes it easy for our officers, they can just go down the list of guildies to see who deserves a rank.

DPS:
Download Recount. At level 80, you really can't live without it. I even have it and use it as a healer - in raids I want to know how my heals are comparing to the other healers in the group, and if I'm being blamed for wipes in a low level heroic, I like to be able to check the dps of the people with me - if I see 500 to 600 then I know it isn't me! lol...

To find out what your dps is, hit the arrow until you see the screen below. Do a heroic, and watch the number. Sometimes it can pop up really high due to a fluke or just a fight that happens to be super suited to your class. We want more your average than fluke dps obviously.

In the example above Maddux's player note would look like this:
2.5K DPS - Fire

And Borag's player note would look like this:
2K DPS - Arms

Healers:
Your spellpower is listed on your Character Screen in Wow (C) under bonus damage/bonus healing. Self buffed only please, without potions, flasks, or elixirs.

In the example above Aurinna's (my) player note would look like this:
1945 SP - Holy

Tanks:
Hit Points, or Health bar - look at the green bar when you are only self buffed. That number is your HP. Your defense is found on your Character Screen (C). 540 is def capped - and means you cannot be critted for extra damage.

In the example above Aurielle's player note would look like this:
21K HP, 506 DEF - Prot

Please be sure to keep your player note updated with your main spec and stats - it's how you get ranked in this guild! Put the nitty gritty numbers first so that officers can more easily see to rank you. You can put your offspec after your mainspec if you have room. And for heavens sake don't lie about it, we will know, we will take action about it, and it won't be pretty. *evil grin*

Well that's about all you need to know! If you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask, also there are a few helpful things posted in our own Raiding Forum.

Requirements to join the Raiding Guild:

You must be level 80, and want to raid! (duh!)
You must have the guild2guild addon. You must have read the page above, as well as the ranking info for the raiding guild.
You must have ventrilo - a free voice chat program. You don't have to have a mic, but you do need to be on vent to listen.