Dragon Factory

Hey everyone welcome to the new year!  I’m excited excited about 2011.  In January I’m hoping we can all start working toward getting started raiding.  We’re going to get some conversations going pretty soon but I thought I would give you a couple of “heads up” items so that you have a starting idea of what we’re looking toward.  According to our Working as a Team achievement we are pretty close to having someone in each of the professions maxed out (we probably have all of them except people haven’t hit honored yet).  Here are some things we should do  to get ready for raiding:

• Figure out your primary spec and get a gearset that is average item level 341 or greater.
  • Gear from normal dungeons is item level 333 so you will need to pick up some heroic gear or buy some JP gear
  • If you’re a crafter you probably have an epic piece or two you can make.  Those will require Chaos Orbs from heroics.
  • Greens are a no-no for raids. Get that stuff upgraded, there are a lot of BoE blues and crafting blues if you can’t get it any other way.
  • Many reputations have access to 359 epic gear.
• Until we get access to Seafood Magnifique Feast (which requires us to do a lot of fishing) you will need to make sure you have access to another food buff.  If you don’t fish/cook then you might want to find someone in the guild who’s happy to do a little extra to cover, or find out what you’re going to need to buy.
• Keep doing dailies and we’ll get a nice little buff that we’ll be able to use while raiding.
• Flasks are going to be important, and until we get cauldrons you’re going to need to need to fend for yourself a lot.
  • I know Outgrabe has a chance to proc extra flasks, and every time someone in the guild makes a flask we get closer to Cauldron of Battle.
• Gems and enchants are going to be important, so develop a rapport with your favorite guild enchanter/jewelcrafter.  (if you’re not familiar with the professions tab I suggest reading this article).
  • Head enchants require revered with one of the new factions, you need to get access to the appropriate faction.
  • Shoulder enchants are the domain of Therazane.  You need at least honored with them (just do the Deepholm quests).  Exalted totally optional (nice, yet small bonus).
• Head over to Tankspot videos or your favorite place for raid videos and start getting familiar with the fights.  We’ll be hitting them all sooner or later, I would really like to not hear that people haven’t at least watched a video when we get to these fights.
• We are almost to Guild Level 9 which gives us 20% less durability loss while raiding.  Keep questing and leveling and doing guild runs.
• Get together with other people who are the same class as you and talk about skills, specs, and rotations a bit.  Either you’ll learn something or you teach something.  Either way we all win.
• Keep an eye on the raiding forum (must be signed in to view).  Post what you know and listen to what you don’t.  Also feel encouraged to post in the Damage Specialists, Healing, and Tankingforums.
• You can go to your activity feed here, and click “Favorite” on this post, then when you want to come back to reference it it will show up in your favorites so that you can easily reference it later.