Become a Raider in WoW

So you want to be a Raider? Not unless you have these...

So you have just hit level 80 (or even 85 once the Cataclysm expansion arrives), and you want to get started in the world of raiding. Well, that’s great news, but before you get stuck in you need to make sure you are properly armed with the right equipment. Most serious raiding guilds will implement a set of rules you must adhere to before you will be allowed to join. One of these rules will include installing all the guild recommended add-ons before you begin raiding. This is to ensure your raiding experience goes smoothly and effectively as many of these add-ons are designed to improve your performance and the raiding experience.

Firstly you should make sure you have the add-on Omen installed. This add-on watches your threat generation and that of your other raid members on the mob you are currently targeting. It provides a series of bars that represent each raid member’s threat including your own as well as a guideline to show you at what point you would become the target of that mob. If you are a tank this means making sure you have plenty of aggro on your mobs. If you are a healer or a DPS this means making sure you stay below the tank on the aggro meter. As a non-tank class, you should always be watching your threat generation and making sure you pop your aggro reducing abilities when you need to in order to avoid pulling aggro from the tank.

Next make sure you have Deadly Boss Mods installed (DBM) before you begin any kind of raid. Deadly boss mods will help you react during raids to dangerous situations alerting you to imminent abilities and other warnings that could kill you and your raid. Deadly boss mods works in a variety of different situations and will tell you things like, when you need to move to avoid damage, when you need to stay away from someone with a particular de-buff on them, when you need to heal through a potentially lethal part of the fight, when a boss will reach a hard enrage or a soft enrage, when a buff or de-buff needs to be dispelled and much more. You can’t watch absolutely everything in the fight at the same time, so DBM will help you to get to grips with the raid mechanics and make sure you don’t end up wiping your raid.

You should also research any class specific add-ons you may need such as Pally Power for Paladin buff assignments, Decursive for easy de-cursing and dispelling during a raid and Healbot for healers who need a helping hand in raids.

An additional add-on you may wish to consider installing that is often not a requirement for raids is known as Recount Damage Meters. This is not a raid requirement but it can be a great help to many classes for a variety of different reasons. For example, Recount can help DPS classes examine their average DPS output as well as provides a break down of what this DPS is comprised of such as how many hits, crits, misses, glancing blows, dodges and parries. It can also show you what abilities other people in your class use when you go on raids or into instances with others. This can help you to not only optimise your own DPS output but also fine tune your skills and examine your weaknesses in more detail. In addition to this, Recount can also help healing classes by showing a breakdown of HPS as well as how much of this is over healing which can have a significant impact on mana for a healer. Other attributes of recount include Interrupt data, dispels, damage taken, deaths, overall raid DPS meter and more. Recount has helped many individuals and raids as whole alike to improve and examine the data collected from the raid in more detail.

Make sure you also install a raid frame or general unit frame add-on such as Pitbull, Xperl or Grid. These add-ons will make your unit frames more customizable and allow you to see all unit frames when in a raid environment. The original WoW interface only shows your current party in a raid making it difficult to keep track of external parties, especially if you are a healer and one of them goes down. With a unit frame add on you can easily see all parties in your raid so you can jump in and help save lives in another party or just keep an eye on how the raid as whole is doing. You can quickly see at a glance who is alive, who is dead, who is AFK, who has low mana and who has aggro as well as much more with a complete unit frame add-on like these. It can also make your unit frames much more compact and tidy giving you more free space on your screen.

If you want to be a raider and have not reached level 80 (or 85 once Cataclysm hits) you are in trouble. Luckily, Joana's Horde Guide will help you Horde players out there reach level 80 as quick as it can be done. And for the Aliance players, Zygor's Guide will level you up faster than you will beleive.