I’ve got a few friends in-game who like to come to me with their questions and confusions within the game.

I quite enjoy talking to them and answering their questions, because usually they’re smart questions and the next time they come to me with questions, I can tell they’ve done something with what we talked about before, and moved ahead a bit in their gaming, each time.

Some of these folks have recently reached level 70 with their first toon after dilly-dallying around on previous characters to the mid-40’s on other realms, and now they’re getting into raiding.

Getting Into Raiding Now Is Not Like Getting Into Raiding Will Be

I do realize that Blizzard has tried to tune the entry-level raiding instances down from what Karazhan was in Burning Crusade when it was first released, to make the low-level raiding environment friendlier to entry-level folk, but I still believe very strongly that some people are in for a rude awakening if they’re raiding now and hope to raid (successfully and reliably) once they’ve quickly leveled to 80.

And I do realize that during this “high time of raiding” that exists 3 months before a new xpac is released is a lot of fun and entry-level raids are easy to get into and for some, initially in places like Karazhan, purples flow like water in these easy-to-find PUG groups.

Places that used to have mass competition for raid spots and gear drops are looking more like regular dungeons in terms of the number of groups of complete strangers forming together to tackle the content…

But this is not how it will be when raiding resumes as players and guilds reach level 80 and begin the process of gearing, gemming and enchanting themselves in order to hope to stand out well enough to beat the other competition to the raid spots.

SSC/TK PUGs Still Gear Check

Some of these 70s who have entered the raiding scene recently and have run through near-flawless Karazhans, Gruul’s Lairs and Magtheridon’s Lairs now turn their attention to the next tier of raiding – why not? It seemed rather easy last time, right?

Except, now the PUG groups are doing Gear Checks. Where for Karazhan, Gruul’s and Magtheridon’s very often a dungeon leveler with 64+ dungeon blues can be accepted into the group and not adversely affect the success of the raid, the coordination required to down 25-man bosses gets increasingly complex the higher you go. Competent Raid Leaders are going to want to bring players who are experienced and geared for the instance, and are going to be highly wary of anyone who looks like they should be spending more time on their gear.

Gemming And Enchanting Still Important

While not a hard-and-fast rule, it’s still agreed upon that an experienced Raider will take the time and money required to fully gem and enchant their gear as they receive upgrades in dungeons.

Some raiders may not use consumables like buff foods and weapon oils and elixirs/flasks these days, but quite a few of us still do take that “extra step” to make ourselves mathematically more able to crank out what needs to be cranked out for a successful run.

They Can Tell If You’ve Put Effort Into Your Gear

… and conversely, they can see plainly when you HAVEN’T.

Even if you have nearly all epic gear, if you’ve got empty gem slots or green-quality gems, or you’re missing key enchants like your Head and Shoulder Glyphs, then you haven’t put much effort into your gear.

If you’re not wearing at least a few Badge Gear rewards, then you haven’t put much effort into your gear.

If none of your gems are Epic (purchased with 15 Heroics badges as one of the ways), then you haven’t put much effort into your gear.

And yes, I know the xpac is under a week away from release, when all of our gear standards will change, and what was uber today will be replaced on the way to 80. But we’re still talking about raiding before the xpac is released, and unless you get into a guild raid, the standards of the PUG Raid Leader may be stiffer than you’d hoped.

It’s fine, these days, to head into the entry-level raid instances – that is, Karazhan, Gruul’s and Magtheridon’s – without putting much effort into your gear.

And if you get into guild runs, you’ll find those rules to be more lax these days as well.

But once your goals are set higher than these few instances, you really need a site like Be Imba! or WoW Heroes to help you tune-up your gear in order to be accepted into those PUG groups and not removed very quickly once someone ELSE has looked you up there.

And THAT is why you’re being told you’re undergeared, even though Karazhan, Gruul’s and Mags seemed like a breeze to you.

How To Determine For Yourself

Ask yourself this: If everyone were geared and experienced with the fights similarly to you, would the run be successful, or would it be a miserable failure?