Lowest ilvl for Normal Raids

[Pickwickman]

No guild yet, unfortunately. I didn't think there would be any guilds would take an undergeared dps with no cloak, no meta and no raid experience. That's why I figured if I could at least get geared I'd have something going for me.

edit: @kelnoctis: yeah I figured probably the biggest increase besides getting trinkets would be a weapon, so i'll pick up the conquest one this weekend, and maybe fill in the lfr gaps to boost my ilvl a little more. I'd try for that timeless trinket but coins are hard :s

Openraid and Oqueue are a godsend for lesser geared people. Make a group asking for your Ilvl range and see the people flock onto you.

I've had superb groups that way, who were "undergeared" but still managed 11-13/14.

Edit: Yes, conquest gear is the bees knees this patch. I've used it to gear up my hunter and shaman till around 540 including some lucky drops from ordos/celestials. If you have a supply of gold you could buy carries; it's 150g a win on my server, which means it's like 2k per gearpiece.

From there you can easily get into a flex/normal mode group.

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Agreed 100%. Normal Siege is tuned for Normal ToT gear. So anywhere after 520 is fine for the first couple bosses at least.

520 to kill Immerseous and maybe protectors.
545 to Down Normal Garrosh with a competent group.

And before anyone calls bull and says you need 560+ for Normal Garrosh, I got to Phase 3 with pug where we averaged 545 item level. It was tough getting there after Nazgrim, but we stuck with it and made it there. 560+ you can progress through heroic Siege fine, but may need more for the later bosses.

IIRC Blizz themselves stated around 530 for first 4 and after that it ramps up till it is 550 for Garrosh.

[Illana]

you can quite easily hit 550 without ever setting foot in normals.

Legendary cloak
556 flex gear
crafted 569 gear
warforged drops from ordos goes up to 575.

[Wilderness]

you can quite easily hit 550 without ever setting foot in normals.

Legendary cloak
556 flex gear
crafted 569 gear
warforged drops from ordos goes up to 575.

I wouldn't say that's "easily" - or rather, that's going to take someone who just started gearing up a LONG time to do. You've got several weeks before the cloak, which means you can't do Ordos until then. Of course you can run Flex weekly and get the crafted gear, but being able to upgrade all of those items is many weeks of VP as well. The fastest way to gear up would be to do LFR/Flex/Celestials each week, and work on Conquest gear. I'd prioritize Conquest over LFR, but its likely that you'll want every shot at weapons/trinkets that you can. While doing that, if you start getting to 530ish, I'd try to join groups on oqueue and openraid although it will not be easy to find groups and you'll probably have to start them yourself.

[Templis]

I can tell you you need at least 565 Ilvl to get into OQueue groups. sometimes 570.

My 562 rogue cleared SoO last week for the first time through oQueue pugging (several of them). It took several attempts at Garrosh with different pugs, but the pug I killed him with asked for 555.

I've seen fresh n SoO pugs start at around 545 in oQueue.

[TrollShaman]

Imo, gear only plays half the skill to success in collecting phat lewts in raids. Personal skill in class mastery and raid awareness is the other half, or hell even slightly more than that. The first problem is that leaders judge ilvls first, in which they may automatically assume 'oh obviously a 545 will do more dps than a 536'

Conquest gear is fine, though because from my experience despite the big ilvl it gives, leaders will shun people immediately with at least half conq gear.

What i'd do if I was OP is at least grind for the cape OR fish for a forgiving ilvl requirement in Openraid/Oqueue. cloak gives a massive ilvl boost even if the unlocked ordos loot has the crappiest rng. Maybe patch the lowest ilvl item with a prideful gear or two as well.

[Alroxas]

That's the real question: How skilled is player X. And since there are no real good metrics to use in-game, raid leaders go by iLv first. It's not a very good system because a really skilled player can do more with gear that is 20+ ilv lower than someone who is average in skill but got lucky in drops from previous runs.

This then raises the good question for the best system of loot distribution in an established group. But that's a topic for a different thread.

[Hildrande]

you can quite easily hit 550 without ever setting foot in normals.
556 flex gear
crafted 569 gear
warforged drops from ordos goes up to 575.

Going to take a long time though.

But yes, and this is why the facerollers are invading normal runs nowadays.

[Illana]

On a counter point I recently healed garrosh on a 545 shaman with a 570 disc and I was only 10k hps behind him

[Bisso]

Openraid.us. Go there, start a group yourself or join the Fresh SoO. They rarely ask for more than 530 ilvl. Sometimes they don't even ask for a minimum. If they ask for 540, just say you are 540. 4 item levels won't change a thing, and if you find yourself in a situation that you are always a few item levels short of most requirements, just go upgrade your best Flex gear 4/4 to get those extra points. I personally "lied" on some Garrosh kills that were asking for 565 ilvl for garrosh normal kills, while I was 555 or so. Truth is, if you pull the dps, they won't care if you didn't meet the requirement. Just crossfingers they aren't looking you up before starting.

[Wilderness]

Openraid.us. Go there, start a group yourself or join the Fresh SoO. They rarely ask for more than 530 ilvl. Sometimes they don't even ask for a minimum. If they ask for 540, just say you are 540. 4 item levels won't change a thing, and if you find yourself in a situation that you are always a few item levels short of most requirements, just go upgrade your best Flex gear 4/4 to get those extra points. I personally "lied" on some Garrosh kills that were asking for 565 ilvl for garrosh normal kills, while I was 555 or so. Truth is, if you pull the dps, they won't care if you didn't meet the requirement. Just crossfingers they aren't looking you up before starting.

Since you have to link your character to Openraid, I don't think it lets you sign up for a raid that you don't have the ilvl for. But still, finding raids with 530/535+ shouldn't be too hard, and you can always make your own as well like you mentioned.

[krihan]

i had an guild that had an 520 ilvl req for flex, but out of nowhere people started to leave and we where left with only few flex ready members. i still dont have the legendary cloak, so getting into pugs are nearly impossible for me because most of them have a stupid high ilvl req and legendary cloak req, so its way out of reach for me. kinda sucks that i decided to jump back into wow this late into mop, and i feel like i am stuck . all i can do is lfr at the moment, and considering wod might only be 5-6 months away from release, i dont have the time to get geared up at all .

[Bigbazz]

Based on trade chat you need ilvl 580 to kill Flex Garrosh, Blizzard intended you to begin SOO Normal at 522 and have a pretty rough, but eventually successful time, getting somewhat closer to 550 in order to beat Garrosh. So if you went in with full Heroic TOT gear you would probably be killing Garrosh in the first week (which is what my guild did.. I had no part in that though).

I was doing flex and clearing it with ease with my guilds alt run when I came back to WoW sitting on around 505 ilvl average, clearing each new wing of flex as it released, before I was even done on flex gearing or my Legendary cloak quest I was being asked to join my guild on Heroic Progression. If you're a good player and play with good players then you don't need amazing gear, but the PUG scene would prefer you to have full heroic SOO gear just to make sure they can autoattack Garrosh to death.

[badgersmashr]

I agree with you 100%, people assume 560+ because most people are not good enough to take more than 1 empower WW. I have done it with a guild that had 2-3 of them, all the DPS knew what to do. People are just too use to skipping mechanics, and there are just too many people that doesn't understand them that they require 560 ilevel so they don't have stupidity show its face.

I remember doing garrosh on thursday after release and powering through all 3 intermissions and powering through at least 8 empowereds by the time the fight was over, and fully agree with your post.