Gear is too overvalued

[Hermmes]

Good guilds dont actualy look at gear...(well they might decline you couse of the gear if they need replacement at the moment)..

[Deleted]

Yes, I'm currently working on those dailies. I'm trying to reach at least the 359 itlvl from the t11 content, but as I said I had bad luck these last two weeks because I didn't get any gear from those raids, only a head piece.

[tekoix]

I don't know what servers you guys play on, but old content is very puggable, usually fully, but some do fail the final bosses. That makes it super easy to get at the very least 359+ with all the BOE's / Valor available. Now you pug a raid with this full gear, record a log and post this with you app to show even though you have no experience with DPS previously you know what you are doing. If it is a good / decent guild, they will review and see that.

Now for those of you claiming 11/12 HM in ICC with 15% buff was nothing, lol I would like to see your achievement dates. We all know most people never even got 11/12 with the full buff or even untill cata hit.

[parkerlynne]

You should be able to at least get a chance then. I'd apply and say, I know my gear isn't that impressive BUT I'm working on it. Let me raid one night and show you that I can dps very well and not die to stupid shit.

[Deleted]

What ever happened to the try-out rank in guilds that were so common in vanilla? Back then you often had the chance to prove yourself.

Atleast that was the case on Stormscale.EU

[Deleted]

Bare minimum Ilvl for Firelands is 353 so the zanadalari gear. It is this due to Normals being easy mode to hell right now people just want you to have like 370 so they feel people will perform better.

[CharlzO]

The one thing I would suggest, would be to expand your reach for looking for a guild. To sum up a few of the points I saw already made, and add my own:

You did go from healer, to melee DPS. And, you're only at 355 iLvl. It isn't that it's BAD. It's that it's not nearly where the guilds you're apparently looking for, are already at. If you're trying to get a spot in a guild that's bringing a bunch of 370+ geared people, and you're that far behind, then yes, you're going to be, at best, a benchwarmer for a while. While you may be able to compete with people a little higher than your gear is, when there is a big disparity, it hinders the raid as a whole.

Also, how long have you been playing this character, and in what manners? The reason I ask, is that my warrior is at i363 (I think), and I haven't set foot inside a single Cata raid. So yes, being at where you're at isn't BAD, it's surely able to be improved upon, so don't let yourself fall into a holding pattern while waiting for a guild to pick you up.

Is all of your gear enchanted, reforged? Are your talents and glyphs correct? I know it sounds like no-brainers on some of it. But any serious raiding guild is going to look at this. Doesn't matter if "I just don't want to wast money and mats on something I want to replace" or not. Even if it's not high-end enchants and gems, there should at least be SOMETHING there, to show that you are paying attention. This isn't to be a jerk or anything, but it really does show if you care about your character enough, to a potential raid leader.

At this point, I think you have two options. First, would be trying to find a serious guild that will give you a trial period, or run or two. It probably won't be a FL raid, but something lesser. They need to see that you can do multiple things. Not just stand there and DPS. Expect that they will watch your every move. Did you move out of bad stuff? Did you do what was asked, even if it meant doing less of yourself (I would do this as a test back in the day for people I would test out..I would intentionally find something that I could ask them to do. It might have been fairly simple, and maybe not even needed. But I wanted to make sure they would do as asked. If I wanted them to stop DPSing to do something else, and they gave me an attitude, it spoke volumes of their team play. At the very least, I would expect they would at least say "um..ok, but you'll have to explain to me afterwards why we're doing it like this" or whatever). Expect your trial run or period to be fine-tooth-combed, so bring your A-game.

Second (because the first doesn't always happen right away - again, if you have a guild of 370+ people, they have a lot more options for recruits than a fresh 355 DPS class, so you can't expect that YOU will be the one they just HAVE to take) - would be to find a guild doing less than what you want at the moment. Use your experience to help a guild that's closer to your level at the moment, and progress alongside them. One of two things is likely to happen: Either you will gain their confidence, and help lead them into brighter and bigger moments (which rewards all of you, not just yourself in purpose). Or, it'll help you gear up somewhat, and maybe end up at least a stepping stone, or open some doors into something a little farther.

Again though, and I can't stress this enough (trying to sound as good as I can, not trying to be a jerk), is that you have to have realistic expectations about the guild that you're trying to get. You aren't recruiting the guild, as much as they are recruiting you. All the experience in the world doesn't help if you aren't at a certain level. Gear isn't the end-all, be-all. But it does play more into things in later Cata, than it has in the past. You could know every single aspect of every single fight, but if it comes down to needing to beat a DPS timer, and your gear just simply won't let your numbers push the total of the raid over it, then you didn't help - you hindered.

Above all, be respectful of any potential guild. If they decline you, politely ask why, and more importantly, ask what they feel you need more work on. Ask if you are welcome to re-apply in the future when you've gotten more accomplished on that toon. If not, don't take it personally. Sometimes, serious guilds hold every member to a certain standard in every aspect. Gear is one of them. But there are plenty gearz to be had in the meantime, as you look.

Best of luck!

[Jazzhands]

What ever happened to the try-out rank in guilds that were so common in vanilla? Back then you often had the chance to prove yourself.

Atleast that was the case on Stormscale.EU

Logs. Why give you a trial when I can just read a log and see how you perform?
Or Armory. Since it's so easy to figure out how to gem/spec/enchant ect. thanks to sites like EJ, it's easy to tell if you're a decent player who puts a little work into their toon or not, and achievements help figure out a few things.

There's so much info out there on players now compared to Vanilla, so trials aren't as needed.

But tbh, with the FL nerfs coming, 355 will be just fine for FL normals.

[Neyzio]

You have to realize that any top end guild working on rag (you said you are apping to a 6:7) doesnt have the time right now to gear out a potential app who could in fact be horrible. Sure once the nerfs come out and people are sitting on a couple kills they'll be much more accepting in preparation of a new tier but for now, good luck.

[fragglerocker]

I think sometimes gear is the convenient excuse, rather than explaining to someone why they do not want them, if they are undergeared then that becomes why. Not saying this is always the case, but as has already been discussed, gearing someone up is pretty easy and therefore a bad reason not to take someone to raids.

[Exiztence]

I sold my old account a while back, rerolled Shadow Priest had 0 gear on it apart from crafted when I dinged 85 few months later I am in top 30 guild. You need to be able to write convincing applications it's really just there convince them you are the best for the job.

[cleotaurus]

Easy. Your accumulation of gear is a factor of your experience in this tier of content. If you don't have firelands gear, you can reasonably assume you have little firelands experience. If your char is an alt, then say so and link your main. Just because you were good in last years content doesn't mean you will be good in this tier of content. Being the "best healer in your guild" doesn't mean squat. What if your guild was a bunch of scrubs? When guilds are looking at apps, they are looking for actual evidence of you knowing what the fuck to do - recruiting just based on someones claim that they are good, or have last years achievements is no different than rolling dice.

Guilds want people who they can bring in for their CURRENT progression, not someone who will just sit around or bring subpar dps with no experience doing the fights when its their turn. If you are new to firelands, then you should join a guild that is just starting firelands.

[Brianmage]

prenerf HM Baleroc /thread. gear matters.

[Deleted]

I don't understand where your problem lies, OP. When I dinged 85 on my mage it took me 4 days to get 360 ilvl which is enough for Firelands. The only help I got from my main character was the 359 boots for justice points, other than that, I geared it all by myself without guildies. Gearing a character is not hard.

I do agree with gear being to overvalued. Me and my guild mate had a discussion about this the other day. We didn't like the idea of bosses being gear depandant, like Baleroc for example, where you need a fixed amount of DPS to beat the boss. Sure, it could be handy sometimes but we wanted bosses where you just can't afford to fail. We both like the Alysrazor HC fight beacuse it's long and if you fail on something, you're dead. Obviously the fight is too easy, but that was the general idea we wanted from bosses. If you mess up on this or that, you die - simple as that.

Ragnaros HC isn't hard. It's not hard to dodge lava waves. It's not hard to stand a few yards further away from a lava trap to prevent getting knocked in it. It's not hard to run away from seeds when the timer has 2 seconds left. World in flames? Please... Meteors? Use moonfire on it when it gets too close. Last phase? Let's stand on a marked raid member until he dies. GG

More people didn't down him earlier because it was too gear dependent. I don't know the people in guilds like Paragon or Method, but I'm guessing they don't have idiots who gets hit by lava waves - hence, the fight being too gear dependent. THIS IS MY OPINION, AUWDNAWUIDN!

Although Firelands has been a really fun raid with new mechanics I still would want bosses to be a bit more punishing if you mess up instead of "oh I stood in a trap, get me out of here so we can kill this boss 15 seconds later than usual".

[Xecks]

Back in WoTLK's days I used to play as a Holy Paladin. I did all its content, I obtained the Death's Demise achievement, I did ICC25 11/12hc. In Cataclysm, I did a few hard modes in patch 4.0 (3 or 4 probably) and 6/7 on Firelands. I was probably the best healer in my guild, I used to blow up the healing meters.

Now I re-rolled to a Fury Warrior. No guild wants me. It's just ridiculous, even though I have all this experience, the feeling you have when they just say "sry not enough gear thx bai" is frustrating.

And I just tried to enter in guilds with 6/7, 5/7. Not even 7/7 as I have never done Ragnaros.

What could I do? I'm starting to feel annoyed and probably will quit if this situation doesn't change.

if you want to believe it or not gear = max potential dps. nobody wants someone who tops out at like 12k dps.

[tibben]

My guild looks at experience over gear, gear can be gained easily - experience and skill cannot.
I'm seeing a lot of these "I'm not accepted because of gear" threads lately, I had no idea so many guilds used the gear method to recruit.

My guild explicitly states that anyone using gearscore or avg item level as part of the reason they feel they're qualified to join the guild will be ridiculed and ignored. Sure, you need a certain level of gear to take down heroic bosses, but if you can't stay out of fire I don't give a crap if you can push 80k dps for the 30 seconds of the fight that you aren't dead due to your own stupidity. A guy doing 1/3 your dps due to gear limitations, but staying out of avoidable damage and surviving the whole fight still contributes more.

[WingsofLiberty]

Skill>>>Gear Be happy you didn't join that bunch of idiots.

[Paladin885]

ever since the 3 T9 sets came out (welfare, normal, heroic) gear has been #1 and skill has been knocked down to 9th or 10th in the rankings for the wow community.

[Varyk]

Honestly any real guild would look past the gear and see the experience. I mean, obviously you can't be in blues and expect to be able to do Firelands (you won't be able to at all), and especially not heroic firelands (Heroic Baleroc, Majordomo, and Rag are all big gear checks). You could be in full normal gear from last tier and be fine (359), but if ur in troll gear and blues you'll have a hard time no matter who you are.

[PhilCosby]

What ever happened to the try-out rank in guilds that were so common in vanilla? Back then you often had the chance to prove yourself.

Atleast that was the case on Stormscale.EU

We have a trial rank. It's just our trials *never* show up.