World of Warcraft - Ready For Raiding

A Checklist :

Going off to a raid should be an easy thing, right? All you need is the right gear and you’re good to go. Isn’t that all that matters, having a high enough item level? If making sure your epics stack up against other people’s epics is the top priority for you, there is something you should know: You are not really prepared for taking on the raids in Draenor. There are several other things you can and should do to ensure that you will be as useful to your raid as possible, and this article will go through many of them. So if you seem to be lagging behind the others in your guild group damage- or healing-wise, have a read and see if there is something here that you may have missed.

Consumables

First and foremost, let us start out with something that every raid will expect you to bring, namely consumables. These come in many different forms, the most important ones being flasks. There are flasks for every main attribute, which are Strength, Agility and Intellect, as well as Stamina. These come in different potencies, with the Greater Flasks, which grant a 250 bonus to the first three attributes and 375 to Stamina, being the most potent ones at the moment. One common factor of these flasks is that they all last for two hours as well as through death. However, if you are short on gold and cannot afford flasks for some reason, there is a way to get a reusable flask which unfortunately does not persist through death.

You can do a quest called “Oralius’ Adventure” which is given in the Frostwolf Inn (for Horde) or Lunarfall Tavern (for Alliance). This quest requires you to go to the Upper Blackrock Spire and collect a Spire Firefly as well as defeat Warlord Zaela. The reward for the quest is a reusable flask called Oralius’ Whispering Crystal which grants 100 of all attributes that flasks affect. If you are more of a casual raider, this will serve you well. However, if you raid in order to progress, do keep in mind that your raid leader may require you to bring the best flasks that you can get.

Secondly, there’s food. Food buffs give you a boost to secondary attributes or Stamina. You can either buy single-use food that will grant you the buffs, or make use of feasts that feed up to twenty players. The best feast at the moment is called a Savage Feast, and gives you a bonus of 100 to a secondary attribute. This feast is harvested from a Barn which is at least level 2 provided you capture a Riverbeast or Boar with your trap. However, these feasts are not the best food out there at the moment. With the release of Blackrock Foundry in 6.1, new food made from fish caught in Draenor provides you with as much as 125 extra of one secondary attribute. Therefore, just like with flasks, you may find that your raid leader expects you to bring the very best of the best if the aim of your raid is to progress and as such it would always be a good idea to keep at least one stack of 20 servings of the best food in your bag at all times.

Now we come to consumables that may seem to not give that much of a buff. However, their importance is not to be underestimated. I am, of course, talking about Augment Runes. These runes improve any of your Strength, Agility or Intellect attributes by 50, depending on which rune was consumed. While 50 of an attribute may not seem as that much, think of it in this way: If you are in a raid of 20 people and everyone uses a rune, this results in a collective buff of 1000 in the main attributes. That is quite a substantial amount which might make the difference between defeating a boss and being defeated, the latter which would force you to start the encounter again.

Finally, there are consumables which can be used for a temporary boost during an encounter. These are called potions. Aside from the regular health and mana potions there are also potions which increase your Strength, Agility, Intellect or Stamina by quite a large amount for 25 seconds. Since the duration is very limited and the cooldown does not count down during combat, most players employ a tactic called "pre-potting" which is essentially the practice of consuming one of these potions just before engaging the boss, making the cooldown start counting down. Not only does this let you get a nice boost upon entering combat, it also allows the use of a second potion during the encounter which can be used in a phase where that extra push is needed to finish off a boss or take down an add before it becomes too much of a problem. In general, these potions are used roughly at the same time as abilities with long cooldowns such as Bloodlust or Heroism. Worth noting as well is that the health and mana potions do not share a cooldown cycle with the ones that increase your attributes.

Item Augmentations

Warlords of Draenor reduced and simplified the different ways in which you can augment your equipment. Whereas previously some items had guaranteed sockets, this is now something which is simply a potential upgrade to any item just like warforged upgrades. In addition, the list of what type of gear you can enchant has shrunk. Reforging was removed as well, so there are no possibilities to optimize your gear through that anymore. Due to this, the list of augmentations will be much shorter than it would have been in previous expansions.

First off, let us begin with something which has been in the game all the way back to Vanilla: Enchanting. As mentioned earlier, what gear you can actually enchant is limited with Warlords of Draenor as you can only enchant your Rings, Necklace, Cloak and Weapon. The positive side-effect of this is that you do not have to spend as much money on enchanting, especially if you play a Death Knight since you will always have your weapon Runeforged and as such would only have to enchant three of your items. In addition, these enchants can only affect Critical Strike, Multistrike, Haste, Versatility and Mastery. While these are not quite as useful as the main attributes, remember that every little bit helps you make the most out of your character, so always keep your gear enchanted!

The other half of item augmentation comes in the form of gems made from Jewelcrafting, and more specifically from putting these gems in sockets. Gems only affect secondary attributes and Stamina with the best gems currently providing a boost of 50 to your chosen attribute. Since sockets are not guaranteed to be part of any drops, it is quite possible that you will not have any sockets in your gear. However, in case a socketed upgrade drops, it is always handy to have a few gems on hand. Once again, Warlords heavily simplified the concept of socketing and any item can only have one socket. In addition, these sockets are all prismatic and do not give any bonus when it comes to the colour of the gem being put into the socket. As such, all you really need to do is to find out which attribute benefits you the most and put a gem boosting said attribute into the socket.

Knowing Tactics

This third and final aspect of preparing for perilous journeys into the darkest depths of Draenor where you encounter enigmatic enemies is all about preparation. Preparation is the be-all and end-all of raiding. Whilst normal difficulties are somewhat more forgiving when it comes to not knowing tactics, not being aware of what the boss is all about will more than likely result in a wipe on higher difficulties unless you vastly outgear the encounters. Therefore, before all else, what you always need to do is study the tactics. There are many great sources of information regarding the encounters that can be found online, but also in-game. The dungeon journal is a great in-game example of information regarding what abilities certain bosses have, and while nothing beats practical experience, having some form of knowledge is always beneficial. After all, knowing is half the battle! The other half involves repeatedly hitting a boss until it stops moving, among other things.

To summarize, always remember to bring the correct consumables and always augment your equipment properly before a battle, but most of all: Know what you are up against! Remember: if you know your enemy and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles. Well, unless you hit the enrage timer, that is!

Thanks for reading; I hope this guide serves to help you out in your adventures in the World of Warcraft!

Oscar Svensson