Getting down to bidness

Okay, that’s enuff with the bear hugs. Let’s get down to the bear tracks.

I’m a wannabe raider, well – kinda. I AM raiding but I’m just starting out (1 month under muh hide) so I’m what I’d call ‘green’.

But in my travels I’ve managed to find a ton of good things that I think lots of folks could use so I’ll start putting references to ‘em up here.

One recent find was a great chart over on TenTonHammer that shows the minimums for Karazhan. Things like, how much OOM an oomkin or preisty should have, what sorts of armor or stats to look for in a tank, be it bear, warrior or pally. Check that out and use it to help you gear up if you wanna go.

Elitist Jerks I’ve mentioned before – they had a fantastic theorycraft section on bears, and some very solid posts on a lot of classes – I am hoping more people head over there cause I’m looking for a really nice set of posts for all of my alts.

Here's a quick list of sites I used to train myself and also to gear up - some are a little dated so keep in mind when it was written and any changes more recent patches may have had.

The Bear Meatshield Guide
Feral Druid Preraid Tank Gear Guide
Feral Kombat
TBC Bear Tanking List (gear)
Of Teeth and Claws' blog had 3 nice posts I used
Druid Tanking Guide
Pulling for Maximum Threat
Rage Efficiency

I'd also like to throw out something I found incredibly useful - Nihilum's BC rep calulator. It's a neat item that calculates your rep from Armory stats and gives tips on what you need for the next level of rep - i.e. which which zones have quests that give faction rep, so many runs through SV for exalted Cenarion, or XX number of item turn-ins for Aldor/Scryer. Use this in conjuction with Wowwiki to find which quest chains are tied to rep in the zones and you should be a golden bear.

Another thing that many folks use is wow-loot.com. I highly recommend this site. It helped me not only with my own gear but also in directing my guild-mates to good information for their own sets.

I’m not a GM, I’m just an officer in our tiny guild. We have something like 18-22 people and everyone has at least a single alt, some of us are guilty of having more than one as well.

But I take a quiet sense of pride in helping them out. I had always heard “the game doesn’t start til 70” and of course I think everyone has heard that too or perhaps has an inkling its true. But it really is a different world when you hit 70 and can wrangle a spot in a raid like Kara.

I know there's a couple of schools of thought pervasive throughout the game. One seems to think gearing up for something like Kara too hard, too much effort etc. The other set seems to consider it old hat now. While I can see that side of the tree I have to say, if you’ve never been there you’re short-changing yourself on your monthly fee. And if you have - well you know what it's about and best of luck to you on your way to BT. Just remember - the game is about fun. There's no set of rules that says you HAVE to raid, or if you do that you HAVE to act like a member of the Jr. Atilla the Hun Club.

Kara is just… well it just is. It’s new for lots of people, it’s cool lookin, it’s got great music and fun stuff like ghosts dancing the Hokey Pokey AND you get to fight the Big Bad Wolf. Also, it's not that hard though it does take a decent raid leader and a bit of concentration and you’ll probably be there a few weeks with your group – but after that comes so much more to do. If you aren’t PvPin – I’d recommend you at least try it. This ain’t your mom’s cooked spinach.