How to get into Heroic Raiding

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Hiya. I’ve been playing BFA for a while now, but I’ve hit a bit of a brick wall. Just curious how does one even get into heroic raiding to get AOTC, if none of the groups out there are accepting people without it? What ilvl do you need to even be considered. Currently mine’s 459 and that’s well above the minimum. Tried forming my own group, but that didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. Got nothing but elitists being toxic and people who didn’t know the fight.

Not asking for a carry. I can pull my own weight, but where do you find these helpful groups I’ve heard so much about, but haven’t seen one? Any helpful advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Currently mainly playing horde on Earthen Ring.

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If you’re trying to make your own group you’ll really have to do your homework and get to know the raid inside and out, be specific about who you let in (and kick out), and be vocal as the leader of your group. Persistance is a virtue as well. Expect some of your groups to fail until you get the “leadership” role down, but don’t let it discourage you.

It’s one thing though watching videos and reading strats, but I’d suggest joining groups running normal first to see the basic mechanics of the fights to give yourself an idea of how they’ll work with the additional mechanics of Heroic thrown in. That will give you a better head start than just reiterating the strat you saw in a youtube video without actually understanding how, what, when, or why.

The much, MUCH easier route to go however, would be to find a guild that is willing to let you join their secondary group for gearing or running alts. (If you can get in their main group, that’s great! But I just wouldn’t count on it as they’ll generally have a set core team) This will get you practical experience under generally* less toxic circumstances.

I say generally because while experiences will largely vary depending on the guild you join, the social aspect of being in a guild group vs. a PUG group of people that you will never see again, will in most cases make it a much better experience.

Don’t be afraid to leave a guild in search of another if it’s not giving you the social and/or raiding experience that you’re looking for.

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At this point in the expansion, there are a lot of pickup Heroic groups even on Alliance side, so it should be possible to do it that way.

Do you want to do the whole raid, or do you just want AOTC? We have one person in our guild with AOTC; she geared to about 470, got invited to a Heroic group which had a healer opening on N’Zoth, and they killed him. She’s now 5/12 H with AOTC.

Otherwise you look for raids with openings for your role. You can get into fresh Heroic raids with 445-450 ilvl if you’re the last person they need before pulling. With a few tries, you’ll get Wrathion, Maut, Skitra, Hivemind and Shad’har as these bosses have obvious mechanics that most people know. Do LFR or Normal first to get some experience with the mechanics. A good group may proceed to Drest’agath and Il’gynoth as well; otherwise you will typically need a 455-460 ilvl to get invites to those.

Beyond that, the bosses have some nonobvious mechanics, so you definitely need to study up on these in advance and, preferably, do them in Normal as well as LFR first to see the mechanics in action. Expect higher ilvl to be required to get into groups on the later bosses, especially Carapace and N’Zoth, which drop 470 loot instead of 460.

Xanesh is kind of a special case that has choreography that’s difficult for pickup groups. You might have to look for lockouts that have already downed Xanesh to get Vexiona and the last two. I’m kind of guessing here as I haven’t done this yet.

If you invite your own raids, you can be picky on invites to increase your chances of success. Many of the “link AOTC” raids have a lead that doesn’t have AOTC and is trying to get it. Alternatively you can learn every boss inside and out so you can instruct people when you lead your own raid, but at this point in the patch, it may be easier just to find experienced people that already know how to do it, and at least say “link AOTC for quick invite”.

You can also lead selectively. People who want middle or end bosses often prefer skipping early bosses. If you end up with a personal lockout that’s missing only N’Zoth, for example, you’ll get lots of applicants for an “N’Zoth only” group.

Manage your bonus rolls to get the equipment pieces you want. There are a few trinkets, for example, that are important or critical to each role, so you may want to save your bonus rolls for those. Remember that you can use bonus rolls on bosses even if you already looted them earlier in the week. Don’t forget to gear up outside of raids as well.

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The easiest way to get into heroic raiding at this point without heroic experience is probably finding a guild. Every guild I’ve been in has had pretty bad attrition of raiders in the last patch of an expansion and I’m sure there’s going to be heroic guilds looking to fill raid spots.
I know a lot of players have the “I don’t want to raid a lot” or “I have a weird schedule” but I promise there are guilds out there that are super flexible, just look at recruitment forums, reddit LFguilds, and if your trade chat isn’t spammed with key runs, check that out too.
Guilds are going to be significantly easier to break into than a random pug without aotc, and if you really want, use a guild to get aotc, then bail and run pugs.

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Thanks for the reply. I’ve applied to some guilds in game that haven’t got back to me, but I may have to check elsewhere. I’ve done a handful of heroic bosses, but I finally got an entire normal run done only in hopes that it helps my raider io score. Not that any of the drops were any good to me. I can say I know the fights up to heroic now. I can say normal was much more smoother than LFR.

In the last few weeks I can honestly say there really isn’t as many welcoming pug groups as people like to say there are. I guess it helps them feel better to not have that responsibility, but it’s a bit of misinformation. I think the most frustrating part is actually knowing the fight, but because you don’t have AOTC, people assume you don’t know anything or are bad.

I have seen the people who join a group where I listed specifically to know the fight, that do not. And they just make it even harder for people without it to get it. My original post was after having made a group. We did kill a few bosses, then got a skip, but all the toxic bad attitudes and people just leaving the first time they get themselves killed didn’t help. Some of us tried, some stuck around till the end, even with the constant berating by those who have AOTC looking down on those of us who didn’t. It’s enough to make you loath those who wear it like a badge of honor, when they don’t carry themselves as anyone worthy of your time. I know it sounds dumb, but that’s the way of things. After 8 attempts at carapace I was too sleepy to carry on, so I passed lead to someone who immediately started making personal attacks on others. After apologizing for said thing, the remaining people dissolved and I went to bed.

It’s amazingly stressful especially when you already have social anxiety, so I might not filter out the bad people very well, but toxic people are shown the door immediately. Which is why I try to find an open group more often than making my own. I’m good at killing things and doing mechanics, but there’s other factors to success. I just don’t want to become one of the same people excluding others. But maybe I’m just weird. I try at least to help the “have nots”.

Still for has stressful as just trying to find a group is, I don’t feel compelled to jump into any “AOTC only” groups when I finally get it. I’ll join a guild for I’ll have more loyalty to those who even just gave me the chance to prove myself.

As a final note to anyone who read this wall, if you’re generally a quiet person like me, find a guild. Save yourself the stress. Of course, finding the right guild might be an entirely different thing lol.

Addendum

I’d like to add an addendum to my original post after being around for a bit, and finding more info about this and that. Still I worry about people who haven’t got their dragon yet.

Thankfully there’s the PerkyPugs community to help people get their dragon and AOTC. The icing on the cake is that after have it, you can totally undermine the AOTC requirements most groups put out there. No need to feel bad. You’re in that spot because of them, so anything to destroy the whole concept of “AOTC only” is a good thing imo.

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