Returned to wow a week ago and wanted to start raiding. Dinged 70, got around 400 ilvl and joined a guild.
I’ve tried joining guilds before, but cores are always full and/or people are pushing heroics/mythics and my gear never is high enough.
I’m really enjoying this xpac and playing with my class, but didn’t wanted to stick only to M+ and LFR/pugs as I had on earliers xpacs
Any advice on how start raiding?
In my opinion give LFR a go first.
If it’s your thing, join a slow progression chill guild who do Normal runs. Some peeps just prefer to stick to Normal/Heroic prog and they’re perfect. My first guild joined LFR together and we eventually did Normal.
Usually if you show potential you’ll become a part of the normal raiding group and attend a 3 hour session (one or more per week) attempting to progress through. When you’re a part of the core team they’ll gear you, but try to also gear in outside content to supplement missing lower pieces.
I’d just keep looking, mention in city chats of what you’re looking for ‘Any guilds still raiding normal/lower heroic progression raiding’.
It is pretty hard to find a group that would be willing to take anyone that is fresh right now.
Find a guild that explicitly caters to new and returning characters. They exist.
i’d say join a casual guild that actually raids but that for my experience is always a miss. they state they raid but then come to find out their core group isn’t even filled and when we log onto raid day so little guildies show up since i guess they don’t take it too seriously since it’s not a full guild group or mostly full so they say “why bother” and it just doesn’t happen. joined many guilds kind of like this.
pugging raidings is hell i’ve done it for years i would 100% not recommend unless it is your only resort. same thing all the time; asking a lot from players for just joining the group, pull first boss wipe to basic mechanics, half the group leaves, refill, rinse and repeat for hours on end. literally spent more time filling the group then doing the actual raid and the further we get into the raid the harder it is to fill unless on the last 2 bosses then it fill very fast with good players especially on the last boss.
my honest suggestion
find a steady guild that actually raids weekly at a slower pace and can give you a raid spot. if not don’t waste your time in that guild. this is your best bet. IF you for some reason have to pug and are okay with wasting your time on wipes and all that then pug. it isn’t easy finding groups without AOTC already and not heavily geared but not impossible.
other solution is join a big guild that runs 2 raid groups usually the 1st is their mains and either on heroic/mythic only while the 2nd group is usually alts and typically on normal/heroic.
you can try starting your own groups but from my experience that didn’t go too well; best to keep your expectations low.
The best way to get into raiding is to do M+.
Overgear normal, then look for a guild running normal to get your feet in the door. They’ll take you because you overgear the content and you’ll get lulled along when they move on to heroic or the next raid come out.
If you want, I help lead a learning run every Saturday at 3 EST as part of the wownoob discord server, and you’d be welcome come along this weekend.
u could join a guild such as mine but the experience wouldn’t be great because we killed heroic and don’t plan to assemble 20 people to consistently show up to mythic. so you can like be present in the raid while all the heroic bosses die but this is maybe less rewarding than killing them with people who haven’t killed them before. also everyone is just playing d4.
Trade chat or LFG chat. There are always guilds advertising there
Do it at the start of a new season / raid tier.
No one really wants to fill a roster slot with a minimum geared player with no experience in the current raid.
Pug for your raid kills in the meantime.
I did LFR, but let’s be honest, that’s not the raiding experience anybody wants
I mean, I liked seeing the story progressing, getting the idea of how the fights are, but besides gear drops, its not an enjoyable experience
I’m looking into slow progress guild rn, thanks for the advice!
Well I’ll be darned. I did group raiding before and I think in my age I like a bit of LFR 
There are so many takes in this thread that are just wrong (coming from the view of a GM/recruiter). 
lfr is a good way to get in fill up that vault spots and get one free gear on reset day
use the recruitment Discord and find a guild that fits your goals.
Check logs of guilds that you join. Guilds are more likely to have too many people than too few.
Give up hope and try to get caught in the recruiting wave for the next expansion.
i don’t check mainly cause my work schedule rotates so it’s not always the same thats why i resorted to pugging my raids for so long. easy when you keep up with content but hard if your behind or fall behind.
I would just run some 2 keys and get your gear up, also run the 5 heroic quest for 415 gear