You’re overthinking it. Just don’t pass lead or say too much. Stack a big chunk of the raid with players like me and the bosses are gonna get melted and you probably won’t get noticed.
Your performance is pretty poor, but hey, you didn’t die!
Hit those buttons harder and check out the Fury guide.
Also drop the Spear talent and take Dragon’s Roar, thank me later. 
Your item level is fine for starting heroic.
Good on you for putting a group together.
If you are interested in improving I would recommend reading some class guides.
If you make a new group don’t pass lead. You can give the tanks assist or just handle doing the ready checks yourself.
Mythic+ is also a fair bit easier than raiding so if you did want to venture into dungeons for gear go for it. The same problem of dps being a dime a dozen applies so you may have to start your own groups there as well.
Normally full melee would be terrible, but this raid (heroic) I don’t think it would be a problem except for maybe Nymue.
I still don’t want a queue.
Two things.
First, yes, the Group Finder’s recommendation is total crap. Even if people WEREN’T super keen on only inviting the most overgeared people they can find, it’s crap. Most people do not progress through Heroic while in non-upgraded LFR ilvl gear. That’s skipping a step. And Mythic+ makes it trivial to bridge that gap as well.
Second, logically, you’re right. Your gear is at a point where Heroic makes sense to be the next thing you pursue. However, that’s literally only because the upgrade system exists. Again, most of your gear is LFR gear that you’ve simply upgraded to max. It’s the same problem as Titanforging back in the day – drops that should be upgrades aren’t actually upgrades until you get them fully upgraded because you have the lower stuff upgraded already. You can get Normal Mode gear and should be able to upgrade it higher than your stuff currently is. Running M+ for the currencies will speed that up.
If this were the beginning of the patch, your current gear would likely be accepted if you performed at a near-average level. But it is the end of the patch so it’s below the bar, and you are not performing at a near-average level for your gear.
The second you gave away leadership, and didn’t lead your own group… it stopped being ‘your group.’ Don’t get me wrong, I get the frustration, but it’s a bit rich to claim something is yours when you gave away all responsibility.
Queue’s will never work for the content your attempting. Not unless they DRASTICALLY change the expectations of the community regarding queable content. That content has been synonymous with guaranteed success for over a decade. So, if you add the content to the queue… by necessity it will be guaranteed success… so… LFR.
You have access… And you can complete the endgame raid without taking any onus of responsibility or effort… in LFR. If you want to do harder difficulties… it will require more effort. I feel like that’s a no brainer, is it not?
If you’re not planning on playing the social game around pugging… then join a guild that does the content you want. Random pugs do not care about you… you’ll be forgotten the second you leave the group. Expecting them to care about your experience is folly. You can shout into the wind that it shouldn’t be this way… but that’s just how it is.
Long story short… join an actual team if you want to have a team experience. Keep pugging if you prefer a more cut throat environment, with complete personal freedom.
Never pass lead if you make the group. Full stop.
Have you considered just buying a carry - people were offering heroic carries for 190k today which is less than one token. I really can’t see that the aggro you are getting is worth more than $15 to you. Once you have been through once, you should be able to have an idea how things work and maybe get a piece of gear or two.
I am not sure the issue is the raid mechanics. But rotational knowledge.
While I get the logical aspect of this recommendation… I will say… it really turns my stomach that this is the community retail has fostered. No judgment and don’t want to open the can of worms… but something about that just feels so messed up.
It looks like someone who’s never stepped into harder content before, doesn’t understand how it works, and doesn’t have the experience to understand why things are the way they are.
To be fair… a lot of that knowledge isn’t intuitive and the end-game progression is very wonky for someone who knows nothing about it. Hence the confusion regarding the pre-made finder ilvl recommendation. Like yeah… that’s a perfectly fine ilvl recommendation… for a competent raider. Not someone who has zero experience raiding and parses grey due to lack of knowledge. BUT… that IS the next logical step to take. I get the confusion some players feel.
It also doesn’t help that the overwhelming majority of the game is extremely easy, and then once you hit the norm+ level… all of a sudden the difficulty shoots up. And then it shoots up again for heroic. And then it skyrockets for mythic. Almost feels like being set up for failure.
I get that.
But I strongly feel that knowledge of the gnarlroot fight won’t be what pushes the OP’s DPS to an acceptable level. I mean. OP has seen it once now. We expecting his DPS to double?
Spending time at training dummies. Reading a guide on the rotation for the spec. Things like that would have a much greater impact.
Yup, agreed entirely.
Nothing to fix. You’re one of nine Heroic this late into the season (inexperienced), no previous raid experience for Dragonflight (new), not fully enchanted and have one empty gem socket (unprepared), and only item level 463 (undergeared); fix yourself.
Carries always happened in this game, it isn’t really anything new - it is just easier to do now with cross realm raiding and gold trading.
OP is trying to take shortcuts anyway by pugging instead of finding a guild. If he insists on pugging he needs to start at the beginning of a tier not near the end where people have no patience.
For sure, but I think it’s categorically wrong to state that the community perception of a carry is the same today as it was 10-20 years ago. Back then it was something almost, but not quite, shameful to partake in. It was literally an insult to call someone an ebay-character. Whereas today… it’s relatively an accepted form of progression. Why play the game, when you can just… pay for others to play it for you.
Also, as Akston stated above… this isn’t a ‘this raid experience’ problem. This is a wholesale raiding experience in general problem. So… I doubt a carry is going to do anything for them other than… line the pockets of the carries. He’ll still be a poor player next week, he probably won’t know what actually happened in the fights, he probably will also get kicked in future raids, and at best he’ll have 1-2 heroic pieces. At which point he’ll be at the same point as before.
So if his metric for success is simply seeing 9/9H on his character profile and that is IT… Then yeah… a carry makes sense. For anything else though… no it categorically doesn’t make sense to purchase one.
I only see it being counted as an accepted from of progression by other people that also participate in getting carried.
Tbh early in a season I think you can have more success in some heroic pugs then more casual guilds if you have the time and mindset for it.
Which is the majority of players that currently play the game nowadays. Hence my point that it sorta turns my stomach that that is community that has been fostered. Heck, didn’t the prior president Mike Ybarra even admit to partaking in providing carries.
Sure they’re not universally accepted (heck I’m here aren’t I), but I think it’s fair to say that they’re generally accepted by the majority of the community at this point.
I disagree.
If the majority of guilds relied on carries for progression there wouldnt be any guilds progressing to begin with.
Is it part of the game? Sure. Is it a larger part of the game than I would like? Sure.
But I am not sure I ever met anyone that accepted carries as a form of progression.
“Hey, we are going for our portals. who should we bring for a 5th?”
“Bring Bob, he got carried through a 20 once or twice. He knows whats up”
I can accept you have a kill earned on your stat sheet. That doesnt mean I accept you progressed if you were carried.
It’s sadly part of WoW.
See mage boosts and GDKP buyers in classic.
That assumes a 1-1 seller to buyer ratio is required. Instead it’s more a case of a few sellers providing a plethora of buyers the service. To be fair though, we don’t have hard stats to say this or that. I can really only go off my general feeling, and my general feeling is that it was heavily scrutinized to participate in this behavior previously, whereas today it is relatively accepted.
Agreed on your second points, though I think that comes down to how you define ‘progression.’ I was using it in terms of character progression for the individual player. Power progression is a part of the RPG experience, and acquiring gear to improve your power is a form of progression. In terms of experience/mechanical progression I completely agree.
For sure agreed. I think it’s just one of those things where I have to accept that I have an old mindset, and gotta get with the times. It just makes me a bit sad seeing how wide spread it is.