Gotta love the 'new and shiny' factor when starting out the expansion pack, but after the oooh's and ahhh's wear off, and you get down to the new content, sometimes you can find it a little... harsh. Point is, people are used to being the big cheese, facerolling around and killing whatever they point their mouse at. The new xpac hits and all of a sudden they are getting facerolled and watching where they point thier mice.
You would say that it's all about the gear, and you'd be right. Back when the max gear level was 277 and you were in at least 251-264 gear, you were rockin the liscense to kill, if you were skilled in your class there was very little you couldn't do in the game, and most of what you couldn't do was because of your raid (composition, leadership, skill level, ambition). As you go up in level, your stats required to hold the same dmg/healing/mitigation/whatever goes up. So 100 expertise at lvl 80 is worth a ton more than 100 expertise at 85 *if that makes sense*.
So now we find ourselves getting top end quest rewards at level 333, our blues are 349(I think), and our epics, crafted or bought with points, are 359. I would equate these with the initial blue/epic item lvl 200/213 stuff from the beginning of lvl 80. So to me, it stands to reason that if gear went from 200/213 to 264/277, that we are gonna wind up seeing a huge jump from the 359's we can get right now.
The gear is so stupid expenisve right now too, if you're not ballin outta control good luck landing yourself in any crafted gear. They instated a new(old) system of making a necessary part of crafted gear drop from heroic dungeons and is BoP, meaning the crafter himself has to get them from doing heroics, then go about advertising his known patterns and letting people buy the orbs from them. Good for the crafter, hard on the gen pop. This is one of the many ways I can see blizz promoting guild groups, you are motivated by wanting the crafted gear to not pug, but to bring your guild crafter thru the heroics to acquire the orbs you need (@ one orb per heroic end boss, and some recipes require 3 orbs). There are plenty of crafters pugging heroics for orbs, buying/farming the other mats and selling crafted epics on the AH for crazy amounts of golds too, so if you are lucky to have a sugar daddy/momma, or a fat stack banked up, you are in business.
Blizz also put gear level requirements on the heroic dungeon finder, which is causing some drama about the guildies. You can walk into the instance if you are undergeared (not that you'll do good dps or be able to tank/heal it well), and this is where you get guildies assuming to be 'carried' through. People want to use the dungeon finder to do a heroic random dungeon for their extra points, if you walk in you lose out on the 70 points. So what do you do when you get a guildie in your group and you go to que for the random and it says 'Bob does not meet the requirements for this dungeon. Needed item lvl 329 (currently 314)'? You kick Bob's ass outta the group, I say. Then Bob tries to guilt you into takin him anyway "well we can just walk in". Some people are too nice to say "Foff, Bob. We are doin random for points", some are even too nice to add "we can take you to a regular or walk into a heroic when we are done our random for points". So where do we draw the line?
Basic readiness rules for Heroic Dungeons:
Gear: you need an average item lvl 329 to be able to que for heroics. Do the quests all the way out to the end of the lines, nice 333 stuff dropping off quests. Do the daily quests for reputation, or sometimes you already have rep so just visit the quartermasters for cata rep factions and see what's up, lotta good gear there. Some cheap small upgrades (crafted pvp gears) available on AH. Point is, do the homework, do the quests, ask for help, not a walkthru/carry.
Enchants: not a bad idea to put at least a basic enchant on your mid/crappy gear to boost you just that little bit. The cata small enchants are surprisingly cheap, and if you weren't a cheapass greedy sucka and maybe saved some of the BoE gear you got while questing, you probably already have an available arsenal of enchanting mats for your local/guild enchanter to help you out.
Consumables: Flasks and elixirs are very expensive right now, high in mats and hard to get, so I'm sure everyone will understand why you dont want to flask for a heroic. Potions, slightly different story. First off, if you are a healing class, you need mana pots, period, end of story. Tanks can use pots for armor or mastery as a cooldown, and dps can boost theirs with a nice haste/sp/agi/str pot. Fairly cheap to make and readily available, just talk to your local/guild alchemist.
Buff Food: separate from consumables for emphasis. It's still too early for anyone to have the superduper fish feast right now, so you can't go about assuming you'll have your food buff handed to you in-group. Come prepared! It's so cheap to make, and there are so many varieties available, there is literally no excuse for you to not have some kind of 90/90 buff food on you at all times. Talk to your local/guild chef, enough time has passed for him/her to have just about every recipe if they have been diligent about their daily cooking quests. Materials are easily farmed by you, or bought for decent prices all over the AH, and a 90 stat buff is definitely worth it, whether it's str, dodge, int, agi, exp, the list goes on...
The last requirement to be included in my list for heroics is Attitude. You need to come ready to learn, to wipe and re-wipe, to learn from mistakes and adjust strategies. You need to come ready to pay full attention, don't be that guy standing in the void zone because your healer does not have a ton of extra mana to be healing you through that. You need to come ready to spend the time necessary, don't start a heroic (especially with guildies) if you have to go to work in half an hour, you should be ready to stick as long as it takes (barring emergencies and bio's) to complete your heroic, or until it is decided that, as a group, you dont have what it takes to finish. Do not be surprised if this happens as well, there's no shame in calling it quits if you dont have what it takes. IMO, better to call it than to beat your face against something you're not gonna get just for some heroic loots, raid loots maybe, progression certainly, but not just heroic dungeon, nobody likes wiping for hours.
