Guide: Joining High-End Guilds

[Democides]

Great guide, well thought out advice. Exactly what I've been needing, dinged 80 last week and Cata is coming soon. +2 rep.

[Bloomfalls]

Thank you very much for all the positive feedback, it is duly appreciated!

As I promised, here's another wall of text keeping up the spirit of the OP:

Staying inside a Top Guild

You don't need to be a superstar in order to stay in a top guild. In fact, many top server guilds are huge. A guild can't be made of top 1 healers and dps players because that would be impossible. As a matter of fact, it's not the best players that are the most important, but the worst ones. A chain is only as good as its weakest link.

Big guilds however have a big enough pool to rotate between members, and this might be dangerous to you. The first thing is to not be the weakest link. This of course doesn't mean blaming others for your mistakes. You'll have to admit your mistakes and fix them as every other member.

By being reliable in the first weeks and keeping a good attendance you'll show you're serious about it. And always remember to display your knowledge of the class, the boss fights, etc. When you're in a top guild however, you'll need to be serious about these things. People expect you to know what is going on. Do not become obnoxious.

At any rate, you need to behave according to your priorities:

What is your purpose in the game? Remember, being in a good guild can be both a means or an end. While you are ultimately playing to have fun, where does that fun come from?

The reason I like to play in top guilds is because, to my playstyle, top guilds are the best. I don't lose time hearing 30 minutes explanations before the fight begin, because it's assumed everyone knows the fight. I don't wipe at trash or farm content. I have more free time, and the time I spend playing, I spend efficiently. I'm OK with sitting out since I'm no longer a hardcore hardcore player, as that gives me more free time to work on my own projects. I enjoy raiding, but I also enjoy not treating raiding like a job, so being a rotated member in a top guild works the best.

If you just wanted to have pride from being in a good guild and see the end-game content at least once, you can afford being a rotated member. However be aware that this also means you might get kicked if the guild deem you as not all that necessary. Actively judge your situation.

If you are in for gear and loot, then first - you must not let anyone know or notice this. And you must be VERY patient. Second - you must avoid being asked to sit out. If you are, do it happily, and don't complain. You have to work your way so that they don't WANT to sit you out. Remember, it's never about what you want, but about what the guild or the guild leaders want.

In fact, I've actually seen guild applications where people answer "yes I would mind having to sit out" when asked. Not really smart. Anyway, there's another mistake you have to avoid - not being social enough.

The reason guild hoppers like this can fail even when they make their way to the top is because while you're journeying you learn to not get attached to anyone over the Internet. This is not bad - it's smart, and good. Sure, there are cases where you might make a really good friend over the Internet, but these situations are rare compared to the situations you meet people you don't care about and, if it HAS to happen, it WILL happen regardless of you wanting or not. Remember though - while you're capping the high end of the spectrum (avoiding attaching to people) you should also limit the bottom end. All of these people you're meeting, no matter how different than you they are, are human beings and deserves respect. Treat them well and not just out of interest, but because they deserve to.

However, this attitude (capping your "friendship level") will stop serving you once you reach the guild you want. This is because you'll not depend entirely on your skill to be there - they have enough skilled players already. These people want the best experience possible, which means they also want to play with people they like. In this case, befriending them is preferable. Remember, this is the place you aimed for, and as tempted as you might be to go somewhere else, chances are you'll be staying with them for a while.

Of course, unless you have goals that are beyond that, like building a "curriculum" to eventually join a top 10 world guild. Joining top 10-20 is a bit different as you'll not be able to just bullshit your way in (actually you can, but it's a bit harder), you'll need really solid skills and a lot of free time.

Other than that, you'll want to do as much activity as you can with your new guildies. Run Battlegrounds. Help them gear alts. Heroics are boring but remember triumph emblems can be traded by epic gems, so in the end you're making some extra gold too. In fact, if heroics are boring, do something to make them fun. Remember what I said: Be creative.

Lastly, if joining a good guild is burning you, think about it - what is burning you exactly? The atmosphere, the people, the raid, the schedule? Try to fix the problem or think about what can solve it. If it's the atmosphere or the people, you might want to join a different guild. Although top guilds are different than normal guilds, they also have their own differences in atmosphere. If it's the schedule, find a guild that suits you better or start doing the alt runs with your main.



Next I'll make a post about increasing your character's worth in an application, then a post about actual raid strategies that can be applied to any raid dungeon or situation, and that will probably conclude this thread. My next guide will probably be about PVP and high level arena.

Again thanks for reading and the positive comments.

[tottelol]

This is pure gold, very well-written!

[joker469]

one word. wow

[Nyu²²²]

Thanks for the wall of text, +rep

[Bloomfalls]

Your character's worth

This part will talk about how to improve the way others see your character. This is specially important if you've just leveled to 80, and your character will not only be naked, but "feel" like an alt.
You'll hardly get to the point where your character feels worth a lot in this case, but the thing here is to make is to diminish the fact your character is new. In other words, put up some make-up on it. In fact, this could be called the "make-up" effect - you cannot (most of time... not considering the jobs that rely heavily on physical appearance) get through a job interview with appearances alone, but if you get there all dirty and ugly, their first impression of you will be very bad even if you're qualified and as such, they'll not see you in the good light you deserve.

PVP

Being an active PVP player can be a turn-on or a turn-off to guilds. Some few top guilds don't actually like that their core members doing a lot of PVP. However, most guilds I've seen associate arena with skill and, if you show you're a good PVP player, they might see you as a better player overall. In fact, some Top 400 guilds encourage you to talk about your PVP exploits in the application.

Guilds will definitely look closer at you if you're a Gladiator. If you don't show you're also interested in PVE though, you might be seen as a "PVP player wanting a free ride on PVE". Use PVP to support your raiding skills - talk about how because of arena you have a much higher environment awareness, how quick you are with dispels, how you can notice the entire raid situation and heal appropriately, etc." They love that kind of stuff.

The majority of WoW players have very low rating, around 1400. If you can get above 1800 rating it won't be very impressive, but at least you'll be adding up something to your character: Achievement points. Above 2000 and you can already have some bragging rights, even though you're miles away from Gladiator range. When I'm done with this guide I'll provide tips to improve your arena rating, but for now this will have to suffice.

Anyway the main point here is to fill up your "profile", which leads us to...


Achievements

Thank the Gods for achievements. Why? Because as a new character, while gearscore is your biggest enemy, achievements are your one strength to increase your chances of getting in a decent guild. The reason is that achievements while useless can get you to show you have a bare knowledge of the game, and because they're so easy to get.

If you can get between 4000 and 5000, you're showing you're at least a bit serious about the game. Between 5000 and 6000, and you're more serious. Between 6000 and 7000, and you probably play enough to be a good player. Above 7000 and no one should question that you've playing a lot.

The point is that there are over 10000 achievement points, and while some of them are really restricted, the bulk of them isn't. You can fill it up with a lot of bullshit, aka:

The General Achievements overall (Master of Arms + Knuckle Sandwich, Pets, Mounts, Drinking stuff, eating stuff, Tabards, and a lot of other stuff ridiculously easy to get)
Quests - Try to fill up the quest achievements as you level up, such as green hills of stranglethorn, the Burning Crusade achievements, etc. Don't worry about the "x Quests Completed".
Exploration - Insanely easy achievement points for your time. Exploration gives a LOT of points.
Player vs Player - For better or for worse, a lot of achievements to be had here. Try to get the easiest ones for each Battleground, plus the other ones that are easy to get (Duel-icious, Gurubashi Arena Master depending on your server, Make love not warcraft, etc).
Dungeons & Raids - You can fill it up a lot by doing Classic and Burning Crusade dungeons. As a 80 you should be able to solo the classic dungeons. With a partner, you can duo most Burning Crusade instances and, depending on your classes, duo Zul'Gurub and Molten Core. Hell, if you're geared enough, you can solo Molten Core as a Druid, DK or Paladin, but this guide considers you're not all that geared yet. Try to get the WOTLK heroic achievements during your daily randoms.
Professions - Fairly easy to get the secondary profession achievements.
Reputation - Mostly grind, save it for last and if you have time.
World Events - A LOT of points to be had, plus cool stuff. Having World Events achievements show you've been playing consistently, SPECIALLY if you have the meta-achievement and violet proto-drake. Make your one-year plan to get this.
Feats of Strength - Not easy to fill as a new character. You can "buy" yourself the Zhevra one if you want or if you convince a friend. Some old quests (Druid flight form, Aqual Quintessence) give Feats of Strength. You can try to farm with a friend a legendary from 60 instances (or even 70...) too.

What you can do and I recommend you do is, until you have a good amount of achievement points, farm rare mounts every day. These would be:

Daily:
Anzu (requires a Druid) (1.3% drop)
Deathcharger (1% drop, can be done as much as you want in a day)
Blue Proto-Drake (requires you doing Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle, I recommend doing it with friends) (1.3% drop)
White Hawkstrider (requires you doing Magister's Terrace heroic. It can be soloed but not by all classes, do it with a friend) (3% drop)
White Polar Bear (from the Hyldnir Spoils from Brunnhildar dailies) (0.9% drop)

Weekly:
Zul'Gurub Mounts (Tiger and Raptor, you get chances at these two twice a week) (0.7% for tiger, 0.9% for raptor)
Fiery Warhorse (Karazhan's first boss, can be duo'd, fairly easy) (0.7% drop)
Green Proto-Drake (requires you to get faction standings with the Oracles) (2% drop)

You should have around 30-40% of seeing at least one rare mount drop in a week (seeing, not winning it), if you do these things religiously. Now, you probably won't, and I don't recommend you to, but if you do, good luck!

A bit off-topic but: When farming mounts, be careful to not lose your head and remember - Just because the deathcharger is a 1% chance, it doesn't mean you're guaranteed to have it in 100 tries. This is NOT how math works. You'll have (1-(1-0.01)^100) = 63.3% chance, not 100. It will take you 200 tries at Baron to have 86% chance of having seen it, not seeing it. You need to remember the game has no memory of its own, thus every 1% you roll is still 1%, and will forever be. You can run Baron 500 times and you still won't have 100% chance of having seen it (although you'll be slightly past the 99% range by then). Hell, you can run one million times and still be unlucky enough.

At any rate, farming these mounts will net you a lot of reputation with some old factions and, in the long run, might pay off with some extra achievements.

If you're good at making gold, you can get a lot of General achievements pretty easily.

Once you have 5000-6000 achievement points, your character will definitely not feel as "new" to others. It's not a huge plus, it's more like you're polishing something. Characters with low achievement points feel like alts or like they just got to 80. Characters above 7000 achievement points do have a much more "serious" look.


Be a Baron

If you're good at making gold, the only time and place you'll be able to smug about it is when you're required to post your UI. If you have 100k+ gold make sure to make an UI that displays it without showcases it, and don't ever mention it. Just offer shit ocasionally to other members and be nice, like flasks, etc. Do it at least (and if you're really protective about your gold, just once) once to each member if you can notice a situation they're unflasked. But yes, if you are rich, make sure it shows up in your screenshot.

Being wealthy doesn't offer MUCH to the guild, but shows you're dedicated to the game which, ultimately, is what you're striving for here.

[Reflection]

I haven't read all of it but it sure is amazing. Wonderful work! All I can ask for is maybe a couple of images or a different font color here and there to remove some of the "wall of text" feeling.

Very nicely done anyhow! +5

meh, given out too much in 24h. I'll give you tomorrow.

[Wetop]

You deserve a contributor for this post. +rep

[bloodshot94]

thank you very much

[Bloomfalls]

Thank you very much for the support! Wasn't expecting contributor at all.

[Sklug]

VERY well done... Especially having been a guild leader myself for 2+ years I have to say you really hit the nail on the head.

What is my biggest turn off and when do I decide to kick people? I am 50x more likely to kick you from the guild for just being immature, dumb, or offensive to people than I am to kick you because you are not the most skilled or active player, or because you caused a wipe.

But you nerd rage on someone in vent, or you sound like an unintelligent person, don't expect to be admired by the leaders for how awesome you are for what you did right, just expect to be kind of blacklisted from having a future in the guild.

[Tinsil]

More awesome info. Thanks again.

[Bloomfalls]

VERY well done... Especially having been a guild leader myself for 2+ years I have to say you really hit the nail on the head.

What is my biggest turn off and when do I decide to kick people? I am 50x more likely to kick you from the guild for just being immature, dumb, or offensive to people than I am to kick you because you are not the most skilled or active player, or because you caused a wipe.

But you nerd rage on someone in vent, or you sound like an unintelligent person, don't expect to be admired by the leaders for how awesome you are for what you did right, just expect to be kind of blacklisted from having a future in the guild.

Thank you for the compliment. Exactly, a lot of people don't realize these things - they do not project themselves to the mind of someone else, the observer of their actions.

I sympathize with you, being a Guild Master is no easy task.

At any rate here's my latest guide.

[oosanders]

Brilliant guide.
Made me think alot about qpplying for new guilds, as i have just come off a break so i am looking into doing ICC

[Jeremiah]

Great guide, keep it up!