Gearing up for ICC25 (AKA LFM ICC5 Heroics)

[Inori]

In my boredom, I refreshed the http://wow-heroes.com profile for every level 80 character in the guild. Yes, I was that bored.

To my surprise, we have a lot of geared characters in the guild. I haven't attempted to do any matching of mains and alts, so it's hard for me to tell if we have enough distinct players in the guild to do a ICC25 raid.

For people who have undergeared main characters,

1) Your character may not actually be undergeared.
2) Gear isn't the most important thing for raiding. It's not even the 2nd or 3rd most important thing.
3) If you are interested in seeing new content (ICC10 and ICC25), the content will require good gear. I put a post in the raid forum a while back about people doing Yogg Saron in Ulduar 10 entirely in ilvl 200 blues. Since ICC is two tiers past Ulduar, it will obviously take more than ilvl 200 blues to do it. That being said...
3a) We should have enough geared tanks to make a reasonable dent into one ICC25 and multiple ICC10 groups.
3b) Healers can generally be undergeared relative to the rest of the raid. The rule of thumb I've always used is that a healer can get away with being a tier or two behind. So for ICC10, a healer in entirely Ulduar 10 (ilvl 219) gear should be able to handle it. The problem an undergeared healer usually encounters is running out of mana which can be counteracted with consumables (mana potions, mana regen food, mana regen flasks/elixirs) and proper raid setup (putting healers in the same group for mana tide totem, coordinating innervates).
3c) DPS is the tricky one. I've seen how low raid DPS in ICC10 results in being overwhelmed by waves of boss adds or hitting boss enrage timers. As I've reiterated, gear is not the most important thing. If you think your DPS is low, please, please, please don't just assume it's your gear. From what I've seen in our guild ToC25s, our raid DPS is probably good enough, but we do lose a lot of DPS to people dying (e.g., Twin Val'kyr orbs) and poor coordination (Anub'Arak scarabs). If you think you have an undergeared main, but have a mastery of your class talents, DPS rotation, and know how to handle raid mechanics (e.g., fire, switching targets, crowd control), don't shy away from guild 25s.

This brings me to the last point. The heroic ICC5 instances: Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection drop ilvl 232 gear -- that's the same gear that drops in ToC10. I would like to see more of these groups running in order to gear people up. Since we have a good number of overgeared people in the guild who are interested in the battered hilt and badges, I'm pretty sure we can arrange some groups to run the instance.

Speaking for myself, I feel confident that my tank can handle:
1) 1 undergeared, but motivated healer + 3 geared DPS.
2) 1 geared healer + 2 geared DPS + 1 (sometimes 2) undergeared DPS. For some encounters, I don't think I can handle 2 undergeared DPS (e.g., falling behind on waves in HoR or having Arthas reach Jaina in HoR).
I feel confident that my healer can handle:
3) 1 slightly undergeared, but motivated tank + 3 geared DPS.
4) 1 geared tank + 2 geared DPS + 1 (sometimes 2) undergeared DPS.

I think a lot of the other tanks/healers in guild would agree with the template above. What I do think would go a long way to making people more interested in running the 5s above would be for those who are 'benefitting most' from the run agree to not roll on the battered hilt.

For those who are reluctant to run the ICC5s on heroic with undergeared party members, please think of the upside. You can always use the extra badges to buy gems. A battered hilt just might drop. It gets more guild members geared up and involved so we don't have to 20 man ToC25.

-HP

[Benvolo]

I would be able to help out with either one of my toons. I don't think I really need anything out of there on my mage, unless there is a cloak I don't know about. I can bring my healer too, just to vacuum up loot no one wants

[WarmApplePie]

If there are mains that still need things out of there then I'm more then happy to come when available just let me know. I can tank it, heal it on 2 characters, or dps on 2 characters. So I pretty much have whatever you need to fit into your group.

[dakkath]

Same, I'll help when I'm on, just yell.

[kdub]

This is Vegimity,
(my password is still having issues)
anyway, i am always more than happy to help with stuff when i can. All but my pally are really overgeared for them but i am always more than happy to come help. I can tank, heal, or give some mad dps...

I will say that in doing these...i really dont enjoy doing them unless it is a guild group. i have just seen pugs do some real stupid stuff(like say they know a fight and yet not stand behind the saronite to shed the debuff) so i am not a fan of pugging these unless i have too.

The veg

[Inori]

Just a note to those who are wondering where these went, with the expansion of ICC10/25, most groups are taking two nights. Two nights for the 25 + two nights for a 10 = 4 out of 7 nights. If you want to run one, be sure to suggest it in guild chat every once in a while (don't be discouraged if you only get crickets, but as for a lot of things, nothing happens if nothing is said). As things settle down (e.g., people start clearing ICC faster), these groups will probably start running more frequently again.

-HP

[Jon]

Sounds good, I'll probably start bringing this up on a lot of nights. My druid still needs some random things for resto and I have some work to do for boom. If other people have alts that need items we can trade runs in some way to make sure everybody is getting something out of it. Just figure out what items are upgrades for your main and we'll farm the hell out of them.