How To Spec/Gear up etc. and become a good player(long read)

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There's nothing like having a guide/mentor to make things clear and easy. However, when this is impossible, emulate what you can of those that have achieved and accomplished. With any luck and given some time, you'll surpass them both in skill and knowledge.

-me =D
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Gearing up:
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Gear puts you at great advantage over encounters. Enhancing the gear puts you in an even greater positon. With this being said, I usually use the guild "Insomnia" of Tichondrius (rated #1 in the world at the time of this post) as a comparison to have a good idea of what our peeps should be trying for, GEARWISE.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/guild-info.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Insomnia&p=1

Armory the guild and use the filter to view the class relevant to you. Compare your gear/spec/enchants to theirs (make sure it's PvE spec please) to get a good idea of what you should be moving towards. Also, always keep in mind that stats that are usually talented for can be ignored by higher geared people as the gear compensates for it (example +hit talents).

There are a lot of resources out there to help you on gearing up. Stat calculations is the way I do it, but if you don't know how to do so, find a site that helps you with this, or at the least, just copy gear from effective players.

Skillzzzz:
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Gear, however, doesn't provide skill. If you can't find someone you admire and that's actually good at playing YOUR CLASS (hint: stop asking me how to play your class, lol), then you have to go read up, research, and experience the implementation of acquired informatiuon UNTIL you're the best at what you do. Even good advice from great players isn't enough to make you good...go practice stuff.

85% of people you see are pretty bad with the knowledge they possess, and with human vanity as well as cowardice, you'll find a lot of big talkers and bandwagon jumpers agreeing to the same noob info (eg. ret paladin can't dps =P, mages can't beat warlocks, or that rogues are too Op..wahhh). Your best bet is to take info that sounds good, then go learn for yourself by trying it...both in PvE and PvP. Practice, practice, practice...

Enhance PvE by PvP:
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PvE is about fighting robots that repeat the same cycle. Get it down, and with the help of addons (GET ADDONS) predicting every moment, as well as helping you prioritize healing etc, no instance should be too hard to overcome.

Go practice your PvP (not just for gear but to be a better player). It not only improves your reaction time, but makes you ready in "oh shit" situations. Your reaction becomes pre-emptive and when you get really good, people wonder if you're reading their mind...You are.

Some classes are more difficult to beat by others, SOLO, but try to capitalize on their mistakes and use synergy with your teammates. If you lose, blame your Dad for giving you slow reaction and "making mistakes" genes, lol. It's ok, it happens.. but REMEMBER, the game is not about winning duels, it's about team effort. That rogue your shadow priest is afraid of becomes less threatening when a paladin tosses him a bubble and blessing of freedom to kite/kill the sneaky backstabber.

When you go Bg's, preferably with a friend, practice synergy (ie. don't do what puggers do, theyre bad players). That means, sheep, fear, stun, cc, heal multiple targets dynamically (while trying to kite etc),. Remember to practice using all your tools. Class/gameplay in PvP isn't divided into just dps and heal..they're deeper and affect wins/losses if you use them how they were intended. Only 3 or 4/few great people usually cause bg victories (or you might get lucky and get 10 average/good ones), but in any case, try to be one of the great ones.

But, DO NOT COME TO RAID AS PVP SPEC. You can still PvP in PvE specs but you seriously gimp us the other way around.

Human Connection:
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This game is about community. Everything you'll do will have an effect on others. Little things..like that MoB you killed makes some guy that comes 10 secs later run around wasting time a bit more looking for another one of it's type. Big things..like you coming unprepared to a raid as healer, having no pots and so casting small heals because of it, running oom, and letting tank die at 5% of boss's health wastes everyones time. A lot of their time. It also ruins a potentially great time for those that put in effort to be prepared.

Dying 6 times in a row isn't fun, and one or two lazy, unprepared, "i come for loot only" people can cause this to happen. Have some pride in being good at everything, both in the game and in real life.

Macros and add-ons:
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Gear up, skill up, then learn to make macros (not lazy spam heal on tank only ones please, but the ones that SAVE tanks/teammates from dying). Macros are effective especially when you have a focus (alternative target) as it essentially keeps you in control of multiple characters without ever having to change targets.

Having a hard time killing Void when he is bugged and doesn't say who he is throwing orb at? Well, Blizzard says they make the game with addons that people use in mind, and implementing mechanics that don't address that issue trivializes the enitire game and the encounters.

Simply put, if you don't have addon/macros etc., you haven't downloaded the entire game and like Illidan says, "you are not prepared". In the case of this Void bug, they will fix it, not because they have to, but because they know they made the encounter with add-ons in mind and have essentially doubled the difficulty by "blinding" people if the targeting announcement isn't fixed.

Omen threat meter, Deadly Boss Mods, Decursive, Healbot, Nature Castbars..these are just some of the more popular ones that Blizz will ALWAYS take into consideration when creating new content. Get stuff that you need and don't come raid with a blindfold on.

Be a goddamn hero, even if no one notices. It'll make our raid time way more enjoyable.

Final Words:
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TL;DR (too long; didn't read)..Common..I've read posts three times as long as this and entire web pages. It beats watching stupid shows on T.V when I have time to kill. Becoming great at anything requires time management on many levels, so don't waste time spamming in guild chat and asking things you should have read up on already.

As I said earlier, about 85-90% of players are noobish. Because of this, it's seriously impossible to put together a guild of random people that turn out to be great players. The best bet is to recruit listeners and teach them how to be great, thereby "building" a great guild. Just putting together a group for 3v3 and 5v5 can be a hassle to find decent players, so IMAGINE a guild of 126 people.

If you made it this far, then you have more focus and listen more than most of the attention deficit people that have wiped us. You also have a thirst for information, so I commend you, and good luck on your journey to becoming L337!111!!111 lol.