Advice on organizing raids (pugs)

I've been playing for quite some time but I mainly focused on my class and didn't pay attention to the big picture. So, how do I start my own raid, what am I looking for? How many mdps, rdps, tanks, healers for 10 man and 25 man raids? Any particular class that is a must in a raid? What addons would be useful? What is the lowest GS I can ask for without the raid turning out to be a complete fail?

I may have overlooked other things, basically I'm interested in the organizing aspect. I can find plenty of tactics guides, but I can't seem to be able to find guides about organizing a raid. Any useful information on the topic is much appreciated.

I'd say start with the raid you want to do. Then you will know what fights and what fight mechanics you will face and can choose an advantageous raid composition accordingly.

There is no must-have class and no ideal number of healers or tanks, this varies from raid to raid. You can probably 1-man heal OS 10 but don't expect that from ToC 25. Sometimes different healer types are more suitable due to AOE or tank healing specialties.

Also forget about Gearscore, inspecting in Dalaran should do the trick better and weed out those who can obtain high GS but are clueless about the relevant stats.

I still like old X-Perl raid frames, curse will have all the add-ons you need. (also this forum shows working add-ons for 3.3.5)

For useful information on organizing a raid, raid compositions for specific encounters and similar I'd recommend Google (Fatboss, Wowhead and icy-veins have good raid info available. In the good old days I'd have sent you to Tankspot, if you can find their old guides you will ike them.

Thanks! I suppose I'll have to pay attention when participating in a certain raid to be familiar with the encounters and the raid composition.

General 10 man setup:

2 Tanks
2 Heals
3 Melees
3 Rangeds
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General 25 man setup:

2 Tanks
5 Heals
9 Melees
9 Rangeds

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+- Ranged/Melee when you understand comps better.

Thanks! That really helps.

Always keep in mind of the armour types + how many of same class.
And if doing toc 25, you'd need to keep in mind of what classes will roll for death's choice / death's verdict.

10mans, it's always good to have 2paladins (2blessings + 2auras) + 1shaman (bloodlust + 4totems) + 1druid (gift of the wild + combat ress)

You can check the thread "Wotlk How would your dream raid look like?", which is listed in the same forum as your thread. I replied in that thread and you can search for my comments on it.

Keep in mind that when pugging (looking for group from Global), gearscore doesn’t mean much. There’s a huge difference between people donating their gear and those actually earning it. Along with that, a 6.0k gs guy you find from Global might perform worse than a guildie you know that has 5.5k gs. It all depends from person to person.


When you’re making a raid (specially from Global), make sure you follow a few rules:
Make sure that players are gemmed and enchanted
Gems and enchants are a HUGE boost in your stats. Using these can make up for a BiS item in the end.
It’s okay to have lower quality gems and enchants on gear that is not BiS or from higher tier raids.
It’s okay to not have ALL your gear enchanted and gemmed, as long as they’re putting the effort of doing so.
Don’t give in
There will be times when you’ll be assembling the raid and you’ll really really need a certain class. When a guy that’s clearly not going to fit in your raid, don’t give him a spot. It will cause disturbance in the raid from other players if not from his performance.
Don’t let the raid members push you around
Some of them will demand some items. Some of them will try to instruct the raid instead of you. Make sure you show them you’re the one leading the raid.

Make sure you announce Loot rules before starting the first boss in the instance.
Announce any change of people’s main spec rolling (For example, a Retribution Paladin joins the raid, but wants to roll on Protection gear).
Give out at least one Assist. It can happen that you get a DC and you simply can’t see the raid unless someone kicks and reinvites you back to the raid.
Make sure you’re familiar with the encounters you’re going to lead the raid into.


10 man raids:
General rule is that 10 man raid is harder to form as you have limited slots as to what you want your raid to consist of.
There are certain classes that bring certain bonuses to the raid, but in a 10 man raid you can't fit all of them. Some classes benefit casters, some benefit physical DPS ... so it's on you to choose what you wanna go for.
Normally when I make a 10 man raid, I try to make a caster group with 1-2 physical DPS, because it's easier to form and you benefit the most from it.
Optimal healers would be Discipline Priest + Holy Paladin
Optimal tanks would be Blood Death Knight + Protection Paladin
If you're making a caster based group, make sure you get an Elemental Shaman and a Demonology Warlock in the raid - they'll bring the most to your setup. If you want to make it perfect, add a Balance Druid and a Shadow Priest.
To make the group perfect, I'd add an Unholy Death Knight (for the shadow damage buff) and a Hunter (Hunter is always a nice DPS addition and you'll need one to dispel Enrage on Lich King encounter). Make your Blood Death Knight tank use Hysteria on the Hunter at all times.
You can always fit a Retribution Paladin in there.

If you want to stick to physical damage raid, then make sure you have the following:
Hunter, Frost Death Knight, Warrior, Retribution Paladin
The rest is pretty much flexible, though a Shaman would be a nice addition as well.

In the end it's your choice, you can always try to mix the two setups and it will work. I find the caster group better and more efficient.

Another thing to add, if your healers aren’t geared enough, they’ll need a Replenishment for their mana in the raid. That means having a Retribution Paladin or a Shadow Priest (who’s using Mind Blast) is a must.

For the optimal setup, check the thread "Wotlk How would your dream raid look like?”.

ICC 10 Normal:
"Gearscore" - between 5.0k to 5.4k is what you'll be looking for to start this kind of raid. Of course you can bring lower geared toons, but they'll probably slow you down as they don't have set bonuses yet. Keep in mind that DPS are more gear dependant than healers. You'll want to have a higher geared Tank as well, around 5.4k for a main tank at least.
If you have a nicely geared Tank and at least one of the healers, then you can use only 1 Tank to clear this raid.

ICC 10 Heroic:
"Gearscore" - between 5.6k to 6.0k is your aim. Remember, that 10 man raids are harder to optimize, so you'll need better geared people for it. Also keep in mind that 10 Heroic is harder to accomplish than 25 Normal. An extra note: 10 Heroic gear is usually better than 25 Normal one, at least when it comes to stats.

25 man raids:
Optimal setup is much easier to achieve, as you obviously have more slots to fill. Hence, you can make both kind of groups - casters and physical DPS.
Tanks stay the same as in 10 man raids.
The two healers from 10 man raids are a standard, but you can add a Restoration Druid and Restoration Shaman in the setup without any complications. I personally prefer Holy Priests instead of Restoration Shamans though, as long as you have Elemental Shaman in the raid the raid with necessary totems.

In 25 man raids, having a FFB Mage is a huge bonus as with so many raid buffs, they actually flourish. They’ll probably be on top of DPS for most of the encounters. Having 2-3 of them will greatly improve your raid progress.

For the optimal setup, check the thread "Wotlk How would your dream raid look like?”.

ICC 25 Normal:
“Gearscore” - You’ll be looking at gear between 5.4k and 6.0k. Your raid will be big and there’s a lot of room for improvisation.
Keep in mind that people who have most of ICC 10 Normal gear will usually reach gearscore of 5.7k. That means whoever is below 5.4k gs is probably wearing some really low ilvl gear. That’s sometimes understandable, but often people want to rush things and want to go from FoS/PoS directly to ICC 25 Normal.

ICC 25 Heroic:
“Gearscore”- Anything above 5.8k is good, but if you want a successful raid, look for people around 6.0k gearscore. Keep in mind that when pugging (looking for group from Global), gearscore doesn’t mean much. When it comes to an important raid like this, you have to increase your standards. Make sure you inspect people one-by-one and be patient about it.


In the end it all comes down to experience. The more you’ll do it, the easier it will be. Of course you’ll make some errors in judgements, but make sure you learn from that.


Useful addons:
DBM (Deadly Boss mods) - Announces important activities within the raid (like Bone Storm incoming in 10 seconds on Lord Marrowgar, …)
Recount/Skada - Either one of these addons tracks what’s actually happening inside your raid. Don’t use this addon just for looking at DPS and HPS, but also at what every individual is doing. “Is that Mage attacking Bone Spikes and Adds on Lady?”, “Is that Healer using the correct abilities? - For example Restoration Shaman spamming Chain heal on tanks on Lich King encounter instead of Healing Wave when Soul Reaper is up”, …
Grid - It functions like Healbot, you can set it so that you can see your whole raid in that “grid” window. It’s useful so that you can see if there’s some problems around the raid. People are constantly on low HP means your healers suck. The same guy constantly dead means he’s performing badly, etc … If you’re a healer, this or Healbot is one of the best addons you can have.
Omen - Tracks threat. See who’s too high on threat and make sure people use Hand of Salvation, Vigilance, … on him, or even be ready for Taunt if he’s about to take the boss from the Tank.

Advanced addons:
oRa3 - tracks Cooldowns of your raid, makes it easier to invite people from your guild
Unit Frames (it’s a common term for addons that change your UI - your profile, your target’s profile, etc) - I can recommend x-perl or ShadowedUnitFrames … you can look them up
Bartender - changes your action bars to your liking (makes it easier to settle your whole UI)

I pretty much wrote anything that came to mind. If you got anything else to ask or comment, you're free to do so.

Suggested addon: Raid roll pick the 4.1.15.zip
Easy to track and spot player rolls, alerts with double rolls. shows class colors and group if wanted.

How to create a pug raid:
1.) Go to global.
2.) Find a PvE guild that is recruiting
3.) Join that guild
4.) Raid with them cause PuG raids have been, are & always will be horrible
5.) Close global so you don't join Pug's :P

Thanks guys!

Mentioned before, but here's my spin on things.

General setups:
10m: 2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 mdps, 3rdps. General rule is to keep 2 Tanks and 3 Mdps in group 1, and 3 Rdps and 2 Healers in group 2 (this helps healers arrange their healing frames to efficiently heal the raid based on their positions)
25m: 2 tanks, 5 healers, 8 mdps, 10 rdps. General rule is to keep tanks in group 1, mdps in groups 1+2, Rdps in groups 3+4, and put healers in group5. Again, this helps healers priorities who to heal first, as melee take more damage(group 1+2 appear first in most raid frames), and healers in group 5 because healers usually just heal themselves and generally shouldn't need to heal other healers(but they often will).
Arranging people in the right groups actually helps healers ALOT, especially skilled healers who are able to make use of these small facts.

Anyway, as a Raid Leader your goal is to get as many raid buffs at the same time, here's a list of all raid buffs, who provides them, and what does and doesn't stack
http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/...-do-not-stack/
But you don't want to just focus on buffs, you need to focus on strong classes. For example, Enhance shamans do much less damage than Hunters, so if you want a 10% Attack power buff, it is better to use a Marksmanship hunter instead, they provide the same important buffs, but one is more DPS than the other.

In a 25 man team, you've basically got enough room to bring enough players along to get EVERY buff out there. So you really don't need to be very choosy. But heres 5 things i try to aim for in my 25mans:
1) If you can: Try to fit in AT LEAST 3 ret palas and AT LEAST 3 Hunters, as these are the backbone of your dps. This still leaves 5 mdps and 7 rdps slots for you to fill other buffs and raid utilities.

2) Strictly MAX of 1 Disc priest (weakened soul debuff makes more than 1 a disc pretty ineffective, many discs tend to rage and leave raid if there's more than 1 disc in the raid)

3) Try to keep a MAX of 1 Holy paladin. You could take 2, but thanks to beacon, one Hpala can keep 2 tanks topped off just fine. Having 2 is bad, but possible, going over 3 Hpala's is a horrible idea and definitely should never be done. Beacons can sometimes conflict and cancel each other out.

4) At least one Shaman for Lust/Heroism

5) Take at least one Demo lock for Demonic Pact for Spellpower, as it is stronger than totems or other SP buffs.

In general for 10 mans, you won't have enough player slots to fulfill many buff slots.
I try to keep in mind these rules:
Strictly max of 1 disc priest
Strictly max of 1 Hpala
Preferably 1 Shaman (ele preferred, if you can't find a shaman, cut 1 mdps out and bring a 4th Rdps for your elesham)

10 mans are alot trickier, but i find the following setup works best:

Mdps: 2 Ret palas, 1 frost DK >The ret palas form a solid DPS background and covers your Kings and class buffs, and the DK is decent dps and brings melee attack speed for the Rets.
>>Not as good but still okay is 1Ret, 1Frost, and 1 of either (Warrior, Kitties, Rogue) but these 3 classes need to be extremely good to be more worthwhile than taking 2nd ret pala, and you need to have either a prot or hpala so you have 2 or more paladins in your raid. Also it seems 90% of server is Ret palas, so they are easiest to find.

Rdps: 1 Marksman Hunter, 2 of any casters(Spriest/Boomy/Demo/Ele/... Posssibly Mage) > Hunter is your strong dps'er and gives Attack power to your 2 ret palas. Bring 2 casters along as they all provide good benefits, take 2 different types of casters, try not to get 2 of the same spec.

Healers: Any 2 works, but i prefer to see at least 1 hpala or 1 disc priest, possibly even one of each. Only take Resto shaman if you can't find an Ele shaman, as i tend to find skilled Resto druids can usually outperform Resto Shamans, and Battle-res on a healer is awesome. If desperate for a shaman and you've already got 2 heals 3 rdps, then take a 4th Rdps Ele shaman and cut back to 2mdps.
The idea is the Hpala/Disc will help keep the tanks alive, while the 2nd healer heals raid. It's possible to bring a Hpala/Disc duo team along because the disc prevents damage with bubbles and gives the Hpala enough time to heal anyone low on hp, while the disc can sort of be considered as a "raid healer" as well.

Tanks: Any 2 works, they all bring benefits. (also hard to find tanks, so get the first decent tanks you can find!)

Basically, the dream team for 10 mans is
Mdps: 2ret pala, 1frost DK,
Rdps:1 MM Hunter, 2 different spec Casters (Best combo is Elesham+Spriest if you have a resto druid or Elesham+Boomy if you dont have a restoDruid, if you couldn't find a ele sham at all, then you need to take the 3rd best combo, which is Spriest+Boomy)
Heals:1 Hpala OR Disc, and any 2nd healer that isn't what you got in the first healer slot
Tanks: Any 2 tanks.

This setup revolves around your 2 rets and the hunter being the majority of your DPS, while all your support classes also do extremely well thanks to their synergy with each other. For example, the DK, while considered a support role in this raid still gets Kings + Might and Trueshot aura, so will be able to pull better-than average DPS. That's 4 strong Attack-Power based classes. Warriors/Kitties/Rogues are less useful because tanks often bring the same benefits as these classes, such a sunder armor and faerie fire can often be provided by tanks.
Secondly your 2 casters won't feel left out because each of the casters brings some form of Caster-related buff, so the 2 casters will help each other AND the 2 healers, so you've got 2 healers and 2 casters forming a 4man Spellpower support squad, although these guys are mainly utility based. Mage is less preferred to the other casters for this reason.

What I've learned from leading a lot of pugs a while back:

1/ If you have a microphone, ask your people to be on Raidcall, or Team Speak. It will really help a great deal, and people seem to stick longer (ie, not ragequit at the first wipe).

2/ Inspect people, Gearscore doesn't say anything, but seeing the right gems and the right enchants on every slots tells you that this guy knows what he is doing or that at least he read a guide. And if you see an unusual gem/enchant somewhere, ask for the reason it's here. He good player will have an answer, a braindead one won't know. It makes it easier to accept/reject people!

3/ Have a basic knowledge of all the classes. Knowing what they can do will make it easier for you to find a correct setup, and knowing what stat they need will make it easier for you to inspect. (And unlike the people that previously posted here, there are indeed setup that bring more buffs than other, but you can run pretty much every setup as long as it is somewhat balanced - at least in normal raid, because your pug will be a somewhat "overgeared" pug, raid-awareness and knowledge of encounters is what will make the people go through it easily, not setup. Just don't pug HCs, for those, get in a guild, or make one).

4/ My personal opinion on healers (10man): don't go with a RDruid/HPriest compo, and DPriest is overrated. HPala/RDruid sounds like a good thing to me. In 25man, take one of each. And if you can't get one of each, don't get a 2nd HPala (cause beacon) or a 2nd DPriest (cause weakened soul), get another druid, or HPriest if you know he's good.

5/ Be a good leader. Leading pugs is not easy, and if you happen to be a **** leader that is either "mean" with tthe pugs, or that doesn't know how to lead, or that is not 100% confident about fight mechanism... then you can be sure you raid won't make it anywhere unless your people are overgearing the raid.

/6 As said before, announce how the loot is going to work, announce when you will allow break (and make sure to allow some, people need to drink, to go to the toilets, ....), and announce they may not afk at any other time. Assign the buff and make sure they do it before any encounter. And make them move their ***es fast. You'll lose enough time creating the pug, no need to loose extra time moving from one boss to another.

7/ Start by pugging 10man. Unless you already have raidleading experience (which you don't apparently). Watching 25 people is a pain. With 10, it's "easy" to be aware of people position, and of the raid situation in general, hence to make decisions. With 25 it's not the same deal.