That took a lot of time and effort. Now you have arrived at the magic number and it's time to go hit Black Temple and the Sunwell and show those bad boys who the real bosses of the game are, right? Slow down ... not so fast there ...
There is a little secret Blizzard didn't tell you when you started playing. There are two types of leveling in this game. You hit the level cap for one by hitting level 70. Now the next one starts. Not all level 70's are the same and can participate in all raids in any meaningful way. Let's review a little so that you understand what I mean.
Think back to when you were level 20. If somebody were to run you through Scarlet Monastery back then you would have gotten some great gear, but you would not have been able to contribute to the group in any meaningful way. As dps, all your spells would have bounced off the mobs. As a tank, you would have gotten eaten alive. As a healer, you would not have been able to do enough healing to keep the tank alive unless he barely needed any healing. If you went in a group that wasn't significantly overgeared, the group would fail because you would have been dead weight. Everybody who plays understands this. What some people don't realize is that it is the same after 70.
Let's talk about 70 gear in terms of levels. If you go to http://be.imba.hu you can see information about your gear level as a 70. It gives you an idea about where you can perform well with the gear you have. It is imperfect, but it does give you an idea
Let's suppose we have a group of 70's that decide to go to Karazhan. Some have not had time to improve their gear yet. According to http://be.imba.hu they do not have gear adequate for heroics, much less Karazhan. The other members of the raid have gear that is adequate for Karazhan, but just barely. The result will be much like taking a level 20 player in a group with four other players that are at the right level to run Scarlet Monastary. If the other players had great gear, the poorly geared 70's could be carried by the players with great gear. That's ok up to a point. It is one way that we do work on gearing up new 70's, although we do expect you to take other steps to improve your gear as well like getting gear from instances and crafting. But let's look at this a little more.
Something similar happens in more advanced raids and progression raids. To be successful in Gruul's, the group has to have gear that is of that level and a lot of it comes from crafting, Kara, badges and heroics. To be successful in The Eye, the group has to have gear that is of that level and a lot of it comes from crafting, Kara, Gruul's, Mag, badges and heroics. And so it goes with rest of the pve progression. Unless the group that signs up has adequate gear, the group will not succeed. That brings up a question that we are going to be faced with that hasn't been a big issue, but it could become more of a problem in the future.
Let's say that we get 30 people that sign up for A'lar, but only 20 of them have gear that is suitable but not overpowered for the instance and the other 5 have gear that is barely suitable for Kara. What should we do? Should we draft 25 of the people that signed up knowing that we won't be able to down any bosses because overall our gear will be inadequate? If we can't find 25 available guildies with adequate gear, do we draft those that are undergeared instead of non-guildies even though we know we can't be successful if we do? Or do we fill the remaining slots with non-guildies with the gear for the instance so that we can down the boss and work on gearing ourselves to put the boss on farm so we can bring along a few undergeared guildies?
I am asking these as rhetorical questions to let you know what the officers have been discussing so that you will be aware of the issues we face. I also want to let you know what goes into our thought process as we decide who gets drafted for raids. I have had the discussion about who gets drafted for raids with many of you as part of the interview process. We do try to pick people on a "first come, first serve" basis, but we also consider gear and raid balance so that the raid can succeed. Be prepared that there will be times that we might not draft someone that signs up if the person is significantly undergeared, and there might be cases where we end up going outside of the guild because the guildies that are available are significantly undergeared for the instance.
