Great response, I know exactly what you're talking about. One of the best priests I've ever played with could solo heal kara at 70 in greens and blues, but he's so casual that he's still only level 74. I also know a mage who spends hours theorycrafting and reading other people's formulas and such, but he needs at least 1 innervate to keep from going OoM on boss fights even in naxx.

Great response.

[1. Local] anyone? Definitely think this should be posted there.

For myself I've got a few 80's, but my raiding up until now was basically Archavon. (Almost got Emalon once, we hit the enrage timer at 3%...)

My characters have plenty of epics, even if my only jaunt into Naxx was for a love fool. :)

My boomkin pulls about 2700dps on Arch, my warlock about 2500+, depending on group comp and RNG.

Anyway, it's hard for me, a guildless guy, to get into raids because everyone wants "know the fights" now, and I'm honest enough to say I haven't done them. So I get skipped over. Last week, someone wanted ranged dps for Sarth+0 pug, I said I'd do it, but didn't know the fights. He said "if you can follow directions, you're welcome".

I got the Volcano Blows achievement, did a little cheer, while one of the other dps complained about "bad flame wall calls".

When I was bored later, I looked up the group online and of the 10, none had the achievement for 10 man, and only 2 had it for 25 man. My DPS was 2500ish, and I was 3rd for the night on recount.

But still, next time a naxx group is forming, I'll be passed over in favor of some elite guildguy doing 1500.

@Vocenoctum:

I can understand how you feel. Being an quite experienced and good player, you're having problems with the fact you are unable to go to Naxx because you're also a guildless and casual player who doesn't know the fights. That's frustrating.

However, "If raiding together, every mistake you make costs other people time, money, and causes a little stress too. You can laugh them off, but they do have consequences. A middling league football or baseball team that picks up a brand new player who does nothing but drop the ball will quickly run out of patience, and it's the same in raiding. Even people with the gentlest temperaments and best intentions can get frustrated when they are constantly corpserunning due to your mistakes." is entirely true and the reason you're not getting a group. Most experienced raiders have seen the stuff described by Jennie happening a lot and they are tired with it. Naxx is a very fun instance, but it will take at least 3 hours to complete and even longer with an inexperienced group (and remember that an inexperienced group means wiping a few times, which also costs a lot of gold).

However, as you're annoyed you can't get a group for Naxx, i conclude you do want to run Naxx and thus have the time to do it. It will be a lot easier to get a group if you can say "i haven't done it before, but i'm skilled, i have the gear and i know the tactics". Obviously you have the skills and the gear, you only don't know the tactics. Some excellent Naxx-guides were written in Readycheck (i think it were 5 articles, written in dec 2008 - jan 2009). It takes some time to read through them, but not as much as a Naxxramas run. Read them and you're ready for your first Naxx-run in no-time ;-)

Well, for me, I understand why they want people that already know the job, it makes perfect sense. Part of my point was that asking for "must be geared/ know fights" isn't automatically a sign of a quality player. I don't resent them for setting a minimum standard or anything.

I could probably reread the guides and fake my way through, just saying I know the fights. (Though some guys ask to be linked the achievement now too. :) But I'm not the guy to lie about it.

By the same token, I could join plenty of guilds, but I can't make a weekly commitment to raid times, so I don't want to inconvenience them.

So, right now I'm working on alt-5 A rogue currently at level 60. I see raiding as the next big step for me, but not sure I want to take the risk.