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Want Better WoW Recruits? Ask This One Game-Changing Question

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When recruiting for a serious raid team, we often get caught up in logs, past achievements, and class comp. But there’s one deceptively simple question that cuts through all of that and reveals way more than people realize:

“How often do you play during the week?”

It’s not flashy. It’s not technical. But what about the answer you get? That tells you nearly everything you need to know about how this player is going to perform on your team.

Why Play Time Tells You Everything

Someone can have great parses and a nice raider.io score, but if they log on twice a week (once to raid and once to check the auction house), you’re going to run into problems. Quickly.

This question uncovers:

  • Whether they’re actively maintaining their character
  • If they’re engaged with current content
  • How much effort do they put into staying raid-ready
  • Whether they treat WoW like a hobby or like a team sport

If someone isn’t putting in time, they’re likely falling behind in one or more critical areas: gear optimization, dungeon keys, renown progression, consumable prep, or simply staying in rhythm with the game.

The Raid-Only Raider vs. The Team-Oriented Raider

It’s the classic split.

Some players treat raiding like clock-in, clock-out shift work. They show up for pulls but never put in work outside of it.
That may be fine for more casual groups.

But if you’re trying to push Cutting Edge, that’s a liability.

CE raiders are expected to:

  • Run high-level dungeons to cap crests and upgrade gear
  • Push reputation and renown, especially in the Liberation of Undermine, where buffs and perks are tied to progression systems
  • Hit at least 4 high-level M+ dungeons weekly to unlock vault choices (naturally this tapers off towards the end of the season)
  • Keep up with class tuning, encounter changes, and meta shifts

If you’re behind in any of these areas, you’re dragging the team down. It doesn’t matter how well you parse if your trinkets are outdated and your weapons are 20 item levels behind.

This One Question Saves You Time and Headaches

Ask it early during the interview process.

You’ll avoid weeks of frustration when someone underperforms due to poor prep. You’ll spare your leadership team awkward “why aren’t you doing your keys” DMs. And most importantly, you’ll align expectations right from the start.

This question:

  • Filters out raid passengers
  • Opens the door to honest conversations about commitment
  • Helps you recruit for long-term fit, not just short-term performance

Red Flags vs. Green Flags

Here’s what to listen for:

Red Flags:

  • “I mostly just log in for raid nights.”
  • “I haven’t done any M+ this season.”
  • “I’m not really into the grind anymore.”

Green Flags:

  • “I’m usually online a few nights a week running keys or helping friends.”
  • “I’ve been working on Undermine rep (or other rep).”
  • “I try to push keys and get my rating up.”

Consistency beats bursts of greatness. You want players who are present, proactive, and part of the team beyond just showing up on time.

Ask the Question. Always.

It’s easy to teach better positioning. You can improve execution. You can implement assignments and cooldowns to the point it becomes second nature. But you can’t teach someone to care enough to log in and improve their character. Player skill is a big part of the equation, but effort is another unit of measure.

Before you get dazzled by logs, ask the real question:

“How often do you play?”

It might be the most honest answer you get in the whole conversation.

Should I Trial Now During Awakened or Wait for Season 1?

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I’ve seen this question pop up a few times both on the player side and on the guild side.

Is it worth even trying out for new teams now that we also have a confirmed expansion date (August 26th)? Is it better to wait closer to the expansion or even when after the game drops?

I would say yes, it is absolutely worth applying now and securing a team to join.

High Turnover

Guilds often see a lot of turnover during new expansions and seasons. Players move around chasing new rankings, taking breaks, or sometimes just not coming back. This creates openings for new members. By trialing now, you can grab a spot before the new expansion rush and settle into the guild. This was especially true following the end of Season 2 for us when we practically had to reboot the entire roster.

Roster Needs

Guilds want a full team ready to go when new content drops. If a guild isn’t fully staffed at the start of a new Mythic raid, they’re already behind. By joining now, you can help them be prepared and improve your chances of being part of a successful team from the get-go. At DJ’s, we’ve been through many opening raid weeks and there’s always a fall off of players for various reasons. It’ll also affect class composition because maybe there might be a busted (or underpowered) class out there. We’re aiming for a number between 27 to 30 players.

It’s More Than Just Performance

When you trial for a guild, it’s not just about your performance in raids. Guilds, especially those aiming for top achievements, look at how well you fit into the team. We already have access to your logs and can see how you play. What’s more important is whether you cause any drama or tension. Anyone who’s performed at the Mythic and CE level usually maintains that consistency from a skill standpoint. What we’re looking for now is social fit. Do they new trial players get along with our team? Are they willing to put in the effort to improve their character? Can they contribute to the raid discussion when diagnosing pulls (even if it’s farm stuff)?

I know of some teams that have had to kick out trial members who, despite being good players, caused problems over loot distribution. These issues are easier to spot now rather than after the expansion. This saves everyone time and helps them get that stuff out of the way now. The new players can learn more about the raid environment they’re in, and the guild can get a better idea of their character.

Avoid the Post-Launch Rush

When any new expansion launches, there’s always a surge of players returning or joining for the first time. This can make it harder to secure a spot in a guild as competition increases. By joining now, you avoid this rush and secure your place early. Plus, you won’t have to compete with a larger pool of players looking to apply.

By integrating yourself into a guild now, you’ll be ready for a smooth transition into the new expansion and set yourself up for success. So, if you’re on the fence about trialing now or waiting, go ahead and start trialing now. It’s a proactive move that will help you tackle new challenges and enhance your gaming experience.

One Last Story

We had a player a few weeks ago who tried out for us but couldn’t handle the intensity of what we were looking for. His perspective was that it was season 4, and it was a good time to go into raids relaxed while he was still trying to gear up his character as it was significantly behind the rest of the team (think in the 480 range). After two weeks, his gear hadn’t made much progression and he wasn’t willing to put in the work to run keys and continue upgrading his gear. We took him into some of the farm stuff, but he’d have to sit on the harder late raid bosses. Ultimately, it wasn’t a good fit because there was such a philosophical difference between what he wanted out of this season and what our expectations were of trials coming in. Knowing that now, I would’ve recommended that he come in as a social and join the community first instead of committing to the raid team since we were still going to be operating.

How to Run Raid Orientation

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Welcome to the new tier, everybody! We’re starting to kick off our raid this week. This is a great time to run raid orientation for the raid group, especially if you have many new players or if the raid team was on a break leading up to this point. For us it was mandatory because over half the team was new stemming from some major turnover. In this case, boss GM set up a preliminary officer meeting to go over the agenda for orientation and what to cover. I’ll dive into that one in a bit. Ultimately, he made some adjustments to an existing slidedeck that was created by one of the other raid teams in our community and co-opted some of those elements. I don’t really agree with some of the design choices, but I bit my tongue on that one.

If you want to watch DJ’s raid orientation, our GM did stream it, and you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1975224736?t=00h16m06s

What is Raid Orientation?

It’s exactly what it sounds like. You can liken it to your experiences when attending school for the first time.

Raid orientation is a crucial process where members of a guild come together to discuss, plan, and prepare for the challenges that lie ahead in a new raid tier. It’s the foundation upon which a successful raiding experience is built. This is where new members get to know each other, understand the guild’s strategies, and set their expectations with the goals.

This can be hosted in Discord and having your GM share their screen. They could also stream it and have it saved for anyone that missed out on it.

Benefits of Raid Orientation

But why?

  • Enhances Team Cohesion: It brings players together, fostering a sense of community and teamwork. For a bonus, you can add some icebreaker games at the end.
  • Aligns Goals: This helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding the guild’s objectives.
  • Preparation: Provides an opportunity to discuss strategies and requirements, reducing confusion during actual raids. We’d rather get this done now or during the week before we set foot into the instance.
  • Resource Management: This helps in efficiently setting aside resources like consumables and loot. It also covers where players can find resources like assignments and strategy on Discord. In our case, we hold tier tokens until the end of the night to see what we have before distributing it all.

What Does Orientation Typically Include?

Player Expectations

This segment focuses on what the guild expects from each player. It includes commitment levels, understanding of class roles, our community code of conduct, and basic raiding etiquette. We expect our players to complete 4 keys weekly. They don’t need to be 20s, but if they can eventually strive to hit 16s to 18s consistently within the first few weeks, it’ll set our team up for success. This also means how to handle attendance issues and who their raid mentors are. Basically, the GM is covering policy.

Raid Expectations

Here, we delve into the specifics of the raid content. This covers some strategies, boss mechanics, and the roles and responsibilities of each raid member. This means showing up on time. This means having the required WeakAuras installed and addons updated. It also means knowing their role and how to respond to mechanics in encounters while surviving. This could be its own night, though as we plan to have a film review on a different day before our raid night where we go over every encounter.

Consumables Expectations

Raiders need to come prepared with the necessary consumables. This part of the orientation covers the types of consumables required and how they contribute to the raid’s success, especially with the new health potions and other augments. Speaking of augments, there’s also the new reusable rune. Depending on your guild’s focus, that might be worth mentioning.

Loot Council

A key part of raiding is the distribution of loot. This section explains how the loot council operates and guides members on setting up their loot wish lists to make the process effective. We’ve also taken the liberty of requesting volunteers for the loot council. This is a call for members who wish to contribute more directly to the guild’s decision-making process with the resources and sims we have in place.

Goals and Pacing for the Tier from a Progression Standpoint

Setting realistic and achievable goals for the raid tier is critical. This includes discussing the pacing of the raid progression and what the guild aims to achieve each week. Even though we finished US 300 in Aberrus, we’re aiming for the US 400 mark this time at a slower pace. Think of this piece like setting the road map for the tier, including when raid extensions would begin.

Icebreakers

Think of some fun games you can play especially to help get newer members accustomed to the team. Sometimes we’d ask icebreaker questions but tell our players to type their answers in chat, but only press enter after a countdown hits 0.

Definitely consider running orientation at the start of a new raid tier! It’s a fun way to reconnect with your team if there’s been some time off between raids or a bunch of new players coming in. It helps set the tone for the rest of the tier and gets everyone primed as to what expectations will be like.

Lastly, I don’t know how I feel about the slides and how they were designed. I sure wish we had more Warcraft related looking assets in them though!

How Guilds Make 800k Gold Selling Boss Kills

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The news that cross-realms are allowing players to raid on other servers on both normal and heroic mode is a god-send! Players are no longer restricted to paying server transfer fees in order to raid. Cross-faction raiding isn’t going to be a thing anytime soon (and I doubt it ever will), but at least players can now raid across servers. This is a great way for a prospective player to “try” a new raiding guild before they commit to transferring. It’s great for guilds like mine to help fill out a raid in case we’re short players by using a service like Open Raid.

Another benefit? You can start selling guild runs and kills. It’s also known as “guild boosting”.

There’s a market out there for players who want the normal mode achievement. There’s players who want the gear that your guild has been routinely sharding week after week. People might scoff and laugh, but there’s always going to be a buyer. People want the loot, the achievements, and the mounts but aren’t necessarily able to commit the time required to a proper raiding guild. Just keep in mind that gold and loot still can’t be traded on non-connected realms so they’d have to transfer a character with gold plus the items that are the rough equivalent to the price negotiated upon. I’ve seen some players willing to transfer an alt and then boosting their main.

Want to make it even easier? Make sure the alt is the GM of their own guild. Last I checked, guild bank transfer limits were at 1 million gold. The character needs to meet the requirements though.

How does one go about it?

I’d strongly suggest doing this with a 25 man raiding team. I imagine it’s significantly harder to carry a person on 10.

Step 1: Discuss it with your guild

I’m using the word “discuss” in a loose term. It should be pretty easy to sell your guild on the idea. Remind them that that funds coming in are going to guild repairs and to the next expansion (recipes, crafting materials, enchants, etc). Will your participating raid members obtain a small cut? If you’ve already made that decision to sell runs, let the guild know. Any dissenters can be silenced with sound reasoning. If they still disagree, well that’s ultimately up to you to decide. No one has to participate if they don’t want to.

We’ll get to the actual agreements in a moment.

Step 2: Advertise it

You can sell something but if no one knows about it, you’re not going to be able to make any gold. No one’s going to come to a run they don’t know about! Hit up trade chat and see if anyone local is interested in the kills. Failing that, see if anyone on Open Raid is willing to go. Advertise on your server’s forums! They’ll ask you for a price and that’s going to fluctuate greatly based on things like your server progression, what they’re entitled to, what bosses are going down, and so forth.

If you have a guild website, consider creating a page dedicated to this information. Make sure you include the important stuff like the price and what they get. Include who they should message about it. Throw in the dates and times if you know it for a fact. If loot prices are different, specify that too.

In fact, some guilds have websites with full pages dedicated to just selling runs.

That’s where the next step comes into play…

Step 3: Settle on the terms and price

Are clients paying for just a Garrosh kill? Do they want a specific item? Do they want all items? Are they expecting a full clear? Heroic boss kills? All of those factor into. Speak to your client and figure out what they want. It seems the going rate for a straight up Garrosh kill with whatever loot they want is 15k.

A full heroic 14/14 run with loot, achievements, and the mount went for upwards of 800k gold.
A full heroic clear with just the achievements and no loot went for 300k.
Heroic gear: 20k Heroic Warforged: 30k
Heroic weapons: 35k
Heroic Warforged weapons: 80k.

Naturally the going rate of this stuff is going to be influenced by demand and the progression capabilities of your server.

Figure out and set your guild prices for:

  • Loot (Both normal and warforged)
  • Achievements
  • Mounts
  • Titles

Talk to your client and figure out exactly what they want and what they’re paying for. Once you have that step figured out…

Step 4: Arrange payment

Take a deposit.

Some guilds ask for non-refundable 15% up front. Other guilds ask for 50%. Consider cutting a deal on the price if the run is scheduled to occur on the day of. Again, this obviously isn’t going to work if the player is on a cross realm since they can’t trade gold but if they’re willing to transfer servers on an alt, take that into consideration. I find that the more well-known a guild is, the higher the deposit they can command. Reputation seems to play a big part. Guilds that routinely top the kills race ask for a higher deposit because they don’t want to be ripped off. Buyers can rest easily knowing that these are guilds who are also quite serious and skilled at what they do.

Step 5: The logistics

This up to the raid leader to decide. Which player is going to sit? Is the client going to attempt to participate and contribute? It might just be easier for them to die immediately and AFK lest they accidentally mess up the kill. This is where the client can pay up the rest of the fee associated with the run.

Does all this sound ridiculous? Unrealistic? Who’d pay that much gold for this stuff? Y’know, there’s over 7 million subscribers. There’s going to be a select few who are willing to buy their way to the top.

Last minute reminder: There is an absolute ton of risk involved in these kinds of transactions. There’s no guarantee the guild can carry a person from start to finish. There’s no guarantee a person is able and willing to pony up the rest of the mentioned fee. Either party can get ripped off at any time. If something doesn’t sound right, walk away. I doubt Blizzard GMs will be able to assist with this type of stuff if someone gets scammed or ripped off.

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7 Ways to Instill Life into Your Guild’s Forums

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Are you suffering from an SAG?

That’s short for “Socially Awkward Guild”.

Most guilds have a site or some place to talk about stuff outside of the game. Forums are a great way to foster ongoing communication between your guild members outside of the game. For Conquest, the forums house information from strategy and feedback to guild sanctioned meetups. It’s difficult to get people to start using forums at the beginning especially if they’re not used to it or they’ve never been in a guild with active forums to begin with. Forum activity is one of those aspects of a guild website that takes a little time to grow and where success requires participation from other guild members.

The ideas you see below are common in guilds of all types. Don’t wait for someone else to start a topic. Seize the initiative and be social! I guarantee you that your GM will be thankful (or at least, grateful for the attempt).

Raid Attendance threads

Some raiding guilds prefer using a signup system while others stand by the sign out system. No matter which one you choose, it involves your guild indicating their availability for an upcoming raid. A signup system sounds a little tedious but can be managed with a group that doesn’t raid as often. Imagine raiding three times a week and being required to post a reply saying that you’re able and willing to come! It gets really draining fast. What happens if you forget and your spot gets forfeited? In contrast, a sign out system only requires you to post when you’re missing a raid due to an event that you can’t miss. I’ve had players sign out because of typical things like exams or overtime. In one case, I had a player put up pictures of raging wild fires near their house and indicated that they wouldn’t be able to make it!

Guild picture thread

We all want to know what the player behind the character looks like. The person who you envision when you hear them might not actually match up with what they look like. Mind you, this is all up to the discretion of the individual guild members and how they feel about putting their face out there on the internet. Also, as a word to the wise, there’s bound to be someone who’ll try to troll the rest of the team by putting a picture that isn’t actually them.

nph“I swear guys, I really am Neil Patrick Harris!”

Strategies thread

This is meant for raiding and PvP guilds. It’s great to consolidate all resources into one area. Members can share tips for struggling players or little nuances to squeeze out extra DPS. After every raid, I try to add any new modifications so that the players who weren’t involved in the recent attempts can stay up to speed on the changes. To keep things relatively clean and on topic, create a new thread for each boss that you’re working on.

What’s your job title thread

This one’s always at the discretion of the player and some people will choose to be as vague or as specific as possible. In the history of Conquest, I think we’ve had several Professors. We’ve had a police officer. A firefighter. Lots of IT and finance folks. Many players in science related professions as well. It’s a good way to break the ice especially a newer guild that’s just formed. Good way to find interests with other players outside of the game as well.

Post your system specs thread

In a WoW guild, chances are there’s enough tech geeks who would gobble all that stuff up. Some of the less technically minded might chime in asking for suggestions on upgrades or advice on how to get their system to run efficiently. Depending on how intense it goes, you might have to reign it in lest you end up inadvertently starting an nVidia vs ATI war.

Patch discussion thread

A thread like this will usually end up with a few people complaining dejectedly about the nerfs their class received. But it’s a good place for players to collectively spitball new ideas or discuss the new changes coming to the game. Bonus: Everyone enjoys a good “HA HA YOU GOT NERFED” fest.

Embedded chat room

With Enjin’s guild tools, I’ve added a little chat module at the very top of the guild forums. This is another way to bring people together as not only does the guild defeat virtual dragons as one unit but it functions as a place to to help people get through their day. Everyone loves to complain about something (in fact, I’m probably responsible for 25% of the whining on our chat about the most mundane things while my guild silently rolls their eyes at me).

This is just a start. The sign of an active and healthy forum correlates to an active and healthy guild.

What other forum topics have been successful in generating meaningful discussion? Have you incorporated any other cool addons or widgets to keep interest flowing?

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