/readycheck

You dinged 70. Gratz. You did the four instances required (Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvaults, Arcatraz and Black Morass). You're ready for Karazhan, right?

Probably not.

I have a friend whose guild is knocking on the door of having enough folks at the appropriate level of heading into the world of raiding. He knows they are not ready as a guild, but doesn't feel he has a good argument for why. He was asking how he would know they were ready so they could evaluate themselves.

This started a rather longish debate which I soon realized was a blog topic.

While I'd like to break this down by each class and spec, it's not practical to spindle and mutilate each stat for a number of possibilities.

At the minimum a guild beginning to think about the Kara raid needs to have a group of 2 tanks (preferably one that can also fulfill another role), 3 healers, and 5 DPS. I know there are guilds who farm Karazhan without this makeup. But I'd almost guarantee they didn't start raiding it with whatever mutant makeup they use now. Make sure your tanks are specced to tank and your healers are specced to heal.

Each of your potential little raiders should have the majority of their equipment be blue (or above). Some greens in some slots are nearly unavoidable. I know my hunter wore the Duro Footgear quest reward for just about forever. What we're looking for here is that green items are the definite minority.

Now, run each of them through the BeImba site. It should be smart enough to look at specs and decide what they need. Pay special attention to enchants, gemming, and low gear. The site is awesome sauce enough to recommend different gems or enchants if it's done improperly. It will also recommend enchants or gems for pieces that aren't enchanted or have empty sockets.

As a team building exercise, you may want to suggest your group of potential raiders work together to kit one another out. Perhaps a grind for a static drop enchanting recipe is in order. Maybe someone needs the reputation to buy a glyph for their helmet. Also some classes might need help with a group quest to get a much needed gear upgrade. Also don't forget to suggest they do Heroics as training for Karazhan. The team that can take apart any Heroic Instance you throw at them is a group that goes far in Kara.

Finally have each of them check out the raiding checklist on this here site. It might not be a bad idea for them to also review which of their own cooldowns belong to the raid. There may be things on the checklist that can also be farmed while you're doing team building.

And when the dust settles, if your group has listened and done the things you asked, you won't have to answer whether they are ready. Because they will know they are ready, and you won't have to question that knowledge.