On a personal level, the main difference between the way I played in BC vs. how I play in WoTLK is the fact that I have begun to lead raids.  In BC, I was content to let other people fill runs, join pugs that others were creating, or run with my guild all the time.  While there is no problem with that, you miss interacting with other players in the game, the experience of running your own raid, and the fun associated with that.

With the exception of Sarth 3D and Maly25, I have successfully lead pugs and carried people to content their guild wasn’t even experiencing.  Its  a rewarding experience, and I’ve learned a lot in doing it.

Pre-WoTLK, I hardly knew how other classes worked.  If you didn’t know this already, I only have one character at level 80, and my next highest alt (apart from my level 58 DK, is a level 22 shammy with 4 pieces of BoA gear).  This expansion has let me learn how other classes work and play with each other, and what groups can do what best.

I won’t lie.  I’m very picky when I’m making groups, but I don’t base people solely on their gear.  For being picky, I have many people that have put me on /ignore, but its the price I pay for leading successful pugs.  For example, if I’m doing a 10 man, do I really want 2 rogues in my group?  When I turn down a class I already have that won’t complement my raid, I usually get a lot of stuff like, “Dude, (Insert Raid Name Here) is really easy….” or  “I’ve done it before..”.  In my opinion, Blizzard designed certain classes to complement each other, and awhile having 2 rogues in a 10 man group isn’t going to mean we won’t down a given boss, but its going to be more fun if you’re classes complement each other in terms of buffs and things of that nature.

Here are a few tips to leading 10/25 man Pugs:

1) Know The Fights –

There is nothing worse than a raid leader not even knowing how to properly do an encounter.  Don’t assume that your MT or someone else in group is going to jump in and fill the gap that you couldn’t pick up because you didn’t know the fights.  It is your responsibility, as the raid leader, to be able to know all of the encounters, the bosses abilities, and what people should do in certain situations.  Sure, there might be that one guy who can help explain stuff, but that isn’t the case 100% of the time.

2) Coordinate Everything –

If you are leading a pug, you better be prepared to direct every single aspect of the raid.  If its a 25-man raid, you might consider bringing another raid-role friend who you know can perform to direct something.  For example, if your DPS, consider bringing a friend to direct who should heal what target, etc.  In most cases though, unless you are putting together an allstar team, be prepared to assign tanks to certain targets, healers to heal certain groups/tanks, people to Decurse/Cleanse Poison, etc.  If you don’t specify, people will assume that someone else is doing that and it won’t get done.

3) Explain Every Single Encounter -

I probably should have merged this with my first point, but its imperative you explain every single fight.  Even if you make a PUG where everyone claims to “know all the fights”, chances are, they are probably lying just so you take them to your group.  Even if they do know all the fights, they could have done it differently, etc.  It only takes one person to wipe a raid in most cases, so make sure to take the extra precaution and go over each fight, and who is doing what.  Better safe than sorry, a single wipe will usually take longer than a short explanation of a fight.

4) Use Ventrilo to Your Advantage -

If you are trying to lead pugs without Vent, its probably not going to go well.  Vent is your best friend when leading any raid other than VoA or Sarth +no drakes.  You can type in /rw all day, but its impossible to explain the same things as if you were speaking in Vent.  Vent is also crucial for making changes in fight, calling out timers (not everyone uses DBM), or trying to salvage what may have otherwise been a wipe.

5) Explain Loot Rules Properly –

I’ve made a few people unhappy by not explaining how my loot rules work.  Now, I have a macro that talks in all /rw that explains every loot rule of every raid I run.  Since I typically pug all raids (except when I go to guild’s Naxx25), I usually use the following loot rules:

• Every Item is Free Rolls Except for BoE Epics
• Roll Out of 1000 for Main Spec, 100 for Off-Spec

I don’t check people’s gear to make sure they actually needed the item; if they win the roll, its theirs.  As far as BoEs, I usually Gbank them or keep for myself.  To date, I have only had 1 complaint that I would be taking the BoE epics.  I told the person that they could still leave the group, since they weren’t saved, and they didn’t leave.  Just please make sure that you let people know the BoEs are not going to be rolled on if you plan to do that, otherwise you are ninja’ing.  Also, make sure that everyone reads your macro, I usually do a /readycheck to see if everyone is tabbed in and then drop the loot rules macro.

6) Know the Gear Levels of your Raid -

I am not opposed to gearing people out in Pugs.  I enjoy it even further if the person who needed the most loot from the run was out-performing some of the more geared people.  I have taken pally’s with 1200+ healing to a Naxx10 pug, gotten them tons of epics.  The feeling you get from gearing random people up is pretty nice, and you’ve usually won yourself a pocket friend for your next Pug.

Anyways, back on subject, you need to know how well your players are doing.  If you are leading a  Naxx pug, start off easy and do the Spider Wing.  See who your top healers are, and assign them to harder roles based on that (exceptions do apply).  You’re going to need to use Recount for this; you need to know how good your DPS are as well for when you need to break up groups for fights like Thaddius (his adds), and Noth.

7) Don’t Be Afraid To Address Problems -