WoW Rookie: Playing in a group
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You're madly in love with your new character. You've polished off the early zones and boast a couple of handfuls of talent points. Your professions are coming along nicely, and you've been spending a little time poking around on various WoW web sites to learn more about your class and the game. Yet you're still feeling a little insecure around other players. Shouldn't you be running instances with groups by now? How are you supposed to know what to do?
If groping towards grouping leaves you feeling a little intimidated – we've got your back. How to get into a group, what to do once you're in one, and how to conduct yourself (and what to expect from others) to make lasting friends who'll want to group up again and again ... after the break.
Let's get started with the very basics of grouping – Grouping 101, if you will. Be sure to skim the reader comments at the end of each post for tricks, tips and ideas that have worked for other players.
Grouping basics
How to form a groupWorld of Warcraft is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) -- that means that at some point or another, you'll most likely have to group up with other folks. There is strength in numbers against monsters and enemy players. So have fun, group up and make some friends.
The polite invite There's almost nothing more confusing than receiving a random group or guild invite; it's just not something you want to do.
What's your job in a group? As you level up, playing your intended role becomes more and more important. There are three (or four, depending on who you ask) main roles in an instance: tanking (taking the heat of the monsters' damage), healing, dealing damage (DPS, or Damage Per Second) and crowd control (CC). The typical instance team includes a tank, a healer and three DPS/CC players.
Grouping in dungeons/instances Dungeons are special zones where players group together to fight tougher monsters than found in the usual outside environment. Dungeons are often called "instances" because each group enters its own, separate copy (or "instance") of the dungeon and will not interact with other players of either faction when inside. Instances offer tougher battles as well as better loot, experience and quest rewards.
Group etiquette
Rolling for loot in a group You have already gotten this far, so don't spoil things by rolling like a noob. Here are some pointers to enhance your WoW looting experience in instances.
Group looting etiquette In short, no looting during combat: no "'lurting" allowed. That loot ain't going anywhere, and it's got your name all over it. Wait until all the sheep are dead and all the targets are down, and then right-click away and claim your goodies.
Is it ok to leave early? What's an acceptable limit for a "GTG soon!" announcement? Would you go into a dungeon knowing you had to replace a member part way through?
Resurrection etiquette Should the healer (who already spends more on the run than anyone aside from the tank, has a more stressful job than any DPS and makes sacrifices for people they do not even know) be forced to make all the corpse runs? Does the ability to resurrect automatically dictate this in the job description? If so, would you still choose to heal or to run PuGs?
When it's not working out When you're unfortunate enough to find yourself in a bad group, how do you know when to cut your losses and call it quits? Do you flee at the first sign of trouble? Hang in until the group leader calls it quits? Or do you have some other breaking point?
Come back for more
Build a pool of players to group with With some organizational work on your part and some planning ahead, you can arrange quick grouping for the long term. The key is to collect a group of players with similar schedules to play with regularly.
Meeting other players These are the people you want in your posse for the best possible experience in the game.
WoW Rookie feeds you the basics to get you off to a good start in the World of Warcraft. Find more tools you can use in the WoW Insider Directory and WoW Insider Leveling Guides.
