You to Can Get Raid Ready In Just 4 Easy Steps!!
Okay.. maybe not 4 easy steps. But it got your attention. Many people nowadays wants everything handed to them. And with Burning Crusade and now the rapidly approaching release of Wrath of the Litch King, focusing on “How” to play your character is taking a back seat to the “Gimmeee Phatz Lootz” mentality of many players.
This “Lootz” focus has given rise to players that PvP for easy epics, gem and chant looking for big AP or Crit numbers instead of Hit and Agi. In the end yes they have hi RAP (1400 or greater), 20+% Crits, but can’t hit the broadside of a barn. (And believe me, some of those bosses are bigger than the barnes around Azeroth. :P)
So what are these 3 easy steps? Simple.
-
Get a gear plan
-
Earn Gold
-
Farm Badges
-
Remain Patient and Stay Focused
That’s it. Yep. I mean it. Those are the steps. Now your gonna tell me but Brig not everyone can do this. Yes, they can. It’s not really that difficult. Here, I’ll show you how. Remember, our goal here is to hit about 130-142 Hit Rating, and 600-650 Agi.
1. Getting a Gear Plan
You might be asking, “What is a Gear Plan?” well.. Specifically it’s an outline of upgrades you need and the locations where to get them. That will get you to your target. Yes, I know the Hunter DPS Spreadsheet has a gear planner, and WoW Heroes or Be Imba both tell you your ready for Gruuls or SSC and TK. Believe me, I was told by WoW Heroes that I was ready for Mount Hyjal and almost ready for Black Temple. And I’m far from it in my opinion. Yes, these are great “base-lines” to get yourself and check out your gear, but they don’t really take into account other important items like your Agility or Hit Rating for example.
So I suggest you post on a forum (The Lodge, BRK, TKA Something, or Elitist Jerks are all extremely viable resources). But no that these are just opinions of other hunters also so sometimes the advice might seem unobtainable. Don’t get discourages, usually these are just quick guidelines posted by someone to get you started.
After you get the outline and the gear plan. Identify and ask someone to be your mentor. A mentor is extremely important on helping you navigate the paths and get yourself to the sweet spot of success.
2. Earn Gold
I’ll be honest with you. Creating and maintaining a raiding hunter is expensive. With every upgrade you’ll have to apply enchants, and possibly gems. And you don’t want to skimp and waste your money on those low level or common ones. No!! We need to break out the big bucks now. We’re gonna start getting epic gear or solid blue gear, we need to get it done right. That means following a simple basic rule.
“Blue Gear has Blue Gems, Purple Gear has Purple Gems”
Now, I’m not talking about gem color here, I’m talking the Gem Level. If your running in Rare Gear, get Rare Gems. If your in Epic Gear get Epic Gems. Yes I know, epic gems cost 300-400g each. It’s a lot of dailies, but believe me. They will be worth it. 
And the time you spent farming those blue gems and had those cut, well the gold or time could have been better spent getting your Epic Gear and Epic Gems.
How do you get gold? I mean your already trying for your Epic Flyer right? Well, it’s actually not that difficult.
Get a two gathering professions (I like Herbalism and Mining) and maximize your Fishing.
Open up and complete all the dailies (O’grila, Skettis, Quel’Danas (Sunwell Island), Shattarath, and when possible the Netherwing). With these you can get easily 100g and if you do all 25 dailies you can walk out with 500 or more gold just from that a day.
Add to that what you can get from fishing, mining, and herbalism, you’ll end up earning on a good day 500-1,000g!!! All of a sudden, it’s not that hard to pay for those top-tier gems and enchants!!
3. Farm Badges
To the bane of many Hardcore Raiders, badge gear is really good and goes a LOOONG!! way towards getting you there. The only draw back is each piece of gear is expensive. But farm heroics. Farm Mech and you can walk out with 5 badges, Kara? 10-20badges (depending on the clear). So find a good weekly Kara run and get those, along with Heroics etc.. you’ll end up getting that 150 badge Crossbow of Relentless Strikes along with other great gear.
Also, most of what you need to get you there is in Kara anyways. Farm Kara and you’ll see almost everything you need to be at the 600-650 Agility and the 142 Hit Rating. 
4. Be Patient and Remain Focus
This is the hardest part for many of us. We all want to just rush in and have shiny purples. So we go waste time grinding out honor and end up with nice shiney PvP epics. Yes, that’s true and some of those are better than anything you’ll find in the game. (The S3 Axe for example.)
But for the most part, you’ll end up being told that your PvP gear should be replaced for x,y,z PvE Gear. Sorry, but it’s true. So get focused. Go out there and rinse and repeat steps 1-3 and you’ll soon see yourself out dpsing your fellow hunters in their PvP epics and have them scratching their heads as you get invited to bigger and better runs.
Good Luck!
