Nice guide, one thing I would add is to NOT make groups for bosses that are dead.Very frustrating to join a group and the boss has been dead for a while.Especially when the title is "BOSS is UP"
Good advice, I've added it :)
Awesome guide! I would also like to add that in the EU version you also get to choose which languages you want to search for, allowing you to extend your search beyond your native language servers.For example, I play on a French server, but since I understand English I also include that language in the search, which immediately becomes a LOT broader: I can now look for groups on servers running either language.
This guide made me aware of this guy existance. XemirkolThanks!
My experience has been that the groupfinder is only good for garrison/realm hoping, garrison invasions, the Tanaan apexis dailies, Rumble and and the hellbore four. I've put it up for rares in the old apexis dailies, no bites. I've checked on mythic during dungeon week and it was all groups of 3 dps LF Tank or Healer which doesn't help when you are a DPS. I posted one for the Highmaul rares which everyone used only for realm hoping. Normal is so difficult in a regular group that I can't even imagine pugging for a first kill - so only people with the experience can use it for raids. So it has some good but not nearly as useful as this article makes out.
Great guide for those who are unfamiliar with the feature. There are two addons that utilize it in a great way, making it even easier to use, maybe you can write about those too! :)Cross Realm Assist: scans for medium- to large-sized groups with auto invite, then you click on "quick join" and pop, you're on their realm. It remembers the groups and realms you've joined so you won't join the same one twice, but you can choose to reset that whenever you want. It's a great addon for realmhopping when looking for rares!Premade Group Finder: allows you to type in specific words/phrases, or put them in a list and choose to use that so you don't have to type them, and then it searches in PvE->Custom (or a different group finder thingy if you want) for those words. When it finds a group it'll let you know and you can choose to auto-signup for them. It's very useful when camping the rare spawns in Tanaan, and I personally use it for the garrison bosses that people can summon, so I can do those on all my level 100's without having to look for the groups myself.
If you're forming a garrison group, "DE" isn't a good search tag, "enchanting hut" is easier for people to find. Also, list even your useless buildings, so people will know what you don't have. And if you're a hopper, you're not being clever when you queue for a group that says it's not inviting. Read the details of a group before queueing.
Also, another tip when you pick your role, you dont always need to be in that spec.for example I queue tank and healer always for holiday bosses but I never switch specs for those since you dont need a designated tank or healer usually.So I queue healer but just DPS the boss, its dead before anyone in the party dies.
Actual it is not being able to send out "as many requests to join as you want. There is a limit on how many pre-made groups you can try to get into.
I use group finder (custom group) to solo raids. I don't have any bag space to take the loot to vendor so while I'm in a "group" the greed/need window pops up. Clicking on either one, and the loot ends up in my mailbox. It is also a great way to quickly get out of raids, especially the ones where you can't get out like icc and you don't want to hearth. Set up a custom group and then leave. You will get ported to the nearest graveyard. Say you did this in icc, now you can go to toc or uld.
Another thing I do is I set up raid lockouts on a specific character (like, 11/12 ICC, 16/17 Ulduar, 6/7 Firelands), then I create a group in the group finder with auto-accept, switch to another alt, join and enjoy doing the mount-dropping bosses without having to clear the entire raid. I can repeat that with several alts.The lockouts can then be extended each week.Caveat: for ICC and subsequent raids, you can only create a normal lockout as finishing a Heroic raid with another alt will also finish the raid for the character initially holding the lockoutFor ICC that's not a problem because you can switch to heroic after joining the raid, but for cataclysm raids the last boss will not be available in Heroic unless you've cleared the previous bosses in Heroic mode. So that method is not possible for the Lifebinder Handmaiden from Heroic Madness of Deathwing.
I just felt to say that this guide which is nice and useful tries to promote a dead system, and people say bad words about oqueue but they all forgot that there you had more chances to do an rbg or raid then with a premade where most of the times is dead and doesn't really communicate with all realms.This system has been created to destroy oqueue greatest idea because it was an outside idea not created by blizz. Yes they did ok but not good and lacks lots of oqueue key important features.Probably most of you wont agree with me but i just felt like sharing my thoughts.
More on server hoppers:Some people consider them as the most annoying people, the blight of WoW, others look them more tolerating. Either way server hoppers cannot be understated. Their numbers are growing fast enough to cause a critical issue in the future. To address this Blizzard may need to take steps to eliminate the ever growing disturbance the hoppers cause to the community.On the other hand, there are very few people who weren't in need of a server jump ever. Actually we all need to switch servers temporarily some times. Just imagine you're in need of some resources to gather but your connected / cross realm became overpopulated; You may want to catch a rare mob to obtain a new mount / pet. With the implementation of CRZ Blizzard made good job to re-populate old zones but they did not adjust mob respawn rates to the new size of playerbase for each cross-realmed worlds individually. This diversity, -and the imminent lack of content (the end of Warlords)- leads more and more people to throw their own principles - to use the LFG to achieve their goals -- as fresh server hoppers.At the moment, group makers don't have many options to counter realm-hoppers. Not a perfect solution but there's an "Auto-Accept" tickbox on your listed group's panel in the LFG interface that is unticked by default. Group makers can use this to filter the majority of server hoppers: Hoppers are usually in hurry so if you wait for a 10-15 sec before manually accept a new applicant you can filter out most of them. Of course it's somewhat uneasy because of the required assistance, the lack of automation. It is, however, up to the hoppers too to be polite and not to join a group that marked as "Private", "No hoppers", "Don't join", etc in the title.An optimal solution from Blizzard would be an interface where we could choose the destination realm of our likes to switch on temporarily. I can imagine something like a "fake LFG" panel, without hosts. This way hoppers were not forced to cause harm to custom groups and headache to leaders. But until they provide no other way to switch servers than getting invited by another player from another realm, people remain dependent of the LFG tool and they forced to disturb other players.Sorry for the wall of text.
Under PvP (or maybe Garrisons, since it’s tied to the garrison pvp building), you could also point out that folks sometimes group up to work on the Nemesis quests outside Ashran (these groups are usually found under Questing or Custom).Another useful thing under Garrisons. If the garrison you’re visiting has a The Forge Level 2 (or level 3) with a follower assigned, you can get the blessing of the forge — two 4 hour buffs: one which prevents all damage to your gear, until you die or the buff wears off; and the other which randomly spawns a fire elemental, during non-instanced combat in Draenor, that assists you (damage bonus).
How to use group finder: "Don't rely on it because the devs will more than likely break something on it while trying to 'fix' something for a specific group of crying people."