This discussion ties into the train of thought in the "So you want to create your own raiding guild?" thread, but is unique enough, I believe, to justify its own topic. Heap if deemed unworthy of debate.

The question I have been mulling over lately is regarding the plethora of reroll raiding guilds that pop up both on guild recruitment forums and locally within our server communities.

Obviously, there is a dichotomy at times between the raiding experience of a player and the experience reflected in a particular character (gear and the like), but this difference is nowhere more glaring than when rerolling from scratch.

- What, if any, are the experiences of those who have seen end-game content in BC (BT or later assumed), but have gone through guild breakups, or for whatever reason have rerolled? Has there been any success with this amongst the community here?

- Perhaps most importantly to my mind is this question: When does the curve of the impending Wrath expansion make "restarting" a truly impossible option for those wanting to work through end-game content? I.e. what is a reasonable time frame for a small group, or an entire guild, who create new characters and go through the entire process from start to finish? And is it really worth considering at all, given the unknown nature of Wrath's readiness?

- Also, what about the veterans? Those who took breaks from raiding for a period of several months, missed progression, changed servers, etc etc. Is it worth engaging in a "partial reroll" of a sort and taking those T4/Kara geared characters and attempting to brute-force them through to end-game? I question this from the player's perspective, not the guild's - naturally an understanding guild with personal ties to the individual would assist them in getting back into the swing of things.

It may be immodest, but I think the Serious Casual Story may be part of the answer you're looking for.
Serious Casual: What the hell happened here - Elitist Jerks

I think there's still time for a reroll guild to finish the game. With hardcore 10-man farming, you can gear up well enough to jump straight into Tier 6. There are plenty of logistical issues with reroll guilds, but is it possible - yes.

Echoing this sentiment heavily. I've healed through Bloodboil and Teron despite my Holy set not having a single piece of gear past Karazhan. Between Craftable, Badge and PvP gear, it's not terribly difficult to catch up with progression.

It's one thing to have one person lower than presumably needed tiered gear - and a healer at that, who is always part of the team - and completely another thing having a few or even a majority of people below, again, presumed levels of gear that's needed or acceptable, after fast re-roll leveling and even faster gearing up.

I could as well say that I, as a 0/47/14 feral, with healing gear from Kara + random unwanted pieces from T5+T6 range (no tier items, no badge items) healed successfully on Bloodboil while we were learning him (I was of course lowest in effective healing done, not by much compared to first above me, but a lot compared to the top healer - i did 20% of his healing), and yet it doesn't prove anything.


[e] clarification on one point

Math it out?

Pretty simple:

1) Time to hit 70
2) Time to gear up
3) Time to learn/complete instances

Variables:

How many hours you/your group of rerolls plays per day.
How many hours it takes to hit 70.
How many hours of pvp/heroic/kara/10-mans to reach a suitable level of gearing in the guild (note: tanks require a little extra effort).
(optional) How many hours to learn or re-learn t5 fights.
How many hours to learn or re-learn t6 fights.
How many weeks of t6 farming to gear out the guild optimally for sunwell (This is easy at least: Assuming a fixed 30 man group and perfect 3-token distribution from each boss, 10 weeks).
Hours to learn and complete sunwell.

Plug in what you think is a reasonable expectation for your guild on all fronts, then go from there.

EDIT: Probably not relevant to the guild reroll thing!

Not to take away from your point, but paladins seem to be especially able to perform well as undergeared healers. This is entirely anecdotal, but I've seen it mentioned a number of times in different places. Holy paladins in my guild have also mentioned that they don't feel like they're getting much of an upgrade going from T4 to T5 to T6.

Whatever the case, from the point of view of a reroll guild it shouldn't be hard to find your comfort level; you just keep pushing progression as hard as you can until you run into a gear-check wall.

It's never been easier to gear up. I switched from feral to resto about 1/2 way through BT, and was competitive on meters by Illadin in mostly PvP gear.

It's also never been easier to level up. Break into 2's and 3's, and chew through kill quests.

Rayijin has a good point, I think.

I suppose an auxiliary question is: given the confirmed quality of badge gear for most classes, would you say that a small group (4-5 dedicated raiders) who level to 70, get the best gear they can pre-raid from "pvp/heroic/kara/10-mans" as mentioned, would be accepted by any established raid guilds? Or would the fact that they are rerolls and don't have the gear to prove their progression experience be a major turnoff.

I've noticed that more and more endgame guilds are stating that t5 gear is required to join them, and yet I would maintain that for some classes it is possible to be within a fraction of the gear quality of T5 with crafted epics, badge gear, the best items in Kara, and the "welfare epics" from s1/s2. But perhaps some would disagree with me?

How would a person who knows their own quality and experience as a raider, but has no corresponding character that reflects said quality and experience, prove themself to an established endgame guild?

I just took a new resto-shaman w/ only badge gear and some 10-man gear. He was there on our first Council kill, and now he's in 2pc T6 after a week, and has very competitive stats. The new badge gear is that good.

I was a little skeptical about him until I learned that pre-BC he was part of the top guild on our server and was essentially the sort of re-roll discussed here. Since he did have a very good "wow resume" I was very happy to take him on, and he proved his worth very quickly by reacting to everything and doing all that was asked of him and more.

Speaking as the resident Benefactor Re-Roller (people re-rolling to a raiding guild and doing T5/6 with blues/greens is called "doing a Bink" by some people), all I can say is that having a guild to join & help you level is the best thing possible, especially if you go cross-faction like I did and essentially start from scratch again.

It took me about 12 days or so in /played, about 2 months in RL, to get from 1 to 70 (and in a funny story, got ninja invited to a Kael attempt evening where we got our first kill, and then I spent the rest of the night doing quests while everyone else did a 24 man shits & giggles raid in MH), although that was before the 2.3 levelling changes. A friend did a similar thing after 2.3, and did it in about 6.5 days game time.

Just make sure that re-rolls get taken along to as much content as possible, for tokens, otherwise de'd loot, and badges! (assuming you're re-rolling for a raiding guild)