OK, PUGing can be a pain. There are several things you can do to help yourself get into a PUG Group, although it depends on server to server. So the following details are for my server:
Download yourself the GearScore Addon, everyone is interested in it nowadays. It's a right pain, but you just have to live with it. Secondly, achievements, achievements are important and most people now won't give you a chance unless you have the achievement. If your struggling to get this achievement, because you can't go, (it's a vicious cycle, I have been in it) then there are several things you can do to try and get around it.
- Get a friend that has the achievement to get you in.
- Have a high gear score (this can be done without raiding, just doing HC's)
- Try and "blag" your way in.
In regards to getting a good group. Mostly it's down to luck, but you can check your group to see roughly if you will do well or not. To check your group do the following:
- Check other people's gear. if it's good chances are they are going to be OK, unless they have been boosted. The way to tell if they've been boosted is to see how many good items they have, if they have a lot but by talking to them, not a lot of experience, chances are they've been boosted.
- Check people's guilds. Learn the good guild's on your server, and when you join a group, check to see if the guys are from these guilds.
- Ask them questions. Learn yourself the IN's and OUT's of ICC, and when you join a group, ask them some questions about it, like what do they think work's best on this boss, that tactic or this tactic. This will give you an indication of what they are like.
This is going to be very hard if you haven't been to ICC once, as no one will let you in because as you've said yourself they want a good group and to do it quickly, not someone they have to teach. If you can, go with a friend who has previous experience. If not, when you get into a raid group, try and befriend some people and impress, and just say, "Hey, next time you get a group, whisper me and ill join :)"
This should help you get in.
This answer was posted by roguediary on Epic Advice
Markets for Making/Losing Gold
From my experience with flipping items on the auction house, I put together my top 5 and bottom 5 markets that I make my most gold in. Enjoy! :)
Top 5 Markets
5 -Reputation Items
You have to be careful with this one, because some types of reputation grinding, (ie. Sporeggar) is not as easy to sell as, say, Hodir reputation… (btw. Relics of Ulduar is probably my number one selling item on most days… people are desperate to get exalted for the shoulder enchant there… )
4 -Enchanting Materials
You can focus on one or both types of markets, the leveling market, (read, mid-level, such as Greater Nether, Small and Large Brilliant Shards), or high-level, such as Cosmic Essences and Abyss Crystals. Stay away from lower level mats as their profit margins are low and they are easier to come by.
3 – Milling/Alchemy Goods
Still currently a flavor of the month type of skill set… many are taking their alts higher up into the Inscription tradeset, causing a need for many mid-level herbs, (i.e. netherbloom, briarthorn, mageroyal)… avoid lower and higher level herbs as they are easier to come by, (ie. lower levels are easier to pick, higher levels are easier to glut into the market).
2 -Basic Trade Goods
(i.e. leathers, clothes, herbs, ores and bars) This is the majority of where I do my business… remember to fill both short and full stack markets and wait for a good loading time, (i.e. early in the weekend, during the week as necessary)
1 – Middle Level Gems
(i.e. Citrine, Blue Sapphires, Star Rubies, Large Opals, etc)… due to the resurgence of jewelcrafting, many are either respecing their mains or skilling up their alts… there is a level of ignorance with these mid-level gems, (i.e. before Lich King, Citrine was lucky to sell for 1g a piece… now it easily sells for 11g on our server)… while a bit hard to come by, you will feel like you hit a homerun everytime you find these as they sell very quickly and almost always grab top-dollar.
Bottom 5 Markets
5 - Top Level Gear
Dabbling in level 80 gear has been, in my experience a “break-even” type of market in that the number of options available for purchase at lvl 80 is fairly limited due to progression available gear, as well as subject to the leveling of different tradeskills, (i.e. Blacksmithing, Leather-Working). It is hard to corner a market that has a very select group buying and a very large group selling.
4 – Pets
Some people swear by pet selling… and there is SOME gold there as long as you are willing to farm the pets and are also willing to undercut the competition… I hate farming pets, so UNLESS I find a CRAZY deal on a pet, I generally stay away from these. Sure, there are tons of people out there collecting these, but at the prohibitive cost of most of these, the buying is sporadic and slow at best, backing up the market… glut causes lower prices, increasing your chances of losing your profit margin in repeat AH postings.
3 – Glyphs
There are a TON of glyphs being sold online… cheap and available… but the problem here is the market is SO glutted right now with these types of articles it is nearly impossible to make any type of flip profit on the straight glyphs, (there are some that tell me that Inscribers can make a profit on these… however as a buy/sell flipper, I avoid these unless I find a CRAZY deal.
2 – Quest Items
Again, we are talking about a VERY limited number of players that would even NEED this type of item at any given time. Given the almost universal availability of quest items NEARBY a quest hub, running to a AH to pick up something laying on the group nearby is ridiculous and a sure-fire way to lose money… not to be confused with reputation items, (see above #5).
1 – Leveling Gear
Unless you have an Enchanter you are trying to level, stay away from speculative buying of gear under level 80… gear is so specific to each class, so you are limited WHO would be interested in a specific piece of gear… PLUS quest rewards usually are better than anything available through AH, and is “free” considering you are willing to put time into doing the quest, which most people are since you are LEVELING anyways…. PLUS leveling has become much faster nowadays, meaning that while people are needing to upgrade gear more often, they are less apt to spend top-dollar on gear that is going to be replaced in the next few days.
Courtesy
Best Answer
Practice and concentration on the new controls. It just takes a while (3 weeks?) for something to become a learned behaviour.
It might help to avoid stressful situations at least during the early part of this period. When stressed we revert to what we think we know best. This is why you wash your windscreen when you meant to flash your lights when someone cuts you up when driving as your previous car's controls were the opposite to the one you have now.
So if you are engaged in guild raids - which sound stressful - your wife is more likely to revert to the previously learned behaviour (keyboard turning). With enough non-stressed practice at looking with the mouse she should be comfortable with it when it really matters.
Just to add something I posted as a comment on another answer:
Minecraft can be played in peaceful mode with no enemies and has the "classic" keyboard and mouse controls so might well be a suitable training environment.