WoW Experiments: Testing What Actually Works
I don't take "everyone knows that" as an answer — this is where I write up the claims I've actually tested myself, with the real result, not the assumption.
A lot of what gets repeated as common knowledge in WoW is really just something someone said once that nobody bothered to check. I like actually testing the claim instead of repeating it, and this page is where I collect the results as I run them. It'll keep growing every time I put something new to the test.
1.Does a raid actually need a geared leader?
The assumption is obvious: nobody joins a raid led by a fresh level 80 with barely any gear. I tested this directly with my out-character Deckmaster, a Death Knight I'd just leveled with close to nothing in the bank. Formed the group on a different, better-geared character first so people would actually queue up, then swapped over to Deckmaster to lead once the group was full and explained upfront that I only wanted the BoEs, not to compete for gear.
The result: it worked completely fine. Nobody left over it once they understood the deal, the raid cleared normally, and the group performed the same as any other PUG I'd been in. What actually determines whether a raid succeeds isn't the leader's gear score, it's whether the leader knows the fights and communicates clearly. Gear score is a filter people use because it's an easy number to check, not because it's what's actually predictive of a clean run.
2.What can you actually solo at 80, versus what's hardcoded to need a group?
The common assumption once you're strong enough is "I can solo anything old enough." I tested this directly by taking Deckmaster into Molten Core and Blackwing Lair back to back at level 80. Molten Core soloed without any issue at all — every boss, no help needed. Blackwing Lair was a completely different story: from the very first boss, the encounter simply requires two people in the room to progress, no matter how overgeared one player is. It's not a difficulty wall you can out-gear, it's a hardcoded mechanic that checks for a second person regardless of your power level.
The actual lesson here: "I'm strong enough to solo it" isn't a safe assumption for every piece of old content. Some fights scale entirely with your gear and some have a mechanic baked in that no amount of gear gets around. Check before you commit a night to trying, rather than assuming your gear score is the only variable that matters.
3.Free value vs. straight begging — which actually makes more gold?
I ran a proper side-by-side on this one: an hour of selling mage portal rides for tips against an hour of a warrior doing nothing but standing in Stormwind asking for gold outright. I wrote up the full numbers and the table in the gold-making guide rather than repeat them here, but the short version is that begging technically won, and neither method is something I'd actually rely on for consistent income — it's a fun test of generosity, not a real strategy.
4.Does gold actually mean anything to a well-established player?
This wasn't something I set out to test, it's something I noticed happening repeatedly and started paying attention to. On more than one occasion, a random player has handed me an enormous, unsolicited amount of gold specifically so I could give it away to viewers instead of keeping it — one donation was 4,500 gold from someone who told me outright "I have ten best-in-slot characters, I don't need this," another was 90,000 gold handed over mid-raid with no strings attached.
What that tells me: once a player is genuinely done gearing and has nothing left to spend gold on, the number stops meaning anything to them at all, and giving it away becomes more satisfying than sitting on it. It's not something you can plan a gold-making strategy around, since you can't predict when it'll happen, but it does mean the assumption "everyone's always trying to accumulate more gold" stops being true once someone's actually finished their character. Worth remembering next time you assume every player you meet is playing the same gold-scarce game you are.
5.What I've taken away from testing this stuff
The pattern across all of these: the assumption is usually built around the easiest thing to measure (gear score, "everyone knows," a number that sounds intuitive) rather than what's actually true. Testing it properly, even something as simple as swapping which character leads a raid, tells you something the assumption never would have. I'll keep adding to this page as I run more of these — if there's a piece of "everyone knows that" advice you want me to actually test, that's exactly the kind of thing this page exists for.