Casual Yet Competitive Raiding
Posted by 
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 - 8 Comments Tags: Ulduar, a game, casual players, casual raiding, competition, keeping up with a guild, max dps, optimus prime, raiding, raiding ulduar
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 - 8 Comments Tags: Ulduar, a game, casual players, casual raiding, competition, keeping up with a guild, max dps, optimus prime, raiding, raiding ulduar 
Competition is in my blood. It has been breed into every fiber of my being, a staple of my personality from my first memory. Early on it was eating as fast as possible to grab the last piece of food, then I moved up to the big leagues, the Undisputed Champion of Tag (you're it btw). Later I moved into sports, girls and finally video games (yes, they can exist side-by-side). Now that I am older (remember when Optimus Prime died?! No? Well I still recall crying in the theater, at a cartoon!) sports have become far more chummy, and I don't "compete" for a women's affection anymore. But I still have my video games World of Warcraft.
Thank C'Thun that I do. Without a release for my overzealous spirit there is a good chance a biblical meltdown would occur. Seeing as I rolled a rogue, the only thing that I can compete at is damage (DPS and DD). It's become quite a challenge recently.
As much as the hardcore (my vanilla WoW persona included) hate the idea, Wrath of the Lich King's launch allowed casual players to be on a level playing field, again. I took the opportunity to infuse raiding into my weekly routine after racing to level 80 along with the rest of the bell curve. I can hardly dedicate more than a single night a week to raiding, but I managed to stay on top (or at least competitive) in the charts thanks to tons of research. I spent hours calculating the best gear that was easily obtained, be it through heroic grinds, badges, or crafting. When I started losing the edge and falling behind, I made sure to always have my buffs - food, tea and some fluids - applied. It's no longer enough.
Sure, I have my hang-ups with Solidsamm's new home, but I agree entirely with Smooth Criminals' Prime Directive. "To Demolish Ulduar." But it has become far more difficult for a casual raider (again, one night a week) to remain competitive. No longer can I slide by on raw skill, pots, and well researched gear combinations. Sure, the Nobles Deck I am working on should help, but my gear - a mix of heroic, crafted, badge, Naxxramas normal and heroic - can't hold a candle to the Tier 7/8 geared toons we have.
My realization won't stop me from bringing my A game. In actuality, I believe it may even light a fire under my ass to eek out that x% more. Hopefully knowing my current place can get me off my haunches and back on my toes. Otherwise I will just resort to my old methods of remaining useful to the guild, cooking, fishing, and finding cheap materials. With enough materials provided I hope I can guilt trip the RL in to accepting my sub 3500 DPS on the later (unseen to me) bosses.
How do the rest of the casual raiders stay up with the members who can dedicate more time?
Reader Comments (8)
i am a healer, i dont worry about dps, but the same basic rules apply. if i am not up to date with the gear and the healing rotations, i cant keep people alive and therefore, fail at my job.
My guild is pretty casual. When we raid, this reflects in the rules/protocol for people in the raid group. You can fool around a little bit, just as long as it's not distracting to the group. If we're clearing Ulduar (and sometimes Naxxramas), and somebody can't make it for one day, we don't punish them or anything, we find a temporary replacement. I like this environment since I am by no means a hardcore raider. If you look at my gear on my armory page (by clicking my name above), you'll see that I'm in a mix of Naxxramas, quest, and heroic gear. This is due to the fact that I joined a guild 10naxx group the day I hit 80 and I took part in a full clear of 25naxx the following week. Lately, all I've been doing is dailies (with the heroic tossed in the schedule if it's an instance I like). The main dailies I've been doing are Argent Tournament so I can take full advantage of the welfare epics in the next patch. Good post! =)
"(remember when Optimus Prime died?! No? Well I still recall crying in the theater, at a cartoon!) "
I never saw that movie in the theater, as I would have been only a couple months old at the time it was released. But if it counts for anything, I cried when I saw Dinobot from Beast Wars die.
Back on topic... my new guild was still considered a "casual raiding guild" when I jioned it, but pretty much everyone now agrees that we're no longer casual, just another "raiding guild" (albeit a far more forgiving one). When you're raiding seven days a week, yeah...
RIP Optimus
/tear
I just wish the new Transformer movies would die.
As for the topic at hand, good luck with the Nobles Deck. I dropped over 7k for mine, and then picked up an approximate piece from a PUG a week later.
Sigh
well, to stay in the raids with my guild even though im late to the game and had to PuG heroics for like 2 weeks to get decent gear, i became friends with one of our best healers and he kinda took me up as an apprentice so he always vouches for me and i end up getting in
Bumblebee was a whiny beyotch...
My wife and I have worked a lot on her rogue (with the help of blogs and guildies) and we came down to her two highest priorities and these 2 stats will always make sure you are doing your best until you can stack AP and Agility (depending on what you want to accomplish in raids)
315 Hit (Poison Hit Cap)
26 Expertise (Expertise Cap)
I look like you can make the hit cap with some regemming (damn the slot bonuses, gem/enchant for HIT and replace them as you upgrade your gear).
The funny thing is that I have seen quite a few decked out T7.5 dps raiders perform worse then toons wearing a mix of blues and purples just because the toons with the lower gear were at their HIT caps and knew their rotations, fights, and class.