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?
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