Our Raiding Officer has joined the bandwagon (even going so far as to create an “Egotistical Relief Fund” board on our forums) and has graciously contributed today’s post!

Many thanks, even if I didn’t realize it was an Ego post because I thought it was a regular raiding reminder and thus am posting this HOURS too late and am thus a really horrible person because it was his first post for me ever and I should be giving him a better introduction than this.

*gasps for breath*

*runs and hides*

——————-

So, you’ve spent the time gearing up your toon and reading all about your class’ theorycraft. You’ve applied to a raiding team or raiding guild and have been accepted. You’ve signed up for your first raid, but do you really know what it means to be prepared to raid?

I follow a basic set of principles when it comes to raiding. I embrace these just as much as I look for them in the raiders that comprise my raiding teams. For the most part, these are common sense things. Most people do them without thinking about it, but sometimes the most common of sense things need to be said.

Principle #1 - Be Ready
Being ready means being repaired, enchanted and in possession of the necessary and appropriate raid consumables. All the equipment in the world doesn’t mean a hill of beans if it breaks after the first death. having your gear appropriately enchanted increases your individual contribution to the raid effort. Proper raid consumables similarly increase your output and can make the difference between a wipe and a boss clear. The saying, “Every little bit helps, ” holds true here.

Principle #2 - Be On-Time
Blizzard added Meeting Stones to the entrances of each of the instances in order to allow two people to summon an entire raid, however no one wants to be “the guy” or guys in this case that have to summon everyone to the raid instance because no one else bothered to show up ten to fifteen minutes early. This is more of a common courtesy to the other members of the raiding team as it shows a true desire to contribute. As a raid leader, you would be amazed at how much this is appreciated because it allows for us to see who is there and not and whether substitutions need to be made to the roster because someone was unable to make it. Additionally, show up un-flagged in order to reduce the chance of disruption before the raid begins. PVP can be fun, but when trying to get people zoned into the raid instance and figuring out who is there and not, it can be very disruptive waiting for people to resurrect because they got ganked by 10 people from the opposing faction.

Principle #3 - Be Familiar
If you’ve ever had to sit and listen to the raid leader describe the ENTIRE encounter to someone new because they were unfamiliar with it after you’ve run the same instance twenty times, you know how much of an annoyance this can be. If you are new to a raid team or if the encounter is new to the entire team, spend ten minutes outside of the raid studying about the encounter. You will save the raid precious time and the countdown of raid consumables. It will also give a frame of reference when the raid leader says, “NO ONE MOVES ON FLAME WREATHE!”

Principle #4 - Be a Team Player
First and foremost, a raid is a team. A team either succeeds or fails by the total sum of it’s members. Loot that might be a slight upgrade to you might be a considerable upgrade to someone else. Sometimes being a team player means passing this item to that other member in order to increase the overall output of the raid. Does this mean I advocate passing on all kinds of loot and never taking anything for yourself? Of course not. Does this mean that the person that doesn’t really “try” to gear up outside of the raid or to “do their best” during the raid should have priority to loot? HELL NO! We all work together towards progress and if you are unable to understand this at a fundamental level, then perhaps raiding isn’t the best choice for you at the end-game. Every member of the team needs to do their part in order to down that boss and if by increasing one team members +healing or attack power we are able to increase the team’s output as a whole, then by passing on that loot to someone that can use it more is the essence of being a team.

Principle #5 - Be Good
And last, but not least… BE GOOD. Not everyone is perfect. In fact, I’m yet to meet someone who is and when i find someone who says that they are, they tend to be FAR from it. What being “good” means is that you far focused and doing everything that you can in order to contribute to the raid. Whether your role is healing, dps or tanking, everyone has a critical part to play in the ballet that is a raid and if someone isn’t performing at their fullest, it means that someone else has to pick-up the slack. Trust me… we notice when someone isn’t pulling their weight.

These are basic principles to successful raiding. They lay a groundwork upon which a strong raiding team can succeed and with it, progress. Embracing these fairly common sense principles will see you thrive as a raider.

Happy raiding and progression.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 and is filed under General Info. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.