A Reminder about successful raiding

Greetings Musers! I hope your weekend is fairing well whether in the real world or the realm of Azeroth!

Last night I was permitted a very rare and precious treat: Raiding on a Saturday night with the missus home (Thank you HBO for showing Sex and The City: The Movie!) My GM was also thrilled since I'm a dependable dps'er who can off-heal should the situation arise. In my joy of this celestial alignment, I setup the home office to be raiding central for the night and also setup the living room to be as cozy as possible for my love.

Now while she had a wonderful time enjoying the urban adventures of Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda, I was stuck in a wipe fest of epic scale in Naxxramas's Construct Quarter. After 2 hours of impotent attempts on Grobbulus our GM called the raid. (Ironically this occurred right when the movie was over, which is leading me to think that some collusion between the GM's wife & my wife may be taking place, but I digress.)

With any bad raid night there is usually a little fallout. Once it settled (a couple of protest gquits etc.) we voiced our thoughts etc. over vent. I gave my feedback on what I saw: raiders goofing off and not focusing on the task at hand.

This leads me to an issue that I'm seeing with WOW 3.x: The Raiding dial has been turned down to where it can actually hurt Guild Progression. While I applaud Blizzard's decision to allow everyone to raid, it has also matatisized piggybacking: Players who are carried by the raid group.

Let me be clear Piggybacking has existed since WOW was launched. But while in the 1.x & 2.x builds this was relegated to one player in the raid it's now spread to 3-6 players in the group. This stops raid progression dead in it's tracks since there are group cohesion fights such as Grobbulus that require everyone to be on their toes.

So as a reminder

To be a successful raider in WOW (in order of importance)

1.) Arrive on Time,

Commit to raids to you can attend & do not interfere with real life obligations or commitment.

- This means ready to go 15 min before the raid.

2.) Be Prepared

- Gear fully repaired & the correct gear\trinkets for the raid.

- All Potions, Flasks, bandages for yourself

- Talent's spec'd correctly (if you've been doing PVP make sure to switch back to Raiding Spec)

- Real Life, Bowels\Bladder voided, pets taken care off, chores taken care off, food\drink by pc ready to go. Nicotine ingested before raid.

- Read Strat watch video of fight before raid.

- Make sure headphones\mic working

- UI's set for raiding.

- Vent working

3.) Be Focused

- Game sound off or very low

- Background IRL sound low

4.) Have Fun

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin