Last night I went in and killed this guy, a guild first. I had that awesome heart-pounding adrenaline rush, and thought it would be fun to share the 5 primary reasons I raid.
- I love the adrenaline rush of a new boss kill. First you make steady progress. Then you get the wipe at 17%. Then you get the attempt where everyone is in the flow. No one has died. You are in phase 2. Everything’s smooth. The raid leader says “BURN HIM!” and you do. You push your character, micromanaging every GCD, You find that volcanic potion you forgot you’d stashed in your bag. Push, push push…and he’s dead!
- I love the teamwork. The world is full of plenty of ways to be an individual contributor. Raiding on the other hand is very much about the entire team doing the dance, ebbing and flowing together. And I love being part of a team accomplishing a goal together. I also love all the silly inside jokes you have after a year or more of raiding with the same folks. See also why I never let my horde guild’s paladin tank Dreb off the hook without making at least 1 funny voice for me.
- I love seeing new places. And taking many many screenshots.
- I like to push myself to be a better player. And raids have endless room for fine tuning and experimentation. You can raid on the same character for an entire expansion and still have room to fiddle with things you do in the raids to keep it interesting. And of course raiding has the potential, RNG willing, of your getting new gear with which to improve your character, which feeds back into this reason.
- I like to have the opportunity to shadow priest tank. What, your raid doesn’t have any shadow priest tanking? My raids *always* have some shadow priest tanking. Like when both tanks die at 3%, and someone needs to keep the boss engaged long enough to finish him off. Or when a nasty dragon trash mob kills the entire raid and I get to DoT and kite him down a long hallway until he keels over. Those are incredible moments of fun and joyfulness for me.
So why do you raid?
I raid for pretty much all the same reasons, minus the Shadow Priest tank.. I do enjoy the Rogue tanking every so often as long as my Evasion isnt on cooldown. Unfortunately, I’ve only had one chance to raid this expansion due to school and being too nice and stepping out for others.. damn my niceness… i really need to stop that.
Why do I raid?
Because I’m a secret masochist. 😉