On a recent raid night, we somehow ended up one DPS short of a full raid (hold the jokes, please ;p). Thus, we ended up taking with us a member who had just joined the prior evening.
As it turns out, the officer who had invited this person, must not have known them very well, if at all. I say this because if they had, they wouldn’t have suggested bringing him in so far into the instance. Why do I say this? Because I’m pretty sure it was his first ever raid instance.
This player kept asking what color dot he needed to follow on the mini map and was clearly perplexed when asked to just visually look at his screen to see where folks were standing and moving towards. After partially wiping the raid group by running fire in the opposite edition (he literally ran me down), over Vent he asked repeatedly why the instance wouldn’t let him back in. And when he finally was in and we were about to go for what was his third attempt, he asked us to wait when the ready check popped up, and proceeded to ask why we didn’t all just spread out instead of moving around on the fight.
I believe we gave him three attempts before we cut him loose. And I don’t foresee our taking him with us ever again. Why? A few key reasons:
- He didn’t say he was new to raiding before accepting the invitation
- He demonstrated an inability to follow instructions
- He talked over vent almost non-stop through the attempts, distracting the entire team from doing their jobs
- Despite having no idea what he was doing, tried to tell the raid leader and team what we should be doing differently, on a boss we’d previously killed a number of times.
Start with Baby Steps
Now, I do understand why someone without any raiding experience would want to join a raiding guild. And why they would be excited to be invited to a raid. And we do al have to start somewhere. But if you have no experience with grouping for raids, unless you are a WOW savant, a difficult boss towards the end of an instance is not the place to do that. You really need to start with an easier fight, and to have prepared for it.
Your best bet for getting your raiding feet wet is Baradin Hold. A slight bit of trash, only one boss, and a likelihood your guild can carry you through the content makes this a good starting point. You’ll be able to start to get familiar with the dynamics of coordinating 10 or 25 players to achieve a common goal. And gain an understanding of the tasks your class and role may be asked to perform in a raid.
Once you start to feel like you are keeping up with the group, you can start thinking about hitting some of the entry level raid bosses. But you’ll want to make sure you go watch a video of the encounter and read a description of what your role does in that fight, so that you are coming into the raid armed with enough knowledge to give it a good try. Be sure that your raid leader knows you are new to the instance, and ask clarifying questions if you are unsure of what you personally are being asked to do.
I understand it can seem scary to admit to being a newbie, but we were all newbies at one point or another. And a good team of folks will appreciate your ‘fessing up, versus not understanding why you are having trouble with executing on something they consider to be on farm mode.
Further reading:
I should have asked for directions. Sorry!
lol NOT YOU mister sillypants.
The upside is we did laugh about the situation for hours.
I was just following the purple dot of my minimap, don’t blame me!
OMG it’s like you were there!
Q: “What color dot on my minimap should I follow? There are so many of them.”
A: “You need to look on your screen and go to where the other ranged are.”
Q: “Yes, but, which dot on my minimap…”
I hesitate to ask this question but: were they geared enough to be there? And if so, how? I mean, there are lots and lots of ways to get gear now, but don’t you have to at least set foot in a regular or heroic dungeon a few times?
Dang, maybe I should look for a raid now and again. I actually know how to raid, even if my gear and dps isn’t currently optimal!
I recall he had decent gear from dungeons. His issue really was the not having a clue as to any of the raiding basics. Or grouping with other people. Perhaps on closer inspection we might have found him only wearing rep gear…I wouldn’t have pulled in an unknown person that way, personally, but I am not the raid leader.
This reminds me to note that I am even more annoyed when we get in an uber geared person who can’t pull their weight at all (see the shadowpriest we brought one week with a higher ilvl than me who did less than half my DPS.)
It’s a strange thing to be this early in the progression game. This is a phase when many people are going back to the abundance of old raid contents, are able to faceroll, and assume that current raid mechanics are as simple as heroics. Cataclysm also brought a ton of new players into the game from what I have seen, and many who had never been in raids prior to Cataclysm are finally starting their first raids. They have no concept of progression raiding.
“Stack on star. What are you doing way out there? Dude, stack on the group.”
“You keep saying that! What do you mean by stack?”
This is in the middle of a boss fight…I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
I boggled IRL at the time. I thought to myself, did this guy never have LEGOs? Or Jynga? Or any sort of toys that you stacked things together???
I agree that this expansion seems to be showing me more of them than the others did. I remember being nervous before my first raid…healing Molten Core was serious business, and they were hauling me in at 58 because there was a healer shortage. Now folks seem to expect to roll up, 1-shot and loot. Had a trial raider freak out after 2 Atramedes attempts (we had someone DC on one, some other dumb thing on the 2nd) and Gquit, b/c we “were noobs” (note that we had previously killed him a number of times.)