This time last month, I wrote about waiting it out to see how our raiding schedule played out for my shadow priest horde-side. Here’s how it shook out:
- Second early start time raid night added, for a total of 4 EP earning nights per week*
- No additional Pacific Time weeknight progression/EP earning raid night added (Note: Pacific Time was the raid time for all the Wrath raids, which was a key factor in my joining the guild circa Ulduar)
- An incredible # of DPS signing up for every raid night, with half those signed up, on average, being sat
- Early start time raiders also signing up for and being seated in Pacific Time raids
- After I got sat from my only raid signup one week, the raid scheduler tweaked the signup spreadsheet in a way that will probably usually (but not always) mean that I will be seated for the 1 weeknight I can sign up for.
Over the course of the past month, I’ve gotten to attend 3 EP earning raids. That was my typical weekly raid count for BC and Wrath. And in Wrath, the other raid officer and I were neck and neck the entire time after EP was implemented for the most EP. i.e. if there was a raid, I was there. If there was a first kill screenshot to stand in, I was in it.
Now, I’m “a casual.” And not at all by choice.What does this change for me? It means I go to raids and am killing content that other folks have already been working on for a few nights, or have killed. I have to play catch up– learning how the raid is approaching the fight, and getting into the groove with a boss fight, well behind the learning curve. I like to lead the charge. To figure things out. To be ahead of the curve. And that’s simply not what’s possible for me with this schedule.
Yes, I could raid on Saturday night if the seating chart gods aligned. However, Saturday is the 1 weekend day my SO and I both have off, and we often *gasp* — do things offline on Saturday date night. So I don’t want to commit to spending my Saturday nights in a raid group. And more to the point, I don’t want to not know until 24 hours beforehand if I am going to spend my Saturday night in a raid group. 24 hours notice is not enough advance time to make a dinner reservation, or buy advance movie tickets, or make plans to grab a City Carshare in this busy city of mine. It just doesn’t work that way.
If it was Sunday night instead, I’d be there. And I’d totally be there for the raid nights that are early starts now — but I have this thing called work that I do that pays the Internet and WoW subscription fees, and makes it impossible for me to be able to raid at the time I typically leave work each night.
And thus, I find myself without much of a reason to log in to my beloved shadow priest.
Because it’s the raiding I love. The raiding that gets my adrenaline flowing. The raiding that I spent so much time planning for and prepping for and writing about. And now it’s out of my grasp. And I am disappointed. So very disappointed.
*the significance here is if you receive points (EP) for time spent in raid and for killing bosses. Thus, if you are not able to attend raids, you are not earning points. If you are not earning points you will have no points to spend to buy any gear in raids. If you do not gear up in this tier of raids, you will be woefully unprepared for the next tier of raids. And so on.