Ask WoW Insider: Casual Raiding -- does it exist?
by Mark Crump 
May 26th 2008 at 9:00AM
Welcome to today's edition of Ask WoW Insider, in which we publish your questions for dissection by the peanut gallery -- now with extra snark and commentary by one of our writers. This week Anonymous writes in:
A long, long time ago I dinged level 70. At that time I was in a guild that only had a select group of level 70 players and we tried to make the best of what we had. I had tons of fun discovering all the level 70 dungeons, and finally also the heroics, as a tank (which I rolled due to the tank-shortage). After a while our guild started to attract more level 70 players and we started raiding Kara. Something we never expected to happen since we were nothing like a raiding guild. After clearing Kara we soon moved up to ZA which we cleared with the regular 10 people we pretty much always ran raids with. After this many people started aching for 25mans, and we merged with another guild. We downed Gruul on our first try, piece of cake. Then things started to go bad. We were raiding casually, 2 to 3 nights a week of Kara and ZA. Most people in our guild were casuals (only available about 1 to 2 nights a week to raid) who were really psyched we got a chance to raid. Of course we had a base of "hard-core" raiders. They wanted more and things started to bubble up. Then came the worst news ever, our guild would disband. Our guild leader couldn't do his tasks any more due to a busy schedule out of WoW and he didn't have fun in playing anymore.
Our guild disbanded and many players moved on. I as one of the casuals got left behind. We are all very over geared for the content we were raiding due to farming ZA and Kara for so long we could easily afford the new 2.4 badge loot and of course we'd have a lot of drops from ZA. Most people were easily accepted into MH/BT raiding guilds. However these end-game (even the SSC/TK raiding guilds on my realm) have requirements if you wish to raid, you need to attend at least 3 times a week. I, and a lot of other casuals, simply can't do this due to engagements besides WoW. I've gone on a quest to find a casual raiding guild. I had no luck.
First I applied to a guild that seemed okay with my requirements, however they didn't need more tanks and denied me. After a while a spot for a tank came up, but they just aren't progressing, at all, so I declined. I couldn't bear the thought of raiding Kara or ZA one more time, I wanted 25man content. So I joined another guild, which turned out to be total chaos. Sure, I could raid there, but when they raided it took all night to down one boss, I left. Now I've joined another guild, which draws a line between "Casual" and "Raider" like many other guilds tend to do. As a casual (even though I'm geared as a raider) I won't get invited into any 25man raids apart from the "lower" content such as Gruul, which I've already seen one too many times. This guild is currently clearing MH/BT and were actually looking for an extra raiding tank, however I couldn't get invited into the raids being a casual (not even two nights a week) so they keep looking.
Now I ask you, WoW Insider, where do I find a freaking guild that makes me raid 25man content with the not so many nights a week I have? This is getting urgent, since I'm now finishing my Netherwing rep grind and have nothing else to do besides raiding in this game and it's starting to turn me away from a game I love playing.
Yours sincerely,
Anonymous.
I'm not sure exactly sure why you're not getting invited to raids: are they raiding on nights you can't raid, or, are the slots on nights you can raid going to those who raid more?
Finding a guild that's right for you is likely to take some legwork. While I've had good luck using my server's forums, I've never tried to find a raiding guild there. One other thought I had is doing doing a /who <instance> during the times that right for you, seeing what guilds raiding and checking out their web sites.
In answer to your subject: Does Casual Raiding Exist? Yeah, it does. My guild is fairly casual and we are working our way through the 25-mans. That said, if you're in my guild and can't raid weekends, you're pretty much screwed.
That said, I'm sure the regular raiders will have much better ideas, so I'll turn the floor over to them.
Got questions? Don't wait! Send them to us at ask AT wowinsider DOT com and your query could be up in lights here next week.
Filed under: Guilds, Raiding, Ask WoW Insider
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Moop May 26th 2008 9:14AM
They probably prefer that the gear drops go to someone who is able to attend raids more frequently and is able to contribute to raids on a daily basis.
Caiginn May 26th 2008 9:17AM
I was in a very similar situation about a month ago. The very casual, very fun guild I was in disbanded, and I bounced from guild to guild, finding that they were either too hardcore and I couldn't raid enough for them, or "lazy-casual" and nothing ever got accomplished.
I ended up talking to the old GM of the guild which disbanded. He had modeled the guild after his old one on a different server, and he was moving back there to rejoin them. I rolled an alt there to level and get to know that guild, and within a week or so I was ready to spend the $25 and transfer my main.
Sometimes you have to look outside your server. Mine just sucked for 'casual raiding,' so I found one elsewhere. Ask around; maybe someone in one of the hardcore guilds has an alt in a guild on a different server that would fit you.
Procris May 26th 2008 9:37AM
I can totally agree with that. I can't say i was ever in a casual raid guild but they were always fairly relax on what amount of days per a week people raided. When burning crusade came out, my guild kind of made a switch to being more "hardcore" and many people started to be left out since they pretty much went with the same group every night with no flexibility for the other people in the guild, even members that had been in the guild since the guild was created way back when WoW was still in beta.
Long story short, many people quit the game because they had just come to a point were they couldn't do anything more in WoW. Personally, i made a new character on the opposite faction and had fun not only experiencing a new class but also i levelled on a completely different server. I found myself hitting 70 and instantly in a very casual 25 man raiding guild. I could pretty much raid what day suited me best and i wouldn't be left out. The trade off was, the progress was a lot slower than my previous guild but everyone was really nice and sometimes you have to make a sacrifice. If you want a guild thats more casual, you might just have to accept its going to have slower progression. Of course it still needs to have some progression, other wise its the right thing to look for another guild.
Haiko May 26th 2008 9:32AM
You might want to look at casual raiding communities: Groups of "casual raiders" from different smaller guilds that group up to see more endgame content.
On our server [Moonglade EU, hordeside] i found two through our realm-forums. They are less strict than raiding guilds and allow you to stay in your friends-an-family-non-raiding-guild, though they do have a few rules (one group even calls themselves United Slackers, which in itself says a lot about their attitude: fun before progress, but they are quite capable in Hyjal despite the slacking attitude).
Both communities have a firm base in one guild with friends from the smaller guilds joining in on the fun, action and loot (DKP system).
If there is no such community on your server you might want to find a few friends (maybe from your old guild) to initiate such a community, but that sounds like a lot of work and time and you don;t seem to have enough of that.
Anyways: Good Luck !
Surt May 26th 2008 9:53AM
I believe the problems are both the content you want to run and the fact that you're a tank class. You have finished all of the casual content available in TBC, and are now staring raider-only content in the face. If the guild takes two to three tries a week to nail the skills to progress in the further 25-mans, why would they take you? The whole guild and healers need to learn exactly where the tanks will have everything on every pull, and changing it as they're learning and progressing is only going to slow them down.
This is one of the cases where being dps or a healer might help. If you're overgeared, but can only make 1-2 nights a week, you might slip in if they are short people. But any guild facing TK/SSC/Hyj/etc. is going to have their schedule set around when their tanks will be there.
I'd advise you either reroll a dps/healer class or join a casual guild and help them get good at farming Kara/ZA/Grull/Mag while you swim in badges. In the expansion, 10-mans will supposedly be a path for continual casual progression, so you might as well try to build a good guild of folks with similar playtimes and skill level to do that with.
Druid dude May 26th 2008 12:31PM
This guy hit the nail on the head. As a tank, it doesn't work that well to have a tank in the raid that isn't pretty experienced with the encounters. The catch 22 is that you can only get that experience by tanking those encounters. What you really want from your tanks for good progression is the same tanks in there pretty much every night.
As a healer or DPS, there is more 'wiggle room'. Take RoS for example. A tank needs to know what to do in detail, and need to have experience doing it. If you are say, a Mage, you pretty much just nuke away and try to spell steal something at one point. Or as a healer, you will probably get a pretty specific healing assignment, that while crucial, is not complex and can be done pretty effectively without ever having done the fight.
alex May 26th 2008 9:59AM
I belong to Red Branch on Staghelm, we make a Kara appearance 1 to 2 times a week. We have also started ZA (i think finished i didnt go) and Gruul. Some of our raiders dont even go every week.
aaron.gretsinger May 26th 2008 9:58AM
It seems to me that your solution lies in Wrath of the Lich King, when all raids will have a 10-man version. ZA is proof that raids don't need to require a lot of people to be hard, and getting a core group of 10 individuals to do those raids will probably be very fulfilling for you. In the meantime, I would do as others have suggested and try to look beyond your current server if necessary.
Hoof May 26th 2008 1:24PM
If you happen to be Alliance you can check out http://www.ancient-heroes.net
We are badly trying to keep progress while beeing casual having 3 raids a week to SSC/TK and only 33% attendance to be Casual Raider.. (below that you can still raid if there is a spot, you just can't join if there are raiders that want to come). The biggest problem we are struggling with is gearing up enough people to start MH, but we also have ZA/KZ/Gruul/Maggie on the schedule for casual people to gear up and get badges to keep the same advance level... It's a fine line and can easily break but so far we are managing.
kiaus May 26th 2008 10:18AM
This is the kind of problem that WOTLK will stop. Finding 10 players is always easier than a full 25. I've no idea how folks used to cope with 40 men raids !
I've just started Kara on my main, along with my guild. Am gonna focus on alts rather than seeing endgame BC content so I can do more raiding on different chars when WOTLK hits. It will be a more flexible, enjoyabel experience that is easier to manage. I'm sure those with the spare time and organisation skills will have a blast in 25 man though.
Wolfstalker May 26th 2008 11:10AM
The problem is pretty simple:
"Casual" raids simply can't do 25-mans. If people can't commit to a set raiding schedule, then one of 2 things needs to happen for you to actually put a raid together:
1:) You need to be extremely lucky and have just about everyone turn up on the same night. This rarely happens, and you would be lucky to raid once a month.
2:) You need to have a roster of 50-100 people to be able to fill a raid. This of course means that at times where more than usual people are available, a lot are going to miss out. Those that miss out will eventually get sick of not raiding and leave their guild.
It's pretty much impossible to have a casual schedule and raid 25-man content because of this.
That's a different thing entirely to being a guild that only raids 2 days a week on set days. That's not "casual", just a guild that raids less often.
If you are only available 2 days a week then you need to find a guild that raids on those 2 days a week. If those 2 days are weird ones like Monday and Thursday you are just going to be out of luck, sorry.
Bahamat May 27th 2008 4:04AM
I believe that the only way that all WoW players (Regardless of how casual they are) be able to experience and enjoy the raiding content with 0% pressure is that if they can raid with NPC characters with player customized AI rather than with human players, just a thought.
Xin May 26th 2008 10:48AM
the short answer to this question is, if you want to raid higher content 25-man like SSC and TK you have to join a serious raiding guild. I don't know any casual raiding guild that actually progress thru the T5 25-man instances. so if you want to progress and get to the higher content you have to invest more delicated time into WOW. Unless maybe in some miracle server there is a casual raiding guild that raids once per week and somehow takes down TK and SSC and more. then you can switch servers
amasen May 26th 2008 7:36PM
My guild raids 3 timers per week. I do not require attendance.
If you want to come to a raid show up at the prescribed time, and we'll raid... I will choose people based the following order. Class/role need. Performance in raids. Previous attendance...
It took us 1.5 months to go from Kara/ZA and Gruul Pugs to 5/6 SSC, 3/4 TK, and the 4th timer in ZA.
Last Thursday was our first night in those 2 months where we didn't have enough to raid and that is only because the one requirement we have for those to raid wasn't filled this week... If you want to raid, you need to tell us when you can't make it. If you know you will be unavailable it is your job to let us know so we can either make sure we have PuGs line up or we have re-opened recruitment to fill your spot.
Rob May 26th 2008 10:53AM
I think what the OP is saying is that he doesn't want to do Kara/ZA any more. Unfortunately you really dont have much of an option. TK/SSC are 10 bosses total, and they all need to be learned. You can't hope to progress much if you are only raiding once a week. However, that being said, there are guild that allow casuals.
For example, my current guild would take you as a casual more than likely. I think the rules are that 'raiders' have to show up more than half the time, and get first preference to raid signups. If there is room then casuals can sign up. But nowadays we are struggling to get 25 people signed up (to the point where we opened the floodgate for a whole bunch of new people).
If you joined a guild like this and they know going in that you would only be there once or twice a week (fyi we are only doing 25 mans twice a week, we will move to 3x a week soon), I wouldn't see a problem. You will likely have to move servers since such a guild is somewhat hard to come by. (I admit i have it good in this guild, only raid 2x a week).
Fetialis May 26th 2008 10:55AM
They're all right. I closed my account for the first time since the original WoW Beta in April, because I was bored (got my arena title and had an 70 alt of every class except rogue) and over geared for the ten mans and couldn't commit the four days a week minimum of any of the Hyjal/BT raiding guilds on my server.
You just have to make the decision to find the time if you really want to see that content. If something stops you, then you have to ask yourself is what is stopping you from seeing that content more important to you.
If the answer is yes, and there is no way you can play more than that 2 or 3 days a week, it might be time to find something else to do until WLK. I know I'll be back then as we'll be able to see most the 25 man content in 10 mans.
Razhlok May 26th 2008 11:06AM
Casual guilds exsist. I have been in a casual guild that has been going strong since the beginning of TBC. We have cleared Kara, ZA, Gruul, Mag, 5/6 SSC, 3/4 TK, 4/5 Hyjal and 4/9 BT. http://whj-guild.org
Dillon May 26th 2008 12:30PM
So ...
You're in a raiding guild and you can't down Vashj or KT? Doesn't that seem kind of silly given that there are PUGs out there that can?
I find it odd that Blizz decided to let people pick off the low-hanging fruit of all the 25man encounters. It's not unreasonable to expect a PUG group to be able to down 2 bosses of every 25man short of Sunwell ... difficulty progression ftw :p
washirv May 26th 2008 2:37PM
#14, it would help to know whether you're one of those people who lives in-game, or whether you limit yourself.
EJ states it took them ~12 hours to down KT. That's an entire two weeks of effort for one of the world's leading WoW guilds; I suppose it'd be more for normal guilds. The site of the guild you're smirking at states they raid 2x/week.
My guild raids 2-3/week, and if someone told us we should spend an entire 3-4 weeks of our hobby on one guild-breaker of a fight just to impress nerd-snobs, it'd be a difficult choice between laughing and ignoring him.
washirv May 26th 2008 2:39PM
Did I say two weeks for EJ to kill KT? I should l2math.