It really depends on your definition of casual. It's such a loaded word sometimes. Do you mean raiding only a couple of nights a week? Do you mean not worrying about progression? It can mean a lot of different things! I considered myself a casual raider until people I knew started calling me hardcore, so it's funky like that.

If you mean just raiding a couple of nights a week, it absolutely can work. The most important part of it is getting your raid to the point where they can buckle down and get to raiding when the time comes. In my few experiments with running a 'casual' raid, a lot of people would interpret 'casual' as 'I can mess around with my thumb up my butt because we're not hardcorezzzz.' Not everyone would do that, but enough that it caused very serious performance problems, and thus morale problems, and eventually the raids became an unpleasant mess for everyone and nobody wanted to go anymore. When you only have two nights a week to raid, you want people to show up prepared so you don't waste what little time you have.

It's all about mindset. You're casual raiders, but you should probably still read strategies beforehand, you should still research how to gear up and make your DPS decent, you should still pay attention to the raid and make sure you don't have scheduling conflicts. If your raid can do that stuff and show up 2 nights a week ready to rock the house down, you'll do just fine. If you have raiders using the word 'casual' as an excuse as to why they're not performing, you're going to have problems.

It can work. It just takes effort from everyone involved. Not just the raid leaders, but also the raiders.

Delilah asked...

The currency tab is a fabulous addition. Are there any plans to increase the number of items that will go to the currency tab instead of taking up room in the bank. Items such as Halla Battle and Research Tokens, Spirit Shards, and Argent Dawn Insignias? I would love if they also added any soulbound items that could be turn in for Rep.

They're looking to expand the currency tab, but a recent post from Wryxian on the EU forums makes it pretty clear that the devs won't be adding 'legacy' items to that tab. There might be exceptions to that like the Darkmoon Faire tickets that are still relevent in Wrath, but for the most part any additions will be from current content, not past content. Sorry, but you're stuck with your research tokens!

Juso asked a handful of questions...

Has they been any specific lore about the origins of the Troll and Tauren races?

Yes and no. As far as we know, Trolls had no divine ties in their creation. They just evolved, and came to exist over time. Their story could use more fleshing out, but it's kind of established that they're their own thing, no gods or Titans created them. That could change, of course. The Tauren have a creation myth which is most likely just a story, but this is a pulp fantasy setting, so it very well could be true to some extent. Unlike the Trolls' story, the Tauren very much were a divine creation. The Earthmother (who could be the Tauren name for one of the Titans, perhaps) created the world, and with it the Tauren. Wowwiki has some decent information on all of that stuff.

Are the Eredar another seed race of the Titans, just from a different planet? If that's the case, would that mean the Draenor Orcs were Titan seeds as well?

We know absolutely nothing about the Titan involvement on other worlds. Anything would be a guess. The only Eredar and Orc connections to the Titans that we know for sure is that Sargeras or his Legion lieutenants have controlled them at some point. We've no idea if the Titans created all life, or just made some planets all pretty-like.

When-oh-when will we see Spellbreakers as a class? I can't help but say that the idea of an anti-caster, buff/debuff, hybrid class intrigues the bejeebus out of me.

Oh gosh, the last thing we need is another anti-caster class after Death Knights. While I, too, like the idea of a buff/debuff based hybrid/support class, I don't think we'll be seeing Spellbreakers. Personally, I want to see something more like the vrykul Runecasters for the next Hero class. Buff/debuff based, tons of support/utility, and if given some good healing capabilities? Perfect hero class! Eh, maybe not.

Thuixk asked...

Is Santa real?

As real as Elune herself, my friend.

Tags: buff, casual, casual-raiding, creation, creation-myths, currency, debuff, earthmother, featured, freya, hardcore, origin-stories, q-and-a, raiders, raids, runecaster, sargeras, spellbreaker, titans, tweet-this, wryxian

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, The Queue