Breakfast Topic: Has the Raid Finder changed the way you raid?
by Fox Van Allen 
Jan 18th 2012 at 8:00AM
When I first got into raiding, it was just a casual thing. One night a week for a couple hours. Then, when Icecrown Citadel opened, it got far more serious. I was raiding several nights a week, several hours a night. I was grinding hard modes, wiping on heroic Lich King more times than I'd care to remember.
But something changed. That something: patch 4.3. The advent of the Raid Finder tool made it possible to get a group whenever I wanted. I could raid on my own schedule. I could have a life again. Sure, it's harder to get loot via Raid Finder, but I don't care about that. I'm just in it for the fun.
How about you? Has the Raid Finder changed the way you raid? Has it freed up more of your time? Or are you just as serious about raiding as you were before the Raid Finder came along?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Trey Jan 18th 2012 8:02AM
technically you can say i raid a lot more now, (3-4/week compared to 1-2/week) but it doesnt feel like it. LFR doesnt have that emotion and sense of accomplishment you get when you tackle a raid with your guildies.
Scuac Jan 18th 2012 2:10PM
As someone who doesn't raid regularly (only pugs, no raid team), I have to agree. Before 4.3 I was lucky if I could squeeze my way into a raid once a week. Now I do LFR every week. HOWEVER, this week in particular I got lucky to get invited as a pug to another guild's run and we downed two bosses in DS 10. The difference in feeling of accomplishment and the level of engagement is absolutely staggering. During an LFR run I can do it with one hand eating pizza and talking on the phone. During a normal run, it really feels like a raid, a group effort.
Revnah Jan 18th 2012 8:04AM
Raid Finder has changed nothing at all about my main's raiding. She's still in her 25man group raiding the same 3 nights a week, normal and now heroic modes.
Raid Finder has, however, completely and utterly changed my alts' "lives". Instead of grinding endless heroics each, I complete both Raid Finder modules on each alt every week, and suddenly VP-capping more than one alt becomes possible without giving up my job and sleeping only 5 hours a night :-)
So, yeah, huge impact on everyone *but* my main, and personally I love having an alternative to 5-mans to grind VPs on alts!
Cerrena Jan 18th 2012 9:28AM
I raid... that's a change in itself. Although I've raided in other games, I'd never really been on a raid in the two years I've played WoW. Being a busy parent makes making a regular commitment to a raid team tricky and my guild while a great group of people is basically in the same situation so although there have been several attempts, raid teams don't seem to come together. While I'd love to have a regular team to take down the content with, I suspect Raid Finder might be more my pace.
AROD Jan 18th 2012 2:17PM
I feel the same way you do. When I am done with my kid either everyone is in a raid or done raiding for the night so RF is my favorite toy.
One a side note this week I have been seeing an interesting development, apparently RF is no longer there to see the fights and/or see get gear. I has in 2 raids last night and some poor fool (sorry to use the words) came out and said "lets kick the lowest dps". I was healing but I spoke up and told him that this raid was easy mode and 17 people could beat the raid and he should leave the low dps people do their thing. Most of the people in the raid agreed with me and they did not kick anyone out, but the fact that I am seeing this on RF is just unbelievable!
kiernangerald Jan 21st 2012 5:14AM
Here is the thing, I went to social member and started to not raid normals, heroics, but I'm actually spending more time raiding each week pushing all my alts. Through each week, good or bad I dunno but its lots of fun seeing diet raiding from so many different perspectives, learning a lot about the game more than ever.
Marac Jan 18th 2012 8:15AM
I find raid finder to be more of a chore i need to do to get that one piece that hasn't dropped on normal or to cap my points for the week. It's usually filled with a people that either don't know what they are doing, know what they are doing but decide to do it differently to mess people up, or people that just complain and try to troll the whole time they are there. Honestly it's not for me. I know everyone does not have an experience like that and it's a great way to gear up alts, but just not something i enjoy.
deymorin Jan 18th 2012 8:37AM
Don't forget the people spamming the vote kick on people of classes who share their token, and the rest of the raid mindlessly clicking yes when no reason for the vote is given...
Schadenfreude Jan 18th 2012 10:45AM
Yeah, this. On one hand, I like getting the raid finder loots on my alts, but the GIF theory is in full effect in LFR these days.
Skarlette Jan 18th 2012 11:28AM
Not to give any trolls ideas, but my worst experience so far in LFR was a hunter (possibly more than one, not sure) who kept turning on Aspect of the OMGWTFWHYAMIDAZED during the ice wall phase of Hagara. That's the only time I've had the raid deliberately sabotaged for the lulz. There are idiots going AFK on autofollow and plenty of trash talking, epeen stroking, and other crap going on in raidchat, but I can ignore that fairly easily.
Overall my experience with LFR has been positive. I've gotten to see the entire raid instance, whereas my casual guild, struggling with end-of-expansion, raid-leader-burnout, SWTOR-distracted doldrums, has only gotten to Ultraxion during our normal 10-man runs. I've also geared up my main faster, which is always a good thing.
Skarn Jan 18th 2012 2:37PM
Fortunately, if you do the Ice Waves right, Aspect of the Pack won't daze you. The only damage you can take in that phase on LFR is standing in the bubble or hitting a Wave. It's even possible that the hunter thought it was helpful to have Pack on. So if you're getting dazed in the Ice Phase, you must have been doing something wrong.
Or it's possible the hunter turned it on too fast and people were still taking damage from Ice Lance or something.
SamLowry Jan 18th 2012 3:31PM
I might actually enjoy LFR once the raiders are gone. I suspect it's these deadly serious folks who are behind the constant Recount posts and vote kicks while loling about the stupid crap their guildies are doing while doing nothing to punish them.
How about giving us the option to join a group where there are no premades or guild groups that can manipulate voting?
Stilhelm Jan 18th 2012 4:45PM
If you want a group with pretty much no raiders, go on Monday night. Of course, you'll be lucky to finish the last 4, and at the very least it will take far longer than the 30-minute runs you can get on Tuesday or Wednesday, but if you don't want to run with the raiders, you have to accept the fact that you'll be running with more cluelessness.
lolzerker Jan 18th 2012 8:17AM
It has finally allowed me to raid and that is wonderful. I could never lock down a steady raid time due to my work schedule constantly shifting. I love it!
The only complaint I have is not getting the raid title achievements. It just doesn't seem fair for those of us that can't do steady raids.
Smashbolt Jan 18th 2012 8:45AM
If it were a *different* title, sure. There's already different titles for completing Normal and Heroic. Adding a Raid Finder title would be fun (even if completing LFR is a more trivial task these days than completing a PUG Zandalari heroic :/).
Philster043 Jan 18th 2012 1:59PM
While I was disappointed not to get the title, to be honest, I do think the raid achievements should be left alone to the normal & heroics. That's why they call it "Normal" after all - LFR is essentially a nerfed version. Why should we get achievements for beating the raid on easy mode? It gives some incentive other than better loot for doing these raids on Normal and Heroic --- not that I'm ever going to try Heroic!
SamLowry Jan 18th 2012 4:52PM
And how about not being able to touch those daggers unless you're in a raiding guild? The devs don't seem to understand that the barriers they've erected against getting just the starter 397 daggers only encourage extortion. You want the daggers? Pay us 10k, then another 10k to get a questline started which we won't be able to complete until we're able to solo the raid, which might not happen for three or four years.
And before anyone says "If you're not a raider, then why do you want them?" you could say the same about 403s--aren't 397s good enough?
Blayze Jan 18th 2012 8:20AM
If Raid Finder gives rep in MoP with a raid faction, I may never do guild raiding ever again.
Rezai Jan 18th 2012 8:24AM
It did, in that I actually raid (through the raid finder that is).
dryankem Jan 18th 2012 8:27AM
As a member of a small guild (around 10 people if we all logged in), I say it's changing my raid quite a lot =)
The only raids I've done are 2 or 3 of us would rip through MC or some other low level raid and I've pugged a few BH but that's about it for my raiding life (did pug an Ulduar).
Being in a non raiding guild I always wanted to know what it was like in a raid, even though I don't like the commitment of being in one.
Along comes the raid finder and I've now healed it on 4 different specs (both priest specs, druid and shammy, just need to get my pally up a little higher), as well as tanked and dps'd it (both range and melee). I even have a 4 piece bonus which I've never thought I'd ever get.
So all in all, I love the raid finder. Sure it has issues but for me it's been a lot of fun (just looking forward to more raids come MOP).