Raiding - Choosing your Category.

As I've mentioned, I'm a raider in a ten-man guild. We do okay - and by that I mean we spend one, sometimes two raids to get through ICC, depending on when we start. Our alt-raid has cleared both left- and right-face, tho they haven't had any tries on the Professor yet. (Which oddly enough means that our alts are doing as well as our mains, since we've yet to down the Prof too. Had him at 1% this week, tho!) My only lvl 80 alt isn't quite well enough geared to join the alt-raids, so I tend to sit those out.

Last week the big question popped up. We'd been approached by another guild, also focusing on ten-man-raiding. They wanted to team up, a raiding-coalition for ICC 25. We had a guildmeeting to determine what to do - would we agree to setting up another raid every week - quite possibly spanning over several nights before all of ICC would be released and we'd cleared it?

Now, I draw, a lot. I never took any classes on it, though I often considered it. I've fantasized, more than once, about getting a degree in animation - but I suspect my abilities aren't quite there yet, and I can't really afford it either. Nonetheless, a lot of my spare time is spent either on my tablet or with a sketchbook in my hands. The best present I ever got, hands down, was Painter 11 from my boyfriend.

I work part-time in a bookstore specializing in fantasy/scifi-stuff, that also does used books, lego, playmo, games workshop, and a gazillion other things. (Branching out is a necessity if you want to survive in a small town) This is where I spend three days a week*, and it's how I pay the rent, my wow-subscription and all of my other things. I've chosen not to do the whole student-loan-thing, as it's perfectly possible to go without if you have a job that pays well enough. It does mean, however, that I can't afford to miss work, nor turn down extra shifts if offered.

I'm also a student - I've stuck my toe into both lawschool and computer science, but have ended up feeling best doing a course that focuses on the english language and literature. Granted, I study less than I should, and could stand to attend my classes more, something some friends of me tend to tease me a lot about, but still, it's something I do that takes up a certain amount of my time. I do my reading, I take absurd amount of notes**, and so on.

My point in this? I don't really have a lot of spare time. While some might argue that both WoW and drawing are things I choose to do and thus should be sacrificeable (is that even a word?) I tend to approach it as something I have to do. I would never play a game I didn't find fun, but I was raised with the notion that if you do something, you do it properly - and that philosophy stuck. My main source of fun in WoW is raiding - and if I'm a raider, I attend raids and I do my best. If I'm to draw, I will practice as often as I can, and I will have goals and work towards those.

This attitude does, of course, come with drawbacks. I've burned out, more than once, when I worked as an officer, or attended too many raids every week - I've come to learn that 25-man raiding is ill suited for me, as you're usually expected to also attend 10-mans. Two raids a week is my general limit, and while I can do a third once in a while, it's not something I want every week.

"But Aymee", someone once said, "you can just sign off, you know! You don't HAVE to come every time!".

True enough. I CAN do that. But let us say that your guild is struggling with attendance - especially among the healers. Let us say you're the only discipline priest, a healer-type that can be dumped into almost every situation and still do an excellent job. You're wanted for that ability - you can fill in for that paladin who couldn't make it on tank-healing, or go full absorb-mode to help out on raid-healing should the shaman be unavailable, and most of all: simply cause the raid NEEDS one more healer, class be damned, and if you don't come, the raid doesn't go.

I've been there, several times, and I know myself well enough by now: I have trouble saying no when I know just how much another healer is needed. Especially if it means the raid just might not get off if I choose not to go.

This brings me back to ten-mans - it's a lot easier to fill the raid-slots there and have a few spare raiders, thus not making anyone more "important" than others. We have healers enough, I know that in a pinch I can sign off and the raid wont suffer for it.*** Keeping my raiding strictly to tens is my compromise, really. It ensures I'll have enough evenings free for drawing, studying and my social life.

There's also the fact that while I love my priest, I like to do other things than raiding too. I pvp sometimes, I have alts, and I love running heroics with my friends in the evening. It's a great way to stress down, it's a nice way to keep in touch with the people who live far away - and lets face it, when you live all the way up in Norway, EVERYONE not in your town is far away.



In the end, almost every raider in our guild voted no. Some, because we were doing really great on the Strict 10-man Progress List, and if one more person got a 25-achievement, we'd be unqualified for that. More than a few for my exact reason - time. Combining studies, work and a social life with progressraiding can get tricky, and some of us found our answer in sticking to one category only. (And then, of course, most of us are elitist bastards and didn't really fancy having to cooperate with a guild with rules and values that didn't really fit with ours. We're pretty happy-go-lucky, we roll on loot, and most importantly: almost every one of us is in the guild because someone we knew there got us in. )

I'm pretty happy with that. I miss doing 25 once in a while, but what I gain from not doing that far outweights the emblems and loot I could have gained.


Even if this means I'll be stuck with the HoR-offhand forever. ****




*Often more, depending on the amount of customers we're getting, if I need to make certain orders, etc. I'm solely responsible for keeping the manga-, roleplaying- and comics-sections stocked and up-to-date, in addition to taking the monthly order of future releases.

**A habit aquired during my year in lawschool - our professors covered a lot we should know that wasn't in the books, and the books were seemingly written around the time Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, if you judge by the language used. Getting through the required reading took a lot of dedication.

*** We do not, however, have an abundance of tanks, which is kind of why my alt is focusing on her bear-gear.

****There is not a single offhand in 10 that does not have hit. My only hope is that there's a twohander from Arthas that'll be an upgrade.