The Few, The proud, The Elite Raiders.

Hi guys, Today's Latest News is about my guild in Staghelm server. Lately, we just lost a great player in the guild and It was a sad day for everyone, because we really didn't know what happened as he only left us a message in the forums by saying "I am leaving the guild. Thank you for the invite and letting me raid here." It makes me ask myself Why? Is it really because the lack of motivation of other raiders/leadership that drives another player to just guild quit?

One of our guild council in Vanquish named Shadow shared a great thoughts about Elite raiders. In response to his post, I will follow his format and will have similar discussion of what he posted in our forums. "There is ultra simple order to things if you want to be of this Elite Raider" and To his knowledge people try to skip to get there, So he call this orders the "PEAKS". So I will share my point of views based on my own raiding experiences and narrate what "PEAKS" means to me too. 

Every now and then we often hear players saying "I want to be an elite raider" or something along those lines. I've been raiding since long before it was popular and one thing never changes. Everyone wants to eat the cake but no one wants to go through the steps of making it (or Pie if you like that better). 

P for Preparation = Every raider know there classes inside and out, that includes specs, gears, gemming, min/maximizing gear, having a decent offset of gear (like in my case I am primarily shadow spec and DPS but I also have decent gear to heal if needed. so that when they ask me to heal based on raid compositions it is much easier than looking for another healer.) Also especially now that is Patch 4.2 gearing really is not a problem. Now a days it is so easy to grind tokens and get decent gears off vendors or even just running 5 man Heroic dungeons.

E for Effort = "If you don't bring your A game every time for every second you are in the raid you are crippling yourself and the guild as a whole". I totally agree with this, It is like if you constantly dying in a fire, you probably better just to sit out because In my opinion E is also for being an Exceptional raider. if you need to fix any errors, learn from this survive and do better. If your DPS is low do not rely on someone else to point that out, fix it. If you are coming in last on DPS or heals find out what you can do better.

A for Adapt = "More fights are coming where you will need to do things you are not used to." Some fights now a days are mechanic based and not tank and spank. Like for me I only started to DPS when Cataclysm has released, Being a shadow caster besides healing was a great challenge for me I had to know rotations keeping my dots up so that I can put out great numbers based on my damage output. 

So the dummy's in Stormwind help me practice and when the next raid comes I am more adapt pretty much to any boss fights, It is also same situation where the raid leader yells to ask you to click one of the Gong's in Atramedes fight even though you have not done it before but you can adapt to the situation and next time you go there you will feel more confident and comfortable. And also if you made a mistakes in raids, just admit it and fix the issue. As Shadow said: "Save the drama for your Momma, if you are sucking it up on whatever admit it. If you can't fix the issue if you get replaced don't pout, go do some research Become and asset not a burden."

K for Knowledge of Fights = "I can't stress this enough if you are waiting to hear from a raid leader on what the overall "jest" of a fight is then you are doing it wrong." For me, Being a raider is a must  to have  knowledge of the fights. Why in the world come in the raid and wait for raid leaders to explain the fight to you that you should already know at least the basics of the fight right? I suggest being resourceful is also a key, watch boss fights through videos so you can understand the fights better.

S for Skills = "Raiding is like Gatorade is it in you?" If its not then you have to sharpen what you do until its reactionary. The guilds in Top 100 i.e Ensidia or Paragon didn't just wake in the morning and downed a content, but rather they found people with growing skills and made plans. In my opinion working and raiding in PTR helps a lot. In the raiding environment you have to put in the work to get good. This means you might have to step out of your comfort zone and talk to someone of your class and ask how it is they do what they do. 

I myself didn't know how to play a shadow priest until I asked one of our great shadow priest in the guild to help me out. and It improved my skills immensely, I was grateful that I asked for help and did not regret anything at all. Now I am also padding the meters when I am raiding with Vagrants guild in 10 man content. Also, We are not perfect though, I totally understand if someone f*cks up a lot, because we all do. But learn from your mistakes and try to fix it.

One of my guild mate Gardorian replied "End Game Raiding, is not everyone's thing. it takes a lot, a whole hell of a lot... many of us have played and played and worked up to this level and are proud to have become players that possess the skills needed to see and down content only 5-10% of players ever get to see. We can be then 1-3% of players that see ALL of the content, however for this, we need people to look at them self, see where they are lacking and work on it or come to realization that end game is not the place for you. People don't join the NFL or NBA because they like playing ball, they worked for it and they perform.

Overall this post has a lot of things that we can learn from each other especially those who are in Raiding environment. It is just matter of preparation in performing well, have knowledge of fights, putting extra effort, being resourceful, adapt to any environment, expanding your skills and also helping others. but being an elite raiders doesn't means being an ass in raids But It is about US being the best We can to be Elite Raiders..I know they may have some bad days of raiding, but everyone will try harder to succeed. It also encourage the guild to do better in progression, actually not only in my guild but to others as well. I acknowledge Shadow for the thoughts and made me realized how important it is to be a raider and to become an Elite Raider.

Categories: Amerence, Elite Raiders, Guild, Guild Progression, Vanquish, World of Warcraft, WoW