I suppose that’s my reason for caring about raids. It’s what all the RPG elements are designed around. Some of your abilities like 2 minute burst cooldowns aren’t even really relevant to the open world.
As for why I don’t, I’m bad at the game I guess.
Time and energy…learning. Also people won’t let you in a party unless you’ve already done the content you’re trying to do.
I suffer from the same anxiety. I wish I could overcome it.
Too many self entitled tools. That and I work overnights.
I got over it, personally, by closing my eyes and biting hard and queuing for LFR. But you don’t have to do it that way. If you have any friends who play, let them run you through content, judgment-free! If you don’t, that’s fine too, I didn’t, either.
Let me tell you, from my experience: most guilds (at least on my realm, Proudmoore) are wildly friendly, respectful, and happy to carry. They clear casual content because they have fun doing it and only care about having fun with the other people in the guild.
If you’re a woman, too, it’s even more terrifying to get into voice chat. And that also takes time. It helps when other women are speaking up. My guild has 6-7 vocal women players, so when we are running with a new gal who seems shy about speaking, I’ll make sure I’m loud and funny with the others to let them know they’re safe.
But people in dungeons and pugs are jerks.
My recommendation, if you’re serious about wanting to get over the anxiety: watch the guild ads in trade. Watch for those who are progressing Normal or Heroic still (these are usually casual guilds) and LGBT-friendly. Those are the nice guilds. Whisper them to join their guild. It’s easy to type to them in gchat, and that way, you get to know them. You do not have to talk in voice or anything. They’ll ask for people to do low keystones with, and you can do that and they will not be mean to you, because it’s a guild group and they consider you a friend.
You can work up from there, getting in voice quietly, listening to your guildies joke around, and eventually you’ll be happy to joke around, too.
My whole point is that guildmates will always treat you differently than pugs will. I don’t pug anything anymore. I do it all solo or with guildies.
I’m a normal mode raider. That community died when M+ came along. So now I have to kill the same pirates for god only k ow why… existing? Every week just to get a lottery box that might have something good in it. I got four belts with corruption today. Four! I hate this system.
In Legion I PUG raided a bit. But I was studying at the time so had a flexible schedule. Raiding takes a significant time sink to be raid ready or else you let everyone down - especially as a healer.
I just didn’t have the time anymore through most of BFA (pre-covid) to invest all that time to be raid ready.
And yes toxic players that flame like the furnaces of hell are a massive turnoff and I think the toxic player base has been growing over the expansions. Which at the same time I’ve been ageing (been playing since vanilla to indicate my age aka old jaj - 39) and my tolerance/patience for it has run out.
I still LFR now if but only IF I have a quest that sends me there. I try to help and learn and give advice and instead of flaming people that aren’t following mechanics I will whisper them and ask if they would like some help or for me to explain what needs to be done. If I don’t know I will whisper someone and ask.
But the reality is, people are impatient, unforgiving, uncaring… it just isn’t fun. And its a game after all, it should be fun.
I miss raiding, I miss learning the mechanics and feeling that f*yeah moment after making progress. I miss feeling powerful and useful as a healer in supporting the team. But the balance of enormous time sink + toxic = lost interest. A shame really.
I want to raid but don’t have the time to invest in gear and leveling up. Heck I do not even have BFA, I do on a Taiwan server because it was free with subscription but I’m back on US/Oceanic servers now.
I used to raid back when it was 40man Naxx on my Priest, woke up at 3am local time to raid with the US based guild I was with. Didn’t finish until 3pm local time, 40 man was pretty crazy.
I’ve raided on and off over the years and the most I ever raided was during Legion. I both loved and hated it. The raids were fun, progressing was fun. Throwing bodies at a boss for 2.5 hours is very NOT fun though. Also I hated keeping a schedule. Once the raid was cleared showing up felt like a job and I hated that.
I’ve not raided at all in BFA because I don’t want to keep a schedule.
To raid or not to raid: that is the question.
Processing … … … … … … … … …
#2 ftw
Last raid I did current all I got as loot was a relic and versatility gloves as a mage for a full run. I vowed never to go back, other people got upgrades and I get a lousy relic that does nothing when I had 3 already.
it has to be the right guild
if I don’t like who I’m raiding with then I’m not going to
also gameplay needs to engage me but that’s a given
Lovely, a thread of the old days, without the attempt to troll or insult casuals, Thanks OP!
To answer your question,
I did raid at Vanilla up to Naxx, in TBC all content clear pre 3.0 and in WOTLK I cleared up to LK HC 10. Cata I did raid the first tier, since then never again.
Why did I stop?
For starters, all those different raid difficulties have increased the needed time to raid, time I don´t have.
But also the menthality has changed a lot. In Vanilla, I had a single addon, CTraid in TBC, I had a single addon for my buffs and a better layout for my heals in WOTLK I had a single addon for my tanking to taunt.
I cleared all content, did raid lead and nobody ever complained or asked me to install other addons. Not even Voice chat was used.
With Cata all that changed, people were super picky about who to take, you had to be in voice chat, had to have several addons and a certain build or DPS / HPS number.
I wanted to raid with like minded people, together where everyone can come and this no longer was possible. It became a second job to meet all the demands of people and I lost my fun in Cata, even though we were amongst the first to clear the content.
Gaming is fun for me, not work and that´s why I retired from raiding, just like I retired from group pvp after making Rank 14 twice in Vanilla.
Would I still like to raid, well yes. I want to see the story and improve my characters gear, to become stronger. (I love solo content for transmogs). But I also want the comradery and ability to just relax from RL. Running the same raid in various difficulties, with robots that are rude to people, just doesn´t fit there, so I remain inactive.
So ya, that´s my reason.
You join a mythic raid and don’t know the fight, yet they’re “toxic” and in the wrong for kicking you out?
I enjoy the challenge and working in a group.
See above, plus gear.
Time. Raiding is a huge time sink. I have a career and a family, so my play time is limited, therefore I must choose the activities that I can participate in with limited time and low commitment. Raiding during the week is out since I need to be in bed early, and raiding on the weekend is difficult since I can’t always guarantee attendance.
What? Didn’t say they being toxic for kicking people out. Saying mythic raid runs are toxic which is understandable and I know the reasons people get like that.
I raided from Vanilla up to MoP, but the time committment became too much. Work, family, friends, real world stuff… I don’t have time for the part time job that is serious raiding. I think that’s why mythic plus is more popular than raiding is now. Being able to Q up for mythic dungeons at any time is a lot more accessible than weekly scheduled raids.
Transmog, the storyline and because it’s fun with my guild. That’s why I’m mostly a Normal mode raid.
Honestly, the hot garbage that is 8.3 tier. The transmogs aren’t even worthy farming, and the finale is pretty horrible.
I want BiS pvp gear, which naturally comes from raiding. I dislike being committed to a schedule for wow.
I like raiding but those three hold me back. I’ve never raided current tier stuff until now thanks to covid cancelling everything.