Question for intense raiders

Community General Discussion
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Hello everyone,
I used the word “intense” because hardcore can mean something totally different in game now and I didn’t want to be misleading lol. My question is this:

You folks that have dedicated a lot of time to WoW, as far as raiding/progession/running a guild… what’s it like and what’s your schedule look like? I’m not planning to do it myself, but I’m curious about the folks that have that kind of lifestyle. How long do you play for? Do you schedule around IRL events to make raid time? How do you juggle work/life?

If that’s what you are into, and you are really passionate about it I think that’s awesome and I hope you are doing your absolute best everytime you log in.

God bless folks, I look forward to seeing your reply! :slightly_smiling_face:

Romans 5:8 KJV

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World rank 150-200 or so here. Getting HoF the past few tiers.

We raid 3x3 hours a week 8-11 and an extra day first 2 weeks to squeeze in heroic. This is after work comfortably and not too late to mess with the following day.

We require 4 m+ keys a week for vault but typically we’ll book time off on release day and split into groups of 5 to run keys early on to acquire gear and make the first few raids easier and more productive.

After that we fit keys in where we can, some will take extra days off if they’ve got them, others will just get a couple done after raid with guildies.

After the first week nearly everyone is at a point where there’s no more ilvl to be gotten from m+. There might be specific items that could be stat swapped but largely m+ is just about vault now. People will do keys after raid nights for an hour or so but otherwise we’re mostly logging in to raid on raid nights.

As a guild we don’t raid Friday or Saturday so being social isn’t particularly difficult. I spend a lot of my time outside of work with my partner and we have time to do everything we want to around my schedule. If I have to miss a raid night or two for whatever reason it’s largely not a problem. We’ve already had 2 absences this first week. We just try to plan things well in advance and let eachother know. If emergencies happen we have a 24 man roster for a 20 man raid so it never really means we won’t be able to raid.

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Raid 7-10 every tuesday wednesday, pick one day to spam keys after work, preferably a day my Fiance works nights.
Schedule crying sometime before bed

Life is good.

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Wow, thank you for that amazing description. It sounds like you guys have a really good schedule going and are able to make it work out well. When you say “book time off” do you mean taking time off of work to play, or are you taking time off from set times as a guild you need to be there for such as m+ keys, raids, etc?

Still, that’s pretty cool stuff! I’ve always wondered about that the higher tier players like you and your guild do when it comes to raiding snd life in general.

I think in a lot of ways there is this stereotype that a WoW player that’s “intense/invested” is like this, you know, 12 hour a day no job sorta low life that’s just doing nothing else. In some cases that might be true, SOME CASES, but definitely not all of them. I think it’s like anything else, take fishing for example. You like fishing you are always out fishing and invested in it. Like working out? Same thing.

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Taking paid leave, yes.

Usually just that first day when the season opens. Once the first 2-3 weeks are over it’s 9 hours of raiding and 4 keys + whatever I want to potter about with. Can get that done very comfortably playing maybe an hour or so a night outside of raids.

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I raid two nights a week for three hours and gotten ce the last 3 tiers.

9-12 eastern. It’s late enough I can get home from work and spend time with family before playing.

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We’re currently an AOTC guild. We Raid 2 nights a week for 2 hours so the impact on fun outside the game is minimal.

Once we get AOTC the Season is over for any members who don’t care to push M+.

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I wouldn’t say I’m intense, my goal is purely getting AotC for the season, missed S1 due to medical reasons and just getting back to the game sadly, but I spend a good amount of time raiding. Healthy amount of time, even.

Throughout S2 my strat was to pug everything. This worked fine for Normal, but Heroic is when you reached the real hurdles. I’d end up trying to join from pug to pug to make progression because progression means you were more likely to get invites into raids, and that meant more progression.

I usually dedicated 3+ hours on days where I knew I had nothing else. I work part time and often have to deal with health stuff so don’t always have the time, but it’s usually a good time investment when I do. If I can’t progress I try to find time to put more time into pugging over the weekend or something.

S3 was looking like it was going to be the same way, and it may be for Heroic, just gradual progression as you crawl through fight after fight, hoping to find that group to down that big bad, but I’m looking to join a guild that’s pretty easy going, but still looking to progress to Heroic and I think that will be a lot more enjoyable.

My friend is a member of theirs and invited me to join their Normal raid which went swimmingly: We one shot every boss save Dimensius because, well, it’s Dimensius. Resources are still pretty limited on how to even properly fight the guy and it’s a huge step up over the entire rest of the raid, but we won! First clear for everyone involved. We finished in 3 hours.

It’s an investment, but it also depends on how you want to go about it. You can experience the fights through LFR which you can handle in chunks at your own pace, or push up to Mythic and really test your limits, but then you’re looking at a heavy time investment. Like, that’s going to be your thing save doing M+ for gear.

But I think raiding is fun, and you can meet some really nice people in pugs. Some rude people, and some really not great players, but we all have to learn. I’m going to make mistakes, as is everyone else, but we’re all going for the same goals.

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Intense is relative. I remember during Burning Crusade and people talking about “hardcore players” and, for them, it was two nights a week at three hours each. And that seemed like a lot! New players, like me back then, could not imagine playing a full three-hour session in a group or alone.

Since then, we have measurements like “time spent” which erases any idea of being intense players. As you can see in the replies, people are pretty reasonable about how they play the game.

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I just raid tues and thurs for three hours each, usually end up going to sleep about an hour after raid and when previously working night shifts I had my raid nights be my days off but now on the Corpo 9 to 5 schedule it all just works.

Usually get the optional things in like M+, weeklies, delves and whatnot done early in the week after work so Tuesday tends to be the only “intense” day of getting weekly stuff done after work and before raid and the rest of the week is just doing whatever I feel like.

For non-wow stuff it is pretty routine, wake up get ready and go to work throughout the week, every other Thursday do my part of grocery shopping, every Friday do tabletop with the group, every Saturday go out to a restaurant with the BF, Sunday just boils down to just relaxing and doing nothing. As the season goes on and I finish the goals I set our for, time shifts from content to RP or to other games in general.

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That makes perfect sense, thanks for clarification. I had to sit and think on that for a little while. I realized that if you are trying to be competitive/progressive in WoW, you are going to have to work fast and push hard. That’s just not something I’ve ever considered, but I think that’s super intense you guys are doing that. Best of luck with your progression, and thank you again for taking the time to answer.

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I raid with guild 2x per week; M+ and free time rest of the week to do what we want.
The time is after work for 2 hours for all 4 US time zones so there really is no issues, no huge commitments, and we have a lot of fun joking around pre and post fights.

John 15:12

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I appreciate you taking the time to reply, and put to pug doesn’t sound too bad, but I bet after a little while it gets grueling to make that progress in heroics. I’m glad to see you back in WoW, I can tell you love this game and that’s awesome. I’ll put you on my prayer list for your medical issues, and I hope it doesn’t stunt you progress this expansion anymore. :slightly_smiling_face:

Seriously though, good luck, thanks for your input.

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It’s me JMcrabhands, it won’t let me reply.

That sounds incredibly manageable, I won’t lie. The majority of the folks that have replied on this forum have kind of shown me to be a progressive raider, it isn’t the mental image of what most people have painted over the years and that’s refreshing.

Amazing verse, thank you for posting that one. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Oh absolutely, it’s definitely not the mental picture that’s been painted into my head. I feel like Call of Duty/Fortnight players play more than your average progressive WoW raider. Lol

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At a risk of sounding foolish, what is an AOTC Guild?

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We just go for Ahead of the Curve. Which is killing the last Raid Boss on Heroic difficulty.

Cutting Edge is the same but for mythic difficulty. Both are achievements that need to be done before the season ends

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I don’t think we really count but for the sake of data:

We raid twice a week (Tuesdays and Saturdays) 3 hours each time - 50% prog, 50% mucking around and being lunatics in VC so we keep the vibe of fun going. In regards to M+, that’s more of a whenever sort of thing.

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My significant other and I have similar schedules and it works great, no kids.

  • Work 8-4 M-F
  • Chores/food/care for animals 4-5
  • Game 5-11
  • Raid Tues/Thurs 8-11
  • Every other Friday dinner with parents/siblings
  • Weekends are typically yardwork, grocery store, laundry, gaming.
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That makes sense! They are achievements! Okay got it. Thanks for clarification, but having to kill those bosses before season ends on Heroix sounds like kind of a rush. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to that skill level, but I hear there is a tank shortage, so maybe someday. :slightly_smiling_face: