Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Raid Ready


I fall into this trap with myself at this point of the game where I have yet to do an official raid yet and am trying to prepare. According to my iLvl, my skill level, and my mental state yes I'm ready for raiding technically. But I feel like I'm not. I am a completionist, I don't think I'm ready for a raid until I have done every single thing I possibly could before entering. Does anyone else feel this way?

I in no way want to be carried and always want to pull my weight. This kind of mindset is a gift and curse. I would rather wait until I have every single piece from heroics and crafting before I even set foot just so I know if any one's holding the raid back it isn't me. Is this crazy? To my extent, kinda. But really I kind of wish everyone had a tiny bit of this mentality. I really feel like the majority of people have no feeling of responsibility of self preparation. Like raiding is supposed to be the natural next step after 85 with no work in between. As almost as if they "dinged" level 85 then were immediately teleported into Bastion. 


I for one am a big fan of linear progression without, how should I say it, warp pipes (for all you Mario fans out there). I want raiding to require to require you to do everything in order. For example let's use Wrath of the Lich King's raids. In order for your to do Ulduar you should have to do Naxx and everything before Ulduar. I do not like the point/badge system where with every near tier the gear you can get from getting points from heroics goes up. That would be the warping point. Like the people that near the end of WotLK that had never even stepped foot into Naxx or Ulduar were getting Kingslayer titles (not that is some astonishing feat, just annoying.)

I guess what I'm alluding to is the return of Attunments. I believe while Cataclysm was still in the process of being made they toyed with the idea of bringing them back and I really got my hopes up. Attunments are one of the best parts of raiding in my opinion because it was another tool to see if someone was raid ready. This is why I still think to this day for the most part The Burning Crusade is when Blizzard got raiding right. Everything had to be chained. You couldn't do Hyjal without doing a quest that made you go into Serpentshrine Caverns and Tempest Keep. And the raids had reasonable player limits (10 and 25, not 40 man raids). This is how it should be done.


Attunments and keys are what I miss most of the long list of good things removed from this game. They got taken away because of people and their wanting to raid on alts. If you really want to raid on your alt that badly, go get it attuned. I got three alts attuned for Kara because I wanted to raid with them. And once I was attuned, I knew I was ready for the raid (or at least most of it; and yes for the record I know getting attuned for Kara is like nothing but still just saying.) Nowadays it's "Oh you have 348 average iLvl? Welcome aboard!

So Blizzard, please, please, please make raids have attunments in the future. If you do, I promise I will buy every single unicorn you ever sell in your little shop of micro-transactions... (we'll just ignore the fact I would buy them anyway.) Who's with me?!

2 comments:

  1. Response (that comment box is just TOO SMALL!):

    http://rantsofapriest.blogspot.com/2011/03/problems-with-linear-progression.html

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  2. Interesting post.

    I actually agree with you on the most part.

    I feel that with this expansion, the difficulty HAS increased and a step towards more 'Burning Crusade' attitude has started to raise. However this time round they're trying to balance that, with the other half of players who do not have so much time and so on..You know what I mean.

    I like the idea of progressing, instead of pretending you can't just jump to the next step in some cases.

    I feel there will be quite a few changes, which will suit you and I this expansion. Time will tell.

    - Jamin

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