Hardcore Raiding

 

Maybe you’ve heard of “hardcore” raiding and want to know more. Maybe you’re entirely ignorant of it and don’t want to know more. Either way, I’m going to tell you more. I’m an equal opportunity informer. I hope to outline here some of the basics and tell you what you might expect from such groups.

So what is hardcore raiding? You are a hardcore raider if your primary goal in the game is to progress through group content and to then be able to complete the content on a regular basis, which is called “farming.” It is also called “progression” raiding. To that end, you spend hours preparing for raids, actually raiding, and getting your character better gear from raids in order to raid more. It might not be all you do. You may or may not also do pvp, role playing, or other things in game, but raiding to complete content is your primary focus.

The alternative is “casual” raiding, where you still raid, but it’s more of something you do just for fun or because you can. You do not necessarily care about completing all of the content on the hardest difficulty levels, while a hardcore raider would strive for that achievement. Here are some other things you can expect if you wish to join a hardcore raiding group.

 

1. Commitment

If you join a raiding group, you are expected to be online during their raiding times and to commit to a certain amount of raiding per week. If there are raid locks of some sort, you are supposed to reserve them for your raid group. If you join another group for a raid and get locked out or make progress outside of your established raid group, they will be rather upset. You will be spending a lot of time in raids and getting prepared for raids. You had better like raiding.

 

2. Judging your Quality

You must be good. I don’t mean behavior, although that can certainly be a factor. I mean a good player, with good gear, and someone who can follow directions. Some raiding groups will take you in and help you gear up, to an extent, while others will only talk to you if you are an already established raider looking to take it a step further. Either way, if you constantly mess things up, don’t expect to be sticking around. The goal after all is to complete content and if you are preventing them from doing so, the solution is obvious. If you can play well and do so consistently, then you may get your foot in the door even if you lack gear.

 

3. Extra Rules

Many, but not all, raid groups institute a system called DKP. This stands for “dragon kill points” and has an interesting history, but simply put, it is a weighting system to determine who gets what loot. Each DKP system is different, but the goal remains the same: to give players who raid with the group more often a better shot at getting the loot they want. If Bob has been doing a particular raid for two months and wants the Glorificus Axe of Bearded Awesome, but so does Joachim, who has been raiding with the group for six months, the system will favor Joachim. A raiding group may have other rules too, like wearing matching uniforms or that you must have voice communication software installed or no elves allowed. Be ready for restrictions not found in the game itself.

 

4. Attitude

With extra expectations and rules often comes an air of superiority. Most of these groups will consider themselves superior players, frankly because most of them are, and this might be off-putting to some. You will need a thick skin because you will be criticized and critiqued as a player and you will be on the bottom rung of the ladder for a while. Even if they are the nicest people you have ever met, you might still get suggestions about your gear, abilities, rotations, and so on, whether you were looking for tips, thought you needed any, or not.

 

5. Results

If the raid group you join is any good, you will see yourself completing content that would not be possible (or at least would be far more difficult) for a random group of people from LFF channels to do. The same 12 people will learn to work together more efficiently and raiding a lot is a faster track to getting better gear. Overall, this results in a numerically advantageous group of players that work together fluidly. This produces results.

 

If that sounds like something you’d like to do, look for raiding kinships or alliances on your server. Ask what their requirements are for recruitment and what it is they do exactly. Do they raid everyday? Weekends/days only? Do you need to download a voice chat client? Do they have convoluted loot rules? What do they expect of you?

If that sounds like something you’d desperately like to avoid, then congratulations on avoiding getting another job, because that’s exactly what hardcore raiding becomes.

As usual, leave any comments, questions, compliments, or yummy recipes below.