What Does It Take?

I had a discussion with my husband a while ago about what, if anything, should be the minimum that a person "should" do in order to raid. We were not in full agreement.

On my main, Lisia, I have the legendary ring (upgraded a few times), plus as of last week I have the heroic tier set and the normal class trinket. I also have the heirloom trinket from mythic dungeons (I have several of them actually), and the cleave trinket that the council group drops, although I don't have the Censer trinket at this point (bad RNG). I've downed Heroic Archie with my group, many of whom are actually better geared (although I'm catching up).

My healer is a little less well geared. I don't have tier gear (other than LFR) on her, though I do have the ring. This is because I actually thought I was going to be replaced as a healer, which I was okay with, so I stopped working on her. However, I'm still needed in that capacity, so I've been going on gear runs, although nothing I need is dropping for me.

Anyway, that was sort of the crux of our discussion. What does it take, to be a raider? My husband feels that, if you want to raid, you're a raider, and you should be able to come along.

I'm not 100% opposed to that way of thinking. I do believe that, if you want to raid, you should be given a chance, and in this xpac it's easier because you don't have a set number of people you can allow, meaning that not everyone has to have superior gear.

But where we diverge is my feeling that if you want to continue to raid you should be willing to follow certain guidelines which will make progression easier. For instance, you should have or be getting the legendary ring. You should have or be working on a tier set. All or almost all of your gear should be epic. All or almost all of your gear should be maximally upgraded. Your talents, while in the raid group, should be chosen for maximum raid utility, not your personal convenience. And if you're not doing all that, my question would be why are you raiding?

But my husband pointed out, and he's not wrong, that it's a slippery slope. If someone doesn't have the time to put into getting the ring - and it is a time sink, though thankfully there's no insistence on PVP like last xpac - but they show up every week and put their all into learning the fights, does that mean they should be tossed off the team? On my old team, that would have been a yes, at least for the main raid team. But on both the teams I'm in now, nobody has even asked if I had the ring. On both teams we're doing okay, and the main reason for that is that we're working in synergy, regardless of gear level. We're a TEAM.

When I was considering how to get my moose, before we joined the heroic team, I looked at what pug groups (aside from friendshipmoose) wanted. I didn't make that cut at the time, because they wanted tier set, ring, a certain ilvl, and "ahead of the curve" for an earlier raid in the xpac. I had the ring and the ilvl, but not the tier set (at the time), and the only AHOC I had was from last xpac. Maybe I could have squeezed on, I don't know. But now I'm set to get the mount and I didn't have to prove anything, just show up and learn the fights, while making new friends in the process. Getting the tier set and upgrading my gear was a goal I set myself, not something anyone made me do, and the outcome is going to be the same.

So in the end, what does it take to be a raider? It's not worth it to me to run with a team that has no heart and synergy, and while I still think gearing is important, I'll take that heart any day. I count myself lucky to be a part of two fantastic teams, and I'm hoping we run together for a long, long time.

<3