What's important when raiding

Now this isn't a post about how tanks should tank, dps stay alive or healers conserve mana. It's about what you personally get from attending raids and down a boss with 9 or 24 other people. I'm not going to come up with a definitive list but would like to outline a few that I've spotted.

For some people it's all about the loot, what epics will the drop and what's the likelihood of winning said drop with the group you are in.

For others it's about the technical aspects of the encounters, learning how a fight works and what each person needs to do in order to get the boss down, but also to ensure the raid members stay alive and are able to get the job done.

There are those who are interested in seeing content, it doesn't matter when, just that it's nice to see the inside of certain instances and to kill the bosses, maybe for lore reasons, maybe just for the ability to say I was there and got the achievement.

Finally there are those that are there to play with friends, have a good laugh and enjoy an evenings gaming.

I would expect that the majority of players are a combination of all 4, with leanings towards a particular one.

However there are those that will have a very strong leaning towards a particular trait. While this isn't a problem in the general sense, these people will have to accept that not everyone feels the same way. If they don't then friction can arise during a raid, which means a less fun experience for all involved.

I've written this up on the basis of something that happened in the last raid I went on. I won't go into details as I don't think it's necessary but do want to leave with one thought.

Enjoy the game as you want to enjoy it, just don't do it at the expense of others.

Time to switch main?

The rogue has been a class close to my heart. My very first character on a trial account was a rogue, and my first level 70 and 80 character has been Crash (I started playing just after TBC came out so 60 wasn't a massive milestone). However now I've got there and started hitting the heroics and early Naxx I don't find myself enjoying the class as much as I did back then.

It's great to play daggers again, and when soloing I'm an unstoppable killing machine as everything dies whilst stunned, but the constant button pushing to keep HfB up, the lack of AoE when dealing with trash and the feeling that using stealth just hampers dps rather than adding to it means I'm not enjoying the group play as much.

Whilst it's been quiet over the Christmas break I've started levelling Medrare again and am remembering how much fun druid is. Plus as a hybrid class I could tank (which I've done a bit of), dps (rogue with less issues) or once the dual specs thing comes in heal, though Elune help anyone who takes me as a healer initially.

This might make things a bit tricky to start with as we currently have some high level tanks who have been running stuff for weeks and so have lots of the tasty badge gear but I don't think this will be too much of a problem as we go on as there's always plenty of dps looking to do runs.

I'm not making the decision just yet, especially as I'll have to go through the whole levelling and gearing process again, but with the alchemy trinkets available and Crash already able to make nearly all the leatherworking stuff it might be a bit easier this time around.

Watch this space...