Mythic Raiding: what does it take?

[Deleted]

Guild needs:
1 A good/motivated officer team.
They can and will carry the raid with organisation, having the correct tactic which will work for your guild. Being able to sort out disputes/arguments properly so your players dont hate the environment they raid in and actually want to show up.

2. Players who can follow instructions while playing their class to some competent level.
You dont have to have rank 1 dps to kill bosses. Eventually gear will let you kill bosses but if you have 0 clue what you are doing then no one will want to actually play with you if you dont put in the effort

3. Roster of 24/5 ish people who turn up regularly.
Kicking people for the smallest transgression or not maintaining your roster through recruiting will cause mythic guilds to fail. Imo im a firm believer that taking chances on players who dont have the gear/exp is a good way to breed decent mythic raiders. We all started somwhere just need a little faith.

4. Guild of people who dont want to kill each other or hate each other.
This kills guilds every single day. Just having a toxic raid environment isnt fun for anyone.

5. The willpower to survive 100+ wipes. Imo this is most important. If you cant wipe for hours on end during progression what is the point.
Wiping is part of the game. People without patience will just hamper your teams performance.

There is more but too long to write it all down xD. Hope this helped

[Axelond]

22 people who show up every raid 3 times per week that you can clear majority of HFC

[Marrilaife]

For me personally, this is one of those hard to swallow pills; I'm almost 48, and my reaction time in a multi faceted environment is one of things holding me back. The want is there, but I am not selfish enough to put that desire ahead of the interests of others. Hence my academic exercise caveat.

The question is what you call a "mythic raider" in your OP. A person who cleared mythic in 1 month of release? 3 months? 6 months? Cleared some mythic but not end boss? Because there are miles of skill between those categories.

If you are middle of the pack mythic raider (not cutting edge world race quality) you can indeed get away with less "skill" with various work around. Addons. Weak auras. Macros. Playing an easier class or a class that can perform better with less effort (all hair the awesome Blizzard "balance" team). Playing a class that is in demand so guilds will accept lesser player in that role. Some people find help from gaming mice & keyboard. Unless you're physically disabled to the point no tool can help you overcome the deficit, then indeed you hit the wall. We hear stories like "blind shaman defeated heroic lich king 25" back in the days but those stories are rare because not everyone can overcome that much of a handicap.

Generally a lot of people aren't mythic raiders not because they cannot. It's because they cba. They're lazy. Their attendance is iffy. Their preparation is at the level of "yolo I come to raid let raid leader tell me what to do". They get bored super fast during long progress. Long wipefests immediately trigger reactions like "can we skip this boss?" or "I'm not feeling well please replace me". They ragequit because they didn't get the first piece of loot that dropped or they were on standby on first kill. They don't go around to search class tips & tricks for specific bosses or which spec is better suited for specific encounter. Like these mages who 100% play frost (I knew at least 2 during hfc period). They refuse to learn because "no one is gonna tell me how to play".

Generally people who want to put little effort and see fast results.

While in reality every achievement is 1% talent and 99% hard work. Maybe that's a bit exaggerated, but you get the point. Practice makes perfect. A lot of people don't want the practice, they want immediately jump to the point everything is smooth without the road to get there. They're like 1 social in my guild who bought boost for 170eu to get 13/13m in 1 day and then quit to play overwatch. I bet in his head he thinks he beat wow.

Yes to play in Serenity or other top guilds you need very good reflexes, adaptability, talent, good decisionmaking etc. To play in some middle of the pack mythic guild, not really. You just need to be persistent, humble enough to admit you aren't the most amazing player and you can learn from the better and take advice, and not be a complete tosser. Obviously you also need the usual like stable internet connection etc. things that are obvious enough to not need to be mentioned.

I can tell you my guild that is 13/13mythic but kinda late (1k world rank) rarely kicked people over lack of skill, most people who failed trials / got kicked were because:
1. Constant dcing / lagging (or blaming their mistakes on "lag" who knows)
2. Bad attendance
3. Loot drama / bench drama / ragequits
4. Inability to take advice, getting offended when they're told they need to improve something
5. Unprepared to raids (lack of knowledge of basic tactics)

If there were people kicked because they just couldn't keep up no matter what, they were minority.

I'm pretty sure many raid leaders in those "middle of the pack" mythic guilds know they have some players that aren't the brightest ones, but are kinda reliable, prepared and not suck completely and they never give them important extra tasks and so on but they keep them around so the roster is full (all hail 20 man mythic where at least some of the dps team is pure fluff).

[Deleted]

For me personally, this is one of those hard to swallow pills; I'm almost 48, and my reaction time in a multi faceted environment is one of things holding me back. The want is there, but I am not selfish enough to put that desire ahead of the interests of others. Hence my academic exercise caveat.

If you truly have the drive that can be worked around. You need to optimise your UI so you clearly get notices of what you need to do. Make it clean and easy to react to. Get these things where your eyes are so you can react as soon as possible. That and try to be alert during boss fights. Clean and clear UI will help improve your reaction times. 48 isn't an age i would consider impeding, unless you just never had much experience with eye to hand reaction games.

If after all this you see yourself still failing then i do guess its best to stick to heroic. As i said, for me the number 1 thing is for people to give a s**t and do everything they can to overcome their shortcomes. Good officers will like that kind of atitude and probably help you with it if they can.
I have seen players that thought they were hopeless turn into good raiders because they cared and did something about it. In truth mythic players aren't amazing players. They are just well prepared players.

[Deleted]

A Method officer was once asked, "How did you become the greatest guild in the world, when you were just a regular top 10 guild in your realm only?". The answer was "We became more strict in recruitment". I believe that sentence, and everything it implies behind it (the hard core nature of the attitude in whole), is the key difference, however, that also means the game has a lot of players that are fully aware of that, but, they choose to not go that route because they simply do not want to.

[taishar68]

Thank you all for the advice, feedback, and encouragement. I used to be a very dedicated player, studying videos, reading guides, etc...but I had to stop raiding due to work around the time the first raids in Cataclysm were out, and when I had schedule changes and was able to come back...it was different. I was still fairly competent on heroic fights (what was normal through MoP), but our guild wasn't at the Mythic level. I took a long break during WoD, and haven't been in a raid of significance since BRF was a few weeks old.

I was toying with the idea of trying to push into Mythic, and I guess I just wanted to see what it feels like now, and if I can kickstart that dedication to get better and be better. So again I appreciate the feedback, thanks everyone.

[BiggestNoob]

1. L2play - how to play your spec
2. Dedicate some time and be consistent
3. L2play - mechanics

Super hard.

[psyquest]

1. L2play - how to play your spec
2. Dedicate some time and be consistent
3. L2play - mechanics

Super hard.

That s the simple part that involves just you, but you need 20-27 others that are as dedicated, and thats where it is harder and harder to recruit.

[Marrilaife]

Thank you all for the advice, feedback, and encouragement. I used to be a very dedicated player, studying videos, reading guides, etc...but I had to stop raiding due to work around the time the first raids in Cataclysm were out, and when I had schedule changes and was able to come back...it was different. I was still fairly competent on heroic fights (what was normal through MoP), but our guild wasn't at the Mythic level. I took a long break during WoD, and haven't been in a raid of significance since BRF was a few weeks old.

I was toying with the idea of trying to push into Mythic, and I guess I just wanted to see what it feels like now, and if I can kickstart that dedication to get better and be better. So again I appreciate the feedback, thanks everyone.

I've seen a lot, and I mean a lot people come back recently after several years of hiatus (is it the legion hype? who knows), obviously there is an adjustment period, game has changed, classes and specs have changed, returners would lack experience with the content others played for months by now and so on. I can see how it can be a daunting task, but if you were a hard core raider in the past you can probably get back on track rl schedule permitting.

Doing 5-9 mythic these days requires less than clearing 13/13 hc when hfc was fresh. However so many people are in "cba" mode this late in expansion that roster boss is probably the hardest to beat for many guilds.

[BiggestNoob]

That s the simple part that involves just you, but you need 20-27 others that are as dedicated, and thats where it is harder and harder to recruit.

Anyone who can manage that can complete mythic, you don't have to run your own guild to do mythic.

The problem is most people can't do those 3 simple things and instead wait for gear/nerfs.

[kushlol]

If you already understand how to play your class effectively all it takes is time....that's it

[Toxigen]

Ahem, there's one point that's been missed here.

There is a massive difference between mythic raiding when the content is released and mythic raiding when its been out for months and gear levels are hyper-inflated and waves of nerfs have come through to trivialize the content. If you're still trying for mythic kills 6+ months after the content has been released...I applaud your efforts...but there is a skill level and/or commitment issue with individuals within your guild.

Bleeding edge progression raiding is an entirely different beast. Top 10 vs. say #100 in the world is a huge difference in the amount of time committed to progress (developing strategies is the biggest factor), but the general skill level of each individual player is largely similar. We are the kind of players that know how to squeeze every last bit of efficiency out of our classes while executing the mechanics of a fight in near-flawless fashion.

Casual players don't understand the min/max mentality that one can only adapt when their class mechanics become second nature. Your character is almost an extension of your body. Mechanically speaking, you can do it in your sleep. The challenge comes from applying this near perfect play to brutal boss mechanics and/or tightly tuned enrage timers...where an extra 1-2% is the difference between a wipe or a kill. I always liked to see high level first-person-shooter experience from an applicant, as it was a guarantee that they were extremely fast on the keys while maintaining a high level of "situational awareness." 0.1 seconds quicker in reaction time can be the difference between pixels and picking bodies up off the floor. Joe Blow Casual in LFR doesn't know it even exists. Susie Sweetheart in Flex or Heroic thinks she knows what it means, but won't ever fully understand it. You have to play on a razor's edge where every last ounce of your attention, focus, etc is channeled into the task at hand. Progression fights are supposed to be intense, and the process of learning an encounter can be a brutal lesson in time management and mental fortitude.

I get a kick out of guilds coming to these forums saying "well we've wiped 50 times on this boss and we're STUCK!" 50 wipes is almost nothing to learn a challenging fight, especially given the speed in which wipe recoveries happen today. So few players remain that are willing to bash their heads against a wall of a boss, knowing that with each attempt...the raid team as a whole picks up experience and gets better. Often times a player only truly learns something critical when they're the ones that make a mistake. Embarrassing wipes are often met with verbal criticism, but any good raider will take his/her failures and fuel the fire to improve. In the end, the boss falls because the entire raid team had the determination to practice the dance over and over and over again. Hell, we've all heard the nightmare stories of the 500+ attempt Ragnaros-type kills. I'm not advocating that all bosses should be that way, but a tier-end mythic boss ought to test even the best of the best.

Its sad, but nowadays the mentality of most players is to simply wait for a nerf or inflation of the guild's iLvL before going into Mythic. They're afraid of failure, challenge, etc. Any quality mythic raider needs to embrace the fact that this is supposed to be hard.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

It takes time and 20 jobless nerds.

[Raiju]

Ultimately the most important factor is a large pool to recruit from. That's it. There are terrible players in mythic, it doesn't matter. There are terrible leaders in mythic, it doesn't matter. What matters is having enough to keep that 20+ roster steady.

A recruitment officer I guess.

[Deleted]

As others have mentioned it really doesn't take much to step foot into mythic raids. The most important factor is attendance in my opinion. Thats what kills most guilds nowadays not the raid difficulty. If you can maintain a steady roster you will eventually progress.

[Sylvaeres]

This is more for amusement or academic curiosity than for a working blueprint, but I was wondering about what some people feel are the key components to being able to defeat Mythic content. For example, if you had a group of raiders dedicated to the concept of beating mythic, even if it took a few months, is it feasible, or is it something where if, there is no reasonable success in a few weeks that it likely wouldn't happen?

How much of a weekly time commitment would a group need to complete mythic before the next raid tier for example?

I would especially like to hear from folks who had challenges on the way to completing Mythic raids and beat them, or if they couldn't, what felt like the major roadblocks to success?

Thanks for the feedback.

Awareness and the ability to keep up with the pack as far as numbers wise. Knowing when to pop CDs, when to hold them, how to kill priority targets, how to move out of fire (seems hard for people). Just a few examples

[Kib]

The biggest thing that no one seems to mention...

You need to dump your ego in the trash, even if you were the best player in your guild, or even if you have 13/13 rank 1 DPS parces in the world their is still something to learn and if you want to stay competitive and stay ahead of the curve you need to be open to learning.

Not everyone 'teaching' or sharing knowledge is a trustworthy source and it seems that more and more people are talking shit but if you can see through that and get the good information you will progress way faster in your climb to be a mythic raider.

Once you're there theirs a whole other skill set to climb higher but the first step is learning not only your class but how the game works, learning how to raid in a progression way.

[Raiju]

@Kib ego or humility isn't really an important factor at all for doing mythics either way. Naturally people need to be able to play with eachother, but if someone doesn't kick them and get someone else - hence keeping the roster.

I actually found when I raided seriously at that level having an ego was a major benefit, too. If you have the play to back it up, you get spots far easier than being humble.

[Deleted]

having an ego was a major benefit

You are both right. Balance is needed. Too much ego is counterproductive, and too little ego similarly.

[BiggestNoob]

You are both right. Balance is needed. Too much ego is counterproductive, and too little ego similarly.

"Too much" is subjective. To people who are good, someone is simply confident. To people who aren't good, that same person is massively overconfident, and I think that's primarily because they lack the perspective to anchor the person's personality. For instance, if someone applies to your guild and is extremely confident in their abilities, if you check their logs and watch their play and they're not great, you can basically chalk it up to arrogance (hey I'm 11/13 4 months into the raid tier, that's better than X% of people, I must be good), but if their play matches their attitude, it's really just self awareness.

Humility doesn't really mean anything above a certain level. You need a competitive mentality and a drive to improve constantly. It has to be almost an obsessive compulsion to play as well as you possibly can. When that's your focus, you should already be more critical of yourself than anyone else ever will be, so the egos and competition isn't taken personally, it's just motivation.

Sure, plenty of people don't really enjoy that kind of atmosphere or fit into it, but I don't think it really matters much unless you're in a guild that just can't sustain someone who's that competitive. Imagine you're always #1 on the meter, any fight, regardless of which spec is ideal for the fight (let's say you're top as a Shaman in HFC in your guild full of mages, warlocks, and rogues). Shit talking everyone for getting beaten on FOTM classes doesn't really do anything because those people can't actually compete, and so unless someone is really just an asshole they'd just find somewhere to go where they could have competition, or they'd just have no interest in the competition and just play better than the rest of their guild (perhaps friends, or just no desire to be #1, or lack of time, or whatever else it may be).

I'd only ever be comfortable in a guild that's full of people who want the same outcome as me and want to push just as hard as me, and those types of people will never get ruffled feathers if I call someone shit for getting beaten by me on an alt, and nor will I ever get upset if the same happens to me.