The hardest part about raiding is definitely:

[achromatickang]

Finding players who don't suck, or finding a raid group that doesn't suck -- not the actual content itself.

Agree/Disagree?

[Jeremypwnz]

I know a group of 10 players who are pretty bad in comparison to some of my guild's players, but they are 13/13h and we're only 4/13h. But all their members "seem" to have enough common sense to not stand in stuff and my raiders die and say "What happened?"

[Deleted]

The biggest challenge if finding the right date and time so that all your players can be available every week.

(For the guilds that do not raid 4-6 nights a week that is, and are not doing 10m with a 17m roster.)

[Nobleshield]

Definitely. An average player (AVERAGE, not bad) could probably down a good chunk of heroic bosses with a guild of above-average players (on 25 a lot moreso than 10, but still). A raid team of above-average players can and do clear content fast. A team of average players might clear normal mode and dabble in heroics if they're lucky. However the most common scenario, that of a team that has a mix of good/average/below-average players and can't or won't be selective, will never get anywhere far.

Sure, a nice chunk of the raid difficulty is knowing what to do (i.e. playing your class optimally) and when to do it (i.e. knowing the fight) but an even larger chunk is the overall people you play with. I play in a somewhat casual guild that can't be picky about who we take to raid; we try to make sure everyone is doing the best they can, but often the best they can isn't good enough and it's highly unlikely that we'll clear normal mode before 5.4 comes out, and unless Blizzard scaled Siege properly it's doubtful we'll clear Siege before it's either nerfed or the expansion ends. That's just how it goes.

I'd like to think I'm an above-average player and I probably (if I had more current experience; I took a long break after Cata) could get into a better guild. In fact, I did a ton of guild hopping in Cataclysm to try and get better progression and when DS came out I was actually in a guild that cleared normal the first week and killed heroic Morchok the second week the raid was out (so very high ranked for that second week at least) and if I had stayed with them I probably would have quite a few heroic modes under my belt; not 13/13 but around halfway in probably, so not too shabby. After a while though, I just stopped caring because I didn't want to deal with the type of attitudes that went along with that level of progress, the typical time commitment involved (and that was during Dragon Soul when there was very little time investment) and the game itself was starting to bore me so I decided to play much more casually with people I liked being around but who weren't anywhere near as good, and so my progression has been abysmal but I also don't care as much as I used to.

[Deleted]

"Not sucking" is entirely defined by how hard the content is.

Your question is misleading.

[Deffry]

The hardest part about raiding is time management and scheduling. If you are not aiming for world firsts, it is only matter of time, until even group of idiots is able to break wall with their heads.

[Seriss]

One of the hardest parts of raiding is to find a bunch of like-minded people with similar skill and similar expectations and goals so as to form a homogenous group. The greatest problems in a raid arise from too much variation in the aforementioned areas.

Therefore "not sucking" is extremely relative. If you're a newbie and only starting with raiding, you probably should take your baby steps with other people like you. If you're hardcore, you'll probably be happiest in a raid consisting of hardcores. If you're average, you need a raid that is average as well. And all the grey areas inbetween too. A handful of strong people carrying a bunch of weak guys with the average-good people in the middle won't go down too well, mostly because the strong ones will eventually become dissatisfied.

[Nobleshield]

A handful of strong people carrying a bunch of weak guys with the average-good people in the middle won't go down too well, mostly because the strong ones will eventually become dissatisfied.

And this is also, sadly, the most common scenario where you have a mix of player skill, and the team's progression as a whole is stunted to where the good/lucky people end up leaving for greener pastures and everyone else is frustrated that they can't down Horridon after months of trying.

[palamanian]

Depends really, the hardest part about raiding might be different for one person or group versus the next. Personally I think the hardest part is simply finding the time, and then finding other people who share the same free time schedule.

[ComputerNerd]

"Not Sucking" is something you can improve upon with experience.
Real Life will always happen.

[Hoky]

I remember when I raided in ICC with four other good friends, in the end we did heroic Festerface and Rotgut ( or any combination of those four words ) with 6 people. The majority of our problems showed their face at Putricide, Lichking or Bloodqueen as you had to rely on the idiots whom you had taken along. They had only to do one job and that was not to stand in crap, Or understand a simple mechanic as run away. We would carry the DPS.
So for me it would a true full out yes here. The hardest part is finding someone with more then two grey shrimps in the skull swimming in circles.

[Shauni]

For us (25man french guild) finding people is sometimes hard, but what is TRULY hard is keeping those people.
People gets bored after normal clean, some people doesn't like heroic at all (by principle) and so stop their effort.
In hard core raid, the level of the group instantly become the level of the worst player in it. So if you have only one people who doesn't care of maxing his DPS or his survivability, you won't get far.

After weeks of this regime, the good people leave, bored of seeing their efforts wasted by people who simply don't care.

[Noorri]

For me the hardest part is finding the motivation to do the raid.

[Otimus]

I'd say the hardest parts would seem to be:
Time
Motivation
Finding groups
and the evil dreaded ping


Depending on the ISP or your location or whatever, ping has the potential to be the greatest enemy in WoW :x

[vemynal]

Finding players who don't suck, or finding a raid group that doesn't suck -- not the actual content itself.

Agree/Disagree?

That statement is kind of arrogant ... you assume that either other players or the raidgroup itself suck, no other possibility. Did you even consider you find a nice group and they kick you because, in their opinion, you suck?

[Feleigh]

I wouldn't say that the hardest part is finding good players, but rather finding reliable players. When I say "reliable" I mean people that will show up on time, notify the leader/group ahead of time if they are going to be absent, and not just ditch the raid group in the cold when they decide they're done. I can't even count the number of times I've seen people have "internet problems" (or other similar excuses) one night and then never show up to raid again.

[Asics]

The hardest part of raiding is - in my opinion - dedicating 3/4 nights a week of uninterrupted gameplay. I am surprised I was able to do it for as long as I was. Looking back I feel kind of ridiculous for it and have no idea how I would do it now. The thought of telling my friends and fiance that I am unavailable Tuesday-Thursday, 5pm-8pm each night just sounds silly. Don't get me wrong, I get that same amount of gameplay in now. I just do it incrementally and in differing time periods.

[Heca]

One of the hardest part of raiding (seriously raiding) is the time involved. Every guild has those few players that are weaker than others, and that is easily worked around. Finding people that can be dedicated to the level of progression you wish to push for is hard.

[Aphrel]

the harderst part is finding 10 or 25ppl that can actually show up all the time...

[Auloria]

In the past, my guild's progression has always been limited by people bailing.