How did you first get into raiding?

[Deleted]

Got into ZG and MC cuz my older brother played at the time.

In TBC Tho, i was the king of Kings in Paladin healing.

[Wildtree]

Honestly, I cannot remember....

I have a vague memory of ZG, AQ and Molten Core during Vanilla. All a few times... Later on I remember taking part in a Kara pug.
The Kara pug was the trigger experience for me. The raid leader was exceptionally awesome. Patiently explained every fight in a very easy understandable fashion, even though we've had no Vent or the like, not even ingame voice was used.
But for how I started raiding regularly with a schedule? I have no idea when and how. It was after that Kara pug though.

[Louis CK]

Honestly, I cannot remember....

I have a vague memory of ZG, AQ and Molten Core during Vanilla. All a few times... Later on I remember taking part in a Kara pug.
The Kara pug was the trigger experience for me. The raid leader was exceptionally awesome. Patiently explained every fight in a very easy understandable fashion, even though we've had no Vent or the like, not even ingame voice was used.
But for how I started raiding regularly with a schedule? I have no idea when and how. It was after that Kara pug though.

Great raid leaders are a great thing. Unfortunately many are usually on one end of the spectrum or the other... Either "it's okay, we'll get it eventually (with no critical thinking or strategic mindset)" or "YOU ALL FUCKING SUCK GO KILL YOURSELVES"

A good raid leader is just that, a leader. There's no need to be overly nice or to be overly dickish. They encourage and lead with the proper amount of accountability. And that is one thing that turns a decent raid into a great raid.

[Deleted]

Well i've been playing since Vanilla but never got maxed lvl until BC Came out. My first raiding Experience was In Kara i was a Holy Priest all i did was Spam Circle of Healing the days of being a noob {still am}. But was so much fun i even got the Mount from the first boss on my very first raid to so guss that made me love it even more.

[Axelond]

I was doing a icc pug and then after the raid I got whispered to join their guild

[RoKPaNda]

Back in Vanilla that was the only real form of end game. This was before the honor system for PvP even was a thing. One of my friends got to level 60 a bit before me and joined a raiding guild, so when I got to level 60 I joined a raiding guild and that was how I got started as a hardcore raider in Vanilla, and that continued until WLK. Then I became disillusioned with the cumbersome beast that is raiding.

[grimsanta]

Vanilla everquest was my first raiding experience. Did not raid during their first expansion, but raided in the 3 after that. I quit and joined WoW for vanilla with my old EQ guild. Even though raiding is MUCH different in WoW, having the experience of being a group helped us greatly for most of it and cleared everything in vanilla.

TBC I played off and on. Honestly did not enjoy the expansion like everyone else here. Rejoined in wrath and played casual and raided all the normals and some ICC heroics.

In cata, only played T11, loved it, but firelands looked horrible (7 bosses, all brown and orange). Was thinking about coming back for DS, but heard it was even worse. Rejoined for pandaland and have loved this expansion. Raided most of the normals in this expansion.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

It was classic WoW and a guy inspected me in Stormwind and noticed I was a holy paladin and said I could get any loots any of the other paladins didn't need from MC. I got to stand behind the group and res people during combat because I stayed out of combat. The next day he let me heal and I just spammed flash heal on the tanks and apparently that was great. I got my hands on a few epics and they said I did well. I honestly had no idea what was going on. Another holy paladin took me under his wing and showed me the ropes, helped me with my UI, and explained the bosses. They let me come in the next week after that, invited me to the guild, and I ran with them until the end of BC.

[The Yeti]

My story's kind of interesting. I picked up the game when BC was released and played a shaman up to level 39. After that, I got bored with leveling, and twinked him out at 39 Enahncement, which was kind of silly, looking back.

When I joined a fraternity at school, a few of the members were part of the same raiding guild together, led by another person at our university. They took me in as a social. One day while out for a drink with a couple of the guys, the Guild Leader said they needed ranged DPS, and asked if I would be willing to power level up my shaman and play Elemental for when WOTLK launches. I agreed, and two weeks after WOTLK launch, I hit 80. I had never raided or really tried any seriously competitive multiplayer gaming before, but WoW was cool, and Tauren Shaman were awesome, so I thought, why not?

I started in Obsidium Sanctum, and my T7 gloves dropped and I won them. It was pretty thrilling, first raid boss, and I got loot! I quickly upgraded my blue gloves to the T7 gloves, and hopped into Naxx. We started in the Arachnid Quarter, which will always hold a special place in my heart. Why? I got loot from 2 of the first three bosses, including a weapon I still have on my shaman, the caster fist weapon.

After raiding the first tier of WOTLK, I got much more serious for Ulduar. I loved the setting, and loved the idea of pushing hard modes. I became much more active in leading alt runs and our third ten man group. However, our GM, and our top two healers were poached to the number one guild on server. After that, the guild fell apart, since the GM kicked everyone. Since I was pretty close to the group I was playing with, we decided to stick together. The group elected me as GM, since I was the one heading the idea of staying together. We formed the guild, named it Cohesion. Given the situation, it seemed kind of appropriate.

We started knocking out ten man hard modes, and recruited people well behind in gear, but we thought had potential. After about two months of hard 25 man raiding in Ulduar, we became the top horde guild for 25s on server by Toc25, and through ICC25. However, after 20 months of being GM, I left them in the hands of one of my friends to move onto another server, to greener pastures.

After toiling in said pastures for a few months, I quit until Cata. After raiding 10s with old friends for the first part of Cata, I quit pre-firelands, and, honestly, Cata was trash for raiding

I have since come back and find myself wanting to raid again, but saving myself for WoD (not LFR, actually looking to guild up here). So that's how I came to raiding, and now have come back to raiding, at least the doorstep of it )

[FobManX]

I always liked the idea of a group of people getting together to take on challenging foes. It's what got me into WoW in the first place. At first it was just 5 mans, then of course shortly after hitting 70 I did Kara for the first time and loved it. Eventually did Gruuls/Mags, and just the notion of playing with 24 other players was just incredible(even if we wiped on High King Maulgar like 20x).

Honestly I can't imagine playing WoW and not raiding in some organized fashion. And no LFR doesn't count.

[Armourboy]

Started out back in Vanilla, came over from SWG with a bunch of people from the old Tarquinas server and set up a guild. At first we were nothing more than a leveling guild, and were anti-hardcore raiding. We did all of Stratholme/UBRS stuff and eventually got into pugging a few people to do some bosses in ZG, AQ20, and a weekly Onyxia run. When I say we were anti-harcore, we just believed that people should play what they like and how they liked so we didn't force people into best specs, and if we didn't have the optimal group we just kept trying anyways. On the side several of us knew other guilds from SWG as well and we often were fill ins for MC, BWL, etc. The wife and I actually got invited to one of only two guilds to clear Naxx on the server Alliance side, but we turned them down.

Eventually once TBC we lived in Kara and ZA, and hit our full stride in Wrath. Cata destroyed us because it was much more unfriendly again, and people that we had been able to carry through Wrath raids we just couldn't anymore, and rather than telling people we loved they couldn't go we just stopped raiding. Frankly people were burnt out anyways but we stopped trying after getting 4-5 bosses down in BRC.

[Meillquei]

I don't exactly remember all the details, but I think it went something like this:
I started playing seriously in BC after trying out a trial account. I was leveling my main, a warlock, when I ran into someone who had previously been in my guild. He had joined a new guild and told me how awesome this new guild was.

So I decided to give this other guild a shot. Wow was this guild amazing. Full of so many nice people who helped each other out. I was young at this time and often could not raid with them because I had school in the morning, but on days off/holidays I always raided with them. This guild was a guild that was just getting started with raiding around the time I got to 70, so I remember when everyone entered Kara for the first time. Guild chat was filled with messages of "Wow this is so cool!" I felt so upset that I wasn't there.

I probably left out a lot of details, but I think that is the gist of it.

[Armourboy]

I don't exactly remember all the details, but I think it went something like this:
I started playing seriously in BC after trying out a trial account. I was leveling my main, a warlock, when I ran into someone who had previously been in my guild. He had joined a new guild and told me how awesome this new guild was.

So I decided to give this other guild a shot. Wow was this guild amazing. Full of so many nice people who helped each other out. I was young at this time and often could not raid with them because I had school in the morning, but on days off/holidays I always raided with them. This guild was a guild that was just getting started with raiding around the time I got to 70, so I remember when everyone entered Kara for the first time. Guild chat was filled with messages of "Wow this is so cool!" I felt so upset that I wasn't there.

I probably left out a lot of details, but I think that is the gist of it.

I think Kara did more to propel people into raiding than any other raid ever made tbh. People that were never raiders were willing to run it, and it was an enjoyable raid. We ran that sucker 3-4 times a week trying to get everyone through on various alts and such, and we always had fun, even after we were steam rolling the place it was a blast.

[Meillquei]

I think Kara did more to propel people into raiding than any other raid ever made tbh. People that were never raiders were willing to run it, and it was an enjoyable raid. We ran that sucker 3-4 times a week trying to get everyone through on various alts and such, and we always had fun, even after we were steam rolling the place it was a blast.

Oh yea for sure!

[Deleted]

Karazhan with my friends. And man it was awesome. I don't know why since I was a kid I always loved the Halloween aura in movies and cartoons.
Deadwind Pass made me shiver the first time I passed there as a low level. Only at max level I discovered why there was so much world pvp in duskwood lol. Kharazan was just right there.
I joined pretty late in BC so everyone was raiding Illidan. But as a noob I didn't care. Kharazan was so full of crazy mechanics and bosses and secret summons of bosses that I was all like (O_O) <(damm...)

Tactics and marks on trash pulls ahah that I also remember

[Spoonman]

I was the last one of my rl friends who started playing wow, i started raiding small in TBC with a rl friends guilds while everyone else were raiding hardcore since vanilla. Basicily all stopped playing when TBC ended exept me and i got into raiding serious in Wotlk since then its been 3n week raiding basicily onwards :P
Noone of my rl friends play anymore exept me but ive got so many friends from the game so it doesnt matter tbh

I acctualy did some raiding on others accounts back in vanilla for fun, MC, BWL, AQ20 and Onyxia etc
But on my own account i only did UBRS which was a raid back in the day during vanilla wow

- - - Updated - - -

It was classic WoW and a guy inspected me in Stormwind and noticed I was a holy paladin and said I could get any loots any of the other paladins didn't need from MC. I got to stand behind the group and res people during combat because I stayed out of combat. The next day he let me heal and I just spammed flash heal on the tanks and apparently that was great. I got my hands on a few epics and they said I did well. I honestly had no idea what was going on. Another holy paladin took me under his wing and showed me the ropes, helped me with my UI, and explained the bosses. They let me come in the next week after that, invited me to the guild, and I ran with them until the end of BC.

Haha great story, Life was so much more simple back then

[PBitt]

I honestly pretty much had no idea what raiding was when I first dinged 70. The only friend I knew that played started about a month before me but I beat him to 70 because he didn't even have TBC purchased yet as I started playing about a month after TBC's launch. Anyways, I did 70 bajillions runs through SL until sonic spear dropped for my hunter, and then I saw another hunter with the Legacy axe from the opera event and saw he had a bunch of other awesome shit and I asked him where he got it from. He told me it was from Kara and I started looking for a guild to raid with in Kara.

Found a guild that was just starting Kara progression about two minutes after I started spamming and I stayed with that guild throughout all of t4 progression and quite a few of us learned how to play as we did so. Really bonded with a bunch of those guys (and gals) but I got tired of running nothing but Kara long after we did our first full clear of it..was very difficult to progress into t5 content with a new guild, and I made the mistake of turning down an offer from a t6 guild in desperate need of a hunter and later transfered to another server at the start of Ulduar as said guild didn't even really try any of the achievements for the Naxx meta. Made myself stop clicking and really researched my shit before joining that guild and I was raid leading it about 4 months later. Unfortunately I've missed most of MoP raiding because my server shit the bed.

[Luko]

I played for most of vanilla but the organization and the mandatory time-slot portion of raiding and guilds in general all kind of turned me off to the idea. In the beginning of TBC, I started hanging with a more regular crowd and they wouldn't shut up about how good of a rogue they thought I was. When I started getting PMs from their guild leader about how much he'd heard and how much he'd love to have me along... let's just say it didn't take much more to convince me to try. Flattery will get you everywhere, lol.

[Armourboy]

It was classic WoW and a guy inspected me in Stormwind and noticed I was a holy paladin and said I could get any loots any of the other paladins didn't need from MC. I got to stand behind the group and res people during combat because I stayed out of combat. The next day he let me heal and I just spammed flash heal on the tanks and apparently that was great. I got my hands on a few epics and they said I did well. I honestly had no idea what was going on. Another holy paladin took me under his wing and showed me the ropes, helped me with my UI, and explained the bosses. They let me come in the next week after that, invited me to the guild, and I ran with them until the end of BC.

I think alot of Paladins have this story except I got mine in ZG. I think mine was on Bloodlord and another Paladin in the guild told me where to stand and told me to just spam flash heal on the tank and stop if DBM's called my name. I remember being scared to death of screwing up at first, but once I got rolling I made a pretty decent name for myself and had no problems getting groups.

[2legit2quit]

Not counting AV because I never considered aspects of PvP as raiding. I guess my introduction to raiding would be pugging Scholo/Strat/LBRS/UBRS in Vanilla. I still remember getting 5-man quests for those dungeons and thinking "WTF? 5-manning this place is going to be impossible!"

I would say my official introduction to raiding would have been another guild was doing MC and apparently someone remembered me from a pug. They asked me if I wanted to do MC. I said sure, thinking to myself "WTF is MC?" I got summoned inside and all I saw were the two Molten Giants at the entrance. To say I was excited would be an understatement. I knew this was going to be awesome. We started clearing trash and then I see "Roll for [epic loot]". I don't even remember what it was but I was stoked because I never saw purple quality gear before. Then more epic loot dropped. It was an Arcanist Belt and I was like "OMG I can use that!" I rolled and won. We finally make it to Lucifron and it was the icing on the cake for me. I thought "what an insane boss fight. OMG what an adrenaline rush." I was instantly hooked on raiding.

At this point, I was pretty confident that I knew what I was doing but I began researching feverishly to be sure I was doing everything right. I made sure I was choosing the optimal talent tree and using the correct spells (Fireball has no place in Ony's Lair and MC!). Rotations were unheard of back then. My spells consisted of: 95% Frostbolt, 3% Remove Lesser Curse, 1% Blink, and 1% Conjure Food/Water.

Now it was time to get into a guild that raids and a friend of mine brought me in. We raided everything in MC, BC, and WotLK. By the time Cataclysm came though, I was burnt out with the game and only stepped into BRC two or three times. The rest of my WoW time was spent killing time doing random achievements, collecting mounts/pets, and AFKing in town until I quit in MoP.