Top 3 things seperating an elite raider from a casual raider?

[anaxie]

On topic, there's no hidden secret to it. Motivation, dedication and enjoying the game is all you need. Nobody likes wiping 10 mins into an encounter 200 times, but the people who do wipe for this long play for the satisfaction of getting it over with.

Pretty much, There quite literally is no secret. Everything is laid bare in these forums hundreds of times.

[Shiny212]

Today?

Time
Time
Time

In the past I'd say, knowledge, generally of the classes of the game, how they worked and synergised, gear priorities and talent allocation, aswell as knowledge of instances and boss mechanics. Second would be awareness, as in being able to perceive everything that's happening to the raid and yourself and reacting to unexpected circumstances, and third and perhaps most importantly attitude. I don't mention anything involving mechanical skill since the requirements there are relatively low in pve and no focus should be wasted on rotation or rng, that should go like clockwork.

[Malthanis]

This is a bit generic, so I'm sliding it to General Discussions.

[anaxie]

This is a bit generic, so I'm sliding it to General Discussions.

What if we turned it into a Spiderman Thread?

[klaps_05]

Considering that the game is far from hard to play at the highest level(read firestpage wowprogress / WOL logs,records) the only reasons I can come up with not being able to do so would be 1) getting distracted while playing, 2) mentally handicapped or 3) satisfied with being one of many rather than one of very, very few.

[chazus]

And there's some jerkwad hotshot on worldoflogs who just doubled your damage for that fight - there's no way perfect reforges are going to get you anywhere near that.

I think this is really important to note. Look at what you're doing.

The other day I was on my Unholy DK on Durumu. He's fairly well geared (~525) and I saw another UH DK with nearly exact gear. Mine was a little better. He did a solid 5% (And 5% is like... 15 million damage) than me. I was -positive- I executed a perfect rotation. My festerblight was 100% and never dropped. I hit my cooldowns at the right time, it was a perfect storm. And yet, a guy with marginally less gear more or less schooled me. I had to go back and look at what he did different. Turns out he did Soul Reaper a bit more on time than I did, and a couple other things. I didn't look at actual parses, but I could see through recount that in some places he just had 'more hits' of certain abilities than I did, which means I need to work on being more aware of timing. Self reflection is important.

[Demoncrash]

Imho there are only 2 things

Time - Having enough time for a raid schedule

Commitment - Dedication to your class (min-maxing gear, knowing the right skill priorities, cooldowns etc.)

Time is probably the biggest barrier. As there are plenty of resources online to help you with you class, gearing, etc. This of course assumes "casual raider" means someone who's fairly competent and not Mr. Leeroy Jenkins who stands in fire.

[Toxigen]

1. Top of the line hardware

2. Reaction times

3. Being a boss at min/maxing.

[muto]

Here we go again, another thread with the creator misusing the world casual. Casuals are not bads, casuals can be high caliber players too.

[Kargarok]

Wrong thread delete this comment please.

[Ellesarr]

1) UI - clean and neat UI helps to avoid the clusterfuck of your screen
2) Rotation - know it stone cold and be able to do it in your sleep. You should be paying attention to the boss mechanics and not worrying about what button to press next
3) Keybinds - To each their own, but have your main abilities bound so you don't have to click makes a worlds difference

congratz, you are now avarage at best

[kaiadam]

Personally, I'd say two of the most often-mentioned items, time & hardware, are blown way out of proportion. There's a minimum requirement for raiding for both of those resources, of course, but beyond that, there's a fairly low RoI - they've turned more into excuses these days (ie I can't raid 40 hours a week so I'm in my 4/12 normal guild or what have you.)

Reaction time & apm are also both somewhat exaggerated as well. WoW is more of a cerebral than twitch game, and while quick responses can't hurt, they're not terrific in most roles. Before the APM changes in HoTS, I averaged like 40apm in SC2, for example (not sure what they'd be now, haven't played HoTS).

[zealo]

Ability to react to things on the fly as well as situational awareness as well as being dedicated and actually want to progress.

Being able to plan your cooldowns and knowing your rotation/prio system to the point where you would be able to pull it off with a blindfold on says itself really though.

[Arhippa]

Patience, being able to adapt (preferably quickly) and being able to ignore the dps meters.

ait im just sayin every raid / guild ive been in since tbc pvp'ers have been consistently better on healing / tanking / dps. (including me, no braggin').

I had the exact opposite experience personally. Used to raid in ICC with a bunch of multiseason gladiators, some rank 1s and so on. Apparently festergut heroic was too hard of a concept for some of these pvp heroes to grasp, malleable goo isn't easy to dodge you know. Don't get me wrong, some of them were really good. As an example, I really liked the other hunter in the guild. He was reliable. Still think he was possibly the best hunter I've had to raid with, not necessarily in terms of DPS but just as an overall package. But the good old "scripted fights are hard" argument that people used a lot a couple of years ago was just indescribably stupid.

[Deleted]

1. Time


2. Experience/skill


3. Awareness


UI/Keybinds/Good computer isn't as good as some people think. It may be unplayable for some, but I used to have a computer that had 10 fps during fights (5 on Elegon) and I still performed as well as I do today (60-100 fps on ultra in 25man raids).
I have always had a very solid internet connection though, since I live in Sweden.

I have like 20 keybinds and I use them all though, but I only had ~8-10 before and clicked a few very situational skills, but it worked fine and I performed as well as I do today since I could always predict when to use them.

[Borfl]

1. The biggest difference by far is dedication. Prepare for countless wipes anyone who gives up after 3 attempts is a casual by all definitions.

2. Preparation, communication, and awareness. Know your shit and let people know whats going on if things aren't going right.

3. Play smart, rotation should be a non issue like second nature, boss mechanics is all you should be worrying about.

[Rheckameohs]

I haven't been a hardcore raider in years, but generally this is what I suggest to anyone getting into that scene.

1. Learn the fights. If videos are available, watch them; if not, read up on them. Watch PTR footage so you have an idea of what to look for visually speaking. Most mechanics have some kind of animation attached to them.

2. Learn your class. Know and understand what stats are best, and then hone your rotation until it's second nature. Keybind everything - from your core abilities to your OH SHIT buttons - so that they can be easily accessed at a moment's notice.

3. Devote time to raiding. At the top level, it's a full-time job more or less. If you can't find the time to really commit to serious progression raiding, then it's probably not for you.

(I'm extending this list because I can.)

4. Get to know your raid group. Familiarize yourself with how they play so you can really work as a team. Raid leaders should be selected by vote based on merit. No, this does not mean healing or DPS or survivability. Merit is determined by how effectively they can, you know, LEAD. Your raid leader can be the best damn player in the entire game, but if they can't coordinate more than just themselves, they don't need to be the raid leader.

5. Don't choke yourself down with addons. Use ONLY what you need. DBM is a must.

6. Don't act like an idiot in order to top that mage's DPS, even if it's a DPS race. A dead DPS does no DPS.

7. If someone goes down, battle rez them immediately.

8. Most importantly, assemble the best playlist you can and listen to it throughout the raid. It's a huge morale boost, and that can mean the difference between downing that boss you've been stuck on for a month and a half or longer or wiping for the 522nd time.

Have fun.

[Runewrath]

I see a lot of people using time as a difference between elite/casual raiders. Coming from a top 50 US guild that only raids 9 hours a week, I must say that time is a weak difference. Especially since many casuals play just as much as most elite raiders.

[Feali]

I see a lot of UI talk in here. I don't know... I've seen some pretty messy UIs from hardcore raiders (Sco, Slootbag come to mind). Mine is also not the bestest and I know tons of people who click half their "not-so-important" skills, doesn't make them any less of a world rank ~100 player.

For me personally the three things would be:
1. Amount of time invested
2. Awareness and
3. Ability to learn and adapt quickly.