How did you become a raider?

[Deleted]

With my first char ever i joined a leveling guild (Veni Vidi Vici on Moonglade. Kiwa i love you! ^^) and while i was questing the Gleader asked me if i want to join the raid in Karazhan. That was my first raid ever, won a token and the caster staff from Curator. I got hooked.

[Barberq]

I rolled a DK.







That failed, so I made a Resto Druid, that worked.

[Fenixdown]

In vanilla I got carried through every raid I went to and was, in a nutshell, really bad. I didn't like being bad, I have a very perfectionist personality.

Of course, in BC i had issues getting anything done as a DPSer with an already poor reputation, though I did work on becoming better at my class. I decided a reroll was necessary, and I was going to pick the thing that I had the most trouble finding for 5-mans. My philosophy was if I can't FIND a good X, I may as well BE a good X and that eliminates that issue.

Thus, my priest became my main, and I have quite the reputation of being a good healer.

[Lemons]

I'm a self-made man in that sense. I didn't have anyone coddle me telling me which dagger goes in which hand and why we use Instant over Wound.

I used to pvp all the time. That's all I did, and then one day it donned on me...raiders win. Raiders win this game. They get access to the best gear the earliest and then they use that to dominate at the beginning of the arena season. Then they use those wins to get access to get the best pvp gear. And after that they're pretty much locked into a high rating, coasting on their gear. Plus there are a few good trinkets that only come from raiding that are incredibly OP in pvp (we all remember Death's Verdict and Deathbringer's Will)

So I became a raider. I Researched everything online. I learned to raid pretty quickly and I was beating most people in my guild very early on.

My biggest advice is don't reinvent the wheel. Research your class. There's plenty of people online who are much, much smarter than you are and they'll tell you how to play. Don't let your pride get in the way. Don't think you don't need Omen or DBM because you're too pro or something. Take every advantage you can get. Also, don't keyboard turn or mouse click your abilities. That's another pride thing "well I've always done it like this and this works for me". Yea? Well guess what? "Your way" is terrible and inefficient. Keybind your shit and turn with your mouse of gtfo of my raid.

[Toadeko]

Raid Healing Leader: "Hey want to come to Molten Core.. we could really use a druid"
Me: "Sure.. what do I need to do"
RHL: "Just innervate me whenever I tell you to"
Me: "Umm.. ok?"

2 day run, Up to MajorDomo = All Cenarion + Finkles.

[Askyl]

I started out in Vanilla, Sunstrider realm, at release in EU. The game back then was "play for fun!" and no one but like 1 or 2 guilds really focused on raiding.

I was invited to a Swedish guild called Pure. We did 5mans, PvP and eventually did LBRS to forge the key to our first real raid, UBRS. That was the thing back then. MC felt like years away since we weren't a big guild, and only the big cool guilds did MC. We found another Swedish Guild called Victis Honor (I think?) and merged with them in a new guild called Pure Honor.

More 5mans, UBRS raids every evening (They took LONG time before all nerfs, and were 15man). With all items being blue for lvl 60s it was really a pure raid.

Once I logged in, read GMOTD "Get attuned to Molten Core and Onyxia". I was so happy! We were finally becomming one of those cool guilds. People started with summon runs (warlock summon to attunement quest area) and got every member attuned to MC. We helped others with their Onyxia quest chain, which took lot longer time for ppl to finnish.

Then, the day had come. We were doing our first MC run! With us being full blue geared, after all UBRS / LBRS raids we had a pretty good shoot on some bosses. Imagine 40 ppl on ventrilo, no one ever done a raid in WoW before. Those big first mobs (bigger then bosses are now!) stood there looking cool. Took us an hour to get all members inside and buffed for the pull.

And guess what, the guilds first epic drop on the first pull! Some world drop neckless, everyone was super exited and thought they'd all get epics this evening.

We actually got down 3 bosses, and kept progressing every week! Guilds first Raggy kill was amazing, the feeling, the ventrilo nerdscreams. Stuff like that WoW will never give again.

After the guild disbanded, like many others, after some attemptes in BWL I kept on with my WoW life on another server, as a Raider, with experience!

[Revelations]

My raiding history:

Well it started off in a very casual guild - you just had to ask "can I join the guild?" to become a raider. I was a protection warrior - a very newb protection warrior. It was a challenge, tanking as your first thing ever.. needless to say, we weren't very successful and the GM ragedisbanded the guild. Now I was clueless about what to do, and I didn't log on as much as I used to.

After some days, at school, I befriend a WoW player - he tells me his raiding guild on a different server needs healers - and asks me if I'd like to start a new character on said server,- to come heal. So I did, but again, the guild disbanded rather quickly due to officers stealing the guild bank.

Again, being without a guild - I noticed a mail in my inbox. It read: "I've noticed that your guild got disbanded - this qualifies you to join our guild" - yes, it was rather... uh... weird. Regardless, my friends joined and so did I. I never got to raid, though, due to my bad gear. So I left.

Three guilds, and no real raiding yet - again I found myself not knowing what to do. I was determined to try getting a guild no matter how. I didn't have to search for long though, as I saw a dwarf advertising his guild in /2. I whispered him, he said they needed a healer - I applied, got thrown into a boss fight and did good enough to get a full membership. I stayed with this guild until Ruby Sanctum got released (or well, just before - I took a ~5 months break instead of grinding ICC hc over and over and over again). When I returned I was guildless.

My old friend, which invited me to the first guild as a healer - and some other friends of his had reformed a new guild, and -yet again- were recruiting experienced healers (I was now experienced!). We killed all the ICC hardmodes (over again for me) just before Cata got released. As cata hit I also did 11/12(n) 10 man with them.

I had a lot of fun in the guild, and the people were great. But, there was one thing missing. I missed raiding 25 man.. I had that thought for a while, "I should look for a 25 man guild" but I never did. Then suddenly one day, while hanging out in Afkwind a warlock from my old guild (the one I left before RS) whispers me - "Hey, would you be interested in joining our guild? We need an experienced healer to start progressing on heroic modes (they currently had 1/13 down heroic)." It was the perfect opportunity.

A quick faction change later (goodbye beloved draenei! ) I was ready to roll. My trial went fine and we killed a few heroic bosses before I got promoted to member.

The people in the new guild are the best you'll find, and I'm having tons of fun.
Today we have 13/13 heroic, and are anxiously waiting for Firelands (whenever that comes!)

[Harvesting]

Mine started back in Vanilla. I had some RL friends who were sharing stories of raiding MC. At this time I had been tanking UBRS, but they were full on tanks but would take a dps Hunter. I had one but need gear and a few levels. My first raid I was hooked, I had to farm my FR gear to 200ish before the Raid Leader would let me in. When I made it in and my first Rag kill I was so addicted. We progress through BWL and then the x-pac came. Like so many big guilds our started to fracture and bleed players who felt they were not getting the shot while 2nd and 3rd team got completed with raid comp.

This guild eventually merged with another guild which did not work out so well we raided the remainder of the BC. This is when I chose to find a late night guild that fit my schedule better as I was only making about half the raid and waited on standby. I was often chosen even though I was late because I was topping the charts.

I found a new guild and then they decided to transfer to and pst zoned server. So I went with them, then some love triangle between MT and GM's wife imploded the guild. No raids for about 1.5 months and one of my guild mates found a new guild. So I applied and was accepted just before LK. This guild went thru its troubles when the GM got sick and RL left. Tons of peeps bled off for greener pastures. When Gm came back the RL returned to guild and we became a 10 guild with the best of our players who stayed. We ended up finishing all LK achievements except the ilvl ones. All had drakes times were good.

Then Cata we decided to up our game and really only accept a few applications a year. Currently we are burning thru Cata with just a few Heroic modes left. I am enjoying the game, just as much as I did before. I have been in this guild for 3 years now (coming up on).

Raiding now is so much easier then it was before dailies and grinding mobs for drops or mats to make gold for raiding. We raid 3 days a week and take holidays off. I love the group I play with and know each other by RL names.

[Blightarrow]

I started raiding with a guild called Incorruptible in Karazahn

[xReck]

I started raiding as a mage.

nuff' said.

[killars]

Heh after I quit playing Counter-Strike hardcore I was swayed into playing this game by my friends back when AQ40 was about to be released and they were progressing on BWL on Shattered Hand probably the best raiding server back then (DnT/Drama). So from the very start I wanted to raid as that is all my friends spoke about. After hustling my ass off to get the full dungeon set and then doing the epic quest line to make that dungeon set epic (or at least half of it) I joined a guild progressing in AQ40 and farming BWL.

In my entire WoW career I don't think I've ever worked harder or was more dedicated then I was back then.

[Deleted]

my brother got me into playing the game, i joined a guild together with him at WOTLK launch, cleared 2 wings in naxx 25, but then the guild disbanded and I joined a 10 man guild.

Since then it's been going up and up, worked my way up to the best guild on the server mid ulduar which was something like world 20 but it was too much for me, so now i'm running semi casual

[IdTheDemon]

I started raiding in Vanilla, around late 2005. I was in a pretty average guild on a pretty average server. We started Molten Core around the same time Blackwing Lair was the progression instance and things went pretty bland. By the time we got to Majordomo, AQ 40 was released and I got an offer from one of the BWL clearing guilds (2nd progressed Horde, 5th overall) to join. Being tired of the egos of my old guild who still couldn't kill Rag I took that offer and the next raiding week I was clearing BWL and working on Huhurahn while my old guild was still working on Rag and still fighting on vent over stupid childish crap.

Eventually my new guild started to show attendance while we were working on Twin Emps and the top horde guild was doing the same for C'thun. So a merge was formed and the goal was to clear everything. Already I knew it was going to be ugly when you had a guild with 70+ raiders and only 40 spots so some people were sat until they just quit or left. We were making progress on C'thun then Realm Transfers came out and well, a lot of good players went to other progressed guilds to prepare for Naxx. Some left for pure progression, others left because our GM was a complete moron with a military like dictatorship over the guild.

When Naxx came out my guild was in terrible shape and we only killed 7 bosses in there. I decided to look around and I found an opening spot on a great guild on top server. I went there and and I already loved the place because I would stand in Org and I would see 5 guilds in Naxx gear. My new guild was clearing to 4HM and the people on vent had personality and the officers did not have the stupid elitist attitude that my old guild had. I was actually talking more and more on vent and found myself liking the game for more than killing dragons. We never killed Kel'Thuzad but that was ok.

TBC came out and it was an amazing time. Karazhan was simply the **** and I got a spot on one of the A+ teams for Kara. Real life wise, my college grades were at a 3.5 GPA and I was in a relationship with a fantastic woman who somehow loved games as much as me (She never got into Wow though). Everything was good until Black Temple came out. That was when our GM decided to quit due to a job opportunity and an officer quit shortly due to strains of being leader. Some of my close guild mates followed and one of the guys who I did not get along with ended up GM. I found myself getting screwed over for loot and I knew it was going to keep going so I left and got an opening in a good progressed guild on another server.

I guess it wasn't meant to be because 2 weeks after joining, attendance started to suck. The other 3 Tier 6 guilds were not recruiting and the next choice was a guild stuck in the middle of SSC and TK so I decided to take a break. I have been raiding hardcore since the days of Molten Core and I needed it anyways. Drama was happening in relationship land and we eventually broke up (Wow was not the cause no worries) and school/work was getting to me. I got back into consoles for a while and enjoyed not having to log on at 8 PM EST 5 days a week for a while.

2 months later I came back and decided play again. I had a lot of Tier 6 still so I decided to app to a good looking guild on yet another server. Things were good there for while but yet again, attendance became a factor and people started to leave. I swear I had the worst luck during this tier! Luckily there was a guild right behind this one so I joined them and it was smooth sailing till Sunwell. We killed 3/6 and some people just got frustrated with Twins and attendance. I was a little sad because I liked these guys too. So yet again, time to look for a guild on the guild recruitment thread!

So finally, after 4 realms transfers, after dealing with so many different guild drama episodes, I finally found an actually home over on Frostmane. Still play with the same guild today ever since Sunwell and I love them all to death. They were the third progressed Horde guild on the server and they quickly moved up to 1st progressed server wide with Ulduar clears and have been untouched ever since. I took a break from raiding for almost a year so I missed out on Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader (Oh noes) and ICC. It was best that I took that long break because after raiding for years and years I got burnt out a bit and need a break. Came back to raiding at the middle of ICC for the guild alt raids and is now apart of the main roster for Cata clears.