I’m sure that this post is going to be messy, but I was inspired after having some words with Rilgon about raiding & stuff. So, I present to you, the reasons I am a fail raider and the logical ways to stop them from applying.

1.

I’m woefully inexperienced. I have done, in WotLK, the four first wings of Naxx, OS twice (+0 & +1), Flame Leviathan, & ICC trash farming. That’s it. To be honest, this ‘inexperienced’ part of the equation is terribly self serving, in that it will make me too nervous to sign up (or inquire about) raids that we more or less have on farm (read: ToC-25) and even more nervous about my numbers in raids, but that’s a whole ‘nother section of fail.

How to fix it:

This is fairly easy – go do some raids. Of course, this means complying with my other ‘reasons of fail’ to a satisfactory standard.

2.

Numbers. I’m the sort of person, that wants to ‘pull above their weight’. When I go in as a DPS, I expect to be doing exactly 1/(number of DPSers) of the raids total DPS, and hopefully much more. My biggest problem, is that I have no real way to see what my numbers might be – without being in a raid. Now, I’ve been running some tests in Rawr, to get some reports on what my “theoretical maximum DPS” is.

Firstly, I try and get it to give me an accurate number for my DPS against a target dummy, It’s saying that for my basic AB to 4 stacks then Missile Barrage – I should do 3696.59 DPS. This is assuming no raid buffs, and now I will go and test it out for accuracy’s sake.

So, one test later, and I’m sitting at 3402.9 DPS, which is fairly close, considering lag, and the fact that I stuffed up the rot a few times. Doing a quick check of raid DPS, I’m projected to do about 4.5k DPS, which I’m not sure if I’m happy with – what should my DPS be like, for 25s?

3.

This is slightly not really at all to do with anything – go figure.

Okay, this isn’t really a reason, but I’m extremely self critical. I’m that rare DPS who thinks that it’s never the tank or healer’s fault, it’s always the DPSs fault. Because in this game, every fight becomes easier with more DPS.

Now this is a rather stupid stance to take – of course it’s the healer’s fault if half the raid dies to unavoidable damage – but what if half the raid had been eating extra ticks of whatever the avoidable damage is on that fight? Of course it’s the tanks fault if he’s not Defense capped, gets 2-shot, and wipes the raid.

But in the vast majority of cases, I will take the fail-burden, and attribute it to myself, and I’m not the kind of person who enjoys wiping. Especially when the only damage being dealt to the raid as a whole comes from people who are STUFFING UP THE ENCOUNTER. I might not play a healer, but I expect you NOT TO STAND IN SHIT. Gah, people are EXTREMELY STUPID. So I guess that comes to the real reason #3 – I don’t want to waste my evenings with a bunch of people who aren’t bringing their A game in regards to STANDING IN SHIT.

Seriously.

No excuse.

Ever.