My wonderful sister who’s been mentioned on here several times, has decided that she would like to raid with us in MoP. Now she has been playing WoW very casually for about 3 years, and she enjoys her little hunter. She isn’t great DPS, she doesn’t have a lot of raid awareness (She’s never raided.), BUT she is willing to learn, she is willing to trudge through us telling her how to do things, and she is really full steam ahead about this.
When I sat down to think about adding her to the roster, I really stopped and gave not adding her serious thought, for the following reasons:
-
I don’t want to break in a new raider
-
I don’t feel like wiping because someone is learning that strafing is faster than turning and running.
-
I don’t want to deal with other people getting angry about her learning.
At which point she called me, and said the words that made me feel like a HORRIBLE person. “(Aunaka) I’m SO excited about raiding in Mists, and can’t wait to learn from you guys.”
I had this glorious opportunity for myself and my team to teach someone that WANTS to learn how to play. How could I ever think about replacing someone who WANTS to learn with just another player, that even if they are good it is likely they will be less likely to listen to criticism.
I feel like as a community we are more prone to forget about the fact that we were all once new raiders/players, and that someone had to be nice enough to teach us how to play.
Someone had to show us where the resources were, show us the videos, run us through dungeons, make us a better player. I’m not saying that it wasn’t tough love, or that we didn’t learn a lot on our own, but someone helped us.
I think that we forget about that and we’re too focused on being the best of the best of the best, what if that person with the right guidance became something amazing?
I am by no stretch of the imagination an amazing healer, but I’m good, I’m even pretty darn good and people helped me get here, so I’ll take the time, and I hope that my group will take the time to help teach her what being a good raider is, even more teach her what being a good player is, because being good player should be everyone’s goal.
So please guys, unless you’re looking to hardcore progressively raid, give the new guys a chance. I’m not saying that the majority of the people will be like my sister and want to learn, and accept criticism, but you might find a gem hidden deep in the Jade Forest.
/Cheers
Good day.
I recently visited Blog Azeroth, found your Twitter, and then checked your blog out…
As someone who has not raided in ANY game for the past… oh, 6 years… I would like to say that getting to have a good support and training group (especially family) can be good!
So long as you are, of course, willing to lay down explicit ground rules regarding raiding culture and how things work (no personal attacks, follow leader, etc.) Cheers!
Thanks for check me out
Hope to hear from you more.
I’m really excited to see how your sister goes! I will be following her progress avidly, +1 fan for her.
She’s happy to hear that. Thanks!
I found your blog from an article of yours about getting ready for MOP.
Anyways, I am in a similar situation. I raided quite successfully during Naxx. Then Uld came out and I quit at the top of 7.5 gear. Shortly before I quit I introduced my now brother-in-law to wow. He became and addict on another server and is currently the tank officer in a very very strong raiding guild.
I told him I wanted to play wow again so he sent me a scroll of Resurrection. I leveled to 85 on his server. I did not tell him because I did not want him to think I felt as if I should get a raiding spot in his guild just because he married my sister. Then I found a rare spawn and needed his help, so I called him. He immediately was like why are you not in my guild. I told him I had not seen him on (Lie), so he invited me. Then stood up for me when I got in /g chat when raiders in his guild were like “who is this guy and why does he not have gear…. Because he is a non-raider that’s why.” That prompted him to stand up for me. He stated “he is leet” very simple very short but he made me feel great when he said it.
I love raiding and I would like to raid with him because he is family, but honestly I am feeling a ton of internal pressure not to let him down. I am going to feel horrible if I cause a wipe. I am literally nervous about it. I would hate him to catch a bunch of crap from people it took him years to run with because I can’t keep up.
The only thing I can do is try to get my hands on as much good information about my class (Holy Priest) and the fights as I can. I am new to heals by the way.
Thank you for the article and I hope the best for the four of us.
You never know what you will get when you bring aboard someone new to raiding…it can go either way. Back in Wrath, my hardcore raiding son needed a healer to be able to do 10mans. So he bugged me to get geared up on the holy pally I mained at that time and when I was ready, I stepped my toes into raiding.
Three weeks into it, the Plagueworks wing opened and we went rushing right on in…ended up with World First on Festergut and a tie or something like that on Rotface. So it isn’t always a rough start when showing new folks the ropes of raiding.