Life as a Semi-Hardcore Wow Raider

When I was in high school I had just enough free time and a low enough workload my senior year that I decided I wanted to go all in on playing World of Warcraft. I had been a player since 06 and I still play a bit on and off today, but I was never super serious about raiding. Raiding is when you and a bunch of other players get together and work cooperatively to beat various bosses which drop items that make you stronger. You get better items, fight harder bosses and the cycle continues.

Every boss is a bit of a puzzle and has their own mechanics and strategies on how to kill them. If you dont follow the strategy you will most likely die and have to start the fight from scratch. Dying and learning from your mistake is part of the experience so often in a hardcore raiding guild you might stay up for hours at a time just trying to kill one boss. Once you finally get it down and beat it though it feels like such an achievement. Everyone is super happy and you can usually get the boss down in the following weeks easier than before.

The expansion I was playing in was Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion to the base game. Many people still think it was one of the best, but like I said it came out at a perfect time. I remember picking it up at midnight and leveling until the morning of the next day and sleeping during school. When I ended up hitting the level cap I joined one of the guilds looking for hardcore players who would be willing to spend multiple hours trying to beat certain bosses. I was a damage class called a retribution paladin, but I functioned more as a support class.

We geared ourselves up and started raiding the first raid of the expansion 4 days a week from 8 pm to 1 am. I had to be online for those five hours as we continuously pushed to get further and further into the raid. Eventually we were able to get to the end and we were at one point a top 20 guild in the world in terms of progression. This is quite a feat because of how many guilds are out there. When we finally were able to beat the whole raid we started doing hard modes which were a cool thing at the time which they unfortunately dropped in favor of adding a whole new level of raid difficulty. After about 6 months of raiding hardcore I started to get bored.

The biggest problem is when you are doing the same fights and spending all this time waiting around, you end up just staying for the friendships you make in the guild. This was what ended up happening to me but eventually I got burnt out. I know many people who have been hardcore raiding for years now but it can feel seriously like a part time job. In many ways it is a part time job because there are consequences for not showing up or underperforming. Its weird to think that I spent all that time raiding but it was definitely an interesting experience.

I still raid today but on a much more casual basis. The game has started catering towards casual players anyway so it isnt that hard these days. I think part of me will probably play a few months every year until the game dies. I have just been playing for so long that it feels like second nature to me. Every time I think im gone I get pulled back in.

-Calaber24p