Written some time in the past…

Now that my Priest is geared up for beyond Karazhan and nearly as geared as my Mage, I’ve returned to playing my Mage in 25-man raiding situations, and have gotten my Hunter into Gruul’s and Magtheridon’s Lair a few times.

So far I’ve run 5-6 raids this way on my Mage, where I’m in Shattrath and see a known raiding guild advertising on Trade or LookingForGroup that they need DPS to fill out numbers for SSC, TK, or Hyjal. I send them a whisper with my stats and have had no problem getting in so far.

My Hunter has been less-used but has picked up 2 pieces of T4 in her PUGging efforts.

My Priest has been into Karazhan (of course), Zul’Aman, and Mount Hyjal (bit of a jump there) and is continuing to keep a look out for more raiding experiences.

About My Freelance Raiding

By Freelance, of course, I mean that I am not committed to any one guild, and if I choose to lock out my RaidID with a different guild next week than I did last week, then no biggie.

The guild I’ve been in since level 21 with my first toon doesn’t organize past Heroics - we try to get each other into our Karazhan runs but everyone who PUGs that tends to have different times of the day that they’re free for that length of time. Very few are geared for anything past mid-Karazhan, and those that are will PUG Zul’Aman and get into whatever other runs they’re available for with the guilds of friends, generally.

But, they’re my friends and I’ve been in this guild for over 3 years now. I like it here.

Goal Of, and Steps To Preparation for, Freelance Raiding

One of the things I like to do, since I feel like I’m a guest in a big family environment, is come very prepared, and do the best job I can do.

I like to walk away from raids knowing that they’ve looked at me and thought “Yes, we’d recruit that one”. This is, of course, an easier thing to achieve on my well-geared Mage and Priest than my lesser-geared Hunter.

My preparation on my Mage includes making sure I have flasks or elixirs to cover the night, along with consumable buff food and spell damage oil for my weapon. I stock up on my reagents for my buffs and for the Mage Table everyone loves so much.

When I get into the raid, I look for the number of other Mages, and I try to get a group assignment for buffs. If there’s only one other Mage, I offer to take more groups to buff (ie: I’ll buff 3, you buff 2).

I get into Vent and then make my way to the summoning stone on my own and am usually one of the first there. I report in, and am part of the initial summoning crew. Once the first group of players who call for summons have died down (usually 10-15), I let others handle the rest of the summoning.

I buff up quickly once inside the instance, or after dying. Often, I down my potions while running through the early parts of the instance when we’re returning after a wipe that required running back. I make sure I have my Mana Emerald in tow, with at least 2 charges in it. I always restock to 20 mana potions and 10 healing potions when I hit the bank.

I cycle through the people in my assignments during down-times to make sure everyone’s got their Arcane Intellect buff.

I don’t say a boo when we die. If we’re on a progression run and we wipe over and over during the encounter, I still don’t say a thing. I keep coming back, I keep doing my job, I keep trying to live longer during each encounter.

At the end of the night, I thank them for having invited me and say goodnight, offer a portal and leave the raid after a while. I generally whisper the person who extended the invite to give them a personal thanks and let them know it was a lot of fun, even if we wiped over and over and over.

Then, I go on about my playing life - might run with these guys again if they need the numbers, but most likely will run with someone different next week, when our times coincide.

It’s a lot of fun, and I trust the social contacts I make during these times will pay off in the future!

Tags: freelance raiding, frost mage raiding, joining a raiding guild, preparing for raids, raid preparation, raiding on a frost mage

I didn’t really mention it before, but I figured I’d go ahead and outline some guild-related changes that my characters have undergone in the past few months.

Mage, Hunter, Priest Make A Move

I’ve been raiding with a decent group since the beginning of January, and finally decided to make the official guild change-over on my raiding toon, the 70 Frost Mage, on February 21.

As for the rest, I moved my 70 Hunter over shortly afterwards and a few days later, brought the 51 Priest/Jewelcrafter over, but have left my “parked” 61 Warrior in my social/levelling guild along with my 58 Rogue, 30 Druid and a bank toon.

Why The Switch?

There’s many reasons why I made the switch with my best-geared toon… the new guild is larger, more active, and since they are raiding regularly at the 25-man level (currently working on Al’ar), there are more players who are geared for heroics. The first day I was guilded, we went through 4 Heroics!

So, my badge count has gone through the roof, and my need to turn to the LFG line has toned way down. Most of the time I don’t even have to look around for a party, because the limited times I’m available to run something, there’s a guild group forming, and they love my Magely skills! It’s awesome.

And as a bonus, because I had been raiding with these guys for nearly 2 months already, I only stayed as an “initiate” in the guild a couple of days - until I could get to the next 25-man raid at which point, at the end of another great raiding night, I was promoted to Member by the GM/RL and received many nice comments and welcomes from everyone present.

Oh, and I moved the Hunter across because our guild is actually LOW on quality Hunters - recruits with attitudes as big as their DPS (and we all know some Hunters can dish out the major DPS) have come and gone, and a lot of our members are on casual raiding schedules, only making 1 or 2 on a week that they can actually make it to any. So, I brought my keyed-but-not-really-geared-for-Karazhan Hunter across and have been on 4 or so Karazhan runs so far, after the Mage is already locked out with a different group.

And the Priest, I moved mainly because she’s now a 375 Jewelcrafter with a mess of rare gem cuts, and I felt the raiding guild environment could make better use of that Professional skill than a social/levelling guild with less than a handful of people who pay enough attention to their characters to even gem up.

What About The Old Guild?

One of my old guildmates applied to the same raiding guild I’m in, and was accepted, and he occasionally attends raids when his schedule permits, but I haven’t had a real chance to talk to him lately since my gaming schedule has been strained for time.

As for the rest of the folks, I still have some of my characters in that guild, and since I log into my bank toon every day, I tend to still chat with the folks and see how they’re doing. I’ve also continued to trade favors with friends from the old guild, running through their lowbies in exchange for BRD run-throughs for my 50s Priest and the occasional rest-bonus-burnoff run for my 30 Druid.

And of course, some of us hung out on Ventrilo while we played, and I still do that regularly.

Was The Move A Good One?

In short, yes it was definitely a good one. I was getting frustrated with having to turn to strangers in the LFG line all the time, and doing a /who [guildname] to find folks from that guild I had been raiding with for two months. My levelling guild was indeed just a social/levelling guild and had no aspirations towards organized recruitment or coordinated efforts except on rare occasions (ie: 1-3 guildie dungeon runs a week, most below Outland level), and I really did want to do more, experience more, challenge myself more.

Of course, I wouldn’t have made the switch if this new guild didn’t also show some very good qualities in terms of behavior during raids, dealing with mouthy players, having equipment requirements, encouraging each individual to do their best to help the team, scheduling raids on a website with sign-ups… all sorts of great things. Sure, there’s some crap that goes on too, and it’s clear the GM/RL is a key part to holding the guild together cohesively, but all in all, I’ve really enjoyed the environment and lucky been able to remain distant from any potential drama.

I am quite surprised I was able to find a cool raiding guild like this so soon… Before Christmas I went on a couple of Karazhan raids with an ex-guildie’s raiding guild only to find that the ranged DPS tended to attack from up-close (and subsequently die a lot), that the Raid Leader swore in all-caps on the Raid line (I don’t recall him freaking on Vent tho) when yet another wipe occurred, and that I was the top damage of all three mages despite only being at +450 frost damage and them being better-geared. When I wasn’t re-invited to their raid groups, I wasn’t disappointed. I kind of expected to run into more of those before I hit the guild I’m now raiding with!

Tags: casual raiding guild, good raid leaders, heroics dungeons, heroics pugs, how to find a raid guild, jewelcrafting, joining a raiding guild, karazhan, level 70 hunter gear, level 70 mage gear, LFG tool, LFM Tool, pick up group, pugging, pugging strategy, raiding as a mage, raiding frost mage, raiding hunter, should i leave my guild, warcraft raiding, world of warcraft, wowgrrl