I love to raid.

Whether you've been playing World of Warcraft for two months or two years, most people can agree that raiding is where it's at. You spend all this time leveling and working on gear so that you can hold your own in a raid where you can get even better gear and feel somewhat accomplished. The key I suppose is that it's a group effort. While doing heroics can be easily done with 5 random strangers and takes a minimal amount of effort. raiding takes more coordination and requires people to not only pay attention, but have more than a basic knowledge of their class and role.

At least that's what I'd like to believe.

And then Blizzard does things like release Trial of the Crusader. Which really should have been named Toil of the Faceroller. It's a joke. While I am fully aware that heroic mode offers much more of a challenge and isn't as easily accomplished, I still just plain out do not agree with people thinking they're awesome at raiding because they can accomplish something as simple as clearing ToC. It's like giving all 9 kids in a race a trophy for participation.

"Here you go! Even though you have no real skill and don't really know how to best play your class or even go read to maybe learn how, you can still have gear! Even though you wouldn't get past all of the keepers in Ulduar you can do ToC and have better gear than those Ulduar noobs would've ever gotten! Free loots for all!"

And as if that wasn't enough they had to go and add the badge gear. They've already taken away attunements for everything. Which basically means being able to zone into something means absolutely nothing and getting to go somewhere takes absolutely no effort because guess what?! Ding! Level 80! Ta-da! You're automatically attuned for everything!

Well guess what you incompetent jerk. I did the ridiculously long Onyxia (level 60) attunement quest chain on 4 toons, all of which also did BRD for the MC quest, UBRS for BWL attunement, and grinded out the Naxx (level 60) attunement too. I farmed mats for 4 different sets of resistance gear and farmed out reputation with different factions. I got my karazhan key on 6 toons. I zoned into SSC & TK before June 19th, 2007 and I got my Medallion of Karabor before patch 2.4. I'm a Champion of the Naruu.. what up? Yes, that's right. I spent a lot of time farming heroics and running dungeons so that I could be in the best possible shape that I could be before even stepping foot inside of a raid. I took the time and spent hours raiding to be able to see things Mount Hyjal and Black Temple and even Sunwell, before they were "easy mode."

I am so sorry for you if you simply just do not have the time to commit to a raiding guild and therefore find it necessary to complain about those of that do. But having Blizzard constantly catering to these people makes it less fun for those of us who enjoy a particular level of difficulty. Mostly because I spent countless hours in Ulduar, which actually took effort, and now someone can ding level 80 today, do heroics for about 2 days, and be in better gear. The worst part is that people have this illusion that Gear = Skill. Let me explain something to you. Just because you have the ability to go into a heroic dungeon and press 3 different buttons aside from the arrow keys and you've learned how to interact with an NPC to the point of being able to exchange badges for gear does not mean you know how to play. Just because your gear score is a nice, bloated number that doesn't mean you know not to stand in fire, move out of whirlwind, or how to even consistently do your job in a raid while doing both of those things.

Sure, ToC doesn't really require you to know much about your class and thus far Icecrown Citadel has been puggable, but not to worry. If you haven't been able to full clear it yet I'm sure Blizzard will be nerfing it soon enough and you'll get your shiny loots. Wipe those tears away dear noob, Blizzard isn't going to start listening to people like me anytime soon.

I love to raid, but dang is WoW frustrating sometimes.

That's all I really have to say about that. I'll be seeing you tomorrow .. if not in a raid then maybe out in icecrown doing daileys.. after all, even noobs need repair money.

Peace, Love & Pancakes
-Liberty