Raiding in Classic Era

When I first started raiding in Classic, I quickly realised that I really liked the 40-man raid format, and unsurprisingly, it did not feel good when we downsized to 25-man for Burning Crusade. With that in mind, it's been enjoyable to get back into the bigger raiding format in era.

There basically seem to be two different approaches to raiding in Classic: the min-maxers who pump themselves up with every possible consumable and constantly try to improve their parses and clear times, and the "dad guilds". As far as the latter go, the name isn't really about having children or being male, but more about evoking the general vibes of middle-aged people who are mostly there just to hang out, tell bad jokes and might have to go AFK due to some real life disturbance at any point (which is obviously massively at odds with things like speed). Order of the Holy Fork was definitely the latter type of guild, and as far as I can tell it's the more prevalent mode of raiding on era in general. I've seen some signs that speed runners seem to exist somewhere, but I haven't seen any evidence of them on the EU PvE cluster at least.

With the generally purveying chill attitude and the small population, combined with the large number requirements to fill a raid, it's been very easy to get raid spots. (Conveniently, Warriors of Sunlight also seem to mostly raid on days when I don't have any clashes with my SWTOR ops team.) Here's my experience with each raid so far:

AQ20

This is the one raid for which I've not seen a sign-up in guild yet. The other day someone asked about it and was told that they "don't want to open up that can of worms". Basically it's not a very popular destination and I guess I'm not surprised because I saw the same in OG Classic. With a couple of exceptions the loot is pretty crap, and it doesn't have the same sort of long-term appeal that ZG does with its head and leg enchants and rare mounts. I guess the class books are something that should allow it to retain some relevance in theory, but based on how quickly I was provided with the hunter books from the guild bank, there doesn't seem to be enough of an influx of new players at max level to create huge demand for these.

ZG

I've been to ZG twice and both times were very fun. I didn't get showered with loot in quite the same way as I did during my first ZG in OG Classic, but I did win several drops including the Heart of Hakkar (again). I was kind of impressed that we did the Edge of Madness and the fish boss both times, with no shortage of materials to summon them. (Wushoolay blessed me with a very cool-looking bow.) Guildies also helped me with taming a Son of Hakkar to learn the highest rank of lightning breath for my wind serpent.

More than anything else though, ZG just seems to be the perfect place for people to clown around and do silly things, which was very much my experience in Classic as well. During my first run we actually wiped two or three times on the way to Jin'do due to trash cock-ups and I just thought it was funny because I'd seen the exact same kind of thing happen so many times before (there's clearly just something about those voodoo trolls). At one point an enhancement shaman standing next to me got mind-controlled and insta-deleted me with a giant windfury proc, which I think led to what must have been my first comment on voice chat as I couldn't help giggling: "That was amazing!" And during the second ZG, we somehow ended up with nine druids in the group. It made me smile when we were up to the first boss and instead of pulling, people got distracted by all the druids going into bear form and dancing together. These are my kind of priorities.

Molten Core

I've been in two partial Molten Core runs, because it seems to be that place where the guild primarily only goes for Thunderfury bindings, or if there's some kind of issue on the night that prevents the raid from doing something harder. I did get my Tome of Tranquilizing Shot at least, remembering with some bemusement how much stress that had caused me in OG Classic. I also won two pieces of tier one, which is pretty decent for hunters. More importantly though, Garr actually dropped his Thunderfury binding during one of those runs, which made a certain warrior very happy (he still needs the Geddon binding though).

Onyxia

Haven't been yet as I'm not attuned and while I'm working on it, the Horde Ony attunement is even longer than the Alliance one. I'm also under the impression that the guild doesn't go very often... I've been in a couple of raids where someone suggested also doing "a quick Ony" and it was always shot down.

Blackwing Lair

I've only been to BWL once so far, since it took me a bit to sort out my attunement, and once again I scored some phat loot in the form of two pieces of tier two, which is best in slot for hunters until Naxx. It's really easy to come in as a newcomer and get lots of loot because many of the regulars have been doing this for so long that they don't need that much anymore. It actually makes me feel a bit bad and I usually hold off with rolling/bidding to see whether anyone else wants the loot, but if it's just going to get sharded otherwise anyway... actually, in BWL we had a couple of ranged weapons drop that are not at all great for hunters as far as I'm aware, and one member of the raid whispered me repeatedly and seemed to get almost annoyed with me for not bidding on them. As if I wasn't already hoovering up half the drops anyway... felt very strange. On a different note, I learned that the black dragon eyes needed for the Horde Ony attunment and which you're supposed to get in UBRS also drop in BWL, which is neat.

AQ40

I've been to AQ40 three times now but only killed C'thun once. It's tough because AQ40 is where the difficulty starts to ramp up somewhat, to the point where having to underman the raid due to lack of sign-ups really hurts. I also remember this not being many people's favourite raid in OG Classic just because of how much of a slog the trash was and because most of the loot is only really useful for a select number of classes and specs. I didn't expect much of this one as a hunter, mostly just tagging along for fun and rep, and was shocked that I ended up with both the Silithid Claw and the Barb of the Sand Reaver in my last run, two really good melee weapons for hunters that we rarely saw during OG Classic and that were always in high demand.

Naxxramas

The guild runs Naxx once a week on Sundays, and my understanding is that they have six bosses on farm (Spider Wing, Noth, Heigan and Razuvious) but have been lacking the time to really progress any further. My hunter's not currently attuned to Naxx, but it is a lower-tier goal of mine to get that done eventually. I did push her Argent Dawn rep from friendly to honoured already, but I'd like to be at least revered and have better gear before I even consider going there.

However, even then I'm honestly not sure about it. The guild's current Sunday slot clashes with SWTOR for me, but that aside, while I'll always remember clearing Naxx in Classic with a lot of fondness, it was definitely another step up in difficulty from AQ40, meaning it's harder to just hang out and have fun in there because you absolutely do need to do some prep in terms of consumables and have to really focus during all the boss fights. We'll see I guess.