Raid preparation

Yesterday I finally got the Fall of Naxxramas achievement on Heroic since I was finally present for a Sapphiron kill. Still, it took us many tries even though the guild had completely cleared Naxxramas on Heroic before (where I just was not present).

Yesterday was problematic because several raid members did not have the required raid addons installed, which in case of our guild are Omen, BigWigs or DeadlyBossMods, and oRa2 and therefore wiped us on Sapphiron due to standing too close to other raiders (who tried to wiggle free and called names out on TS, to no avail). Yes, I highlighted that word up there for a purpose. I also distinctly remember several raids back in T6 content where the raid leader checked for installed addons and there was much swearing and yelling on TeamSpeak. Yesterday though some of those raiders that did not have the addons installed did not even know what they were for ("no, I do not use BigWigs, I use Omen" - "Omen is a threat meter, not a raid warnings addon..." - "Oh...").

For me it is rather difficult to understand how you want to progress in 25 men raid content without these addons. Of course it is possible, especially proximity might be something you can learn to just visually identify, but additionally I see this as a lack of respect. Even if we are labelling ourselves as casual raiders a little consideration and respect for your fellow raiders is not too much to ask for. Casual means, at least in my eyes, that we do have cigarette breaks every so often, that we don't always raid with the same 25 raiders, that we do boss explanations for new people instead of just pointing to tactic guides. It does not mean that everybody can just come in quest greens, without any consumables, and hope that it will just work out somehow, especially now that in WotLK everything has gotten cheaper (Flasks go for roughly the same amoiunt of gold on the AH on our server than they did during BC, but you can make much more gold per hour), and heroic gear is rather easy to obtain as well. Reading the "Required addons for raiding" thread on our forums isn't to hard as well in my opinion.

I know that other casuals see it the same way, after reading some blogs over the past months. I just don't get why there are still people out there who (in this special case at least) are really not new to the game or the guild and just don't think about this. I mean, if you missed the thread on the forum, you should have stated that you didn't find any info, is there anything required? Anything to at least show you were thinking about the raid as something where you can work together in a team toward a common goal and have fun and not just be there while others pull you through... because yes, I am here to have fun, and wiping because you couldn't be arsed to install a mandatory addon is not fun for me.

Rant over...