Why I'll never be a real raider

I did another MC raid last night. As this was the night before the MC reset, the purpose was just to practice killing trash mobs, and to farm for stuff like lava cores. While there were a couple of warriors in the raid, the usual main tanks weren't there, and the warriors present were specced for damage dealing, with a far too low defence to tank. So this time I participated with my warrior, who has 368 defence and 35 points in protection talents, and played the role of off-tank. That was an interesting change from raiding with my priest. But nevertheless it just convinced me that I'll never be a hardcore raider.

First of all going to MC again on Tuesday, after having been there on Friday and Sunday already, didn't appeal to me. Especially since there were no interesting boss fights, just boring trash mobs. Not that the fights aren't tough, but with the bosses gone, only annihilators, firelords, and giants remained (we didn't get into the last part of MC with the lavapacks). Two hours of repeatedly killing the same three different types of mobs, *yawn*! At least as off-tank I had something to do, I would have died of boredom had I come with my priest. Doing the same dungeon more than twice per week isn't enough variety for me. And with places like Zul'Gurub requiring you to go on several evenings in series if you want to get to the end, raiding just lacks variety. There are different raid dungeons, but they are of different difficulty levels. You can't do MC one day, BWL the next, AQ the third day, and finish with Naxxramas.

The second reason why I'll never be a real raider is that I left the raid at 10 pm, which was a bit short for a raid planned for 7:30 and effectively starting at 8 pm. But sorry, Real Life ® for me has priority, I need to get up at 6 in the morning on the next day, and if I don't set myself iron rules to stop playing at 10 pm, I'm tired at work the next day. No can do. Younger people might have the stamina to play until midnight every day and be fit the next morning, but I'm getting too old for that. That effectively limits my raid times to Friday nights, all Saturday, and Sunday afternoons. Raids never start at 6 pm server time, because of the people coming home later than that, or living one time zone away.

The third reason against me becoming a big raider is that I have the impression that I am less interested in epics than other people. For example with the DKP system we have, which heavily rewards attending all raids, and me not raiding during the week, I'm effectively excluded from ever having "first right of refusal" on any epics. I only get an epic when all the other players of the same class that raid more often than me already have that particular item. And I don't mind at all. I know that I'm behind, but instead of that motivating me to attend every raid and gather more points, I just don't care. Part of that is due to the announced level cap raise in the expansion. Why should I work myself to the bone now for level 60 items when I'm pretty sure that in half a year I can get level 70 items with similar or better stats for considerably less effort? Of course tier 3 items might still be good at level 70, but I'd be surprised if the blue level 70 items from small dungeons weren't at least as good as the Molten Core loot.

So my program for World of Warcraft activities remains mixed, I'm not dedicating all of my time for raiding, or preparing for raids. I still want to do lots of trips to smaller dungeons, especially Dire Maul and Stratholme, I did enough Scholomance recently. I was even toying with the idea of doing a bit of PvP for fun, but maybe I'll wait until Blizzard comes up with a better PvP reward system. I'm certainly not willing to do PvP all day every day without pause, just to reach the PvP rank needed to get a blue item which isn't better than what I find in a dungeon. Just like alcohol, raids are best enjoyed in moderation.