The essential parts of any raid

I’ve been casually raiding on a regular basis for less than a year, and my 25 man experience consists entirely of 3 HKM and Gruul kills, plus some Hydross the Unstable and Lurker Below wipes. That said, I’ve learned that there are certain types of players who are essential to any successful raid. Some of these categories may cover more than one person in the raid, and that’s just fine. Next time you’re putting together a raid roster, use this as a handy checklist to make sure all these roles are covered.

The Totally Unprepared Guy

You were supposed to start pulling a minute ago and this person is still in Ironforge asking for a summon. Which you already did, twice. Everyone else either took their summon or hiked it there and was ready a good 10-15 minutes ago. Finally, they takes the summon. Oh wait, they forgot reagents/health and mana pots/consumables/food/water/ammo/to repair. Can they borrow some of yours? They’ll send them back to you…eventually.

Mr. I’m Not Doing Anything Wrong (Except He Totally Is)

You just wiped. Whether it’s on something you’ve had on farm forever or it’s your first attempt at something, the first one to pipe up is probably the guy bringing the least to the table. Either they were slacking on the dps, or they pulled aggro too early and died and it certainly wasn’t their fault. No, not at all.

Taking This Waaaaaaaay To Seriously Guy

You just wiped, and this typically otherwise mild-mannered and friendly player immediately launches into a verbal tirade against the rest of the raid for not playing their roles properly. Tends to freak people out. A lot.

In Over His Head Guy

Applies to casual raid guilds as opposed to the more hardcore ones. They’re a nice person to have in the guild and they’re clearly having fun with WoW, but you really needed to fill out your raid roster so you brought them along, only to find out that your healers and/or tanks are out damaging them and you have nine or 24 other people basically carrying this person through the content. You’d feel bad telling this person how much they suck, so you kind of just leave them be and let them do their thing. At the end of the raid, successful or failed, this person will usually tell you that they had the time of their lives in there and are looking forward to doing it again.

The PVPer

This person joined the raid straight out of a 3 hour battleground session. Typically also demands to be buffed right away, causing non-flagged members to get flagged and thus making future buffing, healing etc. Extremely annoying. More often than not, they are manually flagged and forget to turn it off, meaning someone stays flagged for longer than the five minute duration. This usually leads to someone stepping outside the instance for various reasons and getting hardcore ganked by the opposing faction.

The Loot Linker

Before every boss, this player will use their AtlasLoot addon to link the gear they hope to get from the boss. Counting your loot before it drops virtually ensures it will never freaking drop ever, people. Come on! When said linked loot does not drop, this player will immediately link the items they want from the next boss.

The AFKer

Self-explanatory. Usually solved by a well-placed Misdirection.

The Altaholic

The person with multiple 70’s who wants to gear them all up in the same Karazhan raid. They’d like to bring their hunter to Attumen, their warrior to Moroes, their priest to Maiden, etc. Wouldn’t be so bad if they parked all of these alts outside the instance, but no, they’re all in Shattrath City, and require (nay, demand) summons each time they switch out characters.

Filling each of the above roles will ensure a productive and entertaining raid, whether it’s your first run in Karazhan or you’ve got Illidan on farm. Happy raiding!

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