It happens to every raider: Your friends want to spend a night on the town and enjoy your company, but it’s raid night and you haven’t told them you’re a Tier 6 bad ass in a virtual world and you’ve got an appointment with 24 strangers to kill some dragon or another. Eventually there is a time when you have to tell your friends that you can’t hang out because you’re a Raider. It’s happened to me a few times, and it’s never any easier to deal with.

Getting my friends to understand that I raid has been a very difficult process. Some of them are former players, and are therefore understanding with my position as a raiding rogue. Others, however, treat my forays into Azeroth as treason, saying that I am putting the game before them. Communication and compromise have helped me deal with my friends who are a little less-than-pleased when I have to leave abruptly to go and raid.

If you’re in the dating scene, it gets even harder. The first date goes wonderfully, and she can’t get enough of you. You start to see each other regularly, but for some reason you can’t talk on the phone after 8:30 on Tuesday or Thursdays and you all but disappear on Sunday afternoon. Some thing’s up, and if you want to avoid any suspicion, it’s best you confess sooner rather than later. Personally, I’ve had a variety of different reactions, and they range from piqued interest to absolute disdain for the game and anyone who plays it. It’s all dependant on the person and how you deal with it. If you’re really lucky, she might even join you in the world of Azeroth!

I’ve even been kidnapped from a raid one night! My friends absolutely refused to allow me to leave them to raid, and being an hour from home, I had no option but to miss out. Although, to be honest, missing 10 hours of Molten Core (and subsequently wiping at least a dozen times on the same trash) was refreshing, to say the least.

I’m curious as to how other deal with their loved ones when it comes to raid time.

Everyone makes mistakes in raids, like forgetting to kicking a certain spell or running the wrong direction on Mother. Such mistakes are forgivable in early raid instances as they have limited consequences, but in later raids like Black Temple and Sunwell, these mistakes can prove very fatal to you and your raid.

The trick is to accept that you’ve messed up and move on. You may upset a few raiders or even your raid leader, but as long as you didn’t “accidentally” ninja all 3 tokens and a random epic off of Archimonde, most mistakes are forgivable.

Step 1: Making the mistake.

This is by far the easiest part. All it takes is a slight lapse in judgement or a forgotten step on a very intricate fight, and all of the sudden your healers are screaming for help, your DPS is crying bloody murder and your tanks are silent. With Anger.

Examples of mistakes include (but are in no way limited to):

1. Switching from bear form to cat form to try and kite Azgalor back to the tanks (Which failed miserably, meaning another 30 minute clear of trash).

2. Getting stuck on a bench just before pulling the Illidari Council (Here’s looking at you, Mallet.)

3. Whirlwinding a pack of sheep.

4. And lastly: Forgetting that your bar mod doesn’t switch when you become a ghost during the Gorefiend fight, and not having the appropriate macros set up. (This was an expensive mistake, to say the least.)

Step 2: Accepting failure.

You messed up, and a few guys are not pleased. There’s no point in arguing or blaming lag (although it is quite convenient), just make a note of what you did wrong and resolve to not do it again. There will be more raids and more mistakes, just make sure they happen few and far between.

This isn’t to say you should just take being yelled at. If there was absolutely nothing you could do to avoid the circumstances that caused you to folley, then by all means, plead your case. Just make sure your unavoidable consequence isn’t “The big bad lag monster” or “Wife Aggro”.

Like I said before, everybody makes mistakes. Just make sure you don’t make one very often or you may end up looking for a new raid group.

Step 3: Don’t look back.

 Nobody likes it when they wipe because of someone else’s mistake. People get upset and take it out on the person at fault. Should this person be you, don’t let it get to you. You know what you did wrong and you know what you’re going to do differently. There’s no reason to beat yourself up afterwards for not doing X or Y a certain way.

Hell, in a week or two you’ll be able to joke about it with your guldies between pulls.

Tonight we’re raiding Black Temple and I figured I’d try a posting style that my friend (and healer) Mallet introduced me to: Live Blogging!

I’ll be updating this page during downtime in the raid.

Tonight we’ll be throwing ourselves at the dread guild-stopper: Gurtogg Bloodboil! Expect a lot of frustration and…

Never mind, looks like we’re clearing Mount Hyjal tonight.

9:04: Invites have been out for 34 minutes, we’re still missing 5 or so raiders.

9:06: Executive decision passed down to ditch BT and head for Hyjal.

9:24: First Pull…

9: 42: Winterchill down. You have no idea how handy those PvP Trinkets are in this fight.. Pop it during Ice Bolt, Ice Block and Win. He Dropped a [Tracker's Blade] and [Bracers of Martyrdom].

9:49: Second Round commencing!

10:10: Anatheron Down! Dropped [Don Alejandro's Money Belt], [Hatefury Mantle], and an Epic Gem Recipe.

Rogue Tip: It was mentioned prior to the fight that Vanishing or Feigning Death may interrupt or cancel the casting of ‘Inferno’ on yourself. After testing this myself, I can say that Vanishing WILL interrupt the first cast of inferno, but Anatheron WILL RECAST Inferno on you when he sees you again. This can be useful for buying yourself some time, I guess but ti would be best to save it for a more important occasion.

10:23: Lots of waiting around for.. who knows what.

10:30: 3rd Wave Has Commenced.

10:55: [Belt of Seething Fury], [Valestalker Girdle] dropped by Kaz’Rogal! Note: Resisted or Missed ‘Distracts’ are a horrible thing when using them on a 25 Man Boss.

11:00: Got subbed out for Bruce. Missed the Azgalor fight (Bawww..) and the trash (YES!).

11:40: Stepped back in and did 1 attempt on Archimonde, wiped and the raid was called.

Not really an eventful night. But I did hit Exalted tonight so I should probably go get my Ring from Scale of the Sands.. Good stuff! Come back soon, I should have another post coming within the next few days!