by Savanja on Feb 11, 2008
At one time or another, most of us will raid. You might be the sort of player that only likes to get together for an epic when a quest needs completing, or you might be thinking you'd like to get in on a pick-up raid every now and again. Regardless of your situation, getting in on a raid can be a little bit daunting. With 12-24 people counting on everyone else in the raid to do their job, knowing the basics is essential!
So where do we start? Why at the beginning of course!
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Form Up.
When raiding with an appointed time and place, it's important to be on time, equipped properly, and mended. It's a good idea to stop back at your home base ahead of time to get the potions and repair kits that you might need, and make sure you have everything in order. If you are given a form up time, be there at that time. If you are only given a raid start time, arrive at the meet up location at least 20 minutes before the raid is scheduled to begin so that the raid leader has time to get things organized.
Once the raid leader has everyone together and in their designated groups (there may be a lot of switching around in and out of groups for a bit), then remember to buff up! If you aren't sure which buffs you should be using on a raid, check out your spell and combat art lists for details on your abilities.
During this time, if you are running a computer that is less than stellar and you tend to lag in busy zones, then turn down your graphics!! If you don't, lag will be a mess and your raid will be a slide show making you less effective in your job. Along those lines, get rid of unneeded fluff spell pets and hide your Deity pets with /pet hide. They take time to render with everything else and contribute to the lag.
During form up the raid leader will surely be giving instructions so listen carefully and remember what you need to. The raid leader will let you know who the main tank is and likely will tell you who the off tank or main assist is. When using a main assist tank, it's smart to make a macro to assist that player. To do this, follow your EQ2 menu to "socials" and choose the "macro" tab. From there, you click to edit your macro, choose an icon, then add command "/assist mainassistnamehere". Drag that icon onto your hotbar. When it's time to fight, assist through that key and you won't have to worry about where you need to be targeting.
Show Time!
Everyone has a job in a raid. If you aren't tanking or healing, you are doing the damage or offering utilities of your class. For scouts and mages this is second nature as they are always in the role of bringing the pain! For fighters that aren't tanking and priests, this sometimes leaves them feeling a little out of place. For fighters, you should have gear and CAs arranged to be able to be in the position of a DPS player and that very handy offensive stance! For priests, there has been a little debate whether they should be strictly heals or throw in some DPS as well. In the case of raids stick with just the healing and let the other players worry about damage.
If a raid is well organized, it should really flow smoothly. Your main tank (MT) will attack and position the mob(s), the main assist (MA) will let the raid know when they can attack, and you will do the job given to you! There will likely be some set up before named mobs in which you need to pay attention to directions and follow them. If you have any questions regarding what is required of you at anytime, speak up! It's much better that the raid leader takes a little extra time explaining than have one mistake cause the demise of an entire raid later.
Sometimes, despite everyone's best efforts, things will go badly and the raid will wipe. If the raid leaders sees it coming, they'll call for a wipe and those who have feign death should use it to help get the healers back up once the dust has settled. If no one survives, someone will either run back to rez the party or everyone will simply revive. Once you're back up, rebuff and get ready to fight again as quickly as possible. Try again and do your best! Nothing feels better than taking down a tough mob that has already given you grief.
The Loot.
Let's face it, the main reason a lot of us attend raids is to get in on the phat lootz that we hope to get our hands on. But there are loot rules and they can vary raid to raid.
A lot of guilds adhere to the Dragon Kill Points system. A certain amount of DKP is earned per raid you attend and you use those points to purchase items that drop in a raid. How much and when it is used is dependant upon your guild, so ask for details before attending a raid so that there is no confusion.
The majority of raids will operate with a Need Before Greed system. NBG means that any item that drops will be given preference to whomever actually needs it first. If more than one player can use it, the raid leader will either choose who gets it, or will allow for a random roll to determine the winner. If you need to roll on an item type into your chat box /ran 100 (or whatever number they specify).
Finally, Free For All looting occasionally is used. FFA means that anyone in the raid may roll for the item for a chance to win it either to sell or use.
Loot rules should be established before the raid starts to avoid confusion and arguments. If they have not been specified and you don't know what the rules are, this is something that you should ask.
Above all else, understand that everyone has to start somewhere. In order to learn, you need to ask questions and make mistakes. Try to ask more questions and make less mistakes so that you will be invited back for more raids in the future!
If you have any tips or advice you'd like to offer your fellow raid newbies or questions of your own that have not been addressed, then please let us all know on our forums, or if you'd rather, I'm always available via e-mail. This guide is a work in progress and we hope to add to it to further aid our fellow players!