I’m in an awesome raiding guild, at least from my perspective.

I’ve been in this guild for nearly 6 months now, and have been a part of the main raiding team since Official WoTLK raids started up in our guild, which was after the New Year in 2009.

This guild has given me an reliable group to farm easy content with on a weekly basis, while practicing challenging group Achievements content with skilled players, and of course, my Holy Priest has wicked gear for heading into Ulduar when 3.1 releases for the first time as well.

But, the guild runs only benefit my Holy Priest… so what about my Hunter? And the Mage coming up, and the Shammy I’m looking forward to raiding with some day? Well, I’ve had to resort to a lot of PUGs in order to fulfill their gearing and experience goals.

The contrast between PUG Raids and Guild Raids can be quite astounding sometimes, as I’m sure anyone who plays World of Warcraft in a group way can attest.

It’s these contrasting experiences that help me see more clearly what the really great features of “my” raiding guild are, because they’re so clearly lacking in the less-organized guilds and groups.

And of course, I say “my” guild because I’m just a member, and have nothing to do with the formation of this awesome group. I’m just lucky enough to have found them and was able to demonstrate enough knowledge, skill and energy to get an invite and grow within the “family”.

Traits I Appreciate Of My Raiding Guild

This raiding guild I’m in has a lot of good traits, so I figured I’d just ramble on about a few of them. Kind of like a Rampage of Appreciation about my guild:

I love that people in my guild are skilled players.

I love that the officer team leads in an effective way.

I love that I can rely on invites going out at a specific time, and I can also rely on a full raid group being present right at the time of invites.

I think it’s particularly great that there are always people on “raid overflow”, even when I’m one of the ones who doesn’t get into tonight’s raid because of it. Just having the extra people to quickly swap in to the raid makes the raiding experience better in many ways.

I love that very few people in our 25 man raid each evening require summons to join the event, and that people actually park their toons outside raid instances beforehand.

I’m glad that there are very few people I’d label a “Negative Nancy” in the guild. Whining and complaining is kept to a minimum with most people.

When we’re in battle, Vent is largely clear of chatter entirely, because everyone knows what they’re doing and nobody feels the need to prattle on endlessly just to hear their own voices.

Buffing and re-buffing is done quickly – recovering from wipes is insanely quick, and moving on from one pack to the next in clearing trash before and after boss fights is equally quick. I barely have time to run to grab a Dr. Pepper from the fridge in the next room!

And all of this combined on Wednesday night to turn into a Naxx25 run that took 3 hours from start to finish!

Having access to these types of runs sure makes the rest of my play time more relaxing, because I feel like I’m “getting somewhere” with the great group, and can thus just “enjoy” the game the rest of the time.

I’m sure I’ll write more about the guild aspect soon, but I’d love to hear about the things you adore the most about your own guild, too!