You know, before this day and age of raiding, where we now have three modes of difficulty to choose from, with inflating item levels every so often, we raided four hours a night for 3-4 nights a week. It really wasn't bad, considering the fact that raid dungeons weren't designed to be breezed through in a day back then. Karazhan could have been done in two hours with a decently geared Tier 5 raid chain pulling and whatnot.
I've done it once.
Anyway, raiding meant more than just "killing so and so for the phat lewts" back in the day, it was the THRILL of the kill! Man, nothing felt better than getting past that tense moment when a boss had 20% or less health and your healers were nearly out of mana while your tanks used every cooldown available to them (Shield Wall was a 30-60 minute cooldown depending on talent spec). DPS used their finishers (Yes, I was the one spamming Hammer of Wrath every six seconds).
Your heart pounds. The boss' health meter slowly depletes. Until it hits 1%.
When everything feels like it just slowed down. It's a horrible feeling. At that point the raid either succeeds or wipes hard, and then it's back to square one. You definitely don't get that sense of accomplishment anymore, unless you're one of those perfectionists that likes to do something over but at a higher difficulty.
Yes, I'm talking about you, HEROIC modes. I don't like them much, because most guilds won't attempt them after doing a full clear of a "Normal" difficulty instance. Some might, but they've become so accustomed to the simplicity of an easier encounter and don't have much of an idea on what to do when the odds really stack up against them. When I raided Ulduar with my 25-man guild it was a solid two months of progression. We had a solid raid leader and a "decent" team, we managed to kill Yogg-Saron by mid-August but our raid leader bailed on the guild shortly thereafter, because of numerous complaints from guild members.
So much for hoping to start hard modes.
And now for some perspective on the roles in a normal raid- I've done all but heal in a 25-man setting, but my role was always a damage dealer. As a tank, however, you are tasked with keeping the boss off of anyone else but you and the off-tanks. This means positioning a boss a certain way, or rounding up additional enemies that may randomly join in on the fight. Bosses that cleaved, you faced them away from melee damage dealers and tanked them against a wall, dragon bosses always had to be tanked a certain way so that their tails didn't bother the melee and that the melee didn't get hit by their flame breaths or cleaves. Off-tanks had the duty of picking up those pesky adds, sometimes they'd hit nearly as hard as the boss themselves or sometimes even more.
Healers were tasked with keeping the raid alive obviously. Back in Burning Crusade the classes were used their advantages. Paladins were great single target healers, Priests were excellent group healers; single target healers with a Discipline/Holy hybrid build or just straight Discipline, Shamans were exceptional group healers while Druids made excellent single target inactive healers, meaning, they healed with spells that would heal over time and weren't cast repeatedly, so they benefit a bit better from the five-second rule that once existed for mana regeneration: Prior to Wrath of the Lich King mana users were restricted in their mana regeneration for five seconds after casting any spell. After five seconds their mana regeneration would go to their normal rates. However, there were spells and talents that allowed a percentage of out-of-combat regen in combat. Sometimes equipment pieces would have it as a flat-out stat (i.e; Restores X mana per 5 sec.) For shamans, that would prove to be a VERY important stat to find on gear as they progressed deeper into Burning Crusade.
Damage dealers. A dime a dozen, as they say. They made up the bulk of a raid, usually about 13-15 out of 25, or half a 10-man raid. Their job was to kill stuff, usually without dying. More higher-end guilds would actually dedicate one of the damage dealers as a "Main Assist" who which the rest of the damage dealers would follow on cue. This allowed for organized kills on targets, especially in groups where the monsters have pretty high health... Which was what most of the raid environment was. In a boss fight, the damage dealers were responsible for not hitting enrage timers on bosses or killing a boss fast enough so that the soft enrage mechanic does not wipe the raid. They are there to finish off the boss before the healers run out of mana to keep the tanks alive and are supposed to do whatever they can to remain alive. As the saying goes, "A dead DPS is no DPS." And that's a very bad thing.
Speaking of very bad things, Crushing Blows were one of them. They were random damage spikes tanks had to contend with when Crushing Blows could be delivered by a monster that is roughly three levels higher than the player. This was usually boss-level monsters or simply any creature in a raid that was level 63 or 73. This mechanic was changed by the time the second expansion came about. Crushing Blows were hits that were basically half-criticals- or 150% of normal damage. Tanks had to gear in a way so that they could minimize the amount of time they remained vulnerable, by attaining a total combined defensive percentage of 102.6% roughly. This meant your dodge/parry/block combined with the standard miss percentage of 5% had to add up to 102%.
For warriors, this was nothing, as Shield Block provided a whopping 75% block chance for five seconds but only lasted 1-2 blocks depending on the talents. That explains how warriors were the "main" tanks back in original World of Warcraft. Paladins, while they could have been tanks, had a higher bar to clear as their Holy Shield only provided 30% block for 10 seconds and only lasted 8 blocks. In addition, any blocked hits would recoil to the attacker as Holy damage, which was pretty nifty and also the primary method of Paladin threat gain back then, as Paladin were better reactive tanks with a niche in multi-target tanking.
If only things were like that again, huh?
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