Legacy Raids and why we do them

Legacy Raid refers to the old level 60, 40-man raids that were the rage before Burning Crusade hit the shelves. Things like Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Onyxia, AQ20/40 and Naxx. You may or may not be surprised to learn that those raids are still quite challenging, even if you bring in your level 70 buddies.

The reason is that raiding at any level requires coordination, leadership, listening and no small amount of individual player knowledge regarding their class and abilities and how to use them in conjunction with others.

Let’s take Molten Core for example. It’s a relatively easy raid, can be run comfortably in a couple of hours now- pre-BC raid guilds were doing this in 5-8 hours after weeks of working at it. But I’ve seen uncoordinated groups of level 70s wipe REPEATEDLY on these due to inattention and lack of skill.

I never raided pre-BC. I was on the game for about a year before the expansion hit but I was in a guild that wasn’t into raiding and consequently, I didn’t’. But when Kara came out and I capped my second toon, I felt the need to find something new. So while stealthing the LFG channel one Sat night I ran across a group of pre-BCers who were going to run Molten Core. I grabbed my 70 and headed for Searing Gorge. The rest is history. It was so much fun I specifically leveled a paladin to 55 so I could join that raid and get my Tier 1 set, aka my Bananadin set.

But why do it? I mean Tier 1 gear may be nice for a 55 but for a 70? Why bother? Well, I guess it goes back to a combination of things. Nostalgia is def part of it, RP, and training new raiders is always a good thing – remember there are lots of folks out there who don’t know how to. Also, you find good people from small guilds who want to learn and can be an asset to the ‘real raids’ later on. So it’s sort of a recruitment tool as well.

But I just figured something else out too. Some of the best content written for this game has roots deep within those legacy raids. Ultra-long quest chains that can only be accomplished through the nitpicky world of repeat raids in places like BWL or AQ40. Boring? Perhaps to some, but the essence of getting the full value of the money you spent on this game is getting into the details of what came before Karazhan and ZA – it not only helps you flesh out the lore, it gives you some unique content that most people don’t get to do, and frankly, most will never see.

These quest chains can take months to complete but the end result is fun – world events involving massive raids – up to 100 players defending a village from invasion, while downing a massive dragon and fighting alongside legendary NPCs. Don’t think that happens? We did that last weekend on Feathermoon.

I main tanked a giant shark - 100ft long in the waters off Azshara. I got to take on a wicked Satyr in Duskwood of all places. And if you think it was easy, well, to a degree it was, but if anyone died the Twilight Corrupter gained LEVELS, not hp or powers but LEVELS. I’ve read that bad attempts resulted in a level 90 bad guy – yeah – 90.

There are others too – rewards for these can be Legendary items – you know, the Orange ones. Who cares if it’s for a level 60 player – it still looks cool as hell and will turn heads no matter where you go. Even the top raid guilds won’t have many people who have those items.

So now you have bragging rights. And if you find a group running those instances you can usually bring your level 60. Getting epics for a level 60 is pretty cool. Sure the outlands gear is better suited to leveling – in most cases, but don’t sell the tier items short. If you can ever get into Naxx before they pull it the tier 3 items can be used all the way to Kara, yeah they’re that good.

So next time you’re wandering around Feathermoon on a Saturday night, right about 6:30 or so, pop into the LFG channel and see if we’re hiring for the night. Anyone can come - based on the raid we’re doing. MC is 55+, BWL and AQ tends to 60+. If there is an attunement requirement we often run that for folks that need it before the raid starts.

Look for Agro, Firac, Teur, Chirax or Thorney. I won’t give out the raid leader’s name ‘cause he’s a high-end raider who spends a lot of time in Hyjal and BT – I’m sure he’d appreciate the enthusiasm but would rather I or one of my counterparts dealt with the details.