Mental Health & WOW

[Kongou-mirage-raceway]

We are approaching 6 months of Classic now and it sure didn’t take long for Guilds to have Ragnaros and Onyxia on farm did it?
Here I am, casually playing and I’ve only just hit 50 (today at date of typing). Originally I wanted to be one of those raiders taking down Ragnaros again but I fear I made the error of being influenced by watching Madseason’s previews on Youtube when I spent a while trying to come up with a Retribution talent tree spec that could make a Paladin potentially viable at raiding.

Needless to say those ideas I had got quickly smashed when you see in guild requirements that only Holy Paladins are requested. Sure, I could have respecced to Holy…again (I spent Vanilla and TBC raiding as a healer and I hated every second of it).

I find myself today in Tanaris, needing to do Zul’Farrak and there are groups asking for tanks, healers and dps, yet I find myself unable to answer the call for dps or as a healer (yes, I have some extra gear for healing, despite my hatred of it. Ironic isn’t it?). Why though? Why can’t I whisper to someone asking that I can join as dps or healer if needed?
When I look at the textbox on someone “LFM” I get filled with anxiety and my heart rate increases. I think “If they ask again, then I’ll ask to join”, but I never do. I keep putting it off until eventually the requests stop.

I have mental health issues, I’ve had them since before Vanilla came out but back in Vanilla, I had a guild so finding a group for dungeons wasn’t an issue. In Classic, I don’t and I cannot bring myself to attempt to start a group over the stigma that Retri Pallys can’t do dps and I’ll get rejected for not being a healer or, as it turns out, a tank. Well, if anything, people are far more willing to accept Paladins as tanks at dungeon level (despite our difficulty in generating aggro).

I find myself wondering what I should do now regarding my Paladin and cursing myself for not opting to play as a Mage.

Instead of spending most of my free time playing WOW, I have ended up playing Azur Lane instead and going into WOW every now and then (since I’m now coming to the end of 2 weeks off of work I’ve put a fair bit of time into WOW recently).

I feel like I need someone to say to me “Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter about your spec, what matters is your knowledge of Vanilla raiding and working with the rest of the Guild”, only I don’t have a guild. I need someone to tell me everything is fine and Guilds will be only to happy to have an experienced raider like me within their ranks.

Only, I don’t see that. At all. I’m stuck in that moment where your finger is over the key but I am unable to press it to make that move forwards.

As I come to the end of this, I think about just deleting all of this and not posting. After all, what am I trying to accomplish here? The more ignorant person will claim a rant about Ret Pallys not being able to raid. The compassionate trying to encourage seeking help from a professional.
Really, I don’t know. Maybe I’m not trying to accomplish anything more than needing to type (read: say) something.

[Nahdia-mirage-raceway]

I can understand your frustration, Ret Pala has most deffinitely been given the short stick it would seem, and due to this people are less inclined to have a Ret in a raid group. However I believe things will improve for Ret from BWL onwards with the Judgements set being more easily obtainable (with the x5 set bonus at least). Personally I’d try a build which was half Judgments set half Strength BiS items, tho ofcourse you need to be able to get into a raid to begin with…

Also speccing as a Ret with Reckoning (reckbomb spec) may help your cause, tho it only comes into its own if you are offtanking as a Ret-Prot build (wepswitch macros perhaps?)

Anyways, im no classic expert, i caught the tail end of tbc when things were quite different, I guess what you need is a guild that will help you build up into a Ret that is more plausable for damage output in the future. As mentioned above, it also may be worth you offtanking in some form untill you are able to unleash a Rets true capabilities after some gear farming.

Hopefully this response is at least food for thought and good luck carrying the Ret Banner. May you find a build that makes people think twice before ignoring a Rets true capabilities.

Peace.

[Konkrete-mirage-raceway]

Retribution Paladin is a viable raid spec, most hardcore raiding guilds will take 3 of them and give them a ‘Nightfall’ weapon.

Nightfall, you may or may not know, is a crafted weapon from Blacksmith which has a chance on hit that it applies a debuff on the target (a boss for instance) that makes the target gain +15% magical dmg.

You’ll need about 3 Nightfall users to maintain the stacks.

The reason why most guilds chose Retribution Paladin for this, is since the Axe is quite bad for Warriors/Rogues, who’s DPS output is usually a ton higher with other weapons.

Basically they sacrifice, the lower DPS values from a Retribution Paladin, to give the entire raid a huge DMG increase boost.

–

In terms of tanking I can tell you this:

Dungeons are easy to tank and hold aggro with. You don’t have to drink after every pull like some would say, and it’s perhaps the fastest way of tanking a 5M-Dungeon.

Raids are easy to tank aswell, we are talking about Onyxia, Molten Core, Blackwing Lair.

I have no experience, nor do I know off Paladins tanking AQ20/AQ40 or Naxxramas, but they are perfectly okay. They are not the best, they are not even suboptimal, but they are okay.

On our server a Paladin Tank is organising MC & Onyxia pug raids every week. Things gets killed and people are happy.

So héy, why not?

[Alunaria-moonglade]

Greetings Kongou

I rarely, if at all, check the other realm´s forum section, but found my way over to Mirage Raceway today and had to leave a response to you.

I am sorry to hear of your struggles with health issues, and how you feel that they, and your choice of Class and spec, might stand in the way for you to enjoy WoW Classic and everything it has to offer.

Grouping with genuine friends and having a good time together is, at least for me, something I really cherish (and essentially what keeps me playing the game, even!)

I am afraid, I do not have much ‘solid advice’ to offer you. It is my impression, that many raiding Guilds in Classic, for some reason, are very focused on the min-max attitude. But it is my hope, that you will be able to find a guild, you can settle down within, while also enjoying the spec you like to play.

I grouped with Healing Paladins, DPS Paladins and Tanking Paladins. They all shine in their own unique way.

But when reading your post, I get the sense, that you might need a gentle ‘nudge’ to breach the barrier to join a Dungeon group in the first place?

I would not ‘encourage you to seek help from a professional’. But something tells me, that with a group of nice people your entire experience with Classic WoW will be enhanced.

I wish you all the best in finding the online home, where this will be a reality.

[Jemaris-mirage-raceway]

Hi Kongou. Maybe have a chat with one of our guild officers at ‘Inception’ on Mirage Raceway? Check out our recruitment post in the classic guild recruitment thread. Inception Recruitment