I'm finding myself wondering whether it's ethical to raid old-world instances in World of Warcraft. Sounds dumb, but what if I go in there looking for something different from everyone else?

One stumbling block in an epic level 60 quest chain is a hard-to-get material called elementium. I've been stymied on it so far because it can only be found in one raid instance, and the one time I've been there since starting this, I wasn't the only person who needed the stuff. Well, I was reading some comments about it on Wowhead just now, and someone claimed that if you kill the early bosses and the technicians that drop the elementium but nothing after them, they will eventually respawn and you can kill them again and have another chance at elementium.

I'm not sure that's true, but even if it is, most people who want to do old raids want to clear the place. They want the Achievement from killing the last boss, or certain epic weapons or armor as status symbols, and those mostly come from the final bosses too. So when I read that suggestion, I immediately began wondering "how can I get people to quit after the third boss? Hmmm, the fourth boss is tough, maybe if I just don't chip in strategy advice and let a raid get wiped out they'd give up and I'd have the place to myself..."

Which, obviously, would be an assholish thing to do. And I'll at least try doing it the right way a few more times before trying anything weird; maybe I'll be the only person who needs elementium next time. It's just annoying. The same thing comes up in other instances, where the group is trying to clear the place but I just need reputation, which I get from any minibosses and trash mobs just as well as the Big Bad. How much aggravation like repair costs and downtime running around should I put up with if I already have what I was looking for (or part of it) but others don't?