Riding the Bench
I’ve read quite a few blogs, forum posts and tweets recently from raiders lamenting their semi-permanent “bench” status. In some cases, I sympathize. But most of the time, I want to smack the author upside the head with a 10-pound catfish and ask “What in the name of all that's dark and soulless did you expect?!"
(Sorry. Once a warlock, always a warlock. >.>)
I don't want to call anyone out, so I'm not going to name names. Instead, I'll talk about a few case studies — some from my experience as a guild leader, and others from elsewhere in the nether.
Case Study #1: The Casual Raider in the Not So Casual Guild
The situation:
You are an excellent paladin. Or hunter. Or death knight. You are active in your class community. You dabble in theorycraft, frequent the Elitist Jerks forums and maintain a well-respected WoW blog.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason — conflicting timezones, odd hours at work or the ubiquitous "wife aggro" — your playtime is limited, sporadic, or simply on opposite hours from the rest of your guild. You don't consider yourself a casual player; on the contrary, you invest more time, effort and resources in researching your class, perfecting your performance and min/maxing for success than most of your guildmates. However, because you aren't able to attend all or even a majority of your guild's raids, you are still perceived as "casual" and often the first person dropped from the roster when a raid is over-signed.
Your perspective:
This is, in your opinion, entirely unfair.
You are every bit as good as the guild's other raiders — and, indeed, better than most. Because you can't attend raids predictably, you have made a point of improving your gear outside of them. You have never missed a heroic daily; you often PuG 10-mans for emblems and that odd piece of loot; and you have invested thousands of gold over the course of the expansion on orbs and BoE epics.
Such initiative should be rewarded.
Besides, it isn't your fault that your schedule is incompatible with your guild's. It really wouldn't hurt the guys with 100% attendance to step out once and a while, either. After all, they're disenchanting gear that you could actually use! Personally, you don't understand why your guild leader hasn't set up some kind of rotation to ensure that you see some raid time, too.
Fair's fair.
The guild's perspective:
The guild actually agrees with you: it isn't your fault that you can't attend a majority raids, and Real Life™ should always take precedence over a game.
However, it isn't the guild's fault either. Nor is it the fault of the 10 or 25 other raiders who can commit to a set schedule. Who among them would you like to sit out — at your convenience — so you can experience the occasional raid?
No one begrudges you your time away from the guild, but no one feels particularly obligated to step out for you either. If you were able to commit to raids, then you would have a guaranteed raid spot; because you aren't, the guild has either recruited a core raider to replace you or enlisted several similarly casual players in the hopes that at least one of you will be available on any given raid night.
Either way, someone has to sit out — and it doesn't seem fair to ask the player who attends every raid to ride the bench so someone who shows up only once and a while can take her place.
Possible compromise:
The guild can attempt to set up a rotation. For example, Surreality offers full standby EP to wait-listed raiders, which encourages those players who don't need gear from a particular boss to volunteer to step out for those who do. As long as there's a warlock in the raid, substitutions are relatively simple and can be accomplished during the inevitable downtime between encouters — especially if leadership is on top of the rotation and has standby raiders queued for upcoming bosses.
If the guild is unwilling to comprise:
If compromise isn't possible (or enough to satisfy your needs as a raider), then you can look for guild with a schedule that is more compatible with yours, or one with a more casual-friendly attendance policy.
Your playstyle may not be casual, but your playtime is; plan your search accordingly.
You Have To Have Balls.
When I first started hinting to my friends that I might like to try my hand at tanking, their reactions ranged from supportive to skeptical to downright derisive.
I appreciated the support, of course. I even understood the skepticism.
As for the derision? Totally warranted.
As I may have mentioned a time or two before, my spatial and situational awareness leave a lot to be desired. Like, a lot a lot. Liluye doesn’t even bother to warn me (in her low and oh-so sultry Tauren voice) when we’re out of range or facing the wrong way anymore: she just sighs and summons her fire elemental, who — in spite of his unfortunate predilection for targeting the raid boss two zones over — makes me look like a virtual bloodhound.
Suffice it to say: I’m a disaster in melee range. Not an “oh, was that a tremor? in Southern California” disaster, either. I’m talking a full-blown, off-the-Richter-scale earthquake, followed by a tsunami the likes of which it would take an ark (or alien intervention) to survive.
That’s why I play a warlock. And a resto shaman. And quite possibly a critchicken, if I can come to terms with that ungainly waddle.
I'm comfortable at range. It's where I belong.
... and yet, for some reason — one I can’t begin to explain — I really, really wanted to tank.
I toyed with the idea for weeks: talking myself into it, talking myself out of it, and occasionally pausing to /peer searchingly at my level 79 battleground twink (who had accumulated a lifetime total of 28K honor, because that’s how much I loathe PvP).
(Which begs the question: why twink? Because engineering goggles and a two-handed axe look badass when paired with a full set of Savage Saronite — that’s why! And no one mocks you for being 79 in crafted PvP gear: “Oh, look at that adorable red-headed pixie of a paladin twirling her axe in Dalaran. She’s wearing crafted blues and the best enchants that gold can buy; she must be a fearsome battleground twink. I bet her main’s geared to the nines.”
You have to admit, that sounds a lot better than “lol, scrub.”)
Anyway, the urge to yank Larissyn out of the battleground queues (read: the Dalaran pet shop, where she spent her days hiding from the battlemasters, nurturing her deserter status and petting kittens) and plop her down in Icecrown with a full quest log and some conjured hardtack was pretty strong.
I know I drove poor Ignus (our MT-turned-rogue-turned-tyrannical-loot-master) crazy with my indecision. Whereas my dad would say “Make a decision, October!”, Ignus simply nodded, smiled (as much as a corpse with a half-rotted jawbone can smile, I suppose), and gave me the same, patient advice over and over again:
“No one fucking cares.”
No, that’s not what he said. Although, in hindsight, I’m not sure where he found the restraint.
What he actually said was it was a win-win situation for him: if I chose one way, then his warrior twink would have a healbot, and if I chose the other, then his paladin healer would have a tank. (Did I mention he's also a bit of an altoholic?)
Then he gave me a rather unique piece of advice:
“But if you’re going to tank, you have to have balls.”
… but Ignus, sweetie. I’m a girl.
“It doesn’t matter.” He was adamant. “You have to have balls.”
* * *
Today — three tiers of content and four pieces of T9 later — I think it finally understand what he meant. And, ironically (or perhaps appropriately), it took choking completely to drive the message home.
It’s not so much about balls as it is confidence (which for guys is the same thing, metaphorically speaking). I realize this is going to sound stupidly obvious to any veteran tanks who might be reading, but it wasn’t for me:
Tanks are the de facto leaders in any group.
We may not be raid leaders or even assists. We may have someone more knowledgeable or more experienced assigning marks and roles. But we’re still front and center. We’re still leading the charge. We're still responsible for setting the pace of the run, as well as for positioning bosses and adds and initiating the group’s response to the million and one things that can go wrong — or right!, because phase changes count too! — over the course of a single encounter.
We don’t have to know exactly what we’re doing all of the time (let’s face it, no one does — raiding is all about improvising), but we sure as hell have to be able to fake it.
I learned this quickly while PuGing heroics. As long as I pulled quickly, managed to hold aggro and acted like I knew what I was doing, it didn’t matter that I couldn’t remember how some of the boss fights worked or that I was literally shaking with nerves for the entire duration of a run. No one had the slightest clue, and I actually received compliments on my tanking ... even when I thought I'd performed horribly and was keeping a running mental inventory of all my stupid little (and not so little) mistakes.
Ironically, guild runs were much messier for me, at least in the beginning. Unlike the randoms that I picked up in /trade or LFG, my guildies knew that I was anxious and inexperienced. I couldn’t bluff my way through content with them, and so my confidence tanked (no pun intended) and I found myself making floundering in the same instances that I had PuG’d smoothly many times before.
Because my guildies are awesome, they didn’t hold it against me. But you can better believe I did.
Still, practice — lots and lots and lots of practice — eventually forced me into some semblance of competence, and I settled comfortably into the off-tank role, usually for one of the guild’s warrior alts (hitherto, and affectionately, known as The Beast).
And then … I became complacent.
Confession time: I’ve never been a natural leader. I’m much more inclined to follow. The only reason I “lead” the guild now is because I created it, and I’m far too possessive of my creation to turn it over to someone else (who will inevitably do it wrong). (Yes, I’m neurotic.) (Sorry, Bear.)
Because I’m a natural follower, being an off-tank suited me. The Beast made the decisions. I just followed his lead; pushed my 6 and 9 buttons really, really hard; and watched the bosses roll over. I also collected some very nice tank loot in the process — and a whole lot of spellpower plate. (Seriously, Naxx/Ulduar/ToC. I can see you’re trying to tell me something, but I don’t want to hear it!)
But then, two weeks ago, something I hadn’t anticipated happened:
The Beast missed an alt run!
Since The Beast is actually the alt of the Superforsaken Azargoth, the running joke — which may or may not be a joke /shiftyeyes — is that he had to miss the raid to save a reporter in distress or possibly to bench press an asteroid. He said it was a “family thing,” but that seems a rather mundane explanation and I’m not buying it. There’s only so much a pair of glasses will hide, Mr. Kent.
Anyway, I ended up tanking with a feral druid: an excellent tank, to be sure, but one I’m much less accustomed to working with than The Beast. I didn’t realize this until much later, when Elam pointed it out to me, but the druid-in-question also generally considers himself an off-tank as well.
So here we had two alt off-tanks who have played together extensively on their mains but never actually co-tanked, attempting to do just that. And each of us clearly thought the other was entitled to lead — or, rather, I thought he was as the more senior tank. He seemed to be deferring to me, too, but that could just be because he's nice and I'm bossy.
I’m not going to sugarcoat this: I choked. Big time. After a miscommunication about tanking assignments led to a wipe (we both picked up Acidmaw, then both switched to Dreadscale when we realized he was untanked), my confidence shattered into a zillion tiny pieces and I proceeded to make all kinds of mistakes on the same fight I one-shot the very first time I tanked it.
I forgot to refresh Seal of Corruption before a pull, missed my first Judgment and lost Gormokk to healing aggro.
Wipe.
I became completely and inexplicably disoriented mid-fight and started to chase after the wrong Jormunger ... again.
Wipe.
I pulled aggro on Dreadscale after a burrow phase and ended up getting the entire raid sprayed with burning bile.
Wipe.
It was a mess, and while we eventually managed to pull it together and complete the instance (and will no doubt do much better the next time), it wasn’t without a lot of pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth and even some exasperated “WTF TANKS?!” from my usually equanimous raid.
I've confessed before that I deal with my insecurities and not infrequent failures in-game by being "cheerfully self-deprecating." It's not something I'm conciously aware of as I do it, but rather something I notice in hindsight — often after someone remarks "You're really hard on yourself, aren't you?" I think the subconcious justification is that if make fun of myself first, others are less likely to do so because I already have it covered.
The thing is ... that doesn't work when you're tanking.
When you screw up as a tank, everyone sees it. Often right before it sends them sprawling across the raid zone. They know exactly what you did wrong — and they expect you to know what you did wrong, too (so you don't do it again) — but they don't want to to hear you disparage yourself on Vent for 10 minutes afterwards. They want you to apologize, recover and do it right the next time.
I realize this is true for everyone. I hate hearing the holy paladin whine about his screw-ups as much as I hate hearing the prote—... okay, our progression protadin doesn't make mistakes. But you know what I mean.
Still, it's especially true for tanks.
As a tank, you have to be prepared to lead. You have to be confident enough in your abilities to make split-second decisions, and — even more importantly — to realize that even if your decision turns out to be wrong, it was still better to make one than to allow paralyzing indecision to wipe the raid.
In other words? You have to have balls.
Thanks, Ignus. I get it now.
“Just spam chain heal.”
Our warrior tank just leveled his druid — "Flanksteak" *sigh* — to 80 and dual-specced him feral/resto.
Rocking a full set of quest greens and a welfare trinket from Mr. Direbrew, Flanksteak nonetheless tagged along on our alt-alt run of Onyxia 10.
"Highest DPS wins the mount, amirite?" joked the superforsaken Azargoth (who had missed our "real" raids earlier in the week and was prepared to carry our alts' DPS all on his own).
"Careful Az," someone warned. "Flanksteak's gonna give you a run for your money!"
Meanwhile, the druid-in-question was worried less about his yellow numbers and more about the green ones. He confessed as much on Vent, looking for advice on druid healing.
Our disc priest (who was alting on his enhancement shaman) spoke up: "Just spam chain heal."
Poor Flanksteak. "I don't have that spell. I checked." Pause. "Better go train it before the run. /brb Moonglade."
It was pure silly, but one of the many reasons I <3 my guild.
Oh, and speaking of silly ...
... this is what happens when you mix a Blood Elf paladin, a "slight" engineering malfunction and retro-raid loot.
I had a hard time getting a clear shot of him because he attracted quite the crowd. He is, after all, the server's first Sunwalker.
… Now what?
Other than working on my acceptance speech for Azeroth's Most Cluttered Backpack Award? (Edit to add: ...and repairing, because my armor is apparently 0%...)
I have no idea.
On the outside, looking in.
Annah and I decided to sit out this week's Ulduar 10. I put the raid together, as usual — if I don't, no one does — but in light of all the recent (and not so recent) drama surrounding 10's, we thought it best to step aside and let some new players rotate in.
The group is doing really well: they've done all of the Keepers on hardmode — and that's with fully half the group seeing the fights for the first time. I'm happy for them, and satisfied with the decision to sit out. It will be good for guild morale.
... and yet, when you play the game to play with friends, it does sting a little to be the odd one out.
Karma crits you for 821,730,891.
Towards the beginning of August, I received a guild application that was so horrendously awful that I suspected I was being trolled by one of my more mercurial guildmates:
What are your expectations for us?
not sucking
What is your favorite boss fight? Why?
i hate all bosses cuz they got the loot lol
What is your current talent distribution? How, or why, did you choose it?
i dunno but i can heal so it doesnt matter
What is your preferred raid role? If this role isn't available, are you willing to respec?
i heal and im good at it, i can go boomer for ignis sooo, but no respecing
If you played a feral druid, and bound all of your abilities to letters, and proceeded to go John-Fucking-Madden on Koralon while using program like Octopus to record your keystrokes ... you would probably make more sense than this kid did.
Needless to say, I declined him.
... Except I couldn't actually decline him, because he applied under a name that wasn't assigned on our server — "sosohigh," which sounds about right, come to think about it. >.> Since I couldn't respond in-game (and none of my guildies would 'fess up to being the troll), I gave the application the same amount of thought and consideration that sosohigh did.
In other words: I ignored it.
A week or so later, a paladin /whispered me while I was in Ulduar to check on the status of his application. In between trash pulls, I managed to ferret out that the paladin was sosohigh's alt
"Oh, you're for real? I thought you were a troll."
"Gee, thanks. xD"
I very politely, but very firmly, declined him ...
.... and immediately received a tell from another paladin, "Dinning."
YOU'RE GUILD SUCKS AND YOU'RE GRANDMOTHER IS A WHORE FOR DECLINING SOSOHIGH.
Um. Okay. I repressed the urge (/twitch) to correct Dinning's word choice and simply ignored him.
But, hey! Guess who just app'd to Surreality this morning?
Pro tip: If you want to join a raiding guild, don't confuse your and you're in your first contact with the guild leader. (You might want to avoid calling her grandmother a whore, too ... but in this case, that's clearly the lesser evil.)
A truly [Epic] night
We had to call another raid tonight. With our holy priest /afk and several DPS missing in action, it just wasn't happening.
This time, rather than attempt to split into two 10-man groups (and deal with all of the attendant drama), we decided to look for something we could 22-man — like Sarth 3D!
... Point of clarification: when I say "we," what I really mean is "the officers who weren't stuck in traffic for two hours this afternoon." >.< In my defense, I did call! I even managed to get my two coppers in, via Keaton. My plea? "Do something. Even if it's farm content. Or PvP. Or Brewfest." Our members set aside nine hours every week to play together; even if we can't pull together a progression raid, we can still have fun.
And, lo and behold, we did.
Even down three players, Sartharion was an easy one-shot — and a 30 minutes well spent, as our boomchicken won a Pennant Cloak (and finally earned the Epic achievement in the process!).
Then those who were interested headed off to Sunwell, an instance we never did see in The Burning Crusade. Because we are just. that. awesome., we managed to break the very first raid boss we stumbled across:
But as you can see, all was not lost! Kalecgos may have ended up permanently banished, but I finally leveled my Dagger skills to 400! (Best use of an ungemmed, unenchanted Spectral Kris ever, imo.)
We couldn't figure out how to reset the encounter, so everyone who had a hearthstone returned to Dal, while everyone who didn't (read: the shamans) caught a mole machine to BRD.
As long as we were there, we decided to smack Coren Direbrew around a few times. (Grats on the Kodo, Osaj. ^.^)
Then it was back to Sunwell Plateau to save Kalecgos, obliterate Brutalis, wipe a few times on Felmyst before taking her down to exactly 1 HP before that awful air phase ... zerg the Eredar twins ... zerg M'uru ... zerg Kil'jaden ...
... and, oh. my. god., is that Thori'dal, The Stars Fury?!
It was quite a night.
Fuzzy ethics, loot drama and yet another crazy healadin.
I recently trialed a holy paladin.
For the sake of convenience, let's call him "Landron."
On paper (or, rather, pixels) Landron looked like a solid addition. His application was detailed and well-written; he had obviously put some thought into it, which I always appreciate. At a time that most of the applications we were seeing were facerolled by grammatically-challenged 16 year-olds in quest blues and a smattering of Naxx epics, Landron was an adult in his 30's who had been healing casually for an Ulduar guild and was eager to contribute to hardmode progression. His gear wasn't bad, either; a little below our level, perhaps, but we were disenchanting spellpower plate and knew it wouldn't be an issue.
Our paladin officer invited Landron to the guild and almost immediately took him under his wing. We all hoped that he would work out — but the healers, especially, made an effort to make him feel welcome.
... and then the loot drama started.
Our rules regarding loot are simple, and thoroughly documented on our guild website. We use EPGP to determine priority, with a minimum threshold of 500 Effort Points to bid and all Gear Point values fixed to minimize the effects of hoarding or collusion. We also default loot to main-specs over off-specs and raiders over initiates (although initiates do accumulate Effort Points throughout their two week trial, and are therefore all but guaranteed the first main-spec item that drops after they are promoted to raider).
Several times during his first raid, Landron /whispered me to ask when he would be able to "spend" his points. (Pet peeve: EPGP is a ratio system, not a currency, so nothing is actually "spent." But I digress.) I reiterated our rules, but advised Landron to bid "need" on anything he could use. Even though he was technically ineligible, he was also the only main spec healadin in the raid. He might not see tokens, jewelery or trinkets until after he was promoted, but he had a solid monopoly on spellpower plate.
He thanked me for my explanation ... and proceded to pass on several obvious upgrades.
Why? our master looter asked in /officer chat. I'm just going to DE them, and they're better than his!
I /whispered Landron: "Aren't those an upgrade for you?"
"Sure, but they're not tier gear," he replied. "I'll replace them as soon as I become a raider, and I want to save my points."
"But we decay points by 20% every week," I reminded him gently. "You should upgrade what you can now. There will be a lot of demand for trophies, anyway; everyone will be wearing off-set pieces for a while."
"I pass."
Okay then.
I forwarded Landron's response to /o, and our master looter (who tends to be rather zealous when it comes to his responsibilities) immediately bristled. "He's going to try to cheat the system," Ignus growled. "Just watch."
Sure enough, at the end of the raid, Landron spoke up on Vent. "You know those bracers and pants I passed on earlier? If they're just going to be DE'd anyway, well, I guess I'll take them off your hands."
Ignus (who has a bizarre aversion to Vent; I've known him two years but have never heard him speak) replied in /raid. "Sure. The GP values are ..."
"Wait, what?" Landron interrupted (insfoar that you can interrupt chat). "They're just going to be sharded. Can't I have them for free? They're upgrades for me."
I /whispered Landron at this point, reminding him that our system only works if we follow the same rules for everyone. GP values are fixed so a player who has a monopoly on a particular type of armor (such as spellpower plate) doesn't have an unfair advantage when it comes to shared pieces. I even tried to turn it around on him: "What if we gave Diodorous all of the spellpower leather for free since he's our only caster druid? He'd be able to save all of his points for priority on things like Anub'arak's mace or trinket. The rest of us would never win an item like that until Dio already had it."
Although obviously miffed, Landron thanked me and logged off ... letting the trade timer expire on the legs and bracers he had said he wanted.
He continued to attend every raid, and continued to pass on everything. Ignus remained highly suspicious, but I'm inclined to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and kept a running dialogue with Landron throughout our raids. He wanted tier gear, he maintained. The T9 set bonuses were too good to pass up, and he wasn't interested in sacrificing his priority for temporary upgrades.
Was he attempting to manipulate the system with the EPGP equivalent of DKP hoarding? Or was he just being smart about his bids? I couldn't decide. My master looter wanted him gone — which is usually good enough for me, because (taciturn though he may be) Ignus is an excellent judge of character. But we were already running healer light and I didn't feel right /gkicking someone who might be abusing the system ... especially since I wasn't convinced that he completely understood it.
On Landron's two week anniversary, we had a quick pre-raid meeting in /officer chat and decided to give him a chance: promote him to raider, and see how he bids when he has equal standing to our other players and is riding the top of the priority list.
He continued to pass on everything — including Trophies of the Crusade.
"This is ridiculous," our paladin officer complained in whispers. "I'm passing on marginal upgrades because he's passing. If we both took pieces we'd maintain equal priority, but the loot is just going to rot like this."
I agreed, and whispered Landron. "I thought you were waiting for trophies?"
"I am," he replied. "But I only have points for one, so I'll take it off the last boss if nothing else drops."
"I told you," Ignus wrote in /o when I relayed the message. "I hate him."
We sped through the rest of the instance, and Anub'arak was kind enough to drop his mace (although how he holds it, lacking opposable thumbs, I can't begin to speculate...).
Landron finally bid "need."
On the trophy.
And the mace.
Now, we have always assigned tier tokens first, and other items in the order in which they appear in the boss's loot window. This allows our raiders to strategize their bids — a piece of information I had shared with Landron several times over the course of our "smart loot" debates.
Among the healers, a disc priest had the highest priority, but passed on the mace because he's One Light In The Darkness shy of a legendary. He also passed on the tier piece. ("I don't have the emblems for it yet." /shrug)
Second-highest was Landron. He won his long-awaited trophy, and everyone started to congratulate him on his first piece of T9.
Third-highest was our paladin officer. He won the mace.
We called the raid there.
And Landron went slightly ballistic. He didn't understand why he hadn't won the mace and accused our officers of colluding to keep it within our circle of friends rather than give it to someone who had actually earned it. "I've been waiting two weeks for that!" he railed. "I've worked hard, attended every raid, and gotten absolutely nothing in return."
... Do you remember when I said I don't believe emotionally stable healadins actually exist? This is why. Or, rather, this is one of a long string of why's. >.<
The thing is, until Landron /ragequit over the mace (and changed his name to Nekan for reasons unknown), I was torn on the entire issue. The ethics still seem fuzzy to me. After all, we all tend to strategize our bids. I might pass on a trophy today because the boss we're downing tomorrow drops the trinket I really want. Every boss drops a tier piece, so I'm bound to get one eventually ... but if I know I'm next in line for an upgrade, then I might choose to wait for something doesn't drop so predictably, or for which I'm anticipating stronger competition.
I think everyone does this, to an extent.
So what's the difference between what Landron did, and what I do? Why was he "manipulating the system," whereas I'm simply "smart about my bids."
I'm thinking out loud here, but a large part of it was probably intent. Landron passed on several significant upgrades when he was the only paladin in the raid, knowing that our master looter would hang onto them until the two hour trade window had expired. He was deliberately saving his priority for Anub'arak, and admitted to me in whispers that he planned to ask for the same items he had passed on earlier if nothing else he wanted dropped. (Pro tip: If you're attempting to cheat your guild's loot system, don't share your strategy with your GM! She's not as dumb as her cud makes her look.) He did it as an initiate, when it was just annoying, and he did it as a raider, when other players would have been affected.
I think that opportunity costs should be considered as well. The items Landron passed on were disenchanted, and therefore of no value to the guild. On those occasions that I pass on an item, it's always to another player who can put it to good use; I won't let loot rot that I can use to benefit progression, even if it causes me to expend my priority on a marginal-to-modest upgrade rather than on the significant upgrade I was hoping for. Landron put himself rather than the guild first, and that didn't sit well with the rest of us.
In some ways, this situation is more sad than frustrating. Most of my guildmembers have been playing together for a long time, and the healers are an especially close-knit group. We often discuss upgrades amongst ourselves and pass on an item if we feel someone else would benefit from it more (or just really wants it to complete her perfectly matching set >.> No idea who that would be, though!) If Landron had tried to work with us rather than against us, then he would have realized this — and could very well have ended up with not only the mace, but also the supportive guild community that he claimed on his application to want.
Introducing: Naithin!
Hey, Elle! Who is that adorable new tree?
Hey, disembodied-voice-typing-to-me-in-italics! Funny you should ask that completely random, definitely-not-staged question—
Voices don't type.
Ugh. You know you've been watching too much Bones when the voice in your head suddenly starts to sound like Zack Addy. Just roll with it, okay? We aren't exactly going for realism here.
Okayfinewhatever. I'll just go back to channeling my inner Angela. So. The tree?
Oh, That's Naithin! The author of Tank'n'Tree and the newest <Surreality> healer.
Nifty. What's he write about?
Druid stuff. And warrior stuff. And maybe Elam.
Elam?
Yes, Elam. You see, Naithin and Elam are friends and we're pretty sure Naithin has all the dirt—
Well, of course he has dirt. See those freakishly wiggly things he has where normal people have feet? Those are roots. And roots are dirty.
... Did I mention he has a really sexy accent?
Orly?
I take it all back.
I was 15 minutes late to tonight's raid. Traffic was a bitch.
I texted updates to two of my guildmates, so they knew I was coming. Unfortunately, they couldn't account for our missing Disc Priest, nor could they find a last minute replacement for the Holy Priest whose game card ran out over the weekend. And when your healing core consists of exactly five healers, two are stranded offline and one is MIA ...
Well, let's just say we canceled yet another night of 25-man raiding due to poor attendance. >.<
Two ToC 10 groups formed, one very obviously the A-Team (and in Trial of the Grand Crusader as I type /sigh), and the other not quite as strong, but certainly capable of clearing the normal modes in an hour or so.
By the time I finally made it online — and by finally, I mean all of a quarter-hour late — Group 1 was halfway through the instance and Group 2 was waiting patiently for a tank to log on.
Since Keaton was also stranded offline (in the most nonsensical staff meeting I've ever heard described in /guild chat — or anywhere else for that matter; trust me on this one), I volunteered. I've tanked several full clears, and only one of them didn't go smoothly.
I don't know what happened. This wasn't a PuG; this was a full guild run, with the same raiders who one-shot Onyxia last night and went on to clear VoA and ToC 25 in a little less than two hours.
And yet ...
And yet, these were just some of the that things we suffered through tonight:
- An undergeared off-tank whose health spiked dangerously low after just one stack of Impale. (To be fair, it was the alt of one of our core raiders — but an alt who had no business tanking T9 content and was quickly replaced.) (Paladin threat was nerfed! I so should not be pulling aggro with auto-attacks! /flail)
- A warlock in full T8.5 and a smattering of ilevel 245 epics do exactly 1,900 DPS on Lord Jaraxxus, and then tell me to "take the negativity elsewhere" when I suggested that if he paid attention, he might do more damage than the tanks.
- A hunter accidentally misdirect to a priest, and then procede to complain about a dearth of heals.
- A hunter run out of everyone's range while a victim of Incinerate Flesh, and then procede to complain about a dearth of heals.
- A hunter healed from 10% to full by the tanking prot paladin, right before he complained about a dearth of heals.
- Exactly zero DPS remember to switch to Jaraxxus's adds.
- Exactly zero ranged DPS remember to shoot down permafrost.
Somewhere in the middle of all that ... I lost it.
I am the second-calmest guild leader I know. (Keaton is the first, if you were wondering.) I never call people out publicly. I (almost) never use naughty words.
But after the third or fourth stupid wipe on the Beasts of Northrend — THE BEASTS OF NORTHREND, PEOPLE! — I was absolutely seething. And after our first disasterous attempt on Lord Jaraxxus, when the raid decimated by two waves of adds that no one even attempted to DPS, I was done. "Some people obviously don't want to be here," I snapped. "And I don't particularly feel like wiping all night for them."
We pulled it together after that. Even the seriously slacking warlock kicked it up a notch and managed to eke out something like 3,400 DPS — coming in a solid last among the DPS classes, but at least above the tanks. That's something.
Go figure: the Twins and Anub'arak were one-shots.
So, yeah. I take back what I said in my last post.
I'm not that guy. Compared to some of my guildmembers' performance tonight, I'm fucking awesome.
Alts! I haz them.
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