Farming Raids In A Progression Guild

One of our resident mages, who I adore by the way, posted a question in our forums on Tuesday asking whether someone could start posting Naxx25 and OS25 guild runs to help out the few in the guild that still need gear to get into Ulduar. As many of you know, we’ve had some issues running Ulduar25 primarily due to healers, but to be honest we have some dps issues too.

This question came the day after our failed Ulduar25 run which unfortunately we could not fill. I believe we were still short a healer or two and a couple of dps, but that’s the beauty of not being an officer. I don’t have to pay attention to details like that!

Mach decided that we weren’t going to pug the last few people just to get into Ulduar. He feels that it isn’t worth the hassles, screws up our dkp system, and no one wants to lose progression loot to lucky pugs. So everyone who didn’t want to go to Naxx instead was asked to leave raid. To be honest, I wholeheartedly agree with him. (Yeah, yeah I’ve made the argument in the past that sometimes it’s better to just pug or you have no chance at loot, but I’d still rather not.)

I didn’t want to go to be honest. I’d already run what I considered a fail Naxx25 on Erdkrieg. Kyrileanthos and Maedchen have items they could use from there, but definitely don’t need any of it. So other than emblems, which to be honest I don’t really care about since I’ll get them running Ulduar anyway, the only reason to go is to help the guild. So even though I left the raid, I was invited back and accepted.

Let me make this perfectly clear. I was more than happy to go help even though I wanted to level my DK instead. As I stated before, I was an idiot and purchased some recipes Kyr can’t learn until he hits 80… So I’m pushing hard for that. (Last night I hit 76. )

Anyway, Amber’s already addressed that this was a fail run and I wholeheartedly agree. It wasn’t because we were wiping, it was because people who know the pulls and know the fights weren’t paying attention and caused the wipes. I finally left vent because the inane chatter was pissing me off! In my opinion, no one should be talking about random things that have nothing to do with the game when we’re wiping. (I suppose it didn’t help that some of the conversations were so random that I really didn’t want to listen to it anyway. Why is it that some people think everyone’s interested in what they have to say?)

No one likes to wipe, especially on trash. I do not mind wiping though when there’s a legitimate reason. We’re learning the fight. We’re not quite geared enough. We’re teaching others the fights and pulls. Yes, that’s right! I don’t mind wiping with people that don’t know the fights and pulls yet in a raid that I’ve farmed to death on 3 toons!!! But only if they are at least trying and paying attention.

Anyway, back to our mage’s question above. After a few responses supporting having guild Naxx runs, I decided to throw my two cents in. For those of you that know me or have followed my blog for a while, you know that I’m a very opinionated person. I may not always be right. I will always acknowledge the validity of another’s opinion even if I disagree with it. So I posted a response:

The reason I was frustrated with Naxx25 wasn’t exactly because of the constant wiping. It was rather because of the inane chatter going on in vent that led me to believe that a good majority of the raid wasn’t paying attention. It may be Naxx, but when people are screwing around not really caring what they’re doing, wiping, and then continue to chatter about random things obviously not paying attention to the raid, I get irritated.

So that said, I am more than happy to use any of my three healers to support a guild Naxx25 or other raid, but I am not OK supporting a guild run where people are going to screw around and not take it seriously. I’m a casual player with a hardcore raider mentality. If I’m going to raid I don’t want to do it half-assed. I hate afk’ers, alt-tabbers, people that don’t run back after a wipe, etc. It isn’t fair to others and whether I’m naive or not to expect others to return the favor, I still expect it.

I wonder if I caused a minor shitstorm? There were a lot of responses after that.

I try to keep a lot of my opinions to myself as I don’t want to cause issues or create stress for the officers, although poor Amber, bless her heart, puts up with some of my bitching.

Bottom line, if you’re going to raid whether casually or hardcore, you owe it to everyone else to pay attention and do your best. No one’s asking you to perform miracles, just don’t be stupid.