This weekend turned out pretty well. Since I was feeling pretty crappy about raiding last week, I asked everyone on Friday if they wanted to do something fun, and do a few achievements when we started fresh. We knocked out the first 4 very nicely. We were about 4% short on DPS for Norushen to just have no one take an orb, but we were fine sending 1 person down. Oddly, the one I thought would be pretty easy took 3 attempts- the Protectors. We fudged it up first time by 2-healing, and putting the mark on a healer when lots of people needed heals. Yeah. But we rallied, only to fail again and get it on the third try. Doing Immerseus was fun, gave me something to do as a druid. We raid with 3, plus a mage that night so that one was easy, took 2 serious attempts to get it. And we one-shot the Sha of Pride’s achievement, so yay! The rest we’ll have to go back and get in flex.
And flex. It went OK- got through first 2 wings. There were some grumblings and really upset people thought. We had no restrictions on flex other than “be level 90” and we don’t kick anyone from flex. Though our guild leader did tell us we can kick people who won’t get in vent. I use my judgement on that one- if I know you, and you know what to do, or you aren’t a guildie but appear competent I’m perfectly happy to let you stay out of vent. Lately we’ve had a lot of people I picked up from LFG, and I don’t require vent cause I don’t want to limit our pool even more. Anyway, flex requirements- after flex, we talked and came up with ilevel 480. Our guild master wants to keep it open, an experience for people who don’t get to raid and for people to learn to raid and she didn’t want to require people do LFR or anything like that. I agreed, ok that’s doable. Then I woke up and went “that’s still not fair to the rest of us” and talked to her about it again.
Our flex had someone ilevel 434. We can clearly carry someone through part one who does pretty much nothing. But the rest get harder. We don’t have as stringent as I’d like, but since we don’t have a flex that is starting on part 3 or 4, I’m ok with what we came up with. We agreed to 496, which is doable with some time on the Timeless Isle. I will (as always) offer my services as taxi to ferry people around and help gear up. I feel that part of learning to raid is learning that you have to gear up before you jump right in, and requiring that level shows a little commitment toward our goal.
I have no problem with people using flex as an opportunity to learn to raid. I have no problem with people using flex to gear up alts. But it is not fair to the people who show up to flex because they can’t raid other days and to have to struggle unnecessarily because we have people who are putting in very little effort. And I do feel that it only takes a few hours on the timeless isle to get to 496. We’ll re-evaluate in a few weeks, and see how it went.
Now, the time for flex is still up in the air. Evening times seem to work better than the afternoon time. And we have a few people on west coast time who have told me the earliest they can do is noon EST, which is fair, though it means any ideas of a quick morning run are out. There are only 3 days I could do flex- Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Monday evening a few people work, Saturday evening one person has a normal raid. And I really don’t want to cut either of them out. One has been with us regularly from nearly the beginning, the other will do whatever I want which I really like… well, I mean he’ll tank or heal if I need him to. No flex this weekend for the holiday, which gives me some time to chat with people and find a day.
In other news, I have decided my horde druid and maybe my rogue can have their chance to get a cloak. I might change my mind on that as I do more LFRs. I had one person absolutely convinced- typing in all caps convinced- that I was killing people healing through Malkorok’s Ancient Miasma. Don’t know why he picked me, I wasn’t top healer. Ok, I do- I always try to help people learn, so I was marking and calling “move” and “stack” so I make a vocal target. That guy was convinced healing was converted to damage- a perfect example of someone who tried to read their dungeon journal, and missed a few key words. And a great reminder of what’s in store if I truly do go for it.
Vet school quote of the day: “Do you want to sword fight with a liver then hope to god they can clot afterwards?”
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