Decision is Made

I finally realized that my guild leader was never going to see the issues I was seeing as a problem, so I told her I would stay and help kill Garrosh then I was done with that raid. I am both sad and relieved. I like those people, they are fun. It’s not like I’ll never play with them again- they are guildies. And relieved, because that was stressing me out, trying to figure out what to do, how to help, and then being told there was no issue and I couldn’t do anything. I still need to tell my raid leader that is the official decision, but he know I was contemplating it.

I really want to be stubborn and keep pushing my point, but I know it would be a bad thing to do, and sour my relationship with the guild leader. She’s super sweet, and that’s the problem here: she’s still trying to not say “no” to anyone, or say anything that will make them feel bad. And she thinks talking to that healer about healing would make them feel bad, like we think they can’t play or something. She keeps saying they’ve been playing for years, but you can do something a long time and still miss major things. And I tried to list the issues with missing major raid mechanics for weeks- not minor ones, but things like Malk’s shield. As a healer. For weeks. But she doesn’t see these things as major issues that need to be addressed, like I do, and I don’t feel like intentionally handicapping myself and not being able to work with them for improvement.

I have no problem with people who don’t know what to do, or are undergeared, or inexperienced, and genuinely want to learn and improve. But if you don’t even want to try? The one and only conversation I had with that healer, back when we were 3-healing, he told me he saw me and the other healer going all out so he didn’t. And that thought was unbelievable to me, to not do as well as I can because there are other people doing it. And I’m just ranting because I can’t believe she didn’t see these things as problems to address. And I wasn’t saying “kick him” just let me work with him, and make trying to improve a condition for raiding. And I didn’t want instant perfection, just signs of effort- a better uptime on lifebloom, maybe talking about how the night went, things like that. But I mentioned numbers: I said 50% uptime on lifebloom, and that was no good. Couldn’t track numbers for improvement. The raid leader could say keep it up on the tank all the time, but we couldn’t look at the numbers to see if he was actually trying and improving.

I personally want to know if I am doing something wrong, or not doing something I should be. I want to improve. There are times I am half asleep and lazy and doing a crappy job partially intentionally, but that's LFR or old runs. If I actually need to sit up and heal, I will. I might feel stupid if someone says something like "hey, that uplift spell? Kinda important for a mist weaving monk. Maybe you should cast it more." but I will be happy to improve, and only feel silly for a bit

She wants the raid to be social, low stress, and not requiring performance. The listed requirements for raid are stable internet, good attitude, and competence at your class. But there is no definition for competence, and no contingency for working for improvement. And then there was the debate about what the other officer and I actually did in the raid, since it’s a 10-man, and there’s the raid leader, do we need 2 lieutenants? was the question posed. But that won’t be an issue anymore, since I won’t be there.

And I feel bad, because I know if I leave there is a strong chance a few others will as well. Well, they kinda told me they wouldn’t stick around if I left. Which was part of the reason I wanted to make it work, I feel bad for the rest of the people who won’t be able to raid now. But if we can kill Garrosh next week (and we easliy have the DPS, people just need to interrupt MCs) I’ll feel a bit better about it. Since my other raid group has put together some weekend Garrosh kills, about half my guild raid has gotten the achievement from filling in for that group. So even if we don’t kill it this week, and the raid gets too frustrating for me to continue, most of them have it now.

Ok, that was a huge rant. On to more fun things: I am 100 conquest away from full prideful gear, yay! We’re going to start challenge modes horde-side, so hopefully soon my druid will have a decent transmog. Good thing about being a druid, if you don’t want to put together a transmog, you can just pop into whatever shapeshift form is appropriate and never see it. 

I found someone who was doing a MSV achievement run, including show me your moves which is a royal pain.  About an hour after we finished, he did a heroic ToT. We didn’t finish, but it was fun. And I’ve been motivated to finish my achievements this summer. 

I’ve moved all my stuff to the new house except the big furniture, which the movers will take on the first. I’m working on unpacking all my books now. I needed to swap the small  bookcase for a bigger one, because I don’t want to double stack my books like I have in the past. I suppose I could put all the old horse books from when I was 10 away, but I have a desire to read them all again. I doubt I will get to all of them, but some of the good ones I plan to make time to get to.

Anyway, time to get ready for the day. Guild raid tonight, so I can tell the people who need to know my official decision. And then to figure out what to do on my newly to be free Wednesday and Friday nights.

My Raiding Future: Still Unclear

So lots has happened. First, I’m home, in Virginia! Done with year 2 of vet school. On the WoW front, I set up a tank spec and tanked flex for our group. Didn’t go too badly. I needed to set DPS up again for our Garrosh attempts, so I haven’t tried to tank again. No work on heroics this week, we were missing too many people to make a good effort likely. My other group is working on Garrosh, and we’re not doing too badly. Still having issues with people killing MCs and not using actual interrupts on empowered MCs, but we did better than I expected. 

And truthfully, the fact that we do decently makes it harder, I think, for my guild leader to see what I have a problem with. She thinks “that healer is putting out over 100k HPS, how can there be issues with his healing? His numbers aren’t that much lower than yours.” I haven’t been able to get two points across: One, he’s gimping his healing by ignoring 2 pretty important abilities: lifebloom and harmony. Two: it’s a healing issue, but it’s mostly an effort issue: it feels like he doesn’t care and doesn’t try.

We finally had that meeting, and it was pointless. The answer for “what can we, as raid lieutenants, do” turned into “We don’t think we need the two of you to have that role in a 10 man raid” after the answer in the document of what’s expected/what can we do was: nothing, it’s all the raid leaders job. Ok, fine, that was a clear answer. Something that still needs to be sorted out. I told her what I wanted, though I have a feeling it wasn’t clear. 

I will try one more time to get my point across, before I just stop. I like these people, I have fun raiding. I also would really like them to at least get a Garrosh kill before I stop raiding with them. She keeps saying she’s known that healer for a long time, and he’s been playing for a long time, so he knows how to play. I should have said doing something for years doesn’t mean you’re good at it. Which I will say next time. I have requested 10 minutes of her time to try one last explanation.

I just want to know something is going to be done to work with this raider. I offered to help because druid healing is what I do and I feel I do it well, but I don’t have to be involved, I just want to know he is willing to work.

Someone who logs on only to raid then logs right back off (and is late at that almost every week), misses major fight mechanics that have been explained for weeks, and when someone says something to him gets testy is not someone I want to raid with. I just want to raid with people who care about progress and playing their best who also aren’t jerks. I don’t want to be in a raid that allows people to coast along like we have. I mean yeah, ok, you get bosses on farm and just coast through them, but I feel like we pulled this person through progress he didn’t care about.

I should be happy: I do have that in a raid group, just not in both groups. And I know people who are excellent, and who I know want to set something up for next expansion. So I know I can get that in WoD.

Finals Week!

So our raid leader (who is also our main tank) was missing on Wednesday! Had to work late. Leaving me in charge for Garrosh!  Pretty sure I talked 10 minutes straight going over the fight again. Luckily we have an awesome person who could tank, and I had a friend from my other raid fill in the last spot. We were clearly not prepared for Garrosh. I even put “stack here” markers for ranged and people were not paying attention, running the other way. Since tanks were dying really easily, and a few people were kinda pushing for fresh (even though we had 2 items that were upgrades/sidegrades for main spec out of the first 6 boss kills- a sign to me we should be killing Garrosh) so after an hour we went back to a fresh start. We have a lot of work on Garrosh, and I have a feeling I will need to do a lot of calling out for “move now” so people live a little better.  But really, we were losing people before we got a second Iron Star coming across the room (though no one stood in in, so there is that at least.)

I dislike that, but mostly because I personally pay attention to timers and know what’s coming and don’t like to clutter vent. I have to realize it does help other people. Good thing our raid leader does and when he is there he calls out all the stuff.

Our fresh start did go pretty well- we did have a wipe on Galakras. I shared something to track shuffle with our monk tank, hopefully that’ll help them a bit. We will probably go back to Garrosh next week. Truthfully, we probably need to extend and just practice and wipe and practice. I’ll talk to our raid leader about that. Yeah, there are still upgrades to be had from the start for a few people. I think only 1 person can’t use anything. But it’s mostly just 1 trinket, or a ring, excepting my new healer who needs 3 things, and the new tank toon who can use 3 or 4. But we’re all 550+, so we should be good to kill him.

Just practice I guess. Seeing the mechanics, learning what to do/not to do. 

I ended up feeling kinda crappy on Thursday and asked to be replaced, if at all possible, and went to be early once I knew that raid was god to go without me. Friday’s raid was canceled. Too many people missing and I was still feeling a bit bleh. 

And now it’s finals. And that raid stuff we started talking about is still unresolved, and I really don’t want to deal with it til after finals. My plan is to set up a time to discuss things after my last exam on Friday and before out next raid on Wednesday. I’ve been very frustrated and want things cleared up, but now that it has gone on longer than I think it needs to, I’m willing to let it wait a bit longer. I’ve already come to the decisions about what I want from a raid, and prepared for things going either way.

Internet is out today here as well. Which is great on the studying front.  Hopefully I can get a good grade in pathology. Half this stuff we were taught last term, at least the hemopoietic things, so I should be fine. I just worry. 

I wouldn’t expect much from me til after exams. Since we now download before we get to the exam venue, I don’t have to sit in the room for half an hour doing nothing which led to writing posts at midterms. Now I’ll be in there for 10-15 min, so I’ll probably just read fun things.

Since my raid leader was missing, I didn’t push to set up a meeting with everyone. I am hoping we can all talk after my finals are over. I’ve already prepared a brief comment should I decide this raid is no longer for me, and I’ve outlined before a plan to help work on the things I think need work that I can feasibly help should I stay. We’ll see what happens.

Not a Week of Garrosh Wipes

Looks like it’s only half a week wiping on Garrosh, my Tuesday raid started fresh. We killed up to Malkorok, pretty good I think. If this becomes my only raid, I might talk to that raid leader about some things we do that are bugging me.

For example- we 3-tank Shamans, and we’re a melee heavy group. But we never send the melee up the hill, we leave them at the bottom to die to the slimes when they fail to pay attention. Makes no sense to me. We also 3-tank Nazgrim, which made a bit of sense at the start when people were dying to adds. If I had it my way, that mage would die first and we’d just have someone interrupt the shaman. But most people don’t feel the same way and prefer I mark shaman with skull. Anyways, we 3-tank that, but it means the DPS is close at the end. We only recently started using hero at the end- used to pop it right at the start. Which doesn’t make sense to me. If you want to use hero at the start, use it during berserk when the boss takes 25% more damage is my thinking. But everyone is alive and has trinket procs at the start… if I let someone die in the first minute, I’m either AFK or they did something very dumb. But anyways, we killed him, it just takes more effort than I think it needs to and we’re often right at berserk or we struggle with that last wave of adds. And even if nothing changes there, I can talk to that raid leader and we can explain our reasonings. I think I have an issue thinking I’m always right. Ok, I know I have a problem. I can probably let the shamans go- we do kill them easily. Nazgrim we’ll often wipe once or twice on. We’ll jump to 3 tanks in a heartbeat, but suggesting 2 heals is crazy talk. Though we do 2 heal those fights.

Anyways, we’ll start at Garrosh this week for the Wednesday raid. Still a little nervous with the shaman, but I am confident I am a decent healer and wipes will come from learning the fight anyway. Managed to catch up with my guild leader briefly. I’ve been worried about an e-mail I sent her. A lot of the discussion we had was about performance of raiders- one in particular, and I was talking healing numbers, a bit. A druid should never have a fight where lifebloom is never cast, much less an average of 30% uptime. I have many issues with that person, I just used those numbers because that is something that can be fixed with effort. But I feel all she got was I think he’s playing his class wrong. So I wrote an e-mail listing several other issues that seem to be comprehension things. Like failing to see what to dispel on Protectors for months. Lots of dispel issues. Major fight mechanic things, not just “occasionally stands in the bad” but “we’ve talked about this several times as a healing mechanic and he still misses it” and I don’t know how to fix that. I do know things to help track lifebloom, and that can be fixed. Other issues? No clue. So I talked about the one that is fixable, but I thought she missed the point. Then I didn’t hear anything from her for days and I was very worried. I caught up with her briefly, she is working on what we requested and will get back to us. 

Well, we’ll raid tonight, and we’ll all be there. Hopefully we’ll at least set up a time to talk. It’s good she is putting serious effort into it. I know she hasn’t been feeling well, and I would rather get something with time and effort and though put into it. I just want things resolved.

Vet School Fun:

“Really only a few things we can do with this. Anyone know what that is?”

“Euthanasia?”

“That is always an option. …Dialysis”

For the few kidney cat transplants- you get a second cat! Because you have to adopt the cat they took the kidney from. Makes sense to me.

“Know who Cthulhu is?…He’s one of the elder gods hell bent on destruction of the world. I am personally going to name a chihuahua this one day.”

“If you haven’t seen it you should. Over the summer when you don’t have to study for my exam.” About the Breakfast Club.

“We actually have something better than vodka. It’s called 4MP… at least in dogs.”

“Started treating it [the cow] with IV ethanol … walked a cow by him, and he got an erection, called it beer goggles and called it good.” —For ethlyene glycol treatment and trying to figure out if cow was drunk or ethylene glycol toxicity was responsible for the ataxia.

One More CM Down

We managed to knock out Mogushan Palace gold Monday night, leaving just 3 or 4 left I think. We tried Stormstout Brewery, but the tank kept dying on the first big pull, or one of us would pull aggro and die. I remember that starting bit being really tough to heal, and our tank moves really quickly so I had to pretty much follow him and ignore everyone else. Hopefully we’ll get it soon, and at least we were wiping at the start instead of on the last boss. And once again, I needed to run it on heroic.

I just checked the meta, and it told me I had them all. Should’ve looked at the dates and remembered when that shaman got to 90. Whoops. Oh well, I will get the next few knocked out on heroic first. A bit embarrassing. 

I’m looking forward to raid tonight. I’d like to extend and kill Garrosh on Tuesday and have Thursday off, but I’d be ok with starting fresh and breezing through to get gear for some new folks. My Wed/Fri raid should extend, and I’m a little nervous to heal on my shaman, but I also think we’ll spend all of Wednesday wiping, so it’ll be a chance for me to learn and see and organize my CD’s appropriately.

If I hear nothing from my guild leader before the end of that raid on Wednesday, I will try to snag everyone so we can set up a time to talk later in the week. This has been on my mind so much half the dreams I remember lately involve raiding. Ok sure, I left one raid with my cousin and Mom and we went to a fair so I could ride the ferris wheel (which I didn’t get to) and the other one is fading from my mind even now, but there was raiding and talking with my guild leader and raid leader in it. This is just hanging over my head. I want answers so I can stop stressing about this.

In good (well, sorta good) news, I started reading again for fun! I haven’t felt like doing much of anything lately- not studying, reading, watching shows or random things on youtube. I stayed up til 3 reading  (which wasn’t a good idea) but I feel better about my state of mind now. Unfortunately, that state of mind is very very tired. I can sleep soon though.

Another CM Down

Flex on Saturday went well. We ended up with 14-15 people. Cleared wings 1 and 2. I am doubtful we’ll ever get more than that in our 3 hours, with how long we take to finish part 2. I’d like to do part 4 for the pets and heirlooms, but with the average gear of the people who show up, that is unlikely. And I am really tempted to tank up for these so I can set the pace better, but then we’re out a healer- and since this week I was the only main-spec healer, I have a feeling I’m more useful there than learning to tank. Oh well, I can keep encouraging things to move quickly. 

In the meantime, we have someone who wants to heal- and usually I’m all about encouraging people to heal, but I am a bit hesitant here. Oh well, I’ll help them gear up and see how it goes.

On Sunday we stepped back in to challenge modes. Took us a while, but we knocked out Scholo. That helpful trick with Jandice- if you tank her in the little alcove before her, when she makes her copies you just kill one and she’ll reappear in that alcove. No searching for the right one. Makes that quicker.

The plan is to try some more on Monday, if everyone is available. Hopefully we’ll knock out 1 more, 2 if we’re lucky. I need to practice my DPS more- I am missing a few things, I am sure. Not optimal, but I am working on it. 

I am hopeful that this week will go well and be productive. Finals really start next week. We have 1 on Thursday, and then 4 next week. Yesterday I studied until I fell asleep, woke up and repeated the pattern. I liked it, hopefully I can keep it up this week. Both raids are on Garrosh, so hopefully our one will kill it and the other will kill it too, or at least make good progress. I am also waiting to get that talk with my guild leader. I think it’s very important and we should at least set a time on Wednesday to talk about it, if we don’t talk then. It’s something that’s long overdue. I want it straightened out soon. I am not sure my guild master sees the same urgency as the rest of us, but she’s only gotten a week of this rather than hearing my grumbles for 3 months. I take a lot of responsibility for not discussing things sooner. And now that we’ve got the ball rolling, I want it resolved.

I haven’t told my guild master that what we discuss and the path we take forward will determine if I continue raiding because I don’t want her to feel like I am pressuring her, doing a “my way or the highway” sort of thing. But it will, and I’d like to know sooner rather than later.

Vet school quotes/info for the day:

“You can make up a name that’s probably close to the real one.” on reading ECG’s

“No woman would do this. Some guy, I don’t know his name because I hate him.”

“Why did that guy do that? He hates us, and he does. He hates all medical students. A girl would’ve called that purple. We never would have put a negative number on something positive.” 

“I don’t believe in any of that because I know it can only be one thing: extra terrestrials.” (On domesticating camelids)

And, apparently there are wild camels in Australia. Who knew?

A Week of Garrosh

Well, I got a chance to talk to my guild leader, and I’m thankful the other officer was on to chat with me. He is great about cutting through BS and getting to the point. I’m an officer in that guild. We have someone who is the raid leader, but this is his first raid with our guild. First… I mean, SoO is the first, so it’s been several months now. He’s great, I love him. I’m his back-up for making raids go when he isn’t there, with help from our other officer. We have not been told what we can or can’t require of our raiders. We’re having an issue trying to understand the goal of the raid, what is expected of raiders, and how to evaluate raiders in a helpful way and not come across poorly.

Our guild master said she doesn’t want to require a certain level of performance or people get kicked. But how can you not require something? What is that something, that level of competence required, how do we get everyone there, and how do we evaluate effort? I understand my idea of minimum raid effort and other people’s idea vary quite a bit, but somewhere there has to be a line for “bare minimum required.”

So ideally we’ll hash that out next week and then move on to how to help raiders improve. I do feel bad for my guild leader, she’s had 2 e-mails from me about this. The alst one was a list of complaints to illustrate the issues I’ve seen with a raider. I feel our discussion after raid came across as I felt he doesn’t play his class correctly and that was what my issue with him was, but there are so many more things that make me feel like he needs a lot of work to improve in general paying attention to the main mechanic. So I sent  her that list. Makes me feel like a whiny brat, but I want her to know- it’s not just poor lifebloom use, it’s these major lack of attention issues over several months.

In great news, Reneilla was AWESOME on Thok. Once I got used to timing my healing rain and chain heal around Thok’s screeches, we did fantastic- only one blood frenzy phase. We had 2 practice pulls, where I learned placing and our pally learned that his HoP macro wasn’t working… But once those got fixed, we did fantastic. Shamans ROCK on that fight, and with glyph of water shield I was at nearly full mana the whole time. Just wow. I did feel like I was more active on my druid, but I felt more effective on the shaman.

Totems are cheating- pop one,  and boom, raid gets healed while I twiddle my thumbs. Well, I never “just twiddle my thumbs” but I do relax a bit and cast some catch-up heals, knowing the raid is safe.

This week both raids will be working on Garrosh. Whoo, 4 nights of Garrosh wipes! I’m hoping for significantly less, but you never know. Prepare for the worst and all that.

It's Weird to be DPS

And even weirder when I am top DPS. 

Our Thursday night raid went pretty well. We didn’t kill Garrosh, but things were going smoother. I run that with another guild, and thought I will talk to the raid leader and express my questions on his decisions, I’m not sure how to talk to him about this issue. I am a healer. My off-spec is 558 simply because our only other leather wearer who wants agility is a bear tank, so I get second pick at nearly everything. I swapped to DPS that fight- and topped the charts on half the pulls (ok 2 of the 4 we did is half) which is great for my ego, but not so much for a kill. The 566 hunter (who took the warforged neck last week that was a sidegrade for him and a huge upgrade for my off-spec- I did tell him to take it if it was any sort of main spec upgrade. But I’m not dwelling on it, nope. Clearly not.) was doing consistently 40-60k DPS less than me. And he wasn’t on the engineer. That did not seem right to me.

I eventually managed to mention it, when talk of Monday nights kill came up. Our healer had a disagreement with the raid leader (her boyfriend) over something, and left. With half an hour left in the raid, we simply stopped early. Which left me to go experience the joys of LFR again, yay. Why did I think I wanted to get a legendary cloak for my rogue again? At least I was with friends so we could chatter and I knew a few other people were doing the right thing.

If we extend next week (and if that hunter can improve- I’d swear I’ve seen him top charts in other fights so hopefully it was an off-week) I have no doubt we’ll kill him. I enjoy DPSing for that fight, it’s a nice change of pace. Just gotta quit silencing the healers when they get MC right before a whirling corruption. Cause that didn’t end well.

I still think we are way too slow on transitions- I could be halfway up the stairs by the time anyone else moves, but I’ve learned I tend to die that way so I wait til the tanks move. 

My Friday raid will start at Spoils. We should get that and Thok down easily. I’ve been looking up resto shaman Thok tips all morning, and I feel confident. Ideally we’ll down Blackfuse and Paragons too, leaving all next week to work on Garrosh. I think that raid has a decent chance of getting him with a few weeks of work and practice. We have raiders who listen and try, it will just be learning since I think only….4 of the 10 I expect to raid have done it on flex or normal.

I still haven’t talked with my guild leader. She wasn’t on at all that I saw yesterday, so hopefully everything is ok. The act of sending her my concerns, and discussing them with my raid leader, has calmed me greatly. Plus the really good run Wednesday (figures- complain and things go almost perfectly).

Here’s hoping for: a good raid night, a chance to talk with my guild leader, and a good nights sleep.

Reneilla Makes her Debut

My shaman had her debut in our raid team, and we had our best night of raiding to date. Probably unrelated, but she’s very vain and will take credit. We one shot the first 9 bosses in our 2 and a half hour raid, which was very nice. First drop was a strength weapon that no one needed but fit my brand new transmog for my shaman beautifully, so that was nice.

Her luck continued, as usual- main spec tier chest and waist, off spec ring and bracers. Plus the pants I wanted for transmog dropped from the heroic before raid, and one of the leatherworkers with the patterns for the rest was online and willing to craft for me. I loved my old transmog, but I’ve been seeing it all over the place recently.

Lacking a complete transmog for my priest had absolutely nothing to do with why I brought the shaman over her, but it is part of the joking reason I give. I tried a few flexes, and I felt my healing was awful. I’m not sure if I should be casting real healing spells, or just attonement with spirit shell as needed for incoming damage spikes. I don’t have the time to gear and learn priest. And my shaman now only needs 4 pieces, after her run of luck last week.

My raid leader has a sense of humor. He gave me the pally/priest/lock tier gloves, since we lack any of those in the raid. He did the same thing to one of the hunters last week who has a pally as well. After raid, looking through bags, I see gloves and go “WTH?” 

I am happy with the shaman. I love my druid, she’s my favorite and I feel strongest on her. It was really hard to go from druid to monk the first time, switching to shaman was a little less difficult, but I still miss it.

Still haven’t talked with my guild leader, but the other officer did. We’ll see what happens over the next few days, and if we have time today or tomorrow.

And the new mog, copied from something on prettyflydraenei.com

What I Want in a Raid Team

I haven’t had a chance to talk to my guild leader about the letter I sent her. She has received it, and plans to set time to talk later this week. I think, before I get there, I need to figure out what I want out of raiding. 

I want to raid with people I like. And if I don’t like everyone, I would prefer not to raid with jerks. I had a reminder recently how much the attitude of the people I play with really matters to me, and it’s more than I thought. I might be pretty good at being oblivious and putting up with jerks, but I don’t want to have to. Plus, I love to talk and give my opinions and offer suggestions, and jerky people tend to shoot those things down which can really upset me and then why would I play a game if I’m getting upset by the people I play with?

So playing with people I like is preferable. I ideally want everyone to show up to raid, on time, with goals similar to mine. Prepared with a little bit of study on the fights, knowing how to play their class. Ready to go, and not constantly taking breaks. I don’t want to raid 12 hours a week, and I don’t want to have to attend all raids. I mean, in general, I will. I schedule around raid nights, and really only miss for midterms/finals and my flights to school. But I’d like a raiding environment where an occasional absence is ok. 

So the big thing is people I like, then people who want to progress like I do, and who will work to improve. Those are the two big things. After that- people who will discuss things, speak up, are willing to put effort into trying… Why does that seem so hard to find?

I’m having a few issues with both raids. They’re both probably my fault. I guess I can learn to live with a few odd strategies since I have a raid leader who explains his position to me, and is willing to discuss and change. So we do this fight in a really odd way that I don’t like, it’s one fight. The people are friendly, big on starting on time (though we have been late occasionally) and who love raiding enough to form spontaneous raids on weekends while we’re progressing, if everyone is available and has time.

My other raid, I’m having issues with mostly just a few raiders. I feel like our reasons for raiding are different. I feel like he only comes to hang out, possibly to help since we were short on healers when we started, but he comes across to me like he doesn’t care about the raiding aspect of raiding. There were some really big things early on, and nothing as egregious lately. Though I think that’s because we haven’t done any new fights. The only one left is Garrosh, and we’re not really working on him. I like everyone else, though I do have an issue with the roles of some people.

I have to decide, if nothing is going to change in that raid, do I want to stay? Am I ok with raiding with someone who I feel half-asses things? I’ve put up with it to here, why stop now? Why is it bugging me enough to consider quitting now?

A few things- stress. Finals are coming, my boyfriend proposed, I’m heading home in 3 weeks to arrive in the middle of a move. A few of the people I am closest to in that raid are getting more upset and considering quitting, and I tend to follow people I like. Plus, if we lose people who really do care and try, things are not going to get better.

Here’s what I’ve decided: Who I raids with matters a lot, but I am not ok raiding with people who don’t seem to care about improving. I am ok raiding with people who disagree with me, as long as we can discuss things and explain what we’re thinking and why we’re doing things to each other. If I talk to my guild leader, and nothing is done- no plans to improve, no willingness to meet me halfway, or no understanding my issues, I am ok leaving that raid. 

I felt hopeful that 2 people would get pissed of and maybe quit that raid a few weeks ago (they didn’t) and I felt awful that I was hoping people would get mad and leave. If I feel that way about some of the people in my group, I shouldn’t be there.

And now I know that before I talk to my guild leader. I know what I want, I know what I’m willing to accept in the very, very likely chance I don’t get everything I want, and I know what I am going to do if nothing happens. I don’t feel that great about it, but I have a few names in mind to replace me I can hand over to the raid leader. I hope it doesn’t happen, because I like that group, but I am prepared to have a few evenings open up.

And now, the vet school quotes:

“We don’t have thiopental anymore, we just like to talk about it because we are nostalgic, and we’re nostalgic on the NAVLE too.”

“You can always keep 1 ml extra and sell on the black market.”

“You’re never allowed to let anything die in radiology. They get really mad at you.”