Changes
Even though writing about WoW is far easier for me than writing on any other subject (something as a professional writer I find a little alarming) I've been having trouble updating lately. I've just recently changed guilds for the third time in the five years I've been playing the game, for reasons that were too painful to write about while it was happening.
I came to my previous guild during Burning Crusade when transfers from PVE -> PVP servers opened up. A good friend of ours was a member of a raiding guild that was far further in progression than our current guild, and I wanted to raid. I was accepted into their Black Temple group and I loved every moment of it. I wasn't especially well geared, but the raid leadership at the time were more interested in skill than sheer damage output, and I prided myself on always working as hard as I could to make up for my lackluster gear.
I don't remember people talking much about 'DPS' in those days, at least not in my guild, and I couldn't tell you what the ilevel of my gear was. Not long after our first Illidan kill, I took a break from raiding and ended up staying away through most of the beginning of WoTLK, with an unexpected romance to occupy my time.
When I returned to raiding, so much time had passed my guild was now in Ulduar. I joined their Ulduar raid team and again, loved raiding with them. Technical fights that require rapid and accurate responses to cues are my favourite, and Ulduar had enough of those to keep me occupied. Then, we hit Yogg Saron - and stayed there.
I had noticed an alarming tendency in the guild for certain people to become very accusatory when fights didn't go very well. These people were also quite fascinated by DPS, gearscore, and everything the Elitist Jerks had ever written. On every wipe, they would start opining on how the DPS was just too poor and all needed to lift their game, despite the fact that the fight clearly had stability issues that were stopping DPS from being effectively applied. It was pretty poisonous to raid with, and after a certain amount of soul-searching I stepped down from raiding not long after we first downed Yogg Saron.
Unfortunately, the poison didn't stay in the raids. I still clearly remember being accosted by another guild member while standing on the steps of the bank in Dalaran. Out of no-where, suddenly I was being informed by another shaman that my spec was wrong, my gear was wrong, and all my gems needed to be changed. I politely pointed out that I was extremely happy with my performance and in fact felt that I knew what I was doing reasonably well.
Half an hour later, I gave up and logged out to stop him from insisting that I change everything about my character, right there and then.
The attitude seeped out of the core raiding group and started leeching into every aspect of guild life. Our happy-go-lucky alt-raid group, which usually was a tier or two behind our main progression 25, started being run by the raid leader of the progression group with dire results. After one particular ToC 25 run, where everyone performed amazingly well for their gear level but sadly were unable to down Anub'arak, we were told our DPS was appalling and not to expect another invite. To our own raid.
The last straw for me was when I invited an officer of the guild to a PUG weekly raid that was asking to make up numbers. We had a great run, a flawless one-shot kill with no deaths, and no-one taking avoidable damage. Everyone performed admirably.
Except my guild officer, who informed them all they were fail DPS for not breaking 4k. In 10 man Naxx.
I was mortified. I mentioned this to another officer, and was even more distressed when he insisted that I post recount logs to him to prove that the raid hadn't 'deserved' the abuse. It was becoming increasingly clear that the only metric the guild was interested in was raw DPS output, and that there was no room for anyone who didn't have a 5.5k gearscore. Even worse, those who did have a higher gearscore were forgiven any sin. People were being ridiculed in heroics for wearing perfectly appropriate blues and performing adequately for their gear level, and quite a few players left, stating the new elitist attitudes for their reasons. Despite having a high gearscore myself, I hated the way they were treating our casual guild members and fought tooth and nail for an attitude change. Unfortunately, I failed.
I applied to another guild and transferred, and only then realised how much I'd been stressing out over the situation. I found myself logging on less, obsessively checking the forums less, because WoW wasn't taking up anywhere near as much headspace. The first raid I did with the new guild really cemented my decision as the right one. We wiped all night on Festergut with no ill-feeling, no pointed fingers, just a discussion of the mechanics of the fight and encouraging advice on how to manage them. Even though the environment was less strict, the skill and performance of the players was, on average, far higher than that of my old guild members.
Since then I've been part of an Ulduar hardmodes group that is going to go after Algalon. No, it's not cutting edge content, but I am loving every second of it. I'm so glad to be part of a group who think the same way I do - that the game doesn't need to be limited to a race to the highest gearscore.
I came to my previous guild during Burning Crusade when transfers from PVE -> PVP servers opened up. A good friend of ours was a member of a raiding guild that was far further in progression than our current guild, and I wanted to raid. I was accepted into their Black Temple group and I loved every moment of it. I wasn't especially well geared, but the raid leadership at the time were more interested in skill than sheer damage output, and I prided myself on always working as hard as I could to make up for my lackluster gear.
I don't remember people talking much about 'DPS' in those days, at least not in my guild, and I couldn't tell you what the ilevel of my gear was. Not long after our first Illidan kill, I took a break from raiding and ended up staying away through most of the beginning of WoTLK, with an unexpected romance to occupy my time.
When I returned to raiding, so much time had passed my guild was now in Ulduar. I joined their Ulduar raid team and again, loved raiding with them. Technical fights that require rapid and accurate responses to cues are my favourite, and Ulduar had enough of those to keep me occupied. Then, we hit Yogg Saron - and stayed there.
I had noticed an alarming tendency in the guild for certain people to become very accusatory when fights didn't go very well. These people were also quite fascinated by DPS, gearscore, and everything the Elitist Jerks had ever written. On every wipe, they would start opining on how the DPS was just too poor and all needed to lift their game, despite the fact that the fight clearly had stability issues that were stopping DPS from being effectively applied. It was pretty poisonous to raid with, and after a certain amount of soul-searching I stepped down from raiding not long after we first downed Yogg Saron.
Unfortunately, the poison didn't stay in the raids. I still clearly remember being accosted by another guild member while standing on the steps of the bank in Dalaran. Out of no-where, suddenly I was being informed by another shaman that my spec was wrong, my gear was wrong, and all my gems needed to be changed. I politely pointed out that I was extremely happy with my performance and in fact felt that I knew what I was doing reasonably well.
Half an hour later, I gave up and logged out to stop him from insisting that I change everything about my character, right there and then.
The attitude seeped out of the core raiding group and started leeching into every aspect of guild life. Our happy-go-lucky alt-raid group, which usually was a tier or two behind our main progression 25, started being run by the raid leader of the progression group with dire results. After one particular ToC 25 run, where everyone performed amazingly well for their gear level but sadly were unable to down Anub'arak, we were told our DPS was appalling and not to expect another invite. To our own raid.
The last straw for me was when I invited an officer of the guild to a PUG weekly raid that was asking to make up numbers. We had a great run, a flawless one-shot kill with no deaths, and no-one taking avoidable damage. Everyone performed admirably.
Except my guild officer, who informed them all they were fail DPS for not breaking 4k. In 10 man Naxx.
I was mortified. I mentioned this to another officer, and was even more distressed when he insisted that I post recount logs to him to prove that the raid hadn't 'deserved' the abuse. It was becoming increasingly clear that the only metric the guild was interested in was raw DPS output, and that there was no room for anyone who didn't have a 5.5k gearscore. Even worse, those who did have a higher gearscore were forgiven any sin. People were being ridiculed in heroics for wearing perfectly appropriate blues and performing adequately for their gear level, and quite a few players left, stating the new elitist attitudes for their reasons. Despite having a high gearscore myself, I hated the way they were treating our casual guild members and fought tooth and nail for an attitude change. Unfortunately, I failed.
I applied to another guild and transferred, and only then realised how much I'd been stressing out over the situation. I found myself logging on less, obsessively checking the forums less, because WoW wasn't taking up anywhere near as much headspace. The first raid I did with the new guild really cemented my decision as the right one. We wiped all night on Festergut with no ill-feeling, no pointed fingers, just a discussion of the mechanics of the fight and encouraging advice on how to manage them. Even though the environment was less strict, the skill and performance of the players was, on average, far higher than that of my old guild members.
Since then I've been part of an Ulduar hardmodes group that is going to go after Algalon. No, it's not cutting edge content, but I am loving every second of it. I'm so glad to be part of a group who think the same way I do - that the game doesn't need to be limited to a race to the highest gearscore.