Wretched.

That’s how I feel after our last few sessions in EoE.

For two or three nights running, we attacked that dragon. From the first pull, we did great in phases 1 and 2.  Typically we’re going in to phase 3 with five minutes left on the timer.

We rarely see that five minutes go in full.

Invariably I die within the first 30 seconds, but I doubt it has much effect since I can’t seem to heal worth a damn during that phase anyway.

It is very frustrating and made me want to crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after me.

It’s so difficult, to do everything in your power to ensure that you are geared appropriately, have the right consumables, have studied rotations and methodologies, and can go a full fight and still have plenty of mana left in most, then to find that it all boils down to a gimmick fight in which none of the hard won lessons apply.

“Bring the player, not the class”, they might parrot.  I contend that that is a cop-out.

You would never go into a raid with no healing classes, would you? Of course not.

If class isn’t important, then why do we have them? If levels and gear are not important, why are they in the game?  Why don’t we focus more on looking fabulous than getting that hideous mock turtleneck helm for its lovely stats?

Because class matters. Because gear matters. Because level and experience .. matter.  That malarkey about “bring duh player not duh class” was nothing but a catchphrase and it’s taken on a twisted life of its own.

This phase is unrewarding and discouraging. Right now that’s how I feel. I regret rolling on that damned key at this very moment because it put a quest in my quest log that I am at this moment considering … not doing.

We do Ulduar tonight, and I dearly hope we bring our ‘A’ game because I could really use the boost associated with doing, well, well for a change.

Flora can bite me.

This past week we ventured into VoA for a little bit of fun, and Jas was asked to sit it out for another healer to get his gear on, so I gave it a go. We figured that the worse thing that happens is that I swap out for Flora or Shadow-Jas, right?

What happened though is that I and my stompasaurus came in 3rd on the meters.

I was actually quite surprised. I guess the little upgrades here and there do add up.

This weekend I sat out while Jas went into EoE with the guild. The did well for the very first time, though they didn’t bring down Maly. Phase 3 was achieved but they were getting there with 2 minutes or less each time. Have to get better at placing the sparks.

But that’s not what this is about.

As is usual for us, our new MT, a new recruit to the guild, got nicely geared up, then departed for a “raiding guild”. He left alts behind, including one to whom Slithmere had just given two stacks of gold ore to level his mining.  Number of gold bars returned: zero.¹

In times past we would have been highly annoyed. Now we just roll our eyes and assign his alts to “pond scum” level and move on. Maybe we’ll have a working tank for Tuesday, or maybe we’ll take a week off from raiding and see who else bails out of impatience.

I’ve said before that we’re not one of those guilds that eschews raiding, but we also don’t push it. We like to be able to raid on a weekly schedule, but if someone is sick or out of town for a week or two, we just lay back and chill out. Some people don’t get the ‘casual’ part of our guild charter. I guess they think that we mean that we wear blue jeans while we raid, instead of dockers.

It’s a shame; he was a good tank, and I was on the verge or recommending his promotion. I was concerned he’d do this, and that held me back, and I was fortunate to see how he behaved in an actual progression setting.  The short answer: if we don’t get it in one session, he leaves. Noted. He might have also had some issues with our usual collection of screwballs, but that never really came up.

Our guild bank funds were flat empty with all the toons repairing using guild funds².  I’ve been running the troops on a savings plan with the intention of buying the guild a 5th tab in the guild bank, but after seeing that I decided to replenish the progression repair funds instead. Between Flora, Illume, and myself we were able to pop 3000 gold into the fund. We’ve still got 1000 apiece over 10 toons, so this is not a big sacrifice. Feels good to contribute, too.

1. ETA: He returned the ore. I withdraw my trash-talking in that regard. [↩]
2. Including a certain warrior, I’m sure. [↩]