Turns out I'm not a very good headhunter. Should have rolled a Troll.

Xeppe (author of the excellent blog An Ordinary Priest) and I have a strange history.

I actually found Xeppe’s blog through a link via another link from someone else’s blog. I was amazed to discover that she was not just a fellow Priest, or a fellow Oceanic Priest, or even a fellow Barthilas player – Barthilian?, or even another girl WoW player. No. Xeppe was all those things, but even more interestingly, she was a brand new recruit in my guild’s shady splinter guild: DeZire.

Talk about good gossip!

You see, back around the time my guild was first struggling with the new Icecrown Citadel hard modes two distinct, but major events occurred within our ranks. Firstly, we recruited a third Mage to join our two existing Mages (the existing pair of boys happened to be very good friends and had gamed together for years and I think, perhaps, even knew each other well outside the game). The third Mage, I’m sorry to say, was a piece of work. She was one of those people who help perpetuate the girls-are-trouble-and-don’t-belong-in-serious-raid-teams stereotypes.

In those days we made a fundamental mistake. One that your guild is probably making right now:

We put our pure caster DPS in Group 3.

Do not do this. For the love of god, do not do this. It was pure happenstance that one week I also found myself in Group 3 (perhaps I had logged on extremely early and sniped one of the first slots). And by the time we had killed Heroic Blood Princes party chat had dissolved into a pretty serious argument between New Mage and I over the Shadow Silk Spindle. New Mage made a snarky comment when one of our Restoration Druids (not Lathere, by the way) outbid everyone else and won the Heroic Shadow Silk Spindle. It was the first one our raid had seen, and yes, coveted by all the casters.

New Mage felt that the item should be for DPS casters only. Because any serious raider would know that there is a Spirit offhand waiting to be had from Heroic Sindragosa, and that is better for Restoration Druids, and the Resto Druid that won the Shadow Silk Spindle was outting themselves for being unprepared and ignorant of their class.

I think she was surprised that I was so angry with her. I think she was really just directing her complaint towards the other two Mages in the party, and both agreed with her, and never intended for me to see the conversation. I’d certainly never seen her say anything like that in Guild or Raid chat before.

I have no patience for players who claim to know what other classes should or shouldn’t be equipping (especially when it’s to argue that someone doesn’t deserve the item you want – talk about biased!). And furthermore our loot system is set up to be as open as possible and we make no concessions for best in slot or class by class comparisons. It’s not a Loot Council. Far from it. You bid on what you want. And if you want it that bad be prepared to spend a lot.

We got into another argument about a week later, also in Party Chat, but I can’t remember what it was about. By then I had mentally labeled her as a Troublemaker with a capital T. Over the next few weeks our other two Mages became more and more discontent with our raiding and were quite vocal about it. They were fast to post DPS meters when one of the Mages had hit the #1 spot, and very defensive of each-other if anyone dared point out a mistake that one of them had made.

At the same time one of the core founding members of the guild, a Rogue, was also becoming unhappy with our raiding. He was angry when we struggled to get numbers, angry when he felt the officers weren’t recruiting properly. He was angry at our raid leading, angry at our mistakes. He eventually left to join a more progressed guild and I, like most of the guild, was both sad and relieved.

Anyway, to make a long story short, our unhappy Rogue decided to come back and give our guild, and his old friends still in the guild, another go. He chafed under the rules even more than before. Throw that into the mix with our 3 discontent Mages and it was a pretty miserable time to be raiding with Vitare. I blogged about it here.

To make a very long story short, during a tough night wiping on Professor Putricide, our Raid Leader decided to penalise one of our Mages (who had been topping the DPS meters) for doing something silly: getting hit by Malleable Goo or something. Within a few minutes all three Mages had left the raid and left the guild. While it was completely expected, and in fact the officers had over-recruited caster DPS just for that reason, it was still a pretty uncomfortable moment for the guild. Probably the most drama we’d seen in two or three years.

Not long after, perhaps a week or two later, our unhappy Rogue also called it quits. This time he decided to head up a brand new 25 man raiding guild on Barthilas, clearing the same content, with the same hours, same start time, same everything as our guild. DeZire started with 1 Rogue and 3 Mages. They took raiding applicants that we declined. They welcomed raiders who decided they didn’t like us enough to stay after their trial period (we can’t be everyone’s cup of tea, I suppose). And they built themselves up to a formidable and successful raiding guild, eventually surpassing us on the server progression tables if not by content cleared, but by the speed that they were able to clear it.

So imagine my surprise when I started reading An Ordinary Priest and all the drama of their new 25 man raiding guild is there to see written in between the lines of a young Discipline Priest second guessing herself during her raiding trial. It starts here, and gets better, and even better here and ends here.

Xeppe and I got to talking both on her blog and also in game – after all, we were on the same server raiding the same content at the same time. We had many online friends in common, and I had met a few of her raid team in real life so I had my own impressions and stories to tell.

Unfortunately Xeppe didn’t have a very good time of it in her Barthilas guild. I started thinking of ways to get her into Vitare. I knew she would fit right in, and while her guild and mine were identical in raid times, gear and progression, the personalities and attitudes which drive both guilds are as different as night and day.

As much as I would have liked to sponsor an application to my guild from Xeppe the timing was all wrong. We had a full roster of Priests and our Raid Leader leader is a Discipline Priest. And she was of the opinion that Discipline Priests don’t stack well.  Tack on our two excellent and long term Holy Priests and there was just no reason, other than pure favoritism, to welcome another healing Priest to the team.

I was dismayed to hear that Xeppe had burned out and left Barthilas, forever associating hardcore raiding, 25 mans, and progression raiding with that bad experience in DeZire.

If you haven’t been reading An Ordinary Priest you might not know it but Xeppe has turned from a white bar into a dark blue one: these days she’s playing a Restoration Shaman. And it just so happens that my guild, Vitare, is being very open-minded about our roster for Cataclysm. And there’s definitely room for a Restoration Shaman.

There’s room for Xeppe. If only I could convince her!

Natassia, a Rogue in my guild, played with Xeppe when they were both in DeZire, Xeppe’s old Barthilas guild. She chimed in on Xeppe’s blog to add support to my Must Recruit Xeppe Plan of Attack. Our Raid Leader has been reading An Ordinary Priest on and off for almost a year. Our Recruitment Officer is keen for Xeppe to join too.

And if you need further proof of how much we want you to join, Xeppe, here it is!

Plan: How to Recruit Xeppe

My hopes for Vitare in Cataclysm are thus: to hash over our experiences in game online here at HoTs & DoTs (written by yours truly and if you’re lucky you might get some mad ramblings from Lathere), our guild’s anti-gnomes Warlock over at Emberstorm (written by Velidra) and our future guild’s Absolutely Unique Shaman (that would be Xeppe)!

ps. These days it is a firm rule in Vitare that Mages are never placed in the same party within a raid and are, instead, almost always separated among Groups 2-4.

Do you ever wonder what might have been?

Vok, who plays on the same realm as us, ranted about Priests in his Healing Q&A. Obviously he’s played with some terrible Priests this expansion, none of which, it seems, can remember to click Fortitude. Or perhaps none that can afford candles.

But Vok doesn’t realise how close he came to raiding with me.

When Lathere and I needed a new guild at the start of Wrath we came as a linked pair. A buy one, get one free type deal (I think Lath was the one they were buying and I was the freebie). We joined a raiding guild called Defiance – a step up for us, or so we thought. Some of our other friends followed us and we were happy to have them with us.

But I wasn’t happy in Defiance from day 1. I argued endlessly for reform. Their DKP rules were grossly unfair to newcomers and favoured officers and long term players (even ones who I’d never even raided with). And the prospect of winning cloth armor seemed hopeless. There were no rules to protect us from leather/mail/plate wearers and the raid was lousy with Warlocks, Mages and Priests. I won more gear from PuGs than I did from guild runs.

The night we first stepped foot in Ulduar I gquit. I’ll admit, it was a spur of the moment type thing. Yes, it was that bad. And Ulduar wasn’t as forgiving as Naxxramas. Lathere and 2 raiding friends of ours quit too.

We had no other guilds lined up. We were un-guilded. And we were a four package deal: me, Lathere, a Resto Shaman and a DK. And the guild that we just left? Hated my guts.

Remember how I said quitting was spur of the moment decision? Well the next day Lathere called me and gave me the older sister sensible speech which boils down to “how could you be so reckless? look at what you’ve done!”. While I had been ranting about unfair DKP rules and awarding loot to players who consistently disconnect for entire encounters, Lathere had been planning a more sensible exit strategy.

We both try to keep in touch with the nice people that we’ve raided with over years no matter where they go and it’s fair to say that there’s someone in most of the serious 25 man raiding guilds on Barthilas that we have some history with. Perhaps you could even go far enough to say “we have friends in high places”. Nah, that is going too far.

But Lath and I got talking and we soon realised there was really only a couple of guilds that we wanted to be part of.

One of those guilds had stolen two of my favourite people from me: a Hunter by the name of Stardown (back in the days of BC) and a Shaman by the name of Rumbrb (at the very start of Wrath). Stardown was Obsolete’s Hunter class lead and an officer. And he definitely deserved the position. If I wanted to wind down after a raid I would just ask Stardown a Huntery question, or use the words “Attack Power” in his presence, and the steady stream of numbers would put me right to sleep.

The other guild had coughed up an (alt) Protection Warrior who tanked with us in the Burning Crusade. He had managed to steal my best friend away from me in-game. For at least six months all I ever heard was “Caco and I are doing x instance” and “sorry Caco just invited me to do something”. Tanks and their healers. What can you do? Anyway I figured if Maria liked him, he must be alright. Caco returned his alt to his raiding guild, Vitare, in Wrath and became an officer.

And do you know, while I’m writing this, I just realised they have the exact same first name in real life? I’ll give you a hint… it starts with the letter m.

There were actually two other potential guilds that we considered less seriously:

One guild had pinched another one of my favourite people, a Mage. I still remember the first conversation I had with Majesty on-flight to Tempest Keep. And it still makes me smile. Unfortunately the guild he joined in Wrath, Exiztence, also contained the most annoying player (and a Priest! for shame!) on the server. Plus they seemed like tight-asses. So they were out.

The last guild we considered, Annexation, had grabbed up quite a few (at least five, I think) of our players at the start of Wrath just at the time when we were desperately trying to get consistent numbers for 25 man raids. I’ve always thought of them as poaching our players. So they were out, too.

So I logged in the day after we /gquit and Caco, from Vitare, whispered me within minutes:

“So I heard you left Defiance…”

Stardown, from Obsolete, didn’t log in until an hour later. He offered us a place in their next guild raid and a standing invitation to join Obsolete. But by then I was already somewhat committed to our (at the time not yet written) Vitare application. I politely refused his offer to raid with them because I didn’t want to be saved in case Vitare wanted to bring me to a trial raid that same week.

So we joined Vitare. And we’re still there.

Annexxation disbanded. All our friends/guild members who left us for Annexation are now in another guild altogether. They’re doing quite well.

Exiztence very nearly disbanded. Or disbanded and reformed. It’s hard to tell. A chunk of their raiding team left to start their own, extremely successful, guild. Several of their members, including my friend Maj, changed factions and joined a successful Horde guild on Barthilas. I’m still a bit sad that I can’t chat with him anymore.

Obsolete have had a rocky time of it, too. They had their GM step down. At one point it looked as though they were going to stop running 25 mans altogether. And it seemed as though they were forever recruiting a decent Priest (which explains Vok’s hatred towards Priests). My friend Stardown stopped playing WoW while we were all still in our Trial period with Vitare. My friend Rumbrb no longer raids 25 mans and raids 10 mans instead with some of the original Obsolete raiders.

And Vitare? Doing better than I had ever hoped.

But I can’t help but think how different it could have turned out. If Caco hadn’t been online when I logged in that day and it had been Stardown who asked first? We would have joined Obsolete, I’m sure of it.

Do you have your own World of Warcraft sliding doors moment? One decision, or a twist of fate that lead you in a completely new direction?

Are you really ready?

Over the last few weeks raid attendance to our 25 man progression nights has been abysmal. Vitare, our guild, is progressing reasonably well (2/5 ToGC 25 man) even though we’re only putting in, at the most, 1 night per week doing 25s.

We’re coping with our poor turn out as best we can by recruiting DPS like crazy.

Sadly we still haven’t managed to find a Boomkin even though we’ve been looking for one for months now. I swear guilds keep these poor crit turkeys caged and never let them out – when was the last time you saw one in the wild, guildless and alone?

Occasionally we’ll see one exceptional applicant (melee dps, of course). But the overwhelming majority of our applicants in the last few weeks have been bad and/or teenagers. I’m praying school holidays will end soon.

The funniest thing is that, when asked “what age are you?”,  these teenage applicants always go on to assert that their age “isn’t a problem”. Since when did they get to make that judgment? I don’t know.Teenagers are not in control of their own lives or their own schedules. If you think that your age isn’t a problem, you’re crazy.

I am ageist. I know. I don’t like school kids in raids I wish they would go form their own disorganised e-peen guilds somewhere far away from the rest of us and stay there.

I became ageist during Burning Crusade when I held the unenviable position of Guild Leader of a casual raiding guild. I am an Admin Nazi and I couldn’t help but approach the responsibilities of running a guild in any other way except, well, business-like. For a casual, next-to-no-expectations guild, it ran well.

However, I couldn’t single-handedly stop all the guild drama. From my experience 99% of these problems and incidents were caused by the teenagers member of the guild. They seriously couldn’t see alternative points of view outside their own self centered world and believed that the other 24 raiders should all put everything on hold and do whatever was necessary to fit into what they wanted and make them happy. When things didn’t happen to suit them I would be told that it was “unfair”. What they really meant was that it was “unfair” that they didn’t get want they wanted, when they wanted it.

Aside from that there were the other general, annoying, on-going teenage issues including:

• Afk-ing at completely unpredictable, random times to eat dinner
• not being able to raid past 10pm and on some nights having to log off much earlier than expected with nearly zero notice
• loot distribution rage
• spotty attendance unless it was school holidays

So we’ve ended up with quite a few new raiders whom we might not have otherwise accepted (we admit it, we’re desperate), many are teenagers, and none of them seem to get how a serious, organised raiding guild operates.

Even if you’re not sure what your new guild expects, follow these rules and your chances of pissing off the leadership will be significantly reduced.

1. Be Available

Perfect: Turn up for every single raid night during your trial period. Be online and on vent approximately 30 minutes before every raid and be ready at the summoning stone 10 minutes before the official start time to help summon.

Acceptable: Turn up to every single raid night and let an officer know in advance of any raids you can’t attend. Be online 10 minutes before start time and be in the instance by raid start.

Not Acceptable: Turning up occasionally or only on loot train raid nights. Logging online late and asking in guild chat if there is space in the raid for you. Asking for a summon to the raid instance because flying there yourself is just so difficult.

2. Bring Consumables and Off Spec Gear

Perfect: Bring with you enough flasks, reagents, buff food and potions to last the entire raid.  Bring Fish Feasts and put them out after a wipe. Bringing multiple gear sets in case the raid required you to change spec for different encounters.

Acceptable: Bring flasks and buff food to last the entire raid.

Not Acceptable: Not buying flasks, or not buying enough, because they are too expensive at the moment. Expecting someone to place down a Fish Feast for you because you didn’t bring your own food. Not buffing because you forgot to buy reagents. Not having enough bag space to carry your off spec gear forcing everyone to wait for you to Hearth back to Dalaran to get it from the bank and then get a summon back to the instance before the next attempt can be tried.

3. Repair when the Raid Does

Perfect: Repair before coming to raid. Know where the closest repairer is to the raid instance. Repair when you see other raid members repairing, too. Repair quickly enough that the raid doesn’t even know you were gone. If someone provides a Repair Bot repair even if you think you don’t need to. Bring repair bots or Jeeves to the raid if you are an Engineer.

Acceptable: Repair before coming to raid. Let an officer know you have to repair if items go yellow and then head straight to the closest repairer.

Not Acceptable: Forgetting to repair before a raid. Not knowing where the nearest repairer is. Holding up the entire raid by going to repair after a Readycheck. Asking for someone to drop a repair bot.

4. Don’t AFK

Perfect: Don’t go AFK during the raid unless its an official break time. If the raid leader calls a 5 minute break, be back and ready to go in 5 minutes.

Acceptable: If you need to use the bathroom or go get a drink, let an officer know. Flag yourself /afk. Come back quickly.

Not Acceptable: Going AFK within a moments notice to eat dinner or make a phone call. If it means 24 other people are sitting around twiddling their thumbs while you take care of things it’s NOT ok. Saying Yes to a Readycheck when you aren’t actually ready.

Extra Comments: If you are a teenager and your parents make you eat dinner with them at a set time each night, make sure you declare that on your application. If you have to eat dinner with your family at some changeable time each night, frankly, I don’t think you should sign up with a raiding guild that raids during your dinner time at all.

5. Don’t Expect Loot

Perfect: Read up on how your new guild distributes loot and ask any questions prior to your first raid.

Acceptable: Have no idea how loot is handled, keep quiet and watch and learn during your first raid.

Not Acceptable: Ask for items or bidding on drops even though you don’t know how much DKP you have earnt yet. Getting upset when you find out that new recruits don’t get any priority on loot.

6. Speak Clearly and Concisely

Perfect: Do not chit-chat on Vent. When asked a question, or given a specific task respond clearly over vent and use your character’s name. Eg “This is Majical. You want me to sheep moon? No problem.”

Acceptable: Say nothing over Vent and respond to questions or accept assignments by typing in Raid chat instead. Accept assignments over Vent without identifying yourself. Eg “Ok, I’ll sheep moon.” Asking additional questions about the fight, or what is required of you.

Not Acceptable: Offering unwanted advice of any kind. “Why would you do that? In my last guild we just…” Not responding to assignments or instructions at all.

7. Know the Fight and Don’t Die

Perfect: Find out before raid what bosses will be attempted that night. Check to see if there is a particular strategy that they would like you to read/watch before you actually turn up to the raid. Notify the Raid Leader as your new guild approachs a boss fight you have not yet experienced first hand. Move out of the fire immediately.

Acceptable: Know your new guild’s raid progression. Watch strategy videos of any fights you are unfamiliar with, spending time familiarising yourself with strategies on how to defeat the fights your new guild is working on. Move out of the fire immediately.

Unacceptable: Attend the raid without doing any research. Pretend that you know what to do when asked. Die to fire.

8. Be Polite

Perfect: Say thank you when you are invited to a raid. Say thank you when the raid is called for the night. Take notice of any raid member who goes out of their way to help you, even if it is just to answer your questions, and be grateful.

Acceptable: Do not thank anyone. Do not offend anyone.

Not Acceptable: Blame another raid member for wiping the raid or causing you to die. Justify that you died from “lack of heals”. Complain when you die. Insult another player. Make snide comments in Guild Chat if you do not get an invitation to a raid.

———–

If all of this seems like too much effort or is too hard for you, then raiding in a progression guild is not going to be your cup of tea. I strongly suggest redefining your goals and choosing a casual guild that will be much more lenient to your needs.