Alone again.

Well it finally happened.

I have left my guild.

Well it’s not MY guild any more. Honor. That was the name of the guild. I’m not sire if I have ever talked about it on here before. Prolly have in passing but not specifically. Now I will.

I joined a guild some few months after I started playing wow. That guild was called Kaos. It was a guild on Duskwood server. I joined because my wife was in it and she recommended it to me. Besides I wanted to play with the wife and being in the same guild would facilitate that easier. Now Kaos had a lot of good people and players. Those 2 things not being mutually inclusive either. Yet enough of them in the guild were both to make it a nice place to hang. Or so I thought. A few months (or days, can’t remember) after I joined that guild it imploded.

Several of the good ones started another guild for the other good ones. This guild was named Honor. I joined them around the 3rd day of Honor’s life. The GM was an older guy named Ressager. This guy really knew how to treat people. He was a GM people would defend and listen to. Yet he wasn’t a domineering kind of guy. He led us by example and it seemed to work. People differed to him when disputes arose over anything. He made it clear that Honor was a casual guild that was looking to raid, but not jam ass into hardcore.

So we didn’t advance as fast as the other guilds. Yet we advanced at a steady pace. The guild did all the pre-bc raids and were quite successful. We never had a guild only Rag kill, mostly due to the pre-reqs, but we could go in there and smash it up pretty good. We advanced enough to tackle ZG, AQ20, and even dipped into BWL and Ony. I think a few even made it into Naxx. All this was pre-BC of course. When BC was about to hit we lost a lot of members due to the fact that we were laying off raids and only doin impromptu attempts at the higher dungeons. Most came back after BC and joined the run to 70.

It then came to pass that our leader, Ressager, had to take some indefinite off time to do some moving and house building. We all understood and wished him well. Most assumed he would be back after a few months. During the time he was away, many left the guild due to having no direction or solid leadership. The guild deteriorated into almost a feeder guild or a guild just for alts. A lot of the key players took their “mains” out to join raiding guilds for gear and experience. No one seemed willing to make the big decisions that would turn around the guild and bring it back to the Pre-Ressager’sleaveofabsence. The attitude of the guild slumped and many rules that were enforced before were let slide. The guild became, in my opinion, a swampy shadow of its former self.

After a period of time when we didn’t hear from him, he was contacted by other means. It was decided by him and his Vice GM that he would give up control of the guild to the Vice GM, Borvoh. This guy was the right hand and a proper choice for a replacement GM. So no one thought anything of it. In fact most heartily endorsed it. Now Bor set about returning the guild to its former glory, hell at one time people were clamoring to get into Honor since our rep for fairness and fun were renown across the server. He re-enforced the rules and listened to the officers to institute others. Oh yeah did I mention that at some point I became an officer or equivalent. Hell I was up for Class leader just before those positions were removed. Since I was an officer and interested in the guilds long life, I helped out where I could. With pride and fairness I helped police the guild for idiots. Never abusing my powers, and I had some decent ones too. There was plenty of friction when we started to raid Kara. We lost a few more due to misunderstandings and friction.

The guild weathered the trials that Kara presented. After a period of unsettling conflict we pulled through and became a guild that could field a successful Kara group. It wasn’t long after we started having weekly success in Kara that a lot of the old guard returned from their wanderings. Soon we suddenly had enough members to realistically run 2 Kara groups and expect them to perform well. And they did, and it was good. Well not so much for me.

Due to time differences and actually having a life (yeah kids do need tending sometimes) I was unable to run with group 1. Also at the time my only 70 was my Rogue. Dps wasn’t a big need so he was very rarely needed; besides there were plenty of DPS that hit harder then him. So I started a pally just to see how it plays. I loved it of course. It wasn’t long after I got to around 40 on Gawds that I decided that he would be a raider, DPS of course as I cant stand to be in the background healing. I should have realized at it was a pipe dream. Not only is DPS not hard to come by, it is in overabundance. While healers and tanks are still scarce.

Soon after Gawds reached 70 there was a call for a second group for Kara. I was excited. Here was my chance to break in and do some damage in Kara. I didn’t know at the time that there really isn’t all that much gear in there for a ret pally. (Turns out that heroics is prolly the best place for decent ret pally gear, if you can stomach wearing mail. Ick!) Yeah I say. I was still willing to go an help other get some goodies. My first attempt to get into group to failed miserable. The time it was set to go was almost an hour before I could realistically get home from work. Dayam. Next attempt was tolerable better only because it was delayed until key players logged on to give the group a chance to work. I watched as the group slammed through the first few bosses and then failed to get past Curator. Why? DPS wasn’t high enough. Since ret pallys don’t have fast ass DPS, I bowed out and let a mage come wail. That was the last time Gawds went into Kara. That was prolly 3 weeks ago, maybe more, I’d have to check.

After ZA was introduced the guild set up a progression group, whether it was set I don’t know, I was never asked for participation. So I have yet to see the inside of ZA. Shrugs.

I left Honor for various reasons. Some I have yet to state some I may never state, but the bottom line is: I no longer felt my presence in the guild amounted to anything. I couldn’t raid, wasn’t included in heroics when I expressed interest(mostly due to preplanned excursions), was flat out ignored when I asked to get in on a ZA run and generally left to twiddle my thumbs. I was excluded from playing with the people I had come to love playing with. I rarely saw any of the people I enjoyed playing with face to face (in game). All I have had for the past few weeks is reading in /gchat all the guilds exploits in Kara and ZA. Yeah. I’m happy. Shit. I will miss the guild a lot. Hell Honor, for me, was my only guild. Nothing will come close to it I think. No. I know nothing will come close to it. Yet I find that leaving wasn’t as hard as it should have been, coupled with the fact that when I left I got all of 2 people asking why I left. So yeah I quietly disappeared from everyone it seemed. I considered goin to the wife’s guild, but the chance even though the chance to raid is there, the chance at gear is slim to none based on the rules they have about raiding/loot.

There have been slim opportunities for me to raid, shit, same thing happened pre-bc. I have been tinkering with a prot warrior. After 2.3 it has become disgustingly easy to level, and with 2 high level characters to finance, I can afford the best gear to make it even easier. I started this game solo, so it seems I have come full circle. I’m solo again. I don’t know how long I will stomach playing solo or whether I will keep playing till WoTK graces us with its presence.


So with a heavy heart, yeah it does hurt a bit, I bid farewell to Honor. I will miss alot of people. Can’t say if I’ll ever go back. Future is uncertain.


Mindkiller
Gawdsicon
Darstar

More Altism, I have it in spades.

I was a little premature in thinking that I would be raid lots and lots on Gawds. Seems even though Ret pallys have increased in utility, they are not all that wanted in raids. Or perhaps its just this persons pally that is not welcome. I’m being bitter, the one time I have gone to Kara on Gawds we can’t kill Curator. I bowed out so they could bring in another dps. They get him down and what drops? T4 pally gloves , with no one there who could use them or need them. Yeah. I have been unable to get into any other raids due to the time slot they seem to shoot for. It is just as I get home if I don’t make any stops. If traffic is heavy, I’ll be late. We don’t get penalized for not showing up on time, but it means they have to look for some one else and maybe that person needs stuff in there. Couple this with the fact that I have been told that the gear in Kara is not a big draw for Ret pallys, yeah again. So in order for me to get gear I have to do Heroics for drops and badges. Well after the long haul to 70, I find myself with out purpose. I can spend time in heroics for a small chance something good will drop, or just farm badges to make a nice epic set out of that. I have yet to decide what to do.

I still get a lot of tells asking me to heal or tank on Gawds. I see a lot of players assuming Ret is a broken and worthless tree. I’m glad they are wrong. Our damage is based on crits and procs, but both are tied and can be enhanced easily. Well easily within the games mechanics, ie farming for drops and badges. Same as most characters. The only thing I see as what they are complaining about is that to be truly effective you need to stick almost soley to the ret tree. Not like healing or prot where you can diddle in and out of 2 or 3 of the trees. Myself I went with 10/0/51 to gain the maximum amount of dps per swing as well as the nice boost to stats from the 10% to str and int. It means I can’t heal heroics or the harder dungeons for more that a few heals. Yet I didn’t roll pally to heal. I made him to get those insane crits I see in all the PVP videos where a pally rolls through 20 guys before the screen goes blank. Can a rogue do that? Sure, but you damn well better have some beastly equipment. Mindkiller doesn’t, and won’t. He just does not have the utility people look for in raids. I am disappointed that a character I really loved leveling to 70 turned out to be only worth using as a farmer. Maybe I’m playing him wrong. I don’t know, and I’m tired of tryin.

I have also taken a break from Gawds. I’m really thinking about moving him to my wife’s guild. If they will have me, not sure as I have not applied yet. I have started and leveled to 26 a brand new Human Warrior named Darstar. I decided finally to make a tank. My luck will be such that when ever he reaches 70, the tanks will all be druids or Prot pallys. It will also give me a slim chance of playing side by side with my wifes preist. If only I can get her to play at all with me instead of raiding. I can burn oast her so fast due to my ability to smash through areas and their quests in no time at all. Coupled with tha fact of my memory retention of all the quests I have done for various reasons. Hell I have done the human, gnome/dwarf, Night elf, and Drani quests on a few characters. Some just for rep at 60 or 70. I know where I need to go for this or that quest. She has limited herself to playing only NE for so long she only knows those quests, whil I prefer the gnomes and dwarves. Still I have ploughed through the Teldrassil and darkshore stuff a few times just for the beefy rep you get. An ill do it again on Darstar sos he can have a cat at 60. We will see if we can meet up for some play time. Might not be for a bit though as packing will have to come first. My time for the next few weeks will be at a premium as I have to move me and the family out of the apartment we are in.