I was puttering around on my Forsaken Death Knight yesterday afternoon and as I tend to do while puttering, I left myself in the Raid Browser as Tank/DPS on the unlikely chance that someone might need me.
You see, with my raiding and guild obligations Alliance side, I don't really want to commit to a Horde guild as I will always put my Alliance guild and toons first, so I don't think it's fair for me to join a guild with an alt. I can see it working out if I can find a raiding guild that does weekend work only or something, and while I don't mind PuGing - it can lead to fun and excitement and meeting great people - in the end of the day, I play this game to raid with friends.
So anyway, I was herbing away when I get a whisper - "Tank for ICC 10? Marrowgar is down." I do my usual Litmus Test - pop the person's name into Wow-head and peruse their gear/raid stats, and he'd done 8 or 9 bosses in ICC a few times, so I figure he is a professional PuGer. I accept his invite, zone in, click "Accept" when I'm asked to enter into the lockout and am sealed to this raid.
Happily I put on my tank gear, take my flask, eat my food, log into Vent, and start jumping up and down, ready to pull. That's when I realize with slow dawning horror that this will not be productive. That I have, in fact, thrown away my raid lockout for nothing. For one, my co-tank with massively better gear than me but in the same spec as me is doing far less damage than I am. The Raid Lead isn't leading so much as telling people when to pull. The DPS is non-existent and there are two healers, one of whom drops raid after one pull of the boss that lasts seven minutes to get to phase 2 at which point I explode the second I stop chaining cool downs.
Mind bogglingly, the raid leader then says he has time for one more pull and I just about have to induce a stroke in myself to keep from punching that press to talk key and screaming, "What the fuck?"
Disgusting.
Later in the night, my normal Alliance raid was short three people due to massive log-in issues that plagued my entire Battlegroup and I wound up PuGing and did a mixed bag of Heroic and Normal mode kills. I actually wound up with a couple of upgrades that I had been looking for, for a long time. And as usual, after we had killed 9 bosses in 2 hours at the end of the night, the PuGers whispered me kindly, asking me if we were looking for recruits.
Why can't I PuG for my guild's counterparts Horde side? Anyone on Moon Guard need a part-time Tank/DPS DK? I swear I don't suck.
On top of that, some roster issues are starting to nag on me, wherein I've had our Shadow Priest sub-healing hard modes for our Resto-Shaman who's on a sabbatical and he's getting antsy to get back to his normal spec and is tired of keeping up two gear sets, so I've sent an e-mail off to the Shammy to see what her status is.
Little, minor issues like these are starting to pile up. I might need an officer meeting soon to sort this shit out!
Sadly, I suspect it's just that time of the game/expansion. Folks trickle off - they lose interest in the current content as many have already finished it (or gotten what they want out of it). As you said - people level alts some, but between new heirloom gear in the expansion and the expected 70-80 experience adjustment, there's not a lot of allure in Northrend left until a month before Cataclysm. So - people either are busy on the beta, taking breaks from WoW until Cata drops, or knocking out things on their "bucket list" such as old achievements and the like.
ReplyDeleteIt stinks, but really all you can do is weather through it. Just like all things though, this too shall pass.
Yeah, last week was poop. Spending two hours on LK with three PuGs and barely clawing into phase 3 wasn't a lot of fun. >.<
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping to make up for it this week. I've actually had a bit of luck with friends of friends and such being ready to step in and help fill in slots.
All I did was mention our situation with a iffy third healer spot and a friend of the guild immediately geared up her shaman!
*fingers crossed*
But I just, you know, want a steady and consistent group and that has been sorely missing.