http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/grakkur/ en Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:21:37 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tankspot.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/grakkur/ http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/grakkur/1608-passing-all-boundaries-then-disappearing.html Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:54:08 GMT United Slackers or US for short.

For people playing in the Moonglade realm on the european servers during vanilla WoW, this was a familiar name in the raiding circuit. US was a raiding community with people from different guilds coming together for the purpose and prospect of raiding. They weren't really special in terms of skill or progression, but they had an uncanny playstyle and a subtle sense of humor that made me snicker everytime I saw examples of it.

Fast forward to June/July 2008. *Old VCR FF sound*

I had just gotten back from a long break from WoW (roughly 6-8 months), life was good and I decided to give it a whirl again to see if any old friends were still around. Long story short, I ended up speaking with an old warrior friend of mine named Killealli. I got the story on how he was doing and that he was in this raiding community called US. That didn't really interest me at all so I just asked him quite briefly if there were any spots open in their social guild, Tranquility. The answer was yes and after some socializing with members, I was accepted into their midst.

To give you a brief explanation on my own behaviour in the game, I am balls out insane. Now, that insanity is of course not insane in the way of "I-flash-my-loin-to-women" or "I-stab-innocent-people". My 'insanity' is more of the random impulsive type. During an instance run I could comment on the underpants a fel orc would wear, how much blood it would take before Kargath eventually had to sharpen his hands or I could jump up and down on a group of downed mobs and yell "YAY BODYPARTS!"

Unmistakenly, this behaviour garners some irritated responses from time to time but generally, people find amusement in my antics and that is what I strive for really.

BACK ON TRACK!

So, I joined up in Tranquility and started leveling from 60 to 70 all the while being the casual me and just enjoying the social aspect. After awhile I had garnered quite a fair amount of DPS gear and was starting to get competetive against people of equal item standard as me. This is when I started thinking about raiding again as I had done AQ20 and ZG in pistachio WoW.

Said and done, I applied to US as a DPS warrior after learning that Killealli was head of the warrior branch. My gear was a potpurri of stuff, think branches, twigs, bark and you're getting close to the truth on my gear level. Killealli however, took pity on me, but instead of recruiting me as a tank I was chucked a sword and board while told to defend people against unimaginable horrors (I was told a few months later that he said he knew of my 'skill' and general easy-going attitude). Hogger was probably browning his pants laughing at this point and Illidan probably lost a line in his Shakespeare interpretation with the skull of Gul'dan.

So, it was on with the show for my part and getting on gearing while US were tackling Mount Hyjal and Black Temple. Apparently they weren't doing too good since progression had completely stalled and they were having slight problems filling the ranks.

As for me, I kept on running heroics like there was no tomorrow, joining in on the occasional Karazhan run as an off-tank. The main tank of the Karazhan runs was named Iséndel, a young guy (sub-18) with a good sense of skill but with slight attitude problems and a projected aura of true boredom. When we were closing in to the Shade of Aran, that was around the time he started trying to stress us on since he just wanted to get out of the place in order for him to go sit in Shattrath and do nothing.

Eventually I had amassed enough gear to safely tackle Karazhan and Zul'Aman as a tank myself. I was doing ok, nothing spectacular in terms of tanking but one thing I noticed about myself was my analytical behaviour during fights. Something which noone else apparently took note of. If you weren't an officer in US, they wouldn't listen to your ideas regarding tactics even if your tactic involved launching a nuclear bomb towards the Black Temple and then collecting gear from the rubble.

I never got to raid in US except during Karazhan and Zul'Aman. They already had a warrior named Uglūk who was decked out in T4/T5 gear. The problem with Uglūk was that he was absolutely terrible. He would login just before raid start, never bring consumables or flasks and would log onto Teamspeak only to deactivate all incoming sound. Raid management was baffled when on Hydross the Unstable (who needs to be handled by two different tanks in frost resistance gear and nature resistance gear respectively) he seemingly refused to let go of the floating blue blob that was the boss. When asked why he wasn't listening, it unfolded sort of like this:

- Uglūk, why aren't you listening to what we're saying?

- I don't have sound on TS.

- WHY?!

- It lags my computer.

Incidents like this eventually led to Killealli, my tanking mentor leaving US for another raiding guild, he left on good terms with everyone though. Eventually it saw the downfall of United Slackers and Tranquility but also created In Meus Pardus (In My Pants or Upon My Panther). Needless to say, people like Uglūk were nowhere to be seen in this guild.
R.I.P. United Slackers, you were present during blueberry WoW but disappeared before WotLK.

In Meus Pardus is a guild with raiding on the menu and it worked very well up to WotLK. I was away in The United States during the guild's creation but decided to chuck an application their way seeing as I was geared and ready as a tank and had also been promoted to a full member of US before 'The Decimation'. Turns out my dreams were shattered instantly when they said another protection warrior had been recommended by a member in-game and that there were no free spots other than as reserve, there were however DPS spots. I promptly declined and said that I play to tank, that's it. Eventually though, this warrior decided to transfer along with the person who recommended him. Seems like I had a spot after all!

Long story short here as well, I got to tank all content up to Felmyst and we successfully got pre-patch Kael'Thas down after many many tries. After patch 3.0 we pretty much steamrolled Black Temple and poked Sunwell Plateau as well. I ended up having loads of fun while raiding and eventually ending up with 6 pieces of T6 and an assortment of high level gear on the side, something I never got close to achieving in chocolate WoW. I also ran Magister's Terrace 18 days in a row to get Commendation of Kael'Thas.

November rolled around and WotLK hit the shelves. People started leveling and of course with a casual guild with many different players, we start seeing problems. I was one of the top 10 in the guild to reach level 80 and promptly started doing heroics. It took me about a week to garner enough gear to actually be raid ready and a few more days to be able to take on anything in Naxxramas. The guild had however started to shake in its foundations. Our raid leader, Dachande who was an awesome leader in terms of discipline, attitude and social aptness left the guild due to conflicts with other members of management. Dachande was an enhancement or elemental shaman and would not hesitate to respecc resto in order to get raids going. He had abit of a hot temper when things didn't go his way but that was a minor issue that never caused any real trouble for anyone.

More things happened during this time (which is actually just dating back two weeks and to the present day) that has seen In Meus Pardus shaking even more;

- Management decisions annoying members (people having to re-apply to the guild as they hit level 80).

- Key management and regular members leaving due to just not being able to handle the pressure.

- Immense amount of drama due to 10 members (including myself) wanting to try Naxxramas while some others were not 80 yet and others not being able to come due to the 10-man limit.

All this has put me in doubt of my guild. We have lost several people that were important and I have also started to find friendship in the guild that Killealli joined a few months back. My biggest decision now is, do I stay or do I go?

There are things that weigh in favour of both decisions:

Staying:

1. I have very good friends whose company i greatly appreciate in In Meus Pardus. I'd hate to leave them in a bind since there are just two tanks left now of which I am one.

2. I will get first dibs on all warrior loot probably since my tank leader is fair and sees to it that we both get an equal share. At least that was the way so far.

3. Raids will happen, but the mood in the guild is not good and there is animosity stirring just under the surface.

Not staying:

1. My current tank leader can be a complete twat when it comes to behaviour.

2. I have good friends in 'Killealli's guild' which will vouch for me so I am probably guaranteed at least a social spot.

3. I do not like some people in current management, nor do I like their constant needy and selfish behaviour.

4. I have been dealt alot of dirty inside information regarding the behaviour and actions of key members that I trusted and whose judgement I adhered to.

5. I was told that the same people didn't like me raid leading, even though I was also told by others that I did a decent job, even though I may have spent slightly too much time explaining different fight. I was never ever told during the time that I spent too long preparing for each boss fight. Machiavellian galore.

We'll see what the future holds, hopefully I can come to terms with what I want to do. Hope it was a decent read, even though it is incredibly long. This is my WoW history from The Burning Crusade up until now. ]]> Grakkur http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/grakkur/1608-passing-all-boundaries-then-disappearing.html