It hurts worse when the Raid Leading horse tramples you
So I’m back for the conclusion of the story.
I left you yesterday standing in front of Ignis, about to knock out the weekly raid quest. Things are seemingly more positive for the time being.
At this point, I’m past the red flag moments. I have no excuse from this point on for having looked past any warning signs. I had already failed by letting the raid run rampant so let me just sum up the last fight for you.
Instead of downing Ignis how I have all the previous times I’ve done it, we ended up tanking him at the edge of the pool and not kill any adds. There are certainly multiple strategies for fights and kiting him is not the only way to down him. However, as raid lead I’ve never done it that way and I’m healing for the first time so I would have been more comfortable with the kiting method just because of familiarity. Sort of like my security blankie?
Anyways, we get Ignis down to under 200k the first attempt but we wiped. Not killing the adds meant he was stacking the buff increasing his damage with each stack. DPS didn’t look bad at all. Including the tanks, dps ranged from 7.6k down to 1.7k. We only had two people below 3k for that attempt. So we try it again, after all we really did almost have him. Second attempt was not nearly as pretty. DPS ranged from 4.5k down to 1.8k with again, 2 people below 3k. At this point the mage pug in the group proceeds to start whispering me.
Sadly, I didn’t phrase my response well. My intent was to be nice in telling the mage to stfu because the dps was fine. Instead, much to my dismay it came across as an agreement. I suppose after that I should have expected nothing less than the “I told you so” after downing Ignis. Remember back in the old days before Ignis was nerfed and people used to take him down with much less dps? I wish I had screen-shotted that kind of thing for times like these. To top things off, this mage also spammed DPS meters after each wipe. I detest that and it is easily one of my top three pet peeves. Of course, yet again instead of calling her on it and telling people to not do it again. . .I said nothing. I don’t think I’ve let so much crap slide in one raid – ever.
Two hours after I started looking for pugs and we downed him after the third attempt using the kiting strategy. After loot was done, I logged off the game and vent to save my sanity. Before I logged though, I made a slight comment to the tune of “that’s the last time I get talked into something” and a guildie whispered me immediately “Now you’re thinking with your head”. Last night consisted of a pretty long chain of errors on my part. Am I blaming anyone else but myself – aboslutely not. I cannot and will not put any blame on others if there were no expectations laid out up front nor if zero corrective actions were taken. I’m by no means a “my way or the highway” type, but this was certainly a very clear reminder to me that this is a new server and new guild both chock full with new people. The “norms” here are actually quite different than my old server. While that’s not a bad thing, it’s something that I need to adjust to.
It’s clear off my mind today aside from writing this post, hence the quick storytelling. I’m forming my steps forward and tagging this as Epic Failure #1 for 2010. Fortunately it’s out of the way early and hopefully few follow.
I like to try and find the silver lining to every story and the best I could come up with here is that while this was my first Epic Failure of 2010 . . . at least I didn’t die standing in fire.
You’re not suited to lead anything. Two blog posts over a pug raid? You are the ultimate drama queen. Get over yourself. You are so obsessed about “leadership” that you resent people who offer help because you may be perceived as looking like you don’t know what you’re doing. You seek control? Control over what? It’s a game. You’re not important and you need to stop acting like you have something special to offer your guild. Leadership? Hardly.
It is what it is. First of all I’d like to make a correction for the record that your issues with me have nothing to do with the raid that these two posts are about and rather the ICC raid a couple nights later. The second correction I’d like to make is that these two posts were not complaints about the raid itself but rather my actions or inactions to prevent quite the fiasco.
I know from prior experience that some people do not like backseat raid leading or direction/participation from people that are not in the raid. Especially from people that spend their time linking achievements in guild chat and commenting incessantly about how easy things are.
While it may come across crass and arrogant on my part to stop backseat raid leading, you should stop and take a moment to think on your actions. By your continual posting of achievements and comments on how easy things are in guild and raid chat, you do, whether consciously or not, make some people uncomfortable, some irritated, and some feel inadequate because it wasn’t easy for them their first time in.
I specifically said if you had anything to add to share via whisper so as not to be distracting to raid. Instead, you proceeded to post in guild chat subsequent to that request. Another thing you failed to mention is that I did actually ask the raid group about something I didn’t remember, and I always do on occasions when I don’t remember things.
Never once did I not let you speak or offer suggestions during other raids you were part of. As it were, you were one of the people to do much of the talking during the Ulduar raid. I was not closed to your help or suggestions and I do welcome suggestions from our raiders. I just have always preferred participation be with those actually in the raid group (of which we did have people capable if you stopped to listen).
Other guilds may operate differently, but this is no different than I have ever operated, which you should have been familiar with from WrA. Furthermore, the manner in which you offered help was rather superior in nature and while many of us in guild do not have your achievements, it doesn’t mean we are lesser players.
I might be too overprotective by limiting backseat raid leading and be wrong in my assumption that this current group of guildies don’t care for it. I may also be a dick when it comes to limiting (unsolicited) chat in vent from people not currently in raid. As you so eloquently put it to others, it may very well be that raiding with me is like raiding with Hilter. Regardless of what you think I don’t seek control, rather just an organized environment in which to raid.
As a final thought on raid leading, before the Ulduar and ICC raids in question ever happened I put a post on the guild website in the raiding forum asking for people interested in raid leading because while I do enjoy it, I do not have the desire to do it all the time but will do it to keep raids going in guild as needed. I specifically said in the post that we need a core group of 3-4 people to be raid leaders in the guild and would welcome anyone including those that had not raid lead before as we could pair them with someone more experienced until they felt comfortable.
Funny that there was no response from you there? I am of firm belief that you can’t be a good leader without being a good follower. I do not profess to be an expert at this game by any means, not now nor have I ever. If I wanted the control that you think, then I certainly would not be so engaged to find others in guild to take on roles such as raid leading.
I have always had, and always will have an open door policy for guild members. I will stop things that I am doing to listen to comments/questions/concerns & bitches/gripes/complaints and to make changes that need to be made. In addition, I am not the GM of the guild. If your concern was about the manner in which I raid lead, the GM also has an open door policy and is available to discuss concerns. If your automatic response is “oh he’s your brother, he’ll always take your side”, then you do not know him as well as you think you do. We often buttheads and call each other on things, but at the end of the day find and agree on what we think is the best resolution for the guild.
So while I can only assume that your post was meant to elicit an emotional response from me, I am sorry to disappoint you. Rather it offered me an opportunity to step back and take an analytical look at things. Guildies are welcome to come and go and no one guild is a perfect fit for everyone. I hope that you find a guild that suits your needs, that isn’t (co)-run by Hitler, and also appreciates the epeen strokage that you seem to like, even crave, so much. A guild that triumphantly conquers its endeavors the first time through and where things truly are as easy for everyone as you consistently proclaim. And as I’m sure that you may have noticed, there IS more than one Alliance guild on the server.
In the end, I’m glad that the actual members of the raid weren’t so offended by my actions as you to have /gquit. Kudos to those that have the fortitude to continue working with everyone to become a better team. And on the other hand, Kudos to those that know what they will and will not put up with and move on to put themselves in situations that meet their expectations. Best wishes on your future endeavors.
[...] light of the rather lengthy response I posted to a comment, I am going to keep this post short and [...]
Pingback by A response « Sheep Blink Invis — January 11, 2010 @ 7:24 pmPathos, this is a personal blog. It’s where a person goes to vent a bit, post a few insights, and maybe overanalyze mistakes and think out how not to make them again. So these posts are exactly what a personal blog is for.
And coming to someone else’s “home” just to insult them is more than a tad obnoxious. In the social world, adults are supposed to try to have manners. You might want to read a manners guide in the near future, it’ll help you make friends. Given, of course, that you want to be taken as an adult, or that you want to make friends.
Is it wrong that I just want to reply with
*chuckles*
?