_dulcea

So, as many people are now aware, I have been playing WoW for some time now. I originally started up sometimes in March of 2007. It has been a long journey. Originally I started hordeside as blood elf paladin. What led me to quit is entirely it's own story onto itself. I took a short hiatus from WoW. Finally, my friend Danny and Doug were able to convince me to start up WoW again, this time alliance. Driven by my natural tendancy to stick with hybrid classes, I picked druid, and slowly but surely started leveling her. This was sometime mid september, begining October of 2007. 

I finally hit 70 on my druid, and was not sure which path to take. I pretty much ruled out boomkin at level 1. I was torn between resto or feral. I figured I would browse guild recruitment forums and decide from there. I happened to find a guild called Operation CWAL who was recruiting feral druid! My decision was finalized. I quickly got the clefthoof set crafted, and sent in my application. At that point in time, CWAL was just started to do attemped on Magtheridon. They were still consistently running Karazhan. It was perfect fit for my level in progression. Less then two days after sending in my application, I had a guild invite, and was in my first 25 man as druid. This all happened beginning of november. I was able to gear my druid up in record time. In less then a month I was in full tier 4, and was rolling in dkp. Finally, CWAL made the decision to start pushing raiding into SSC and TK. We were on a roll, we pretty much downed Void Reaver, Lurker, and Hydross in the span of a week. Morogrim shortly followed. This was all, about mid January. Since then, the only new boss we have added to our kill list is Karathress. 

Our progression seemed as if it was on the fast track, but took a sudden turn for the worse. Eventually instead of progressing, we seemed to be deprogressing. We could barely even kill Morogim anymore. Slowly but surely we started to lose some of our best raiders. More and more were we forced to depend on our weakest players. Some people that souldn't even be allowed into raids. Raid wipers. You can enter an instance with 20 amazing players, but those 5 horrible ones are more then enough to hold down the entire raid. 

I will admit, when I first started WoW, I believe my Paladin was very weak. I seemed to lack the general awareness of how wow worked. On top of it, I was playing with a broken arm, so my movement in the game was severly impaired. I hate making excuses for how I was back then, since overall, it was mostly my own doing. Since then, I feel very confident with my druid. I have a very thorough understanding of how my class works. How I should gear, and what abilities I should be using to maximize my efficiency. I also have a general understanding of how other classes work, and what to expect from them. 

Anyway, all of this babble does lead to a point. I feel that I am hitting a wall. Here before me lies a crossroads. I have realized unless major changes happen within CWAL, the raiding is going to come to an end. The realization hit me on the third night of Solarion attempts. Consistently it is the same handful of people that end up blowing up the raid group. I spend a good 2-3 hours in a vent convo with one of our raid officers laying out the groundwork for a new CWAL. In simplicity, start recruiting heavily, and cutting out our weaker players and replacing them. My fear is this is too little, too late. Already we have 4 people with open apps in other guilds. We also have a large number of people that have simply stepped down from raiding. The reality is, we are losing members faster then we are gaining them. 

This bring me to myself. Currently, CWAL raiding has burned me out. I am not enjoying spending tons of gold just to have constant wipes to a boss considered 'farm'. Also, waiting 20 minutes for a replacement raider to show up, 15 minutes after raid call time, just to have them arrive, and have us wipe on morogrim anyway. Also, it seems like none of our officers are on the same page. One week I was told I had to sit out of the raid because there were too many tanks. I look and see they are brining 3 prot wars and a prot pally. They are also bringing another druid who considers himself to be 100% kitty dps. Despite his self proclaimed title, I consistently outdps him. They were also bring two of the people that are considered raid wipers. One of them even on their mage decked out on green gear. Now, I have no problem stepping down to sitout if it is for the betterment of the raid. Perhaps a certain encounter better of with more dps or more healers, and I am not really needed. I will volunteer. To be told to sit out for people that play ten times worse then I do just really hurt my feelings. I logged over to my warlock alt, and was tinkering about. Ignoring tells from people asking me why I wasn't in raid. Finally, the same officer that had told me I was supposed to sit out is sending me whispers begging me to come to raid. I considered saying no, but much to my chagrin, I ended up going. I think the cherry on top of the cake was going, being told I was an extra dps, and then having to tank. I figured maybe the whole incident was a fluke. Much to my surprise, after that treatment, people felt they could confide in me. Maybe it was because they saw I had gone through similar treatment as them. Some of what I would consider our 'top' raiders start confiding that they are sick of raiding, and that they feel a general lack of appreciation from the officers. People in general are wondering what is the point of coming to raids prepared, to only have players that don't care mess everything up.

Suffice to say, I am taking a short break from CWAL raiding to get my bearing together. I have pretty much just put my full focus on my lock. From here, who knows what my next move is. I realize not many people read this journal, let alone people that understand wow gameplay. I just needed a place to vent. Also servers down for 2.4 patch.

Well, I have not updated this thing in about 125 weeks! Not sure why I am doing so now. Mainly because yesterday was vday, and someone from my guild made this, and I thought I would spread the love (even tho a day late)