Healers, Healers Everywhere, but not a Drop to Drink

Team 2 is ready to roll. We've put together a roster and posted it to the guild website. All of the Team 2 members are pretty new, but have seen the inside at least once. Only real question that remains is who will play the role of Raid Leader. The players that show the most leadership qualities are officers who are all part of Team 1. For now, we've chosen to not split up Team 1 at all. There are one or two people on Team 2 who might just be leaders in disguise, ready to do a good job if given the opportunity, so its time to give them that opportunity.

And then comes the predicament.

Since life can never be simple, Team 1 now finds itself in a bind. When we started, we had 2 Holy Priests who were generally available for all 3 raid nights, and a Holy Paladin who was generally available for 2 of the 3 nights.

One Holy Priest had a work shift change so he is unavailable during evenings now. Other Holy Priest just began a three month vacation through Asia. He might have availablity for joining an occasional raid, but definitely nothing solid. And the Holy Paladin is on a 2 week vacation as well.

So right at the moment that we are saying the Team 2 healers are now going to run with a real Team 2, is the exact moment that Team 1 is short on some healing.

Funny, eh?

But the officers feel pretty strongly that we need to encourage Team 2 to run and form a team identity and get into a grove of raiding and enjoy some progress. At this point, we're determined to not pirate any of the Team 2 healers, and will make the sacrifice of not raiding unless we can find some alternate healers.
Which then brings me to my own personal dilemma.

I recently was able to get my Resto Druid friend to join the guild. The benefit he brings is two-fold. On the surface, a Tree of Life brings tremendous raid benefit. Innervate, Combat Rez, Mark of the Wild, Tree of Life healing buff for tanks. Below the surface, I know that the person behind the toon has the right drive and attitude to fit in with the team.

But there was this unfortunate incident with Zul'Aman and some cloth healing gear and some subsequent drama. The whole thing is sad really. Two people who both have demonstrated over time that the are really fun and reasonable folks, and loot sort of brought out the worst, causing others to take sides and just make a small mess of the situation.

Fast forward a few days.

After basically coming to grips with the fact that the drama is a bit too intense for him to return to our guild right now, he was nearly immediately recruited by the 2nd most progressed guild on our server. I'd like to see an unguilded Hunter get blindly recruited like that, lol. He ran with them for 'bout a week, and is thinking that they are a bit too hardcore, with pretty strict rules about many different fascets of the game.

Long story short, he's really interested in a second shot with our guild.

So what to do?

We're in need of a healer, or faced with stopping raiding. We have a capable healer available. One who is a reasonable person, but has a semi-tainted reputation over this whole event.

Two of the officers want to invite him back, one does not want him back but at the same time, will be absent for three months. The final officer and GM is on the fence, trying to be diplomatic and keep drama at a minimum while keeping the guild emotionally stable.

As far as the drama goes, its really not been too "dramatic". The people involved have all maintained a relatively mature attitude, and the drama has really just surrounded the bottom line of "is he in or is he out." No hissy fits or hair pulling or name calling.

So how do I help everybody see a middle ground that allows us to continue progress and un-ruffle all the feathers?

At least I thought they were mature

In a recent post, I outlined the loot issue of downgrading. That is, a class using an armor type that's not the max they can equip, the reason being that stat bonus is often more important than armor rating.

One school of thought is that would-be-downgraders ought to defer loot to those classes who are more limited in their equippable armor types, while others say "downgrading, schmowngrading, the bonuses improve my utility in my primary raid role."

Then we run ZA and just such an occasion arise when a healing cloth chest drops. Holy Priest wants it. Resto Druid wants it. Nobody speaks up regarding their thoughts on downgrading, both /roll, druid wins.

Some sour feelings at first. Some mature conversations follow. All seems well in the world.

But you already know this from my post yesterday.

Fast forward.


Short Version - F this game and the F-ing loot drama

Medium Version - See Short Version. Why the F can't everybody just STFU about loot and just enjoy the fact that all of our toons are /flexing in the latest screenshot of a new dead boss? Its because there's no true value to team loyalty in WoW or guild pride, and therefore people just want their own toon to be the most powerful, and can't see the benefits that a stronger team provides. F. F. F. F it all. Anybody got some aspirin?

And besides, if you want loot so bad, go run some BG's and get gear that trumps all the stuff from dungeons we have access to anyways. I don't know how far we're going to need to progress before the boss drops are upgrades over my BG gear, other than +hit rating backup pieces, I pass on nearly everything that drops. And that's before the new PVP stuff hit Honor-only purchase. I think we're talking Black Temple here folks.


Long Version - uggy. Just plain old, uggy.

Aparently all was not well with the world because there is now discussion of making a formal policy on downgrading. Officers meet and the vote goes 3-1 in favor of giving "graders" priority over "downgraders" for loot distribution going forward. Only after all graders have passed will rolling be open to downgraders.

Ok, I suppose. Seems a little narrow minded, and perhaps clouded too much by personal interest rather than raid or guild interest, but I won't argue with a reasonably fair democratic discussion/vote.

Then I log in the next day, and low and behold, in my inbox is a email from GM saying that after the officer's meeting, the downgrading druid got in a huff and argument with GM and "grading" officer, and subsequently /gquit for reasons of not willing to play under those loot rules. All anecdotal, I wasn't there, but such as it is.

Come on people!

Get your sht together and stop it. All of you.

To the two officers involved, I don't know if you read this crappy blog or not but: I'd really prefer you guys have welcomed our new raid healer into the guild with open arms and a generous sharing of loot. Instead, you make him feel like a ninja. Especially in our extra sensitive moments as both our primary raid healers are on hiatus and wont be able to raid with us for many months. I think leaders should take pride in giving loot to guildies before officers, as we all succeed as a team or fail as a team, and none of the officers is particularly hurting for gear.

To my best WoW friend: WTF did you /gquit for, thus essentially removing any ability for me to defend or negotiate for you? You won the loot. Be happy, go enchant it, go cut some gems for it, and enjoy continued progress with the guild. I understand arguments happen. Everybody should feel free to speak up about difficult or opposing ideas without fear of retalliation. Impusively /gquitting more or less leaves everyone with their hands tied. I was so excited to finally, after all these months, actually get to raid with you. I just hope we can still swing something to make that possible. And go get your f-ing trinket so we can maybe break 1500? :-)

So what should have been our guild's latest triumphant downing of a new boss, has actually become a giant pain in the tush, leaving me stuck in the middle of a fight between my guild and a friend I was excited to raid with.

Thx, Mr. Llama :-(

Downgrading Armor Types

So, do you let your Hunters roll against Rogues for leather armor that's got +hit, +crit, +agi, and +ap?

Do you let your Resto Druids roll against Priests for cloth armor with all the goodies that healers want?

Do you let your Death Knights roll against.....well, I'm not really sure what stats a Death Knight will need, so hold that thought.

In a rare display of drama, we actually had a minor tift over loot. Strange, because its not come up even once through 4 months of raiding.

See, in a recent guild raid, this one player rolled for loot that was a downgraded armor type, against a player for who the armor is the primary type.

This piece provides stat bonuses to the areas that both need for their primary raiding role, so there was no off spec thoughts involved. Primary Raiding Role.

And, in this specific scenario, the downgrader would get an stat bonus increase over his current gear that was 400% better than the increase the other player would receive from the same piece. He/she only chose to roll after inspecting the other toon and seeing what a dramatic difference there was in how much of an upgrade it was to the two of them.


The downgrader won the roll. Minor drama ensued.

So what do other raiding guilds do? Do you allow downgrades if its for a piece that will be used in your primary raid role? or do you offer priority to those for whom it is the maximum armor type available, and only offer it to downgraders after all others have passed?


I'm on the fence. I can see the argument on the downgrader's side. It provides a direct increase in utility to the raid, because it makes him/her better in the role that he/she is invited to the raid for.

I can also see the argument for the non-downgrader. If you are a class that is restricted in what armor types you can equip, you will generally have fewer drops that are options for you to make use of, so when a piece that is your primary type drops, you're interested in getting it.

Luckily, all the people involved are mature adults, so the situation is over and done with.

But going forward, we're debating making a "formal policy" on where the guild stands in this situation, and I'd love to hear more about what other raiders do.