Being thankful about being able to raid

Yesterday was flex day, and the guild was looking kinda quiet.  In fact, when I logged on at 815pm, there was only 3 or 4 people online.  Kyxyn was one of them - he and Aimei are always there for flex - and I said to him that even though it looks slim, we can always count on Cranked's friends from Concur to turn up and fill up the last few places.

Sure enough, 825pm rolled around I started invites, and people started turning up.  There was Kyxyn (on his DK), myself, McTacky, Yig and Aimei were there.  Cranked was there too, and Ayelena was coming as well.  Kyxyn said that he had been chatting to Ayelena and Ayel didn't realise that he could come to our flex so Kyxyn told him that he should come - after all, he is a Frostwolves member!  Bish too said he would come and switched to his mage.  I was excited, and told Kyxyn... and then as I was trying to sort out the new additions... I forgot to invite him, thinking Kyxyn would get him whilst I chased down wayward people.  It was only when I saw him logoff I thought "Oh, we'd better wait for Bish to log back in before we pull," that I realised he wasn't in the raid and we had killed 2 bosses without him in my absentmindedness.  I was absolutely MORTIFIED and redfaced and apologetic for the rest of the raid - Kyxyn was laughing at me - and I rang Bish but he didn't pick up the phone, further enforcing the fact that he thought I was the most bitch-faced guild leader on the face of the earth.  However, he logged back in and I quickly grabbed him, apologised PROFUSELY and promised to be nice.

Luxy of course was coming and she was bringing Rav, her partner, who was returning to WoW, and in sore need of gear (and heals!) and that made up an almost full raid.

Cranked got his Concur buddies in - Ken, Nova, Riptyde and Mae - and we were set to go. If we have new people then it's always wing 1 and then we move to more experienced people for Wing 3 and 4. People may say it's only Flex, but there is still a DPS requirement for them and a knowledge of mechanics and with too many people unsure of what to do it becomes hard and frustrating for us.

With just me and Tacky healing, Aimei and Kyxyn worried it might be a little hairy but I reassured them it would be ok.  I was secretly itching to see just how far I could push it, and this at least was a good opportunity.  The two of us did the whole first wing (though I am sure there are people out there who say I should have solo-healed it) but it was at least challenging and exciting for me, so I had fun.  There were a few upgrades to be had as well, so grats to all of them.

Kyxyn wanted to do Wing 4 since we had the Concur guys, even though I said they had to go at 10 for their own raid.  But except for Mae, who had to leave so she could go organise her raid, the others stayed so we could finish Garrosh. Exray whispered me as we were doing Paragons trash, asking what we were doing, and I said we were doing Garrosh, so he and Lushen came along.  We were a little short at the start of Wing 4, so we took Tacky along, and he did express some concern that he didn't know the fight, but I reassured him and told him to follow me to avoid the desecrated weapon and to avoid the bad purple on the ground during the Garrosh dream phases.

And we got it down.  Only Ken died, but he had switched to his warrior and those silly melee classes are always dying.  Still no legendary weapons - do they even exist on Flex? (Kyxyn assures me they do - Balinar got one recently)

I saw that Omega was not raiding again. They were 2 members down still, and had to PUG.  That was a real shame - I would be really frustrated after a week with a Garrosh kill to be down 2 people and unable to raid.

The Concur guys left to go raid, and I went off to play my RAF warlock.  Then I noticed they weren't raiding - I asked them, and they said they didn't have enough turnout, which was disappointing.

It touched a note with me - these two guilds are so similar to my own.  At the end of last year, we all were up to Garrosh. We had a period where we were struggling for numbers and attendances, healers were in short supply, and we seemed so close but forced periods of non raiding set us back. It was disheartening.

But things have looked up for us, with Morz improving in leaps and bounds and gearing up and getting the hang of playing Disc and holy, and with all our current raiders being pretty dedicated, we have a nice solid team with spares - Morz and Raked are the spares at the moment and that seems to be ok for now.

But I look at Concur and I see what might have happened to us.  They lost a healer and a DPS and that caused their raid team to fall apart a little, and they did a big recruit to fill their ranks again.  However, their recruits are a little undergeared and so they are doing Flex to help gear them up.

I wanted to help Mae and Concur - I would have been really disappointed if I was trying to get my new team geared up and people didn't turn up to help gear them.  I wish she'd asked me - we still had raid time left, and we could have filled up their raid for them with our raiders who were happy to help out.  I had helped them on Saturday a little - but being on my crappy laptop I wasn't healing at my best ability and they really needed help teaching their new tank and DPS.

Lending Morz to Omega on Wednesday didn't help them much either - but at least they were able to do some learning on Immerseus.  Morz got to look at another guild's raiding regime and hopefully be able to bring back some what he learned to us. His only cryptic criticism was that the raid leader seemed "young" but it was difficult to figure out what he meant by that.  Clearly he thought that he wasn't old and decrepit like my raid leader anything like Kyxyn.  I guess there were no instructions to splash cold water on faces... it's a lot harder to help them out because of our raid lockouts - I guess earlier in the week is ok, for those sitting out, as long as it's only on early bosses.  I still haven't quite understood why Omega split from Illidari Remnants and didn't pull from their raiding pool in Illidari, because gearing up those guys will only help with filling their raids when they're short.  I could never imagine doing something like that in Frostwolves - it's a different mentality I think.  The raid group is not separate from the guild, and progress is 10 mans and relaxed raiding is Flex, which at least gives the opportunity for everyone to learn and play and feel like we're DOING stuff together.

I sent a tell to Mae to say that next time, I would be happy to help with filling their raid if they needed me. Even Kyxyn said he would as well - he did realise that without them we couldn't run our flex either, so it would be in our best interests to help them.  I hope she will take us up on her offer next time - as long as it's a Saturday or Sunday, though.

Either way, I hope things look up for both those guilds. Because what I see happening to them could just as easily been happening to me, and looking at how they solve their problems will hopefully give me insight into solving my own if and when they happen to me.