Raiding - A really fun Heroic Guild HFC

Last Wednesday a friend of mine rang me to see if I could cover a private operating list in the afternoon, as the regular anaesthetist had double booked themselves. The surgeon and I know each other well but I don't enjoy doing that particular type of surgery, and normally I would be working at the public hospital doing teaching, administration which meant a nice early finish.

"Don't worry," my friend said. "The surgeon said it was a short list with small cases on it. You'll be done by 6pm."

Still, I was reluctant. I said I would rather he found someone else. I suggested some names. We did some looking and found that two of them were free in the afternoon. I was pleased. One of them could do the lucrative private list.

I then get a text message close to midnight saying that he'd sorted it all out. One of our colleagues would cover me at the public and free me up to do the private list.

NOOOOOOO!

Well, it was too late now. I can't change it and it would be lousy to all the patients if they couldn't find someone. And the money was good I suppose - it would four times what I would make ordinarily. People normally jump for this. I should be grateful.

So I do the list and it was LONG. Didn't leave till 830pm, which meant I couldn't see the kids that evening (as they were in bed already) and it made me late for raid. I was grumpy. But I realised something - that the pursuit of money to me was not worth the quality of life losses. And I really ENJOY my public work. Patients are sicker, I get to teach junior doctors and the work is more challenging but the pay is less.

It made me think about what Kyxyn said about Heroic vs Mythic raiding.

Xyn was disappointed that we weren't doing mythic and thought doing it with other guilds was a good idea. However, he found that as we continued to do it, that nothing is quite like doing stuff with our own guild.

I initially had found it disappointing that Aza had said he didn't like raiding with people other than our own guild, but as time has gone on, Xyn has started thinking along those same lines.

The alt runs for heroic HFC have been going really well! We have been taking a much more teaching approach and found that players have been improving their raiding skills (though damage is still low, but at least mechanics are being done correctly) and bosses that we used to struggle on even on our mains have been going really well on alts and casuals!

I was late on Wednesday and they did stuff without me, but the rest of the night went ok. We just did lower floor and normal Manny/Archi. Last night we did middle floor. I was worried about Socrethar, Xhul and Tyrant, but there was clearly no need to be worried.

We started at Iskar, and we have a few new raiders around - Lakota and Lynsue - and we forgot to check everyone had Iskar Assist. Poor Lakota didn't so he had difficulty passing the ball at first so we had to wipe and get him to download it and then the following attempt went much better. I was healing it but I wonder if I should get Koda to practice doing the dispels. Since we're teaching, it might be a good opportunity.

Then we went onto Fel Lord Zakuun and we got that in one go too. I was surprised, considering placement of the pillars was rather ordinary.

Then Xhul. After the LOADS of practice the previous week on normal for the achievement, everyone did really well, and that went down very well too. I was pretty impressed. Then it was onto Soc. I hate Soc.

I was DPSing at first, but we needed the extra heals, so after the first wipe we went heals and it went heaps better. In fact it was so clean I was happy, and I manage to OOM Sev by making him mass dispel.

Then onto Tyrant. It has been a while since we did Tyrant. Another fight that I had to switch to heals for. Neuro did calls and the DPS switches and focus were excellent. I was happy that everyone was working well as a team and the fight went so well, with everyone taking their fonts correctly to the right place and the adds dying nicely and heals being done well. I was so happy that we managed to do the middle level that I am feeling happy that we may be able to teach our casuals to be able to do Heroic Archi one day without it feeling like a carry!

There was a lot of "sass" - Neuro's word, but I teased that it was more like disrespect (giggle) - from Kyxyn which started when he asked for a battle rez on HK and I didn't realise he meant me (since he was playing his DK). Koda was on the ball too - defending me and teasing Kyxyn in return for not battle rezzing HK, and also for not protecting her from dying. It was very funny, though I did worry that Lakota and Gorvek were thinking we were fighting when we were actually poking fun at one another. I think the others found it rather amusing - but I think I shall play the sympathy card big time bemoaning the POOR GUILD LEADER being picked on by the TYRANT RAID LEADER.

At the end of the night I had really enjoyed myself. I felt like I had accomplished something - getting everyone to work as a cohesive team was really good, and despite lower DPS/HPS overall, everyone followed instructions and we downed stuff as a team. I was super pleased about that. Kyxyn apologised that he hadn't done explanations with the new people but promised to do better next time. And also, we are going to look at getting the AMR addon so that people can see which loots are best for people and then we can have a more cooperative loot sharing (like we do between healers and how the warlocks do it amongst themselves as well).

Now how does this relate back to my work day?

Mythic was what Xyn and I really wanted to do when we'd done Heroic Archimonde. However, Kyxyn learned after our forays into doing mythics with other guilds that he actually has more fun doing things with people in our own guild, who care about working together and teaching them and watching them be better, even if it's content that is not as challenging.

The extra work I had to do was a bit like that. Colleagues thought I was crazy - why would I do public work when I could do ludicrous private work? Well, I only like doing private work when it's fun and it's with people I'm good friends with. So what if I could earn lots of money with a surgeon who is great at bringing in the money but has an ego the size of a truck and would treat me like crap? Not that this surgeon did that, as I was "fortunate" to be one of the good, fast anaesthetists in his book, but I don't particularly enjoy this type of surgery, even if it pays SUPREMELY well. And that is what people are like with mythic. How could you possibly want to do heroic with your guild when you could be out there doing mythic with a guild because you're good enough to do that?

With mythic, yes I could get mythic kills, get better gear, be more challenged. But I wouldn't have the same relationships and closeness and feeling of accomplishment with teaching or helping that I get with doing heroics in my own guild with my guildies. And private work is the same - yes I could earn four times the money that I earn now, but I have enough money doing what I do now! I'd have to stay out late, and miss out spending time with my family or playing games with my friends. And that's no fun at all.




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