Anyone who’s been following my blog since inception will know I’ve been through a few guilds since Cataclysm launched.
At the beginning I was part of a guild called Easily Distracted and I played on US-Stormreaver. The guild was one started by a real life friend, and I spent the better part of T11 trying to build it up. By the end we had a solid team…..but they were a team of prima-donnas. They wanted things I couldn’t give them.
Some wanted a casual atmosphere to go with our 3 day raid schedule. Some wanted to add more raid days, which others were unwilling or unable to do. In the end I got tired of leading a guild that wasn’t mine and so I left.
When I left I had had to consider my options which then were either start playing a Druid, move to Eldre’Thalas, faction change, and play with Apotheosis. OR continue playing my Paladin and move to Turalyon to play with Fusion, a guild who had once competed for world firsts during Burning Crusade and Wrath. In both guilds I had friends, so the choice was difficult.
I ended up on Turalyon with a guild that was far more progressed than I was at the time, having killed all except Nefarian. I continued to raid with them through most of Firelands until something happened…..apparently I was no longer a good player.
And so I left again, immediately transferring to Ysera where I now play with Myriad. When I left I knew I would be moving backward in progression, and I knew the team needed that extra push and maybe I could provide it.
I’ve since ended up as a sort of “healing lead” although I’m not officially designated as such….but I’ve introduced our healer chat and we decide assignments as a team.
Even though I went backwards in progression, and most people might consider that trading down, I feel like I’ve traded up. Its been a long long time since I felt welcomed in a guild, and I have team Synergy to thank for that.
For those people who think I’m just some casual who will never see heroic modes, or that I QQ too much about raid nerfs, consider this:
Once upon a time I raided 4 nights a week.
Once upon a time my cell phone number was on a call list for rare world contested spawns.
Once I competed for server first achievements.
Just because a guild doesn’t have a competitve schedule, or doesn’t push their entire roster to the breaking point just to kill a few pixels, doesn’t mean you’ve traded your guild down. In fact I feel quite the contrary. When I stopped raiding 4 days a week, the first Saturday night I went out was the first Saturday night I had had free in 3 and a half years, and that my friends is a good feeling. To finally be free of the bonds of getting the first kill on something.
I’m looking forward to working on heroic modes with my current guild, and I’m also looking forward to going into the next teir of content and conquering it with them. Will we clear 7/7 HMs before 4.3? Probably not. Do we care? Definitely not. To us we have cleared Firelands once we kill Ragnaros. Heroic Modes are just a bonus.
So did I trade up in Cataclysm? Oh yes I did…
