It just figures

So the guild situation finally came to an end. It had been brewing a long, long time, and while I can't say I'm sorry that it's finally over... ugh.

To make a long story short: I got into the guild as a feral druid, and they've always known I wanted to stay feral (tank / dps, offhealing without respeccing if necessary). I took a break from World of Warcraft for a few months, came back, was still in the guild, all was well and good... except while I was away, they happened to implement rules saying that every "healer" class (priest / paladin / shaman / druid) had to be healing-specced unless allowed otherwise.

Having realized this from conversation in guildchat, I avoided guild raids (which were not compulsory), until one day I got asked to Gruul because they just so happened to be short on people. I warned them I was feral and wanted to stay so, the officer who had messaged me went to confer with the others, and came back saying sure, you can come as feral, but just as an exception for this time since we're short on people.

That also happened to be the guild's first Gruul kill, by the way, and it was last week - to my knowledge, they've not managed to replicate the feat this week (and they won't, if the one raid I took part in was any indication - not unless people learn to stop being bloody idiots).

After the raid was over, I was chatting to another officer - the person who got me in the guild in the first place, a good friend, and the only one on my side during the whole debacle. He said Gruul had been fun, and said something along the lines of "now you even have dkp to spend for next time". I responded with "if there is a next time" - and explained the situation. He went to the other officers, started calling them morons on my behalf, and generally tried to convince them that they should bloody well let me stay as feral, as that was what I'd joined as and they'd be stupid to lose a great player over a spec issue (his words, not mine).

Next week rolled over, raid signups appeared, I signed up for raids. Gruul on Wednesday, everything went well (except for me noticing in amusement, upon inspecting people, how some of them were still wearing some greens - and they were complaining I didn't have epics?), though we wiped repeatedly on Gruul and eventually called it a night.

Then... well, there was yesterday. Raid time came, Karazhan invites went out. Hey, look, the group is short on healers. I had expected that much, having seen who had signed up; what I also was kind of expecting, but hoping it wouldn't happen, was what happened next.

Note: guild rules are that anybody attending the primary Karazhan raid (Karazhan A) is required to bring their main. Karazhan B, the secondary raid, is free for all to bring whatever character they want.

The raid had, in terms of healing-capable classes, two paladins, one druid (me), one (dps) shaman - and one hunter, alt of a shadowpriest main.

What the raidleading officer said, in so many words, was this.

"There are three solutions: 1. [my character] specs resto; 2. [the hunter] brings his priest; 3. [the shaman] specs resto. I prefer them in that order."

The hunter made an offhanded, amused comment about how he's willing to chip in for respec costs if necessary. I pointed out that I don't mind wearing my healing gear and healing if necessary, but I don't need to respec, I've off-healed in Karazhan as feral before - and he knew it, having raided with me in a prior guild we'd both been in. He dismissed it ("that was a long time ago"), I pointed out that if he'd brought his main instead of his alt to the raid there wouldn't be any issue, he said he can't be bothered bringing a main that outgears Karazhan to the raid when his alt needs gear. (Why the hell wasn't he in Karazhan B, then - because he's an officer pet, that's why.)

The next comment the officer made was along the lines of "okay, there's two people here breaking the rules, you decide who gets their head chewed off".

And I thought about it, and realized something quite simple.

I've been in guilds, before, that had the same "all druids must be resto because we're short on healers and only officer-sanctioned people (read: officer pets) get to be 'off-specs'" attitude. This was at level 60, when the situation for off-specs was much worse. Guilds these days actually appreciate feral druids for their ability to tank, and there are server transfers should no guild be recruiting on the server I'm currently on.

I didn't put up with this kind of idiotic attitude then (I was 0/30/21 back then, also able to heal when required - and in fact, healing most of the time - but not particularly willing to take any flak about not being */*/31 for Innervate), why the hell should I put up with it now?

I liked the guild, I liked most of the people in it, I actually had passed over a couple opportunities to be somewhere else because I felt somewhat loyal to it. But in the end, the only thing that seemed to matter to them was their "resto or get out" attitude.

/gquit

Someday I'll manage to find myself a sane guild...

Comments: 2

You could always make your own guild, then you could have whatever rules you wanted!

I do hope they enjoyed the raid with one less healer available.

Last time an MMO group tried to change how I played the game was when I tried out WoW. I eventually went back determined to quit the group but found I was too late since they had imploded in the meantime.

Are you sleeping better yet?

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