No more 25 mans for me

It came as a bit of a surprise for me today that my 25 man silently snuck me off the roster and DKP listing early last week. Coincidentally I signed out last night for the first time since I joined the active roster (second if you count our very first raid event into Naxx that didn't get any bosses down, I was traveling).

I would of felt kind of odd if I had shown up and shown the door, or even worse allowed to participate happily in ignorance. I think the latter would of been more likely. Our raid management seems quite into using people as they see fit.

But it wasn't always that way, I once sung my raid groups praises and told everyone I knew how pleased I was with them. What changed? I am not quite sure myself, but I'll tell the story.

It all started a little under a year ago. A guildie turned me onto a 25 man raid which was looking for reservists. A rather unique program where people are asked to stay available throughout the raid and fill in when needed, earning DKP in the process for when they do get to raid. I had only ran 10 man Karazhan at that point and was in way over my head at first. I learned quickly and my largest obstacle was my computer not quite up to snuff to render a 25 man at higher than 2-5 FPS during a fight. I spent a lot of time looking at the floor and tab targeting focusing solely on my rotations. Still I was above the raid average for damage/dps (not counting healers or tanks :P). I was a bit of a liability on moving out of stuff quickly though.

That went on for 6 months near the end of which I got a new computer together and was able to look around and see the sights. At this point the expansion was on the horizon and the pre expansion patch had nerfed existing PVE content to the ground. We breezed through the SSC and TK content we had been working at and dabbled with Hyjal.

So out comes the expansion and I along with many others in the raid switch their active raiding toons. I flipped from my hunter to my druid remaining in a DPS role. I started raiding 10-man Naxx with a guild run and when my 25 man started running Naxx I had a good head start in knowing how the fights worked, even more time to look around and think about things.

At some point I began voicing my concerns about how things were run and how I think they should work. This was probably not such a good time for this seeing as many others had concerns too. The raid hit a rough spot when half the roster was not geared for Naxx and we spent the first few weeks running heroics and old BC content. While a few were chafing at the bit to get into Naxx. The raid group has still not recovered, but is getting better. We got our first KT kill a couple weeks ago.

So I am a naughty one, my guild knows this and for the most part accepts it. Not so much in my 25 man raid. Probably the first event that really set things off was in a guild run for 25-man vault. There were not enough guild members interested so many people from my 25 man raid group were filling the gaps. So here we are sitting in front of Archavon and the raid leaders wife who is was leading this event is coordinating with tank and healers and discussing strategy and what the bosses likes and dislikes are. Were a good 15 minutes into a speech when the question is asked, "who is tanking?" over vent. I answer, "the bear running in." or something to that effect while charging at the boss.

I knew full well the group could do it, most had done it before and the rest had heard more about it that they ever wanted too. We got him down easily and during/afterward I got a talking to over vent. Afterwards I also got many a positive comment on speeding things along. Still I knew it was wrong, just as going overboard on a pre boss speech is wrong, and like always two wrongs didn't make a right.

So I know that went over well as further evidenced by a miss pull in Naxx soon after. We had just kill Faerlina and I was making my way to the next pull not paying as much attention as I should have been (pretty rare occurrence). So I forgot I wasn't stealthed and body pulled, then quickly shadowmelded after being hit and they started to go back. Boom get healed and all hell breaks loose. Couple people die, the DKP bidding process is disrupted and I get a whisper, "do that again and I will remove you from the raid :)". Yes there was a smiley, and no I don't think he knows what smilies mean. I quickly explained that it was accidental, but I am not sure anyone believed me after my ninja Archavon pull.

So in the meantime I am very vocal on the forums. About DKP policies, raid tactics, why we wipe when we do. Some issues bigger than others, but I remain objective and level headed. I ruffled a few more feathers, but did nothing terribly wrong. Was just voicing and opinion outside of raid time no less.

I also had a couple other small incidents during raids where I went against orders to do what I thought to be the better course of action for myself. On a Gluth wipe I shadowmelded rather than wipe as requested. I also once tried to switch sides on phase 1 of Thaddius prior to the pull to better balance the DPS after on a 3rd attempt. I was asked to go back to my own side and did reluctantly. Other than that I was a model citizen during raid time. Aside from a few joking comments in raid chat once in a while, nothing terrible, just things like answering questions like, "why can't we pull now" with "I already did that once, it's someone elses turn".

On the brighter side I was often top for damage and DPS as well as saving the raid from many a wipe and countless deaths by being able to flip to bear form and tank quite proficiently. Perhaps another point of contention. I was on the roster for DPS yet to this day have kept a tanking spec hybridized a bit to allow for decent DPS. Since my damage was quite good I never saw it as a problem, it merely added extra utility to the raid. No one ever questioned me about it or commented so far as I know.

What did come up on more than one occasion was my interest in healing or tanking rather than always DPSing. DPSing every week was kind of boring, but I knew that tanking or healing every week would be just as boring. So I often offered to tank and heal whenever the situation would allow for it. We often had lesser geared tanks do the job for the reason that I did more damage. I did get the chance to tank and heal at some point and did both jobs wonderfully and was even told that by the raid leader himself. Whether or not he was ever sincere is another question in my mind.

In the end it wasn't so much me, it was the people I was raiding with. If it were me I'd have issues in my other raids and groups. I don't. Oh, yes I do cause so guild drama every now and again, but they are quite supportive of me despite my flaws.

Oh got sidetracked a little there. So in the past few weeks if I every questioned anything in the raid my answer was, "If you don't like it, leave." Point blank, no sugar coating. My response was always that is wasn't a big enough deal to pick up and leave over and I let it go. Still that is pretty rude of someone. I may come off as rude at times, but I don't do so intentionally. Leaving over something petty like a DKP issue would be petty anyway, so I'm not even sure why someone would suggest such a thing.

So I kept raiding doing what I was supposed to be doing and doing well. Next thing I know I am poking around the administrative section of the raid forums and find myself removed. No warning, no nothing. I suppose I shouldn't expect more, even when I had an question or concerns it was never addressed on any sort of personal level. The raid leader spews paragraphs of raid policy and adheres to them. Perhaps a good quality in a leader and I even admired him once for his attention to detail. He always came across really nasty on the forums so I asked to chat with him on vent a couple times, just to avoid any miscommunication. He came across as a really nice guy with my best interests at heart. I guess that was all a guise.

I am left feeling a bit betrayed, but I am still trying to be objective. I think many in my shoes would be taking this much worse and less gracefully.

Well in any case that frees up my schedule a bit to spend more time with the guild and perhaps even participate in the guilds second 10 man run which I had been in conflict with for so many months for the time slot.