Drawing the Line on Guild Raid Performance

My guild has a BIG problem. Our players are constantly getting outshined by the PUGs we bring in to fill out our 10-man raiding team. Last week in the first official guild-sponsored Firelands run one of our 3 dps was constantly lower than the tanks on the meters and the undergeared PUG was outshining our fully geared out in Tier 11 enhancement shaman. Had our dps been pulling the numbers we needed them to we would have had Shannox down no questions asked. Many times we got him to 3% but then everyone started taking too much damage and the raid wiped or we were too slow on the dps and he hit enrange. At 3%.

Our officers, who coincidentally are our regular raiders, had an impromptu meeting after the raid to discuss the issue. Sadly the meeting didn't result in much except our low dpsers saying their dps was low "because we're melee and have to run around a lot." This kinda pissed me off because the main spec on my paladin is retribution and earlier in the day I had been pulling 14k dps without thinking about while running around like an idiot trying to heal the tank while do ranged dps in a ZG because the healer and dps kept dying. And I'm just as geared as the enhancement shaman. Hell my under geared enhancement shaman pulls the same dps as the other raider. Back to the issue at hand, being melee dps isn't a good excuse for low dps in a raid. I think I was so pissed off about the comment because I had been asked to heal for that raid due to the fact that we have too much melee dps and the only other melee with a heal offspec is the guild lead who pulls the trump card. And this issue has come up before--forcing one of the best dps in guild to go heals.

So last night a few of the officers were talking about the raid dps issue once again since our previous meeting had not produced anything other than excuses. We realized that our guild is in the EXACT same position it was in when Trial of the Crusader came out--our guild dps and overall player performance is lacking and Zeffra and Mohrrgun are not in the picture currently--and the guild needs a gimmick to re-invigorate it. (Zeff and Moh are two of the guild founders who happen to be the glue that holds us together.) And just like when TotC came out we decided that we are going to start running 25-man PUG raids on Saturdays that are not guild sponsored and thus we are not obliged to take under-performing guild members along with us. This also means that any PUG we bring in has to pull at least 15k dps or they will be kicked from group. Granted leading 25-man raids makes out main tank and primary raid leader go batty, but he was the one who suggested it. However, unlike TotC he's not running the 25-mans on his own. He has both myself and his co-raid lead to help with group formation and raid execution.

I will always hold out hope that our guild can regain the glory days of our 10-man Ulduar raid team that made our guild 9th on server for 10-man progression. Maybe this is what's needed. Maybe we need to stop walking on eggshells around guild members feelings and be straight up asses about the raid performance. Maybe we should just start our own new guild or go join another. But I don't want to leave a guild I have worked so hard to make a great place to play WoW that it is.

Toxic Link is a Toxic Problem

Why do people fail so much at Toxic Link on the High Priest Venoxis encoutner? Every time I try to go run a Z-heroic on my Shaman, I get Zul Gruub and inevitably we wipe over and over on the first boss due to people failing to run far enough from me the healer who is usually up against a wall. I can't run through the wall. Trust me I've tried. It's not that hard. Just run the opposite direction of the green line. Like a reverse Blood Queen. But no people keep failing at the concept. 


It's too late for me to be PUGing out anyway. Good night.

They Hate Me, They Love Me and They Hate Me Again....Or, They Love Me, They Hate Me and They Love Me Again

What is it with PUGs and loving/hating their healers? I currently have a toon of each class that can heal and I do heal on those toons. So naturally I que up in the Dungeon Finder as a healer or get asked to go raid as a healer and I swear that every other group literally hates me and every other group in between those loves me. Doesn't matter if I'm on the Priest, Paladin, Shaman or Druid, that's how the story goes. Like 1-2-1-2-1.

So what gives? Is WoW just full of more idiots than ever or something? Because usually the groups that hate my healing are failing in other ways as well. For instance, two nights ago I tried to run Zul Aman on my Shaman. The first group had one dps that was over 10k and 2 that were at 8k if they tried and the tank was the top damage on every fight. They hated me and the mage kept bitching at me because he kept dying. I got sick of being the one blamed for the fail when the tank couldn't hold aggro and the hunter who could barely do more than 4k dps kept flirting with death preventing me from spreading my heals around. So I left group mid-bossfight and requed. Once again I got Zul Aman and the tank was the highest damage and we had two dps that were barely 8k. Almost the same group makeup. However, this gorup was significantly easier to heal. The other players knew how to watch their aggro and their feet and kept telling me how much they loved my healing.

All of this proves a point I've been trying to make and get some of my newer guildies who are about to be raid ready to understand—your healers and tanks are only as good as the group they are running with so not only know your toon well, but know the fights you are going to be doing.