Perseverence

It’s said that insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Raiding can be kind of insane.

You rely on 10 or 25 people to do their jobs perfectly each and every time. In the beginning of raid content, even the slightest error can mean a wipe. As you gain gear and experience and familiarity with the content, slight errors happen with very little issue. Even huge mistakes can be forgiven, later on. But as you’re learning it and just after you’ve gotten that sweet, sweet first kill, execution is everything.

Last night, on our 65th overall attempt on Heroic Maloriak, we got him down.

65 times we went up against this guy. 64 times, we wiped, usually in hideous combinations of Dark Sludge, Scorching Blast, Frost Orbs and Flame Jets. Oh, and Arcane Storms during green phases. Ow.

This incarnation of Apotheosis is very different from the Burning Crusade version. We were learning, all the way throughout BC about how to lead a guild, how to lead/organize raids and how not to be douchecanoes.

We’re a lot more experienced now, after getting through BC together and the start of Wrath together before going our separate ways and seeing what else was out there for us. I know I learned a lot about my personal desires and personal limits when it comes to this game, as well as how NOT to run a raid group. I picked up a lot of tips on how to be more businesslike about running raids and guilds.

The biggest difference between now and then, though, is the attitude the people bring with them to a raid night. In Burning Crusade, it was like “aw, man, we’ve wiped on this guy for an hour. BLAH, I don’t want to do this anymore,” but obviously, progression means wiping and learning. This version of Apotheosis is very, very into killing bosses and new challenges. I rather suspect that if I were to poll them, 90%+ of the raiders would prefer trying a brand new boss fight than farming old content.

I like a good farm night just like anyone else, but once the fight is done successfully, it’s time for me to turn my attention away from it and move forward to the next. Or at least, that’s what I’m supposed to do. In Burning Crusade, I was constantly re-organizing old fights, re-explaining, just for repeat kills, at least in SSC and TK. (It got better in Hyjal and BT.) Shockingly, I CAN turn my attention to future challenges with Cataclysm’s Apotheosis. We have (knock on wood, lest I jinx us) never not done a repeat kill successfully the next time. Some are messier than others, some are super clean, but the second kill is always better than the first.

Getting the first kill is always such a relief, for me. It means that the effort we’ve invested in the fight together has paid off. It means those wipes were all worth it.

Currently being 3/13 on 25-man, in a guild comprised of my long-time WoW friends, is totally worth it all to me.

Yes. Even worth this. ;)

So we’ll keep trucking along. Don’t know that we’ll go 13/13, don’t know that we’ll get heroic Nef or Cho down before 4.2 arrives. But this group really doesn’t have much quit in them, I’ll tell you that. They make me proud to be their guild master.