Decus Praesidium Fallout

Late in the Burning Crusade, I was at the point where WoW was no longer fun for me. Nordrassil was my first server, and it seemed infested with juvenile pricks and morons. I google’d for a guild looking website and came across LookingforGuild.net. It was a great site, and I understand it has recently been updated. I created a toon, DORF girl of course, and /who’d for Decus. I got lucky and just happened to pick Corr, the guild leader, even though the site had a few members as contacts. He and I talked for a few. The first lesson of Decus that I learned is that they like to feel you out as much as I wanted to do to them. They are a guild with more mature members and some of them have extensive experience in classic WoW and even in games prior.

I brought over Rhabella to Draenor from Nordrassil, and was immediately welcomed. They had always allianced with a couple other guilds for 25 man runs, and had a solid core for 10 mans. WoW had become fun again. They ran Mech with me everyday until I got The Suneater. I am sure they were feeling out whether I was some dumb ass or someone that can actually tank, but they helped me get the most coveted tanking drop that was available to me after the patch that forever changed a prot paladins gearing priorities. I died a little inside when my account got hacked and they sold my Sun Eater, because of what it meant for me. Oddly, I didn’t get it back in the restoration and since I had no real purpose for it, I didn’t press a GM. Aside from the guild, I found that Draenor was unbelievably better for PuG’ing, and with other toons helping you get crafted items if they had recipes you needed. It’s a server full of gracious people who often bring extra elixirs or pots even to 5 man pugs and offer them to the group. Fish feasts are laid down for no reason, and people pass on shards at the end of a run if they got an upgrade. Draenor served as proof that WoW had players that played the game the way it was supposed to be played and reinforced my decision to change servers.

WotLK came out and the worst thing that can happen to a guild happened, some of us got hit with real life. Our core was made up of a couple couples that played wow together, and from what I have been able to pick up, since I was just learning everyone around the time it happened, is one of the couples had a baby, and as Phaelia has taught us, the time required with a newborn in the house is just too much to try and obligate yourself to a game. The other couple changed moved and changed jobs and had little playtime available as they are pouring their free time into situating their new life. I think the part that sucks the most is there was no drama, there was no bickering because we are a group of adults who understand that life mechanics often dictate game time. We wished them all well, and told them we would be here if they ever found the time to make it back.

As we all leveled through Lich, we all knew the impending outcome. We had lost the most vital positions in our raid setup. Tanks and healers, especially tanks and healers with a good relationship aren’t just something you can recruit on a whim, so we were all hitting 80 and starting to PuG Naxx as we all tried to sort out solutions. The solution for some of us became to accept invites from guilds we were running Naxx with. We lost some of our more dedicated member because they wanted to raid regularly. It’s not something anyone took personal, as again, there is a level of maturity in our guild that is greatly underappreciated. When we did attempt raids, we found we were having to PuG some DPS, and that was with me healing on the druid. One of our tanks didn’t have quite the experience we needed and things got out of hand. There is nothing quite so frustrating as running a raid and healing knowing you could have saved the last wipe had you been tanking and knowing there is jack shit you can do about it because you are needed to heal as well. Believe me when I say this…I’m not the best player in the world, or even close, but I take my responsibilities seriously and its one reason I am an internet WoW junkie. There is never enough information for me. It’s not just WoW, it’s part of my personality, and sometimes it can be a blessing of kings and other times it can be a curse of doom that I know will bring disaster when it finally reaches duration.

The problem now is that we are a good group, but keep losing more and more members because we can’t fill the raid. Losing a member, despite how amicably they leave, means you have yet another spot to fill. The problem snowballs from there. We don’t actively recruit, which I know many will say is a problem, but recruiting means running the risk of players that may or may not subscribe to the philosophy. On the flip side, both Rhabella and Huath are getting invites from guilds that I do raid with, but I just can’t abandon a good group. I have no idea how to balance this out other than to hang out and hope things get better. I’ve never been romanticized by epic lootz, and always thought the social aspect of the game was far more important.

Every day we sit in limbo is one more day it takes for me to boost my stats, and another day of heroics for badge gear that has little use to me. I wish I knew a more efficient way to help build the guilds membership.

-Rhab