A Trip to SSC & Tales of Attunement

When I stepped down from progression raiding, I didn't intend for that to mean that I wasn't planning to set foot into another Burning Crusade raid ever again - I mentioned I've been enjoying the casual tier four community runs, and I also wasn't opposed to the idea of visiting some of the later raids at some point. I just didn't want to put in the effort that was expected of core raiders in my guild anymore and commit to dedicating two days a week to being at the (relative) cutting edge as it were.

The little guild drama not too long ago combined with some other happenings left the Forks' core raid team somewhat below strength recently, and with my SWTOR ops team going on a break with the expansion looming close, I suddenly found myself with a lot more free evenings and told one of the officers that I'd be happy to help out in SSC on Wednesdays in the meantime - better for them to have a slacker along than to underman it for sure.

So it happened that my hunter made her first trip to the Serpentshrine Cavern a week ago, and I'm not going to lie: I had a good time! I thought I was off to a good start when - despite of remembering very well that the elevator at the door was an infamous death trap - I promptly stepped onto it too late, something that was followed by a long fall during which I had plenty of time to think about and regret my mistake before going splat at the bottom, right in front of two of the officers. Glorious!

We killed all the bosses bar Vashj with little fuss - if anything it was the giant bog lords between them that still gave people some trouble. Tidewalker was pretty hilarious as we were drowning in a sea of murlocs by the end and it was just AoE and fears and shouting on Discord and I loved it. At the end we even had time for a couple of tries on Vashj herself. I was pretty happy with my own performance too, considering my non-raid spec and the fact that I still haven't even got my four-piece Beast Lord set bonus. (I've run the Mechanar more than a dozen times and have seen every single drop from Pathaleon the Calculator except for the helm...)

That aside though, I was also touched by how many whispers I got from people excited to see me in a progression raid again, though I also felt a little bad letting them down by reaffirming that I wasn't returning "properly". I'm not exactly hugely chatty in raids, so I didn't think people really had reason to miss me.

I actually kind of liked the idea of doing this a few more times, but then I overheard them talking about swapping Wednesdays to The Eye and moving SSC to Mondays, one night on which I'm still busy. I also knew that I wouldn't be able to help out in The Eye because I still wasn't attuned (insert sad trombone noise here). I was at the stage where you need to do two group quests in Shadowmoon Valley and both of my previous attempts to get into a group for them had ended in failure.

For the briefest moment I was starting to think thoughts like "maybe I could make a push for the attunement now to be able to help out more", but even as I did so another part of me was cringing away in terror. I wanted to earn my Champion of the Naaru title on my own terms and in my own time, not rush through it in a desperate attempt to get to spend some more time wiping in 25-mans again. Not to mention the amount of begging and arm-twisting I feared I'd have to do to get through all those group stages sooner rather than later, when it might not necessarily be convenient for other people.

It did make me think about the Eye attunement in general though. I guess back in the day I didn't find it so bad because my guild didn't actually go there until attunement had become optional, so it was just a cool quest chain that earned you a title. I still think it is that, but as a requirement to even enter the raid it's honestly pretty harsh, not so much due to the overall length but due to the strange mix of solo content, group quests, heroic dungeons and raids, which forces you to change gear at several steps along the way.

And you can tell that guilds are struggling, based on the recruitment spam and LFM requests to plug those last few holes on progression night that fill the looking for group channel night after night. I wonder if all those guilds aren't missing a trick by not advertising with something like "guaranteed attunement runs every Sunday" or whatever. Yeah, it would be work for them, but at the same time it might draw in some more people with a casual interest who just don't have the stamina to spend days in the LFG channel, repeating "looking for more for heroic Shadow Labs/Shattered Halls/Arcatraz".

I know that immediately after launch the "raiding economy" was effectively an employer's market, with more people looking to raid than guilds had room for with the reduced raid size, but recently things seem to have shifted the opposite direction, and if you're desperate for people to commit to raiding, maybe offer them something in return other than a bunch of rules about how to gear and what consumables to bring? Guild membership should involve both give and take, and while it's possible to keep both of those to an absolute minimum if you don't want to get involved, I don't think you can ask players to put that much effort in while not giving much in return.

And on that somewhat sour note the first draft of this post would have ended, but the day after I'd written it, I happened to be online in the early evening alongside only three other guildies, and somehow the subject of my lack of Tempest Keep attunement came up. I explained how I was stuck on the Shadowmoon group quests but didn't want to stress about it. Imagine my surprise when one of the guildies online at the time - our sole raiding shadow priest since I'd first joined the guild - spoke up to say something like: "Why not do those quests now? I could tank them on my alt and I'm sure the others wouldn't mind helping!" I was positively abashed that someone else actually cared more about my attunement than I did, and within a few minutes we had a group and gave both Ruul the Darkener and Cyrukh the Firelord a proper spanking. I thanked everyone for their generosity and time and got the - again very surprising to me - reply: "We're just being selfish in our own way, wanting you back in our raids."

Finishing those two quests unlocked the Trials of the Naaru - three quests to complete four heroics, followed by a raid quest for Magtheridon. I think the heroics are generally considered the most unpleasant part by most, but not for me - after all, I have friends now (?!) that also enjoy running heroics, so we blasted through them all over the next couple of days without any major issues. I expect to have my Champion of the Naaru title and Tempest Key by tomorrow evening.

And I'm feeling very conflicted about the whole thing! I am, above all, grateful for the friends who reminded me how fun this game can be and have shown that they clearly value me as a person regardless of what class or spec I play. However, my emotions about the wider guild are more confused. I didn't feel like there was actively bad blood between me and anyone when I stepped down from core raiding, but there was definitely a certain sense of not belonging and not fitting in anymore. None of that came from the people who are now telling me that they've missed me, but it definitely felt like their way of thinking and approach to raids were on the way out.

I do wonder whether things have somehow reversed course and the Forks are actually working their way back towards something closer to what they were before TBC launch in terms of atmosphere? I would certainly welcome that and would want to help with it too, even if there's a more cynical part of me that's like: "Oh, now that all those other people have left, they suddenly care..." I suppose I'm just not entirely sure how much I trust it, and how much I'd really want to reinvest myself into guild progression business at this point.