Operations Blues

I haven't written about operations progress in a few months. In case you've ever wondered why, the sad truth is that I personally simply haven't had any. Somehow this really hit home for me the other night when I was traipsing through TfB story mode and a friend from another guild whispered me to ask if I was currently doing hard mode. Such an innocent question... but it carried with it the assumption that I was still miles ahead of whatever he was doing with his friendly social guild at the time, which is kind of the way it used to be - but not anymore. Believe it or not, Carb, you've already spent more time in hardmode operations this expansion than I have. Be proud.

In fact, tonight was the first time I even set foot into one of the new hardmode operations, TfB to be precise. It went about as I expected, which is to say: not too badly, but it also could have gone better. It's certainly interesting having to "re-learn" content that you've cleared before because both you and the mobs are five levels higher, everything's been retuned and you're coming in with a different team, even if the overall strategies are the same.

Incidentally, tonight was also the first time that some other guildies completely cleared Scum and Villainy 8-man on hard mode. Serious congratulations to them; everything I've heard about it seems to agree that the last boss is very hard.

The last couple of months have honestly been kind of difficult for me because my own transition to more casual raiding didn't happen by choice. Rather, the guild went through a reorganisation before the launch of the expansion which meant that there suddenly wasn't room for me in progression operations anymore. Without going into too much detail, it can be said that I was pretty damn bummed about this - which is kind of ironic considering that I originally said in my guild application back in October that I was "not looking to raid hardcore". I did get to enjoy the progression nights that I got to go to over time however, because there's nothing quite like that exhilarating adrenaline rush just before you do overcome a tough challenge eventually.

I pretty much went through the five stages of grief after being faced with my "demotion" (there was no actual change in rank, but being excluded from something that I did get to do previously certainly felt like one):

Denial: "Okay, reading about these changes is pretty upsetting to me right now, but they'll never be able to actually go through with all this anyway. People won't stand for it! There'll be outrage and /gquits and they'll have to back down!" (There was outrage and a couple of /gquits, but in the end it changed little.)

Anger: "Why me? It's not fair! People keep telling me that I'm a really good healer but now I'm not good enough? Have they all been lying to me? Have I pissed somebody off? I thought we were friends! I thought I was part of the team! What did I do to deserve this?!"

Bargaining: "Isn't there some way I could still get to go? If I've annoyed you in some way, I'll be better, I promise. I'll min-max more! I don't know what I've been doing wrong, but I'll find out and fix it! I'll become the best Commando healer ever! No really, I'll do anything! (Except sexual favours.) What does it take?!"

Depression: "This sucks. I suck. Clearly I can't heal my way out of a wet paper bag. Everybody secretly hates me and wishes that I would go away already. I should just quit the whole game right now before I cause myself and others any more frustration. Or maybe I should switch to doing nothing but PvP. I would fit right in with the best with all these rage and ego issues."

Acceptance: "Aww, screw this. There are worse things in the world than being average. And at least I've still got my pet tank."

So I've been doing story modes with a bunch of guildies that generally don't raid as much plus the other rejects leftovers differently abled raiders? It hasn't been without its issues, but it hasn't been too bad either. I do take a certain pride in being a doormat able to adjust my play style as needed and get my fun in whichever ways I can, and it's been nice to get to know some guildies a bit better with whom I previously didn't get to spend much time. It seems that I can find people to play ball toss with pretty much everywhere, and in the last week I've actually felt the itch to start working on a raid video again, which is definitely a good sign. After tonight I'm also hoping that we'll be able to work on hard modes some more and make some progress there, even if it will be slower for us.

Plus, you know, silly floating wrigglers:

Who can feel down in the face of those?