Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Transition

So, here I am, on Turalyon. My new "home"... though, I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable yet. After watching two rogues pushing 7k DPS on nearly every single fight during tonight's Ulduar run, I'm kinda loosing my self-confidence. So, this is what it's like to truly push content. Let me start from the beginning.

I applied with three guilds over the period of about four days. The first was a half-hearted application that I didn't really expect much from if I didn't immediately hear from them. I filled out the app as fully as I would like to see if I were an officer again, but they didn't specifically say they were interested in hunters, so I didn't put much faith into it, despite how perfectly I felt I would fit in there.

The second was to a guild on a PvP server, a bit more progressed than my last guild, but the least so of the three I applied to. The raiding times were good, but I was apprehensive about leaving my PvE comfort zone. The final guild was the most progressed of the three, and by far the most professional I've ever encountered, though I was nervous that I wouldn't fulfill their standards. Additionally, it would put me back on my old raiding schedule (raiding until 1 AM), something which I was trying to steer away from, but was ready to make an exception. The hunter that interviewed me said they were very impressed with my application and eager to give me a try. I was completely ready to transfer, when I received notice from the first guild I applied with, requesting an interview. I immediately posted my decline to the PvP server guild. It was now down to the top guild on Greymane or the second-ranked guild on Turalyon.

Now, the Turalyon guild was everything I wanted, though I wasn't as impressed with the interview. Whereas Greymane quizzed me over my spec, gear, and glyphs, and even showed some excitement about the prospect of two raiding Marksman hunters, the Turalyon guild wondered if I had any questions about the guild itself. The guild leader seemed more keen on trying out a hunter that knew what they were doing, since evidently he wasn't impressed with how his current hunters were performing. This was a considerable let down from the Greymane guild, where I could talk with others that seemed genuinely in love with the class as I am.

In the end, I had to ask myself why I was transferring again, and knew I had to go with the guild that raided the least, despite my apprehensions brought on by the dichotomy between the two interviews. I transferred last night, after my last guild run, and accepted my ginvite once the servers came back up today. I chatted with the Guild Master, who had interviewed me, a bit afterwards, trying to get bearing. We discussed some raiding matters, including whether or not I would have to drop Skinning for Jewelcrafting (I'm safe, for now).

When raid time came, I have to admit I was more than just a little nervous. And, sure enough, it was just like every other progressive-minded guild I had raided with on Kilrogg. A lot of swearing, a lot of belittling, and even a dose of misogyny in there for good measure. I was disappointed, but not surprised.

I didn't do any worse than the other hunters - beating them on several fights, but admittedly, not outstripping them, and certainly not even coming close to the melee. I also have to wonder how much DPS I lost trying to adjust to the different strategies. Every fight up to Auriaya was executed differently from how I am used to them, and I lost attention on my DPS in order to make sure I didn't make some aggrevious mistake. I was only called out once, to which I provided a legitamit retort, and it was dropped. I relaxed around Hodir, even though I had never successfully completed a 25 man Hard Mode kill, it was still my comfort zone.

I just hope all my posts don't end up angry...

4 comments:

nimayne said...

I wish you good luck with the new guild:)
sometimes things seem to start not like knife-through-butter, but get better with ongoing time

Nim

Unknown said...

Best of luck, Negathle, and I sincerely hope things shake out well for you. You may be Horde, but you were still a fellow Kilrogg Hunter (even if I was a transfer from PVP land).

Anonymous said...

Good luck in your new guild.

Don't worry about your dps as you adjust to new strats. Follow your RL's instructions, do your best, remember that Ulduar is not hunter-friendly. You'll be fine :D

True story: first trial raid, we're lining up for Thorim. I'm nervous as heck and a bit shaky from my Coke Zero. Hunter lead says to make an assist macro off him. I do, and I test it. Unfortunately, he had the big worm in the middle targeted. There goes the pet, here comes the pain, up goes my heart into my throat. Luckily no one died; hunter lead laughed; I changed my pants :D

Thunderhorns said...

Good luck over there.

I'm sure your dps will rise once you learn their strats.

And rogues do crazy damage. Not much you can do about that. So do all well-equipped melee.

Ulduar screws over hunters in my opinion. Hunters are of one of the few classes that have the disadvantages of casters and melee. Moving lowers their dps much like casters, and they still have to deal with damage reduction for physical attacks.

Add in that they don't get as many buffs from things like shadow crashes and singes, and you get hunters being gimped alot in Ulduar. And they get alot of damage from their pet, and they can be hard to keep alive on alot of fights.

Ulduar not hunter friendly as far as max dps goes. Though I'm sure you'll still do pretty well.