I don’t know why you say goodbye; I say hello.

I haven't been blogging because I've been focusing all of my WoW energy on my guild.

Surreality is in a precarious place right now. We lost a few members to Real Life: finals, family commitments, schedule changes, sports, even wife aggro. We have a healthy Friends & Family rank and are filling enough spots to manage 10/12 and even 11/12 clears each week, but we are still two or three players short of a solid progression team. It's been a few weeks since we made serious attempts on the Lich King ... and since nothing kills a raiding guild faster than not raiding, a small handful of our newer members have left in search of purpler pastures.

Needless to say, this has only compounded the problem.

I honestly don't know if we'll have the numbers to raid this week. If everyone shows up on Tuesday, we'll be fine; if anyone has a conflict, we won't be.

And yet, in spite of the lows, there have been highs, too. Thanks in no small part to the hunter formerly known as Elam, we are running two solid 10-man teams for the first time in our history. Both have cleared Icecrown Citadel several times on normal, and are now pushing hardmodes. (Blood Princes: 18 - Surreality: 0.) We have also picked up several new raiders, including an exceptional — and, by all accounts, sane! — holy paladin, a restoration shaman who blows my HPS out of the water, and a shadow priest who I want to shrink and keep in a jar.

There have been some fantastic late night conversations, too. For the first time since TBC, I find myself running mindless laps around Shattrath (I'm leveling a wee hunter through Outlands) and using WoW as a glorified chat engine: too tired to quest, but far too enthralled by the green text to call it a night.

At this point, we could go either way. We could recruit two or three or four new players to replace those we've lost and return with a vengeance, or we could continue to hemorrhage members until we are no longer able to raid at all. I'm hoping for the former, while quietly preparing myself (emotionally!; I have no intentions of looking outside Surreality for a home!) for the latter.

The late-night crew is full of encouragement. We've been together for almost three years and gotten through low points before, as the same spirit of community and camaraderie that keeps me up far too late at night also keeps us going, in spite of periodic setbacks. We've addressed the few divisive issues, such as our chronic inability to field two 10-man raids, and emerged stronger as a result. And, as Elam points out — with the notable exception of the holy paladin we lost to hockey — everyone we've been forced to replace, we replaced with someone who was either a stronger player or a better fit for our guild or both. "I wouldn't stress too much," he texted me this morning. "There are people who are loyal and people who will switch guilds when it's convenient. We're steadily growing the former."

I hope so. I really, really hope so. There is no game without the guild for me, and there is no guild without the people I've come to consider friends.

Surreality: Uniting Geeks and Losers since 2007!

Surreality has a new tagline!  /dance

If you've been following me for any length of time, then you know I met my fiance in Heroic Underbog.  (And yes, I am still tempted to name the head table at our wedding reception "Zangarmarsh" as a result!)  However, our guild — and, more specifically, leading it — is what really brought us together. 

Apparently, the Chain Lightning strikes twice.  (Okay, technically — thrice.  Shut up.  This is my brie-laden analogy, thankyouverymuch.)

Last night, at the beginning of our weekly foray into Icecrown Citadel, our caustic warrior tank and perpetually sunny guild bard (the Brazilian mage who never fails to serenade Surreality to victory!) announced their engagement.

And guess where they met?

Serpentshrine Cavern, circa 2008.

I'll admit, I'm kind of giddy.  And not just because I consider them both friends, and am fantastically happy that they've found each other (and, like Keaton and I, crossed international boundaries to do so).  I'm totally tickled by the idea that my little guild — which started as a haven for a few friends and family members on the virtual cesspool that is Black Dragonflight — has led to not one but two lifelong partnerships. 

It's really kind of amazing.

(Also, for the record: the happy couple coined the tagline so I'm insulting neither of them when I respost it!)

Emo shaman is emo.

After all of the 10-man raid drama Surreality has experienced over the course of the expansion, we finally bit the bullet and split our achievement team into two groups — possibly three, depending upon how tonight's pick-up/alt run turns out. 

... And when I say "we," I actually mean Annah, because he totally took charge of making two groups happen.  The guild didn't exactly make it easy on him: we seem to have a collective aversion to using our forum as anything other than a glorified Photobucket, so Annah tracked every last raider down in-game and then created a massive Excel spreadsheet to track everyone's interest in, and availability for, off-night raids. 

See?  There's a reason this man has a legendary!

As for the raids themselves?  They went basically okay.  The teams weren't quite as balanced as we had hoped: the Saturday afternoon group cleared Icecrown Citadel through the Blood Princes, but failed to down Blood Queen Lana'thel in the ten attempts we had remaining after investing five of our fifteen alloted wipes on Putricide.  Meanwhile, the Sunday group one-shot both encounters.

In hindsight, the main difference between the teams was one part healing — the Saturday group ran two raid healers (myself and a holy priest), while the Sunday group ran two main healers (a paladin and a dual-specced holy/disc priest), in addition to a hybrid elemental/restoration shaman as a potential third — and one part DPS, as the Sunday group had the stronger ranged team. 

Keaton, who tanked for the Sunday group, mentioned that the tips I was feeding him from Saturday's run saved his team a few wipes as well.  I guess they adopted our strategy for Council and two shot it with three healers.  We wiped several times while experimenting with different combinations of tanks... and wiped a couple of more times as we learned how to two-heal it.  (Which I am actually quite proud of, by the way.  I was assigned to heal our warrior MT as he tanked two of the Princes.  I screwed up two or three times before I hit my stride and managed to find a happy balance between big and little heals.  Keeping Coffer alive and making my mana last the entire fight was the most challenging thing I've done since two-healing Tribute to Insanity with Annah.)

At the end of the day, I'm glad we were able to include more people in the 10-man runs.  Truly, I am.  At the same time, I'm a little disappointed that my group turned out to be the "B"-team this week ... and even more disappointed that in order to make two raids happen, I not only had to sacrifice the one selfish thing I do every week, but I also had to give up the opportunity to play with my fiance.  

For what it's worth — and, honestly, it's worth a lot because Annah arranged it with my feelings in mind (seriously? how many guys do that?!) — it was supposed to be temporary: I am officially assigned to heal the Sunday run, and made a last-minute sub to the Saturday team to cover an absence.  Of course, when I did that, I realized that without me, the Saturday team wouldn't have had a shaman for Bloodlust.  I don't think that will be a huge issue in the future, but for now, when the content is new, a little raidwide haste at a crucial moment goes a long way.

We may shuffle things around once the third run is rostered in order to get me back on Keaton's team, but for now, we're split between the Saturday and Sunday runs.  So instead of celebrating my guild's success — even if the Saturday group wasn't quite as successful, it still downed Putricide and sampled Blood Queen, which will go a long way towards 25-man progression — I find myself somewhat resentful of it. 

I don't think it would be so bad if Keaton and I weren't already struggling to maintain a long-distance relationship.  (And it is, at times, a struggle.)  Since we only manage to see each other in the real world every three or four months for a week or two at a time, WoW has become the way we connect.  It's the one hobby we share that can bridge the geographical distance between us and make us feel almost as if we're in the same room.

We spend three nights a week with our guild, organizing and leading 25-man raids.  I don't think it's too much to ask for one night a week to play together in a more intimate setting, with several of the people we have known online for years and come to cherish as friends.  If it were a date night, no one would begrudge us the time away.  But since it's online, everyone stakes a claim.  After all of the time and effort and money we invest in Surreality, the flak we take for making time for each other strikes me as cruelly unfair.

The epic post that wasn’t.

I should be writing an epic blogpost about our eleventh hour triumph over Professor Putricide.  

It was set up so perfectly:

One unsuccessful attempt remaining before retreat?  Check.

Trash respawns 15 minutes before the raid was scheduled to end?  Check.

Twenty-five players eager to press on anyway?   Check.  (And much <3 to you for that, Surreality!)

All three tanks with glyphed taunts, to prevent another string of unfortunate late Phase 3 resists?  Sigh.  Check.

A near flawless Phase 1, with masterfully controlled starts and stops?  Check.

An even nearer-to-flawless P2?  Check.

Every single raider alive(!) with no slimes active(!!) going into Phase 3(!!!)?  Check.

The dramatic last second kill?  

...

... ...

... ... ... ...

... ...

...

Try: our third sub-1% wipe of the evening (which would have been heartbreaking enough if an earlier attempt hadn't taken us within 28K lousy HP of a victory).  As Elamism points out, that's one kill shot. 

(Fucking hunters.  Do work!)

I love this fight.

But I hate it.  So.  Hard.

... Still, I'm not quite as discouraged as Stumpy.  Don't worry, Stumpy!  The Plagueworks is merely a setback.