Switching Up

Note: This entry was started Thursday night and finished Friday morning.

Thursday's raid was the most fun I've had in a while. Dev decided to switch people in and out since it was a regular mode night, and I got to be in for most of the raid. I am 5 emblems of Conquest away from my chest tier token aka 4 piece bonus, since I got the shoulders on Monday night. I also had a good email about my dad from my sister, and I have a job interview tomorrow.

Boom made me laugh tonight - as we were clearing to Vezax, he sent me a tell asking if I would mind stepping out for one of the rogues to come in, so we would have two kicks. I wasn't volunteering to step out because I figured after yesterday's rant, Dev would kill me if I did. Anyway, I sent Boom a tell back saying np, and asking him if he was seriously asking. His response was "I didn't want to be an ass about it." There is something endearing about how tenderhearted the guild officers can be sometimes.

I had a conversation with Dev Thursday night where he came the closest he ever has to telling me that there are encounters he will never put me in, specifically, hard-mode encounters. I'm not sure he will ever directly say that because we've had so many conversations about how my contributions to the guild go beyond my dps, and I don't react well to feeling reduced to a number on a meter. I don't envy Dev's position if hard modes and Algalon play out the way he thinks they will. One of the core philosophies of the guild is that we win or lose as a team. How do you keep that teamwork when you have raid members that can't be in certain encounters?

This is not a question that there is an easy answer to, and it provoked a question in my mind as to whether I'm still contributing even if I'm not in on hard mode fights, and if this is still the guild where I belong. The truth hit me in a blinding flash of insight this morning. All I was really hoping to do in Ulduar was beat Yogg. There will probably be a time when that will happen. As to where I belong, if anyone thinks I'm not good enough for the guild, they have not said it, at least not to me. As far as contributing, 3000 dps is better than nothing, and the value of support is impossible to measure.