I wanted to post this up; it's kind of the result of some introspection, the fact that I have to take a class this semester (starting school Monday!) that requires spirtual introspection, and a heart-to-heart that I had with Vulgrym (and a few others in the guild).

[quote]There was once a man whose ax was missing, and he suspected that his neighbor's son had stolen it. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, and spoke like a thief. But one day the man found his ax whlie digging in his valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor's son, the boy walked, looked, and spoke like any other child.[/quote]

There's a point to this, and I think it's applicable to raiding.

We killed two bosses on Thursday, and got a few pulls in on another. However, let's all be real - we have lots of threads, and I've been the listening ear to plenty of people who have been frustrated with our progression. I think that this German folktale/whatever it's called (I'm not THAT collegiate) is something we can all apply.

It's very easy to point at one person and to say that they don't do as much damage or they take more damage than this person or that person. I'm not going to go into theory and math on what causes a person to rank or even take less damage (there *are* many variables), but finger pointing and singling people out does lower morale - whether it's done in channels or over tells and such. When you begin to believe that Person A is low damage, let's say, then that is all you will see about them. You will only see the bad things that they do, versus the good, and you will then only be able to mediate on their negatives rather than their positives.

(NOTE: This isn't to say we don't have areas to improve. Kihra's problem panes are a good place to start to see we do have areas to improve. And I think that it can be safe to say that as far as our DPS or tanking or healing go, we all do our damnedest to do our best - that's just the type of person that raids here.)

So, this is my gentle reminder that we all are in this guild and raiding for similar reasons. I should hope - and I do believe - that we all very much care about this guild as a whole. I do - I'm always looking at how to improve and such, and I know for a fact that all of us (at least the people I speak to on a personal level, which is mostly everyone) look pretty hard at various aspects of logs for ourselves and other guilds.

And also... I'm glad to raid with all of you. It's not been an easy time for me the last few weeks, but I'm glad that I get to raid with a bunch of people that actually make me feel less stressed (usually). We -can- be competitive, and we -are- competitive. The guild scene has changed very drastically, with the influx of 10Ms now competing on the same level, and in general the fact that most guilds that were previously 3-night/12-hour are now more like 15 hours+. It's pretty fucking awesome to be able to raid with people that I can honestly call good, close friends who also happen to be awesome players.



TL;DR: Let's try to understand that we're all good raiders. Don't try to rank people by who is better or worse or whatever. The fact that we're starting to roll through content tells me that we're just as strong - if not stronger - than in SoO, but let's keep in mind that we're probably one of the very few three-night guilds that aren't doing 15 or more hours at this point.