I’d been a little hush-hush about this the last few days because I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but the merger with the guild wasn’t really working out the way we had hoped. When we finally broke down and accepted the merger offer, as our guild leader I decided I would wait 2 or 3 weeks and then see if everyone was content.
Today was our 3rd week in the guild so a few days ago I started pulling the old Vae Victus members in to our old vent server (or party chat) one at a time, asking how the raid times were working out, how they felt about the new loot system and to see if any personal issues had come up since the merger.
A general consensus among the guild was that the raid times were not working out and that the loot system and raid sign-ups felt very unorganized. 1 or 2 were OK with the raid times but there were 6 or 7 that weren’t.
The guild/raid leader seemed pretty adamant about only wanting one 10-man raid ID for Ulduar and wanted to do it during the week which doesn’t work for a majority of our old guildmates, also raiding Naxx-25 on Thursday which also doesn’t really work for us. We came from a 10-man guild so a majority of our upgrades would have come from Naxx-25 and Ulduar-10 in order for us to help them progress through Ulduar 25 effectively.
We have friends in another raiding guild (Guild B) that offered the merge option to us around the same time the previous guild did (Guild A). We had been raiding 25’s with Guild A before the merger and really liked their work ethic and loot system, so based on previous experience we decided to go against the grain and merge in with Guild B rather than move in to a more familiar guild.
Upon our joining, they changed loot systems and I -think- raid days. Talking to an officer before the merger we were explained that a majority of their raids were Friday and Sunday which worked out fine but they were now Thursday and Saturday causing a majority of Vae Victus to only attend 1 raid per week, with some missing every raid every other week due to their work schedules.
We spoke to our friends in Guild A and told them that we liked Guild B but the raid times just didn’t fit with us and they responded by offering us a second change at the merger. I didn’t want to up and leave only 3 weeks in to Guild B but with 1 raid day already not working out for a majority of our members and the addition of Ulduar-10 ALSO during the week, it was hard to turn down the option from Guild A.
It was nothing personal against Guild B, their officers, their raiders, etc., it was just a matter of a raid schedule that just didn’t work. I left a sincere post on their forums thanking them for the opportunity to merge in and try to progress through the 25-man content on behalf of Vae Victus. I know that I’m going to be the one catching the lashings if there are any but I was our guild leader and if that’s how it ends up then so be it.
I didn’t want to burn any bridges and there were no raids scheduled for today or tomorrow so I wanted to give them a few days to explain why we left and have time to fill their raid spots that a few of us would have taken.
Moving to Guild A is going to be a change for me, mainly. They already have 2 amazing Warlocks but they really needed a Shadowpriest so I took Abigore over, giving Vae Victus to my Warlock. I was in the middle of the Hodir grind when I switched mains to Nevariah so I never got my shoulder enchants – this was the first thing I did last night when I found out about moving to Guild A. I only had about 6k rep to go so I did the 3 available dailies and had 100 Relics of Ulduar on Nevariah. Thaelis/Call had tons of Relics in his bank that he didn’t need so he gave me the rest of what I needed to hit honored and slap the enchant on my T7 shoulders.
So it looks like I’m back on the Shadow Priest saddle with Neva being on the backburner for a little bit. It’s a tad depressing because I was REALLY liking my Warlock and she has better gear but variety is a spice of life, I suppose. I still enjoy the Shadow Priest class, it was just an unexpected change. I’m sure I’ll still be pugging raids when I can with her when I can but Guild A’s raid schedule seems to be good so I should be pretty busy.
My only concern is gear at this point. I haven’t raided on Abigore since they changed Shadowform from a solid damage increase to a chance for DoTs to crit. Prior to this change, Haste and Crit were very close when it came to gear scaling so I normally just took the haste gear and let the Mages/Healers have the crit. Now Crit is rated higher than haste and I’m stuck with a haste set lol. Woot?
Anyway, sorry for the lengthy post!
Best of luck with the move. I hope it works out for you guys.
I would like to take this opportunity to defend Relentless in this case. Not once did any of the Vae Victus members address any of these concerns to the guild leaders.
We do 25-man raids on Thursday (Naxx) night and Saturday (Ulduar) night. The Ulduar10 runs are just a means to get people familiar with fights so they will occur whenever 10 able people are available. What other times would the Vae Victus crew want to do Ulduar10? On Friday night? That was an option nobody ever cared to pursue.
The change in our loot system was to a very practical DKP system. EP/GP presents the most fair representation for raiding effort of any DKP system I know of. What loot system is it that Vae Victus preferred, and why?
You guys didn’t offer any feedback to us so there is no way for us to know you were unhappy. Also, why were you so insistent on being a separate set then the rest of us? It’s great that you are close group of friends but to demand your own exclusive raids is ridiculous. That kind of behavior promotes segregation and appears elitist. What would be the positive aspect of Vae Victus having their own Ulduar10 raid id? How is that going to best serve the entire guild?
I’m sorry but Vae Victus’ decision was made in haste and without proper grievance. If you had issues with the way things are done the only way they can be changed is by discussing alternatives. The needs of the many out-weigh the needs of the few.
When we were offered the merger we explained that we would prefer to remain in Vae Victus because we were already running our own 10-man group and would much rather just help out Relentless when they needed it. Not only the guild/raid leader but -another- officer told us that it would be fine if we ran our own group while we were in Relentless as long as we were available for 25-mans.
What we were presented and what actually happened in the guild were 2 totally different things.
**The selling points for us merging**
-Being able to continue running our normal 10-man group while being a part of your 25-man group.
-Your previous loot system was what we were used to and we enjoyed it.
-Friday and Sunday raid days.
**When we joined**
-Only one 10-man raid ID for Ulduar
-Changed to EP/GP loot system without any sort of warning. None of us knew until we had already merged in to the guild.
-Raid days changed to Thursday and Saturday.
“Not once did any of the Vae Victus members address any of these concerns to the guild leaders.”
I had personally commented numerous times in the officer forums and member discussion forums that raids during the week did not work for me. If they didn’t work for the others, I agree they should have mentioned so as well but I can only do so much for them.
“What loot system is it that Vae Victus preferred, and why?”
Numerous Vae Victus members raided with Relentless for about a month before we merged over and you used a variation of the suicide kings loot system to make sure the loot was spread around. This is the loot system we were used to and not a single person mentioned the change to EP/GP before we merged over. When we questioned why we weren’t told about it, the response from Coma was something along the lines of “you have forum access, use it”.
If I offer you a job and explain to you that you get these benfits and you quit your current job to work for me.. only to find out that what I offered you wasn’t what you were getting, you may feel the same way. Now imagine being responsible for talking 9 of your friends in to quitting their jobs to work for me as well and the same thing happening to them.
“What other times would the Vae Victus crew want to do Ulduar10? On Friday night? That was an option nobody ever cared to pursue.”
The post Coma made on the forums clearly stated that he didn’t want more than one raid ID for Ulduar and he’s stated over vent that we would be doing it 2 days during the week, not the weekends because fridays were generally a poor attendence day which is why friday was never brought up by any of us.
Friday and Sunday were the 2 days we were told that we would be raiding but those days were switched, again once we joined without any notice, but we tried to make due with what we had.
In the beginning we didn’t think it was going to work but we wanted to ride it out to see what happened and unfortunately it didn’t work. I wish we had more time to talk to Coma but I’m not going to ask a guy to change his ENTIRE guilds raid schedule to five or six people.
We tried option 1, it didn’t work, so we’re trying option 2. I admit we made a hasty decision but we had already turned this guild down in the beginning and didn’t want to risk turning it down a second time. If it doesn’t work and bites us in the ass then yeah, we made the wrong decision but just like a job, you have to take risks to succeed.
I don’t want to start a huge debate on my blog but I’m not angry or pissed or whatever and anyone so if you’d like to talk about this a little more in-depth, I’d be happy to do so through e-mail, in-game or whatever you’d like to do.