Wipe Nights

+Last night, my guild wiped all night to Archimonde. 4 hours of wiping. It was dismal. We wiped because we had smart players die to falling damage. We wiped because we had smart players die in a fire. We wiped because we had smart players fail to execute a plan they know. Every guild has nights like this. Every guild has nights when things simply don't click.

Last night after our raid I stayed up and talked to my partner in crime, pimp daddy Mikedabutcha*. He was demoralized. He should be as main tank and co-GM he felt a lot of responsibility for our wipe night. He felt like maybe he should have been able to do something to fix it, stop the wipes. Either as MT he should have tanked better, or GM he should have led better. I stayed up and talked to him. Do you know what, last night he tanked like a champ. And as a leader, I couldn't ask for a better partner. He pushes us to be better, he's stern and he motivates them. As a counterpart to my carebear, he's perfect. And even more than that, he respects my leadership style too. I calmed him down and cheered him up, that's what I do. I'm the carebear after all.

I also stayed up and talked to 8 of my 25 raiders. After that raid, they took a look at what they'd done, and they identified what'd they done wrong and what they were going to do better next time. I didn't go to them. I didn't ask them to. They did it because they are good raiders. They are good players. They didn't like to wipe. They knew they could do better. On Sunday when we raid again, I know they will.

Last night sucked. God 4 hours of wiping. Even I, the eternal optimist, was discouraged. But there's something more there. Last night in my group, the party chat was positive. Great job on timing that tremor totem. Great decursing, no one even had a tick of damage. What amazing healing, we never feared doomfire deaths. Our role channels, what a great job decursing tonight, you've really picked that up. 4 hours of wiping and no one pointed fingers. No one logged off in disgust, no one gquit in frustration.

Last night I replaced one raider. He stood in 5 ticks of doomfire, not the dot that is applied, 5 ticks of standing of the fire. Lots of people made little mistakes, but standing in fire, for that long... I don't know, maybe he was having a bad night. God knows he wasn't the only one. I pulled him out. He didn't argue with me, he just logged off his main and onto his alt. I assume he was frustrated, he handled it well. It doesn't change the fact that he stood in 5 ticks of doomfire, but he handled it very well.

Last night, everyone was demoralized, frustrated, at their worst. Even at our worst, I think our guild shows it's strength. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy with last night. I think it highlighted some of the weaknesses our guild has. As a carebear sometimes I'm misunderstood as being content with our weaknesses. It's not that, trust me, I don't want nights like last night again. It's just that even in last night, I can find the positive. Either way, last night happened. We can concentrate on the negative on what sucked. Or we can learn from it. We can take joy in our strengths and use those to learn from last night.

Last night didn't demoralized me as much as it demoralized the others. But last night, tired me. Last night, many of my raiders, needed me to be a carebear. To help re energize them. Sometimes energizing others though, even though it's second nature to me, leaves me drained. Today, I'm tired. Tonight, I rest. Tomorrow, I roll up my sleeves and I start fixing what last night showed me was broken.

*Name changed to protect the not so innocent