Status updates.. server transfers and raiding

Back in June the little 10-man guild we'd been running fell apart. People got bored with the game, people left for other guilds (and to this day I don't know why some of them left, but that's past now), people didn't want to raid. All right, we said. Let's look elsewhere.

To make a long story short, we transferred from an EST server to a PST server, apped to a few guilds, switched guilds a few times in the four or five months since then. Both my boyfriend and I are stubborn about making the most of our classes, spells, rotations, and gear; we kept looking for somewhere that had that as well. The guild we transferred for was full of really lovely people, but it wasn't a good fit for us. The next guild worth mention ended along similar lines: we came in with expectations that 25s would be happening soon, but their progression in 25s didn't meet those expectations. There were some other misconceptions on both sides here, I think, as well, and while we stayed for a while it eventually became clear that we weren't going to be happy with the way things were going.

Within a week we were guilded again, and I am very pleased with our current guild for a number of reasons..

- We're running 10s and 25s weekly, pushing our TOGC-10 to Anub this past week and looking to start TOGC-25 shortly. I like progression.

- We have the numbers necessary for 25s. We're often sitting people for our 25-man night, not fighting to make the raid with barely 20.

- The guild leaders have standards for people. If someone's performance isn't up to par, they will get called on it and asked to fix it. It's not mean, but if someone's holding the rest of the group back, it's important that this get fixed and not perpetually overlooked.

- They're not actively recruiting, per se. I'm not sure how we pick up new people, but it does happen nonetheless. We chatted with the RL/main tank of the guild as we looked into them.. they weren't looking to recruit lots of people. Somehow, the two of us and our resto druid friend that transferred to join us were solid enough on paper that they were willing to take a chance with us. (Incidentally, I think we were put in some of the early 25s that we did with them to challenge the more establish DPS. In our slightly sub-par gear, we were matching them on DPS.)

- I'm not a healer. My boyfriend transferred his shaman (ele/resto) and has no problems with being whichever spec is needed, he's comfortable and effective playing both. I transferred Caze.. I want to stay as a boomkin in raids. I'm neither comfortable nor happy raiding as a tree in 25s. Can I do it? Sure. Is it what I want to do? No.
This actually led to a fair amount of tension in our first guild, where they were hurting for heals. I was asked to switch to healing for the first 25 we did with them. I don't have a problem with healing occasionally, but it left a bad feeling that I was asked to heal right off. It was stressful and left me with the most tension raiding that I've had in months! (I think it rubbed all the more because when we interviewed with the guild, they reassured me that they had plenty of healers and we were needed as DPS.)
In our current guild, I'm seen as a boomkin. I'm not even sure most of them realize I have a raid-viable healing offspec. I healed Faction Champs once, but the rest of the time? Boomkin.

This leads to my next point.. priesting vs druiding is tough for me. On weekends I raid on my disc priest back on our EST server, pugs and such. I'm a decent disc healer, I know what I'm doing, I have the gear and the skill to heal both 10s and 25s. I can run shadow, too - I'm not as good at it, but I have solid gear and I'm not terrible. I'm not being carried either way.

No, I didn't transfer my priest. Healers are in high demand; I wanted to raid primarily on my druid. I felt - and to some extent still feel - that transferring my priest opens up the possibility that I'll be asked to raid on a character when I'd strongly prefer to raid on the other.

Up until a year ago, my druid was full-time resto. I was a decent healer, theorycrafter, I knew fights as a tree and I knew them well. I never really saw the fights, I stared at health bars, and I got by. Possibly because I haven't healed much since then, I've lost my druid-healing-touch. I'm not a raid healer anymore. I don't have the awareness that I need to watch all 25 health bars. I can deal with 10; I can tank-heal in 25s, but my raid healing? Terrible. I heal like a discipline priest, and I know it.

It used to be that I was boxed into a healing role because I was good at it. My boyfriend's shaman is currently boxed into a dps role because he's good at it. It's easily ignored that he's also a damn good healer.. and that if we're hurting for heals, he's very comfortable switching on the fly. ` Interesting how things get switched around..