5 Ways to Impress Your Guild

I’ve decided to do a list every week.  I’m the kind of person who picks up a magazine and goes straight to the top whatever list.  I enjoyed writing last week’s “5 Ways to Get /Ignored,” so bam, a series is born.  Since I write a lot, I think I’m sparing everyone by sticking to a list of five.

This week (a little late, thanks to a busy Thanksgiving weekend) we’ll do something a little more positive.  Let’s talk about ways to impress your guild.  We won’t discuss how many of them I actually do…lol.

5 Ways to Impress Your Guild

1.  Be respectful.  This one sounds like common sense, but you’d be surprised how often this one gets violated.  Granted, once you know your guildies pretty well, you know what lines exist and where it’s safe to cross them.  But don’t jump into a guild assuming they’re going to love it when you tell them how awesome you are, how they should run their raids, or how the young female warlock in the guild makes you hot.  Especially when you’re new to a guild, I highly recommend sitting back and playing cool for a while.  Learn about your guildies, what they talk about, what jokes are funny and which flop, and what makes people pissy.  Once you feel like you can jump in without making yourself look foolish, go for it!

2.  Contribute.  Should you spend 15 minutes in vent talking over the guild leaders explaining how and why they should use your strat?  NO, that goes back to number 1.  But don’t sit down on your butt, show up for raids, and ignore everyone the rest of the time.  If you have a useful profession, donate to the guild bank.  If you fish up salmon for yourself, fish up an extra stack and stick it in the bank for Fish Feasts.  If you make potions or elixirs or gems or enchanting mats, stick a stack or two of surplus into the bank, or if you don’t have bank access, mail it to an officer.  You don’t need to go around trumpeting how much you’ve donated (you’ll look like a big old attention-seeking butthead).  Someone in your guild is most likely a banker who watches the log, and they will appreciate your donations and more, your humility.

But contributions go beyond guild banks.  Contribute your time and skills as well.  You’re a good tank?  Cool, watch for a good opportunity to volunteer for a heroic group.  You’ve got an offspec healer, or an awesome dps?  Take them to that ToC 10-man.

3.  Do your job.  If you’re in a raiding guild, you were most likely invited in a particular capacity.  A lot of raiding guilds have applications just like jobs:  you applied, you were probably “interviewed” or tested by an officer, and you were accepted.  But it doesn’t end there.  You’ll be watched exceptionally closely the first several raids.  Every failure you have will be magnified, so do your best to fail as little as possible.  You ARE going to have screw ups; even seasoned raiders have moments where they stand in front of Icehowl like a deer in the headlights, and at these times, stay cool.  Accept the criticism graciously, apologize for your mistake if appropriate, and do everything you can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Make sure you know about your class and your role.  Know how to gem and enchant; know your rotation, your cooldowns, and how to work them within the encounters.  Learn about the boss fights ahead of time.  Don’t stand in fire.  Know how to wipe.  If you’re a druid, find out what you need to know about using your battle rez (is it used at your discretion, or will your raid leader call for you?).  If you’re a Moonkin, for Elune’s sake don’t shift out to heal unless it’s appropriate (sometimes things like Faction Champs force the issue).  If you’re a holy priest, don’t walk up to Gormok and try to Holy Nova while you heal.  Do the job you’ve been “hired” to do, and do it to the best of your ability.

4.  If you don’t know something, ASK.  It’s okay to admit you don’t know everything.  Every once in a while, someone will screw up on something repeatedly, and you’ll find out they didn’t ever understand that Big Boss 5 does X, Y, or Z ability.  While whispering your raid leader in the middle of the raid to ask him whether or not you should be using this spell instead of that one probably isn’t the best plan, if you’re struggling with something, ask your class lead or someone you think is trustworthy and really gets it (it’s why guilds usually have hierarchies).  I think it’s super classy when someone whispers me and says, “Okay, you really seem to get this fight.  What do I do when Y happens?”  It means you care enough about the other 24 people in the raid to humble yourself a little and ask for help.  That’s win.

5.  Know when it’s time to move on (or when it’s not).  Sometimes people change.  Your priorities in game shift from raiding to alts or PvP, or real life kicks you in the butt with the loss of a job, or your wife is having a baby next month.  Sometimes guilds change.  They get unfriendly or too friendly, they stop caring or they start being jerks about progression.  Sometimes you might get into a guild and realize you just don’t fit in with this crowd and you’re not comfortable.

This could mean a lot of things.  In the case of “raiding retirement,” it might mean that you stay in your guild as a bench warmer, or you might choose to find a guild that’s more friendly to casual players.  If the guild changes, weigh your investments.  Do you have a lot of friends in the guild you still like to talk to?  Do you have a legacy in the guild?  Do you think the guild will recover, or can you accept the new direction it’s taking?  Based on your answers, decide whether or not you’re going to wait it out or move on.  If the problem is your comfort level in the guild, don’t force yourself to stay there and be unhappy.  It’s quite all right to say, “I appreciate the opportunity, but I just don’t think this guild’s the right fit for me.”

Guilds are the backbone of raiding in World of Warcraft (yes, even with all the puggable content, guilds are still leading progression).  Unless you like being a drifter, find a guild you love and then settle in.  Hopefully you’ll have a long WoW life with your guild.

Oh, and you automatically get 15 impressive bonus points for reading my blog, so congratulations! 😀

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