Sintara.5297

I don't really have that one specific experience to share since I've been raiding and doing fractals ever since they became available and there were simply so many lovely memories made. so entertain the iidea of me just rambling about five wonderful years in raids. It was my guild at the time who introduced me. I was playing the infamous bearbow ranger at the time and was fairly new to the game when Wing 1 released. I joined my group on the long and tedious journey that became VG as bear bow simply is not a good build and we know it but the group was very laid back and simply enjoying the progression of working out mechanics. The songs I can sing about bearbow and 1.6k toughness minion mancer, it must have been a nightmare to play with me.Little by little we worked out how VG worked, i was sent on green duty (as I wasn't dealing damage anyway. Yes, that talk happened and it was terribly embarassing but all in good spirit). I then worked on my Condi Reaper since that was the next best alternative and started actually hurting the boss beyond a few tickles. My guild leader was playing druid for us and as my comfort on the reaper was fairly minimal I asked him to show me what he was doing.Long story short I learned the basics of druid, picked up the gear and healed with my guild leader for the weeks to come until VG finally laid dead to our feet. The cheers and screenshots taken that day paved a way for me to become not only a druid main but also a raider as we took on Gorseval of course. From that point on I joined more and more groups, cleared Wing 1 and 2 and later on even Wing 3 (which had me pick up Arc DPS since my experimental Staff Weaver gameplay was a sight to behold as I was told. Somehow I did better on the minionmancer). By the time Wing 4 came around I started experimenting with statics and later on started my own trainings guild. Which, frankly, was teaching me more than any of my trainees. I learned how to break down and teach the bosses I was familiar with by then, polished my druid gameplay to a level I would scoff at and grin in amusement at thse days and made some wonderful memories with people who thought they'd never get into the content and had gotten their first VG clear under much the same cheers and loads of pictures taken as I had back in the day.All self congratulating aside, it was leading trainings that taught me how to not only be a commander that knows what's going on but also a player that knows how to handle groups at their worst. You don't get more stressful healing experiences than in a trainingsgroup on VG. I have fond memories of my static clearing Gorseval with a metric ton of Power Tempests that didn't quiete know how to coordinate spirit weapons yet and thus the discord was filled with outrage, groans and overwhelming laughs from the support players. All of my statics started out as a bunch of pugss just giving it a shot together. None of them remain but there were months of fun had, experienced gained and simply wonderful times spent there. Remind me not, however of the time when Wing 5 was released and, after days of blind progression, we tried teaching pugs how to do Dhuum. I swear, my pugs still aren't aware that the pattern isn't some eldritch summoning ritual but merely a circle. And the pugs I find over LFG tend to be less than optimal. Bearbows, a complete lack of reading comprehension and complete brain lags were pretty much my bread and butter. I made it through about a thousand or so LI worth of Pug clears and countless more simply because I enjoyed raiding. We did the math, I had 24 cleared Samarogs one week. Someone talk about not finding groups. To everyone looking to get into raids - Yes, the common advice is to find a group. Yes, it is good advice. But LFG can be a good place too. I have led trainings over LFG, usually with at least two experienced people, simply to show off the bosses and their mechanics to people because either they approached me about it or just mentioned in passing that they have never seen Sloth in person. I am fairly laid back in those runs. Bring a class you are comfortable with, show me that you know your role or are willing to let me alter your build and show you how to press your buttons, listen or read what I'm explaining and be okay with adapting your playstyle if you make a mistake.This seems to have been a low requirement to some people, the occasional toxicity of Lfg makes it into the run and, since the comm tag is on my head, the people demanding meta builds and instant clears in first time trainings get kicked. New players are new players and can learn in peace in my groups. I had a lot of fun leading these groups and got first kills with a few hundred players.I distinctly remember the release of W6 and eight hours of bashing my head against the brick wall that is Largos with people who very much did not have the DPS to do it but were all more or less flawless by the end of it. All of the people who stuck around are fine on the boss nowadays, talk about dedication! Aside form the anecdotes about statics and trainings I have been a very avid pug all throughout my career in the game and all memes aside, all the moments where I wanted to bash my head into a wall because reading is very difficult on both EU and NA aside - I have had nothing but positive memories while pugging, all the stresss and all the times it was difficult are outnumbered tenfold by ten random people trying to work their way through an encounter. I admit, a lot of these times ended up with me beeing given the commander tag because its seemingly the result of making suggestions in pugs but people are willing do do much more than we give each other credit for. Screaming doesn't help, but a gentle "would you try this for me, please" goes a long way. My favorite memories, probably were made when I made the switch from EU to NA. The nature of statics beeing much more prevalent and welcoming than EU was something I had to get accustomed to, surely but I found a wonderful group, entirely by accident who invited me on an alt with nothing than a heal scourge and an exotic Dragon Hunter and went on to make many more memories than any other static I founded or joined before they disbanded for time reasons. Join LFG. See if you find people you can tag or get along with and make your own statics if you are aiming for better performance or more structured play. I hear Siax iand Cairn are still looking for people to dip their toes into speedrunning and lowmanning. If you want a laid back, casual experience in raids and high end fractals though, LGF is a perfectly welcoming place as long as you are willing to do your homework and work with the nice other idiots, not against them because frankly, as long as we don't get the 10% DPS guild buff from SC and other elitist guilds, we are all idiots in this game. I hope to ffind LFG just as chaotic as it is now in Cantha,a veteran who won't be around for a while