Lately I’ve been reading many accounts and listening to many, well, stories in trade. These sob stories inevitably deal with how some person was not accepted into some PUG or the PUG fell apart because his gear was not deemed adequate, even though the person in question firmly believes that their gear was adequate.

Here’s the thing.

Your gear might well be sufficient for the instance.

That doesn’t mean that the group has to accept you. No really, it doesn’t.

Groups of well-geared people generally seek other well-geared people to steamroll the instance. This might not be the most fun way of doing things, but the really well-geared people in question are usually already tired of running the same instance over and over again. They probably don’t want their agony prolonged by having someone around who will slow them down. They just want their Conquest badges to get whatever item they didn’t get.

You might think they’re being funny, asking for your [Epic] to run a couple of heroics or “loleasy” raids. They’re not. They’re merely saving themselves some time and pain, especially with the new badge system bringing everyone out to PUG these days.

They could of course accept you, and try you, and then decide which wrist to slit first when they wipe, because some guy in the group isn’t keeping up the pace. Or because they’re running a speed makeup and someone is not performing as they should.

Don’t take not being accepted as a personal affront. Most of the time, the guy on the other end of the line doesn’t mean it as an insult. No one is laughing at you for not being clad in epics. And if they are, they’re probably dicks.

If you’re not accepted, you’re not accepted. It was the group leader’s choice, and they opted for a no. If your gear is adequate, surely there are other groups out there that will take you. Do not despair.

(P.S Please note that I rarely decline people with sufficient gear – on the other hand, I completely feel the people who do so for speedruns and odd makeups.)

So, I’ve been leveling enchanting on Elisse just to have one, because hell, I’ve never had a high level enchanter.

I’ve realised this was a bad decision.

No, not that enchanting doesn’t make any money.

It’s more the level of self-whoring involved in making said gold, and the amount of stupid people an enchanter has to put up with. I never knew there were such varying levels of stupid involving enchanting.

You get the “can you enchant my legs/shoulders/helm” people. This is the mildest stupid you can put up with, and they usually go away after I explain. Bonus points if I can link my tailoring and convince them to pay me mats + 10g for a leg patch.

You get the “come to whatever obscure city I’m in, do this enchant that no longer gives you any skill points, and don’t charge me for it” people.

No really. People invite you to groups, and expect you to leg it to whatever city they are. They don’t even say anything.

*group invite*
*5 minutes pass*
“Come on, hurry up, aren’t you coming?”

People seem to have it the wrong way. YOU go to crafters, not the other damn way around. If you make me come to you, I’ll charge you, skill point or not.

Do you ask the drugstore clerk to come to your house to bring you your stuff, and not charge you for it? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Then there’s the trend that some retarded crafter at one point of time has dreamt of starting, that has ruined the entire economy of crafting, but mostly enchanting.

Yes, it’s the “no fee with your mats” trend. And then there’s its doubly retarded sister, “I pay you if I skill up”.

What next? How about doing it with your mats for free? And pay the customer on top of that?

You roll professions to make gold from them, not to encourage the entitlement mentality of 12 year olds.

What this has accomplished is that now 90% of customers expect every enchanter to not charge, regardless of the enchant’s skill level. Yup, just have mats, expect the enchanter to come to you, and spam trade wondering why she isn’t trading on her end. It’s not at all like this profession cost any money to level.

A thankfully smaller percentage expect payment for themselves, because their mats that cost all of 20g on the auction house just made me get a skill-up.  A SKILL-UP, FOLKS. ALERT THE PRESSES.

On my second day of being above 350, I just paid a scribe to make me two stacks of Armor Vellum, and got a hold of a scribe friend for a stack of Weapon Vellum.

What I’ve learned is that you can sell scrolls of certain enchants on AH for twice the mats’ cost. That’s 30ish gold profit per scroll. Which happens to be triple what I charge per enchant.

Peddling self in trade for 10g per enchant, and the occasional skill point if I’m lucky?

What’s that?

Take a guild.

A good guild, if you were looking at progression. Everyone Twilight Vanquishers, rolling in epics, going for raid achievements, that kind of guild.

I have had the dubious pleasure of wiping with such a guild on Maly10 today.

It all started when some guy was looking in trade for people for a Maly8. After a five minute interview, he was convinced I’d do a good job, and chucked me an invite.

Mayling, who heard this, also wanted in, so I directed him to the group leader knowing how much resto druids were wanted for Malygos. He got in as well. Great, I thought.

Until he got kicked a minute later, apparently to be replaced by another resto druid, because the priest had threatened to leave if said druid wasn’t invited. It obviously didn’t help that this druid, who had the word “Noob” in his name (and who does that, seriously) had better gear, either.

I gave the group leader a piece of my mind, but I was in the instance already, and oh well, let’s give this a shot.

Try 1: Hit berserk timer in P3, wipe. Only one person had 18 stacks of the DoT, the others were at… 3. I suggest people put more effort on keeping their stacks up. The DK says DPS is bad in the first two phases. He has a point, since we have only two people breaking 3k.

Try 2: Hit berserk timer in P3, wipe. No matter how I turn Malygos, the DK doesn’t seem to be able to grip the spark next to the other. I don’t think we ever had two stacks at any point. I point this out, the DK retorts with “DG has a cooldown”. I don’t quite understand how this is relevant, because I mean, with the way I turn Malygos, he ought to be able to catch at least _one_ other spark on top of the one that we killed wherever it was. He also doesn’t manage to ever break 2k dps. Raid buffed. With 4 piece Valorous.

Try 3: Hit berserk timer in P3, wipe. How surprising. I’d say Malygos ate about half the sparks during this try. The non-guildie warrior, who’s been doing decent DPS, is kicked, because the DK will invite a “more imba” warrior.

Try 4: Same stuff, different try. The more imba warrior does 2,5k dps with best in slots.

The shadowpriest, who incidentally was our top DPSer, says he’s had enough and leaves. The hunter, who was the only other guy to break 3k dps, also leaves. The druid, who was a friend of the SP, follows.

The group is quickly filled with… more guildies, as the group leader decides to screw 8man and just go for 10. Everyone has great gear, we have a paladin for blessings, this is going to great, and we move on to…

Try 5: By some grace of God, two sparks end up in the same place. Heroism is popped. The other fury warrior pulls aggro and dies. I get yells of “OMFG CR”, which I can’t do till P2. However, the holy paladin also dies to Vortex (Vortex is srs bznss with a resto shaman and a paladin as your healers), because apparently, he doesn’t have a bubble button.

I combat res the paladin going into P2. He doesn’t accept. The whole group is screaming at me to res, and I’m trying to type that I have, and tank two Nexus Lords. Which is slightly more challenging than it should be, because attacking the skull is hard. The enhancement shaman who was attacking the not-skull also dies. Paladin finally accepts the res, and proceeds to die to the next breath with about… half of the group.

After the wipe, the enhancement shaman loudly proclaims that he is not staying for another try unless we get a priest or druid for Vortex. A resto druid is hastily found. At this point I’m giggling at the irony of them having kicked Mayling only to end up needing him various times.

Then the shaman starts yelling at me. Now I had been expecting that, being that I’m the only non-guildie in the group, the wipes will probably end up being my fault.

He claims that I haven’t been above 3k tps the entire fight (I usually fluctuate near 5k selfbuffed, breaking 6-7k depending on the raidbuffs I have), and that he can’t do as much DPS as he wants to because I’m not building enough threat. However, strangely, he also admits that he doesn’t have a threat meter installed. Because he “doesn’t need it”, because his guild “is very good”. I end up pointing out that half his guildies have died to the breath, and that you can’t get more terrible than that. Not to mention the Death Grip-challenged DK and the holy paladin who can’t find his bubble button.

Try 6: We have a Vortex at 51%, which ends up working to our advantage as Malygos goes to about 44% in between the break before Vortex and the one before P2. The Nexus lords go amazingly smoothly, thanks to one of the warriors (the not-failing one) yelling “Let the tank get some threat, and attack the skull” at the start of the phase. You know, to do the things that we learn at level 20 in DM.

P3 goes smoothly, and Malygos finally dies, with the only loss being the retarded fury warrior.

And this, guys, is how a good guild is not really very good.

(P.S.: And me? I admit that I make mistakes. I’m relatively new to druid tanking, having always been resto. I try my best to do everything the way I know how, but obviously I can’t always do it, as the mishaps show. I realise that I’m sometimes missing obvious things. But when I’m putting 100% into it and others aren’t, and I end up being blamed for everything that goes wrong at the end… does not sit well with me.)

Many guilds who are recruiting have this long list of demands and expectations from applicants, and want to know everything from their shoe size to how they’d like their coffee. One of the most important questions among these is “Can you make it to such and such percentage of our raids?”.

Yet many of the guild websites I’ve checked so far lack crucial information… such as, well, you know, their raid days and hours.