The Kara Conundrum

Over the course of the last several months I hit 70 on two characters, my hunter and my druid. I was anxious to get into some beginning end-game stuff as a hunter but kept hitting proverbial walls. I’m not in a raiding guild, though we do have raiders, so that was hurdle one. I wasn’t geared right, hurdle two. And finally, I thought I had the right spec, but I didn’t – at the time everyone was looking for MM (I’m BM). Hurdle three ... so sad.

So I shifted out of hunter-mode and threw myself full-time into bear mode and began the process of gaining rep with Cenarion Exp. and hitting all the instances I could to gear up. About then, one of our guild healers got into a regular raid as a demo-lock and got me a spot for my hunter (thanks to 2.3 updates). My luck improved when I discovered that not only did they know the raid, the team melded quickly and after only a couple of weeks we basically one-shot (not one-hit) all the bosses up through Aran. They even had me bring my bear in as a sub one week and were very happy with the results.

While I was busy hammering out rep-instances as a bear I met tons of people – as one does – and was offered a reg. spot in Kara as an OT bear. That was five weeks ago and they haven’t started. The first two weeks they were still working out the details, the next I found out that 2-3 people from another guild kept forgetting the raid or were busy raiding ZA with their own guild. Last week I didn't even see my contact on. This week I've seen him but I've been busy with other stuff and put it off - I probably shoulda said something but it sorta seems like a moot point after so long.

The thing is, I’m not a bear who jumps icebergs when the first snow melts. However, Karma must have smiled on this furball 'cause in the course of my quest for ultimate enlightenment I came across one of the near-legendary snow bears on our server.

He’s a theorycrafting bear from waaay up near Santa, with all sorts of alts. He decided to start his own guild dedicated to training raiders in places like MC, AQ20/40 and the rest of the pre-BC content, while undertaking progression through BC. We got to jawing one night and while I’m sure I pestered him more than I should have the end result was about a week later he offered me a tentative spot in a regular Kara raid starting last week. (No worries guildies, I'm not leaving our guild for another.)

I think it was tentative for a couple of reasons, one he had to talk it over with his raid leader and two … let’s say I think I had one chance to show my stuff – sort of a job interview. That was fine since I didn’t mind taking direction from someone who’s been to the Eye.

But accepting the offer meant accepting a quandary. I hate quitting, anyone or anything. If I had seen my contact from the first Kara offer on during that week I’d have talked it over with him, but for weeks in a row I waited while they kept putting it off. Weeks in a row I was at home and online ... waiting, saving myself for something that never happened.

I’m not a bear who angers easily, so no, I’m not mad, nor do I take it personally, but the weather was warm and the ice got thin last week - so yes, I told the legend from the land of toques I’d accept and I made the leap. I’ll soon tell you all about that ‘cause I landed in a whole new world.

Now in closing I think of two things, first is that I could’ve reached out to my other contact's guild and made some quiet inquires, but I feel like I’ve been there when they needed me and they haven’t returned the favor. And second is, maybe they found someone else and didn't want to tell me (meh - no harm, no foul, no big whup).

Either way it's been nearly a month since I last talked to my contact and that’s more than enough time. I’m stepped off that berg for another. When I see my contact again I’ll talk it over and be upfront with him but basically it’s time to move on.