That Archimedes Moment

Last Saturday I had to cancel my Zul'Aman run due to a lack of a tank and two DPS. 

The Saturday before that we barely filled out a group, but we had two Warriors as the tanks, and one of the Warlocks was filled with green gear. 

Where did the people go?

Well, it seems that another guild that ours partners with on occasion --and some people on the other raid team (the 2x/week one) raid with on their alts-- has a pair of Zul'Aman raids on Sunday. And I discovered tonight while just messing around on Linna that quite a few guildies were in those ZA runs.

Sure, it could just be the Saturday night nature of the runs, but I'm also thinking it's the lure of a quick warbear try that is also pulling people away to those Sunday runs. Which is all the more ironic that if they were on their mains and in the Saturday ZA raid, we'd likely have been able to breeze through and get the warbear timer met.*

Once again, it's a lot about who you bring to the raids that determines success when you're talking about a raid that's not on farm.

So....

I think that my Zul'Aman adventures are going to be coming to an end fairly soon, because if I can't keep a Saturday evening ZA run going I'd rather not go back to the other raid, the Saturday afternoon ZA run, instead. I know my gear is kind of borderline, and I could go and use my accumulation of badges to get some better gear, but then I'd have to gem them and enchant them. And I'd still be stuck with the weapons I have, which aren't very good for Phase 4. As good as they were for Phase 1 raids over the pre-raid gear, they're even farther behind where they should be coming out of Black Temple and Hyjal. And I have no recourse except to run arenas, and.... No thanks. I'm not doing that treadmill. 

***

That leaves the Karazhan raid as the only raid I have. And it's now starting to become harder to get people to sign up for that raid too, as until we got an additional player at the last minute we were going to go with 9 people this past Friday. 

This raid is beginning to fall victim to the 2x/week raid team as well, as one of the people there is switching to a Resto Shaman spec and wanted to run Karazhan weekly to try to get the healing totem that drops off of Maiden. Since Karazhan is on a weekly lockout, he's getting people to show for his "limited scope" raid on Thursdays after their ZA runs, further cutting into the available pool of people. He could have come to my raid and we'd have accommodated his attempt by having him join right before Maiden, but... 

I knew this would eventually come, but my raiding days are about to be numbered. In a bizarre way it's a relief, but it still is annoying that there are these activities and they're being ignored while someone else says "Hey, let's do this!" and people flock to them. My questing buddy tells me that she's sure it's not because of me, but when I realized about the Sunday ZA's tonight, I think it is a matter of cliques and who hangs with who. And despite people saying "hey, we should run together", they don't show for the raids I sponsor; actions speak louder than words. 

Unlike Shintar's guild basically fading away in a death of a thousand paper cuts, this guild continues on. 

And I don't see any real reason to remain in it much longer.

*Yes, their mains are all Hyjal/Black Temple geared.

EtA: Corrected a grammar issue.