I've been benched... what now?

[munkeyinorbit]

Limited melee spots and a feeling that rather then poor luck it was my laziness that set me back early in the tier. I mean we had people reroll range for the right it wasn't entirely unexpected.

So others were prepared to sacrifice for the guild and you're sitting here wondering what went wrong? You're lucky you weren't kicked for your lack of commitment.

[Onikaroshi]

Most people would raid mythic if the bosses had no loot at all. Loot is only means to the end, not the end.

*citation needed

Would some people? Sure. Would MOST people? Questionable.

[mauserr]

Buy a carry run and get the kill before they do. Make sure you get the achievement popping on gchat WHILE THEY ARE PROGRESSING. That will fucking sting when the guy they benched for being subpar gets the kill before they do it and not in a manner that is obvious that it's a paid boost. If they give you shit because of that, you know that guild is absolute dogshit and you should just "aight cya" and /gquit instantly.

[Onikaroshi]

Well if you're satisfied with raiding heroic and maybe 3 mythic bosses, then you definitely don't need to worry about guilds and benches. Good luck pugging mythic Nzoth though, what the OP was after.

Prior to mythic we used to clear heroic every tier without a bench. We didn't want to keep one because people pay to play, not warm the bench.

Haven't really done any mythic raiding as I moved around alot during the last few years though.

[Elkfingers]

I mean being benched sucks, but from an officer perspective you're looking at a roster of >20 players and have to balance rotating people in with ensuring that the best/most appropriate team is taken to make fast progress.

It would be nice if literally everyone could raid all the time, but that can't be done and compromising progress as a favour only ends up letting everybody down in the long run. What people often don't factor in is that officer teams have literally everyone in the guild coming at them with similar shit all the time and it's impossible to please everyone all the time. A lot of compromises have to be made; sometimes that involves people being benched - if the guild isn't trash then it's not personal.

[Onikaroshi]

I mean being benched sucks, but from an officer perspective you're looking at a roster of >20 players and have to balance rotating people in with ensuring that the best/most appropriate team is taken to make fast progress.

It would be nice if literally everyone could raid all the time, but that can't be done and compromising progress as a favour only ends up letting everybody down in the long run. What people often don't factor in is that officer teams have literally everyone in the guild coming at them with similar shit all the time and it's impossible to please everyone all the time. A lot of compromises have to be made; sometimes that involves people being benched - if the guild isn't trash then it's not personal.

Eh, I know the reasoning behind it, but I'd still be looking for another guild personally. I don't pay for the game not play, and it's not like you can go get that kill elsewhere thanks to mythic still having hard coded lockouts.

[EyeceeA52]

Just my two cents:

You must not be one of the top melee in the group. Be it gear, performance, attendance, attitude. The other thing is the fight heavily favors range over melee. It is a final push and they are trying to do it with the best group they think possible.

What you can do: 1) Continue to be a good raider and guildy and be prepared to step in whenever someone DC's or is absent. Watch them and listen to their progress to understand the issues they are having so that when you come in you can immediately understand and start to perform.

2) You can quit, find a new guild and hope they need melee on N'Zoth. This will be extremely challenging, you will have to reassert yourself into a guild community, learn everyone's personalities etc. while putting your best foot forward. You will lose all the friends you have in your current guild most likely and if the new guild doesn't work out then you will be lost in the wilderness repeating step 2 until you find a good one. Which will be really tough. Most guilds are having attendance issues for progression. Your guild is 11/12M. It is a gem for attracting top talent that have yet to kill N'Zoth. Very experienced players out there, who have xp and a kill on mythic N'zoth and have a super gear alt or their main guild stopped raiding have taken your spot.

3) Watch other players of your class. Do more research. Watch videos from their PoV, listen to them talk, understand what they are doing and why.

Benching is a part of WoW raiding. Every class is weak at a particular fight. Melee just outright under performs versus range in the later fights. So do some honest thinking and take a hard look at yourself. Is it you? Is it the guild? Is it the encounter? Will I get my chance or perma-benched? Then make your decision. You leaving the guild won't really mean anything to the guild since they have a bench already and have a plethora of applicants.

[Mardux]

Fun? Probably we’ve had very different guilds.

The ones i’ve been in usally berrated/Bullied people who were slower to learn or wasen’t purple logs every raid.

It’s not a very fun envirement but you put up with it due to the chance for gear. And loot council ofc, so not the highest chance they’d even give you gear that dropped.

You being in a shit guild does NOT mean all guilds are shit. There are tons of guilds willing to help people, you just have to be willing to be helped (and judging by this post and your last one, you probably do not fall into the "want to be helped" category).

[The Butt Witch]

High end raiding is a group effort, for which you need more than 20 people. It's natural that some people are not invited to some fights and some are rotated. Throwing tantrums over this is childish at best.

I admit it. I take rejection very badly, and being benched is a rejection of sorts.

Though I have never been actually benched, given I play a BM hunter, but should it ever happen for whatever reason, it would be a major "reputation" loss with me.

[Elkfingers]

Eh, I know the reasoning behind it, but I'd still be looking for another guild personally. I don't pay for the game not play, and it's not like you can go get that kill elsewhere thanks to mythic still having hard coded lockouts.

I mean sure, that's kinda the problem. Guilds have to constantly recruit due to attrition on mythic prog because even though everyone will get rotated in once the boss is down, people get frustrated and guild hop.

Equally, moving guilds isn't a great solution - if you're not in the progress team where you are, unless a guild is specifically looking for your class/role to fill a recent vacancy, you're not getting in their main prog team either. For what it's worth, length of time with the guild is also a factor in deciding who gets in on initial progress kills; it's a big risk to funnel gear to someone who might leave.

[exochaft]

Facts. Best thing to do is follow mechanics flawlessly and be top dog against fellow melee. At least that way you lock in one of the few melee slots.

This is always been the #1 reason in any guild I've joined for benching a player, even if your DPS output is good: not following mechanics and/or instructions. This goes double for melee, who are typically not desired in mythic raiding due to encounter design favoring ranged DPS. Even my current guild struggles with this, where we have to balance the roster versus feeling like we need to keep in Mr. TunnelsAndIgnoresMechanics due to their class/role. While DPS performance (or HPS) is important, it's all for nothing if you cannot follow instructions or ignore mechanics that need to be executed. I'm sure everyone's seen that stereotypical melee DPS that looks great on the meter, but never interrupts, never focuses priority targets, takes tons of unnecessary damage, etc. If you have to make a choice between melee, the default is to go with those that listen and follow mechanics.

If none of this applies to you and you just have a bunch of excess melee, roll a class that can do a role that's more mandatory or safer from getting sat. Mythic raiding is a different beast when it comes to class/spec requirements due to how it's balanced, so "bring the player, not the class" rarely applies when you're progressing with a mythic raid. I've seen some players that will break the meta by demonstrating that they bring something to the table while not holding the group back, but those are far and few between. Personally, I've mained the same character since vanilla because I've always made that sort of effort and have been recognized for it, even when doing hardcore mythic (or 25m heroic) progression. Even when my class/spec is weaker in raid fights, I never get sat because I follow directions and execute mechanics while performing my role well. However, if you're a cog-in-the-wheel player that doesn't stand out in any aspect with average performance, you're likely going to be the target of benching in a mythic raid.

Anyways, I'm still hoping Blizz tries to move away from immunity soaking being so bloody important or able to trivialize major mythic raid mechanics. Unfortunately, with how difficult they tune mythic raids, many scenarios just straight up promote immunities.

[Alphatorg]

Buy a carry run and get the kill before they do. Make sure you get the achievement popping on gchat WHILE THEY ARE PROGRESSING. That will fucking sting when the guy they benched for being subpar gets the kill before they do it and not in a manner that is obvious that it's a paid boost. If they give you shit because of that, you know that guild is absolute dogshit and you should just "aight cya" and /gquit instantly.

Yeah.. you definitely have to punish them for daring to have a roster larger than 20 and thus benching you, the god of wow.

[Project 501D13R]

It's been a problem with high end raiding forever, Melee get the short end of the stick when it comes to mechanics and you end up having to bench them for ranged dps, it's not so much your fault as it is blizz's.

[Kyphael]

Snatch as many expensive items out of the guild bank, tell the whole guild, including and especially the Guildmaster to f*** themselves, and that you wouldn't piss on them to put them out if they were on fire. Disparage the guild on trade chat for racism, necrophilia, Peter Pan syndrome, elderly abuse, and cap it all off with saying they will rue the day they benched you. Rub it all in that it's Retail so your reputation for mud flinging won't be affected because it's retail, so no one cares, and lastly, if you know their social media accounts, post images of monkey genitals on their Instagrams, FaceBook, and Tweeter accounts until they block you.

[arkanon]

*citation needed

Would some people? Sure. Would MOST people? Questionable.

I agree its far from a fact, but in my small circle of friends who raid mythic, the gear itself isnt the motivating factor, obviously we want the gear to improve our stats to allow us to perform better, but even if the set was visually the same as heroic or w/e, we would still run mythic. We all xmog our gear anyway so it really doesnt matter. Obviously others opinions might be different, thats how opinions work.

[Onikaroshi]

I agree its far from a fact, but in my small circle of friends who raid mythic, the gear itself isnt the motivating factor, obviously we want the gear to improve our stats to allow us to perform better, but even if the set was visually the same as heroic or w/e, we would still run mythic. We all xmog our gear anyway so it really doesnt matter. Obviously others opinions might be different, thats how opinions work.

And I know a lot of people who love the purples, me included :P

- - - Updated - - -

I mean sure, that's kinda the problem. Guilds have to constantly recruit due to attrition on mythic prog because even though everyone will get rotated in once the boss is down, people get frustrated and guild hop.

Equally, moving guilds isn't a great solution - if you're not in the progress team where you are, unless a guild is specifically looking for your class/role to fill a recent vacancy, you're not getting in their main prog team either. For what it's worth, length of time with the guild is also a factor in deciding who gets in on initial progress kills; it's a big risk to funnel gear to someone who might leave.

It's a crap situation all around, it's why the guilds I helped run didn't have a bench. Was there times we couldn't raid heroic (pre-mythic days)? Sure. But overall our guild mates were very happy with their situation and we had little to no turnover (mostly people just burning out). It does take an incredibly flexible team who play many characters though.

[Skillslam]

anyone still raiding after the last good xpac (pandaland) is a degenerate anyway

[Soikona]

The loot is the progression tho?

Again, your goal, not mine. Don’t be so close minded, my goal is to get CE. I would still do it if raids didn’t drop gear, and I know for a fact I am not the only one.

[SkagenRora]

Again, your goal, not mine. Don’t be so close minded, my goal is to get CE. I would still do it if raids didn’t drop gear, and I know for a fact I am not the only one.

I can never see the actual content as something enjoyable myself tho, I Just see and feel the stress, anxiety and frustration that comes with a new raid tier.

As i was writing that, i could litterally feel how my stomach is churning & twisting, heart rate getting faster etc, The feeling of a new raid tier is just so awful.

[Laughingjack]

I can never see the actual content as something enjoyable myself tho, I Just see and feel the stress, anxiety and frustration that comes with a new raid tier.

It all depends on the person... some only want to play that kind of content the one were a single misstep a lost cd or simply not enough time connecting with a boss leads to a wipe.