Mixing it up

As mentioned in my Maintaining Composure post, I've been trying to get a feel for all the dedicated PvPers in the guild so that I can assess where our strengths are, and where we need to improve. Also, though our guild screens for disruptive and rude behaviour, people are obviously capable of lying so it also lets me make sure that the guild's name isn't being ruined out on the field.

Last night, I finally had the chance to PvP with one of our newer recruits, a Marauder that I'd heard some good things about. I had been trying to work him into a group, but it seemed for a while that we were playing "Guild Chat Tag": our availability never seemed to line up. One of us always seemed to be AFK when there was a vacancy, or else one of the two of us was already in a full group of four guild members.

I'm also still new to the whole "PvP Officer" thing, which I'm sure didn't help things. Sure, I've acted in an Officer capacity before in other guilds, but normally that was as a class or role officer or raid leader. Never before have I had the responsibility of playing with someone who likely is not playing my class and analyzing their playstyle, strengths and weaknesses. Oh, yeah, I also have to try to help my team win while I do this. I don't resent the duty - on the contrary, I'm honoured to do it. It's just that I'm not comfortable with myself in the role yet, so I guess I probably missed some opportunities to invite this Marauder previously, and I felt bad about it.

Once I got on the field with him, my feelings changed completely.

I'm not sure why exactly, but PvPing with someone for the first time is always a breath of fresh air for me. I'm often exposed to new strategies and playstyles. Instead of intuitively knowing where my teammates are and what they're doing, I'm forced to keep my head up and take it all in. If the class is not normally one I play with, I experience new synergies and group capability.

Perhaps the most interesting part is seeing someone mentally integrate themselves into our group.

In Kira's words, "Isn't teamwork grand?"

I don't prep people when I PvP with them. I guess I could say, "Hey, when we're in there, I'm going to be asking you for information and asking you to do things... if you have any questions, feel free to ask me", but that would be far less fun. I get a certain amount of excitement out of seeing people get it, so to speak. Even if they had done PvP in a group setting before, there's that moment when they become comfortable with us and things just start clicking.

The Marauder in question did really well, and I'm glad to have him on our side. As a result of last night's experience, I'm going to focus on scrambling groups as much as I can. I know there are some people who will still want to play together if possible, and that's okay too. But I feel that we all still have a lot more to learn from each other.