Can you pull your weight?

Our raid group currently has an interesting dilemma. Our alliance has a teenage member who doesn't have a static raid spot and signs up for every raid going. This player has reasonably respectable gear and the enthusiasm to go to every instance in existence. Unfortunately, despite his gear level he has consistently failed to deliver the goods in terms of his dps performance. He's recently offered to heal also. Now whilst I've never seen him heal, I'm not overly confident. In my experience if a player can't deliver the goods as a dps then they're not going to be a great healer. Given that the success (or not) of most of the boss fights these days is driven by the skill of healers I'm not planning on placing my life in his hands any time soon. And by that I mean...ever.

I can recall several raids he has been in where he has delivered less than 1000dps - despite the majority of his gear being i213 or above. On a good day I've seen him put out about 2000dps. I suspect his lack of dps is due to a number of things - inexperience, not understanding his class mechanics, and untimely deaths. I'll be honest, this guy dies a lot. He disconnects a lot. I hear he has about 5fps in raids. All in all the sort of person that I have zero desire to raid with.

All of that has sounded rather negative, and I must balance this by saying that this kid is the most enthusiastic player I've ever met. He has at least double the energy and enthusiasm of everybody else I know. That in itself means that when I think of him it's always with a smile on my face. He is well meaning, polite and well mannered. Whilst he will roll on every piece of loot that drops regardless of what it's made of or what stats it has, he will always pass if asked to and told it's better for another player. He just seems happy to be along for the ride.

So now to the dilemma. Pugging on Aszune is currently dominated by the need to be able to link achievements. No achievement no pug. This kid is the king of the puggers, and he wants to be able to pug the top level content. He really wants to get the ToC clear achievement so he can spend his time in game pugging this - oh the enthusiasm of youth. Our raid leader, being a compassionate soul (after all he does date me!) seems happy to let him come for a ToC raid as we *are* good enough to carry him through it. I on the other hand strongly object. My objections are:

(a) I don't believe in gift wrapping achievements on a plate, they have to be earned. Yes we probably can 9 man the instance (which is what we would effectively be doing), but it's a damn site harder, and I like an easy life.
(b) ToC is hard! We proved this when our highest dps (a shaman) decided to bring his vastly undergeared warrior along for the ride. I've blogged on that raid previously...it was a disaster and one I don't want to repeat any time soon.
(c) I don't want to set a precedent. If we do this once, we'll feel obliged to do it again. Where do you draw the line? I'm more than happy to take and play with spotfillers - we do on a regular basis and without them we would not get our weekly slice of the raiding pie. However I expect a spotfiller to be able to make a reasonable contribution to the raid. If they suck then they're not coming back.

We have previously taken another player with us who wanted the achievement so he could pug. However there was a big difference - he could deliver the dps. OK, he is generally referred to as 'X the dying' due to his lack of survival ability, but he did manage to deliver the goods. He researched the tactics and watched the videos. He played his part in the raid. Yes he did die, but no more than anyone on their first time to the raid would have done. In short we didn't hand him his achievement gift wrapped on a plate. And more importantly when he goes out pugging and linking that achievement with our guild name above his head he's not going to embarrass us.

So tonight I'm going to do a vote before our raid as to whether we should carry people to achievements. I know which was I will vote.