Lark and the Guild

25 Man Raiding Reality Check

2011-11-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

We have been fully transitioned to 25 man raids for a while now and it really is much more fun and rewarding to kill a new hard mode boss on 25 but once in a while the conversation still comes back to what we could be doing if we just ran 10s. DREAM Paragon posted a comparison a while back (http://www.paragon.fi/articles/10-vs-25-comparison) and pretty much confirmed what we already knew from our own experience. We’ve done 6/7 in 10 and 5/7 in 25. Let me tell me you, Baleroc hard mode 25 is a cluster fuck. Not only that but simply keeping up with the recruiting for 25s can be painful. The management of a 25 man guild obviously takes much more time and effort as well.

Nesingwary is a small server with a very tiny pool of raiders to pick from. Inevitably we are going to have to take on some folks that might not have the gear yet or might be lacking in the experience in hard modes that we would like to have but we take them on with the hopes that they will prove to be worth the effort. Yes, it means a few more wipes and may take a bit longer to down something new but our options are limited.

You might think a server transfer would solve the issues but that in and of itself would open up even more challenges. Most guilds I’ve known that moved servers wound up collapsing in a very short amount of time due to key players not moving over and being unable to find the recruits they were certain were just sitting there waiting for a good home. Not to mention I run guild full of altoholics and it would cost everyone waaaay too much to transfer the co-dependent little bastards! A better option for us is to recruit off server and bring them to us. They are hard to find though and it’s a commitment to pay the real life money to do it. We’ve had success but it’s dicey.

The other suggestion that periodically comes up when people get frustrated with progression is to go back to 10s. The trouble with that is we have recruited for 25s. I stare at the roster and all the duplicates of certain classes and have no way to decide which really great mage to cut or which DK I would want to do without; we have 3 very good healing priests, 3 locks, 3 hunters…I like them all and they do well. Who could I possibly evict from raiding with us? Things would have to get very, very bad for us to go back to strictly 10s. I care too much about the folks that raid here. And did I mention how much more exciting it is to get 25 hard modes down?

Right now we’re in a pretty good spot. We have 27-30 for each raid so emergency RL stuff is largely covered but that doesn’t mean I get to stop looking for good people! I’m concerned about folks that have been raiding non-stop since December and don’t want them to burn out and maybe make rash decisions about the game before the final patch hits. I worry about people needing to make changes due to new jobs or family situations. There’s always the possibility that some of the new folks will flake out and disappear (no, no, you know that NEVER happens!). Mostly, I just worry. The odd thing is….I actually care about the people behind the toons in Heroic and want them to be happy and doing well in RL too. That means if they need a break, they get a break. And I figure out a way to cover it.

On the upside, we’ve been around for two and half years and have been raiding consistently the whole time. We’re talking about who are rolling monks for MoP and working the PTR for Deathwing. Something tells me we will be around for a while yet and will make it through all the challenges and frustrations of progression in a 25 man guild on a backwater server…somehow.

A Good Night for Heroic

2011-10-28T21:06:00.001-07:00

Our warlock got Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest but we all got the fun of watching trade chat explode! We were the first Alliance guild on the server to have a member complete the quest chain so there was much excitement over the change in the sky over the cathedral. It truly was a group effort and I'm happy as can be we got the first one for Alliance.

We are also now 5/7 hardmodes on 25 and 6/7 on 10. We kinda cheated one week while we were heavily recruiting and did a 25 with a mix of mains and alts and then took a progression team in on mains for 10 man. It was better than not raiding and/or doing no progression at all!

The LONG awaited Stupid Awards are BACK!!!

2011-09-24T00:43:00.000-07:00

The I’ll Save You Award! of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

The resto druid who, frustrated by confusion on meteors on Ragnaros, says to the raid…”Okay, everyone, stand back, I’ve got this…let me show you how it’s done!”
And then his moonfire misses three times and he wipes the raid.
He will NEVER live that one down. At least once per raid someone says….”Stand back! I got this!”

The Well It’s Still Plate Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

Not one but two pallies who managed to attempt boss fights in the right spec and wrong armor. Healing in tank spec….not so much.

The It’s a Hole…I Had to Go In Award of the Week goes to….

The hunter who wandered off during the Alysrazor assignments and fell into a hole behind Major Domo. And then was followed by no less than nine raiders who also had to see the hole. Yes, folks, there are a lot of confused virgins in WoW.

The But Isn’t Bad Luck? Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

The lock and hunter who suicided in lava….just because no one died on the trash to Ragnaros.

The 1, 2, 3…WTF Comes Next? Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

The many raiders who can’t count to 8 and find their ways to the right transition adds on Ragnaros.
Especially the raider who said (seriously), “But I don’t see a number on them.”
Really? Really.

The Hiding the Evidence Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

Shammie: What gets blood out of carpet?
Me: Cold water.
Me: Wait…What? Are you ok? How much blood? Pools or drops?
Shammie: Pools.
Me: Cold water, blot don’t scrub, then soap. Wait, are you ok?
Shammie: Yeah, there’s just blood everywhere from my foot.

Foot surgery, not supposed to get it wet, got it wet, blood everywhere. Followed by a picture with the caption “My mom is going to kill me”.
We’re pretty sure he covering up a murder.

The Blonde Rogues Have More Fun Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

“i hate when i think i'm stealtehd but i'm not
it's bad p. much all the time
in pvp OR in a dungeon
oh i'm just gonna go sap this OMFG AGGGH”

The Raid > Safety Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

The warrior who raided through a major flood and police banging on his door saying he had to evacuate because we were on a progression fight. I finally called raid to get him out safely and he waded out with water up to his ass holding his computer over his head. Now THAT is dedication.

Yellow On Top

2011-08-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

Time for another Rogue guest post!

Hello everyone...

So my cohort and fellow badass Bre, aka the Enforcer, is currently away on top secret rogue training that will allow her to shiv you in your sleep, thus I am here to let you guys know that there is some serious shit going on that needs to end. I'm going to cover some things in this little post that maybe you should watch out for, or you'll find yourself on the end of one of my tricks pulls dumping a mob or twenty on you....ya dig?

So here are some things you can do that will be good:

- Show up on time and be ready to raid.

- Make sure you have all the things you need for raid night.

- Don't needlessly chatter in vent during boss fights.

- Don't ninja AFK unless you're super good at it, like me, or you're a ninja. Either way....you probably just shouldn't do it.

- USE THE EFFING CALENDAR. (P.S. this would make your GM pretty happy)

- CLICK THE LIGHTWELL OR I SWEAR I'LL SHANK YOU.

Here are some things you're doing that are BAD:

- You're standing in all kinds of bad. If its something that looks like fire...don't stand in it. If it is something that looks dark and menacing, don't stand in it. If its shooting out of a mobs mouth/ass....DON'T STAND IN IT.

- I know that I said don't stand in things right above, HOWEVER, if its shiney, and blue, green, white, and or another "pretty" color. It is probably from your healers, stop running out of that shit and get some heals. HELP YOUR HEALERS HELP YOU.

- If the raid leader says spread out...spread out. Don't stand there and hold each others hands like you're in first grade, spread the hell out. If the raid leader says group up, get nut to butt and get packed in there. We're all friends, ACT LIKE IT.

- DPS: How about you stop focusing on your meters and instead worry about all that damage you are taking. You're draining healer mana, I personally like it when healers can you know, heal the TANKS or other people that are SUPPOSED to take damage. Healers going oom from stupid makes my tricks finger get itchy.

- Hey, those lava lines on Rhyolith...move away from them....actually screw that, those things suck period. Do your best.

- If you pick up a feather before myself, Bre, or a healer, I swear I'll find the teddy bear you still sleep with and remove its head from its body...I'll do it...I promise.

Now this is only a brief example of things you should and shouldn't do. I understand common sense usually flies right out a raiders ass when they get to raiding, but please use a little. It will help us all out a ton, and it will cause me from having to start taking blood pressure medicine again....that shit ain't cheap.

So please, do your jobs so that I don't have to hurt/maim/harass/punt/kick/slap/shank or whatever twisted thing I decide to do to you for doing bad things. I want to be a nice guy, I swear I do...mostly.

Now go hold your blankey,

Scynus

Pretend Raiders and How to Spot Them

2011-08-14T23:58:00.000-07:00

Pretend Raiders…..

Let game time lapse and don’t have a plan to update it before the next raid

Bitch about reading strategies and doing homework

Think iLevel trumps skill

Think they don’t need to farm for rep items

Decide a “date” is a priority on a Tuesday

Log on when it’s convenient for THEM and don’t give a rat’s ass about the other 24 people in raid

Ignore the calendar like I put it there for my amusement

Have to go AFK for dinner/take out the trash/mom/dad/anything but sex they are willing to stream live

Think welfare epics say they have skill

Go AFK during trash

Go AFK during boss assignments

You play a huntard

Think that farming mats for raiding means getting Doritos and diet coke for the night

Space out during boss assignments

Think that their DPS is more important than moving out of bad, also, everything is the healers, and or tanks fault.

Tell you they have to deal with raccoons in the attic and never, ever come back….ever…like 3 months later….I’m worried….

Get grounded

Break up with their girlfriend and “need time”

Get scared away by a trial run for an application and DC for 3 days

Think that reviewing the bosses is looking over loot tables so you know what you want

Can’t tell you what is BiS for their main spec

Think trash is srs bzns (can you say FACEPULL TRASH INTO NEAT LITTLE PILES FTW???)

Things That Make Me Want to Kick a Gnome

2011-08-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

I haven’t had a really good bitching post in ages. Blame the 10s we were doing; there’s much less to bitch about in 10s overall. Lucky for readers though we are in full 25 man mode again!

10 Things That Make Me Want to Kick a Gnome

1. Being physically present while mentally absent during boss assignments. (You were here…you were typing in raid chat…you hit “yes” to the ready check asking if you were here…WHY are you asking 2 seconds before the pull what you are supposed to do?!?!!?)

2. Random D/Cs, lag, storms, bad PCs, bad routers, dead mics, etc. (Yes, I know a bunch of it is beyond your control but it still pisses me off.)

3. Feather whores. Bird boss: rogues first x 3 each, healers next x 1 each, THEN THE DAMN FEATHER WHORES OF DPS x 1 each. (Don’t make me call your name again….seriously, don’t.)

4. Doubting my decisions regarding additions to the raid team…fed by main/main spec change requests and really, really dumb questions in vent and gchat.

5. Daggers. They were nonexistent in Wrath and now the damn things drop every week. They make lovely shards though.

6. Asking any of the following questions on a Raid Day:
a. Are we raiding today? (Is it a Raid Day?)
b. What time are we raiding? (What time do we always raid?)
c. Can I bring my alt? (Are you high?)

7. Raiders that stand in bad. Firelands is full of traps, fire, more fire, fire from volcanoes, fire from birds, fire in circles, swaths, patches and lynxes. Did I mention fire?

8. Long drawn out wipes. If we call for a wipe go stand in fire. It is the only time I will praise you for the behavior you so very much love.

9. Random moments brought to you by the Stupid Debuff. Mistakes happen. The trouble is if every person in the raid makes one mistake per boss that results in us not killing the boss and you multiply that by 25… /headdesk

10. Raiders that don’t show up randomly, raiders that are late, raiders that leave early. (Kill me now.)

And now for a change!

Things I love:

1. My officers…they really are the best. I’m pretty damn lucky to have a group as dedicated and focused as they are. They really make my life much easier!

2. So very many of our raiders who do a damn good job, accept being sat graciously, and are really invested in the overall success of the guild as a whole.

3. Beth’liac…for finally dropping my tanky weapon!

Goofy Raid Stuff

2011-07-27T14:59:00.000-07:00

See that HP? See it?? I WANT TO KEEP IT!!!! Baleroc is fun!

We've had Rhyolith down for a while on 10 but this was our first 25 man kill. So much death. So very much death. But I lived! Pally bubble FTW.

Seriously..............?

2011-06-30T16:55:00.001-07:00

Happy Firelands! New Dead Bosses! Yay!

2011-06-30T14:15:00.001-07:00

Heroic is 2 years old! (And they haven't committed me yet!)

We held a fishing competition and a Naked Gnome Race for prizes! One lucky lock got Vial of the Sands and now flys around Stormwind saying, "I'm a dragon!"

And Happy Birthday, Heroic, we got the server first kill on Beth'tilac! (Last thing you want to hear on the fight is the tank saying, "Oh, shit." in vent!

Next night, big, bad dogs dead. Nifty trick to change it so the boss(es) are untauntable.

Heroic is Recruiting!

2011-05-31T15:09:00.000-07:00

"Heroic is recruiting exceptional raiders for 25 mans. We have raided successfully and consistently for 2 years and are seeking serious raiders without commitment issues or drama. 12/12 reg, 4/13 hard modes, Raid M-Th 7:15-11. Pst for info!"

OMG I’m tired of recruiting. It feels like all I’ve done for 2 years. LOL. We have the folks at the moment to do regular 25s a couple nights a week but desperately need more solid raiders for 25 man progression. Nesingwary is CST and about 2 ½ years old…still marked off and on as a new player server but yet no free transfers in, go figure. If you have the skills and desire to do 25 man progression raiding please come on over! Make a toon and whisper anyone with the Heroic tag or contact me through the blog.

Our biggest needs right now are for a Holy Paladin, Resto Druid, Boomkin, and Ret Pally but we could absorb any well-played class!

Please, save me from the endless grind of recruiting!

Raid Update

2011-04-15T00:32:00.001-07:00

Ok, Heroic Halfus is down and I neglected to mention it because it was so uneventful and easy.

However…I HATE Heroic Chimaeron! Seriously, HATE. 300k thank you and we wiped. It’s too much like Al’Akir in that random dumb luck plays a roll. We have the heals, we have the DPS, and we so very much have the tank dance down…but frankly, dumb luck that gives the Feud Tank 4 breaks is just wrong! Done bitching now. Talk to you when he’s dead.

Dead Nefarian!

2011-03-31T16:36:00.000-07:00

Woot! Finally Nefarian is dead!

It took way longer to kill him than it should have based on how easily he went down last night. LOL, isn’t that the way it always goes? In the end it was determined that what killed us the most were the following things:

Information Overload: Waaaaaaaaaaay too many strategies out there and everyone’s friend has a piece of advice. We changed the strategy too many times to try different things and should have just stuck with what was working from the beginning. (Unfortunately, we didn’t realize it would for…oh, say, a couple of weeks.) Really, people, we love you and appreciate your advice but now please go fishing or something.

Bad Group Dynamic: The team wasn’t really feeling like a team lately. We finally had to let go of one of our healers and replace him. He just didn’t fit in and folks were not happy raiders. The new shammie is a vast improvement in sooooo many ways but most importantly he just seems to fit.

Mood: We remembered we are here to have fun while killing big things and that it’s GOOD to laugh at the stupid that happens. (See BGD above LOL)

In the end we did it this way: 1 Paladin tank (Me!) on Nef 1 DK tank on Ony then adds (yes, I know what everyone says about pallys being the ones that should be kiting them but frankly he’s a better add tank than I am. I admit. So bite me.) 2 Resto Druids, one on me and one on raid 1 Resto Shaman on the DK tank A mage, warlock, warrior, hunter, and rogue as DPS

We pushed two crackles in P1, none in P2 and then blew him to bits in P3

During P1 Nef and Ony were on opposite sides of the room with their heads towards the 2 pillars in the back. The adds were kited but the hunter with frosty novas and rings when in place by the mage. We put them on Nef’s ass by the pillar closest to the door.

For P3 I kept Nef in the middle of the room and just spun him as needed to make sure our DK didn’t get tail swiped. There was also a degree of hyperventilating starting when he got to 12% but I’m pretty sure that’s optional.

So, that was that. We have our weird looking ghosty birds now! Yay! On to serious hard mode work!

Nefarian

2011-03-09T23:33:00.000-08:00

Phase 1:

Electric crap!

Tail Lash!

Crackle!

Shit the Turtle is down again.

Rinse and Repeat

Phase 2:

OMGOMGOMGOMGWEAREALLGOINGTODIEINTERRUPT!

Phase 3:

Yeah, uh huh, THAT's why all the adds have to be in one spot.

Let's try it again....

/tar Nefarian

/cast Headdesk

Pandora's Box

2011-03-07T21:35:00.001-08:00

I’ve finally opened Pandora’s Box. Yes, yes I did it. I made the decision to extend the lockout on Nefarian.

To be fair, I sent my raiders mail and asked their thoughts, I talked with them in vent, I listened to every concern and viewpoint. But, frankly, the best night of the week to take on anything really challenging us is Tuesday. That’s the one night I know I have everyone I need there with the flexibility to move raiders in and out as we need to. Other nights I know our paladin healer works or our hunter may have a conflict or real life crap may come up but Tuesday is obligation free for my team.

While I understand there is still loot to be had we’ve had crap luck with drops for the things we really need and wind up sharding a pretty big chunk of it. Valor points really shouldn’t be an issue for all but one of them given how long we’ve been at this. And, honestly, I’m bored as hell running the same farm content over and over when we should be tackling heroic modes by now.

The plan is this: go in Tuesday with fresh minds and go right to Nefarian without stopping anywhere else. If, IF, it turns out that it really is a gear issue (which I sooooooooooooooo do not believe) then we can stop, drop raid, and do it again with the farm bosses. I think we just need to go in and have our best all on at one time with no distractions.

Wish us luck!

Revenge is Mine

2011-03-06T15:30:00.001-08:00

For the first few years I never really PVPed much on Lark unless I had to for some specific trinket, mount or to regain a loot piñata boss. Being a prot pally in a BG means it takes a lot to kill me but OMG it takes a long time to kill them too. (Makes me a great flag carrier though!) PVP was a means to an end and something to do because I had to. I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about until I started doing PVP on several of my alts…then I was hooked.

I always hated playing melee classes and having to run around chasing whatever I wanted to kill. (Probably another reason Lark goes holy in BGs now.) My casters are fun to PVP with but what I really love is healing in BGs. 3 priests (YES! I DO need 3 priests dammit!), a shaman, 2 driuds and a different pally (because one pally is just not enough) who has never been anything but holy for more than 5 minutes all healed their way through countless hours of PVP and many levels of experience. I feel content whenever I get an alt to level 10 and head to the AH to buy whatever I can to prolong their doomed little lives and queue them up for the first time.

But then, one day, on my resto druid I got pissed. Really pissed. I was singled out as a healer within a minute of every BG I was in that day and spent most of my time waiting to rez. Over and over and over my little Rockett tried to live through 5, 6, 7 players beating her face. And the worst were the rogues. The rogues have always been the worst…always….

So I started a rogue.

For revenge.

With no intention of questing or doing anything other than being AS ANNOYING AS HUMANLY FUCKING POSSIBLE IN BGS!

She’s now a level 44 worgen so she has the racial sprint as well as the rogue sprint and is geared to the teeth in PVP gear, dungeon drops (I <3 my guildes for run-throughs!), and BOA gear. I giggle maniacally every time I kill a healer…or just repeated sap them for fun. Every heal I interrupt makes me giddy. Every BG we win because the healers can’t heal gives me a warm feeling in my cold little rogue heart.

I love my rogue. Revenge is mine.

Actual Paladin Tank Stuff Complete with Strategy Tweaks!

2011-02-08T11:20:00.000-08:00

I know I don’t usually talk much about tanking, talenting or strategies but we’ve tweaked a few things in our raids - and I’ve tweaked a few things in my spec for different fights - so I thought I’d break with tradition! (You’re very excited now, aren’t you?)

If I don’t mention a strategy change we’re probably doing what everyone else is. As for DPS and heals we’ve used every bizarre, theoretically unworkable combination you can think of for a 10 man but we build the raid with the following:

Always -
Rogue
Warlock
Resto Druid
Pally tank (Yeah, I know, I said I heal sometimes but I really haven’t had to for a while.)
DK tank (on 2 tank fights otherwise he is DPS)

Rotating in and out based on the fight (or RL stuff) -
Holy/Disc Priest
Warrior (DPS)
Kitty (And occasional bear)
Hunter (Usually there)
Resto Shaman (Sometimes DPS)
Resto Druid #2 (Sometimes chicken)
Resto Druid #3 (Sometimes a Shaman)
Warlock #2
Mages #1-3

Blackwing Descent

Magmaw - Paladin tank on boss, DK tank on worms. DK just kites the little buggers around and no one kills them. As long as they move out of the way periodically we’ve had no issues.

Tron Dudes - Single tank FTW. The reason behind single tanking is simple - the healers like it. If I am able to hit the Tron Dude beating on me I can squeeze in a few self-heals. If the Tron Dude just wails on me and I can’t hit him…well healers have to work harder…add in a second tank and, well, you get the picture.

Achemedes - Meh, standard strategy as far as I know.

Chimaeron - I respec to ensure I have full points in Eternal Glory and Guarded by the light as well as Divine Guardian for this one. I use Holy Radiance while we are grouped up for Feud. I also pop Divine Guardian on the third Feud. The first time we got him to 20% (the largely unhealable, untauntable phase) I expected him to make a mad dash to nomnom on the healers but instead he stayed on our DK tank, then me, then he was dead. No worries on that one.

Maloriak - I always have points in Grand Crusader for the Avenger’s Shield refresh but in this fight it’s particularly handy. Our rogue interrupts the Storms and I handle the add releases while our DK tank kites the adds. I keep points in the Divine Guardian for the last phase and blow through pretty much every cooldown I have at that time.

Nefarion - I’ll let you know next week!

Bastion of Twilight

Halfus Wyrmbreaker - For this one I generally take Halfus myself first and bubble taunt off the first set of stacks of the healing debuff when applicable. This is one fight I really like having a Holy Paladin in for so he can Hand of Protection the DK tank when it’s his turn. I can do it but we’ve had a few times where my tank partner is too far away. Obviously we change strategies depending on which dragon combo we have but we haven’t ever killed all three. Just burn the first two and burn the boss. We start this one on hard mode this week so I’ll let you know how it goes!

Valiona & Therlion - Pretty standard

Twilight Ascendant Council - DK tank with ranged, me with melee, our warlock switches targets to keep them even if needed. DK tank on Ignacious for interrupts, me on Feludious for round one. Round two is DK tank on Arion and me on Terrastra. If it’s going to put melee too close to the wrong buff if I move him then I just pop a CD and eat the Quake/Thundershock.

Cho’gall - This is another fight I make sure I’m specced into as many healing boosts as possible. We two healed this with two resto druids (They cried a lot and begged for a “tank healer” and MCs suck with only two but they are more amazing than they think they are and we did just fine!) Our DK tank takes Cho’gall first and I cast Hand of Salvation on him immediately. His D&D works very well for the adds and as he can cast it ranged he doesn’t build stacks. HoS is up for the third taunt from him as well. Our DK tank is the recipient of many, many of my Word of Glorys (Word of Glories? Looks weird…) on this fight.

Throne of Four Winds

Conclave of Wind - What is there to say about this, really? Hard mode this week should be interesting!

Al’Akir - Not much to this one once everyone gets the movement and timing down. I make sure I have Hand of Protection ready for a healer in phase 3 and use Holy Radiance as we fly down to the base. Cooldowns are your friend in phase 3 LOL.

So, that’s all I can think of at the moment. Please feel free to post anything you may do that differs from the usual strategies!

And if anyone has found a sound strategy for Heroic Halfus and/or Conclave let me know!

Stupid Awards of the Week Epic-holy-crap-I-haven't-done-them-in-Cata Edition

2011-02-03T22:20:00.001-08:00

(Names have been badly smudged to protect the guilty)

The Paranoid Huntard Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

The hunter who wouldn’t go near Al’akir’s platform until she was completely buffed and ready to go for fear she would accidentally pull him. Needless to say we spent every night we were on him making her more paranoid by dropping Jeeves, guild banks and cauldrons near the boss!

The But It’s Not A Green Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

The same hunter who did many attempts (key word: attempts) on the now-PVP-boss-loot-piñata when we were all fresh 85s while in PVP gear. It took a while. We also found out what she wears to raid in. (Start noticing a theme here...)

The Where’s Jeeves? Award of the Week goes to….

The resto druid with broken gear who was obsessing over healing meters….

The Wait, Wasn’t I on a Taxi? Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

The guild master, who shall remain nameless, who decided to multi-task while on route to Throne of Winds. 4 words: Dead. Feralas. Rez sickness. /facepalm

The Naked Raider Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

The kitty who died (and led to a wipe on Al’akir by dying early on)…who then informed us that although he hit “yes” on the ready check he had just run naked out of the shower. He plays Dance, Dance Revolution as well as WoW…. Go ahead. Picture it. Just go ahead.

The Huntards Have Competition Award of the Week goes to….

The Locktard after a wipe who was also obsessing over meters…

The OMG His Hit Box is HUGE! Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

So very many people who hit Magmaw instead of the trash in front of him so very many times.

The I WANT TO LIVE Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

The resto druid who told the tanks that if they wanted to live they would call out tank swaps on Cho’gall…despite the DBM warning and GIANT FREAKING LASER BEAMS from his eyes at Fury. For the rest of the raid each tank called out “I want to live!” every time they taunted.

The WTF Happened to My Threat? Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

The DK tank who couldn’t get aggro on Cho’gall. We wiped. Come to find out he had a chat bar open. So much for keybinds.

Raiding Challenges

2011-01-24T15:01:00.000-08:00

I find myself in the middle of a series of GM/Raid Leader dilemmas. I’ve been working a lot lately and had some RL issues come up that have limited “real” play time to raids unless it’s my day off. I do log on every day to check in but haven’t even had the energy to run randoms most days I work. Needless to say this means when I log I am bombarded with whispers and NEEDS!

Healing Issues!

Raiding is not going badly but neither are we moving as fast as most of us would like. I’m sure many GMs and raiders can relate when I say that a fair amount of our issues stem from heals. The ones I’ve needed for progression haven’t always been available and some of the ones we counted on in Wrath are either gone, DPS, or struggling.

Right now I have one very, very good resto druid who has done well enough to hit the top 100 in world rankings on certain fights but (BUT!) she has a very needy husband (God, I loathe wow-couples!) which brings me to…

A pally healer who wants to tank or DPS - anything but heal - and is trying to persuade me that he has actually changed his mind (again) and wants nothing more than to be a healadin in raids…but he doesn’t. I know this, he knows this, his wife knows this. He is also one of those extremely annoying types who relentlessly whisper you when they get sat and feel that even though they haven’t put in the time or work that others have should be in on every raid. He also feels entitled to loot he hasn’t earned. Good times.

Another remarkably good resto druid who just went back to school and missed a week due to no computer…he is supposed to be back for raid tonight. Fingers crossed.

Another pally healer who does well and is much more low maintenance than the other but changed his main from a DK for Cata and is still learning the more subtle nuances of the class. He is also fire challenged at times which isn’t good for most Cata fights.

A shammie whose attendance got flakier and flakier before he finally left because it “wasn’t fun anymore”. ‘Nough said.

A priest who got a late start raiding (we knew well ahead of time that she just HAD to go to Hawaii) and is still searching for the right balance that will make her competitive in Cata. She’s doing tons of research but is feeling pretty beat up by the changes right now. (Don’t even get her started on Smite!)

And then there’s me. I’ve healed more in the short time Cata has been out than in the entire Wrath expansion but I’m needed as a tank and it’s much harder for me to effectively make in-fight calls while healing.

The light at the end of the tunnel right now is a 3rd resto druid (soon to be resto shammie perhaps?) who has returned to Heroic after being very disappointed by Horde grass. He is one of the best healers I’ve ever seen in any class he chooses but don’t tell him I said so or I’ll never hear the end of it.

So, this week I will be largely ignoring most advice on which specific healing classes I “should” have for fights and bringing in the best damn players I have on!

Ego Issues!

Another thorn in my side is the lack of accurate self evaluation that some raiders are capable of performing. I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about…raiders that think they are better than they actually are and won’t truly HEAR otherwise.

I have a lot respect for players that are still finding the right way to play their class/spec in Cata and are willing to respect, research, spend hours on training dummies, ask others for advice and understand completely that as much as I may like them personally and am happy to let them try out what they’ve been working on while we do farm bosses I can’t bring them in on a boss that is a DPS race or super healing intensive. These are the players that more likely than not whisper me first and offer to sit when they look at where they are for the night.

What I have a hell of a lot less respect for are the players that deny they stand in bad or make lame excuses for poor DPS or healing. I have logs and recount and watch the raid. I know what they are doing and not doing.

Most often these are the people that go all emo on me when I sit them and despite the number of times I’ve talked with them about performance and raid awareness issues they refuse to see they have a problem. And OMG do they like to send me whispers!!!

And don’t get me started on attendance…don’t tell me you were here on time when you weren’t. I track it. I know.

I know that this week, in order to make a big dent in progression and get back on top, I’m going to have to bring in the best raiders and only the best raiders for all but the easiest bosses just so I can be assured we are moving at top speed. My concern is this may lead to gquits and it will certainly lead to disappointment. I keep telling myself that we are a progression oriented raiding guild and we have to do what we have to do. Best case scenario…the ones that get sat that think they are all that may make a more honest evaluation of their performance. Yeah…not likely.

Second Group Issues!

The plan was to have two 10 man teams running by now so everyone who was interested in and capable of raiding would have a spot. It was a good plan. We liked the plan. The plan has not happened.

The person who was going to own the second group and raid lead is tied up with RL and wants to simply participate when it happens and no one else has stepped up to take ownership. We also really don’t have the healers for it at the moment and I’m not sure we even have enough DPS. So right now I have a few geared players with nowhere to go. I can’t possibly fit them all in the ongoing group and until someone steps up to run it and makes an assessment of what we need for it I don’t even know where to begin with recruiting. Yes, in theory, I could make that assessment myself but let’s go back to the first thing I stated about work and real life and time! Besides, if it’s going to be successful as an independent raid then it really needs to be built by that team.

Basically I’m at a loss for words right now when they ask me when it is starting. I have no idea. Anyone want to run a 10 man group?

So that’s the long overdue, very wordy explanation of what’s been going on in my world lately!

It's Also True.

2011-01-04T00:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Guildies,

We are once again #1 for Alliance progression on the server. Keep it up and don't stand in bad.

Love,

Lark

It's True.

2011-01-04T00:32:00.000-08:00

Dear Guildies,

Standing in bad is bad.

Love,

Lark

Long Overdue Update!

2010-12-26T20:10:00.001-08:00

I realized I haven’t even posted a “hey Cata!” post or anything like it since the release and feel like a slacker. Truth is I’ve been swamped - both in the big world outside and in the WoW world.

As much I love some of the new content Cata feels very much like a grind right now. I’m behind in my daily randoms and don’t even get me started on rep grinding.

We made a decision before the launch to sponsor one person per profession to ensure we have access to what we need within the guild as much as possible so we have everything maxed except a JC at this point and we’ll get him up there tomorrow. We bought and farmed everything possible to get us raid ready fast and about 100k later we got there!

Magmaw is down as well as the new Tol Barad boss (Does he even count? A team of drunk monkeys could handle that fight. LOL) In typical Heroic fashion we didn’t start with the easiest boss. /sigh We are looking very good to defeat Halfius (despite our luck in getting the worst combo of dragons possible) and the Tron dudes this week so yay for death.

Raiding has been more of challenge than I expected. Not the content but the raiders.
Healers have been hard to come by and the holidays sure as hell haven’t helped. Yours truly has been healing at least half the time and that definitely isn’t what the raiders expected…the ones who have been around know all too well how raids have historically gone when I haven’t tanked but thanks to a few strong players I’ve been able to step back, stare at raid frames and try not to stand in bad and let them call things out.

It also feels like a few folks are lacking the fire the rest of us expected and I feel that we are much further behind than we should be. A few changes in the roster and a new pally healer leveled and geared have helped the past couple of raid days though so there’s no reason we can’t get back on top where we need to be.

Anyways there’s the very, very brief update! Now I’m off to try to clean up the bank and come up with a system in it that works better…. Wish me luck!

Things I Learned About Leading a Guild in Wrath

2010-12-06T22:37:00.000-08:00

You will never be able to make every single person in the guild happy all at one time but as long as you’re fair they will accept occasional disappointments.

Second chances can be very good. Third (or fourth if you’re really having a dumb moment) will bite you in the ass.

The Raid Bitch is your friend.

Guildies are friends not family. You can choose them.

They are called Huntards for a reason.

Trust your instincts. Even if they come with great experience if your gut tells you “no” then don’t accept them into the guild.

If they want to change mains more than once an expansion be very, very worried.

Your officers will either be your best assets or your worst liabilities. Choose carefully.
Elitism isn’t always a bad thing.

No matter how much you may like them personally some people will never, ever get it.

A minimum age requirement helps you stay sane longer.

It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, put it in the MOD, post it on the forums, or send them mail…there will always be people who don’t pay attention.

Landing on the Stupid Awards may become a badge of honor.

If you give them your phone number they will call or text you at ridiculous hours.

Once the focus is gone on a progression fight it’s best to just call it and go fishing until tomorrow.

The better your guild is the more trolls you have.

Psycho happens.

Emo happens.

Nerd Rage happens.

Progression isn’t worth sacrificing your code of acceptable behavior.

At the end of the day the friends you spend your time with make the guild successful and keep you going day after day even when you’re ready to disband the guild and go play Sims 3.

REM is Stuck in My Head

2010-11-23T14:26:00.000-08:00

That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes,
an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn,
world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs.
Feed it off an aux speak,, grunt, no, strength,
The ladder starts to clatter with fear fight down height.
Wire in a fire, representing seven games, a government for hire and a combat site.
Left of west and coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck.
Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered cropped.
Look at that low playing!
Fine, then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common food, but it'll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right - right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Since it’s been stuck in my head I thought I’d share. Wasn’t that nice of me?

I know, I’ve been slacking on the blogging. My time in game has been less chaotic than usual so there wasn’t really much to bitch about and considering most of my posts are venting that doesn’t leave me with much fodder! I’ve been doing oodles of research on professions, classes, and whatnot on various blogs and forums but they put it all together much better than I would so more reading less writing these days. (Special shout outs to El's Extreme Anglin' and Crafter’s Tome!) Oh, and I read The Shattering and then proceeded to nag my guildies until they either read it or begged me to stop.

I’ve also been preparing my toons and my guild for Cataclysm. You know, stocking up on things we might need; stocking up on things that will be ridiculously priced before too long to sell in Cata to replenish the soon-to-depleted gbank resources; wrapping up achievements and so on. We also figured out who the crafters are for each profession that will get the first mats, biggest influx of gold to level them, and have the stamina to be NEEDED constantly once they have them up there.

Hard to believe that I’ve been 80 for two years. Let’s see…I got The Immortal title and the drake from Naxx, cleared Ulduar including Algalon and got the drake from that, cleared ICC and, yes, got the drake from that, started a raiding guild and made it to the top on the server, farmed more rep then I care to remember, leveled 6 other 80s and countless toons that may or may not survive (I hate playing melee classes!), and spent tons of time doing any number of silly, pointless, goofy, things with guildies just because I like them (GEORGIA!!!). Good times.

The one achievement we are still actively working on is getting the Lich King down on hard mode. We are close, so very close, but we need more concentrated time instead of an hour here and there. When he dies on hard mode I think I will really feel like I’ve done everything I set out to do in Wrath. Or at least everything I planned once I actually figured out what it was I wanted to do in Wrath. LOL.

I think I’m set.

Happy End of the World!

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-11-04T11:53:00.001-07:00

The Huntards Tranq? Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

Our dear little huntard, who after a few wipes due to the off tank dying on heroic Lich King to shambling horrors, hears me say, “He should have been able to take one of the hits if the other was tranqued and (our hunter) was doing that right…?”
And she responds with silence. Very long silence.

The Oh, The Ready Check was for Real? Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

Same huntard, same fight, same phase. Ready check green, tank says, “Board’s green, starting it.”, raiders started calling positions and events and I hear….

“(The hunter) is AFK.”

In a Shadow Trap of course.

Then we hear in vent, “Oh, we were ready? I tabbed out…I thought someone was going /afk.”

You. Hit. Yes. To. The. Ready Check! /facepalm

The WTS Man Candy for Raid Spot Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The mage who included a picture of himself (is it really? Lol) clad only in a towel with his application to the guild. We usually just ask for WWS or raid history… I wonder what he would post for epics….

I Miss Mortigan the Lock

2010-11-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight in raid several things (which will be explained in the Stupid Awards) happened that made me really miss Mortigan the Lock's posts. For those of you who remember him you will appreciate this and those of you who don't definately need to read this.

In Mortigan's words, with full credit to him, here it is:

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2009
How to raid ANYTHING. By Mortigan the Lock.

I find it terribly hard to remember all the nuances of each boss fight. Sorry, but I'm just not hard-core enough to memorize who casts what, and I really don't care if Pixie McNixie in the bottom of some hole is planning to fear me, sheep me, or chop me in half with a big heavy axe. Why? Because overall things are pretty much the same from one boss to the next, so I figured I could come up with a single set of rules on how to raid ANYTHING. I've appropriately named these rules "A Single Set of Rules on How to Raid ANYTHING."

Getting Ready:

Many people go to YouTube and watch Tankspot videos to familiarize themselves with the fights. This is a waste of time, because all you really need are my simple rules. Not 100% sure? Here are some additional reasons for skipping the videos:

1. Those people in the videos are ELITE WIZARDS and your raid team is not going to do anywhere near as well as them. It's like watching an Olympic gold medalist do the ski jump and then trying it yourself. Forget about it.

2. There are less steps to preparing your taxes than there are to fights like Freya. Watching Tankspot explain it on YouTube will only give you a headache. Your guild is going to wipe on it anyway, so no need to give yourself a migraine. Skip the video and use my rules below!

Let's Raid!

Ok, so here is my Single Set Of Rules On How To Raid ANYTHING:

1. DO NOT stand in anything that wasn't there before the fight started, if it visually looks dangerous. This includes fire, black steaming circles of nastiness, green slimy stuff, purple ooze, etc. If you are not sure, stand in it for a second and see if your health goes down. If it does, MOVE.

2. DEFINITELY DO stand in anything that wasn't there before the fight started, if it visually looks beneficial. This includes pleasant rays of fairy moonlight, air with lightning bug / glittery things in it, shiny sparkly spots on the floor, or anything else that a 3 year old girl might want to color. If you are not sure, stand in it for a second. If nothing bad happens, definitely keep standing it because it MUST be doing something good.

3. Do the following based on your function:

Tank: Attack the boss with everything you got. Keep doing this and don't stop until your healer drags you away screaming at you, "STOP! STOP! HE'S DEAD ALREADY!"

Heal: Keep healing until everyone is either dead and blaming you, or the boss is dead. In the latter case, it is your job to drag the tank away from the bloody corpse.

DPS: Do the same as the tank, but wait a fraction of a second before doing so. This way, if you get aggro, you can blame the Tank. Otherwise, he will blame you. That fraction of a second makes all the difference on who gets blamed for the wipe. Use it wisely. Now this next part is important: If adds arrive, you need to make a visual check of how dangerous they look. If they look like they can be ignored, stay on the boss. If they look really nasty, switch to the add. Simple! Or you can always fall back on the "watch what everyone else is doing and copy them" strategy, but I'm training you to be a trailblazer, so get in there and blaze that trail!

Off Tank: You're on the adds. Someday, if you ever become cool enough or geared enough, the guild might let you be a REAL tank. But probably not anytime soon. So stick to adds. And if you run like a madman all over the map with a trail of adds behind you, creating a hellish conga-line of death, all the DPSers are going to HATE YOU. So keep your butt in one spot, take your beating, and suck it up.

4. DO NOT stand in a Boss' AOE. The crap raining down on your head should be an obvious sign that it's time to pack up and move.

5. Should a boss fight require you to operate some sort of vehicle, land mount, or drake, randomly mash buttons as fast as the cool-downs allow. Generally, Button 1 is the biggie one to mash, so mash it more than the others. No one's really going to notice if you did well or not, so just mash, mash, mash! You're a pro!

6. If you get aggro, run TOWARD your teammates, not away from them. It's the surest way to get rid of that unwanted boss who's taken serious notice of you. Ideally, run toward (and right through) a mage. Mages are a big, big help with getting rid of aggro. If you're cool enough to be a warlock like me, you can even strategically position yourself right next to a mage throughout the fight, and Soulshatter as needed. Be sure to turn toward the mage when Soulshattering, so that you can watch the look on his face when the boss 1-shots him. If you're a mage, disregard everything I've just said, and take one for the team.

7. The laws of the universe that govern comic books, video games, and science fiction in general require that twins ALWAYS have some sort of symbiotic relationship, and a special power will CERTAINLY exist between them. Therefore, any time there are twin bosses (or even twin adds if they're extremely dangerous looking), they MUST be killed simultaneously. Very bad things happen when one twin witnesses the death of the other. Heed my warning, and kill any and all twins at the same time. Further, they cannot be allowed to touch each other or send each other any kind of glowing orb, ray beam, soothing rainbow, etc. You don't want the wonder-twins activating ANYTHING. So keep them apart, kill them apart, and do it at the same time.

If you follow these simple rules, you're sure to be a success at your next raid. I advise you to print this out and keep it handy. Review it during the boring buff periods before raiding, or when the tank if off in Dalaran begging for another healer. And be sure to stop back by and let me know how it went! Happy raiding!
Your buddy,

Mortigan the Lock

A Few Words on the 100 Mounts...

2010-10-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

Lark finally (FINALLY) finished the grind to get 100 mounts so she can now ride around on the very pretty dragonhawk!

I’d to say a few words to my favorite rogue, thank for killing things quickly every day so I didn’t have to grind out the Argent Tournament dailies alone. And thank you for your quick engineering in Ulduar so the chopper was a bit less expensive.

To the TBC factions: I never want to see you again. That’s right Skyguard with your evil bird people in Terrokar, don’t call and don’t write. You too Kuranai and Halaa with your ogres and tinkerers and talbuks in Nagrand, we are through. I wish you luck in finding another sucker who would put up with hours and hours of farming for things that you probably don’t even use. No more powders and beads and scrolls from me. You are on your own. In the future I will go out of my way to avoid your territories when leveling alts…now stop texting and asking me when I’m coming back to see you. We are through, move on.

And, finally, to the Sea Turtle: FUCK YOU!!! I’ve fished 11490 things from pools in Northrend and you just couldn’t drop once??? What’s up with that? You dropped for people without maxxed fishing, you dropped for people who had only fished a few times, you dropped more than once for others!!! Stupid turtle…I hate you.*

So, now I just need to get my group back into Ulduar so we can do one more achievement and get our Ulduar drakes. (Hint: swirly, green clouds = bad)

With the months of grinding for my pretty bird done I’ve had time to spend on other things like my Holy Pally on another server who I got to Northrend this week. She spends a lot of time in BGs and ,whatever they say about holy paladins right now, she rocks! Call me a masochist if you like but she’s been holy with very few moments of weakness from the start and it’s nice that we can actually kill things a little faster now. I’ve tried ret a few times at different levels but just can’t seem to get the hang of it. I think it’s a basic resentment that as melee you have to chase crap around to hit it. She will go tanky with her duel spec on occasion when the series of DK tanks queuing for randoms becomes too painful but she really is a healer at heart.

So now on to basic guild maintenance things like cleaning the bank out, trying to figure out what we’re missing for balanced raiding in Cata, and hitting /love everytime I come across a critter in case it’s one of the ones I’m missing.

*I still want you...please drop!

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-10-15T20:26:00.001-07:00

The But There’s a Tree for It Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The mage who informed me that Frost is a viable raiding spec.
He went fire again very shortly after that statement.

The Nerd Raging Loot Whore Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The ret pally who showed up to raid in holy gear/spec and then decided to heal without telling me despite the fact that he was A. in the DPS group, B. not listed when I named the healers for the night, C. not needed as a healer, and D. had never healed in any raid I’d ever run and given his lackluster performance as DPS would not have been asked to heal. He then proceeded to roll on a healing ring against MS healers and nerd rage when he won the roll and didn’t get the ring….because it was his OS. He stated that he didn’t need anything for his ret set and that’s why he was healing - for the gear. I replaced him and he /gquit. I should have kicked him one of the many other times he showed up on the Stupid Awards. /Sigh.

The What’s Aggro? Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The lock that died. That died a lot. The lock who died a lot because he didn’t listen to the tank clarify the aggro changes. (**edit: I was just reminded this need to be co-awarded to a certain chicken!)

The Hiding from the GM Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The priest who has not logged on his toons since I told him I wanted to speak with him. I guess he knows he’s in trouble...like I’m going to forget if he hides for a few days. Pfft.

The Illiteracy Sucks Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

Everyone who whispered me, cornered me in vent, or sent me ingame mail asking what our plans were for Cataclysm after the post went up on our forums, my blog, and was the sole subject of the guild’s message of the day. You make me want to redirect all my energy into reading programs for nerds.

The Illiteracy Sucks MOAR Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

Everyone who did not do their homework on what the patch did and now has stupid questions they should know the answer to and proceeds to announce their slackiness to the world in gchat and trade chat.

The End of an Era

2010-10-06T20:57:00.001-07:00

Well, we finally called an end to progression raiding today. Attendance was getting worse and focus even flakier. I'm mostly feeling like the elephant that has been sitting on my head has moved. And a little bit nostalgic. But anyways, this is what was posted tonight on our guild forum. Bring on the change!

Dear Heroic,

With an official release date of December 7 it is time to get organized for Cataclysm!

It’s been a great time in Wrath and I’m really proud of what we’ve done. We went from nothing on the server to number one and you should all be proud of that. We will be taking the best of what we learned and improving on it in Cataclysm and I can’t wait to see what we can do!

Some folks left to pursue other options and we were fully aware that our partnership with the Aberration raiders was for Wrath content. We wish them all the best and they left on good terms and we will not tolerate bashing of them in trade chat or the forums.

Some more of you I know are leaving to pursue other opportunities, some of you I have spoken with and know you are staying, and there are a whole lot of you that I would like to know about as soon as possible.

If you are unsure of your position in Heroic as we transition please don’t hesitate to talk to me. Not everyone who was here for Wrath will be here for Cataclysm. It’s very important that we have a team that is committed to raiding and to the guild and its members. We most definitely wanting the best fit as well as the best raiders. The expectation for our members will be rapid leveling of your main character and the toon’s professions so we can dive right into the new raid content. It is imperative that you do thorough research on your new abilities and whatnot so you are an expert on your toon as quickly as possible.

Here’s what you need to know from us:

• We will be reducing the size of the guild to better focus on 2 initial 10 man raiding teams. That means a guild of about 25-30 raiders with a very, very small amount of non-raiding friends. This will allow us to have flexibility with raid schedules and find the best combinations of classes, specs and personalities. This will also allow us to join the teams together to complete 25 man content if and when we choose to. The main focus will be on 10s at first unquestionably.

• We will be raiding ICC on a more casual basis up until Cata hits but raids will be on the calendar if I am running them and may not always be Tues/Wed…feel free to start your own - yes, I know you want your mounts! When patch 4.0.1 drops we will be limited to either 10 OR 25 per week and it will become nearly impossible to raid that content as a guild. We will make every attempt to finish Ulduar 25 for those mounts and to get into ToGC at least once if that is what you all want to do. Please remember, even if you don’t care about the mounts or achievements your guildies do and they need your help.

• For Cata, we are prepared to help level professions and get every raider geared as quickly as possible. The guild has gold and will spend it to help make that happen! On that note, the bank access has been reduced and guild repairs will be open only for limited times until we sort out exactly what we are doing and implement it.

What we need to know from you:

• Are you interested in staying in Heroic?

• If you are interested in staying are you changing mains or main specs?

• Is there anything you want to see done differently in the guild when we move into the new content?

• Is there anything left in Wrath that is going away that you would like to accomplish that you need assistance with? (No, I will not buy you a chopper.)

We are excited about the new content and look forward to raiding with many of you in December! For those that leave us we wish you the best.

Love,

Lark

Yay for a Cata Date!

2010-10-04T19:19:00.000-07:00

Well, finally have the date for release! Now my OCD can fully kick in with my anal retentive brain and I can finally PLAN!

Bring on the guild overhaul...well sort of. LOL

OMG must get Ulduar mounts now!

I'll fill you in with more soon!

When Applying to a Guild...

2010-09-22T14:17:00.001-07:00

Dear Applicant,

While we appreciate your interest in Heroic please understand we are at the end of Wrath and we’re planning for Cataclysm so unless you blow us away there is no point in adding you to a roster we are planning on trimming. You might want to consider that when thinking about doing any of the following:

Repeatedly whispering the GM or any of the class officers while they are in a raid…especially once they have told you they will talk to you later. Raid > you.

When told an online application is the first step in the process responding with, “do i have 2? : (“. Yes, yes indeed you do have to…and from you we will expect particularly detailed answers.

We really created the application with you in mind so you could pick and choose which questions to answer. Please don’t feel you need to give us an accurate, thorough answer to any of them if you don’t feel like it. Just go ahead and put “Cuz (insert class/spec) r leet” anywhere you choose to skip. /sarcasm

This is bad. “Why did you choose the main spec/off spec you have?”
“paladin ret/holy i chose cause i noticed holy gear dropped all the time and i chose ret cause i wanted to be dps”

Worse: “paladin, retribution, 5964(may be higher by now) gearscore
cause pallys are overpowered:P”

You were on board when told that everyone who applies starts in the Friday ICC 25 and that we are absolutely, positively, under no circumstances recruiting you into the main T-Th group. You stated this would be “perfect” and you just want to raid sometimes. You expressed immense love for the Friday idea…until we asked you to pick a Friday for a trial run and you said, “Well, I’m free on Tuesday or Wednesday but I can’t raid Fridays.” Huh?

You attend the trial run on Friday and proceed to talk over the raid leader explaining how you would do the fights and what you saw in videos when you looked them up. Sadly, your failure to ever down the boss we are discussing makes you less than credible. Mmm hmm…go on….

You don’t realize that:
Attending the trial run and being AFK for every ready check is bad.

Attending the trial run and insulting the other players is bad.

Attending the trial run having absolutely no idea what the bosses do is bad.

Good luck!

Woot! Dead Heroic Putricide!

2010-09-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

The title really says it all.

Weeks of wiping and frustration and tonight it was a one-shot deal.

Happiness.

Nostalgia for Noobishness

2010-09-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

Before World of Warcraft I had played things like Sims (Original, expansions, Xbox and PC…and before you ask, yes, I had the little extra expansions with things like kitchen furniture and pets.), Grand Theft Auto (I was really good at the driving but sucked at being a pimp.), and various sports related games (boys hate it when you beat them at hockey by the way). I picked up WoW on my way home from work at the beginning of a long weekend because I had no real plans, the weather was crappy, and I’d heard a few people at the office talk about it. I didn’t sleep for about 36 hours.

WoW was fascinating! Nothing I had played had ever been even remotely like it. I had no idea how to do simple things like move, open bags, and swim. I didn’t know about class trainers or flight masters. I was scared to death to die because I didn’t know what would happen and then when I did die it took me forever to figure out how to resurrect. (There was one very memorable death involving falling off a cliff into Wetlands at level 14 and taking three hours to get back to safety because I couldn’t find my body easily and didn’t know how to use the spirit rez.) I can still remember the first time I had 50 silver because the cat lady’s charge is something like 37 silver for a pet and I really wanted one but it seemed like a lot of money at the time.

While I spent a lot of time wandering lost in circles (my friends will tell you I still spend a lot of time lost but don’t listen to them…they don’t take their meds…crazy people) I was completely fascinated with the look and feel of the game. There was that thrill of discovery everything I found a new place; whether it was as grand as the world dragon in Duskwood or as small as accidentally catching a prize fish from the STV Fishing Derby it didn’t matter. There was the fun and challenge of leveling Lark and learning about what paladins can do, vanilla, TBC, and Wrath to explore and a myriad of alts to level and learn about. One of the most fun leveling times I’ve had was getting my horde mage to 80 and doing all the areas I’d loved from the other perspective.

And the people! Let’s not forget the people! I remember the first WoW friend I made. Manius was leveling a lock and we met at about level 8 and leveled together on and off on various toons for years. Countless toons and two main servers since I still talk with him whenever I’m on Drenden and can catch him. One of my other oldest WoW friends is raiding with me now. (/wave Zaka). Many of the key people in Heroic have been around for long time and the guild wouldn’t be the same without them. The game wouldn’t be the same without the people I’ve known.

Most of my time for the last two-plus years has revolved around raiding and the goals therein, or, in the last year or so raiding plus my guild. There are a few things I still want to achieve in Wrath: getting us our 25 man ICC mounts (got my ugly, bony birdie from 10 man on Sunday!), killing Putricide and Sindragosa on hard mode in 25 man (and giving at least a few honest shots at LK hard), and wrapping up the Ulduar 10 and 25 metas for those mounts (most of us are ridiculously close…it’s just silly we haven’t finished at this point). But mostly…I think I’m about done.

I’m ready for Cataclysm. I’m ready for the excitement of new things to see and do and learn. I’m ready to relearn all the classes and specs on Lark and the alts. I can’t wait to have the time to level a new toon from scratch and see how the leveling has changed and do the new quests. And, I think, I’m finally ready to take my little guild into the new content and make it a success there as well. It won’t be the same but I think it will be good.

I’ve flirted with other MMOs since I found WoW; Warhammer, EVE, AOC, and a few others but they couldn’t hold my attention for long. Either they were too buggy or didn’t have enough players or they simply weren’t interesting to me. However, I recently started the Final Fantasy XIV beta and that may have potential! That’s really where this wave of nostalgia for newness comes from. The game is visually stunning and very interesting so far. I have to learn from scratch what to do, where to go and what the classes mean since I never touched any of the other Final Fantasy incarnations. I still haven’t figured out how to start a profession and it’s driving me crazy. LOL. At any rate, it may give me something to do until Cataclysm comes out and WoW feels new again.

SOS! Mayday! Help! Drowing GM!

2010-09-01T15:48:00.000-07:00

So, the general flakiness and lack of focus (and attendance) in many of our core raiders has me thinking. I’ve been putting off making decisions about what I’d like the guild to look like in Cataclysm but I might need to start thinking seriously about it. It seems that the end-of-expansion blues are starting to hit and a passion for raiding starting to wane in many people. While this is understandable to a point and I certainly expected it the reality is it sucks. We haven’t completed the progression I know we are capable of and I’m not sure we will unless I can figure out a way to get the raiders more motivated. It’s a tough situation to be in right now. We have many that want to finish what we started but just a few key people taking a mental and/or physical break completely screws us and fully pisses off the people that want to raid. (I’m getting more than a few /rage whispers during wipes on dumb shit. Trust me, folks, I feel your pain.)

I’m not entirely sure what the options are right now. Do we reduce the raid nights to put less “pressure” on folks that are starting to drift? If we do that it means extending timers on occasion to get to some progression - not sure how that would go over, lol. Do we take a break from progression and focus on the achievements needed to get the mounts? I can see where that might drive focus and attendance at least temporarily since only one person doesn’t care about mounts (Yes, I know you don’t care about achievements! Stop telling me!) I’ve pretty much ruled out recruiting at this point unless someone omguberamazing applies since we are tired of breaking in new raiders. I can pull from the Friday casual raid but then they are short and, frankly, there’s a reason most of them aren’t in the main group (sorry but it’s true) and the few that would be good there are either couples who insist on raiding together (have I mentioned how much I hate that?) or people with iffy schedules.

Damned if I know at this point…I just want to see a few more hard mode bosses down, get my mount, and then I’ll do whatever the group wants!

Anyways, back to Cataclysm. I was fondly hoping in a knowingly delusional way that they would change something…ANYTHING…to make 25s more appealing. Sorry, Blizz, but more of the same loot isn’t going to cut it for a lot of people. Personally, I like 25s soooo much more than 10s. I can understand the appeal of a close-knit group, less trouble to organize, blah, blah, blah. I don’t care. I still think it’s dumbing down raiding even more and catering to the casuals too much. 10s just lack the epic feel of 25s and I will miss that if they aren’t really do-able anymore. I don’t need to rehash the whole post…you can go look at it if you want to read the full rant.

So, for Cata here’s what I need to start figuring out….

Who wants to stay in the guild regardless of the raid size?

Who will stay if it’s one size or the other and which size would that be?

Who is definitely leaving to do their own thing?

If we stay a mainly 25 man raiding guild what will we need to recruit?

Who is changing mains/main specs?

If we become a 10 man guild (ugh, I think I’m nauseous) who do I want on the team?

And is it more than one 10 man team?

I think I’m narrowing down what I’d like to see just a bit. I’m thinking I’d like to reduce the size of the guild to about 30 people or so and be able to do three 10s and yet still be able to save a raid for 25s here and there. Once we get the feel for the content we may find that the appeal of more loot in 25s is a factor to gear for hard modes. That means we need 6 tanks, 9 healers, 15 well mixed DPS, and a whole lot of off-specs!

Anyone out there care to share what their guild is planning? Help! Please!

Annoyed

2010-08-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Guildies,

If you wish your GM to retain at least some semblance of sanity please do not do any of the following:

Be absent when you accept on the calendar (if you’re going to take a nap, set the damn alarm!).

Delete the calendar invite (do you think I don’t notice?).

Regem after a ready check has been issued.

Forget how to kill the Lich King. ‘Nough said.

Feel that you MUST respond to everything that is said no matter what…seriously, I don’t need to hear your bigger-badder-better story or witty (at least in your mind) comment.

Tell me you need 15 minutes and then never come back on.

When I ask why you died don’t tell me the long, drawn out story about your life beginning with kindergarten…I don’t care and all I’m looking for is a 3-4 word sentence.

If you die on a fight you do not need to talk unless you have something vital to the raid to say.

Feel that you and you alone do not need to participate in loot council discussions despite the fact that it is the biggest thing you do as an officer.

Insist I get in vent and then tell me you have nothing to talk about.

Click yes on the ready check and then scream, “no wait!” as I start the countdown.

Let your artificially inflated ego interfere with reality and the raid. You may not completely suck but you’re not as good as you think you are.

Think you can use the gbank as your personal stash of goodies. Yes, you are ranked an alt now for a reason. Good luck getting back your rank.

Put your children in a wood chipper while push to talk is pressed. It hurts my ears.

Much love,

Lark

Stupid Awards of the Week Special Pally Edition!

2010-08-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

The Who, Me? Selfish and Clueless? Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The ret pally who decided to bail on the guild’s ICC run to buy a run from the individual who tried to destroy our guild and whose lies and BS in trade, says, and the forums we are still trying to clean up on the server. Really?!!? And you don’t think this will upset all the people he slandered? How dumb are you? Never mind…don’t answer that…we already know.

The Really I Like Paying My Own Repair Bills Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The officer ret pally who moved me to the AFK channel in vent repeatedly during boss explanations; he now has no vent admin privileges. He then demoted all my alts; he got demoted to a special rank. Next he filled the bank with 172 blacksmith hammers; his special rank can no longer see the bank tabs. The rank Special Snowflake wasn’t quite right for all that…it’s now FUTimmeh.

The Prot Heals FTW Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The pally tank, who shall remain nameless, (*cough*) who went heals for Saurfang and didn’t realize until the event was started that while she changed her gear, flask and food she didn’t actually change her spec.

The Growth Spurt Made Me Do It Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The ret pally who was supposed to raid lead last Friday’s 2nd 25 ICC and decided to stop playing WoW on Thursday night. He spends a lot of time in game for someone who quit…we’re pretty sure there’s a girl involved. Damn hormonal teens.

The No, Really, I’m Legit Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The pally/hunter who applied to the guild with great enthusiasm talking about how much he wanted to be here and how bad his current guild is. Silly pally didn’t think that I would hear from guildies he only wanted to join to get the Kingslayer title and then planned on leaving. Seriously, do people think no one tells me anything?

WTB a Guild Secretary

2010-08-16T21:46:00.000-07:00

So I’m back to balancing work and WoW, have been for a few weeks now, and while the paycheck is both welcome and necessary I’m definitely feeling the impact of less time with my guild.

Here’s my question: Do other GMs and raid leaders out there find that when they are not around things just don’t get done?

The second 25 man group hasn’t run in two weeks because I worked on both Fridays. There were people all set to run it and others to help make it happen. Didn’t happen. Some of it may have been people on vacation, I know another officer recently started a new job also, we may have saved too many to our main 25 but still…. With the number of geared 80 alts in this guild I find it hard to believe we couldn’t have managed it all. Is my proactive nagging really that necessary?

The bank is also a mess. Access is limited but others could certainly move things around or remove one or two of the 74 blacksmithing hammers one delightful raider decided to put in there. I’m also not seeing the gold that should be deposited for flasks and whatnot - partly because the log is eaten so fast due to grepairs - and I’d like to think someone is keeping an eye on it other than me but….

And then there’re the daily little soap operas. I’m pretty sure I don’t know the half of what’s going on right now and that there’s no one keeping up on them so they can tell me before chaos breaks out.

Don’t get me started on the applications that are pending. Just don’t ask. Really. Don’t.

Is it just me? Does anyone have a solution? Can I hire a secretary?

Raid Bitch Ramblings

2010-08-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

The Raid Bitch is tired and just wants to make everyone tea and cake and watch them all get long. Don’t get me wrong, if you piss me off I can have a temper. I get annoyed and frustrated and snap at people when shit goes wrong. The Raid Bitch is not particularly warm and fuzzy when the Stupid Debuff is on the raid. I have very little patience for stupid questions or pointless whining and that is why there is a Special Snowflake rank. Trolls in trade…don’t get me started….

But I hate being the bad guy sometimes…particularly the one who has to decide, and more apropos to this the one who has to communicate, who sits and who is in when there are 30 good options for a 25 man raid. Not to mention the other 10 sitting there that aren’t the best of options. This is one of the things I do regularly that is both the best and worst of situations to be in. Best because it’s great that we have three extremely capable, reliable trees; worst that we only need two in raid and someone needs to sit. Or when we have 12 melee and need to bring in ranged. Or when we have 4 fury warriors and, well, that’s just silly. I do think that most understand that raid make-up trumps all else. It’s still no fun to sit though - particularly when it’s on a boss you really want a drop off of. Very few of them complain about being subbed out and I appreciate that. What’s worse than complaining though is when they take it to heart as a sign they are failing. And worse than that is sometimes I have to explain that while they aren’t exactly failing there are performance issues that need to be addressed and they may be at the bottom of the damage meters in a group of heavy hitters. Can we just have cake now?

On a lighter note, here’re a few things you can do to entertain yourself in raid!

Fun with Fury! Bribe your hunter to misdirect the biggest mobs in the trash to the fury warrior. See how many times you can make him die before he refuses to accept the rez until all the trash is cleared. Once you kill the boss and move onto the next trash set your paladins up with a bubble rotation so he finishes every charge unable to do damage. Mix the misdirects with the bubbles for the rest of the night.

Reset Recount right before the trash that leads to Blood Queen when boomkins are Starfalling their fluffy little hearts out and then use those numbers for the bite order. It makes the boomkins feel good to think they can come out on top. Sad locks and mages being mocked by chickens.

Clear the Plague wing trash then decide you don’t have the right raid make-up for Putricide hardmode and tell everyone to go to Ruby Sanctum. Then go back to ICC and kill Sindragosa. Racking up those frequent flier miles FTW.

The King is Still Dead Long Live the Loot...errr, What?

2010-07-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

So with the pretty much everything easy on regular or hard mode (except 25 Putricide and Sind and the king himself on heroic) and Lich King a farm boss now a couple of things have happened.

First, certain people, who shall remain nameless (*cough* Huhs *cough*) have decided that there is no better fun in raid than to BoP the tank when she pulls large packs of mobs. Good times. WTB chain MDs to the ret pally pst with price.

This also frees up the option of selling the Kingslayer title. Let’s see…25k divided by 10 or 25…. With of course a nice chunk for the gbank.

It also means the alts are getting a LOT of love. My little druid hit 80 last week and, spoiled baby that she is, had some lovely presents waiting for her. Then in our Friday casual/alt run we were very short healers so I brought her in. I had no intention of bringing her in until she was at least out of all her blues but some heals are better than none. Can I just say, OMG druids are OP! She held her own. (Of course a couple of lucky drops and the 18k Lark poured into her gear didn’t hurt!)

On another note, we have some dissention in the Friday run too that we need to deal with. Loot, of course. Does anything cause bigger headaches than shiny purple pixels?

Here’s the thing, it would be impossible to run it without alts and most of the mains will seldom be brought into the main run so what do you do about gear? Mains over alts is pretty standard BUT if you can’t do it without the alts then doesn’t that make them as important as mains for that run? We are in danger of losing several alts if the run gives them nothing but scraps and if that happens then no one gets loot - not mains, not alt…no one. Unless of course they want to PUG it but that will be a real crap shoot for loot and few PUGs get past the first 6 bosses.

So, what’s a GM to do?

Buy Q-Tips

2010-07-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Guildies,

Clearly that is a gap between what I am saying and what you are hearing. I’m unclear where the misunderstanding lies…I don’t have an accent, I don’t stutter, my mic works, the officers hear me very well and you do too when it’s time for loot.

When I state very clearly at the beginning of raid that we are working on progression fights and will be basing the raid group on what we think is the best combination of specs, skill, raid awareness and experience this is NOT your cue to whisper me to tell me what loot you need and why you should be in on the off chance it drops. This is NOT your cue to whisper me and tell me that Bertha wants in and you’re happy to sit for her even though Bertha is not half the player you are and has not earned the spot. This is NOT your cue to tell me that you’d really like to DPS instead of heal because you’ve dying to see what you can do on this boss. During progression I don’t care what you need or want from a boss or care about stroking your fragile little ego. I care about one thing: Dead Boss.

When I repeat multiple times during your interview - MULTIPLE TIMES - that recruiting is closed for the main Tues/Wed 25, you WILL NOT be in it, you will ONLY be considered for the Friday casual/alt run and then ask you if that interests you, make you sleep on it, repeat said conditions again the next day how does it happen that you ask me on Tuesday if you will be in raid tonight? Short of coming to your house, dragging you out and down the street to the tattoo parlor and having them engrave it on your forearm I don’t really understand how I could be clearer.

When I say in gchat, vent and the message of the day that we will either be doing RS25 or ICC 10s on Thursday why do you whisper me asking what we are doing on Thursday? Does no one read the MOD? Or Gchat? Or listen in vent? This is almost as bad as when we start our main ICC 25 which has the same people by and large every week, put the tanks in group one where they always are, mark them as tanks in the raid frames and you ask me who the tanks are. /facepalm

Check the batteries in your hearing aids, turn down the Eminem, pay attention.

Much love,

Your Annoyed GM

Rambling Updates

2010-07-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

So here’s where we are this week. Go ahead, grab a drink, sit back, and marvel at the weirdness.

Sanity has (mostly) returned and the 2nd 25 man has been officially deemed a casual/alt run. Yes, mains will still have priority on main spec gear but (BUT!) only if they show up consistently. Yup, that’s right. If you’re one of those who shows up one night out of three you’ll be rolling against yet one more unnecessary DK alt for those tanking legs because they are here all the time and you aren’t. Deal with it. We’ve also reduced it to one official night. I’m not pulling teeth to pull together a Monday run anymore. If people want to raid and show up we will otherwise go in Scarlet Monastery. In all honesty I think it’s pretty much dead so, meh, more free time.

The main group is still going strong. We cleared ICC 25 with 8 hard modes plus Ruby Sanctum in two nights. My fond hope is that we can spend some time on more new hard modes this week. This leads to part of the…ummm…interesting situation this week which is incorporating more of the formerly group two raiders into the main group. Subbing in and out slows things down - which sucks - but hopefully we can make it fast. The bigger trouble is that the new hard modes (and some of the ones we can’t quite consider farm yet) are spread out throughout the instance so it’s not like we can sub in based on wing. We need who we need for the new stuff. Also, there are some conversations to be had that I’m not really looking forward to. Everyone thinks they are good enough for the progression fights but, frankly, if you’ve shown up on the Stupid Awards lately for performance issues…well…not so much.

The biggest thorn in my side right now is dissention in the ranks. There is still somewhat of a lingering feeling of Us and Them in regards to folks from the guild that merged with us. Everyone needs to make compromises to have this be successful long term and change is not always a bad thing. Some of the raiders that have been with us a while are grumbling about the new folks not being quite as…diplomatic and gentle as we were in the past. To which I say, Bullshit. There is nothing that has been said in a raid that I did not say myself when the Raid Bitch came out to play…I think they are just slightly resentful to hear it from new officers and not me. I’m afraid they’re going to have to deal with it and adapt. Progression for 25 people trumps the thin-skin of one or two. There have also been complaints about the content of conversations in gchat. Particularly those filled with sexual innuendo or - in one certain warlock’s case - the RPing of homo-erotic fantasies. (Seriously, it’s actually quite funny how well thought out they are!) All I can say is there is /ignore for a reason and this has always been an adult guild filled with raunchy humor. The new folks didn’t start it. It was here before. Let’s move on.

Part of the desire to nail down a few more hard modes is another part of the weirdness of the week. Due to the collapse of the number one guild on the server…we are, by default, number….one. Wow. Just wow. I want to get more hard modes though so it feels earned rather than defaulted. We are only three behind where the former first guild was so it should be do-able. /fingerscrossed

On a happy note my little druid hit 80 last night! She is soooo spoiled it’s not funny. We had 264 BOE shoulders and a belt sitting in the gbank that no one wanted and she stepped right into those with 264 crafted legs and boots. Add a few crafted 245s and she’s not looking too bad. All it cost was Mama Lark parting with 10k to the gbank.

For a complete change of subject, I like add-ons. I don’t just want the basics you absolutely have to have either. I want the best. I want the one that does buffs, the one that communicates BQ’s bite order, and the one that changes my screen so most of my add-ons don’t sit on top of the game. Add-ons, to me, are tools; I am not using two sticks to start a fire if I have a Zippo available to me. I’m really annoyed by the “purists” who say people who use add-ons are as good. If I could find an add-on that would do laundry my life would be complete.

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-07-12T21:35:00.001-07:00

The Sacrificial Lamb Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The ret pally who repeatedly (yes, repeatedly) ran TOWARDS the orange ooze on Putricide. We did not down any bosses that night unless he died in the first minute. Seriously.

The Amnesia Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The resto druid who, when asked to go Boomkin, says on any fight - including Faction Champs - that she has healed over and over and over again, “I’ve never DSPed this fight…now what do I do?” I can see maybe (MAYBE) having a question if you go from say priest to rogue on Sindragosa but really unless you have amnesia you ought to be able to do farm content when going from heals to caster. /facepalm

The You Hurt My Epeen Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The Mage that got demoted to Special Snowflake for trying to kill the raid group - yes, on purpose, with forethought - and then had a temper tantrum about his rank and refused to raid until it was “fixed”. There’s a reason you were a Special Snowflake and you just made it more appropriate. /golfclap

The Gullible Isn’t in the Dictionary Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The pally who was told that to leave an arena team you typed: /gquit 2v2. And he did. He is also a Special Snowflake.

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-07-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

The Story Time Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

A warrior, a tree, and a ret pally who seem to be incapable of sneaking off to pee or grab a drink or whatever it was without spending an additional two minutes prior to the actual AFK to tell us in great detail why they must step away. I don’t care! Just go! You could have been back in the time it took you to explain why you needed to go!

The Magellan Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The ret pally who asked for a summons back to ICC after a wipe. He was in Dalaran. No, he didn’t hearth. He…took…the…wrong…portal…. Wait. What?! How do you take the wrong portal and wind up in Dal instead of the Upper Spire…? They’re not even close…how do you…but…wait, what….!? /headdesk

The Ass-fire is Bad? Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The kitty that sat in melee with purple fire coming out of his ass and then ran through as many of the healers as possible. Not once, not twice, but every freaking time he got it. All I can figure he was mesmerized by BQ’s fangs.

The BQ’s Bitch Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The hunter who got mind controlled every single solitary time he was due to bite someone. Every time. Every single time on Friday. And then Monday, learned to use shift+V. Voila! Success! /facepalm

The You Clearly Didn’t Want it That Bad Award of the week goes to…

/drumroll

The mage who linked for an item a good 4 minutes after the loot had been decided. His excuse? He was dead. Cause you can’t see raid chat when you’re dead…?

Sanity Check, Please?

2010-07-02T16:31:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned not long ago we started a second 25 man ICC 25. Okay, the thought process behind starting a second 25 man group went something like this:

We merge with another guild that brings 12 new raiders over - mostly extremely competent, well-geared, experienced raiders.

This means that we now have 12 of our established raiders with no raid spots - about half of whom are solid and half of whom don’t belong in progression as much as I may like them.

So, do we sub in and out in raids to a ridiculous degree slowing everything down? Neglect the raiders and see them leave (and trust me, there’s no where good for them to go on this server)? Or do we start a second 25 man team to give them a place to work on gear, skill up and potentially earn a spot in the main run? You guessed it. We started the second 25.

So then, we run the second 25 with about 16 mains and the rest alts. We get another 9 people from another server for that group so - theoretically - we have 25 mains to run. Theoretically. Because you know what happens right….? That’s right, real life stuff and D/Cs happen so back in come the alts.

Now the folks that play the alts don’t want to run in the second 25 and want their own 25 man alt run because in the second 25 mains get priority for gear (I know, duh, right?).

So here we are on the third week of doing the second 25 and it’s an hour before invites go out. I have 23 mains accepted on the calendar, a bunch that chose tentative and the lazy bastards who can’t be bothered to look at the calendar and let us know what they are doing. And I’m wondering who is going to show up.

Seriously, what was I thinking?!?!?!

Happy Birthday the King is Dead!

2010-06-25T00:44:00.000-07:00

Heroic is having its first birthday on Monday! I think the Lich King down was my present….yes, we finally killed Arthas!

I find it hard to believe it’s been a year and at the same time it’s hard to remember what the game was like before Heroic.

I’m so proud of the people in my guild. While no one is perfect and everyone has their moments, overall they are truly decent human beings who will bend over backwards to help one another, protect each other, and look out for the interests of the guild as a whole. We set out a year ago to form a guild that was different from the typical raiding guild. We chose to value character over raw numbers. We chose to include rather than exclude people of all backgrounds and not tolerate racial comments and the hate-filled chat that is so prevalent in this game. We set out to prove that we could do things differently and still kill the big, bad bosses…and we did. With our latest raid we are now the second highest guild on the server that is raiding 25 man content.

Out of a sense of perverse nostalgia I went back over the roster of all the members who have ever been in Heroic and realized a few things:

First, we made good choices overall in the people we invited to join us. We have retained a lot of people that have been with us for 6, 8, 10, even 12 months and I can’t imagine having this guild without them. Most of the people we lost that we considered friends were lost to real life and other interests and not to another guild or for guild policy reasons and would welcome them back with open arms.

Second, the few we lost (and I use the term loosely) to other guilds or for acrimonious reasons have largely not been missed all that much and didn’t do the damage they hoped to do when they tried to bad mouth us after they left. And, I’m betting, more than a few are kicking themselves today.

Lastly, there are two that I really miss having around. They know who they are. When one pulls her head out of her ass she’s welcome back. The other will be welcome back when a certain someone pulls his head out of his ass and quits being so freaking stubborn and selfish and gives the thumbs up.

On another note, we started a second 25 man group last week and this week brought over nine more people to flesh it out and have it rely far less on alts. It sounds (and feels) a little crazy but with the guild merger the choice was to kick or neglect a lot of good players or do so much subbing in and out that we would be crawling through progression. On this server, this close to the next expansion, there aren’t a lot of options that wouldn’t involve anyone that leaves taking many, many steps backwards or being at the mercy of assholes. I just couldn’t do that to loyal guildies so here we are with a second group! Honestly, I’m kind of excited about it and think the folks that transferred will be a great addition.

Oh, one last thing, just because this is largely a love letter to my guild don’t think the ranting posts will stop!

Lark

Self-awareness is a Beautiful Thing

2010-06-10T03:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Guildies.

Heroic is about to go through some very interesting changes when it comes to competition for raid spots. Frankly, I’m thrilled and can’t wait. Because I care and want the best for my guild I thought I would take a few minutes to enlighten you on some of the things that go through my mind when making raid spot decisions. These decisions, when made properly, lessen the likelihood that the Raid Bitch will come out to play.

In addition to checking for the Stupid Debuff there are many factors in deciding who is a core raider, who is an acceptable raider, and who is (or should be) on their way to a happy new home elsewhere. Obviously I can say performance and attendance are the two biggest things to help me make that decision but I do factor in all sorts of things you may not think I notice when it comes to what comes out of your mouth.

For the raider the completely lacking in self-awareness here are a few things to think about whether you are in my guild or moving on to another guild:

When raid invites go out do you:

A. Accept the invite, park yourself at the instance, grab a drink or whatever you need to do, and wait for the direction to zone in?

B. Tell the raid leader you need a few more minutes to finish your fishing daily but you are ready to go as soon as that’s done?

C. Tell the raid leader you’re going to squeeze in a quick OS3D but you’ll let them know when you’re ready? *

When raid invites go out are you:

A. Online, on your main, de-grouped, ready to accept?

B. Late?

C. On an alt in another guild’s raid? **

When placed on stand-by on a regular raid night do you:

A. Gracefully zone out and either stay in raid or in vent and keep yourself occupied ready to come in when needed?

B. Whisper the raid leader repeatedly listing all the gear you need off the next several bosses (or the entire instance including hard modes both 10 and 25 in some cases) and complaining that it’s not fair because you didn’t get the trinket last week?

C. Have a hissy fit, tell the raid leader you’ll see them next Tuesday, and log off?

D. /Gquit?

When you are placed on stand-by for a progression fight do you:

A. Honestly assess your current gear/performance/attendance, look at the raid composition, comprehend that there are only 25 spots in a 25 man raid and realize that the raid leader is doing what she feels is best and there is probably a very good reason for that fact that you are sitting?

B. Whine about how you needed the badges and possible upgrades without quite grasping the fact that because you need those things you really shouldn’t be in this particular fight since there are raiders on that are better prepared for the content?

C. /Gquit and bash the guild in trade chat?

When talking about your current spec do you:

A. Fully explain why you are talented, gemmed, etc. the way you are and back it up with facts and numbers?

B. Explain that you copied it from a player who out DPSed you in VOA?

C. Say that your friend put in your talent points for you and “they are totally good at playing this class”? ***

When you screw up and wipe the raid do you:

A. Look at combat logs and know what happened, own up to errors you made, and apologize?

B. Blame lag?

C. Blame the healers?

D. Blame the tanks?

E. Blame the hunter?

F. DC and fake a power outage?

When you screw up repeatedly on the same exact freaking thing to the point where we name the error after you for all future raids in which anyone does the same stupid thing do you:

A. Understand why you are on stand-by and work to improve your performance?

B. Blame lag?

C. Send the GM many pages of in-game mail complaining about how you are being unfairly picked on?

D. /Gquit and bash the guild in trade chat?

When you are placed in a raid with another raider of comparable gear, the same talents, and very similar experience and you are out healed, tanked, or DPSed by them do you:

A. Hit the websites for theory crafting and tips to see if there’s something you missed and ask the other raider what their secret is and pick up a few things to try?

B. Talk to your class leader and ask for advice?

C. Blame your gear anyways?

D. Blame lag?

E. This never happens to you because you don’t run a damage meter because you don’t think meters are important since it’s just a game and you play it to have fun and you can’t understand why we are having trouble on the boss and keep hitting the enrage timer and the only reason you showed up tonight was because you want the trinket that drops and since you are such a fantastic human being and raider you’re certain it will be given to you even though you only show up on Tuesdays. ****

When the GM tells you that you need to stop talking because you are making an ass out of yourself by demonstrating you do not know your own class, another class, a fight, your audience for perverted sexual comments, or by digging the hole that your mouth got you into deeper and deeper and you can tell by the tone of her voice that you had best chill out for a while do you:

A. Stop talking?

B. Start explaining why you were saying what you were saying thereby digging that hole of shame deeper?

C. Argue and insist that you are right even though you have no clue why…you are just convinced you are indeed right?

D. Whisper the GM for the next two hours explaining in great detail how it was not your fault that you upset someone/were wrong/didn’t understand what “stop talking” really meant?

E. /Gquit and bash the guild in trade chat?

The answers to these and many more questions go through my head as I assemble raids. Now you know and can prepare accordingly and save us all much grief.

Sincerely,

Your Positively Giddy with Anticipation GM, Lark

* Seriously? And then you complain you don’t get in a full raid? Seriously?!?!

** Yeah…that one got some strong encouragement to move his main to the alt’s guild…in the form of a /gkick.

***I’d really like to meet this friend. I’m sure we could have a very entertaining conversation. Very.

****Yes, yes you are a special snowflake in so many ways. Good luck next week when there’s competition for that raid spot you sort of filled.

Big Dead Dragon

2010-06-10T00:23:00.001-07:00

About damn time and yay!

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-06-07T20:58:00.001-07:00

The I’m Not a Tank but I Play One on TV Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The DPS warrior who hit Challenging Shout instead of Battle Shout on Saurang and got one-shotted. Incoming wipe….

The Yeah but I Didn’t Mean Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The rogue who /gquit to join (what he thought was) a better guild…which then folded in a week. And now he wants to come back. After saying bad things to many, many people in the guild. /Sigh

The I Can Haz Deeps Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The shadow priest applicant who couldn’t tell me why he would be a good addition to the guild, what his haste cap or hit cap were, or really anything about shadow priests and raiding. L2 do homework.

The It’s All About Me Award of the Week goes to…

The DK who AFKed in the middle of a boss fight with no word. On a fight where we really needed him. And he would have been the deciding factor in downing the boss…or not as the case may be. When asked why he didn’t say anything he said, “Oh, I guess I could have…”

The But He Loves Me Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The hunter who quit raiding, despite being extremely good at the game and really wanting to play, because her boyfriend didn’t like her talking to anyone but him. Don’t you hate the stupidity that comes with being a teenager?

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-05-26T16:01:00.001-07:00

The Gkick Me Please Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The idiot hunter who, despite knowing he was skating on thin ice due to having recently broken guild rules and insulted many guild members, decided it would be a great idea to make an ass of himself in Trade Chat. Once I had plowed through the whispers, chat logs, and in-game mail from the various people he pissed off I felt it was best to part ways. /Gkick

The Old Noob of the Sea Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The mage who kept complaining in gchat the fishing daily was taking way too long. Reason behind this: he was trying to complete Disarmed in the Frozen Sea. You know, where it was months ago. Patch notes FTW. Same mage complained later the same week about the fishing daily taking way too long…because he was in a raid group. Bless his heart.

The Oops Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The various morons in my guild who clearly don’t think that if they plot, plan or speak against me I won’t find out. Seriously, people, eventually the GM hears everything whether you like it or not. Think before you speak, nooblets.

Rant Day

2010-05-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned lately how much I loathe the Stupid Debuff? No, really? Well let me be clear….I REALLY, REALLY FUCKING HATE IT!

How is it that otherwise sensible raiders can die to frost bombs? There’s an ice tomb to stand behind for a reason! And dragons, heaven help me, how does one forget after months in ICC and dragons in almost every raid, that they cleave! And have bad breath! And, oh yeah, the tails will knock you into next week!

Why, oh why, people do you stand in green slime on Putricide? We have clearly established that it does not give you a lovely buff.

I say at the beginning of every Blood Queen fight, “If you can’t find your bite target for whatever asinine reason then bite ANYONE but DO NOT get mind controlled!” So, help me understand the mind controls?

Oh, right, healers, bosses on ICC Heroic mode….they hit the tanks harder! And my darling off-tank…pop your freaking cool downs more! Don’t wait for the emergency that may come your way, I’ve got news for you, it’s an emergency NOW!

Lastly, let’s just take the word “lag” out of our vocabularies, please. If you fuck up then just be a man about it, admit it, and move on. If I hear lag used as an excuse one more time I may hurt someone. Even if it is lag tell me something else. I don’t care to hear it anymore.

Why We Wipe

2010-05-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

Bittersweet Change

2010-05-09T11:00:00.001-07:00

You may have noticed references to the Princess in various posts and a few people made comments on the post last month about a guildie crossing lines. He was supposed to be my partner in the guild. I won’t be having those exact issues anymore. Princess left the guild and the server.

After many, many conversations and arguments in which I can honestly say I tried my hardest to make things work out it boiled down to too much history he was unwilling or unable to let go of and move forward from. Both of us have been way too defensive with each other for a long time and that opens the doors for miscommunication. The differences were I was willing to let go of the past and he wasn’t and I tried to keep our differences from having a negative impact on the raids and the gulid and he didn’t. One of the guildies summed it up well when she said, “If Princess wasn’t happy no one was.”

I’m truly sad in many ways to see him go. We were friends for a long time before we ever started playing together in Heroic. I can still remember teaching him the Malygos fight back when that was still the big thing. However, this has been a long time coming and, in the long run, I really think it’s for the best.

So far the guild doesn’t seem too shaken up. I’ve sent them mail to make sure they know that I’m here and nothing changes. The officers have met to figure out what to do with the few pieces he handled and to replace his class/spec. Just your standard damage control. Most of the comments I’ve heard have been along the lines of him being moody, grumpy and not himself for quite a while. I’m sure they won’t miss the delays in raid so he could have temper tantrums either.

I think the biggest mistake I made with this whole situation was attempting to have a co-GM. I know some guilds make it work but the way the game is set up structurally there really isn’t a way to truly make someone else of an equal rank. There will always be one person with the final controls. When new people come into the guild and need to know who is who they will sort by rank. It didn’t help that I’m MT and raid leader most times too. I think he wanted more respect based on rank but never really carved out a defined area in which to demonstrate his expertise and earn the type of respect he wanted from the raiders. When it comes to guild management I’m an admitted control freak so I have to see what someone can do before I will let them loose to do it.

So, I’m a little sad, a little angry he left the way he did, and whole lot relieved that the tension and misery are over.

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-05-04T06:46:00.000-07:00

The I’m Not a Blonde But I Play One on TV Award goes to…

/drumroll

Our drunk hunter who repeatedly buffed her pet with Intell Scrolls while complaining in vent that she wasn’t getting the Intell Buff. Said hunter logged on the next day and complained she couldn’t figure out where all her scrolls went. Some people should probably not drink and raid. Ever.

The Yeah, I Should Probably Just Server Transfer Award goes to…

/drumroll

The priest who applied to one of the few guilds more progressed than we are on the server and bashed our guild on the application. We have a good relationship with that guild. We read their website. We talk whenever anyone we know applies to either guild. We are not stupid. The priest clearly is. Apply elsewhere if you must but don’t bash the guild you’re in. /Gkick.

The You All Can’t Stealth Award goes to…

/drumroll

Each and every one of the idiots who are absolutely positive they can dodge the evil Val’kyr patrolling the Upper Spire and proceed to pull the damn things, cause a loooooong drawn out wipe because we’re spread all over the instance, and then proceed to try again to run straight through the next time.

The They All Looked the Same to Me Award goes to…

/drumroll

The druid who, when told on Blood Queen to bite one of the trees, got mind controlled because he repeatedly tried to bite the treants. Really. I can’t make this shit up.

It's About Damn Time Arthas Died

2010-05-03T23:34:00.000-07:00

Oh my god I'm so glad it's over for this week. Bring on hard modes! Long overdue death. And the bastard didn't even drop my tanky weapon.

Cataclysm Raiding (Or How Blizzard Royally Screwed the 25 Man Raid)

2010-05-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

I’m one of the folks who take a look at patch notes, expansions, class changes and the rest of the panic inducing things Blizzard likes to throw out there to send the masses into a frothing frenzy and simply shrug. Meh, change happens, we’ll make it work. I don’t panic and if Blizz decides they want paladins to tank with tap shoes on while holding a barbeque fork and garbage can lid in Cataclysm then, by golly, somehow it will all work out. I can’t imagine changing my main to another class so I’ll adapt.

Pretty zen, right?

That was all before I found out that Blizzard is fucking with the one thing in this game that has made me log in damn near every day for a couple of years now: Raiding. Specifically 25 man raids. Yeah, yeah…I’ve read the blue posts, hell I read every page of the 330 page forum thread http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24401856405&sid=1 as it was developing, I understand the theory that sure you can still run 25 man raids but holy hell could Blizz be making it any harder to maintain that kind of raid group?

In any 25 man group there are people that:
A. Love the larger scale of the event

B. People that are there because the loot has always been better

C. People who would prefer to run 10s solely but all their friends are in 25s

If you take away the better loot the team will lose group B. If raiders have to make a choice between 10 or 25 in any given lockout you’re going to lose group C. This leaves group A sadly running 10s because there simply will not be the staff to do more.

If they want to cater to the strict 10 man guilds, the casuals, and the whiners who want easy-mode all the time they could go back to TBC style raids where a raid is either a 10 or a 25 not both. Gear is already way too easy to come by as a fresh 80 and is seldom an indication of skill anymore. I don’t want to see the game lose the last thing that offers a challenge to those of us want to work harder. Blue posts can say all they want that they will make the 10 and 25 raids of equal difficulty but it just isn’t that simple. It will never be as hard to manage a 10 man guild and raid team as it is to manage a 25. Once they post something like this chances are it is going live. I can hold out some small hope they might listen to the community but odds are definitely against it.

In the mean time while we wait to be sure I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for the guild now and mentally making a list of the raiders I do and don’t want in my 10 man guild in case I don’t quit the game altogether.

Blood Queen's Reign is Over!

2010-04-29T22:52:00.001-07:00

Not bad, in my opinion!

I promise I will write more soon...Stupid Awards need to be done, there's bitching to be had, and I'm absolutely disgusted with the 10/25 shared lockout coming in Cataclysm.

Professor Down!

2010-04-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

Last night we finally got Putricide down on 25! And, as the picture says, I will change the tabard for them. Recently it's been a vile combination of browns and greens with vials on it. Putricide themed don't you know!

We spent Wednesday wiping endlessly on him and I was prepared for a sudden influx of "something's come up" and to not have 25 on Thursday since they knew we were headed right back to him. Happily I was wrong. Our veteran raiders are estatic and I'm pretty impressed with some of our new recruits' stamina and determination even if there are some skills to refine. Showing up is the biggest part in my book...well, unless you are permantly stamped with the Stupid Debuff in which case we'll show you the door.

Later last night we knocked out Blood Council - farm boss - and spent some quality time with the Blood Queen. We made some decent progress and I think if we had not hit the end of raid time so quickly we would have had her.

Tonight its back to LK on 10...he must go down...please don't make me walk into another week of Marrowgar on regular mode!

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-04-20T00:14:00.001-07:00

The Flask on Hot Bar Bad Award goes to…

/drumroll

The tank who consumed 4 Stoneblood flasks in a boss fight because he put them on his hot bar where his cooldowns used to be

The Wait, What Did I Tell You? Award goes to…

/drumroll

The priest who changed his story about why his performance was low depending on who he talked to. If you are going to make excuses for bad performance don’t change the excuse you’re offering when you talk to different people. Does he think we don’t talk?

The Look Ma, I’m Special! Award goes to…

/drumroll

All the people who bought the Starry My Little Pony mount to show off their uniqueness

The Why Don’t You Just Gkick Me Now? Award goes to…

/drumroll
The priest and warrior who decided it was a really brilliant idea to ask the GM and Princess to go to TOC 10 and then give much, much sass and attitude about raid rules and loot rules - which were not standard - because “it was THEIR run” while carrying a brand spanking new 80 druid friend

The Left, Right, Left, Wait, Which Way? Award goes to…

/drumroll

The druid in ICC 10 who repeatedly wiped the raid by running ice tombs into the raid group on Sindragosa. Repeatedly. /facepalm

The I’m a Pally! Award goes to…

/drumroll

Me! For trusting a new update of Pally Power and not checking to see that for sure, for really really sure, I had Righteous Defense up before pulling Sindragosa…and then yelling at the dps for pulling aggro (and people say I never add myself here!)

The You’re a Pally! Award goes to…

/drumroll

A certain rogue who shall remain nameless for telling our warrior tank to drop consecration and use hammer of righteousness in her explanation of a boss fight (and she says she was looking at me at the time…I am hot after all!)

The Enforcer's Guest Post

2010-04-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

/wave

I’m your friendly neighborhood rogue. Aka: ‘The Enforcer”. Yeah that’s right …/flex. Anyways Lark has been hinting at me writing a guest post on her blog. Well, I’ve been procrastinating for two reasons: 1. I’m horrible at typing. 2. I’m horrible at writing. So far 2 of 5 delicious combo pts.

Anyways this whole enforcer dealio started as a joke. Our guild was (I mean the casters – including healers btw /rollseyes) getting our faces PWNed by malleable ooze on Professor Putricide. So I send Lark a tell, “Can I be GM for a day? So I can kick these bads?” Little did I know she’d like the idea.

The night goes on and a list begins to form:

• Stand in shit that wasn’t there before…GKICK!
• Don’t switch from boss to slimes….GKICK!
• Somehow miss seeing giant green oozes flying at you…Also somehow miss blaring DBM warning telling you your going to get hit if you don’t gtfo….zomfg GKICK!
• Ask what an A-bomb is…GKICK!
• Stand in place so the orange ooze eats your face…zomfg GKICK!
• Run into the middle of the raid when you are the ice tomb…4 times…GKICK!
• Ask what the boss does after you’ve been in on kills 7 times…GKICK!
• Don’t suck up to me…GKICK! I mean…ummm…

You see where this is going don’t you? Now I enjoy smoking the green so I don’t exactly remember how many threatening whispers I sent to Lark or what was said before I logged on to a new guild rank: “The Enforcer” - Badass.

So where are our raiders’ brains? Probably the same place as my offhand dagger.

Take it from behind,

Bre

(Note: The Enforcer hasn’t actually been allowed to /gkick anyone…yet. We’re going to call them out, demand less Stupid Debuffs, and let The Enforcer scare the hell out of them for a week or so first!)

Lines in the Sand - Part II and Updates!

2010-04-17T23:12:00.000-07:00

I appreciate the input on the situation with the over-the-line guildie. In the end we did talk about the things that were said and the behavior that has been disrupting progression. I think, I hope, that I have made it very clear that this is the last chance before something has to give permanently. /fingers crossed

This week’s Stupid Awards were taken by one person - who so very much deserved a spotlight - but there are soooooo many in the wings it’s going to take a few days to come up with the Epic Stupid Awards!

We have been recruiting - Is it again or still? Does it ever stop? - and I’m hoping to do some housekeeping soon. Sounds cold-hearted, I know, but damn…seriously? Do you really want me to go through the entire explanation of raid assignments again because you were messing with iTunes?

More to come soon!

And….

Maybe….

Just maybe….

A guest post by the new Guild Enforcer!

That’s right! Lark’s employing muscle! Be good!

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-04-16T20:07:00.001-07:00

The Hey, I Just Bought My Toon on eBay! Award of the Week goes to...

/drumroll

Anthealde, the pally "tank" who clearly hasn't looked up anything to do with paladins since TBC.

Ok, I wouldn't usually call someone out so blatently but this is just a prime example of someone who doesn't do the slightest bit of homework. I really thought he'd just forgotten to change gear when this started...little did I know....

Seriously....?

Yup, seriously.

Zomg.

I needed that giggle.

Lines in the Sand - Part I

2010-04-16T01:03:00.000-07:00

What would you do if someone in your guild crossed those lines you just don’t want to go anywhere near? The deal-breaker lines. The lines that separate what’s acceptable to say and what’s not. The lines that if someone crossed with your mother or sister or wife would mean you would wind up in a fist fight.

What if this person became derogatory towards you as a woman and insulted your current lifestyle in a public chat? What about referring to the people you raid with and play with everyday as pixels to justify your lack of consideration for their time?

What would you do?

Science Class

2010-04-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

Gotta love Tuesdays!

I’m all caught up on blog reading - found some new ones today too. Spent some time at Wow.com watching videos and perusing other class changes coming (tomorrow is pally day!).

I also dissected the guild today. Go ahead, picture that frog splayed out on the table looking at you with his beady eyes, the feeling was very similar. Ugh.

Out of 45 active mains in the guild 20 of them landed on this list:

• We know you will be gone because you were kind enough to let us know your work/life schedule changed and we’ll welcome you with open arms when you return

• You’ve always been flaky about attendance and you just moved to the side of the roster where we’ll let you raid if no one else wants to

• You’re new…shouldn’t you be making a better impression?

• You’re emo

• You’re name looks familiar and I’m pretty sure you used to be here every day…alien abduction?

• I’d like to /gkick you but you’re friends with the Princess

This leaves us with the following raiders - and includes 5 new recruits that I’m desperately hoping live up to at least some of the expectations - to form the bulk of our M-Th raiding team:

• 2 Tanks - Me and one who is completely untried with us (cue the scary horror movie music here)

• 15 DPS - 2 of which have solid tanking off specs and 2 of which have solid healing off specs

• 8 Healers - 4 of which have strong DPS off specs

Now remember, today is Tuesday, so I fully expect to see somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 people on for the weekly loot piñatas. So here’s the GM/RL dilemma:

Do I….

• Make sure to save absolutely everyone to ensure the reset raiders can’t pug later in the week? /cackles maniacally

• Only bring the new “core” to give them the best shot at upgrades? (Particularly since we are relying fairly heavily on duel speccing?)

• Ask for volunteers to sit like we usually do? (This is boring for the people who sit and I know they do it to be nice but I really hate it for them.)

• Pretend I’m suddenly deaf, mute and illiterate and ignore all whispers and set up the Dream Team?

What would you do?

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-04-12T01:42:00.000-07:00

I haven’t done the Stupid Awards of the Week for a while…partially slacking and partially that once I had a chance to look back on the potentials they just seemed sad. That being said I just have one for the week.

The OMFG Did You Seriously Think You’d Get Away with This Award goes to…

/drumroll

The former guildie who applied - and was accepted I might add - to the guild under an entirely different toon.

In our defense, it had been many, many months since he had been in Heroic and, quite frankly, we aren’t all that good about naming all our current guildies voices in vent if pressed!

Let me elaborate. Once the mage that went through the interview process was accepted we immediately moved into raid invite mode - for which he was accepted given that we are trying to replace the reset raiders - and the whispers started. “Isn’t that one of _______’s toons? “, “Who is that? The name/voice is familiar.”

I whispered the “new” mage and said, “There are some people here who think you are ________ ….”

He responds with, “Yeah, I am but I didn’t think you’d let me back in on my main.”

To which I replied, “Well, duh, you left on bad terms and tried to recruit people from out guild to go with you!”

At which point he was given the option to leave with dignity to be /gkicked.

Really?! Recruiting isn’t enough of a pain in the ass without re-recruiting!?!?

Dreamwalker Lives! (And so do I...mostly.)

2010-04-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

Finally!!!

Dreamwalker is down…err…up! We went in Tuesday and got her healed on the first try. We tweaked the strategy and had two tanks gather all the adds in two spots and the melee just ate the damage. Healers knew it was incoming and were prepared. It worked beautifully! None of us could believe how easy it was…finally, after two weeks of wiping our faces off. But yay for new progression boss!

Attendance is still killing me on non-Tuesday raid nights. I’m recruiting my ass off but it takes time. I finally sent the entire guild in-game mail requesting they let me know if they have lost interest in raiding or if this is a temporary state. I figured it was the least I could do before I started the /gkicks.

I’ve opened communication with another guild about a possible merger but it’s very much in the early stages and we’ll have to see what happens there. It would have to be a case of them joining us…as much as I may bitch and have my moments where I’d sooner eat a family-sized bag of spicy Cheetos with no beverage than run a guild I’m not willing to give up the GM thing. Partially because of the inner control freak and partly because Heroic has been my baby from day one.

WTF Bunnies?!

2010-04-05T21:44:00.001-07:00

Arthas has a moment.

Raider Black Hole

2010-04-03T22:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve been a bit lax in posting lately because the only thing on my mind has been attendance. And you know what that means don’t you? Yes, indeed, another bitching post!

So here it is! The most annoying attendance issues I can think of:

New recruits that swear up and down that they will be here every raid night without fail. No matter what. Every night. And then they don’t show up for the first week…I have no idea where they are. They are about to be guildless though.

New recruits that show up and don’t get a piece of loot they want - despite the fact that they haven’t been here long enough to earn it and know about the trial period of no shiny pixels - and won’t raid for days. They are also about to be guildless.

Raiders who disappear with no word for days/weeks on end. Unless you are in a coma or in jail you can at least log on and shoot me an in-game mail or get on our website and send an email.

People that actually go to the trouble of signing up on the calendar…and then they don’t show up.

People who won’t accept or decline the calendar invite but instead choose “tentative” for every raid night. How is it you are only tentatively going to be here? You said you could raid those nights...help me understand.

Raiders who use any one (or more) of the following excuses more than once every two months:

I fell asleep
I was too drunk
Wife/GF/BF/Husband aggro
I was bleeding on my keyboard
I lost my authenticator
I was grounded
I didn’t feel like raiding
The power went out (and yet strangely you updated Facebook at that time…)

Emo excuses of any kind, don't care, over it, pop a Xanax and get on your damn toon.

There’s more I’m sure…heard any good/bad ones lately?

Lazy Days

2010-03-29T05:49:00.000-07:00

Thursday we had crap attendance again so I recruited a new mage and shaman while we wiped in TOGC and ran alts in regular TOC. I’m frustrated, the raiders are frustrated, and the only people that aren’t frustrated are the ones that don’t show up.

I was not needed for the second ICC 10 on my priest or lock on Friday or Saturday so I spent some time on basic toon maintenance - fishing, herbing, doing the fishing and cooking dailies for the first time in about a month, and getting my little scrub mage some crafted gear so she is not totally embarrassing to look at…poor Bopeep! Now she could at least run an TOC 10 though.

Yesterday was all about my alt though. Hunter and warrior are the only two classes I don’t have at least to their 60s.

I have a warrior in sitting at 40 who is decked in BOA and Scarlet Crusade gear. I pull her out when someone I know has a toon about her level, play with them for a level or so, then forget about her again. I’d like to get excited about her but I’m just not. I think it might just be a melee class thing. The rogue stuck at level 73 was power leveled with RAF through dungeons and just sits in Dalaran now with a bouquet of flowers as her offhand.

The hunter, on the other hand, I think may have a chance. I figured out at least part of the reason she was stuck in her 30s for so long - her name. She had a name that was too similar to the Princess’s name and every time I logged on her I continuously got whispers for him. Not so good when you’re trying to keep a low profile and escape from GM-type whispers for a while. I woke up yesterday and decided that she needed to be an engineer and needed a name change. I dumped enchanting and skinning, ran a few dungeons, quested my way through STV and now she’s Pyroannie, has mining and engineering at 300, and has hit level 42. Bombs are fun!

We’ll have to wait and see what tonight looks like for raiding but you can be quite sure the masses will be on tomorrow. I can’t wait to use some of Gauss’s suggestions for Dreamwalker (see his comments on the last post). I’ll keep you posted!

Chicken

2010-03-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

Nope, TOGC didn’t happen.

We went to ICC as expected. It was kind of a flaky, spacy mood at first but it was overall not too bad. The usual suspects are dead and we spent some quality time on Dreamwalker. Our issues there, I think, are a combination of bad tanking and DPS that isn’t used to bad tanking. The DPS therefore doesn’t run from big things that will hit them and they stand there beating on it and dying with surprised looks on their faces because no one pulled it off of them. I’m still looking for a tank to blow me away.

The reason we didn’t go to TOGC? I chickened out.

Recruiting is getting harder and harder as we get closer to the end of the content and people are either “taking breaks”, involved with springtime things involving sunshine or school, or sticking with the guilds they have because they’re either seeing the content they want or have given up on seeing the content they want. This means I need to keep the people that are in the guild happy. Also, I realized, we have largely weeded out the reset raiders that used to be such a pain in the ass every Tuesday. I genuinely like most of the people in the guild at this point - some more than others but overall there’s a pretty good feeling - and I don’t want to lose them to a guild that is going to carry them through the content we haven’t downed yet. So, their happiness won out for this week.

Back to the recruiting drawing board for me. We still need a couple of raiders that don’t have RL commitments (or a fear of commitment) to allow us some breathing room certain days of the week. Should I see us slipping again though….TOGC here we come.

It's Either Evil or Brilliant

2010-03-21T06:31:00.000-07:00

Mwhahahaha….

When the raiders - loyal and reset alike - arrive on Tuesday they may find themselves in for a surprise. There may be no Frost Emblems, farm bosses and shiny 264 purples. What there may be is progression of a different sort complete with WWS reports, notes of how well they take the news (and ninja logs), and very familiar content with a twist.

The guild was very young, mostly under-geared, and somewhat inexperienced when we formed last June so we were still running Naxx 25 for gear for some folks to make it past the first several bosses in Ulduar 25. This means that we started behind in the race for progression there and were still playing catch-up when TOC 25 was released. We did a pretty good job of catching up on TOC to some of the other guilds but it wasn’t until ICC that we started content on an almost equal footing. Sadly we still have not gone back and downed Yogg, completed some of the hard modes, or really made an honest attempt at Trial of the Grand Crusader 25. We’ve been too wrapped up in the newest content to make time for it.

Well, guess what raiders….TOGC is calling.

I am frustrated with the slow pace of our ICC 25 progression and concerned about the complicated, raid awareness challenging content to come (Oh, was that poison I was standing in? Oops. I didn’t bite the right person and now I’m mind controlled? Oops.), and certain attention spans and learning curves. My train of thought right now is this:

• If people can’t listen to directions and assignments on very familiar (for the most part) content how will we ever get down unfamiliar, complex content?

• If a raider is lazy, spaced out, doesn’t care, insert excuse here ________ , and dies to things they’ve known to avoid for months then what does that say about them for progression content in ICC?

• If a raider is unwilling to do content that may not result in shiny purple 264’s but is still progression points for the guild then do they really belong here?

So, Tuesday, unless I am persuaded (and it better be a damn good reason) otherwise, we will be going to TOGC. I will be recording the raid and those that are successful, attentive, and positive will be given a great deal of priority for the ICC 25 content they desire. Those that are negative, wearing the Stupid Debuff, or unwilling to do the content will be less of a priority and, in extreme cases, relegated to post-progression content or removed from the guild.

What am I expecting? Honestly, I expect most of them to do their best and actually like aspects of the idea. I think the very small minority will be the ones complaining (or worse) that I will have to deal with later, and I think there may be 2 or 3 that will be having serious conversations about their status in the guild with their class leader and me.

Wish me luck!

Hello Arthas

2010-03-20T02:10:00.000-07:00

Finally. We are on the Lich King in 10 man ICC. Soooo close I can almost taste the frosty death.

Now we just need to get here on 25....

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-03-20T02:05:00.000-07:00

The WTF RP Award of the Week goes to….

/drumroll

Random players on Nesingwary - they targeted me as a raid boss with focusing gems on the steps of the Dalaran bank for at least 20 minutes while players I don’t even know played out an entire RP raid scenario…on a non-RP server. Including blowing Heroism. (Ok, it was kind of funny and they were clearly bored. Lol.)

The Shouldn’t You be Farming Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

Me. For standing on the steps in Dalaran long enough for that to happen while doing nothing but /tells and talking in vent.

The Homework is Sooooo Boring Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The 80 paladin who thought if he didn’t use the right color gems in his sockets he would not get any of the gems properties. /sigh

The Let Me Tell You a Story Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

A particular lock and druid who persisted in giving long, drawn out explanations of how they died (or how they didn’t know how they died) in vent during Dreamwalker 25 - which is a very vocal fight for calling out mobs. This despite being asked to be more succinct. Seriously, just don’t die. Repeatedly.

Communication and Lark 101

2010-03-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

(I'm thinking about putting this on our guild forums...I'd love some input first as to whether or not it's a good idea!)

With new content come new challenges. I understand it is a time when things that you might have brushed off before suddenly seem bigger and more aggravating. Wiping over and over on the same bosses can be frustrating and the repair bills can make you wonder when you're going to have time to farm enough. It can seem like a long road when you're on it and I can understand why you might feel a bit blue at times. It is, however, progression....this is what is it always like. But wait! At the end of all this you get that great feeling when everything clicks and we finally down the big, bad boss! It's never as hard as it is the first time...nor is it ever as good which is why I don't want to be in a guild that carries me through content.

That being said please know that I care about each of you and want to make sure you are hanging in there and feeling okay. I'm available if you want to talk and want to help you to feel heard. So, this little post is to help you understand how the mind of Lark works so that you don't walk away feeling like you've wasted your time.

1. Have the facts. Come prepared with specific example of situations you might like to have seen handled differently. Vague allusions to "well, that one time" or "well, I'm not going to name names but..." do not go very far. If your complaint or concern is not important enough for you to gather your research or (God forbid!) put yourself out on a limb then it's probably going to get filed in the Lacking Seriousness File. If you're not comfortable naming names then encourage the actual person with the issue to come to me directly. Contrary to popular belief (and to the disappointment of some!) I seldom bite.

2. If you would like to see a rule or process changed then bring logic and a potential solution. Simply telling me you don't like it is nothing but aggravating. If you want to see the way we do, say, 10 man ICCs changed then bring me a plan. When you bring these ideas though, be prepared for me to play Devil's Advocate and ask some hard questions. Remember, while I care about what you want and what you have to say I have 40+ other people to take into account.

3. Let the dead horse rest in peace and for god's sake quit beating it! If you have attempted to go through the steps in #2 and you do not get the change you want, believe me there are reasons why it didn't change. If I have explained to you repeatedly why something like the loot system is not going to suddenly go to DKP then let it go. Try to understand the reasoning behind decisions - and I'm happy to go into detail with you - but at the end of the day it is what it is in certain circumstances. Now, if you have a suggestion on how to make the current system better...well, then refer to #2 on this list.

4. If the issue is with me and something I may say or do there is only one simple thing to do: Be honest. Don't launch a personal attack or come into a conversation defensive but be honest. If I ask you for clarification about why you feel the way you do then tell me. Decide what it is that you want to make sure I understand and stick to the topic...talking in circles and changing subjects doesn't help. I'm very logical and will be more open to feedback if you are addressing one thing at a time.

5. Lastly, be prepared for me to need time to think. Don't take long silences as a sign I've checked out and am now IMing on Facebook. I'm not. I'm listening and I'm thinking about what you are saying. Give me a chance to process whatever it is and respond. If what you are bringing me is something that will have an impact on the guild if we change it then be prepared for me to take some time to bring it to the officers and, possibly, other people or to do some more homework of my own.

Wow, that was longer that I thought it would be! Hope it helps!

Go Figure

2010-03-16T22:10:00.001-07:00

Four guild members quit tonight and, for the first time ever in this situation, I really don’t care.

Two of the four were being largely carried and I certainly won’t miss the complaints from the healers about the squishy tank or the wipes because the healer does a mediocre job. One of them was not a bad melee dps but was hit or miss when it came to attendance. The last I will miss for performance but half the guild hated (and, yes, I do mean hated, him) and he too was iffy lately on attendance.

The only things about the situation that irritate me are that they /gquit without a word - they all came in together - and that they raided tonight and took loot prior to leaving which, in my mind is unethical. The tank and healer don’t need to be replaced at this point, the shadow priest already has been, and the rogue shouldn’t be too hard to find quickly.

The guild’s reaction was amusing in that there was little surprise and the overwhelming sentiment was one of relief. Sad for them that they can be here with these folks for some time and, when they leave, no one is terribly upset. That says something about their character and interactions with the guild I suppose.

Otherwise, nice raid tonight. We moved fairly fast, got Blood Council down again, and made some definite progress on Blood Queen…tomorrow she dies!

Dear Guildies,

2010-03-16T11:55:00.000-07:00

This week I would appreciate if you would make an effort to keep your GM sane.

I know you are capable of so much more than you are demonstrating right now. Your work on the Blood Council proves that not only can we down bosses further into ICC 25 but that we can do without night after night of wiping. We did not spend much time on them last night - just enough for people who had never done it to get the hang of the annoying swirly vortexes of doom - and that last attempt, the one where we killed them, none of you even died.

So, this week, please dear guildies, kill the damn oozes fast on Putricide without killing yourselves, bite the people you are supposed to bite before you fall under the control of the Blood Queen, and be on the correct side of the frost tombs so you don’t get your face frozen off.

Let’s all check for the Stupid Debuff, set American Idol to record, tell your significant other you will make it up to them if they leave you alone during raids, turn down the music so your RL doesn’t have to repeat themselves, and FOCUS!

Oh, and one more thing...no more freaking AFKs!!!

Thank you,

Your very tired and frustrated GM

Bring Out Your Dead!

2010-03-12T23:41:00.000-08:00

Just another Friday night in SAN...20 new DKs roflstomped Azeroth!

We bonded by killing innocent citizens. It was heart-warming. Really.

We were thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to winning the battle and staying evil. I swear. We were.

Just to unwind after becoming all not-so-evil we scared the hell out of Arathi Basin horde and ate some 80 horde faces who were trying to touch out newly beloved Stormwind.

We rule.

Much fun was had by all...in a clammy undead sort of way.

Single Abstract Noun

2010-03-11T02:52:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, there is a new place to hang out with the blogging community! Thanks to Miss Medicina and many more Single Abstract Noun is thriving over on Argent Dawn. For more information check this out! http://missmedicina.blogspot.com/2010/03/single-abstract-noun-is-recruiting.html

Meet the new Xlark! (And who knew Nelfs had so much cleavage?!)

I have to admit, I’ve been a bit shy about jumping right in to this new world. The RP aspect of it confuses and intimidates me…oh, I’ve been reading up on RP etiquette and whatnot but so far I just don’t quite get it. I’m willing to explore a different way of experiencing the game. I just feel a little silly right now.

Also, my alts are spoiled. They are used to having a big sister to give them gold and bags and shiny greens as soon as they come into being. They want BOAs! Over on AD there is no gold, bags or BOAs for them and the thought of leveling a toon without these lovely luxuries seems daunting. I like my spoiled alts, damn it! I’ve thought of transferring a semi-leveled toon over with goodies but feel like I might miss out on part of what this new venture would bring. I haven’t completely ruled out the idea but for now I’m going to see how it goes.

It’s fun to see the names of people I’ve been following and finding new blogs to read. I had to laugh when I tabbed out to blog hop, followed a link on Miss M.’s blog roll, wound up at http://gnomesryummy.blogspot.com/ and tabbed back in to see his new gnome, Imyummy, online. When am I ever going to level this little druid if I keep getting distracted by blogs?!

See you over on Argent Dawn! Look for Xlark!

Raiding Blues

2010-03-10T16:29:00.001-08:00

I don’t feel like raiding. Really, shocking, I know. I’m having one of those days when I question why I ever wanted to run a guild. I don’t want to log on to any of my toons in the guild and have to deal with any of the following:

Who’s missing? Where is the shammie who said his mom was sick and hasn’t been on for 10 days? Why does it seem like we are missing someone in guild…did they ninja transfer and I haven’t figured it out yet? Will either of the other shammies show up tonight to heal or will they offer more vague excuses after the fact? And where is our fluffy chicken who hasn’t been on in 2 days? Is he ok?

The priest doesn’t like the other priest who doesn’t like the hunter who doesn’t like the warrior. So who is going to /emogquit today?

What am I going to do about the officer who shows up once every few weeks and wants to be in on a Tuesday night? And feels entitled because he pays for vent. And how can I justify bringing him in over raiders who are there every night? And, frankly, why should I? And on that note, what will the officers be bitching and arguing about tonight?

Will we have enough healers? Tanks? Dps? If not, why? Does that mean I need to recruit even more?

Last night was really sloppy from Marrowgar all the way through Rotface. I’m not really in the mood to try and motivate them for progression. I still can’t quite figure out what was off about it. Just one of those nights, I guess. Maybe tonight will be better. Some magical change will take place and everyone will do their jobs to the best of their abilities. I can hope. Besides, it’s too late to call in sick.

What's Aggro?

2010-03-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

The other day, as I was happily healing random dungeons on my little baby pally (don't ask why I needed another one...I had to level something!), I encountered this Noobmage Buttscratcha (zomg, a name says soooo much!) in SFK. He had no self control! None! Blithely blizzarding his happy gnome ass off before the poor bear had a chance to swipe on every pull. I finally informed him that if he insisted on tanking I would cheerfully let him die.

His response, "I'm not tanking!"

We nicely tried to explain he needed to watch his aggro which led to this...

I hope he has lucrative professions...this one's going to rack up a lot of repairs bills.

To Rant or Not to Rant...

2010-03-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

Lately the hot topic in the Wow blog world seems to be whether or not you should - or even can - have anonymity about your blog, whether it is something you can not exactly hide but not announce either and keep it to a few friends, or whether you need to throw a party and come completely out of the blogging closet. Cranky Healer has a great post with links to the vast majority of the posts that I read about this http://crankyhealer.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/anonymity-blogs-and-bloggers/. Tamarind at Righteous Orbs made me sad as I’ve been following him for some time http://www.blogger.com/www.righteousorbs.com/?p=1447. Oh, and I am so creating a toon for this idea missmedicina.blogspot.com/2010/03/single-abstract-noun-is-recruiting.html!

I haven’t written much recently because I know at least a few guildies read my posts once in a while. Other than the one time I accidentally pasted the blog link into /gchat instead of /tell (which luckily no one was paying attention to as I’m sure they thought it was one more piece of boss homework I wanted them to do before raid) I haven’t officially announced to my guild that this blog exists. Some read it, most don’t - it’s hard enough to get them to read strategies and I still get the /chat equivalent of a blank stare when I mention the forums to a few of them.

The reason I mention this is every time I’ve started a post this last few days it has been deleted before I publish something that will most certainly come back to bite me in the ass. I started blogging as a way to vent and get out some of the GM/RL angst that was smothering me and to try to be somewhat humorous about it at the same time. What started an attempt to retain some semblance of sanity has grown a wee bit and *gasp* I have no freaking clue who is reading it anymore. (And if you tell me in whispers next time I log on that you aren’t reading it I will know you read it so don’t lie to me. Yes, Moo. I know you do.)

One thing I can say that I don’t say anything here that I either haven’t said or wouldn’t say directly to the person. (Although I might try to tone down the sarcasm just a tad. Might try. Might.) The trouble is what is eating at me lately are topics that are sensitive and could in no way be couched in language to hide certain people’s identity. Let’s face it, for example, if you want to rant about your officers and only have four and a half or so it makes it fairly obvious who you are talking about.

Soooo…until I either resolve the issues, get over them, get steamrolled by new ones, or finally just give in and post the rants I will sit here and stew in silence about them. Someone remind me not to post when drinking anytime soon.

Happy Tuesday of Dead Bosses

2010-03-03T03:03:00.000-08:00

Yay for Tuesdays and new timers!

We did indeed gain seven new raiders over the past few days and tonight was our first 25 man with them. Needless to say, being Tuesday every Reset Raider came out of the woodwork assuming they would be included and given the shiny purple pixels of their dreams simply for gracing us with their presence.

Nu’uh, not this week.

I think we capped out at 39 raiders on at one point and, contrary to what the Reset Raiders thought would happen, we included the new raiders in on the vast majority of the bosses. We do a fair amount of subbing in and out on farm bosses and did indeed bring in some of the Reset Raiders for a token boss or two but even the healers - who had gotten particularly comfy with the idea that (pardon the pun) we couldn’t live without them - had to sit if they did not have stellar raid attendance.

And then a couple of things happened…

People paid attention.

Raiders were focused and followed directions well.

Veteran raiders stepped up their game and the new raiders did well.

And, we downed a new boss! That’s right, Blood Council is dead! Best of all, we did it in three tries and most folks had never done it before on 10 man.

There was definitely a tighter feel to the raid tonight. It seemed to bring out the A-game in people knowing that there were several toons parked right outside the instance eager to replace them if things did not go well. There was less negativity, less complaining (outside of whispers anyways lol), and an extremely low rate of people being infected with the Stupid Debuff.

We did “lose” - and I use the term lightly - one mage and his stable of alts because he wasn’t included. Well, duh, you show up every other week for farm content and you think you earned a spot?!? Hello! Nooblet, where were you when we needed you?

We’ll see how the rest of the week plays out and how attendance is but overall I am cautiously optimistic about getting several new 25 man bosses down this week!

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-02-26T23:49:00.000-08:00

The Ninja Logger of the Week Award goes to…

/drumroll

The holy pally who let us know he was tired and logged out less than two minutes later in ICC 10. And we were doing well! At least give some notice so we can replace you…with a hunter.

The AFK Raider Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The priest who showed up for 1/3 of the25 man raids he was supposed to this week, 2 hours late for his ICC 10 and proceeded to pester me about when he could get in a raid for the next 30 minutes when he finally did log in. Seriously?

The “Did He Really Just Say That!?!” Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The pally tank who, when given his directions for Dreamwalker (again) after a wipe led to this conversation:

RL - “Kill order: Blazing skelies, mages, blight zombies, A-Bombs.”

Tank - “What’s an A-Bomb?”

Other Tank - “A-Bombs, Abominations…You know the things that look like Patchwerk and Meathook.”

Tank - “Huh?”

(Silence so whispers can fly)

Other Tank - “The stitched up, gross things…”

Tank - “What are they called?”

Other Tank - “A-Bombs! Abominations!”

Tank - “Oh. Is that what they are called?”

(Silence)

Tank - “So we kill those first?”

Please refer to the post regarding the Stupid Debuff now.

Fingers Crossed

2010-02-26T22:19:00.001-08:00

Maybe, just maybe, one little whisper has (at least for the moment) solved my recruiting nightmare….

I saw a post on our server’s forum about a ret pally looking for a home. He was geared and spelled things correctly so I whispered him in game when I saw him on. Lo and behold, he comes with about 5-6 friends - all equally geared! The really odd part is that they are classes we need! A hunter to replace the one whose college grades were dropping, a holy priest to replace the one who is strangely absent for progression fights, and a few others to buff up our remaining Wed/Thurs holes.

Two of them have joined already and the rest say they will be over before reset on Tuesday. I fully expect some drama in the ranks when they are included in the 25 man run that night in place of those that have been flakey. Are there words to express how much I don’t care? I’ve been tracking attendance; I know who shows and who doesn’t. A little competition for raid spots isn’t a bad thing. We have a few who seem to have become a just a tad too comfortable and are showing up later and later or are always the last ones to arrive back after a wipe. We need to get back to having hungry raiders if we plan on moving forward with speedy progression!

So, fingers crossed it works out well…I’ll let you know!

Recruiting Sucks

2010-02-25T01:54:00.000-08:00

Not much more to say than that. Don't want to, just might have to. Bleh.

Either Or...

2010-02-25T00:35:00.000-08:00

It’s good or bad, high or low, boss dead or us dead - there seems to be little middle ground.

Tuesday, on 25, we blew through the first wing, Rotface, and Festerfuck and had time to put in one shot on Dreamwalker before the end of raid time. It was easy, it was fun and the Raid Bitch only came out in jest. Then the 10 man right after it was a complete cluster fuck - I could hear the circus music in my head. We wipe in trash, the drunk priest wiped us trying to be funny, the OT had trouble managing adds, and we barely crawled through Sarfang. And this was the “good” group.

Wednesday we got off to a very slow, rocky start in 25s due to late attendance, officer who refused to run due to his emo-ness, and a few folks who said they couldn’t make it. We gave Dreamwalker a few attempts but the heals weren’t there and the two OTs (different from the one the night before mind you) seemed to have left all threat outside the instance. We had a priest (not the drunk one) who broke his mouse (kind of funny in retrospect hearing him slamming the mouse on his desk and wondering why it wouldn’t work) and since we didn’t have a replacement for him it took forever for him to try to find a work around, multiple badly timed DCs, and attitude all the way around it was not going to happen. We moved to Blood Council instead, wiped on trash, and eventually got the BC down to about 26%. Not an awful attempt since we hadn’t spent any real time on them. Then we pulled together the 10 man again, one-shotted Dreamwalker, and got BC down for the first time after only (I think) three attempts. We called it early as two healers had to go but not a bad 10 man night at all.

So, feast or famine. Go figure.

Did You Say Something...?

2010-02-23T14:55:00.000-08:00

Quit your whining.

I’ve told you all repeatedly that I’m bad at answering tells and don’t always read raid/guild/officer chat and to say something in vent if you want my attention. Unless you’ve been a GM and/or RL - or both at the same time like me - you have no freaking idea what my screen looks like most days. So let me help you out. Here are a few of the (MANY!!!) reasons I may not answer you thereby ensuring your feelings are hurt, you feel neglected, and you go all emo for the next four hours:

I’m tabbed out….

* Doing raid research

* Looking up potential recruits

* Checking to see if you enchanted/gemmed the gear you got since historically you’ve been a slacker when it comes to that

* Reading blogs so I can remember I’m not the only one being slowly driven mad by my guild

* Anything else that makes me happy and it’s none of your business

I have 13 other people whispering me at the time…

* “Can I buy _______ out of the gbank?”

* “Is your guild recruiting?”

* “Why didn’t I get X piece of loot when I’ve been here longer/show up more/am cuter and therefore more deserving?”

* “So-and-so is being mean/offensive/ignoring me.”

* “Why am I on standby when I’m the best DPS ever/best healer ever/only missed 3 days last week/feeling punished for no reason?”

I’m not reading…

* /Gchat because you all were talking about cars/sex/your epeen/nonsense and I don’t care

* /Officer chat because you were bickering/insulting me/bitching/talking nonsense/arguing

* /Raid chat because your emotes have pushed aside anything that may have been important/you’re bragging about your DPS or heals/you’re talking about nonsense that has nothing to do with the raid

* Anything at all because I’m buried in all of the above and just truly missed it

And you can fully expect me to truly be ignoring any of the following…

* “What time are we raiding?” - It never changes…are you really asking this?

* “Are we raiding?” - Is it a raid night?

* “What are we raiding?” - You know I don’t announce this ahead of time and, duh, it’s probably ICC 25 unless it’s Saturday and, Dumbass, it doesn’t matter as you should be here for anything we raid.

* “What are you wearing?” - ‘Nough said.

* Absolutely anything I choose that is not raid related when I have /DND Raid Time up. Seriously, did you think that didn’t mean you?

So stop complaining, grab my attention in vent, and get over it. Unless you’re a masochist and like feeling abused in which case keep doing what you’re doing. And I will keep not seeing your comments.

You Tell Me...

2010-02-22T15:20:00.001-08:00

Is it a new low in bribery or a brilliant motivational tool?

Frankly, I’m just looking for a way to keep the team willing to show up on wipe-fest nights! It made sense to me until one of the officers responded to the mail with a LOL and “desperate, are we?”. Meh, at this point whatever works to get new bosses down with a minimum of whining and ninja dcs.

Stupid Awards of the Week

2010-02-21T20:11:00.001-08:00

Emo /Gquit Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The warlock who was told it was against guild rules to pug ICC 10 before Sunday and went anyway! When called on it he said, and I quote, “You can’t tell me what to do” and left the guild.

Stupidest Waste of Flask Time Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The druid who left raid to hop on an alt to buy buff food for another druid who came to raid unprepared!

And the OMG I’m a Greedy Dumbass Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

Nomoremana, the level 38 warrior, who rolled Need on a +spirit cloak against my level 40 priest in Uldaman…because it was blue.

The Stupid Debuff

2010-02-21T00:35:00.001-08:00

It’s been a recent challenge to figure out whether some of the raiders are slow learners, downright dumb, too stoned to care, watching a movie while they are standing in fire, or cursed with the Stupid Debuff.

The Stupid Debuff happens to everyone once in awhile….auto-running into a boss, realizing your fishing pole is still equipped on the first pull, forgetting you’re the shaman when the raid is calling for Heroism (yes, that happened but this time it wasn’t me), pushing PTT when you really, really shouldn’t have…that kind of thing. Hell, the whole raid seemed to be infected with it the past week or so. So, the challenge is determining whether it’s a temporary state with some raiders or the moments that they DON’T have it are few and far between.

One example is the warlock who, after having downed Festergut several times on both 10 and 25, still walks in to the encounter and fails. He gets the spore over his head and doesn’t move fast - despite most of vent yelling for him to run to the designated person - and when he does move goes the wrong way. This is not behavior that happened once, by the way, this is something we almost expect from him. This particular raider then doesn’t understand why he is placed on standby. On the other hand, once he gets the content down (think TOC) he does really, really well. It just seems to take him, well, weeks instead of attempts or even hours.

Another is the tank that still can’t quite seem to grasp when he needs to taunt Saurfang back from the other tank. He lets fanatics eat the healers’ faces. He also never has flasks, ran out of reagents at the end of one run and never got them before the next one an hour later, and after all assignments are given generally asks, “What am I doing?”. And, frankly, he sounds heavily medicated pretty much all the time.

Yet one more is the shammie who stupidly admitted he really didn’t listen to vent because his music was on and therefore misses healing assignments, ready checks, calls for breaks (and how long the break is) and strategy.

Admittedly, I am procrastinating having the conversations with them that need to happen. Why, you ask, do I not just boot them from the guild or, at the very least, not let them raid?

Let’s see, in the locks case it’s because part of me truly doesn’t want to lose a player whose heart and interest are right where they should be and I’m afraid if I place him strictly on farm content (where I think he belongs to give him the time he needs to learn the fights) he will be hurt and/or bored and leave. He has potential to be a really solid (if not ever exceptional) raider once we get past the raid-wide learning curve that is progression.

For the tank, mostly, it’s because we are short tanks every week for the third 10 man and, until I can get someone else geared to do it on an alt, we’re stuck. He’s also been around since the early days of the guild and has been a very casual player up until recently. Part of me is still trying to figure out if he’s just one of those people who doesn’t sound that bright or if he has a permanent Stupid Debuff.

Lastly, the shaman when he’s on his game is amazing! Key word though is “when”. I want him to focus! But, unfortunately, like most of our healers (seriously, WTF is up with healers?!?!) he is emo much of the time and I have to catch him at just the right moment.

Let me be clear, I am the most patient person in the world with true noobs who just want to learn how to play the game. You need someone to teach you how to dive or the best way to get through Redridge I’m your gal. I’ve taught more people than I care to remember the best way to pull the mobs in Scarlet Monestary. If it’s your first time tanking a raid I will walk you through the bosses, teach you the aggro tricks and offer suggestions on how to handle weak healers or overzealous DPS. I used to run the Saturday Night Kara Raid every week long after I was in T6 back in BC and taught and geared countless mains and alts.

Basically if you have done the research on your class and spec, homework on the content, and are open to feedback I will help you in any way I can.

However, and this is a BIG however, I don’t have the time or desire to do this in 25 man progression content.

Our server is smaller and not known for progression so recruiting the A-game, exceptional players I’d love to have is extremely hard…so I have to train some of them to be remarkable instead of coasting on their built in, ready-made uberness. I keep telling myself, I only need about five more really solid people and we will have what we need to progress faster. Truly, those five would make all the difference in the world. Its finding those without the Stupid Debuff and keeping it off of them that is the challenge. Until then, I will keep working with what I have and sacrificing Dranei to the WoW gods in the hopes that Putricide and Council go down this week.

What do you know....

2010-02-20T22:44:00.000-08:00

Huh. Next time we went into ICC we got Rotface down on the first attempt.

And then wiped on Festergut once. Which killed our 25 raid quest for the week.

/facepalm

Raid Bitch

2010-02-17T23:30:00.000-08:00

Yes, today I let my inner raid bitch loose….

There was yelling. There was swearing. There was calling stupid people out by name in raid.

And it was well deserved.

We have been battling Rotface for two fucking weeks after downing him twice before. Due to stupid. There is no reason this boss is still alive other than the stupid debuff. People running into each other with little oozes on them when there’s a big ooze up. People staying in the middle of the raid group with little oozes on them. Healers too defensive about their heals to actually heal. DPS too focused on who may or may not have healed them (or not) and their own personal numbers to actually do damage (I don't give a flying fuck what your numbers are if the boss doesn't die!) Officers too wrapped up in battles over Recount to pay attention. Bullshit left and right basically.

So, tonight, I said what normally is reserved for not pressing push-to-talk and let it loose.

Rotface is still alive. But I feel better.

And guess who’s coming back to raid tomorrow….

PTT and Rotface

2010-02-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

/bonk

Yes, you, Hunter, who repeatedly stands in the path of the Big Ooze even though you don’t HAVE to be that far away from Rotgut.

/thwack

Keep the little oozes apart!

/THWACK

Quit running them together and making more Big Oozes!

Big Oozes are BAD!

/SLAP

QUIT RUNNING THEM TOGETHER YOU MORONS!!!!!!

Wipe #8.

*Head to keyboard*

As I’ve mentioned, the guild has a rule that we do not insult, demean, or otherwise bring over the top nerd rage to the raids. This is why there is push-to-talk.

I’ve scared the dogs....again. God only knows what the neighbors think.

What the neighbors hear: “You freaking idiots! Why are you standing there! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! Oh for fuck’s sake...you died there last time you pathetic excuse for a mage! No, don’t run that way...oh hell, why did you do that? How many damn times do I have to explain this?!?! Get out of the fucking green slime you idiot...oh never mind, you killed us again.”

What the raid hears: “Guys, you really need to make sure the oozes aren’t making multiple big ones or we wipe.”

I swear that vent must make me sound like the adults in the old Peanuts cartoons. There is no other reason that they don’t understand the strategy after this many wipes. Unless I’m actually speaking in tongues and don’t know it.

Lucky Arthas...he will live to a ripe old age at this rate.

Seeing Red

2010-02-04T22:04:00.000-08:00

It’s been a week filled with a wide range of emotions about my little guild but the biggest ones right now are fury and disappointment.

We have added some new people I have high hopes for and some veterans have shown some remarkable improvement over which I’m thrilled. At the same time we “lost” three members - two of which were healers and one was an OT - and while losing raiders always causes some concern it was the way we lost them that makes it weird, aggravating and, frankly has me angry as hell at one of them.

We have chat filled with innuendo, blue humor, and wild flirtations in guild. We are a guild of adults after all and don’t choose to censor language or content unless it goes way beyond what could even remotely be considered acceptable. We lost one healer because he was told he needed to behave less like a pervert - particularly in front of new people who don’t have the history with him to know if he’s joking or not - and he responded that he is a normal, mild-mannered man in RL and he plays this game to be “who he wants to be”...which made him 1000x more creepy.

The other healer (who took with her a very whipped OT husband) decided I was “mean” and refused to run an ICC 10 unless the group was exactly how she wanted it. I’m sorry but:

A. The officers and I strongly feel we need to make a temporary change to the 10s to further progression for the benefit of the guild and 25 man progression

B. If you have already made it known that you are available and want to run a 10 man don’t refuse to run with the other 8 people unless you get your way - ultimatums don’t work in your favor with me

C. Whatever you do, if you are one of the best geared people in the guild who has received a significant amount of 25 man loot, don’t tell me you don’t want to run with new people in “your” group because they might take “your” loot - I have very little tolerance for loot whores

To top it all off the psycho bitch then decided to slam my character, skills and personality on the server forums - using the guild’s recruitment post no less! - and, because we don’t do public drama, I am limited in how I can respond. You want to leave the guild then good luck to you and have fun but there’s no reason to slander anyone in the process. I’m floored that my “friends” in game aren’t more upset about what she said and are trying to “not take sides”. Maybe that’s unfair but it stings that they would still socialize with someone who behaved like such am evil lying bitch publically.

However, because I’m not the unprincipled bitch she is, what we will do is kill a new boss tonight. We have a new healer to break in that joined last night! I’m completely confident that if we have largely the same group as last night we will down the Blood Princes and have a fun night. Lots of tension is gone without creepy guy and very few people will miss the other two due to their arrogance and elitism (and delusional belief that they are as good as they think they are).

On a side note, I was reading I Like Bubbles post about rage on February 4 and felt better I wasn’t the only one struggling with fine line between having a backbone and letting the raiders run rampant!

The Joys of LFG Noobs

2010-02-02T12:28:00.000-08:00

Seriously? You're questioning my defense cap in T10 gear because my HP is......too high?

/facepalm

10 Ways to Make Your Raid Leader Crazy

2010-01-28T16:02:00.000-08:00

1. You say, “That’s what she said!” at least once a raid. It’s old and tired and needs to be forgotten.

2. The tank is sweating blood trying to hold aggro shouting, “WTF just happened?!” as the adds eat faces off the healers and someone points to your Army of the Dead. Again.

3. The Raid Leader spends 10 minutes going over a boss fight and answering questions, runs a ready check, you show up AFK and then ask what the assignments were when you get back from getting a beer.

4. You click “Yes” to a ready check and then scream for buffs as the tank calls, “Puuuuullllling!”

5. You wait for a rez on a wipe instead of running back...every time until you are threatened with removal. And then you always the last one back.

6. You don’t switch targets. Despite the fact that the fight hinges on every freaking DPS changing targets to get it down. And then bitch that we wiped again.

7. You whisper the GM, raid leader, tank in the middle of a raid to ask if you can buy the Borean Leather (or whatever it is) out of the guild bank. Or something else equally nonessential to the raid. Even though the person you’re whispering has DND up.

8. You whisper the RL on the pull that this is your last try tonight. Give notice if you have to leave early you noobs!

9. You don’t do your research on the boss...and then get bitchy when the rest of the raiders who did call you out on it. Especially when /gchat has been flowing with repeated comments to DO YOUR FUCKING HOMEWORK SINCE THERE ARE LIMITED ATTEMPTS!!

10. You have something to say about everything. Even if what you have to say has nothing to do with the fight or the raid. Even if you’ve be told to STFU seven times already today. Even though half the raiders have you on mute in vent. We know you love the sound of your own voice...just don’t press the PTT button and keep it in your living room.

Shiny!

2010-01-28T11:48:00.000-08:00

Five players walk in to a dungeon through the LFG tool, let’s say it is AN, and things go failrly smoothly. The usual greens drops and people are rolling for disenchant, trash is dying, it seems like it will be a fairly smooth run.....

And then something new pops up in the loot roll window.

It’s new...it’s shiny...it’s a Pot O’ Gold, it can be used as an off-hand for +23 luck and +12 intellect or it can be vendored for 15,000 gold.

What’s a dungeon group to do?

There’s a moment before people roll where the group could have a discussion about whether to Need or Greed. They could discuss the stats and the vendor value. They could reach an agreement together. They don’t have that discussion.

Here’s what happened:

One passed - no one is clear why but I’m sure when he got home and looked around his shack on the wrong side of Redridge he kicked himself.

Four rolled Need.

A warrior wins the roll and they finish the dungeon.

* * *

Later the same day the warrior’s GM gets a series of tells from a mage who was in the group accusing the warrior of ninjaing the Pot O’ Gold. He complains that because warriors do not need +12 intell he should have passed. The GM talks to the mage about the value of the object and the fact that it wasn’t a case where everyone Greeded and the warrior waited until they were done to roll Need - no indeed! 4/5 Needed!

The mage continues to use the word “ninja” and won’t leave it alone. The GM then makes a discreet call and the mage’s body is later found rotting in Un Goro. The general theory is he was farming for little dinosaur pets and took on more than he could handle. He is not missed much. The GM is tired of stupid whispers.

* * *

True story. Almost. Substitute Battered Hilt for Pot O’ Gold and Shaman for Warrior and you’ve about got the picture. This little mage was very upset about the “ninjaing”. Unfortunately for him it really just came across as being a sore loser in a fair roll. I’m sure there are people out there who say that since there was only a slim chance the Shammie would want the weapon he should have passed or Greeded...I’m going to guess those are the same people who have lost a roll on it.

In my opinion the ridiculous value of the Battered Hilt as something of a vanity weapon (not to say the stats aren’t nice but come on...it’s more about bragging rights) that will be quickly replaced makes it fair game for anyone in the dungeon. Honestly, if I was in a random group and it dropped I would try to have a quick conversation and encourage everyone to Need on it. If there was a mix of Need/Greed I would probably Need myself. Lark could use weapon - use as in equip and have appropriate stats not use as in OMG that’s an upgrade! - but the 15k would go a long ways towards repairs for progression wipes and my little priest would finally have epic flying.

A (Sort Of) Brief History....Zzzzzzz......

2010-01-19T08:21:00.001-08:00

One of the few guildies who read this blog asked me when I was going to write about the madness in the guild lately but I realized though that in order to do that right I needed to back up a few steps and provide some history...I'll try to keep it brief and entertaining!

Lark leveled as a Holy Paladin (God help me I had no idea what I was doing - serious noob). She was my first toon and I thought that playing a toon that could wear plate, heal, and use all kinds of weapons was cool. What did I know? If I had known before about level 40 how hard it was to level a holy pally I probably would have rolled a hunter for the cute pet and this would be a very different story. At about level 60 I discovered tanking (once I learned what the word "tank" meant) and never looked back. That was over two years ago.

I had to fight my way up in the tanking ranks in TBC, when paladins were just barely starting to be credible, against the established warriors of the world. (To this day I have to say, Mount Hyjal, I luv you!)

Through 2+ years of tanking I've had the opportunity to experience a variety of guilds. New ones just trying to start content that dropped shiny purples all the way to the number one guild on a former server (Yay for The Immortal title!) and took a lot of the things I loved about those guilds and the knowledge of what I really didn't love and started, Heroic, the guild I have now.

Heroic is my baby. It didn't start with any kind of influx of friends transferring from another server or from a mass exodus from a former guild on the current server but was created one individual at a time. Shortly after forming we partnered with another guild to do 25 man content and wound up absorbing many of their members when their GM decided to become our Princess. That gave us the boost we needed to step into 25 mans on our own. We started in Naxx content and have progressed rapidly to one of the top guilds on the server (where we get to cheerfully beat our heads against ICC). I'm proud of what the team has achieved and am so grateful to the guildies that have stuck around through the rough patches.

We do things a little differently than many other raiding guilds. Our two guild rules are No Drama and No Raid Nazis.

As we tell all candidates in their interview to join us, we are very protective of our guild's reputation and No Drama means not in /gchat, raids, vent, trade chat, etc. As a whole, we've stuck to this pretty well and only had to provide a few people with opportunity to find a new home. The drama is largely limited to officer chat feuds and a love/hate relationship between the Princess and me. And purple pixel drama...but that's another post!

No Raid Nazis means we do not tell people they "fail", no one in the raid is allowed to belittle or demean people in raids, and performance issues are handled privately. This is not to say to we don't give each other tons of shit, tease the hunter who auto attacks a boss while we are buffing (you know who you are), and never let the tank who pulled the Twins in TOC while still specced holy forget it (no, really, I would NEVER do anything that silly...*cough*) but it's all in fun.

Somehow we've managed to (mostly) stick to these rules and still kill bosses! Shocking! I know!

TLDR: I'm an experienced tank and a noob GM doing my damnedest to keep 24 other people motivated, focused and out of the f*ing fires while trying to keep either me from killing the Princess or the Princess from killing me.

Lark

OMG How Hard Is It?!?!

2010-01-10T04:05:00.000-08:00

Really, if it lights you on fire stay out of it.

If it gives you a lovely god-like buff get into it.

If it looks like the person next to you has eaten 14 day old shrimp and is projectile vomiting then move away!

Seriously, guildies, how hard is it to be where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there? And, if you can drop the evil-whatever-it-is by ice-blocking, cloaking, bubbling but you KNOW deep in your heart that it will kill the healer next to you....why do you do it?

Rotfacefesterfuck is a prime example (and yes, I know I've merged the two into one....it doesn't matter for this conversation) of being where you need to be and doing what you need to do when you need to do it....what's the term I'm looking for...oh yeah, raid awareness!

If 24 other lives (and your GM's sanity) depend on you either running in, running out, or staying put why not just do it and quit telling me that it was the tank-mom-healer-lag-dog-GF/BF-neighbor-imp that lives under you desk's fault? Grow a pair, own up if you failed and do better! Really, these new ICC bosses should be dead by now and we should be tormenting ourselves with the rest of the high end guilds on the Professor by now. After analyzing what happened it boils down to one simple thing (and no it's not gear) and that is raid awareness.

Raid awareness is why Yogg still lives and why we spend very little time beating out heads against the TOC 25 hard modes. Raid awareness is why we actually, and embarassingly, wiped on Anub 25 regular today. Raid awareness is what keeps me up nights, on my alts, and eating way too many Hot Tamales. I am, quite frankly, lacking faith. I need to see that the same people that can one-shot damn near anything when they puts their minds to it can all come in in the same frame of mind at least four nights a week. Hell, I'd settle for three nights a week on progression content and let you wipe your faces off screwing around on TOC if that's what it took (although, I'd probably bring an alt or find a reason to sit out for that).

The DPS is there. The heals are there. The tanks are there. Now we just need to figure out which pocket you left your raid awareness in....

A Fairy Tale (no, not that kind of fairy, Priestest)

2010-01-06T06:04:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away but very much more violent, a paladin decided to re-roll a mage. This paladin had the reputation of being quite good at tanking but had leveled many toons to 80 on PVE servers and was bored and wanted a new challenge.

So, this paladin decided that rolling a clothie mage on a PVP server was what was missing in her life. Silly, silly paladin. Should have at least considered a Dranei mage for Gift of the Naahru, but no, went with a belf. Silly, silly paladin who never really liked PVP to begin with but blamed it on being Prot. Not actually on the OMG...they're trying to kil...nvm I'm dead and they're camping my corpse...wait did they leave? Let's try a rez and mount really fast...nope they didn't leave life style.

Then, low and behold! Blizzard comes out with the new and improved LFG system! Baby Mage doesn't really need to quest! (Other than the Wrathgate quest chain, because, really that was a primary reason for re-rolling Horde.) But what does Baby Mage find? She may be new at her class and working out a few rotation issues and what not and may be not so sure what to do in certain situations but OMG so many people are totally clueless! Seriously, DPS, wait the 3 seconds it takes your poor tank in greens and a sad mix of blues (which there aren't many of for tanks before 80 and are always rolled on by wanna-be DK tanks) to gain aggro! I see you...you're wearing BOA gear which tells me you have at least a nodding acquaintence with the real world of WoW...so WAIT! Wait for your healer to have mana too! (Mana is the blue bar that looks a lot like your rage and rune bars but it's totally freaking different in that WATER fixes it and it's the reason you live or die in many cases!) Let's be clear, I've aready seen the first forum posts from LFG-unsatisfied customers about crap runs...do you really want to be called out for bad - but fixable - behavior this early in your little alts career? I didn't think so.

Here was the big eye-opening, adventurous thing about rolling on a PVP server...the characters your level just want to quest and be done with it. They don't hurt you. You don't hurt them. It's the characters 12 levels below you that attack you, and ,of course, you kill them, that go for level 80 back ups to come back and haunt you. It frankly amazes me at times how many level 80s have nothing better to do than stalk a level 73 mage who just wants the damn quest drop so she can go back to Dalaran and queue up for the daily BG...and during the 2 hours it takes to do that level her enchanting and tailoring.

I seriously need to join a guild on this little Baby Mage but the one I tried a few levels ago never responded to "Hiya", "Is anyone doing ________ quest?", or "Does anyone need help with anything?" I mean not one response in days...so I /gquit and figured I was better off talking to myself. I'm much more entertaining. : )

Happy errr....Belated New Years!

2010-01-06T05:29:00.000-08:00

So, yes, we cleared the first wing of ICC, got through the holidays, and now we have three new bosses to contend with. (And, let me just say, Blizzard, REALLY?!?!? You're nerfing Deathwhisper NOW???!! That totally sucks for those of us who actually got it. : ( )

We blew through the first wing of ICC tonight and got in a few attempts at Festergut which wasn't bad....particularly considering we had a drunk shadow priest talking in vent and an officer who nerd-rage quit in the middle of the run.

So here's my rant for the week: Seriously, if you are an officer in a guild do you not owe them the courtesy of telling them you are not happy with the way things are going BEFORE you nerd-rage quit in the middle of raid!?!?

This same (former) officer whispered me once he quit and accused me of not giving him loot...let me be clear, our loot policies are posted on the website and discussed indepth in every interview. When he nerd-rage quit it was over our yet undecided decision about what to do with Shadowfrost Shards (which no one is sure drops for one on the quest or all) and a pair of legs that another ranking member won. What he fails to realize is, when we said he left for "loot reasons", the vast majority of the people said, "But, wait! He got the trinket off of Sarthang 25 last week!"

This former officer has been one of those people who persist in seeing the negative and feeding it week over week. Was I surprised that he g-quit, not really, was I surprised that he quit without trying to make my life miserable, yes.

One of the accusations he made to me in whispers once he quit was that I am a control-freak. Well, yeah, not gonna argue there....I run a successful raiding guild on a server that doesn't cater to that. I have a few great officers who will help me with the day-to-day and other things like recruiting but a few other officers who are here less than I would like. Mostly, in a guild like this, on a server like this, someone has to be "the boss" and it has to be me. I started it so I signed up willingly....despite the days when I wonder what the hell I was thinking.

I'm finding that there is no surer way to create an emo-raider then to make them an officer....I'd love to hear other opinions! The reality is, we raid to progress, therefore we gear to progress, therefore we gear the raiders we need to gear in order to progess...any questions?

And, when I'm done complaining about nerd-raging, emo-quitting officers I may move on to either "Raiding and the Couple: Why Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, and Raiding Couples Are from Hell!" or have you met Mr. Wow? The one who knows everything about everything and absolutely knows more than you do about whatever it is you are talking about?

Psychic Raiders

2009-12-23T12:10:00.000-08:00

After my "Dear Guildies" post yesterday - which I can pretty much guarantee not a single guildie has read given this sight is brand-spanking new and I haven't broadcast it to anyone - we finally downed Deathwhisper on 25. Therefore I must conclude my guild is psychic and somehow knew yesterdays post was out there somewhere. Either that or they've decided my threats, if we did not down her, to disband the guild, quit WoW, and go play Sims 3 may not be 100% in jest....

Even funnier, after too many days of wiping repeatedly on Deathwhisper, once we killed her we moved on and one-shotted the Gunship Battle and still had time left in raid to make a decent first attempt at Sarthang.

Some days I really love this guild.

Lark and the Guild

25 Man Raiding Reality Check

A Good Night for Heroic

The LONG awaited Stupid Awards are BACK!!!

Yellow On Top

Pretend Raiders and How to Spot Them

Things That Make Me Want to Kick a Gnome

Goofy Raid Stuff

Seriously..............?

Happy Firelands! New Dead Bosses! Yay!

Heroic is Recruiting!

Raid Update

Dead Nefarian!

Nefarian

Pandora's Box

Revenge is Mine

Actual Paladin Tank Stuff Complete with Strategy Tweaks!

Stupid Awards of the Week ***Epic-holy-crap-I-haven't-done-them-in-Cata Edition***

Raiding Challenges

It's Also True.

It's True.

Long Overdue Update!

Things I Learned About Leading a Guild in Wrath

REM is Stuck in My Head

Stupid Awards of the Week

I Miss Mortigan the Lock

A Few Words on the 100 Mounts...

Stupid Awards of the Week

The End of an Era

Yay for a Cata Date!

When Applying to a Guild...

Woot! Dead Heroic Putricide!

Nostalgia for Noobishness

SOS! Mayday! Help! Drowing GM!

Annoyed

Stupid Awards of the Week ***Special Pally Edition!***

WTB a Guild Secretary

Raid Bitch Ramblings

The King is Still Dead Long Live the Loot...errr, What?

Buy Q-Tips

Rambling Updates

Stupid Awards of the Week

Stupid Awards of the Week

Sanity Check, Please?

Happy Birthday the King is Dead!

Self-awareness is a Beautiful Thing

Big Dead Dragon

Stupid Awards of the Week

Stupid Awards of the Week

Rant Day

Why We Wipe

Bittersweet Change

Stupid Awards of the Week

It's About Damn Time Arthas Died

Cataclysm Raiding (Or How Blizzard Royally Screwed the 25 Man Raid)

Blood Queen's Reign is Over!

Professor Down!

Stupid Awards of the Week

The Enforcer's Guest Post

Lines in the Sand - Part II and Updates!

Stupid Awards of the Week

Lines in the Sand - Part I

Science Class

Stupid Awards of the Week

Dreamwalker Lives! (And so do I...mostly.)

WTF Bunnies?!

Raider Black Hole

Lazy Days

Chicken

It's Either Evil or Brilliant

Hello Arthas

Stupid Awards of the Week

Communication and Lark 101

Go Figure

Dear Guildies,

Bring Out Your Dead!

Single Abstract Noun

Raiding Blues

What's Aggro?

To Rant or Not to Rant...

Stupid Awards of the Week Epic-holy-crap-I-haven't-done-them-in-Cata Edition

Stupid Awards of the Week Special Pally Edition!