Chicken

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

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!