A Good Night for Heroic

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!

Happy Firelands! New Dead Bosses! Yay!

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.

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

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?

Happy Birthday the King is Dead!

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

Big Dead Dragon

About damn time and yay!

It's About Damn Time Arthas Died

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.

Blood Queen's Reign is Over!

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!

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!

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

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.

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!

Hello Arthas

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....

Happy Tuesday of Dead Bosses

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!

Either Or...

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.

The Stupid Debuff

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....

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

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

/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.

10 Ways to Make Your Raid Leader Crazy

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.