Science Class

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?

Raiding Blues

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.

Did You Say Something...?

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.

Stupid Awards of the Week

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

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.

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….