Friday Wrap-Up: Lack of Motivation

The problem with doing OS3D once is that you get the achievement, the title, and if you don’t care about the drake mount, there’s no motivation to go anymore.

I don’t know if other people have this problem but after downing it once last week, half of the original group didn’t make it last night for attempts this week.

The guild almost doubled in size last week and we’re still tying to figure out who of the new players will fit in well. While we’re trying to do this, all the people who haven’t gotten the title yet seem to have this attitude that just because the guild was able to do it once, that skill and output are not as important anymore. Half of this week’s group didn’t have the title. Half of this week’s DPS couldn’t hit 2.8k.

There was no urgency, no drive to excel. To succeed. People treated the fight like it was already on farm.

Really?

Friday Wrap-Up: It’s about frackin’ time, Sartharion!

Say hello to Twilight Vanquisher Raesa!

Oh it feels so good… Let’s see those titles, people:

So in the process, our Sarth tank (DK) died during Vesperon so our tanks did an awesome job of round robin. One of our 2 add tanks (prot pally) picked up Sarth. We downed Vesperon and our drake tank (warrior) picked up Sarth, letting our prot pally go back to adds (he still had them on him!). The warrior then got knocked back for some reason (no, not fire walls… tail swipe from the front…?) so our other add tank (DK) picked up him and tanked him with adds on him. Warrior recovered and taunted him off and all was well again. It probably took you longer to read this than how long it actually took to happen.

We had a few fits of RNG during our attempts last night – our bubble/sac went off perfectly on one of the attempts but somehow, our tank still got one-shotted (with PW:S and Bone Shield active).

Sarth flame breathed half the raid on another attempt although no one taunted him?

I’m extremely proud of our healing team – we had 1 or 2 problematic healers who died on almost every attempt due to fire walls and void zones but they were on top of their game last night; none of them got hit by anything. Although I also told them that any healer who got hit by void zones or flame walls had to heal my warlock (she’s only 75) through dungeons for a month… Perhaps that was the motivation they were looking for all along? ;)

Another Alliance guild on the server fell apart over the last few days and we picked up a few stragglers. That guild was pretty much the target of all trolling that the most progressed Alliance guild had to dish out but now that they’re gone and we finally got our achievement, guess who their target is now? Don’t you love douchebags? Whatever.

Anyway, we defaulted the mount to our GM/MT/warrior who saved the day by picking up Sarth when our DK tank went down. Some people disagreed with this decision and wanted to free-roll it but no one else puts in as much time and thought and care into the guild as much as he does (well, except maybe me :D) and I felt this was one way the guild could express their gratitude (or feign it, whatever) to him for the 2 years that have gone thankless.

You know, being GM or an officer of a guild is a thankless job. People only speak up when they have a problem but seeing people speak up to say how much they enjoy the guild or to say they appreciate their officers and everything they do is a rare occurrence. Take a second to thank your officers. It might stop a burnt out officer or GM from thinking about quitting. ;)

Incoming Wrap

I’ve been delayed by THE MAN.

Corporate structure has never been kind to maintaining a work-life balance.

We will get this post up ASAP. I have a little award to brag about. /preen

Friday Wrap-Up: Things That Make Me Angry

So the guild tried OS3d again on Wednesday night (not successful). We made progress versus the first attempt we made about a month ago? We got Shadron down to around 60% on our best attempt.

Why did we fail? A lot of reasons. But I have an inkling on what might have contributed…

Let me show you a snapshot of our WWS report.

This is from the last attempt of the night:

toomuchbeef is a hunter’s cat.
Veerike is a warlock’s felguard.
Haadhun is another warlock’s felguard.

This is from the second to last attempt:

Skullthief is a death knight’s ghoul.

This is from the third to last attempt:

Flaaroon is a warlock’s felguard.

On each attempt, pets made the resto druid’s top-10 healed.

I assigned him to rolling HoTs on the tanks and spot raid healing if our resto shammies were getting overwhelmed. Only Gaar and Consecrate are tanks that made his top-10 healed, and not even consistently as top 3.

Why?

Other things that make me angry:

• Holy pally eats a Flame Breath because he stands next to the Sarth tank 10 seconds into the fight.
• Holy pally eats a void zone on Sarth and KT the night before. Red stuff on the ground in a blue room kills him. Blue stuff on the ground in a red room kills him. What?
• Resto shaman eats the first flame wall, dies, ankhs, dies.

If we’re not geared for the fight, fine.
If we don’t have enough people for the fight, fine.

But this.

This is stupid.

Friday Wrap-Up: A Response

I received this comment overnight, which I’m nine-9’s sure is a response to my trimming the fat post even though it’s listed under the Monday mod post:

Destropriest says:

This is the first time I stumbled upon your blog and quite frankly I am appalled. I have played WoW for several years now and I am dismayed with the sheer number of players who feel that they somehow have cornered the knowledge and skill level of their particular class. Anyone who has played WoW or any other MMO knows that 1) everyone can improve in some form or fashion and 2) that we have all been at the bottom at some point in time. I hope that before you pass judgement on the next generation of healers that you remember how long it took you to get where you’re at.

I don’t believe I’ve ever once said that I have “cornered the knowledge and skill level” of my class and nor do I feel that way. Nowhere does it state in my blog that I believe as such either (c’mon, I have a pitiful 1650-something 2v2 rating). Perhaps I should be appalled that someone has accused me of such but everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Destro, you might have misunderstood my post – I spoke mainly about the player’s attitude. The resto shaman in question isn’t improving because he’s not trying. I would appreciate it if you get the true meaning of my post before you pass judgment on me. Seems hardly fair that you don’t practice what you preach.

I definitely agree that everyone can improve but the issue that I expressed in my post is whether or not the person wants to and if s/he can do it quickly enough to help out the guild. The resto shaman I mentioned is indeed still in greens and blues but that’s not my issue with him. Some of his gear isn’t socketed. Most of his gear isn’t enchanted. Was he told to do all these things? Yes.

The first day he joined, I told him he needed to socket his gems.

Use common gems if you know it’s going to be replaced soon, I don’t care! Just show me that you care!

I offered him free enchants. Didn’t take me up on my offer.

Two weeks later – his pieces were still not socketed and I found only 1 new enchant.

Everything is relative – you’re going to take the best of what you have. We run a progression-focused raiding guild. True progression guilds that value nothing but progression don’t spend time to work with the average or below-average player. They invite, try them out, and then /gkick if their performance isn’t up there. Being as how we’re not a true, hardcore progression guild, we work with what we have but we’re not going to spend weeks to months on end carrying a healer who can’t keep up with the rest of the raid.

Every player signs on knowing they’re expected the min/max the crap out of their toons if they’re going to show up to a raid. They agree to this. They’re expected to uphold this. When they don’t show that they’re going to keep their end of the deal, should I really continue relying on them?

When performance isn’t improving at a level that the guild needs, is the guild still obligated to work with that player? Maybe this just isn’t the right place for him?

The guild is looking for experienced raiders. Taking in someone who’s working his way up from the proverbial bottom at a slower rate than what is needed is not in the guild’s best interest – how is this passing judgment?

And I should probably change the blog layout just so the comment link is located at the bottom of the post, where it traditionally is. =/

Friday Wrap-Up: Drama Llamas and New Healers… This is a game?!

This week has been tough guild-wise and IRL. The inflamatory post I wrote about yesterday still has not been resolved, nor has the author apologized for his behavior. He doesn’t even think he sounded angry and frankly, just hasn’t said much at all in-game. In fact, he seems to think he was completely justified in the way that he presented his case. I admit, I got trolled. I replied to his post in like kind (angry) and regretted it the next day. I deleted my posts and just said I refused to address his issues until they were presented to me more professionally. No response. Typical, I guess.

Raids were sloppy this week. Somehow, a lot of our regulars dropped off the map (is it midterms season?) so we carried 7-8 new raiders who died a lot and didn’t DPS enough. Our Patchwerk kill was 20 seconds slower than last week. WTF? We’ve had to carry 7 healers this week because we have 2-3 new healers who don’t seem to be able to keep up with the veterans. I look at the number of spells casted (both single target and AOE heals and accounting for class) and the vets double or triple the new guys easily. The vets are used to casting that much, I guess, since we run with only 5 healers if we have the full roster of vets on.

The ideal scenario is to have each healer capable of pulling their weight with any combination of 5 healers available. There’s the issue of not enough gear to accommodate for such (relative) heavy healing or not enough experience but somehow, I don’t think running with 7 healers where 4 vets are carrying the team is going to help, since the new guys have a lot more room for error.

Tonight’s 2 groups of 10-man Naxx for our undergeared and inexperienced. Ideally, I can put 1 vet and 2 initiates into each run.

Or maybe they just need some mods. ;)

Friday Wrap-Up: Bad hangover is bad.

Oh man, head is on fire!

Logging on after getting home from drinking is always fun. Unless someone decides to aggravate you to no end, effectively being the most efficient buzzkill EVAR! For me, that usually leads to a premature hangover that I go to sleep and wake up with. Totally sucks.

Anyway, new raiding schedule seems to be pretty effective so far. We’ve almost gotten Naxx down to a 4 hour clear. It’s ~4.5 or so right now. The ultimate goal is a 3 hour clear, which means we can finish it in 1 night. /cross fingers. Almost everything was a one shot this week, except for The Four Horsemen because we messed up the first attempt trying to get the achievement. We got the achievement on the second attempt though!

We also decided to try for Sapphiron achievement and would have one-shot that too except somebody in the raid had over 100 frost resist. And that somebody has not owned up to their mistake. So now we have to do it again next week.

I could always give the raid the benefit of the doubt, I suppose. Do hunter pets with over 100 frost resist ruin the achievement? Anyone know? Maybe someone in the raid isn’t a bumbling idiot then.

Blasted hangover.

Friday Wrap-Up: Inner Fire, Elder Love Fool, and Spreading the Love

Who’s having a hard time breaking the Inner Fire spamming habit?! I know I am!

For years now, I’ve recast Inner Fire on command around every 8 minutes between pulls. My Ghost: Pulse shows me when the buff fades. My eyes automatically flicker to my buffs around every 10 minutes without even realizing what exactly I’m looking for. I would rebuff right before pulls, even if I had done it about 2 minutes prior just to get the most out of the buff while I’m in combat. And good lord, on those super long boss fights where Inner Fire would fade (Kel’Thuzad anyone?) and I would have to waste a GCD if I could afford it.

And now, I don’t have to.

And I can’t get used to it!!!

I still habitually look at my buffs. The only difference now is that I don’t recast it every 10 minutes unless I’m down to 10 charges or less. And for being a half-hour, undispellable buff now, the charge mechanism is a little outdated. But without it, I guess we would just be warlocks.

I also think they need to change the icon. Give us something pretty to look at plox plox?

Well, the Lunar Festival is now over. I am officially Elder Raesa! I am almost done with my Love Fool achievements, currently hindered by RNG. I need all the remaining achievements that require to loot something specific from the Gifts of Adoration. Bah humbug! This is supposed to be a seasonal event emphasizing love. Show some!

In other news, we’ve gotten heroic Naxx down to a 2-day clear and will be attempting heroic Maly tonight. It’s only our 2nd time since we cleared Naxx for the first time over a month ago so my expectations are not too high. The first time we tried it was right after Patch 3.0.8 broke the fight and we all wiped so I don’t count that. We tried him once last night and got him down to 26% so he’ll be going down tonight for sure.

I think we’re trying Sarth +2d again this weekend. We’ll see how that goes after the color nerf, although by the end of last week’s attempts, void zones weren’t the problem anymore, as we only had one person that kept dying to them. Don’t know what it is, really…

I think the guild has decided to kick progression/raiding up a notch while making the best of the members that we have, while being a little more aggressive/cut & dry about replacing raid members who prove to be a liability during the raid. Constant DC’ers, people who stand in red stuff, low DPS, etc. will all be put on wait list if they repeat the same mistakes through each attempt sooner than before, if we did it at all.

I guess we’ll hold off on recruiting although we’re really hurting for a holy priest – anyone interested? xD

I’m also very glad that my posts about the T7 set bonus vs. non-tier gear is a help to everyone who’s wondering what to do about the abysmal priest set bonuses. Thank you to everyone who has left kind comments! <3

I’m also wondering about picking up a game pad, i.e. the Nostromos N-52 TE or the Logitech G13. I’m currently set up with Grid + Clique, as well as only using 3 action bars laid out in 1 horizontal bar across the bottom with everything that isn’t mouse-bound. I’m thinking about it but I am having a hard time getting around the idea that of having to switch between the pad and the keyboard if I want to type… : ( I’s lazy. . .

Any thoughts/comments about making the switch are welcome! Happy Friday the 13th in the meantime, everyone.  : ) Everyone who’s got Monday off? Enjoy it!

Friday Wrap-Up: Catalyst’s new DKP system, Sarth +3d, and … OMG SUPERBOWL SUNDAY!

TGIF!!! The baby murlocs are extremely happy you will be able to spend the weekend with them. : )

I’m working on the follow-up to Wednesday’s post, which will compare T7.5 (or the heroic tier set) with the non-tier items in the corresponding slots to decide which pieces you can bypass and which you need, since the 4-piece set bonus is lackluster for disc priests. I get the feeling that no matter what comes out of this comparison, I will stack all 5 pieces because I find the set very pretty. I might choose the helm over all the alternatives just because it’s a halo versus the typical Northrend cowl (ew). I’m a girl. No one said you had to listen to me.

Catalyst is into its second week with our new DKP system. It’s a zero-sum bidding system. Every item has a starting cost and each person can bid up from there. It’s been working pretty well, I think, considering we have integrated it with WebDKP.com and the add-on is a god-send (albeit kind of stupid). We instated a policy that people with positive DKP will win an item when competing with someone who has negative DKP, even if the person with negative DKP bid more. I think that incorporates a little bit of flavor from Suicide Kings here. The idea is that someone with positive DKP most likely has gotten less loot than the person with negative DKP and/or has raided more than the person wtih negative DKP so would, once again, most likely, be more deserving of the item. We are a relatively small guild, with about 30 active raiders so our roster is fairly constant and everyone gets a chance to raid. Conflicts about new raiders going negative after picking up very few pieces versus veteran raids accumulating a lot of DKP hopefully won’t come up (ever) because our raiding roster isn’t going to vary.

We’re going to try Sartharion +3 drakes tomorrow. Wish us luck! To be honest, I’m a little nervous. I’ve been very adamant about at least trying it. I’m doing most of the research for it and hopefully, everyone will do their part and really try to learn the fight as much as they can before we actually do it. Some people feel that it’s a little too early, considering we only completed Sarth +1d last week but there’s no harm in trying, I say.

Still haven’t gotten Malygos 25 down yet, albeit we’ve only spent 1 night attempting him. We’ll get him eventually but probably not this week since it’s SUPERBOWL SUNDAY and we’re just not going to schedule a raid.

Still looking for a feral and/or balance druid if anyone is looking for a new home!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Friday Wrap-Up: High Tension Raids – What’s the deal?

Having cleared heroic Naxxramas last week, we are on our way to getting it on farm status. We cleared 3 wings (Arachnid, Plague, Military) in about 3 hours on Wednesday but spent 3 hours trying to clear Construct, finally giving up on Thaddius at the end of the night. After raiding with my members for the last year and a half would make you think the officers would have learned by now – we don’t function well at night after 2.5+ hours of raiding. Anything that requires more than average coordination is an inevitable wipe at what is midnight for many people who have to get up for work the next morning.

We experienced it last week too. We got down to Thaddius at the end of the night around midnight and wiped. Decided to leave it for the next day. When everyone was fresh, we 2-shot Thaddius, 1-shot Sapphiron on our first-ever attempt on heroic, and wiped on Kel’Thuzad for about an hour before we called it. Next day? 1-shot Kel’Thuzad.

For us pre-BC raiders, 2.5-3 hours a night feels like nothing when we used to sit in front of the computer for 6-8 hours, clearing MC in one night, only to do it again the next day in BWL. And back then, focus wavered but things still got done. These days, the entire raid just falls apart. The phenomenon is mind-boggling. Perhaps our guild just isn’t as hardcore as what I thought was the norm ages ago.

As the weeks go on though, as the boss fights become easier for us, people actually become more high-strung instead, burdened by higher expectations. Especially last night, after we cleared 3 wings in 3 hours the night before, the raid was on edge when we kept wiping on Patchwerk because the tanks couldn’t stay up. That was partly my fault as I tried new healing assignments which ultimately didn’t work. I usually put myself on the MT to solo heal him while 3 healers are stacked on the 2 off-tanks. Last night, I put the holy paladin in the group on the MT but he was OOM about 20 seconds into the fight (don’t ask me how). In the end, we downed the boss after I adjusted back to our old healing assignments.

BTW, healing the MT on Patch for a discipline priest is either really boring (Greater Heal spam) or a huge panic (managing all the trademark smaller but faster heals and damage mitigation abilities while trying to catch up with the huge damage Patch is doing). I was tired last night; I opted for the first option. Boss down with 50% mana left after continuous spamming.

Things started to get on the fritz after the wipes in the slime room (which is hardly even a nuisance in 10-man but ends up killiing half your raid in heroic) and then into the wipes on Patchwerk. People started making snide comments, especially when the paladin buffs were a mess. More often than not, the healers were missing wisdom. WTB PallyPower.

Thursday night raids just never work out. Everyone is always on edge for some reason. Is it because it’s almost Friday but it isn’t so people are even more pissed off that the weekend is so-close-yet-so-far? What is the deal?