Lead, Follow or go AFK

It's a pug-eat-pug world

2010-02-04T16:47:00.000-06:00

So, I pug-ged into ICC10 last night with my druid. Bhorgia is resto/boom, but his resto is significantly better (and I'm better at playing it). These days my priest is pretty OP, and since we had the priest shortage I've been playing him fulltime, but he's dedicated to our 10 man team, so the druid is my pug of choice.

Anyway, a few guildies in the pug, and a guildie was setting it up.

He sets up pretty successful pugs in general. He says, "Link 5k gs and achieve" and even though we don't get that result, asking for it seems to bring up better pugs. However, it also brings up some fairly obnoxious jackasses. In runs like this EVERYBODY is in charge. Not following directions is standard, because everybody is playing their own strat. Luckily last night we were good enough to get Saurfang down - Festergut was a healing/tank issue for the most part, so we stopped there.

Despite the success, I am looking forward to my TEAM ZOMBIE 10-man tonight. We might do the same as the pug, but it will certainly be more fun.

So - what do we do now?

2010-02-03T15:38:00.000-06:00

Blizzard has done an amazing job getting us to get back into heroics. The lfd system rocks. Also, BGs are better than ever in the pre-80 days, since exp gains make it productive to be in there too.

I actually kinda like leveling my alts and lowbie, since there is so much more to do than to just run the same quests over.

Until today - it all got broke! Damn. I have the whole day off and I can't get into an instance. I have been perfectly conditioned to instance all day and night - and then rolling restart = phailzor.

Crap. Time to quest with my 72 hunter I guess. Or level mining. Or take a nap.

Long time no see

2010-02-01T10:37:00.000-06:00

Hey kids,
It's been a minute since I've had a chance to write. I've been doing all kinds of warcrafting, as well as getting back to the gym in RL in a big way. Plus, I'm writing a blog about my experiences with fitness and stuff. Anyway, I r busy.

In Azeroth, frankly, we've been kicking serious arse. My MT buddy, Akaichisuru is afk for a few weeks with school, but we've filled in with a great new guildie, Junesong (also a pallie). So, pretty much without missing a beat we've cleared the first 4 bosses in ICC, as well as getting Festergut 2 weeks in a row.

We had our first night on Rotface last night. 12 pulls, some of them a horrible mess, some of them pretty productive. For the pulls that lasted longer than 2 minutes we really learned a lot about the encounter. This is the biggest fight yet where everybody needs to pull their weight 100% of the time. If somebody does not follow directions, it's pretty much going to kill at least one person, and for us that means wipage.

I love having my priest for a few of the bosses in ICC. On Rotface removing disease is especially important. Remove it too early and the mini-add does aoe raid damage, remove it too late and the diseased person takes too much damage. So, for me - MT healing, raid healing with shield spam (remember, I'm disc), avoiding slime sprays, removing disease, and running my OWN diseased ass over to the OT . . . yeah, hectic. It is an awesome encounter, and I love the way it's designed. Gluth on steroids. Hopefully we can get him this week.

In even better news, our 25 man is in ICC too. We fairly well cruised through the first 3 bosses last week. Hopefully we'll be able to do the same thing tomorrow (and maybe even get Saurfang). We have 3 teams in the guild that are past Saurfang on 10-man, so I think it is pretty legit that we can get him in 25 - since everybody knows the encounter.

No song parody today - too much to do, but I have been thinking of a few. Also - I would totally take requests if somebody can think of a song they'd like to see a WoW parody of.

My mage song parody

2010-01-12T12:10:00.002-06:00

So, I have a 5 and a 7 year old. We happen to listen to a ton of Jack Johnson. I'm not sure if that's his target market, by my kids love him. Anyway, they heard Upside Down from the Curious George movie (which was horrible (except for Will Ferrell as the Man in the Yellow Hat)). I had the toon in my head as I sat down today. So mage - here ya' go:

What's a mage?
A glass cannon
Of the arcane.
A vending machine;
Biscuits they create.
They have frost and fire abilities,
But in vanilla WoW they sheeped some things.
Here in Wrath it's a different game:
Frost is useless 'cept in PVP,
DPS-ers use the arcane tree.

I want to change the way that mages pwn
I spec myself into Chilled to the Bone
So Winter's Chill crits all my AoE
Water Elemental does DPS for me
I think my damage is here to stay

Who's to say
Frost spec sucks, but
well, I can try
And as I grind mobs down, I begin to find
They die quickly and easily

I want to change the way that mages pwn
I spec myself into Chilled to the Bone
So Winter's Chill crits all my AoE
Water Elemental does DPS for me
The crits keep comin' and with plenty of haste
well damage keeps comin comin up and up and

Mages pwn
Every way we spec we grind mobs to the ground
I think my damage is here to stay

Please be here to stay
Please be here to stay
Please be here to stay
Until Blizzard decides to nerf me
Until Blizzard decides to nerf me

I don't play my lowbie mage very often - in fact it isn't even on my main server. Perhaps in Catacylsm I will roll one. I do think mages have suffered huge changes over the years. It's not a bad thing, all the classes have changed, and min/max specs have changed. I still love to see lower geared mages who know their class out dmg higher geared ones that don't. Mages are probably my favorite example of this. So - mages - whatever your spec: CHEERS!

Learning Curve

2010-01-11T14:45:00.000-06:00

So we have had 2 days (one full day, and one day with only a token pull) fighting Saurfang. We have issues with our raid composition, specifically, our two best healers are Druid and Shaman (and the fight works better with Disc and Pallie). Anyway, we spent 2 hours pulling him yesterday. And although it is frustrating to run into a slight wall (more of a speed bump, really), I felt pretty good about our progression. Everybody is learning their role in the fight, and I feel pretty confident that without any changes we will down him soon.

That is the great thing about my 10-man. I really feel that everybody is ok with a night of wipes while learning a new boss. In 25s, I never feel that way. If we aren't passing out loot, we are failing in 25s, it seems. In the 10-man, everybody was learning from the wipes and we were progressing even without downing him. I don't think we will have the same positive attitude if we had 4 weeks of wipes, but a few nights of learning is totally acceptable. We had very few bad pulls. I would love to see us reset quicker after a wipe. I would love to see errors NEVER repeated. Still . . . it feels good. I know we are at the very right level of content. This is where our team SHOULD hit the speed bump. A few more weeks of farming Frost, a few more weeks of passing out loot from the first 3 bosses . . . then Saurfang, and Fester, Rot, etc are all within reach.

By the way, I'm writing from work, so no song parody today. Sorry kids.

One of these zones is doing its own thing

2010-01-08T09:08:00.000-06:00

So - all of the zones in Northrend are pretty distinct. When you are in any given zone, the graphics and mobs let you know where you are. It's awesome. Most of the zones in Northrend are either tundra or alpine forest, or, y'know. . . semi-tropical jungle. Errr. Huh? Well, now that we are in RL mid-winter, a little tropical paradise sounds like a really nice thing. When I think tropical paradise I think . . . Jimmy Buffet.

Sholazar Basin
Those aren't the murlocs
They're really called gorlocs
They give you an egg that may spawn a mount
Warm by the Titans
Wolvar's you're fightin
Oracle rep is so easy to count

Grindin away again in Sholazar Basin
Almost through the level grind
Some people say that lore is way too lame

But I love. . . all the story I find

Just one verse for today. I have loads of RL stuff to do, and the weather is adding about an hour to my day, so that hour either means that I slack off on this blog a little, or I don't do my daily heroics.

Still, writing about Sholazar makes me think about all the non-instance stuff that is in the game. 90% of my gameplay is in dungeons and raids. I know there are a lot of people for whom that is true. When that gets old, I will pick up a lower level alt and move that toon up for a few days. However, even when I am doing that I tend to think 'wow, when this guy is 80, this is going to be a fun class to tank with . . . '. I tend to ignore my cooking and JC dailies, my alchemy transmutes, farming for gold on my DK, all that stuff. It's more these days since lfg is so good. I am LIVING in the new dungeons. I wonder what would have to be in the game to get me to want to spend more time outside of instances?

Icecrown boss rollouts

2010-01-05T13:21:00.129-06:00

It was bound to happen at some time, please, forgive me.

Ice, Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice:

Ice Ice Icecrown, Arthas in Ice Ice Icecrown
All right stop, Get a raid and listen
Ice's here with some lore from a Lich King
Mar'gar, puts me on a bone spike
I get a cold flame, and its good night
Will it ever stop? No, that's bone storm
Stop your dps, reset aggro
Back to the boss the tanks are picking up threat now
Get out the fire, yo dps - hit your cooldowns

Death, her Fanatics 'round the room
I'm killing her shield making her go OOM
Deadly, when they get a buff from her
Mages and druids gettin rid of Curse of Turpor

Green all around, better get away
Whisper's Aoe, it'll end your raid
If there was a problem, Yo, its phase one

Just get to phase two, and you'll be done

Ice Ice Icecrown, Arthas in Ice Ice Icecrown
Ice Ice Icecrown, Arthas in Ice Ice Icecrown, Arthas

Now that the bosses are dyin
With a raid locked in and the loot is flyin

Quick to the portal, to rampart you'll take her
Clear up the trash to Orgrim's Hammer
Burnin' 'em, heat up your cannon
The mage cools 'em, then you're tankin

Adds on your boat, boss on the other one

Burn the mage down, come back and get some

Jet Pack, damn thats fun
With rocket on, I'm in Bear son
The guners goin down, Range is just burnin
Did you stop? No -- I hit Bloodlust
Face melt, dps that just cant stop
Cannon's going nuts until the mages hit ice block
The mage is dead? Yo
So I continued to DPS and then get my loot.

Saurfang Jr died at wrathgate
Deathbringer, the one that daddy hates
Magic, Nah, it's all physical

Range stay away, or else you're mental

Cause those Blood Beast, they need roots
Keep 'em of the tanks, if you want loot

Shields, all around like a wall
Grab a bubble - no Marks will fall

He's not that bad, until twenty five

Boss is there than you wanna hide

He enrages something wicked

Get him dead fast, or you'll kick it

That was the first wing, it aint on big thing
The loot is phat, the best we ever seen
It shouldn't be a problem, got a month to clear it
Then another wings here, if you can beat it

Arthas in Ice Ice Icecrown, Arthas in Ice Ice Icecrown
Arthas in Ice Ice Icecrown, Arthas in Ice Ice Icecrown

That is a much longer song than I recall.

Anyway, we tried ICC 25 last night. Something needs to be remembered in our raid group. Wiping is not a bad thing. One a new boss the group should expect to wipe for a while before we move on. I think a lot of people were expecting to get 3 bosses dead last night (because that's what we do in 10 mans). I knew that was not realistic, but to see so little interest in the raid was pretty disappointing. However, we're just now getting back into the 25-man groove, so it will take a while for folks to get their schedules back in order. Next week I know I'll see a lot more commitment. Maybe I'll give a big Braveheart-style speech to start. Would that work?

In other news, has anybody else noticed the editorial changes at WoW.com? I guess I never fully appreciated how awesome Mike Schramm is. I have definitely noticed the shift. I've noticed the change in the WoW Insider Podcast too. It's not worse, per se. The difference is more in attitude and focus, but, to me, it seems more like SRS BZNS and less fun.'

Also in the news is UI lag. In ICC-25 I noticed some hefty lag. After disabling mods that store combat log data it pretty much went away. I will be reintegrating these mods in raids, one at a time, to see if it's a mod issue.

OK, I hope everybody is enjoying the song parodies. They do sound better than they read, but recording them is not in the immediate future for me at the moment.

Some times its hard to be a healer

2010-01-05T13:05:00.000-06:00

Ahhhhh, Tammy Wynette, the Queen of Country:
But the greatest version, from Bob's Country Bunker

Sometimes its hard to be a healer
Giving all your mana to just one tank
You'll have some aggro
He'll get it back tho'
Doing things that you dont understand

But if you want loot, be sure to heal him
Even though a tank and spank

And if you want loot
Be sure to heal him

'Cause after all he's just a tank

Stand by your tank
Give him your HoTs and shields

And save all your cooldowns

For when the boss enrages

Stand by your tank
And tell the raid you'll heal him
Keep giving all your HoTs and shields

Stand by you tank

So I spent more time on my tank last night than I have in the past few weeks. It's a tough balance for me at this point. I want to pull mobs as quickly as the pallies and the DKs do, but my AoE is still not nearly good enough to get away with as aggressive pulling as those guys. Especially in PUGs where the AOE starts even before I finish my charge.

My healer last night is a gulidie who is gearing up his resto shaman. We also brought 2 guildies for dps, so it really did go pretty smoothly. But, I am realizing that I need like 200 more Triumph badges. That's just for my tanking set. My dps set is really sad. So that plan is to do my daily on druid and priest, but to farm more on the tank. The good news? He's a tank, so I pretty much get in a group as fast as I can hit the button.

Life in the pug

2010-01-05T09:27:00.000-06:00

Who doesn't love Destiny's Child?

Now that you're out of my group
I'm so much better
You thought that I'd get no loot without you
But I'm all epic
You thought that I'd be lost without you
I got the strats
You thought I wouldn't progress without you
I'm clearin bosses
You thought that I'd die without you
But I'm healin
Thought that I'd have not threat without you
But I'm tankin
You thought that I'd have no dps without you
I'm meltin faces
You thought I wouldn't get a group
But I'm farmin

I'm a survivor (What?)
I'm not gon give up (What?)
I'm not gon stop (What?)
I'm gon work harder (What?)
I'm a survivor (What?)
I'm gonna make it (What?)
I will survive (What?)
Keep on survivin' (What?)

Yeah, I love pugging. I have 2 healers and a tank that are doing random groups every day. My priest was the first to get 'the Patient', my druid has it now too, and my warrior is just about there. The priest has his Perky Pug (which is super-cute, I have to admit), and I can't wait until I have a whole kennel of them. Often, the tank or healer in the group will say, "You guys suck. I'm going to drop. Good look getting a group without ME!" I think this is a fairly common experience. The only more common is the dps-er who says, "this rogue in the group sucks, boot him or I will drop". I have never thought that so many people would try to take a group hostage, but I see it a few times a week. I don't mind when people are frustrated by wipes, or disapprove when somebody has an attitude or is afk. I even don't mind when people say, "your dps is really bad, do you know what you're doing?" Still, when people think, "I'm so good, that nobody can do this content without me" I giggle and get pissed at the same time.

As a healer, I take pride in being able to 'heal through stupid'. As a tank, I love tanking a boss getting as few heals as possible (sometimes none). But, I really never think, 'I hate you people and I'm going to waste your time because of my ego.' I'm not LEET enough, I suppose. Thank God. : )

Honestly though, the MOST surprising thing about the new LFG system is how nice almost everybody is, and how they average player is really pretty decent. Lots of folks need more gear to get better dps, but those are clearly alts, or new 80s. I love that 90% of the time I can get into a totally random group and have the run go smoothly, and have no attitude. It's because the average groups are so good that the aberration of a douchebag is so noticeable.

On the raid again . . .

2010-01-04T10:08:00.000-06:00

C'mon, sing along with Willie:

In the raid again,
Just can't wait to get in the raid again, The life I love is killing bosses with my friends
And I can't wait to get in the raid again.

In the raid again,
Doing instances where I've never been
Using spells that I will never use again,
And I can't wait to get in the raid again.

In the raid again,
Like a group of fresh 80s we die in the fire,
We're a LEET raid team
The final boss's death is all that we desire
And our desire,
Is in the raid again.

Just can't wait to get in the raid again,
The life I love is killing bosses with my friends
And I can't wait to get in the raid again.

We got 2 more bosses in ICC last night. We had three short pulls on Saurfang before we called it. Nevertheless, it was a great raid night. Our newest dps-er, Sebastion, the rogue, got TWO new weapons. That is totally awesome, his MH and his OH both dropped. Nobody else could use 1H dps weapons, so it was great to give them both to him. Overall, we're one boss away from being caught up with 10-man raid content. It is totally great being back home and playing with the team again!

Shameless plug for a good guildie

2010-01-03T16:14:00.000-06:00

So - I have a new rig for gaming. My desktop was 5 years old and was given to my wife about a two years ago when I got my laptop. I had been gaming on my laptop for the past year or two. I realized that I needed a new desktop for a while, but I wanted to get a really nice rig (to be better than my laptop), but I also did not want to spend $2k. Enter Packetloss (aka Ian). He opened a business a few months ago building computers and servicing them. Like Dell, but not in India . . . Anyway, we gave me a pimp rig, which I am running at max settings and sound and laughing at stuff I have not seen previously. So, I'm totally thrilled with my new system - especially for the price. IF you are thinking about upgrading, please check him out.

HLC Computers

1.0

2009-12-31T09:59:00.000-06:00

I had a chance to play with a former guildie last night. She wasn't running in her current guild's 10 man ICC, so she tagged along with us. We basically guild-pugged 10 man ToC then moved into ICC. The former guildie left on really good terms. Basically, she wanted more serious raiding and quicker progression. Those are things that we are not able to provide, so it makes very good sense to move to a more 'hardcore' guild for that style of game-play. She plays a resto druid with offspec boomkin.

Anyway, basically everybody was on an alt; even both of our tanks. We cleared ToC in under an hour, quite a good pace for us. Obviously our former guildie did really well, so did everybody else.

Moving into ICC, we had a little bit slower run. We cleared Marrow pretty smoothly. At that point is was about 1 AM and I needed to go to sleep. As I was logging off I was chatting with our former guildie. She said that in some ways she really missed Black Axe Clan. We don't worry about wipes. We don't yell at one another. We have fun. That was the best thing I heard in a long time. I have realistic ideas of how quickly progression comes to our groups. I really get frustrated by that at times.

We're approaching our 5th anniversary as a guild, and a big part of that is our attitude and acceptance. Our espirit de corps. I love it. Thanks guildies!

We're going mobile

2009-12-27T12:49:00.002-06:00

So - this Christmas I'm on vacation with family in Florida. My parents have a condo down here - so me and the kids fly down from Chicago to enjoy the weather a bit while they are on break from school.

I have my laptop - which is my typical gaming rig. My internet is basically pirated from my parent's neighbor's wireless (with the neighbor's permission, actually). The connection is not great.

Dalaran is tough, raiding is basically impossible, management is awkward. Anyway, for the week or so I'm down here, I let the guild coast through on its own. Sometimes this has lead o a bit of an exodus, and sometimes everybody else in on holiday too, so there are no real consequences at all. I view this time as a bit of a litmus test for the guild. If everything goes well without me - we are pretty healthy. If there are problems - well, this time brings them up and they get settled, one way or another.

My fellow officers in the guild have been around quite a long time, and everybody gets along pretty well. Sometimes people get a little slack in their officer-duties, but usually there is enough action to keep everybody plugging away. Guild-wise the only concerns would be inappropriate behavior, but in our guild, that is basically never an issue.

I hope when I return to a more stable connection that all is well. I'm sure it is, but it still feels like a left the house full of trust-worthy teenagers. When Guild Leaders have their role for a long time, and reflect upon all the effort that goes into management, there is always a loving concern for the welfare of their guild.
. . . or am I way too committed? : )

2009-12-23T19:23:00.000-06:00

So, I started looking through the Twisted Nether Blog List. About 50% of the blogs listed in there are either inactive or have posted less than 2x since July. I have started blogging myself - just for fun, and to do a little bit of writing a few times a week (a creative outlet for me). Looking for sites to refer to, to plagiarize from, led me to Twisted Nether. Anyway, I seen to be finding fewer long-term blogs.

Part of this is just the nature of blogging, and the nature of a game with the longevity of WoW. There are very few blogs that last 5 years. People quit playing every day. They also quit blogging every day. However, there are new people playing the game everyday. There must also be blogs like mine, that have started recently.

Anyway, has anybody else noticed this? Has anybody found the good new voices that must be out there?

I also want to make clear that I, personally, think that the game is better than ever. There there is a challenge for more people than ever. That the high-end raiders have a smaller window to make their mark, the mid-level teams have a chance to grab some world-firsts, the lower-level raiders have access to progression content, that non-raiders have more to do in the game than ever! I think the game is changing in wonderful ways. I am not predicting the 'end of WoW'. But I have noticed that most marriages don't last 5 years, so it is amazing that a MMORPG can last that long. It is even MORE AMAZING that a game can thrive over that long of a time. But, with a huge population, some folks leave - take extended breaks - get married and have kids - whatever - and that interferes with both gaming and blogging.

AFK for the holidays

2009-12-23T10:45:00.000-06:00

Most of the Guild are adults. There are a few high schoolers, more college age folks, but most of the Guild consists of grownups. Like me they have jobs, families and kids. Most of the Guild has plans that prevent them from being around during the holidays. They are shuffling between grandparents houses. They are taking the kids to see Santa.

I have my kids at home this week - they are on break from school (they are 5 and 7). They can watch TV for an hour in the morning while I get a random dungeon done on one of my healers. Then during 'rest time' I can usually hammer out the random daily on my warrior and the other healer.

So far, my raid time has not been altered. However, we're flying to visit the grandparents on Christmas day. For the eight days following that I will be relying on the pirated wireless connection from my parents neighbors. I also will have the disapproving glares of my parents as I 'waste my time' playing (while they watch TV).

Overall, our raid schedule is on pause until after new years. The huge advantage of being in a mature guild, is that everybody knows what is coming, and everybody knows that raiding takes a back seat this week. Real life > WoW. That is most obvious at the holidays. Nevertheless, I love that my real life is still more important than the game. I love that when I play, my guildies feel the same. Thank God.

Carebears care! (and usually fail)

2009-12-19T19:27:00.000-06:00

This is much more of a raid-leadership post than a guild-leadership post, but it needs to be said:
evaluating the raid team is essential to success.

OK, that isn't very clear; what I mean to say is: tell people about their mistakes, lack of gear, or lack of skill.
Sometimes there is a legit reason for somebody to be playing below their usual level: new spec? trying new gear? gem or glyph changes? Sometimes people have bad nights with their ISP connection. But in order for a player to be having a bad night, they need to have had a reliable string of good nights first.

Much more commonly, in my experience, is a new raider who is over his or her head. They are missing gems or enchants, have a hodge-podge of gear, or have not raided with their class. Maybe they are very used to PVP or soloing. Maybe they got run-through some lower level content. Maybe they are being asked to do something different (CC in the faction champions fight comes to mind). All these things can lower their output. Sometimes, they just don't know what to do. The trick is to determine who you are dealing with.

A really good raider, a holy priest, changed from holy to disc for the Saurfang fight. He seemed to be struggling a little bit. My priest, Acquinas, has been disc forever, so after a few pulls, I looked at his spec and we made some adjustments. After that, his output was awesome. In the same raid (which was desperate for heals), a fellow guildie brought his resto druid, an alt. The druid was not geared to this level. I was astonished at his output, given his gear, but still, he was just not ready for the content.

In these two healer situations there is a clear analysis, and corrections; for the priest, fix the spec and rotation; for the druid - he's doing all the right things, but needed moar gearz.

It's not all bad news tho! In this analysis, I love taking the opportunity to take some people who are doing great things and publicly congratulating them for being awesome. "Dude, whatever your rotation is - you're kicking ass!" "Holy cow! You are getting that CC off every time! Awesome!" "Hey guildies, if anybody wants to see somebody who knows his class, check this guy out!"

In any event, without adequate evaluation any raid team will not be as successful as they should be. Everybody can be doing something better. Progression typically demands it.

Oh the places we'll go!

2009-12-15T09:14:00.000-06:00

We have options for raiding all of a sudden.

Our guild might not be ready for ICC 25. If I picked our 30 best people I'd set up a great team, and I think we'd roll through ICC like everybody else is at the moment. However, we're casual. Our fellow guildies have lives, jobs, families and other stuff to do. Our 30 best cannot create a team. We can't all be on at the same time. So, we have 15 great players, and 10 people of a generally mixed group of experience. We have had issues in the past dodging balls on the Twins in ToC. We have not cleared Uld 25 (on easy mode).

Our realistic choices for 25 man raid night are:
ToC (easymode)
Ony
VoA
Weekly Raid Quest
attempt ICC

In a 3 hour raid night, that is actually a lot to chose from. I think the officers are of mixed opinion. Some have less confidence in the guild than I do. Some want to try new content. Some want to get older content completed. Some want to do whatever would give the guild the most gear in the fastest time. If I put it to a vote, I think we would split the vote pretty evenly. So, ultimately the decision is up to me. Well . . . crap. I guess this is why I get paid the big bucks. Well, not actually get paid, but more like pay small bucks to keep the website up and send extra time herding cats.

Anyway, since I never knew what I'm going to get raid-team-wise, I can't really make the decision until I see who is coming to raid. If we get 20 pros - I want to do Weekly raid / ICC. If we get 10 pros, Ony / Weekly Raid / ToC. But we'll get 17 and I'll be totally stuck. Hehehe. So the question is, dear reader, easy and win, or hard and lose?

I'm not bad, I'm just geared that way

2009-12-15T08:58:00.000-06:00

It was inevitable. I finally ran into a random group with a bad healer. Resto druid with gear score under 4k, and a few pieces of cloth with +hit on them. He specced properly. In the same group we had one good mage, and a very green DK and a somewhat afk rogue.

We rolled into DTK and kicked ass. We aoe-d all the trash pretty easily. The rogue kept accidentally pulling the wrong groups of mobs, but somehow my shockwave would be off cooldown and I'd charge in and stun the group and they'd all be mine. I came in 3rd in dmg (and my warrior is not a dps machine as prot - or as fury for that matter).

Anyway, I am much more confident tanking in random heroics now. With such a mediocre group to fly through the instance so easily was very reassuring. I still think warrior tanking is the 4th option tank-wise for most encounters, but seeing as how my DK has no gear, my druid hasn't been feral since level 69 and my paladin is level 34, I really don't have much of a choice.

Casual raiding guild blues

2009-12-15T08:49:00.000-06:00

I am anticipating disaster. This will be followed by resentment. Then the exodus will occur. It's the mmorpg casual guild Circle of Life.

When we have new content released, a lot of our guild members get back in the game. They play much more and want to do all the new content right away. MOST of these folks have not finished the old content, since they got bored with it. They have not maxxed out their gear. They have not tried the content on the PTR or followed it online. Without thinking about it, they want to get carried through content. Some of them have been grinding out their gear, pugging some raids, and getting better, but have not joined a team or formed a team of their own.

Our guild has over 200 people, on 450 characters. Most of the gulidies are real people, with real lives, family, school, work, jail time to serve, etc. They understand that if they can't attend our posted raid times, that they can try again with us next week, do other stuff or join a PuG. I encourage people to find friends within the guild to play with regularly. Make 5 man or 10 man teams. Set up their own group within the guild. Make it a community. So far, we have 2 10 man teams. So 20 people are accounted for. There will be at least a dozen more people who feel, since I am guild leader, I should find a team for them. I can't do that. I am busy with playing the game myself. Me and the other guild officers have taken a lot of time to work on our guild - decent forums, lots of encouragement, creating a safe, friendly place to play with lots of other people. I can't make a team for everybody, then make sure everybody show up every time, and when they dont show up, find somebody to fill . . .I do that on MY team.

I don't mean to be dismissive, but everybody needs to play the game for themselves. I would love for a few extra people to take the initiative of building a team. I want everybody to have fun, but I can't make them do it.

Onions always make me cry

2009-12-13T17:38:00.001-06:00

Open letter to Paul, the raid killer.

I loved this post. Also, The onion is the greatest thing ever.

LFG - guild killer?

2009-12-13T17:18:00.001-06:00

I am our guild's biggest cheerleader. I encourage. I put up posts in the forums. I change the message of the day. Go Black Axe Clan!

I have pugged about 90% of my instances this week with my healers and tank. I did a few runs, but nearly ALL of my runs were random. I can tell myself that is was because of the Frost Emblems. A big part of it was. Frost emblems are hard for me to come by otherwise, since we're not quite ready for ICC 10. But there is something very sweet in the anonymity of the random group. Also, the random groups tend to be pretty decent. There is usually one dps-er who is way below everybody else, but I have yet to encounter a terrible tank or healer. The groups are usually polite. Gameplay is usually very solid. Overall, it is every bit as good as running in a guild run. The bonus for me - I don't have to be 'guild leader' in the pug. I can just sit back and play.

I see much much more dungeon running these days, and sometimes it is a full guild group, but much more often I see 1-2 guildies per instance.

I don't know what the long-term effects of separating folks is going to be. Black Axe will be fine - we've been around forever, and are big enough and casual enough that there will be mild effects. But I do wonder about other guilds.

Why am I happy running Heroic Old Kingdom?

2009-12-10T08:43:00.001-06:00

So, I was able to run 5 or 6 random groups yesterday. I also did 3 groups with me healing on my priest and my guildie, Akaichisuru, tanking on his paladin. Akaichisuru (who for reasons known only to himself is called 'Waffle'), is a LEET tank so finding 3 dps to run through a few heroics was easy.

Overall, I really like the new grouping system. There is a strong motivation to run random groups. Since I am always either healing or tanking, I never have to wait for a group it seems.

I have been grouped with folks pretty close to me as far as gear score goes, so I have a feeling that most people know the encounters, and do not need a lot of reminding of what to do. Heroics are very easy, so generally we're clearing these dungeons super-fast. 15-30 minutes per run. We never explain strats, we just blast right through with me occasionally asking to wait for mana (since I typically am adding a little dps to the mix - which kills time, but doesn't help very much with killing monsters). There have been no loot issues, no flamez, no hate. Basically, everybody just wants to get stuff done as fast as they can. Since everybody is pretty OP, it's not an issue.

I think the new system is going to work out great. I think the old days of waiting for a group in /lfg were pretty miserable for dps, and now it's vastly improved. /cheers to Blizzard!

3.3 patch day

2009-12-08T13:13:00.001-06:00

12/8/2009 - 1:12 pm.
We are now 12 minutes past servers opening. I have not seen any announcement about when they will actually come back online.
"When it's ready" seems to fit pretty well here.

Patch Day To-do List

2009-12-08T10:29:00.001-06:00

Download patch - you can't keep score unless you know the players kids
Update mods - most will end up being broken to some degree, but get ahead of the curve as much as possible.
Homework - read http://www.wow.com/ and wow.curse.com for patch updates on boss encounters
Try to log in
Try again
Try again
Kick cat
Swear a bit
Try to log in
Watch loading screen
Learn Chinese
Sleep
Log in on Wednesday

The Early Raider Gets the Bugs

2009-12-08T00:56:00.001-06:00

There is a strong urge to raid on patch days. Everybody wants to get into new content ASAP. I know I do. I can't wait to see the new content. I absolutely want to try out the new random lfg system. I have a tank and two healers, so I think I'm gonna be 100% set.

But, I insist that the guild avoids organized raids on patch day. That has been a 2 year old rule. Patch day is universally a clusterf---. The servers will not get online for hours after the appointed time. Folks will lag out all over the place. Everybody's mods will either be broken, or not updated. And, there are also bugs in the game that cause crashes. Essentially, all of the bad stuff happens on patch day. I consider it a holiday. There will be no work today. Period.

If the servers do get up on time, I'm TOTALLY going to pug into the new stuff tho'!

Follow me! I know the way . . .

2009-12-07T13:12:00.001-06:00

Well, I am lucky enough to be friends with a few of the really solid raiding guilds on my server. When the content stops being progression, these guilds sometimes need extra heals or an off-tank, or one of the classes I seem to be able to bring. There are a few great benefits when I get to pug a raid with a raiding guild:
- The tricks that they use to stay efficient can be really helpful
- Boss strats, bugs are easier to explore in game than in videos
- I tend to meet folks who have a lot of skill, and may have alts that need gear from raids below their main progression runs . . . my friends list is usually pretty solid
- I am reminded why I don't want to be in a leading edge progression guild.

When I get to just follow along, life is easy. The guys who lead the raids in realm-first-competitive guilds need to be not as nice as I want to be. They HAVE to do it, basically. To produce results, they need to drive their teams hard, and while most raiders on teams like this do really well without too much guidance, even in these guilds, discipline is very important and needs constant attention.

I would rather be a social director, and allow raiding to happen vigorously, but without pressure. I think I can keep people pretty happy about the social aspect of the guild. I think I can keep people informed, connected and give them opportunities to explore raiding - even progression raiding. To drive any one aspect of the guild toward the hardcore, well, that is something that I don't have the ability to do. So, I'm glad that I have awesome friends who can open the window to that part of the game.

Dont despair!

2009-12-07T11:39:00.001-06:00

How do you talk to guildies about raiding when PuGs do as well or better than guild runs?
What is the incentive for folks to raid with the guild?

Typically, I talk about having fun in raids. It is fun to kill stuff, but having fun with guildies is that and more. When you know people in a raid, their success means a lot. When it's just you, only YOUR success matters. The more experienced raiders can make a difference in a raid with guildies who are less experienced. This is how teamwork develops. Also, for the folks who raid with the guild, they have the more tangible benefit of keeping whatever loot drops in the guild.

When talking to these potential raiders - who are in the middle of the pack in many good PuGs, but are at the top of the list for us - I want to avoid talking about sacrifice or responsibility to the guild. I don't want people to feel negatively about raiding with the guild. Down that road people get burned out, and feel like to be successful they need to leave.

Ultimately, people will want to do more and they will leave. Those who stay will be the folks who are ok with slower progression, dont mind pugging once in a while, and who really want to help out their friends once in a while. Also, many of our guildies have been down the 'hardcore' road before. They get stuck because of real life obligations and then realize they have to quit WoW. Or they learn that a hobby is something to do in your spare time and moderate their WoW playing. These folks dont need convincing that 6 hours raiding a week is plenty. That having fun, being casual is ok . . . as long as progression happens too!

Patches, we don't need your stinking patches!

2009-12-03T23:28:00.001-06:00

On one hand, I am really eager for the Icecrown to drop. I think my 10 man is going to do pretty well. We won't have many realm firsts - somewhere in the vicinity of zero percent chance. But, we should be able to make some good progression.

Still, I sorta wish we had more time before 3.3. I know many, many guilds are bored with the current content, but we're still working on it.

There are so many changes when new content comes out. Class changes, new recipes, new instances. The first few days are always as chaotic as Christmas morning in a house full of 7 year olds. Broken mods, bugs, server lag, extended maintenance . . .

Ultimately, wiping on 3 hours before new content in order to get that first new boss dead on opening day will be pretty sweet.

Thursday Night - Must Raid CC

2009-12-03T23:16:00.001-06:00

Black Axe went back into ToC tonight. We cruised through VoA for a warm up, which was nice. We 22-manned it. Then into ToC for Faction Champions. Had a wipe or two right out of the gate. Then we got into the groove. We killed 1 for every 2 or 3 we lost, by the end it was 10 vs 2, but we got 'em. Took about 16 minutes. I died early. I probably could have made a pie. I like pie. I totally could have made a pie and had it in the oven. Well, I did NOT make pie, but we did clear the encounter. I'm very grateful to my guildies for carrying me through that fight. There is no love for trees or chickens in Faction Champions.

Anyway, we moved on to twins. Again, it took a while for people to figure out how to stay alive. Living raiders do WAY more damage. Once we turned the corner there, we did really well and cleared them too.

Anub was not so nice. We couldn't find a good balance with him. Chins were held pretty high even though we didn't get to finish ToC for the week. It was nice to have 2 full 25 man days for the guild. It has been a while since we've had that, or done this well.

Tanking Teams

2009-12-02T13:42:00.001-06:00

Setting up a tanking team can be tricky. Ultimately, 'bring the player, not the class' is probably MOST true with tanking. Today I heard tanking described as 30% science and 70% art. I think that is a little generous, but in essence, it's true. We've all run in PuGs, or in VoA with a MT or OT who has 45k health, but forgets to pick up some adds. I've seen tanks try Koralon with 52k health who figure that they can just stand in the fire and 'get heals'. In tanking, perhaps more than in other classes, your 'rotation' is secondary to your objective. Gear certainly helps in tanking, but there is a wide range of acceptable gear for the content is available right now.

The most important thing about tanking is having a tank who WANTS to tank. Personally, I get burned out from tanking. I can do it for a while, but then I need to move to something else. There really is much more pressure tanking. For healers, the pressure is similar, but I've spent a lot of time doing both, and personally, I feel twice the pressure tanking as I do healing. The 2nd or 3rd tank job is another role that is challenging on its own. I usually feel like the second best (or third) and that is usually not a great feeling. It does take a special motivation to want to be a tank. Getting 2 people totally dedicated to it is essential. Having 2 people ready to fill take role, while primarily doing something else is also needed. We use 3 tanks on certain encounters. Most of the time we just need 2, so having one tank, who can dps well, or provide extra heals, is a great benefit.

In a good raid, everybody is comfortable with their role for an encounter. They fill that role, and if able, help others too. The MT pallie who has a minute to sit around waiting for Onyxia to drop, and gets off some heals . . .that guy is a hero. The DK OT who changes his presence for phase 3, swaps out the weapons and piles on 750 more dps . . . that is somebody who understands his class, and his ability. The OT warrior, who gets the debuffs up on the mobs, move the vigilance around to help folks reduce their threat . . .I want that guy on the team.

2009-12-02T13:16:00.001-06:00

So, I have posted this on our guild forums. Here is a list of my favorite podcasts. I have a long commute on the days I work (about an hour each way). Having these podcasts pretty much fills the whole commute (and saves a ton of money on my cellphone bill).

The Instance

The twisted nether blogcast

WoW.com

I prefer The Instance to just about all the other podcasts for WoW I've heard. The sound production is usually the best. Scott and Randy, the hosts, are usually funny and upbeat. It sounds like they are having fun podcasting and it sounds like they are having fun in the game.

The twisted nether blogcast is something I've only been listening to for a few weeks. I think the material in the podcast is really more about blogging about WoW (it's a little bit meta). Nevertheless, they bring in a different person to interview each week. That fresh voice is really refreshing.

The wow.com podcast is fun too. It is not quite as well produced as The Instance, but Mike and Turpster are great hosts. And, like Scott and Randy, have a lot of fun with WoW. Plus, the WoW.com blog is outstanding.

There are a bunch of non-wow podcasts that I enjoy:
SMODcast
This American Life
Savage Love Podcast

SMOD and Savage Love are definately NSFW, but everything else should be ok for little ears.

Tuesday Night Raiding Club

2009-12-02T10:15:00.001-06:00

Tuesday night is 25-man night.
On the tap for this Tuesday was Onyxia and Trial of the Crusader.
Log report for 12/1/9 for Black Axe Clan

Building the group went ok, but not great. We had 20 people instantly. 6 healers and 1 full-time tank. Abhorred has a good tanking set for DK and was my first choice to OT (but we prefer him dps-ing). Other than that it was a crap-shoot. I was considering getting on my warrior to tank, but Sondebar (one of our leading mages) hoped on his DK to be another OT. At this point we had 24 and were going to bring in another dps, but luckily one of the guild main tanks, Judeaded, logged on to fill a spot. This let Abhorred go back to dps, which is just full of win, and we had the makings of a great group.
We only had one hunter. We only had one shaman. Healing team was 3 priests, 2 druid and a paladin. Not a bad mix, especially since everybody knew their business. Tanking team was Pallie, and 2 DKs.

Onyxia was first. I'm often asked why we do that first. Essentially, I see it as a warm up. Sometimes it takes folks a few minutes to realize that they are raiding, and in that interval we have a few folks die from inattention. Onyxia is something that we can easily kill with 20 people, so I like starting there. Plus, because it's so short, we typically end up giving out some loot that can get quickly gemmed and enchanted before we start ToC.

On this night we did wonderfully in Onyxia:

Akaichisuru, our MT, d/c'd when the whelps first appeared, but the two DK OTs did a great job of picking them up and Akaichisuru was able to hop back in quickly. I too always get a huge lag spike during that first AOE blast. Typically, I have Recount hidden, but I think I need to be turning it off entirely to avoid the processing lag.

Nobody died to her breath, and only 2 or 3 people were hit by it at all.

The only death was an unfortunate melee who was feared into a cleave and got 1-shot. That was pretty near the end, so I was not at all concerned.

We passed out a few helms and weapons and ported over to ToC. At this point our casual-ness showed through. It took about 20 minutes to get set up in ToC after the loot was passed out. A few people took the time to afk, a few people had gone to Auction House . . .essentially, time was wasted.

Nevertheless, we one shot Beasts of Northrend. That is not unusual, really. But we did it without allowing Icehowl to enrage at all. Last week, he enraged on every charge (including hitting ME once!). This week, not once.

Jax went down super smoothly. Lost one person who lagged a little when he had the fire on him. Clothies + fire = toasty cloth.

We took a 5 min break before PVP for bio and a little R&R. Coming back to the PVP event we were facing: disc priest, tree, holy pallie, rogue, warrior, enhancement shaman, DK, hunter, warlock, shadow priest. Basically, a nightmare group for us. We usually do really well when there is fewer melee. We wiped a bunch. It seemed as though we had everybody cc-ing and nobody dps-ing for a few seconds, then everybody dps-ing and nobody cc-ing for a few seconds. We had rotations for cc assigned, and we had all kinds of teams for that, but it was still a giant mess. Even when we killed the priest quickly, the tide would shift and we would get behind the dps-curve.

Most of us were pretty frustrated by it. Especially on that fight it is hard to find something to correct. Because the fight is so chaotic, we cannot tell who is missing a cc or who is not getting their cleanse off or whatever. We spent about 45 minutes in there (maybe more). We ended up calling it a night a little early to avoid burning out.

The Faction Champions fight is tricky, no doubt, but it is one that we have had success with in the past. I think that our team's overall lack of experience shows a little bit in that fight. The deep knowledge of class and race abilities is less when people have not had as much experience raiding. Still, it was a fun night, and the fact that we really flew through the first 3 encounters was great.

We are scheduled to get back into ToC on Thursday for more PVP love. Fingers are crossed.

Holiday gaming

2009-11-30T09:11:00.001-06:00

Most of my guildies are adults. Most of the folks I play with have jobs, spouses, kids. . . basically we almost all have real-lives that limit our access to WoW. No time is this more apparent than during the holidays. Scheduling raids and guild events is really tricky this time of year.

There is a great tradeoff because of this. Since we're all adults; because we've all played for years; because we've all played together for a long time; we don't mind missing a week of raiding. Let me clarify: we all want to play and have fun, but nobody is pissed-off about missing our raid night.

Last night we only had 3 people on from our 10-man raid team. /shrug I was on, but had no problem logging out and watching tv with Missus Bhorg. I wanted to get some more ToC in (my priest still needs LOADS of gear), but I'm not horribly worried about it.

I guess this is what it means to be 'casual'.

When we do raid, we have lots of fun, we typically progress pretty well. Our communication is good. We understand the encounters beyond just our own role in them. We are creative and open-minded with strategy. When we find a good strategy for us, we refine it and stick with it. Basically, we have lots of fun and win more than we lose. It's nice to be able to play casually and still have that level of development within the game.

Raid leading roles

2009-11-30T08:55:00.001-06:00

I have 3 mains.

Yeah - I don't know how that happened either. Well, I kinda do. It happened by necessity. We originally needed tanks - hence Bhorg. Then we needed healers - so I have Bhorgia. But we have 2 other druids on my 10 man team (and if we need 3 battle rezzes in one encounter, we're doing something wrong anyway), so I leveled my priest Acquinas. I try to get all 3 into Vault of Archavon, Onyxia, and Trial of the Crusade each week, but best case scenario is that 2 of those toons are running in alt-runs or pugs. So, I bring whichever toon we need to our main 10-man raid.

There is an issue of alts. I want to help the team win. I want to have fun and avoid wipes. I also do not want to wait an hour to find a decent guildie or friend to fill out our group. By druid is the best geared toon, I play the warrior most skillfully, but the raid generally needs the priest (the least geared and least skillful of my 3 mains). I don't mind. I like playing all 3 toons, and I like having the flexibility to fill several roles. On the 10 man team - 7 people have 3 or more 80s. MOST of those toons are as well geared as mine. We collectively decided to only raid with main toons, unless we need some specific role filled. I don't mind alts. Here is my concern (way to bury the lead!):

As raid leader - I have to alter my attention and strategy based on not only the class, but also the gear of the toon and the experience of the raider - both in general AND as raiding on THAT character. From personal experience I definitely know that I perform best as my warrior tank - despite his relative lower gear. Also, my healing on the resto druid is WAY better than the healing done by my priest. I don't mean the meters, I actually mean by keeping people alive.

Moreover - by raiding on different toons, I need to change my style of play, therefore my style of thinking, depending on which class I am playing at the time. With that change I have noticed that I treat the raid differently depending on who I am playing.

I wonder - does my team notice? Do they HEAR me differently on the different characters?

10 or 25? How much is too much?

2009-11-24T10:01:00.001-06:00

So, I really prefer raiding in 10 mans. I feel like I can really know the capabilities of all of my teammates. I generally play with a healer, sometimes I tank, sometimes I range DPS. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of my teammates can be a raid-saver. In 25 mans . . . I do not have that luxury for a few reasons. Most obviously, there are more people. Also, and unfortunately, since we are a 'casual raiding guild', we do not have attendance requirements - translation: we never know who is actually going to show up.

Even in 25 mans, I generally know who my tanks are, and most of my healers. I will often know the abilities of most of the raid. The folks I don't know are all over the place. I raided with a new guildie, a rogue, who blew the roof off of the dps meter in Onyxia. Another new guildie (in really solid Tier 8-9 level gear) was a few spots below the tanks in dps. Most of the non-heroic content can be played with 20 decent raiders and 5 people who have no idea what they are doing. Most is not always tho'. When we do 25 mans and wipe on content that we have been farming for months it is usually because 50% of the raid is on alts that they don't know how to raid with, or people who are so confused by raiding that they die instantly - or worse, get ME killed!

The control, friendliness, relative success and level of fun has been much higher in 10 man content than in 25s. I still run 25s, for the benefit of the guild. But 10-mans is my favorite, by far. I am excited when new content gets released, so that our 10-man team can move into that content. I find myself dreading having to bring in the 25 man team into new content.