Where Does Your Guild Stand?

In Vanilla WoW, if you wanted to know where a guild stood, you went to their realm forums, and hoped there was some dedicated person keeping a huge thread up to date with boss kills.

Throughout BC, if you wanted to know where a guild was at in progression, you went to WoWJutsu. Hands down, this was the place.

And now where do you go for Wrath, if your competitive spirit demands a logical ordering of guilds - ?

...I'm finding WoWProgress to be the site of choice.

Achievements are the clincher. Base clears of Naxx, OS, and Malygos have probably all been done on your server by many, many guilds. What sets guilds apart now are Achievements - Noteably Twilight Assist, Duo, and Twilight Zone, though there are some others (The Immortal) that certainly convay a level of mastery over the content.

Date of, and Order in which a guild got a kill/achievement on not only World and US/EU level, but as specific as Realm - are all pretty sweet. Like, LOKI was the 14th to Clear Naxx, but the 4th to get Arachnophobia, and the 6th to Just Can't Get Enough.

You can also tack on Recruitment and guild information, in the likely event that someone is checking you out when considering placing an App. You can see how often people leave/are removed from the guild, RSS boss kills, and see who's getting loot.

All in all, its the best I've found so far. But tell me, am I missing something anywhere else?

Why Guilds Don't Progress, and "Seeing Content"

Namthe recently quoted a (casual?) friend of his, whom responded to his (widly-held) complaint of raids being too easy...

Are you kidding me? You can’t wait 4 weeks for a new challenge while less hardcore players get a chance to see the content you’ve been taking for granted?

This made me stop and think, about what keeps guilds from seeing content? Is it difficulty?

I'm fairly convinced that it is not how hard Bosses hit, or how many HP they have, and that the 3.0 nerf won't result in any significant, widespread availability of content - it actually hurts the still-raiding player base.

The reason guilds don't progress comes down, plain and simple, to issues surrounding its members. Lets look at some situations...

1) A guild doesn't possess 10 or 25, active, raiding members (plus extras for replacements)

2) A guild has enough raiders, but they don't log on in unison.

3) The guild is a revolving door, and new members force the re-learning of old content, while keeping any consecutive time on new content from happening.

4) A guild does not have enough members willing to put in the time/effort/consumables/repairs to learn new bosses / boss mechanics.

Nerfing a bosses health and damage does not change any of those factors. There are no fights that cannot be overcome by a fairly-regular, dedicated, prepared group of people willing to put in the time.

Now, those seem like reasonable requirements. And you may be thinking - my guild is like that, why aren't we farming Kil'Jaden? 

Time. LOKI got off to a late start, and has consistenly progressed, but that didn't put us into deep Sunwell before 3.0. There are countless other guilds that didn't form (or get past the above barriers to progression) until recently. And what do these guilds need? - Another month of being about to work on content. 

Example: Kadomi and (Daughters of the Horde) just got Hex down (Congrats, btw!), and were working on Zul'jin. I'm positive that they would have killed him pre-wrath, and had a satisfactory conclusion to BC. Likewise, LOKI was on the cusp of downing Kalecgos and being a legit Sunwell guild. In both cases, another month would have provided what would have felt like a legitimate, capstone achievement. 

What we got, however, was an anti-climatic *poof*. Robbed of any real chalange, we now wonder the glove, uncovering map, working on achievements, and occassionally going into instances where the single perk is spending time with the people we've struggeled together with in the past.

Honestly - if casual player's real desire was to just see the content - they could always come back at 80. However, I'm willing to bet that the great majority of such lv 70 players have not gone back and "seen" all of BWL, AQ40, ect. And its not how hard a boss hits, or their max HP thats keeping people from doing those encounters - its the same reasons they aren't raiding current content - there aren't enough people interested in putting in time and effort.

Regardless, whats done is done: we have been left with meeningless content a month earlier then we should have. Sigh.

Plan Of Attack!

Old Business:

Kalec to 13% / 23%. Thats a kill in 3.0 speak, with the -30% health nerf. We were using Violet Badges, but I'm going to go ahead and also require Cloaks of Arcane Evasion with +15 AR enchant, for a nice chunk of resist. 

New Business: My Plan of Attack for Tonight (3.0)

1) Spec to 5/0/56. The lone point in Imp Shield Reflect was my only swing point, and its directed towards my current progression (Kalec).

2) Check and Fix my Mods. Some type of Scrolling Combat Text, Deadly Boss Mods, and a Bar Mod are my only necessities. 

3) Check my achievement points, and compare to anyone who will listen.

4) "Train" all my vanity pets, and marvel in my bag space. Talk to a stable master to get back any I may have deleted.

5) Check out the Barbershop! I'm happy with my hair, but I'll take a look.

6) Stroll around Stormwind Harbor

7) Check out the spot where Darlaran use to be

8) /cower

9) Double check consumables, repairs, and head to BT for a night of relearning what buttons to push!

I'm excited. In a good way. I'm getting the feeling that as long as there are working servers, LOKI will be able to bash its way through BT, and overcome any change-related learning that we need to. Bosses are just going to melt, with the increased raid DPS, and decreased health. As long as healers aren't too thrown off with no downranking and a lone potion, we should (hopefully) be 30% Faster. And then there's raid wide buffs - I can't imagine how crowded thats going to look on the side of my screen. 

I'll be sure to let everyone know how things are going as they happen. And I'll be updating Yakra's Theories on Tanking as I feel comfortable with the new talents and such. I actually should archive and modify that now...

I really, really hope WWS works - because I can't wait to see the hard numbers for all this. 

How Many Tanks ?

This question has plagued me for some time. How many full tanks do you need in a guild? Lets look at the various fights, and how many protection / feral tanks you may want.

Kara: Two for some fights, One for others. 

Gruul: Two for Gruul, as many as four for Maulgar

Magtheridon: As many as Five (depending on pre or post nerf).

T4 Summary: 2-5

SSC: 2-5 (Vashj is 2, Fathomlord is 4).

TK: 1-4 (Solarian is one, Kael/Alar is 4).

T5 Summary: 1-4

Hyjal: 1-2

BT: 1-3

T6 Summary: 1-3

Trend: The number of full tanks needed shrinks as you go up in Tiers (and I'm going with the assumption that you want a full time tank for progression fights) . On top of this, you assume that your going to recruit over the minimum, so that there are backups. Then there are considerations of tank types: you most certainly want a protection paladin for Hyjal, but you can't (without significant effort) have them tank Archimonde. Add a backup to each, and your looking at four tanks. Add another Protection warrior as a backup for Kael (where you may want two warriors, in addition to a protection paladin and a feral druid) - and now you have potential for five full time tanks logged on for a one tank fight (ie, Solarian, Archimonde, Najentus,  Teron, RoS). 

I'm curious to see how many tanks new 25 Man Raids will want. I'm excited that warriors and paladins will be generally interchangable, but concerned that it will put a squeeze on LOKI's fairly large tanking base (Three Protection Warriors, One Protection Paladins ((with a Holy that wants to Tank in Wrath)), and two Feral Druids). Worse off, I did the recruiting all in good faith, but now am not leading the tanking scene - leaving our new Tank Officer to deal with sorting it all out.

All of our tanks are great, and I don't want to leave any out - which is why I'm hoping for some generally higher number-of-tank requirements in Wrath. Hopefully, with the addition of the psudo-tanking Death Knight class (none of which we have players indicating strong desire to switch to) - encounters will be designed to better fit more tanks.

Illidan Kill Two, and Return to SSC

Our second Illidan Kill took just under an hour, from zoning to looting - something like four attempts. Considering we had a different flame tank, at least two new healers, and a handful of new DPS - it was really great. Another thing I'm particularly happy about, is that this entire weeks BT clear and Illidan kill has happened in the immediate wake of the Guild Master title changing hands. We haven't missed a step, in what is typically a guild shattering event. I'm just rather happy with everyone today: Our old GM (for orchistrating this change so well), our officers (for their continued support), and our Raiders in general (for their great performance, and confidence in me). 

I should mention - I nearly wiped us. Right before the last transition into Demon Phase, we were at ~3%. I stayed in too long, hoping we'd kill him, and built an unfortunatly large amount of threat on the demon. When I realzied I should get out of there, I ended up getting a portion of the raid shadow blasted once or twice. We still got the demons down and finished the last 3%, but I felt rather silly.

So, with our remaining two hours, I made the call to go to SSC so we can do half of the Hand of Ad'al title stuff (Fathomlord Quest, and Vial). We skipped Hydross, Lurker, Morogrim, and killed Fathomlord in two attempts (on the first, we had the hunter pet tank go down from a Cataclysmic Bolt). Considering that probably half the raid hadn't seen the fight previously, it only added to my general satisfaction.  Many people got their quest from the guy-in-a-cage.

We went to Vashj next, but were unfortunatly running out of time.  We didn't have any of the ranged DPS officers that had done assignments for sides back when we did it last night, so our Melee DPS officer had to quickly throw those together. That was unorganized, which didn't make healing assignments easy. In the end, we only did one attempt. Rather then keep the raid late on a non-progression night, I polled people, and all those that needed vials said they could make a impromptu Monday raid - so thats the plan tonight. In retrospect - we should have killed Lurker so we wouldn't have to reclear trash, but I suppose those are the breaks. 

Illidan Down, and Guild Master-Ness

3rd Attempt of Last Night. Everyone did awesome from start to finish, and those last 30% just slipped away. A total of 12 Hours was spent by LOKI.

Kill Shot

Pose

Illidan was certainly the most difficult fight I've tanked - requiring an insane amount of concentration, flawless shield blocking, positioning, and cooldown managment. All of the traps placed in p5 were terrible, so I ate all the enrages (which really weren't that bad). I'm glad that I did it pre 3.0, when Sheer is supossedly getting removed (I'd liken it to Archimonde having Fear removed - a fairly key part of the fight). 

After the dust had setteled, and the phat (non-tank) loots distributed, Ruffianx (our GM) did some promoting. He had announced a week prior that he would be leaving WoW to get a better grip on his real life, but wanted to finish Illidan with us. I was made the new Guild Master of LOKI, a change that seems to have been well recieved by everyone. Jerey, our Paladin tank, was promoted to Tanking Officer.

I believe I'll be able to lead LOKI to future glory in Wrath and Beyond (with the invaluable assistance of our officer base), but it will certainly be a different place without Ruffianx. 

Realm Forum Post Here.

Wrath Release Plans

By now, you all know Wrath is comming out on Thu, Nov. 13th.

I'm anticipating that the servers, ect. will be FUBAR all Thursday, or at least the chance is so high, that its not worth taking that day off. So - I'll be picking up my (and Aertimus's) pre-ordered copy after work on Thursday, and get them installed before she gets home. 

Depending on the congestion of Darkspear, we'll either dig in that afternoon, or that night after a nap. We're both taking off Friday (woo!), so the whole weekend is cleared for a non-stop wrath experience.  We don't plan on rushing through particularly fast - Aertimus is sure to keep me from that, but I don't plan on being a slouch either.

The only thing I'm still trying to figure out, is what I'll be sugesting our guild do as we level. My current idea, is to encourage all guild five man runs at our normal raid time, to keep people in the habit. We (officers) would help assemble groups, and use the Gbank to fund respec's. I wasn't with a steady guild over the Vanilla Wow -> TBC transition, so I'm not sure what will work the best. Idea's are apprecciated. 

Introductions: LOKI's Raid/Tanking Dynamics

Allright, time for some meat.

In T4 and early T5, LOKI's primary tank was Ruffianx, our legendary guild leader, and Feral Druid. He was the first feral druid to MT several bosses on our server (Darkspear), and cultivated my respect for Ferals as a primary tank. I was coming from the pre-BC standpoint of Druids being cornered into lolHealing and Innervating Priests.

Somewhere in T5, Tanking changed in LOKI. I was promoted into Tanking Officer, and began to MT some bosses, followed by some additional protection warriors. That freed up ferals to do more DPSing on single tank bosses. Morogrim's adds convinced us to get a full time Protection Paladin, though I admit that I only (under-) utilized them for trash and adds, and reserved bosses for the protection warriors and Feral Druids of the guild. 

Vashj was killed with a Warrior MT (two of us did it at different times), and a varity of OT's (Did it with Feral, Prot Warrior, and Prot Paladin's on Elites). Kael was done with Two Protection Warriors (one as the Kael MT), a Feral, and a Prot Paladin. 

In T6, I decided to push the limits of our protection paladin, and found paladins the equal of warriors against bosses. Different certainly: but fully capable, and just as strong as a whole. This finalized my views of the tanking classes - all are capable, all are different, none are a threat to the others, and working in harmony (and in consideration of the encounter at hand) has far more potential then blind "X is the best Tank, Y Tank will replace Z Tank completely" ideology.

Introductions: Yakra's WoW History

Yakra was my first 60, started around Patch 1.2, and ending around Patch 1.6 (The best events I could think to mark my leveling by).

In Classic WoW, I progressed through Molten Core with the guild Fatalis Foedi, and participated in their first Ragnaros and Oneyxa kills. I was with them until that guild's leadership exploded - The GM transfered, taking with him the entire guild bank, and the quintessential "Main Tank / Raid Leader" disappeared under mysterious circumstancces - leaving the guild unable to complete the large majority of its content. This experience certainly shaped my views on guilds having designated "MTs" with loot priority, and overreliance on certain members - I made a promise to never be that tank.

I then raided with my current guild, LOKI, through BWL, and participated in their first Nefarion kill. I was with LOKI until my schedule changed and I was unable to make raid times, where I quietly stepped out. I had limited experience in AQ40 (the first 3 bosses) before Yakra was shelfed until the release of BC.

In BC, I started out in a guild called Dissention. As they progressed through Kara, they had a tank whom demeened every other potential tank, and did his best to be in the spotlight 100% of the time. My clashing experiences with him formed my strong opinions on the need for equality of tanks in a guild, and the sharing of the spotlight, all the way down to who tanks trash pulls.

When that guild blew up, I went to Mercenaries of Honor (MoH) - a highly casual, social guild which is among the oldest guilds on Darkspear. Despite my best efforts to get raiding going, guild policies prevented any type of gear/talent/playstyle critique, and non-existant standards for guild members prevented any type of progression - to this day, they are making passing attempts to clear Kara. I learned a great deal about attempting to lead raids before I left, and about the importance of raid members bringing 100% to the table. My attempts to educate their tanks was also the origin of Yakra's Theories on Tanking. (Despite MoH's shortcommings, I did meet some exelent players there, who eventually came over to LOKI with me)

After MoH, I teamed back up with LOKI, and have run the whole course with them, from Magtheridon to Illidan, participating in nearly every guild first kill (Exceptions being Maulgar/Gruul, VR, Rage, Antheridon, and Mother Shaz). Its by far the best run guild that I've been in, and is full of great players.