GuildMasterpiece Theater

So was up late last night discussing the latest patch notes for 2.4, which as always can be found here. One of the big things is the attunement for Hyjal/BT taken out, along with being able to go straight to Vashj/Kael and skip the other bosses. This is a hot topic as seen on the wow forums, along with my guild forums and quite a few more. For us, the higher end guilds, it feels like all the hard work done, was for nothing, ok well a title “Hand of A’dol” but come on..

On the other end, this gives medium to lower end raiding guilds, a chance to finally see Hyjal/BT or go straight to Vashj/Kael for items instead of having to do the entire instance each week, which may take 2-3 days, and then loose out on time they could be doing Hyjal/BT. And recruitment will be much easier now for all since the first thing on every app is “Are you keyed to Hjyal/BT”.

There are a ton of +’s and -’s of this new patch, and I think it all will work out in the end, but its just going to take getting used to.

So how does your guild feel about the removal of attunement to BT/Hyjal? Will going straight to Vashj/Kael affect your guild yet?

So, I had my first experience on the waiting list the other day, and I have to say it sucks lol. As GL I feel I need to be in the raids at all times, be it for support, criticism, encouragement, or just to be there because. The other night we were doing our first night of BT for the week, and we have 5 mages in guild, all 5 show up and want to go, and since it was the first 3 bosses in BT we were doing, which I do not need anything from, I decided to sit out. I sit outside the instance for 2 hours. Just sitting there, on my mount so I don’t get ganked, and just listening in vent. Watching Raid Warnings popping up on screen, sending whispers to people in between pulls, asking for updates, man, it sucks! But you know its part of the game, and the waiting list is extremely important… Without people standing outside, your guilds progression would suffer, and raid times would last longer. With 2.4 around the corner, and the summoning changes coming:

* Ritual of Summoning can now be used to summon players into instances. Provided the player meets all entry requirements, they can be summoned in from anywhere in the game world.

It is going to make it a lot easier for guilds, to get those needed people to the instances, without waiting 10 mins for them to fly down, or having to run all the way outside to summon them. Just remember to respect your locks, because shards aren’t free

That’s one of the things that as Guild Leaders, we have no control over and it sucks.

Sunday night we went in to do Hyjal, we wiped twice on the first two bosses, which btw we have been clearing for almost a month now. Then we tighten up and do great on the next two, only to get to Archimonde and wipe for another hour on him, until time to call the raid. We go back in Monday night just for Archimonde attempts, and guess what? We down him on the second pull, clean as a whistle. Now last night we go into Black Temple with a game plan of hopefully making it to the third boss. We start the raid later than normal, waiting on people, but then go in and down the first 3 bosses, one shotting them, and finished the raid in 2 hours, which allowed everyone to get a early night, to farm, go to bed early or anything else they want to do.

We all have nights like this, and it’s one of the biggest frustrations of being in a guild. It affects both member and officers alike, and it sucks. Raid consistency. Going in one night and nothing feels right, pulls go wrong, dps just seems slower, and people die. Then the next night you do the same thing again, and dps is smoking, healers are keeping the entire raid alive, and bosses are going down in record time. Why?

If you took a screenshot of your raid members on one night, and brought the exact same 25 people the next night to do the same thing over again, it wouldn’t happen the same. It’s just part of life, people having bad days, tired, sick, just don’t want to be there, spouse aggro, along with many other factors, make it where not every night of raiding will be the same. It’s something we have to understand as players and Officers, it’s something we try to work on improving and I think we always will. If you can get everyone in your raid to play great every single raid, then you can get alot more accomplished. I don’t see it happening anytime soon, but it sure is something to work towards.

That’s pretty much what it should say when making a recruitment post, because raiding is a full time job.

My guild raids 4 days a week, (Sun-Mon-Weds-Thurs) usually 3 hours each weekday night, and 5 hours on Sunday, and now that we are really starting to go through BT, we are having “farming sessions” on our off days…..and that’s just counting the in game time. For GM’s and Officers, especially in my guild, we do preparations the rest of the time. I go to work at 8am and log on my pc, open my email, and log on AIM, in that order. First thing I do is message my officers with my everyday “morn”, to which they respond, and from that point on, for the rest of the day, in between doing our REAL jobs, we discuss the previous nights raid, discuss strats, class makeup, and attendance for the upcoming raid(s), oh and how bad John Doe did. On my way home, I am thinking about the raid, on my cell with some of my officers, just getting ready to go. That’s pretty hardcore!! My wife says “It’s pretty nerdy”. But I enjoy it. It’s what makes me happy, and it’s what I love doing most in World of Warcraft.

Once the invites start, its up to us, the officers, sitting in our own little private vent channel, to sort out who we will carry from each class and why. Finalizing what bosses’ we will do and in what order, and deciding just how far we want to go tonight. For us, lately has been a ton of progression; we cleared Hyjal in less than a month, while still doing SSC, and The Eye, and starting to work on the first few bosses in BT, all at the same time. So every night is pretty much full of excitement and new loot. Which means when I log off, I am pretty pumped up, so when I go to bed, I am still thinking about how well (or bad) we did that night. This really pisses my wife off, as she is trying to sleep and eventually tells me: “Either stop moving and go to sleep, or go sleep on the couch.”… well I hate sleeping on the couch when I have a nice warm, big bed right here, so that’s were Real Life kicks in, and I start to get the rested xp.

Point is, without the officers in my guild we would be nothing. These guys and gals, are my online friends, who I talk to in game, out of game, on the phone, and through email. We are a pretty close guild, and without any of these people our guild would probably still be doing Karazhan.

To them I say, Thank you!

I am a level 70 Undead Mage named Nwb on Stonemaul. Co-Guild Leader of RAGE, an end game raiding guild. I have been playing wow since original beta, and do not plan on quiting anytime soon. My original guild was Wreckoning, where I was also GM, which was a casual friends and family guild. Eventually some of those friends decided they wanted to raid hardcore and left us, and you know what? We decided we wanted to do that to. So here we are!! I hope to share some laughs, some ups and some downs of being a GM in a end game guild. Doing Black Temple and Hyjal 4 nights a week is tough, LOTS of fun and also alot of headaches. Here you will see my experiences.