Rage. IRL.

I’m sure that for most of you are already familiar with the changes and new directions that Blizzard is introducing come Cataclysm. The one I will be discussing today has been announced at the beginning of May. In a nutshell, it is related to Blizzard deciding to stop differentiating between the 10 and 25-man raids, items-wise.

Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards
10- and 25-player (normal difficulty) — Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
10- and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) — Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.

This, of course, means that now 10-man guilds and raiders will have access to their best in slot items, just like their 25-man counterparts. Which, in turn, means that the casters in my guild won’t have to sigh over Dislodged Foreign Object, and will instead be able to equip whichever uber-trinket Cataclysm introduces(after the guild master gets it, of course:) ).

I also have to give myself a small pat on the back. In one of my previous posts, I suggested that all the gradual changes within the distribution of items in 25 and 10 man raids suggests that Blizzard are trying to make 10 man raiding, if not the preferred alternative, then at least one that is every bit as appealing as 25 man raiding. This trend continues with this latest change.

Personally, I am looking forward to Cataclysm. The guild leveling system, the 31-point talent trees and items being made available in both raid sizes(while the raid sizes themselves being made exclusive) are all signs that point out that the 10-man raiding experience will get even more enjoyable.

So, we killed Sindragosa tonight. Hopefully the Lich King should die by the end of next week, which means we can get started on the hard modes. Sucks that we’re a bit late, but I couldn’t really help it. Onward, McDuff!

After reading my previous posts, I guess you’ve come to the conclusion that I am not really happy with the overall skill of my guild.

In all honesty, when I joined, I was told a lot of things. As time went by, I realised that what I actually got was not at all what the box said. So here’s a short description of all the things that are wrong with that guild. I know it’s useless, but boy, does it help calm me down!

1.they have 41 raiders, and are recruiting about 8 more
Now, I am sure you can all see that 49 people do not fit into a 25 man raid. On top of that, among the 41 raiders, there are several key personalities:

I can’t say a lot of bad things about the guy. He’s the only one that really knows what he’s doing. Keeps things afloat, handles dkp, raid invites, strats, forums, all the boo-boos everyone else gets. Is overworked. Wants to quit.

Bitches a lot. Acts like the all-mighty first-in-command, without realising she’s nothing more than the person who sleeps with the gm, and that the so-called power she has is just something in a video game. She gets loot, free attendance, and dkp when she isn’t even online.

He got promoted because the raid leader got tired of it all. He’s in there in the deep end, barely knows how his class works, not to mention all the other classes. Tries to be a motivator and to lead by example. Ends up getting 4-set bonus, and doing 2000 dps on average.

They played. At some point. That makes them important. They must be rotated around whenever they bother logging on, even if it’s quite obvious that they quit once, when Naxxramas stopped being challenging/they got their tier gear, and will quit again once Ulduar stops being challenging/they get their tier gear. They generally don’t bother reading tactics, or knowing what to spec and what to do.

Quit 4 months ago. Decided to come back due to the raid leader getting tired, and because of the alluring new loot. Bought WOTLK, leveled to 80. Went to Naxxramas, looted full tier gear. Lies in wait for the next Ulduar reset.

Few in numbers. Log on every day, do what they’re supposed to. Keep their mouths shut. Get asked to pass on loot for old members, useless officer, and the raid leader dude.

Resto druid that outheals all the other healers(not that it’s hard – they all suck. Apparently you can’t chain-cast on tanks without taking a 4 second break between each cast to regen mana/think about it/scratch your ass. If the tank dies, it’s his fault for not having a cooldown available). Other assorted people.

People that do ok, but have huge attitude problems. They know best, have all the solutions, and would do a much better job of raid leading and guild mastering. Except that they wouldn’t, really. They vent frustrations via bitching and bickering on vent after each boss try wipe.

2.they said that raid spots would be given based on performance
When I was recruited, they told me that their previous warlocks had quit/gone casual. However, I was still asked to step out occasionally for them. The raid leader artificially inflated their attendance figures

but I only gave them 5% extra attendance max so it’s all ok!

, and generally did his best to get them in raids, even if they only bothered logging in on Wednesdays(farm day woohoo!)
No questions were asked about how somebody in full best-in-slot items gets outperformed by people wearing Naxx 10 gear, or why the same people die over and over to fires.

The braindead druidtank (bddt from now on in this text) was given priority over the awesome druidtank(adt), especially on progress fights. He then proceeded to tank his mob in the Rune of Power on Iron Council hard mode, and other interesting assortments. In a full raiding week, he would cause about 30 wipes on average.

3.the dkp system was not really maintained
First of all, they decided to not reset dkp once Ulduar was out. That meant that officers, and some of the older members who had magically found raiding time in their busy lives got full tier 8, while the members who actually performed had to take the left overs.
Their raid tracker broke as soon as Ulduar was out. Because of that, they decided to manually add one raid for the first week of Ulduar, add everyone in the guild to it, and give out attendance and dkp based on that. Equally. To everybody. Which is to say that bddt logged for 3 hours in the first week, and got the same attendance and dkp as adt. Guess who got more loot?

4.they are simply delusional as far as their skill and performance are concerned
There are a lot of people in the guild that think we are capable of doing, for example, XT hard mode. Even though nobody in the world has. Even though we wipe on Yogg-Saron each week, for 4 hours. Even though some of us forget to breathe if they have to dodge shadow crashes(yes, each week I am surprised nobody falls into a coma induced by oxygen deprivation).
This week, they had planned to start the reset with Flame Leviathan with 4 towers. Even though we wiped for about 20 times on Flame Leviathan with 2(two!) towers, only the week before. The words “it will be a oneshot” were said on vent. Seriously.

5.the guild didn’t feel like one
People in there hate each other’s guts. Simply put, it didn’t feel like a guild. It just felt like people being forced to raid with other people they didn’t like, because the appeal of loot made it “worth it”. And I can’t be a part of that.

So basically 5 of us quit and went to another guild on the server. We all got accused of being lootwhoring ninjamotherfuckingfags, even though most of us left while being on positive dkp. Basically, taking loot, then leaving is a serious crime. And pointing out that positive dkp means you put more effort in than what you got out of it makes you even more of a dick. That ninjas. And is scum.

Thinking back…why the fuck did I spend 2 months in that shithole?:)

Like I said last week, the kill didn’t feel repeatable. And it wasn’t. We struggled for over 3 and a half hours to kill what is, after all, a fight that has no random elements and is completely controllable from start to finish.

The funny thing was, the more time I spent in that raid, the more I was becoming convinced that the things that were happening weren’t, actually. I was telling myself that it’s impossible for raid leaders to say “I don’t know how to sort a melee group, please help”, or “I don’t know what happened in there, I can’t keep track of everything that goes on!” (To digress, I have always firmly believed that, if you can’t see as much of the stuff that goes on in the whole raid and not just on your own screen, you should fuck off and leave the raid leading to somebody who can breathe and play at the same time without using up half the available processing power.)

Now, you guys have probably realised by now that I am just a tiny bit elitist. However, I’ve never said/done stuff that I knew I couldn’t do. Imagine my surprise when, 2 days ago, I read this little gem in guild chat:

So what if nobody did XT on hardmode yet, we’re good enough to do it!

Yes, they were serious. No, they had no idea how the fight works. Yes, they wiped for 2 hours trying to kill the heart, then, when they did it eventually, they concluded that “it’s really hard” and that we need more gear. Even though the wipe was due to somebody spawning a void zone in the raid, and them all not moving out of it. It’s a well-known fact that tier8 gives you +100 to fire-dodging. Even when the fire is a void zone.

Anyway, back to Yogg. After realising that at least half the raid don’t really understand how the fight works, and getting sick of hearing ridiculous theories, I have decided to break down the fight into bite-sized chunks, that hopefully should help clarify some of the issues the fight presents to us. Of course, most of them will never, ever, ever read this, but I’m still hoping it will help some others. After all, I did get almost 80 hits since I started blogging here!

So, without further ado, let us begin.

This will contain spoilers, so only click on “more” if you want the info. continue reading…