Rebel's Logic Post 5

[Rebelogic]

It is Thursday and I am at work on my off day just finishing up some work before tomorrow's trip to Gump's. Coupled with the fact that the eve of our get together is upon us, we have decided to make some significant changes to our raiding. All that considered, and along with the fact that my boss is in a meeting and is taking forever to approve my project plan for our latest client, I thought this would be a great time for a Rebel's Logic Post! BEHOLD MINIONS! Man, no one says "behold!" anymore, I am going to bring that back.

There are several issues that is holding our raid progression back. At one point, we were steamrolling ahead with almost a new encounter down every week in both groups. Now, we have hit a stalemate with progression and many people, especially myself ,are tired of it. The first and foremost problem is raid attendance. We used to have a lot of people show up for both runs and were able to easily fill Group 1 and Group 2 on every raid day. However, attendance has begun to wain as of late. There are several reasons for this and most of them are justified. The end of summer and the relatively soon to be released expansion has had people begin to focus somewhat on the Fall and all its trappings that mostly have to do with schedule change. We have people taking a break to focus on school, changes in work schedules, other extra-curricular activities, etc. Then we have the other less common reasons such as being burnt out, going on vacation for a long period of time, or in the case of Virage; ripping tendons in his arm trying to save his 3 year old niece from falling off the porch. I feel bad for Virage because that was his "dominant" arm, lol. Now, the issues I mentioned haven't been just affecting people in Group 1, Group 2 has been plagued just as much. Despite all this, there seems to also be a positive phenomenon happening between the people of both groups that I would like to emphasize. The heart and desire to progress has been burning strong in many people and lately, more have expressed themselves in many ways. Getting to raids early, being prepared with necessary materials, passing on loot for overall benefit of others, taking criticism constructively, going out of their way to help people get better, etc. Basically, as people drop off, the pro-active begin to prove themselves. These people exemplify the meaning of the word "raider". It is for these people who have stepped up despite the frustration, that we will be moving to one core 25M group. We will take the people who have proven that they can go above and beyond what is asked of them. The group will run Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 7:30-11. Some really good players cannot make all three days of raiding and to them, I want to assure that their efforts will still be considered. I want people to not only fight the content we are facing but fight internally to get better. The greatest enemy is yourself. Now, in the past we had the numbers to fill two groups. One group means a little more competition for spots. It is for this reason that I wanted to include a small section on what exemplifies a good raider:

The first and foremost concept of any raider has to be a selfless attitude towards raiding. It is about the guild, not about the individual. If you are ridiculously geared and I decide to sit you for a raid day so that someone can get a few upgrades, don't be discouraged. Sometimes, it is good to bring in an extra healer instead of a ranged DPS for a full clear so we can get them some badges of important upgrades. Sometimes a tank might be sat for a melee because the tanks offspec is not that good yet. There are a many reasons you could be sat, and whatever reason will be told to you straight up without any pretense. The key is, if you get sat, most of the time it isn't because you aren't good. It could just mean that for that day, someone else might need it more than you. For example, no one works harder with less time on their hands than Glitter. I myself would be glad to sit myself for him. Also, if you get sat one day and we bring you in for another day within the same raid week, do not bring the attitude of "No, I need a full clear", If you get sat for the farm clear portion of a raid, chances are you don't really need those bosses to actually down progression content. When we bring you in, be ready and have a positive attitude. Know your class, be open to criticism, be prepared with necessary food, flasks, etc. be raid aware, etc.

80% of success is showing up. Be on time! Things come up and emergencies happen. If you cannot be at a raid, you can text me, put a comment on the website, find an officer in game, etc. All I am asking is that you let us know. It is a question of being responsible and not letting 24 other people wait on you. Now, if you are going to be there past 8:15, chances are I am going to sit you. No hard feelings, it is simply because you couldn't be here on time. Speaking of hard feelings, the same can be said about being called out in a raid. If you mess up, we will tell you about it. Now, everyone knows my voice. I don't yell at anyone. Treating raiders with respect is very important to me. If you mess up and I call you out, 90% of the time, I will do it in a questioning manner such as, "Hey, did your stacks of Mystic buffet get to high?" or "It seems you weren't far enough away from Blistering cold, what happened?" Just take it on face value and don't let it happen again. I don't need to hear long winded apologies, explanations, or offended comebacks. Your situation is basically being used as a teaching tool so that others don't make the same mistake. It could be tunnel vision, It could be lag, it could be your girlfriend touched your crotch at the wrong time, whatever. Now, despite the reason, if you continue to make the same mistake over and over and it is causing us to wipe, be prepared for us to bring someone else in for that day. If you are having lag, and I replace you, don't send me angry whispers. Just calm down and fix the issue.

Don't go afk at odd times. We will have more clearly scheduled breaks which will be determined by how fast we progress or how good our attempts are going. As a general idea of when these breaks will occur, they will be at the end of wings mostly. If you have something important come up all of a sudden, just whisper an officer ahead of time. Now, in regard to wipes. As a general rule, you should release and run back as soon as we ask. Get there and food buff as fast as you can to lower downtime. Just because trash should be easy or farm bosses are easy, do not tunnel vision. Use every tool in your arsenal to make sure we down things efficiently. Use cc's, focus target more than AOE, etc. Less damage taken = less healing needed = less deaths = more focussed tanking = more effective DPS = efficiency. As a last note on being a good raider, being an officer is no excuse for messing up. Even if I am having a bad day, I will sit myself in order for the raid to progress.

Now that we have gotten the formalities of what constitutes a good raider. I would like to mention that we will still be doing a second run of ICC 25 on Saturday. Now this run will have many mains and many geared alts as well. If you cannot make it to the main run and you are designated to the Saturday run, please save yourself for it so we can progress in that run as well. I will be switching people around every once in a while between the two runs. As I said before, if you get designated to the Saturday run for a week, it does not mean you will be there permanently.

Between now and Tuesday, the officers and I will create a lits of around 30-35 people we would be glad to have in the Core run. If you are sat for Tuesday, it would benefit us and yourself to be online for the duration of the raid in case we need you. No spots during the first week are permanent so if we call you in because someone had to bail, well guess who we are taking from now on?

Now, in terms of the ten mans, we can only have a certain number of ten man runs throughout the week. My main ten man itself only goes 1 day a week if we are lucky. I try to run it on al three of my characters and Cyianna does too. If you catch us online, ask us about it. However, be proactive about it. Get a feel for when good raiders you see are going to run it and get a consensus. Don't just plainly ask in guild chat at midnight, "Hey, who wants to do a ten man ICC?" Asking individuals at proper times, is much more effective. If you present a group of 5 or 6 to an officer, it is easier for us to fill the gaps than to say, "Hey, I want a ten man, when are you running one?" As a general rule. The days we usually run our guild ten mans are Fridays, Sundays, and Mondays. Also, please refrain from asking to be carried. I would rather refuse an unworthy alt and grab a pug; it is for the benefit of the 9 other more responsible guildies in the run.

Well, that is a lot to digest this week. This weekend will be a blast in NY and I look forward to seeing a lot of you at Wili's house! For those of you who cannot make it, you will still be there in spirit!

[Perenelle]

This is why they block every interesting website at my school.... I'd be writing huge posts and never doing any work, lol.

I am always happy to sit out for someone who needs the badges/ gear more. Back when I was a healer, it was rare to get to sit and I was always so happy when it happened. I have no problems with everything you posted. Even if I still needed gear, I will gladly sit out every other week, or whatever, so everyone can get geared.

[Rebelogic]

See, that is the mark of a true raider right there Perenelle. She is putting the guild above herself. Here is the thing. Ultimately, if you sit out every once in a while, not only do you get a break, you should be happy that someone else is benefiting a great deal. This attitude will result in us progressing faster and the prospect of having better loot when you come back into the raid. Every genuine sacrifice for the better of the guild will pay you back.

[Varibash]

I will be around every saturday with my alts if you guys need them, though my tank is gone, I am still around to help any ATR members when needed, just whisper me, I have a good repor with all the officers and most of the members in ATR still.

And for those of you that have been bad mouthing me for leaving, fuck you, I have been a loyal guild member and was always there to help whenever someone asked it of me, I was always online for progression nights and I was always running alts through toc 10 and even carried alot of people alts with various 10 man icc groups, I have been playing with alot of the core ATR members for more then 2 years, and because of current scheduling conflicts I am no longer able to make tuesday raids, so I changed guilds so I could still raid, and just so you are aware if my schedule ever changes back to where I raid with ATR, I will be back with my main without a 2nd thought.

well, few more hours left at work for me, then off home to pack and get ready for what is gonna be an epic weekend

[Kieta]

.../hugs Bash =(

I'm more than willing to sit or help were needed. Not the easiest person to get a hold of since I don't sit in game all the time anymore(I has testing to do \o/) but someone can always call or send me a message through the messangers I have listed in my profile here.

As for sitting and/or missing gear, I'm not a total gear whore and usually pass 95% of the time anyways .. unless it's os and Over makes me take it =p ... so don't care much there. Lots of other ppl need more than me and I can always go feashin for feasts or gather for flasks instead with the extra time ^^. I just wanna progress and finally get that prick LK down on 25m so whatever successfully achieves that and whatever else we haven't done I'm all for.

Progression GoGo!

[Shorel]

rebel is talking about me in some way D:

[Bountyrage]

I agree with all that was posted above me and have a few comments that might be helpfull.

I do agree with passing on loot to spread it around, the biggest upgrade is upgrading the overall raid rather than one player, since in the larger raids you are only as strong as your weekest link. aka someone standing in fire, gettin hit by random aoes or not putting out enough dps etc.. My only issue is where rebel states that people we will or could be brought in for specific gear or bosses, I feel like this can be an issue.. This will change group synergy and overall awerness, the idea of this 1 MAIN group was to power through the shit bosses and kill LK that being said we need to focus in on that.. if that is truely the guild goal. Using the same 30 people or so for each fight will keep people on the same page and you can know what to expect from your fellow raiders aka i know rebel will be in this place at this time.. or cyianna likes to heal this fight this way etc..

my advice from raiding since wow first came out aka filling and managing 40man raids is to assign officers for specific roles beside the typical officer/guild decisions.. for instance decide on a raid comp that makes the most sense for the raid, and assign an officer to each "type" and create a core group and then have a set amount of back ups.

for instance:

core:

2-3 tanks - pryiadin

5-6 heals - cyianna

6-8 mele - rebel

6-8 ranged - gump

before each raid invites the officers invite the raid role they are assigned too, this allows for a little flex, as well as allowing a specific officer to monitor the individual groups raid than the whole raid. This would also allow the 30 or so guild memebers to know where they are in the guild ranking. I believe it should be predeterminded that these are our top 30 raiders and will get invites each week to progress and kill LK these are our 10-15 alt raiders and will get an invite if a top raider cannot come for whatever reason. Let me also say as rebel and gump have stated top or alt does not refer to anything but a raid spot not how good a player is, as they stated there should be amny qualities that determine who gets these spots. It would be very short sighted to try and assume everyone will get into this core raid etc the numbers just dont allow it.. 40-50 or so active raiders can't fit into a 25man raid.

Sry for the long post just some ideas and my comments on things.

[Rebelogic]

I appreciate everyone who reads these posts and the feedback I am receiving. Also, Kieta never posts. Getting her to post something has made me really happy . I am glad my posts are getting a nice following, I guess I have to get off my ass and post more often.

[Boredman]

bash left? when did this happen i feel like ghost but without get a nibble twister