State of the Raid

[Varibash]

Siege of Orgrimmar is going on a year old soon, and I think it's time we discuss the future of the raid group going forward into the rest of this expansion and into Warlords of Draneor.

 

First off, let me say I am extremely impressed by the guild and raid group. We have done exceptionally well this expansion, we started a bit rough, but have ended this expansion with one of the strongest raid teams this guild has ever seen. The knowledge, skill, and willingness to help each other out is at the highest point I've ever seen in the guild. I am very proud of all our current and former raiders who have helped us accomplish this. It's something to be proud of.

 

Lately, emotions have been running high, and people have been snapping at each other more then usual. I attribute this to the fact people are starting to feel burned out and they simply are not having fun with this content anymore. It's turning into a cycle of people are simply showing up because they more or less feel obligated to be there for their friends. Everyone is doing their best not to disappoint others. It shouldn't be like that at all. People should WANT to be online to raid every Tuesday and Wednesday. It shouldn't be a struggle to maintain attendance if everyone is having fun. Yet week after week over the last month, we are always concerned about being able to fill the raid team. 

 

We are getting close to the point when the officers and raid leaders will put the 25man on hiatus until Warlords is released. I would like to give everyone a few weeks to a month off from  mandatory raid times and let people just relax, and level and raid with alts. When this happens, I will continue to run a raid team, 10 man if needed, on Tuesdays to push heroic Garrosh. If we have the people for 25's we will do 25's. We did this same thing with Dragonsoul. We put the 25m on hiatus and we formed a 10 man that ended up killing Heroic Deathwing before Mists was released. I fully expect we will have a similar situation.

 

School is starting back up soon and we are going to lose members, be it from people excited to see their college friends again and want to spend time offline with them, or class schedule / homework gets in the way. I fully expect to have some people post MIA or go MIA because of it. Happens every year and it's something we are used to dealing with. So don't feel scared to let us know about it. I would much rather you be upfront and tell us honestly, then simply vanish with us wondering what happened.

 

About WoD raiding:

 

Normal and Heroic modes are changing into flex style of encounters, where we can have 10-30 people in raid at once. So we will fill the raid team as much as we can while maintaining a group comp that will be efficient at downing content. With how strong our team is now, I do not anticipate that normal and heroic content will take us very long to progress through. Which brings us to Mythic content which is only 20 man. In regards to raid spots in the mythic team. We will obviously do our best to ensure everyone gets a shot at it at some point, but while we are progressing through it, we will bring our most skilled and capable players initially. So some of you may have to ride the bench while we work on killing the content. It's no different that how we handle progression now, it's just that now, only 20 people get in at a time, so 10ish people may have to be patient and willing to sit around and wait their turn. It won't be personal, it will be based on performance within the team. So if you struggle at certain aspect of boss fights or are a mechanically weak player, you may see the bench more then you would like to.

[Varlash]

I did not read it but i assume will shatner was correct and you are killing atr

[Budlyght]

10 out of 10 people named WillShatner would agree with you Varlash

[Lyntha]

Hey there bash-tastic.

 

When do you anticipate making the dedicated 10man group?  Or were you just going to try to make it once we don't have enough for the 25?  If we are going to seriously try to do this soon enough to pass around the heroic only mount, we need to form this ASAP.  WoD comes out on 11/13/14, leaving us with 12 more raid resets, counting this week.  The only way we'll get a dedicated group their mounts is if we start working on it THIS week and somehow have heroic garrosh down in 3 weeks, which seems a bit far-fetched.

 

Edit:  Also, where does this leave us for recruiting?  We need to make this decision soon because it affects recruiting.  We cannot continue to recruit people if we know that our 25-man will be taking a break soon.

 

When we did this for DS, I think it was just me and Thundere raid leading the group, so I remember what we did, what worked and what didn't.  We did indeed kill heroic Deathwing before the release of MoP.  As a matter of fact, we killed him 9 times and got everybody but one person (Of our dedicated 10) their mount!  We had a dedicated group of 10 people and an additional 2-3 people that we would bring in occasionally for easier bosses but we stuck wtih our 10 for progression.  Those 10 people were all excellent raiders who were on every day for raid and there was no drama.  We had 2 dedicated healers (Me and the beast that we call Jlogg) and one hybrid healer (Thundere) who was able to DPS or Heal competitively depending on what was needed.  I'm not sure if we'll need the same setup for SoO or not.  I cannot stress the importance of the 10 people we had in for progression all being 100% attendance.  Unless you have 90%+ attendance, you're not going to get into the 10man group.

 

 

Regarding WoD raiding:  All lockouts are separate now.  LFR, "Normal" (Old Flex), "Heroic" (Old normal) and "Mythic" (Old heroic) are all on separate lockouts.  If we have 30 people who want to raid, we could conceivably full clear heroic with 30 people then bring the best 20 for mythic progression.  We will be able to be flexible here.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Lyntha

[Varlash]

For a 10man i think you want

 

Lumi

Tank 2 w/ os dps

Snugg

Healer 2

Tyrant for DPS/Heal OS

and the 5 best dps you can get your hands on

[Roqwell]

Do you know a set date of when the 25m will go on hiatus? And how would the 10 people to push progression be chosen? Just seeing who's on and picking the best out?

[Varibash]

We do not have a set date, it will depend on attendance and peoples willingness to continue. 10m would be determined on who is online and willing.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Phobi

[Crazy]

I know that this might not happen for a few weeks, but if we are going to even think about getting 14/14 down on a 10 man, we should start getting the people now.

 

I'll heal the for the 10 man, I have had 100% attendance (besides missing two raids in July for Europe) since I joined back in December, Although Shamans aren't an amazing choice for 10 mans I'd be up for it. Also even though the mount is nice, I don't really care for it. The only proof I need of being 14/14H is the achievement. Also if we are going to do this, then we shouldn't start on a boss like spoils, we should just kill Siegecrafter then to Klaxxi then to Garrosh. The group you bring shouldn't need any gear so there shouldn't be wasting time going back. Also if we want to be hardcore about getting the mounts then we might want to add extra days closer to the end to get as much progression done as possible.

 

Also with the 10 Man for progression, There can be a 10 man for farm content that people can put together. We know some people just want to get their BiS gear/still need to gear up  before WoD so that they can replace it at level 98-100, So maybe that can be a thing too.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Muln

[Mannykaiser]

I'd be willing to throw my name into the hat for a 10 man. But my attendance recently hasn't been as consistent as it used to be (should improve though) and I'm not exactly completely confident in my abilities to perform in a 10 man scenario.

Regardless, the roster for this group is for you and the other officers to decide, Bash. And whoever is "drafted" to this roster has my full support and encouragement. I can lend a hand if you need me to.

[Lyntha]

The problem is that we have too many good, high-attendance people to do the 10man right now without excluding people.  When we did the 10-man for DS, it was a point where we consistently had right around 25 people online for the 25man or less.  At some point, we went a few days without 25 people in raid and decided then and there to break the 25man until MoP.  About 5-10 people just up and said that they wanted to break until MoP (Or forever) and we only had about 14 people who wanted to continue.  We worked with all of those people until the group comp settled in.  I think that if we announced break now, MAYBE 10 people would want to break until xpac, leaving us with at least 20 people still wanting to raid.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Lyntha

[Tychondris]

If my work schedule doesn't conflict with the start time for this group I wouldn't mind doing a 10 man to get a heroic Garrosh kill down for he guild. 

[Varlash]

If we want to do garrosh muln we have to clean the whole instance every week

[Crazy]

If we want to do garrosh muln we have to clean the whole instance every week

Why would we have to do that? We would have to clear it once, then keep extending the lockout? I get that if we kill it then we would have to clear the whole thing but getting to it was what I was talking about.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Muln

[Ftfk]

Yeah. Ideally first week would be clear to and make attempts on siegecrafter. And then every week thereafter would be extending 10m lockout. I don't even think we would need our best dps to clear the instance, but we would need probably 13 people who are sound mechanically and a good assortment of raid CDs. Raid CD management (and buffs for that matter) are even more critical in 10m encounter and strats since there are less of them to go around. With attendance how it has been it is really tough to determine when this could take place. Really been either too few or too many lately.

[Mastric]

Just remember on Heroic you can't use the same ID if that ID gets cleared by anyone

 

So if you kill Garrosh each week would start fresh, unless you can alt run or steal another Heroic ID.

[Luminatus]

You can always count on Lumi.  I have no issues with extending lockouts every week.  I think if we want to be progression-minded we should look for individuals who have no issue with raiding only for the sake of progression, at least until Garrosh is killed.