Raiding and Realm Activity

Today I got distracted thinking about the number of guilds that I personally know of who have gone into hibernation or shut up shop recently. This is a common phenomenon that occurs after new content. People come on play hard, burn out, get bored, then take a break until the next big release.

Because so  many players have taken time out it can sometimes make filling raids  more challenging for those who didnt eat their whole bag of lollies in the first few hours.

ICC 25 - Loot wars everywhere

We have been looking for a guild to run 25man ICC's with for sometime. Alas the first two Gm's I spoke to have already got "Working relationships" with other guilds to achieve the same thing so we had to look further afield.

Funnily enough we were recently approached by a guy who we run with from time to time from Ascended. Seems that  a portion of their regular raiders are burnt out yet as many still wish to be raiding. The co-guild idea works for them and for us to give both guilds the opportunity to get into ICC in 25 man mode.

Obviously by running with them we also benefit from being able to do fights in heroic mode.  This week we had our first joint run and downed 6/12 bosses with a heroic on Gunship. It was very messy but we had no wipes, we even got the weekly.

GKP Run - Take two

Tonight I joined the GKP run on my druid. This is the second time I have run with Phoenix Guardians on their runs.

Blizzard gave very little warning that tonight the server was going down at 8pm ST and the run was scheduled to start at 6pm ST. My initial disappointment, believing the run would surely be cancelled, was short lived as it was indeed to proceed.

The Gkp runs have their own chat channel in game and due to macros for people to be there and ready to go at 6pm we were actually well on the way through trash by the time raid start time arrived.

Things change

Things change - its a simple fact of life. And if you are a  GM you have to initiate and implement changes as seemlessly as possible.Oh and ideally being psychic and knowing when to implement these changes at EXACTLY the same time as people are ready for them.

It might be that when your guild was starting you set up these wonderful raid training runs to gear people up and get them raid savy. It might be that every week you returned over and over to naxx to teach people how to get out of the fire, to change targets, to think and to do.

ICC 25 man GKP.

So I finally attended my first ICC GKP Run. I have had my name down for a few weeks but because they have so many wanting spots It was many weeks of standby before i finally got a chance to be "Confirmed".

Now I'm no hardcore raider, so I always get extremely nervous about doing things in pugs. And worse doing new content with pugs, which is why I tend to avoid them.

However I wanted to attend this particular one for the opportunity to buy some upgrades and for the potential of progression.

Finally....

So we finally cleared Sunwell.

30 reputations!

I have spent what seems an endless amount of time in Dire Maul grinding rep with the Steamwheedle Cartel. I only needed 3 more reputations to hit the magic 30 OH NO now I have to aim for 35...

Anyway I have an ingame friend who showed me the easy way to rep up.. he kindly took me to the little guy who gives you the ogre costume quest and pointed out the hidden Ogre tannin source (75 rep with all four factions) and also if you get a key drop you can release him (325 rep with each) sure beats the 3 rep a kill of their enemies. I havent quite finished in Diremaul as still have to get exalted with Everlook... alas I ran out of Runecloth and had to hearth out to my bank supplies to get more... The desire to return has been somewhat reduced but tonight I WILL yes i'm pretty sure i will... ohhh look a pretty distraction... NO I will return and finish it.

I instigated a new iniative recently for the ICC raid content.. I havent really had time to see how it will work long term yet - but thought I would post it here for the people who read my blog in the hope they will find something that helps in their guild.

I tend to fly by the seat of my pants a lot of the time not really being sure what im doing - i guess all i can continue to do is try to do the best for and by the majority in guild.



ICC - Cats THREE step, FIVE week Programme to Guild Progression....(Hopefully)

Guild raiding

I havent posted much over the long weekend because it was my sons 15th Birthday on Saturday and I have also tried to take advantage of the long weekend to get some of the things  in the garden undercontrol... alas I am one person and its bloody hard work to be trying to do a dozen things alone. However I managed to create some large piles of organic rubbish and get another 3-4 jobs half done lol

I have several things rattling around in my head at the moment following some inguild raids this week. We had a guild 25 man ToC run which  highlighted some issues inguild.

DPS Recounts

I have several addons installed - Recount is one of them.

This little addon is great but a curse at the same time.

I love that it will give me an indication of how a persons DPS is improving - with gear changes and rotations and gems and enchants and all the other things that they can be mentored to improve. It also gives me an indication of who needs help or who is letting the lose ends drag (that is letting everyone else do the work and just coming along for the loot/tokens - often they are off making dinner, folding the washing or reading a book - possibly watching movies or playing Eve)

Achievement update

My current achievement count is 7055 points.

With the recent patch changes I cashed in the few arena tokens I had for honor and bought a war mount giving me "Call in the Cavalry" To be honest I suck at PvP of any sort. Fighting against another living, breathing person requires reflexes and a desire to crush that I just dont possess. Well i dont have the crush desire most of the time unless someone hits my enrage timer - Dont forget Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned - or one ganked whilst fishing for terrorfish.
So the few tokens I had were as a result of my son hi-jacking my account to Pvp (back when my gear far outclassed his) or when I had begged him to help me get an achievement.

ICC and the headaches that follow..

I love ICC and I hate it at the same time.

Have I mentioned we are a social raiding guild? This means we arent hardcore raiders. It means we dont do DKP, we dont do cliques of the favored ones, Our goal is to let everyone progress to the best of their ability.