Matticus

Matticus is the founder of World of Matticus, a World of Warcraft blog.

Can a 10 man raid team co-exist with a 25 man raid team?

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Short, discussionary post for today. You are the GM of a 25 man raiding guild. A player comes to you and wants to form their own 10 man raiding team outside of the hours that your 25 man team raids at. Let’s say that player is unable to match the times that the 25 man team normally plays at but has expressed desire to stay under one banner.

That’s two separate rosters of different raid teams with similar, progression minded goals.

Would this be appealing to you? Why or why not? What type of benefits or drawbacks could there be?

And the big question: What social issues might arise? Can you imagine the logistical nightmares?

What an interesting impact guild reputation has made this expansion. Lodur’s previous post about the subject continues to hold.

Guildmaster Retirement

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Atlas.

In Greek mythology, he was a Titan who was doomed to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Actually, maybe it was the heavens (or sky) to be more precise. After all, he was with team Titans and they lost against team Olympia.

My knowledge of Greek is a little rusty.

The weight of the world

When you’re the guild leader, every  action is examined.

Every decision is second guessed.

Every intent, thought, and comment is placed under a microscope. I still maintain that anyone who wants to be a guild leader is insane. It’s even worse when you’re a blogger. I can’t even explain that one. I take pride in my team. Everyone that’s ever played under the Conquest banner, I’ve wanted nothing less than the best for them (even if it wasn’t the guild).

My responsibilities have steadily lessened as I’ve delegated what I could delegate. I’ve always thought that the key to effective management is to give your officers generalized goals and empower them with the necessary authority to do it.

In other words, tell them what they need to do and get out of their way.

You are your own greatest critic. Any guild leader is going to have that inner voice inside of them that doubts their skills and abilities. Despite the fact that I banish those thoughts during raids, the idle mind continues to wander. I can’t help but wonder if good is good enough. And what do you do if it isn’t? I’d like to think that guild leaders mean well and have good intentions. But here’s the thing about intentions:

Intentions aren’t going to get me good grades.

Intentions won’t help me meet deadlines.

Intentions won’t help me pick up chicks at a bar (LFM Wingman).

But all that stress? It does get to people. I’ve watched slowly as guilds ahead of and below Conquest gradually crumbled and fell one by one. Reasons include things from attendance to epic drama to simple lost interest. And those GMs? I guess they just couldn’t hold it together any longer and just said to themselves forget it.

There have been moments in my WoW career where I’ve considered retiring. Maybe move to the interior. Perhaps by a river. Build a log cabin. But what the heck would I do though?

Go fishing in the river? Maybe grow a garden? Sit on a patio drinking wine? I haven’t even acquired the taste of wine. 

So here’s a question for the retired GMs out there

What did it for you? At what point did you call it quits? what happened to your guild?

I have no plans to retire right now. Conquest has something like over 200 members. Those poor saps are still stuck with me.

Is Atonement Healing Back In?

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I haven’t been able to verify this on the PTR yet, but Atonement healing might be a go when 4.1 lands. For the past few months, I’ve observed that Atonement was simply too gimmicky. The relationship between that ability and Smite just kept going up and down, left and right, hot and cold, and all over the place. At the moment, it’s really awesome on Heroic Halfus due to mechanics of the fight.

So how exactly does Atonement healing get better?

  • Holy Fire damage is about 30% stronger than Smite.
  • Atonement triggers with Holy Fire.

I believe the initial Holy Fire hit and the subsequent DoT damage get the same increase. I think the DoTs from Holy Fire may even work with Atonement (But I’ll need to check). If Atonement healing is back in, you may want to brush up a bit on that style of play. Personally, I still believe its an awkward style of play. If only because the healer doesn’t get to dictate where exactly the heal from the damage ends up. I’ve had problems where Atonement heals would land on a blood worm or something.

Smite replaces your Heal. Holy Fire would function similar to a Flash Heal with a DoT. This would be a fun way to heal heroic dungeons in and such, but I’m a little afraid of allowing it in my raids simply because I don’t know enough about the strength and viability of it. The Holy Fire changes alone do warrant a closer look.

On a side note, this is great for soloing!

For GMs – Enjin 2 year anniversary means 40% off for you

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enjin-logo-birth

Our premiere partners at Enjin are celebrating their second birthday! (Disclaimer: I do advise them when it comes to their services from a GM perspective and the actual links are affiliate links).

From one guild master to another, I can’t recommend their services enough. In the past, I’d use my own combination of forum software, blog software, and EqDKP hacks to manage my guild’s online presence. On of top of that, I had to stress over the looks, too.

Now I don’t know about you but as a guild master, I’d rather spend my time actually playing the game with my guild instead of having to fret over the technical stuff.

I don’t have to worry about loot tracking. They do it for me.

Attendance? That’s taken care of.

My guildies can keep track of each others blogs.

The best part? An actual recruiting form for applicants. In the past, we had a separate forum where users had to copy and paste an existing application template into a new thread. It was archaic! But with their modules, all we had to do is come up with the questions.

Their promotion started a few days ago. But it ends tomorrow! If your guild’s web contracts are coming up for renewal, consider using Enjin to power your guild instead.

Enjin offers three plans. Here’s the scoop on their current deals:

  • SAVE 40% when you prepay for 1 year on any plan!
  • SAVE 40% on all themes and headers!
  • SAVE 30% when you prepay for 6 months on any plan!
  • SAVE 20% when you prepay for 3 months on any plan!

Their Ultimate plan is the best value if you opt in for a year. With the 40% discount, that’s $17.97 a month. For smaller guilds, Premium might be the better option for you. For a year on the same promotion, that’s a $5.37 a month.

That’s approximately three dollars a month without having to fret about technical issues, upgrades, or other problems.

But hey, if you’re still sceptical about their services, you can always move your entire guild and try out their premium plan for a month first. See how your guild likes it.

Hurry! You only have a day left before the deal expires!

Sign up now!

More Frequent, but Smaller Content

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Yup, I saw the post too. My heart sank a little bit when I read it. With 4.1 on the PTR, I thought for sure we’d be able to get some new raid action in fairly soon.

Nope! Not the case. We get Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub in 4.1 (which is awesome, by the way. It’s as if the difficulty level for 5 mans just got reset. It’s the same feeling I got when I entered heroics for the first time in quest or reputation blues).

In the past, updates were fairly large and substantial. I remember the Sunwell patch when it first debuted had a new raid, a new daily quest zone and a new 5 man. The Trial of the Crusader 3.2 patch introduced had a new battleground,  a new raid, a new 5 man, druid models and other stuff. I can’t help but wonder how less bored would the player base have been if those releases were staggered.

The problem with this new system is that new things coming out may not be appealing to everyone. Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub might not appeal to the old school variety. Maybe a new future battleground gets released but as I don’t PvP very often, I wouldn’t exactly be diving head first into it either. Instead of one large patch with stuff that’s cool for a wider variety of players, the new design approach is smaller updates with stuff that’s cool for a certain subset of players. I can’t say for how its going to be. I haven’t participated in this type of model before. But you know, I’m totally willing to chance it.

On the plus side, this grants us additional time to get as deep into heroic raids as we can. After 65 attempts, we finally took out Nef. We threw a curveball in our progression and took down heroic Halfus last week. Our sights right now are going to be aimed at Al’Akir on Monday. After that, it’s a toss up between Al’Akir, heroic Chimaeron or heroic Atramedes.

Haven’t quite decided which way to go yet.

Maybe I’ll flip a coin.

Enjoy the weekend.