In the past, I’ve always preached and encouraged players to take loot that’s a minor upgrade for them if no one’s needed it. It appears Blizzard has listened. After checking out the changes on MMO Champion again, something struck me as odd. The best items in the game now appear to be from vendors instead of just as boss drops. The only way to acquire them is to upgrade pieces from boss kills with a Sun Mote.
Confusing? Let me try again.
Old School
You can skimp out on gear from Karazhan and then pick it up at Gruul’s. I’ve long often thought about different ways I could get the best loot faster. For example, in SSC, I would skip out on the T5 legs for 30+ DKP and save it for the T5 helm on Vashj. I’d let the competing classes around me get their leg tokens first because I figured once they all get it, sooner or later I’d get mine at an inexpensive rate. It makes sense because our Guild would kill Fathom Lord more often then they would Kill Vashj.
New School
There’s a bunch of awesome phat loot from Sunwell. However, not all of it’s immediately accessible. There’s an awesome leggings called Pantaloons of Calming Strife. As you can see, it’s meant for Priests. There’s also another pair of leggings called Pantaloons of Growing Strife. That pair is catered towards DPS.
But here’s the catch.
For DPS casters, you have to get a sunmote AND Pantaloons of Calming Strife first before you can go to a vendor and “upgrade” it. Surely those aren’t the only DPS caster pants in Sunwell. But as a player in a Guild using DKP, I can no longer enjoy my monopoly on healing cloth.
Killed Kael again and picked up Lord Sanguinar’s Claim. I think it’s arguably the best healing neck right now in the game until 2 dot 4 hits. Right now, I’m in the midst of compiling a checklist of the best possible Priest gear I can acquire before the next patch arrives. Hopefully that’ll be up sometime over the weekend.
I mentioned earlier yesterday about the right way that players should leave Guilds. We’ve lost two players earlier in the week and I’ve been asked to help find some quality players to help fill that void.
The Short Stuff
Guild: Carnage
Server: Ner’Zuhl PvP (PST Server)
Faction: Alliance
Raid Times: Tu/Th 530 PM – 900 PM PST, Sun 330 PM – 900 PM PST (25 man raid times only. 10 man raid times may vary.)
Progression: 3/5 MH
Apply: On the Carnage website forums, or make a character on Ner’Zuhl and send tells to Blori, Maeve, or Mallet (that’s me!)
Attunements to MH and BT are preferred but not required. if you required gear from Karazhan, we’re not the Guild you’re looking for.
If you are not keyed, we will try to accommodate and key you!
Classes wanted
:
Healers
We have immediate openings for either a Restoration Shaman, Restoration Druid or a Holy Priest. This is a guaranteed full time starting position. We’re currently running our raids with 6 healers. We killed Rage Winterchill and Anethron on Monday shorthanded with 23 players. While the Carnage healing corps might be able to sustain it for a while, the stress and pressure will cause us to eventually buckle. We need a 7th healer to help fill that void. Unfortunately, we’re full on Paladins.
DPS
We have immediate openings for an Enhancement Shaman. Our melee team consists of the most badass warriors and rogues in existence. Our main tank is able to dish out enough threat to convince Roger Clemens to admit to steroid use. Depending on your performance, this could potentially be a full time starting position.
The Long Stuff
About us
Carnage is one of the oldest Guilds on the oldest server in existence. It’s had a long and illustrious raiding history in which the Guild has been known to progress at a steady pace. The only thing casual about our guild is the raid times. Should you apply, you will find yourself in one of the most fun and professional raiding atmospheres. Every criticism will be backed up with solutions and suggestions. You will not be raiding with idiots who don’t know what they’re doing or players who take 30 minute AFK breaks holding up the raid or players who like to hit the damage meters. You will be playing with mature, intelligent, and supportive raiders. We will not nitpick your performance but if we there is a way to improve it, you will know. We will give you a job and if you can do it, great! If you can’t, we’ll try to help you until you do. We want to beat this game and we’d like your help doing it. Ever since the new year started, we’ve been progressing at 0.5 a boss a week. Archimonde is projected to go down by early April with Illidan weeks later.
So relations have soured and you feel like you want to leave and start fresh. Several days ago, two of my most respected and trusted colleagues left with almost no word or reason why. It was a surprise to many people. One of them had done it before and to be quite honest and open, I had a feeling that person would leave again. The second was a real true surprise because I honestly had no idea.
Before you GQuit, I’m asking you do one really important thing.
Talk to your GM
As much as your feelings may be overtly obvious to you, it isn’t to anyone else. Not every GM is psychic. You cannot expect things to happen if there is no idea nor awareness. It’s unfair to expect your leadership to understand you inside and out. Pick a time and a date and talk to your GM about it.
Let your leadership know of your problem
Let me make clear that I have no problem with anyone leaving the Guild. You’re paying your 15 bucks a month to play this game. It’s your right. The fact is, you and your Guild got this far together. If you have a problem with someone or an issue with a system, let your leaders know. Speak up about it. If you don’t say or mention anything, then nothing will get changed.
It’s like people who complain about the Government and don’t vote. By not voting, you’ve forfeited your right to complain.
A month ago, another colleague of mine left. But he did it the right way. He expressed his misgivings and it was clear that the Guild progression rate was not enough to satisfy him. That’s okay. That can’t really be solved unless by some miracle. There are always going to be people like that in this game where everything isn’t going to be enough. At least he was mature enough to be kind and forward about it.
Don’t lie or deny
If it’s plainly obvious that you’re dissatisfied because you’ve been silently mentioning your problems to other people, then don’t deny it when your GM gets wind of it and asks you up front if everything is okay.
If you have an issue with the way loot is handled, then for cryin’ out loud speak up. I’ve BEEN an officer before. I’m a grunt right now. I like being a grunt because I don’t have to be the poor guy stuck dealing with brushfires week. I can tell you nothing is more frustrating then not knowing what the issue is.
“Avoiding Drama”
I’ve had issues and problems with people and systems before. In the past, I would have quit overnight too to “avoid drama”. Upon further reflection, I realized I was just sugarcoating the answer. I didn’t want to avoid drama. I wanted to avoid confrontation. I didn’t have the guts or the courage to speak up. That’s why I used the drama avoiding excuse to ease my conscience. I’m doing it for the “good of the Guild” right? Can’t they respect the fact that my leaving overnight will save the Guild trouble in the long run? No, they can’t because you left them hanging. You quit without saying why.
Ever since I was an officer in my past Guilds, I realized what a pain in the ass excuse that was. My heart goes out to every GM and officer on the planet who knows what I’m talking about. It’s a tough job to have such unrealistic expectations placed upon your shoulders and that makes this game less fun.
Do it the right way
So you finished speaking to your GM about it and have explored every possible solution. There’s nothing more anyone else can do. Be classy about it at least. You can leave your Guild the same way you entered it: with your pride and dignity intact.
Common and recommended excuses
Looking for a new direction:
The goals of this Guild no longer coincide with my personal goals (IE, not moving fast enough, moving too fast, SEE YA)
Personal problems
I’m having problems working with various aspects of the Guild and I’m no longer able to handle the stress along with school/work (IE, this guys a jackass)
Raid times
I’m losing sleep over raiding and it’s screwing up my schedule so I’m going to leave to find a new Guild that can fit it (IE, can’t raid at midnight anymore)
How you do it is entirely up to you. When I left Angelic Advocates, I posted a long and lengthy explanation on the forums explaining my problem. I left that Guild because I could no longer commit to their raiding times. When I left Aurora, it was right after a raid on a monday before the reset. I went from vent channel to vent channel explaining that I was leaving. I was no longer satisfied with the direction the Guild was going in and I received a contract offer to sign with Carnage (an organization I am still a part of to this day).
In regards to the 2 that left, I’m not angry at them. It’s worse. I’m disappointed at them.
Cracking a 25 man raid roster is not the easiest thing to do in the world, especially when it’s been set in stone for a while. Every now and then, a slot or two will open up which could allow any other player in the guild to fill it. They just have to be given the opportunity to step into it. Benching a raider is a strong message to deliver and it should only be used sparingly if that player’s performance is not up to par. On the other hand, it allows another person the chance to replace them. But when do you determine who gets to sit and who gets to go? Surely the following will help you shape your opinion.
Stories
Every Guild has their AFK stories. Every Guild has their horror wipe stories. These are all true stories, I guarantee you. They’ve been collected from friends and colleagues of mine as well as my personal experience.
We clearing to Kael and as we enter the room, one of our mages appeared to be quite fidgety. So he starts strafing left and right because the raid leaders is going over trash or something. Before you know it, the mage goes from the raid group to the middle of a kael trash group and promptly dies. Turns out his blink key was bound to his “f” key. I can say with absolute confidence that he no longer has blink bound to a key.
We’re doing Al’ar and it’s phase 1. It’s right after a flame quill and one of our tanks goes rushing up the platform to pick up Al’ar. He grabs him and oversteps the platform and falls off the edge. Goodbye Charlie.
FPS problems are a plague for some players because it drastically affects their ability to perform. During the Pre TBC era, there was a boss called Baron. He’s essentially like Solarian. Every now and then, a person gets a debuff and he explodes taking out people around him within a certain radius. There was this player who raided with about 3 FPS. Now at the time, it’s a 1 in 40 chance of who gets the debuff. Sure enough, he gets chosen. His bomb warning is processed too slow which leads to a slow reaction time which leads to him literally taking out half the raid. Does anyone believe in lightning striking twice? Yup, minutes later he gets debuffed again and blows up another half of the raid. The policy now was that this 1 player gets his OWN position without anyone around him. You can’t make this stuff. You just can’t.
There’s this Gruul’s run. The Guild’s in the ready position. Out of no where, this Paladin darts straight ahead right into Gruul. Over vent you hear cries of “WTF” and “OMG”! And then there was silence. The Paladin sheepishly says “Sorry guys, that was my kid on my lap and he was just smashing the keyboard!”
Players who alt tab back in the game when they hear “Shatter” over vent during Gruul.
There was this Gruul’s run. While the main tank was on High King, one of the Paladins DI’d the main tank! Naturally you can kind of guess what happened.
Opportunity
For the GM’s
There’s going to be players in Guild’s that display similar behavior or rationality like the ones I mentioned above. This is a GREAT time for you to try out that new guy in your Guild. You know, the one that joined a few days ago. He’s shown up on time and ready to go. He expects to get shot down but he waits outside the instance logged off in the event hes needed.
Give them that opportunity.
For the new guy
This is your chance to show of your ability and skills. Don’t squander it. If you’re ever unsure of anything, ask. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Work hard and you’ll get your shot soon enough. Turn over in Guilds can be low but they are by no means non-existent. There’s always a player that has to leave at some point and there are always going to be players to take their spot.
Here’s a brilliant example right here. Ryan Shannon is hockey player with the Canucks. He hasn’t fully transitioned to the big club. He’s usually on the farm team (minor leagues). Whenever there’s an injury on the Canucks or if there’s a hole in the lineup for some reason, players are called up from the farm team to help fill their positions. Sometimes, you just never know what they’re going to do. You just have to pray that they’re going to do their job and do it well.
In this case, Shannon not only does the job well, he looks good doing it. Remember, minor leaguer called up to play in the big leagues.
By the way, I know I can’t be the only raider with some stories to share. I’d love to hear your funniest wipes (or most stupidest). So how about it GMW, Karthis, Phaelia, or Galadria?
Sometimes I wonder why I bother writing a blog. Looking at some of these comments over the past several days reminded me that there’s always someone WAY more brilliant then you are. Why they don’t have a blog of their own, I have no idea. I doubt a good number of you even read comments (or know that they exist) so I’ve decided to share a couple of them with you.
That and I have an exam in a few hours so this is my cop out post of the month >:).
The reason why folks are talking about ret pallys, or arms warriors, or demon locks, etc. is because they are most interested in PvP or solo-ing than being with a group. Seriously.
A ret pally or arms warrior is not going to touch the DPS numbers of a similiarly geared mage, rogue, or lock. But the second part of DPS is CC. Whenever I’m looking for a group to hit heroics/raid- I look for real healer (holy priest/holy pally/resto druid), a real tank (prot warrior/prot pally/feral druid), and the rest DPS and CC. Notice the ‘and’.
If you are just a DPS, then that slot could be used for someone that does the same damage you do, plus can take a mob out of the picture. As long as there are two CC folks in the group, its great having them. Less than that, they become a liability. The healer has to then heal THREE off tanks, and that usually spells disaster.
I have a holy priest and a afflock. I picked these specs so that I can help out whatever group I’m in. And my play style has always been for whatever is best for the group. I’ll give up my big dam curse (CoA) and suffer the DPS loss- if my Malediction buffed Curse of Elements or Shadow means more DPS overall by debuffing for others. Sometimes that person picking who goes on the raid is looking at what else you bring to the party.
I am the healing leader for our raids and I have been doing something similar for quite some time now. We are just now making the 25 man transition, so I don’t have any SSC/TK experience, but we’ve been farming kara for the past 4 months and have been working our way through ZA.
There are two specific examples that come to mind: Netherspite and Nalorakk. On Netherspite, it is a lot easier to assign healers to “Red Beam” and “Blue Beam” duty, then assign them to heal Tank 1 and Tank 2 (depending on who is tanking) and heal Warlock A and SPriest B (depending on the Blue Beam extra damage soaker). This way, it also promotes raid awareness and your healers are paying attention to what is going on around them. They will need to pay attention to see where these beams spawn and which person is going to be in them. The other example is for the Bear boss in ZA (simpler version). This one isn’t very hard to figure out, but you need some serious heals on Nalorakk and 1 healer per tank won’t cut it. So the solution: Heal the tank with aggro at the time.
Also, if you are the healing leader in your raids, I hope you are using a mod called Heal Organizer. This mod will give you an interface window with all the healing/dispelling/decursing/abolish poisoning/hybrid classes in your raid. You can then assign them healing duties (or dispelling duties) by dragging them and dropping them into many different customizable sections whose headers you can change. You can then click one button to have it broadcast in the channel of your choice (/ra, /rw, /). You can also save your setups for future use. Another handy option is that you can check a box to have it whisper everyone that has an assignment so that you know your healers specifically got it. And to top it all off, anyone can send you a tell with the word “heal” (/t Birkin heal) and it will automatically send them a reply with their assignment. (Although lots of my DPS buddies think it’s funny to spam my chat during Kara by sending me a tell with “heal” and getting “You are not assigned” messages spammed back… over and over… haha) Oh, I almost forgot that for Heal Organizer, to get the interface menu, you have to type a “/” command. (I’m at work now and can’t look it up) Instead of memorizing this and typing it every time you want to change assignments around, it’s much easier to put that “/” command into a macro and throw it on one of your extra bars so it is just a button click away.
If you want a weight free exercise then consider using your own body weight. Simple exercises like push up, or dips(with your chair) is a simple solution working out your arms. Also as push ups become more easy, you can vary the distances of your arms or prop your legs up on the chair for more of your body weight.
Keep in mind that you need to work out your biceps and triceps equally to have better improvements over all. So alternate your push ups and dips during those long flights to tanaris or something.
Simple weights free leg work outs are lunges, great thing about lunges is that it works out just about all of your leg muscles.
And don’t forget about those epix six-packs thats hidden under that layer of fat! Body planks are a easy way of working out your core muscle groups like your abs oblique and back muscles. Body planks are simply getting on your elbows and holding your body up like in a push up position.
Be careful as to not let your body sag as it might injure you.
To work on the side abs simply rotate your body over while still on either one of your elbows.
To work on your back roll over another time so your belly is upward and both elbows are behind you to prop yourself up. This will strengthen that pesky lower back that always aches when you sit and raid for too long.
Always to remember to stretch out before and after any work out to prevent injuries and know your limits! If you do these simple exercises during downtime i guarantee you’ll see improvements in your body after many weeks of raiding.
That last comment’s really good to know. Recently I’ve been having some lower back issues. I’m almost positive it comes from sitting on my ass too long. During the spring and summer months, I’d go out and play some street hockey. Since it’s winter, that isn’t much of an option. And no, I don’t know how to skate.
Actually that’s not accurate. I don’t know how to stop without the assistance of a wall.
Anyways, something of substance will come up later today after the exam, I hope. But I tell you, there’s something to be said for conquering whole galaxies. That’s also been eating up my precious time as well.
