Matticus

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

Structuring Your Casual Raiding Guild

by

King and his Pawns

A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to read Karthis’ post on Building a Raiding Guild. In it, he posed several excellent points:

  • Progression Results
  • Leadership Restructuring
  • Smart Recruiting
  • Identifying and Assisting Underachievers
  • Accountability of the Raid
  • “Pat on the backs”
  • Separation of Raiders and Non-Raiders

The other day, an ingame friend of mine asked me to help him create the blueprint of a raiding guild from top to bottom identifying positions and the like. I figured my current Guild model would be a good one to use along with an explanation of each role both within the Guild and within the Raid.

Gnometastic posted a request for input about diving into the T5 instances which I will also address at the bottom of today’s (long ass) piece.

The first thing I will stress to any casual raiding guild is the following: Drop the casualness. The moment you decide to step foot in you T5 instances, you are an official raiding Guild.

What IS casual

From my various experiences and chats with other guilds, casual to THEM means:

    Not reading up on strategy before hand
    Not listening to the raid leader
    Not paying attention or having any kind of situational awareness

And they wonder why they have such a hard time in SSC and TK.

This is what casual means to me

    Not spending more than 6 hours a night raiding
    Not spending more than 3 days raiding
    Not being stupid while having fun

1 definition describes a guild that is struggling night after night in T5 instances and wonders what they have problems. The other is having a blast exploring Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.

Guild Positions

Here’s the framework of our Guild:

Guild Leader

We only have 1. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. The ultimate decision rests on him. Any hard calls are his to make. We are not tied down or restricted in any kind of way. Your Guild Leader should be rational, intelligent, and must actually have a pair.

I’ve seen a lot of paper tiger Guild Leaders who were not willing to stand up for themselves and their Guild. Everytime someone made a request, they would immediately bend over backwards to accommodate them. The way I see it, if you’re not willing enough to say no to someone in your Guild, you are not fit to lead. I wrote more about Leadership earlier in the school year. Any aspiring GMs, I encourage you to read it.

Your Guild Leader obviously cannot run the show alone. But he must be willing to listen to opinion of his officers and guildies. The guild in turn must respect the decision he comes to. If they don’t like it, they’re free to hit free agency.

Don’t run a CO-GM kind of deal. In my experience, I’ve found that it rarely works well. When 1 GM puts their foot down, the other may not be as firm. In fact, the 2nd GM might even reverse the first GM’s decision. You cannot that kind of instability in a Guild.

Officers

If you read Kestrel’s interview the other day, then you can see his best advice to any GM is one simple fact:

    You can’t do it all.

These are players that people can turn to for help. There isn’t really much for them to do. They could assist in various day to day guild affairs. Honestly, whoever you put in these positions depends primarily on what your Guild Leader lacks.

If he lacks time and organizational skills, he can delegate an officer to help him set raid schedules.

If he’s lacking people skills, delegate a recruiting officer or 2 to help find some raiders and personnel.

What they do isn’t important.

The bottom line is that these are individuals that your Guild leader can trust and depend on. There is no perfect set of criteria that can define who is eligible to be an officer and who isn’t.

Raid Structure

Here’s the real meat and potatoes. I think our raid structure is a pretty damn efficient model.

Raid Leaders

Note the plural. We have 2 raid leaders who feed off of each other because it’s impossible for 1 person to track everything going off simultaneously. It’s nice to have another leader around to call out something the other might miss.

In addition, it helps reduces burnout on 1 person. We have 1 person research and call the play for 1 boss. We have the other raid leader research and call the play for another boss. For example, our GM doubles as a raid leader (let’s call him Bob). He calls the play for Lurker, Fathom Lord, Tidewalker, and Al’ar. The other raid leader (let’s call him Fred) calls the plays for Vashj, Kael, and Leotheras.

During trash pulls, they light up the marks on the various mobs. They call for what it is that they want to happen. They might want a sheep on square, a misdirect on skull, or a trap on circle. They don’t care who does it as long as it’s done.

They have delegated duties down the chain of command.

Mage Leader

The job here for the mage leader is to set up and organize sheeps, plain and simple. If Bob calls for a sheep, the mage leader picks a mage within the raid and tells them to sheep that target. There’s going to be pulls where there could be 6+ mobs involved and keeping track of sheeps can be difficult. It’s the job for the mage to know who sheeps what when. It’s also the job for this mage to be able to “oh shit sheep” a mob incase 1 of the other mages fall.

Set up a mage channel.

Hunter Leader

Typically, our raiding arsenal includes 2 Hunters. They’re usually good about working out misdirects and traps amongst themselves. If you have more then that, it might be valuable to set up a go-to hunter to work out which mob or boss gets misdirected to who by which hunter so that there are no overlaps. Our Hunters usually interact with the mage leader in case they run out of mages to CC with.

Hunters: The Plan B.

Heal Leader

We like to dub ours “Gold Leader”. We even have our own healing channel. His purpose is pretty obvious and straight forward. He assigns the rest of the healers their targets. He’s intelligent enough to reassign or switch people around if it’s necessary.

For the love of god, if you’re a healer, ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR ASSIGNMENT. Echo back to him who you’re healing so that he knows there is no confusion!

Other Things to Know

I’m going to make a comment directed to Gnometastic in particular to all of his main points that he wanted to know more about.

Main Tanks

Carnage runs 1 Main Tank and 1 Off tank. The MT is a Warrior and the OT is a Druid. We also run 2 DPS Warriors who can slap a shield on and help with any extra parts of an encounter. We also have a Holy Paladin who’s willing to go Prot and vice versa as we need depending on the encounter.

Speccing into Raiding

As quoted by gnometastic:

I believe in freedom of choice and as long as you can play it you should be able to (within reason) spec it.

Normally, I’m inclined to agree. But this must be balanced by asking the following question:

    How badly you want to progress?

The 2 DPS warriors I mentioned above? They are willing to respec prot if the encounter requires it or there is simply too much healing required. Both of them respecced prot to allow healers an easier time during Kael.

On the flip side, if I were asked to do something like respec to Shadow, I would not. I’ve never played or levelled as Shadow. I wouldn’t know what to do. I would gimp the raid even further. I have no objections to sitting out a night in favor of another Shadow Priest.

If I were to become benched for the remainder of my time, then nothing stops me from parting company on good terms. I’m sure there are Guilds out there looking for a veteran healer.

Looting System

Hmm, it’s a toughie. It depends primarily on the Guild. Guilds have to start being strategic with their loot at some point. No matter what system is used, always ensure that Officer discretion can come into play at some point.

Carnage had the past policy of awarding MT priority on loot. That is, if it’s a substantial and noticeable upgrade for the tank, he gets first option no matter what his DKP is. If you think the MT might abuse that privilege, then I say to you to go find yourself a new MT.

There was a situation the past where a Defender token dropped. It would have been a marginal upgrade at best for the MT, but the 2 piece set bonus would have been a huge boon for the Priest. It was lobbied quite hard by our healer lead to have the MT policy revised to keep things like this in mind.

PvP vs PvE Gear

I made a quick note about this a while ago as a response to a reader. Before I believe that PvP Gear could not subsitute for raiding. Now I believe that there are different factors to take into account when deciding this.

    Raid Encounter
    Which season of gear

Although I still would not suggest raiding with full on Season 3 gear, I am open to the idea of substituting a a piece of gear or 2 depending on how the fights are. The Vindicator’s bracer would hands down blow away any kind of bracer that Attumen drops.

In any case, the gear choice isn’t that different for DPS classes I don’t think. But as a healer, I would value PvE gear way more then PvP gear.

By the way, be hit capped before worrying too much about spell damage and crit. That’s what my colleagues tell me and if you think about it, it does make sense. After all, what is the point of having insane spell damage if your spells get resists half the time?

Attendance and Raid Breakdown

From my experience with certain DKP systems, I’ve discovered that you can also apply a certain decay rate over DKP via a simple formula. For example, DKP earned x percentage of raids showed up to over the past 60 days.

Raider A has 100 DKP but his attendance has slackened to 30% attendance to real life factors. His effective DKP is now 30.
Raider B is new to the Guild and has 30 DKP so far but has been to 100% of the raids. He doesn’t have a penalty applied since he has showed up to all of them.

Here’s the standard Carnage configuration that we bring:

4 Tanks

  • 3 Warriors (2 of which can be DPS)
  • 1 Feral Druid (OT)

14 DPS

  • 2 Hunters (BM, I think)
  • 4 Mages
  • 3 Warlocks
  • 1 Shadow Priest
  • 1 Enhancement Shaman
  • 2 Rogues

    • We keep an extra Rogue, Shadow Priest, Elemental Shaman, and Hunter on standby depending on what we need more of.

7 Healers

  • 2 Holy Priests (1 with Imp. DS and 1 with CoH)
  • 3 Holy Paladins
  • 1 Resto Druid
  • 1 Resto Shaman

    • We keep an extra Paladin around in case he is needed.

For Voidreaver, Gnome, bring a Resto Shaman or 3. It makes the other healer classes kind of moot. I always wonder what I’m doing there when we do Voidreaver.

In terms of attendance, we do it inversely. If you can’t show up you make a note on the forums in advance. That gives the Raid leaders time to go scramble a replacement instead of having to do it last minute. We build the raid out of whoever is there with the core members. They are the ones that usually show up 9.9 times out of 10. I think I’ve only ever missed 2 official raids ever since I signed with Carnage back in May. The guys that should be raiding are the ones that want to raid and are willing to make the dedication for it.

We also don’t switch our MT/OT combinations. The MT is made the same no matter what. However, there are certain encounters where a Bear tank is better suited then a Warrior tank (Leo).

Class Balance

It honestly depends on the boss and the instance. We like to bring in 7 AoE. It makes killing things that much faster.

In the end, it does come down to how serious and committed you are. I think 20 hours a week is a bit much. Attrition will take it’s toll sooner or later. I know some successful raiding Guilds going at 6 hours a week. We clock in about 12 hours of 25 mans plus an additional 6 hours of optional 10 mans if we want.

This piece is probably one of the longer ones I’ve written. I probably should have broken it up and divided it. At the least, I would have had material for 3 days worth of posts. But you’re always welcome to bookmark and come back to it at a later time. I’m hoping the experiences I’ve had can benefit you in some way.

I’m kind of curious as to the experiences of other raiding readers. How is your guild set up in terms of class balance and leadership? Is there only 1 individual leading the entire raid including direction sheeps, heals, and so forth (Bless him)? Have you had any success with other styles of leadership?

Weekly Digest: Kael Dead, Progression Methods, 2 Guest Posts

by

What’s Happening in WoW

We killed Kael on Sunday, yay! After the reset, we were able to kill him again which proves that we are now able to put Kael down on farm. After that, the special forces of Carnage decided to run into Mount Hyjal and help out Jaina. One wipe at around wave 7 before laying the smackdown on Rage Winterchill. Our healers had a tough time healing frostbolts and we’re currently working on methods to counteract it.

For those that might be perplexed, Winterchill fires a frostbolt at a random player during the raid which impacts them ~4500+ damage and freezes them in place. Following that, there is a DoT applied to that player for 2500 per second.

Current solutions

    Requirement of all players to obtain a PvP trinket by Tuesday

Here’s some advice for players who employ DKP bidding in their loot distribution.

  1. Bid high if you really want it
  2. Do not bid in increments of 5

I found this lesson out the hard way the other night. I had the option to bid on a Verdant Sphere which gives you the option of picking an epic neckpiece of your choice. During round 1, I placed a bid for 35. It was revealed the highest was 45. During round 2, I placed a bid for 55 thinking that no one would go for it that high. Unfortunately, I lost the item to a Warlock who placed a bid for 56. I guess I’ll need to do some more research and find me a neckpiece other then Lord Sanguinaar’s Claim.

On the PvP front, my Shaman has acquired the Vengeful Gladiator’s Mail Armor! That now brings me up to 2/5 S2 Resto and 3/5 Elemental. My goal is to become an Elemental Shaman in PvP. That seems to be what people want most these days. I’ve been thinking about what to socket them with. I’ll most likely lean towards the Honor gems.

What’s Happening with the Blog

I’ve decided to participate with a service called EntreCard. If you notice on the right side above my poll, there is a rectangular image. This service allows WoW bloggers to drop their business cards on to other blogs thereby getting traffic and raising awareness. As mentioned by TJ in her excellent summarization, the system is dominated by blogs that make money by telling other people how to make money blogging, there is no reason that it cannot be leveraged by the WoW blogging community. Why? Because you are able to approve or deny rights to blogs that wish to publicize on your blog. As such, I’m limiting blogs that show up under EntreCard to other WoW bloggers or gaming related blogs that have decided to use this service.

Latest Blog Posts

Here are the posts from this week:

20 Questions by Matticus

This week I had a chance to sit down with Kestrel of Kestrel’s Aerie.

Past Hits

Past columns I have written that still hold true to this day.

Trends in the WoW Blogosphere

Patch Notes have been strategically leaked by various Blizzard reps. Here’s a few community takes and responses to them.

Blog Spotlight

Banana Shoulders – Siha is a Guild Leader and a Holy Paladin. We’ve had a lot of conversations on the AIM Blogazeroth chatroom. She’s also a mac enthusiast!

Matt likes: The Jewelcrafting Quick Reference Sheet. I even printed out a copy. Unfortunately, since I use a laser printer it’s in black and white.

20 Questions with Kestrel

by

20 Questions with Matticus

Every week, Matt gets a chance to sit down with a WoW Blogger chosen by his Worg Pup. Find out a little more about your favourite bloggers as he tries to get to know them a little more!

To kick off this weekly feature, Kestrel of Kestrel’s Aerie was awesome enough to set aside some time in his schedule to answer a few questions.

I noticed you have an affinity for birds. Where did it come from?

The answer to this question dovetails (like that?) with the answer to the second. So let me explain…

Several years ago, I read a fantastic Mercedes Lackey series, “Bardic Voices.” Among the titles are The Lark and the Wren and The Robin and the Kestrel. Searching for a new character name when Asheron’s Call II was released (I’d gone by Earendil, from The Silmarillion, for many, many years), “Kestrel” fit perfectly: Back in my role-playing days (Shadows of Yserbius, on the ImagiNation Network, né The Sierra Network), I fancied myself a bardic type–never mind that I can’t play the lute or mandolin, nor can I carry a tune. See the next answer for the rest!

What’s the background behind your character’s names? (Kestrel, Osprey, Talonis)

When it came time to name alts (and yes, I’m an altoholic–explains 4, almost 5, level 70s on one server!), I stuck with the birds of prey theme. Currently, my characters include Kestrel, Osprey, Talonis (from Talon, which is always taken as a character name, but is the name of Talonis’ hunter pet), Sparverius (from the Latin for hawk), Owlhawk, Falken (German origin), Falconer, Raptor. Oh…and Earendil is my little-used Dranei Paladin.

What’s a typical day in the life of Kestrel like?

Pretty dull! Weekdays, I get up just before 6:30, get ready for work, eat a bowl of cereal while Auctioneer Advanced is performing my daily scan of the AH. Usually, I have time to do a daily quest, and I also review the Aerie for new comments, as well as check the feed reader and Blog Azeroth very quickly. I’m a human resources manager in a call center, so I generally have time during the day to catch up on blogs (sometimes, even my own if there aren’t too many interruptions).

I go home for lunch each day, so I’ll log into the game, check on auctions, maybe hit another daily. After work, my wife and I generally have dinner fairly soon after I get home (and after I spend a little bit on my bike exerciser; in nicer weather, we go for a walk or bike ride 3 or 4 times a week). We usually watch a travel show or cooking program from the DVR while eating.

Then, it’s up to the computer room and an evening of WoW. I may delay my login if I have an article I want to finish for the blog, and I generally have Google Reader open on my second monitor to peruse on longer gryphon flights.

Most people around your age tend to not care about video games and consider them a waste of time. How did you get into gaming and WoW?

For the uninformed, I’m in my mid-50s. That already may be TMI for some people. *grin*

When I was a young captain in the Air Force in the mid-70s, I was an instructor for Minuteman missile crews. The computer that operated our simulators was a DEC PDP-11 minicomputer. In the observation cab, we had small 11″ monitors, and a couple of the more enterprising technicians had installed a game called “Dungeon” (I think). It was a very simple maze-like layout with typographic characters–letters and symbols–representing characters, monsters (this was before the term “mob” entered the lexicon) and treasure. I was hooked.

This was also about the time I started playing D&D 2ed with co-workers. Then one day, a coworker brought an Atari brochure into the office. Within a year, I was the very proud (and much poorer) owner of an Atari 800–still the most comfortable keyboard I have ever used, including the classic IBM Selectric.

From there, it was an easy evolution to cassette- and 5.25″-floppy disc-based games. A few years later (1986, to be precise) I upgraded to my first IBM-compatible PC (and I splurged on a huge 30MB hard drive!). “Bard’s Tale” and the D&D Gold Box collection, King’s Quest, Ultima IV, and my favorite, the Wizardry series. Time passed, I discovered The Sierra Network and Shadows of Yserbius. Eventually I got involved in Asheron’s Call, a teeny bit of EverQuest, and so on, culminating with World of Warcraft.

Your long lost cousin happens to find your blog and manages to get in touch with you. To your amazement, you find out he works at Blizzard as a lead designer. As a birthday present, he allows you to include another playable race in the game. What would you choose and why?

Oh my… what a great question! There are so many reasonable possibilities. Unfortunately, I’m not a lore master by any stretch–I never played the Warcraft series, or even Diablo. So whatever I say may make zero sense from a lore standpoint. But let me throw out a few ideas, then I’ll settle on my #1 choice. What about Arrakoa? And if you put them on the Alliance side, maybe Ogres on the Horde side? Of course, one could argue for Murlocs on the Horde side, to balance out Gnomes? Or how about an elemental race? Scratch that…no one wants to see eleventy-seven variations on Thing as a character name. But the romantic in me would probably go for High Elves (I completely lost it the first time the High Elf female in Allerian Outpost haughtily informs you she’s NOT a Blood Elf). And how about this: High Elves on both sides of the conflict, Horde and Alliance? If nothing else, the lorefiends would have a field day!

You have your own Guild. Tell us about them and the direction you are steering them.

Originally, the guild was just four of us who left Icecrown and our (large raiding) guild there because we had a lot of problems logging in to the realm. We picked up a few other friends who entered the game, but we have always been rather small and close-knit. Unfortunately, we lost several members a couple months ago who wanted to progress faster than the guild was currently moving. That’s how I inherited the GM mantle. Right now, we’re trying to get everyone (almost everyone in the guild has at least one 70) through the Outland 5-man instances. Several of us just finished off the Gronns this week, so we can start doing Ogri’La dailies, and we want to get everyone else who’d like to, through that. We have a couple druids (my two remaining co-founders) who want to get their epic flight form, so Heroic Sethekk is definitely coming up in the near term. And, I’d like to help everyone get attuned for Karazhan. We may have to pug it or join with another guild to get into Kara itself, but by ourselves, we can at least finish the attunements. And at some point, I expect we’ll have to address the question of whether to expand our membership.

What’s the most important piece of advice you can give to a new and aspiring GM?

Just so you understand, this isn’t my first stint at being a GM. I was a realm GM for a couple years in Shadows of Yserbius (at that time, if not the largest, one of the largest online guilds in the world), and in Asheron’s Call II and Horizons, I was the #2 person in one of the largest guilds in both games (we moved from AC2 to Horizons). So I’m not exactly a rookie. 🙂

Thus, the one thing I would tell any GM is, “You can’t do it all.” Don’t even try. Have trusted lieutenants, delegate responsibility AND authority. But don’t forget that YOU are the Guild LEADER. When a tough call has to be made, discipline, or /gkick, then the GM has to be the one to make the call. But being a GM isn’t a power trip: /gquit is even easier to do than /gkick.

Seeing as you are clearly a bird enthusiast, do you have any ethical objections to the use of Gryphons by the Alliance for their day to day purposes?

Another great question. Having done the Hinterlands quests and having become acquainted with some of the Gryphon elders, I think they appreciate the service they do for the Alliance. After all, I’ve never seen a tether on one of them; they can leave any time, or simply drop us in the Twisting Nether if they liked. However, I think we, as riders, should have the opportunity to maybe slip them a tasty treat occasionally. Then, they might be persuaded to take a more direct route once in awhile. After all, have you SEEN the route they fly from Shattrath to, say Area 52??

Tell us more about your blog like the background and history and your future plans and goals for it:

Like so many of us, I caught the blogging bug after reading BigRedKitty in WoW Insider, then checking out his blog. I went from there to several others–Vonya’s Egotistical Priest, since Osprey was in his mid- to late-60s and about to really get into the healing business, as well as Kirk’s Priestly Endeavors.

And as I read their blogrolls, my horizons expanded quickly. The one thing I didn’t see too much of at the time (early August) were blogs by non-raiding types, yet I know that raiders make up a relatively small part of the WoW population. So I thought I could help to fill that void. I’m not sure I’ve met that precise aim, but my readership is growing, so something is working! My biggest problem is finding the time to do all I want to do with the blog: I’d rather play! (But that’s about the only thing I prefer to writing, so I hope I can find more balance between the two going forward).

While I’ve been playing since beta, I really am a pretty casual player, in terms of what content I’ve experienced. But I am getting more experience, and I feel pretty confident in my expertise in some areas. So I expect to post some “how-to” articles in the future. I also want to get back to reviewing UI add-ons. But I’ll still keep the stories, the rants, and the shout-outs to exceptional bloggers in the mix.

Where do you see yourself in 10 months in WoW?

Oh, maybe 1/3 of the way to level 71? But on about 6 characters. *laugh* I hope by the end of this year, I’ll have downed all the bosses in Kara. I’d also like to complete all the Heroic Outland instances. But one thing I’m sure of: I’ll be logging into Wrath of the Lich King on Day 1!

Speed Questions

Most cliche’d excuse in the game:

“Sorry…I hit the wrong button.”

Nerf:

Fear. I hate Hate HATE being Feared!

First thing you do in the morning:

Take a shower. THEN I log into WoW.

Blogging is like:

Eating chocolate – all the flavors are good!

I like to play WoW in my:

Sweatpants and quilted flannel shirt.

Most hated zone:

Oh… tough one; I like ’em all. Swamp of Sorrows.

Colorado Avalanche, Colorado Rockies, Denver Broncos, or Denver Nuggets?

Avalanche! Take that, Matt! 😉 (Dodgers, Rams, Lakers in case anyone’s curious)

5 things that annoy you in WoW:

1. Trade channel spam (i.e., non-trade chat; it’s the new General channel!)
2. Duels in Iron Forge
3. Roundabout Gryphon rides (fly in a STRAIGHT line, dammit!)
4. W-A-S-D
5. The UI–SO hard to simply move or resize elements.

Matt needs to:

Send more people to Kestrel’s Aerie!

Thanks for taking the time to sit down and answer my questions. Shout outs to?

BRK for opening my eyes to blogging, and to the BM spec. Vonya and Kirk for the blogging inspiration and the encouragement to keep growing my Priest. Galadria, Pelides and Mania for the blogging encouragement. Phaelia and Matticus for their friendship through this blogventure. Phaelia and Valenna for kick-starting Blog Azeroth.

6 Signs You Masturbate Too Much

by

We all do it at some point, but we all deny it. Yet we do it because it brings us pleasure and sometimes we have to hide it from other people. Obviously as this is a WoW based blog, I am referring to WoW masturbation. It can be incredibly unhealthy for you. If you start noticing the following signs, start looking for help right away.

Tired

1: Extreme Fatigue

You start feeling tired throughout the day. Why? Because you have been up all night again playing with your toons. Your eyes are nearly blood shot. When you go to bed, your hands are shaking incessantly from the surge of Red Bull and coffee. But you still do it anyway because it’s only one more attempt. Then two. And it slowly snowballs after that. Before you know it, it’s 3 AM and you have to get up at 5.

2: Self-Admiration

So you got yourself some nice shiny purples and you are spending most of your time checking yourself out and showing yourself off to everyone you know. Damn, man! Go and do something with all that gear and make yourself useful, eh?

3: Obsession

You have to fire it up every day because you can’t seem to get satisfied.
You have to finish every quest.
You have to get the best possible gear.
You need to farm as much gold as possible in case the economy crashes.

Hell, you ARE the economy!

4: Can no longer perform

You just can’t keep it up anymore when you’re depended on. Your marks are slowly dropping away. You’re blowing off important emails from Bob in accounting while you’re busy reading up on your favourite blog. Your productivity in life is slowly withering away top the point where you can’t seem to look yourself in the mirror anymore.

5: Losing touch with people

Your friends don’t even bother inviting you to Friday night poker because they know Friday’s a raid night for you (sniff). But that’s okay, because you need the money that you would have lost to pay off your WoW bills. Your boyfriend or girlfriend has to buy the game just to speak with you and hold a conversation. Normally I would suggest watching TV, but with the writer’s strike happening…

6: Physical pain

This one applies to me. My back hurts. It’s probably due to sitting down in one position for too long. It pays to get up once in a while and walk around the house. In fact, I’ve made a conscious effort to get out of my room and my house at times to grab some coffee. Most of my blog posts are being written via pen and paper initially before being typed on my computer. During long raids, I like to fix myself something to drink. If your joints start feeling sore and your limbs are feeling cramped, change your posture or consider playing standing up for a few minutes. Learn some Yoga.

Here’s an idea I’ve been thinking about: Everytime you wipe, do 10 push ups.

Hopefully these telltale signs will be noticed by you in time for you to act upon them. If you think you have a problem, seek help immediately. There’s actually an Online Gamers Anonymous. Consider seeking counseling or other extreme forms of treatment. If you think you have the will, then you might be able to quit WoW cold turkey by uninstalling the game in order to get your life back on track. Video game addiction is being considered for the DSM. Let’s not forget that people have died from WoW.

Remember, WoW is only healthy in moderation!

Ask Matt: Raid help?

by

It just occurred to me. I’ve spending so much time writing about Guild theory and blogging that I’ve started to deviate from my primary focus: help you heal your raid. Right now, the trend from some of the other bloggers I’ve seen is trouble with Kael’Thas. I’m working on a fairly mammoth sized project that involves covering healing for the entire encounter which includes recommended healers, methods, phase-by-phase breakdown for healers, and so on and so forth. There’s no way I can squeeze that into a post. I wouldn’t dream of doing it like that because it’s too much information to absorb visually.

Grr, it’s too hard for me to explain right now. You’ll have a better idea when you see it.

In any case, any problems with any boss encounters from the healing end that anyone has? I can only offer my experience and wisdom on bosses I’ve done. Sorry T6 Priests/Healers!