Two Val’anyr at WoM? That’s Unpossible!

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First things first I’d like to congratulate Matt on his Hammer of awesomeness!

Matt and I were long talking about sitting on the 30 fragments and needing to get the mace completed.  Matt’s guild was not the only one to have problems deep into Ulduar. Unpossible on Zul’jin, my guild and my home was tearing through Ulduar. Fragments were dropping and loot was being passed all around. Then we got to Vezax, the guild was going full steam…until we lost some of our top dps and heals to burnout. A top dps DK, Hunter, and a few others just didn’t have any more juice left. They had been raiding you see since before BC. It happens, and I don’t fault them for it, but that meant Unpossible was recruiting. All my guildies hit the streets so to speak, spreading word that we needed people to bolster our ranks! I sent a call out across twitter and got a response from someone on the Firetree server. We began negotiations and talks almost daily for several weeks and in that meantime we would bring in non raiders from the guild to fill in gaps and try to keep raids going.

Eventually the Firetree crew transferred servers and joined our ranks, and we began the process of integrating raid styles and getting everybody on the same page. Shortly after that we got our first Yogg kill, with new players we felt quite accomplished. Now came the problem of farming the rest of the Fragments of Val’anyr. We gathered up steam and pushed forward until Trial of the Crusader patch hit. We now were faced with a difficult decision. Continue to farm content till we had all of our fragments or push on into ToC and place Ulduar on the back burner. We did what was best for the guild as a whole and made our way into ToC. After finally pushing through faction champions the rest was easy to clear. Standing on top of the corpse of one giant Beetle we set our sights back to Ulduar. We dove back in and lady fortune smiled upon us as we got the last of our fragments, Mimron was kind enough to let us have the last piece. The guild excitedly followed me to the Archivum where we activated the console, and listened and watched as the history of the mace unfolded before us.

Now we had met with another guild on Zul’jin back at Blizzcon and they had already completed theirs. Sympathetic to our recruitment dilemma and bringing people up to gear and speed they offered to help us complete the mace. After weeks of waiting to hear from them, we finally said and I quote,

“To hell with it, lets do it our own damn selves!”

And so into Ulduar we dove one last time, clearing to the watchers, only to find Thorim bugged for us. He would despawn when he jumped down. Frustrated we waited, until finally we got a good spawn. We pushed through Vezax with ease and made our way down into the prison of Yogg Saaron, or as we like to call him, Yoggles.

We strode in and began the pull, only to have Murphy rear his ugly mug and slap us around. Tanks DC’d in the middle of combat, losing spawn and immortals and clothies died in troves. Random lock ups and lag spikes caused people to be frozen in the path of so many clouds that we had too many spawns to handle. After 32 attempts in 3 days of attempts everything clicked into place. Transitions were smooth, no one disconnected or lagged out. Like Matt I died not once, not twice, but thrice. One soulstone and two battle rez’s were burned and we were up and running into phase 3. Yogg opened wide and I turned, threw in my hammer and then healed my rear off keeping everyone alive I could with my heal team! Then all of a sudden I started shaking in real life, the nerves, anticipation, adrenaline all came in one rush as I looked over and saw Yoggles at 2%. Down his life went and UP went the achievements!

3 Lights in The Darkness (25) completed as well as Drive Me Crazy (25)

Off to the archivum we went, I completed the quest and in my hands lay Val’anyr, and the cry went out over vent

“WOOOT! Now bubble me bitch!”

and Unpossible rejoiced.

here’s a link to the full image from the header, it’s possibly my favorite screenshot ever taken by me, it just looks cool

Awesome Unpossible Screenshot

And as an added bonus, here’s a video for you all to enjoy.

Now what does this mean now that Matt and I both have Val’anyrs? This means that truly World of Matticus is Legendary. Also since I’ll be a dwarf sooner or later maybe Matt and I can be “Hammer Brothers”!

Sig

A Val’anyr Story

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Several weeks ago, the leaders of two guilds met together. Both had a serious problem. Both guilds had 2 players that had 30 fragments for Val’anyr but did not have the drive nor the personnel at the time to pull it off. An agreement was made to launch an operation into Ulduar to finish off and complete the weapons of mass prevention.

A plan was hatched to take the best from both guilds and launch repeated assaults on Yogg-Saron. The instance ID was already cleared having been saved and unused for the past 9 weeks.

The first such attempts were designed to gauge how this hybrid raid group would function together. DPS checks were made followed by threat and healing checks. It certainly seemed as if the group had the DPS to do it. It was felt at times that 6 healers was one too many but it wasn’t a significant issue as the players outgeared the boss. Even then, people were dying left and right for unfortunate (and in most cases preventable) reasons.

After 2 and a half hours though, the raid managed to buckle down. On the last attempt, I fell not once but twice against Yogg’s early minions. Both battle res’s were burned and we were fresh out of pick me ups. A guardian was burned too early but there was nothing we could do but grab another. Phase kicked in. Yogg reared his ugly head and tentacles began sprouting. Portal teams were finally in sync and hitting the right portals. They were getting there early ahead of time (to make sure no one was jacking their portals).

It was frantic non-stop action. The amount of running and tentacle dodging might have rivaled a really cheesy hentai movie. Surprisingly this Dwarf’s agility managed to survive and escape the clutches of Yogg (although losing part of the beard in the process). Soon, we advanced to the final phase.

Guardians began swarming all around us as the brain team emerged from Yogg. We held fast to our positions as the rest of the strike force rallied to our position. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a Ret Pally thrust his spear into one guardian before another guardian came up and struck him from behind. He crumpled to the ground from the unexpected blow. I muttered a curse and inched back towards the entrance of the room while motioning to the other healers to do the same. No sense in getting caught off guard ourselves.

When I wasn’t too busy firing off heals and shields, I would steal occasional glances at Yogg to determine how much longer we had to hold the fort down for. The reserves of the healers were all but expended. A sudden warmth and glow filled the raid. Heroism had been activated for the last minute. The raid fought back with renewed vigor. It felt like an eternity.

But it was done.

Without Hodir.

Who needs him anyway?

Patch 3.3 Makes PUGing Easier

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Back at Blizzcon we received an announcement from the devs that they were implementing new ways to reduce the wrath of the “additional instance” boss, which was already in place on many realms at the time of the convention. As many of you may have noticed this seems to have gone off pretty well and I think at least for now the instance door boss has been put down. Lets hope his respawn timer doesn’t come back up anytime soon, but so far so good. People have been able to farm Headless Horseman to their hearts content and daily heroics don’t see us spending 45 minutes waiting to just zone in.

At the con they also announced that they were going to refine the LFG system as well as add in cross server LFG capabilities to the game. Well in patch 3.3 PTR we are seeing the beginnings of the system. I for one am incredibly excited and can’t wait to see how this feature shapes up. As it stands you can use the system to go into a completely random group, or you can party up with a couple people and random the rest. You can choose your spec or role that you can fill just like in the current LFG system, but now you have the option of assembling a completely random group from different servers, and you get an option to sign up to lead the rag-tag band of misfits you aquire. As a reward you’ll receive a number of Frost Emblems and a helping of gold for your time and trouble. That alone is a good incentive to use the system as money and badges are always a good thing.

For me the biggest draw of this is the cross server interaction. They put that together for us back in an attempt to balance out Battle Grounds (which more or less worked but that’s a topic of debate for another day). Now the idea of being able to go directly to the instance with people pulled from the other servers of my battle group excites me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a group ready to go but missing a tank, and there were none to be found. I just imagine a tank on another server unable to find a group kicking his can around wondering why no one wants to play with him. With this new system, the problem is lessened in theory. With the amount of badges we’ll likely need when Icecrown drops this will help ensure you’re able to find a group.

In a nutshell this will help eliminate those times where you’re sitting around for hours waiting for a group to do something. Just hit a button and shortly thereafter you’re off on a new adventure.

This is also important because there are also plans to use this for raids as well, at least the random group part, but not the cross realm part. Right now the interface for it is buried in the PTR (you can dig and find if you like). This is good for people like me with an army of alts. There are a ton of raids I would love to run on my hunter, like I would love to run her through naxx, but I can never find a group. This would also help struggling guilds that are having trouble filling in the last couple slots of their roster for a raid, just pop open the tool and find a few more folks to join in the fun.

I’m really excited about this feature and I think it will open up a lot more of the game for many people. It will allow greater accessibility to the content of the game for people that otherwise might not have been able to see it.

What do you think? Like it? Hate it? What do you expect from it? Will you use it?

That’s all for today, until next time Happy Healing!

Sig

Image borrowed from wow.com

Hey Everyone! Look at the new guy!!

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Don’t recognize the new name being tossed around the site, do ya?  I hope it doesn’t scare you.  All will be well.  I’m going take a minute to get you acquainted with that sexy bald dwarf you’ll be hearing from more often.

Hopefully, you’ve started to become familiar with some of my guest posts here, here, here, and here. 

Well, Matticus finally decided that he was tired of me sending him post after post after post and actually gave me this little promotion.  Boy, what a mistake that was!  Mwa-ha-ha!  (Just kidding, Matt.)

Why I’m Here

I’m here because I have a profound passion for this game, and I really like to blog about it.  Namely, the community, the escape, and everything the game has to offer.  I try to remain versatile and familiar with all aspects of the game.  I raid, arena, BG, whore myself out for acheivements, and anything else I can do with good people.

I play two 80s right now.  A feral tank and 2nd shaman are in the leveling mix.

My Dwarf Priest, Thespius, is specced Discipline.  I can proudly tout myself as one of the members of Lodur’s elite healing team in Unpossible on the Zul’jin server.  He and I have found an awesome synergy and work really well together when it comes to big green numbers.

My other 80 is a Draenei Shaman I play on the Nazjatar realm.  It’s my casual toon that I play with some RL friends.  My brother plays over there as well.

My Gaming History

I used to always be a console gamer.  NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega CD (yes, I owned it), N64, Playstation, PS2, Xbox, and now Xbox 360.  Some of my favorite games of all time are still Legend of Zelda (all the titles on NES and SNES, but I could never get into the N64 series), NBA Jam (Sega Genesis), and Final Fantasy VII.  I can still play those games for hours on end.

In 2003, some friends roped me into buying Star Wars: Galaxies when it launched that summer.  My first MMO.  For those that remember the game, I did the whole holo-grind, the 32-ish profession grind that lead to unlocking my Jedi.  The most fun I had in game wasn’t necessarily the game itself but the people I was gaming with.  MMO seemed like a fun genre.

My brother tried to get me into WoW just after it launched, but I was so into my Jedi grind in SWG that I couldn’t make the switch.  It wasn’t until the fall of 2006 that I started my warlock, Thespius.  I’ve been hooked ever since.

My History

Without boring you guys TOO much, I’ll just go over the basics. 

I live in Chicago, IL.  I was born and raised in the area.  It’s home and I love it.  My undergraduate degree is in Acting Performance, and I pursued a full-time acting career for the past 6 years.  After a fairly successful run (mix in some odd jobs to make ends meet), I’ve decided the whole “starving artist” archetype wasn’t what I wanted for the rest of my life.  I still perform around the city in my spare time, and I also pursue a small voiceover career on the side.

The goal from here?  I’m in graduate school for Secondary Education in English.  I’m open to the idea of eventually working up to a professorship at a university, but we’ll see.  Other than that, I’m just enjoying life.  I’m excited to see where my love of WoW takes me.

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Twitter: @Thespius       Email: elder.thespius@gmail.com

Case study: The Player Who Wanted More and the GM Who Couldn’t Care Less

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Have you heard of the grass is greener concept? It’s a basic premise that there is something better elsewhere or on the other side of the fence.

When it comes to Warcraft, there are all sorts of guilds with different aims. You’re going to play alongside players with different goals. These goals aren’t static. People’s ambitions change. Sometimes life deals a curveball and the game has to take a back seat. The end result is the departure of a player.

One case I wanted to discuss is the departure of the player who wants more. I’m not going to delve too deeply on other reasons and there’s no hard feelings between myself and the player who left. I’m very liberal when it comes to stuff like that and I’ve learned long ago to not let people leaving bother me too much.

What it boils down to was that the player was ambitious. He wanted to do more and see what it was like in an a higher echelon guild. The environment in an extremely hardcore guild is obviously different compared to a simple raiding guild. He’s never been in a situation like that before and he told me he wanted to try it out.

There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I encourage everyone to try apping with or raiding with a top server guild at least once just to see what it’s like in that sort of setting. I believe everyone should experience it at least once.

What’s unfortunate is the way he did it:

  • Left in the middle of the raiding week – As a GM, given the choice between having a player take off midweek or depart at the end of the week after multiple attempts on hard mode, I’d rather they leave at the end of the week. It’s advantageous for both parties. That player still remains an asset to the guild until such time that another player can fill in and they don’t waste their lockout until the time is up.
  • Took an item – I suppose I shouldn’t be too upset about this one. I might have done the same thing if I were in their position. It’s incredibly bad form to take an item knowing that you’re planning on leaving if there’s another person in the guild who can also use it. But, we did award it to him because it was felt he deserved it after an increase in performance.
  • No advance notice – My only desire is he spoke to me first before leaving. Instead he opted to leave before consulting with any of the leadership about his attentions. I would’ve been happy for him to go and get the experience. In my view, there’s two things that can happen: Player leaves and raids with a higher end guild, discovers he enjoys the pressure and is able to sustain the high level of performance required or comes back after having his confidence shattered and realizing that high level of guild isn’t what he’s looking for.

How should a GM react in this case?

So this is where a bit of introspection comes into play.

Reactions are going to vary based on situation and individual. Why wasn’t I as upset as my officers? They were rightly pissed. I felt indifferent. He expressed interest in some gear which we awarded to him and took off with virtually no warning. I should have been super angry. Chairs should have been thrown against the wall. Headsets should have been smashed. Don’t get me wrong, I care about my players. I’m just not sure if any player warrants begging or groveling to return. Other GMs on my server would have pitched an absolute fit if a player deserted their ranks. I suppose I am just as mortal as others for not recognizing the signs and the symptoms.

I didn’t feel any shock nor did I feel anger.

But why?

The guild still has a some amount of depth. It may not be the most ideal, since I had to ask a Resto Druid to come in as Balance instead. It’s funny because on previous attempts on Heroic Icehowl, we were only 1 for 4 on dodging his tramples. It was disappointing. The other night we didn’t have any Hunters for de-enrage duty and we were able to pull off a 100% success rate on dodging the oversized Yeti Icehowl when he was trying to take us out. He was killed with 1 tank, 4 DPS and 3 healers down. Thankfully he enraged right after he crashed into a wall allowing everyone to pour a large amount of damage resulting in a kill.

As a sidenote, we were able to wax Heroic Jaraxxus after 9 or so attempts as well. Faction Champions was down after another grinder of 6+ wipes and reached Heroic twins.

I suspect my lack of emotion could be attributed to my inherent belief that everyone is expendable and replaceable (which is true to an extent). I do care about my players, but as a GM I also keep many people at arms length. Again, I wish I could explain why. It just feels like another day.

“Hey Matt, this player left today.”
“Alright, put the word out for that class. I’ll be in my ready room reviewing logs.”

On a side note, I’m looking for some additional ranged DPS and backup healers for our raids if there’s any free agents out there looking.

Two fantastic posts by new team additions Mimetir and Thespius earlier today. I’m putting the final touches on a post that addresses the idea and problem that Wrath is too easy and follow it up with a solution. Look for it as early as tomorrow.

Have a good weekend