A Note on Joining Guilds on a PvP Server

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Join a Guild that loves to PvP even if their focus is raiding. It’s nice to know that when someone in in the guild is being ganked that fire support is but minutes away. It’s one heck of a sight to see 5 players on epic mounts streaking to your corpse and then fanning out around it. Once the culprit’s identified and located, massive firepower is brought to bear until the threat is neutralized.

…But it’s not over.

That’s when they call their friends and their backup. The domino effect continues until one side has had enough.

This is why I love this Guild. If you mess with one, you really mess with all. I guess you could say we’re a PvP Guild disguised as a raiding Guild.

Looking for PvP Elemental Shaman Videos

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With the summer here, I wanted to spend some extra time and get better at the Arenas. Last night I signed with a 3v3 team makeup consisting of a Hunter, Priest, and Elemental Shaman (me).

To further increase my chance of success, I respecced to snap up Instant Ghost Wolf an Nature’s Swiftness. This means I don’t get the extra damage nuke of Lightning Overload but my survivability and utility should increase (in theory).

The first 4 games were great. We started working together well and called the traps, the targets, and such. But after that, we dropped the next 5 decisions to bad luck and bad decisions. I know one thing I need to work on myself is to manage my totems better.

But I do want to get better and I learn best by observing and doing. So if anyone knows of any great PvP elemental shaman videos or names of players that I can watch, that would be terrific!

An Open Letter of Support to the Bear

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Master BBB has been feeling rather drained lately. I don’t blame him one bit and I just wanted to echo his sentiments.

I know exactly what he’s going through.

Sometimes I yearn for the days when my blog was little known and I was getting under 100 hits a day. I could write whatever I want and be damned with what readers think. I made a comment in BA chat one day that writing a blog is akin to a parent-child relationship: Both want to be like the other.

The kid wants to grow up because he wants to do all the cool things that adults do like drive cars and watch R rated movies.

The parent wants to be young again so they don’t have to worry about all the responsibilities.

I suspect the same semblance here applies to blogging or at least in my case.

Between the time I  started my blog last year and now, I some how became an authority. I don’t know where it came from but when you start getting a steady stream of a 1000 visitors on a daily basis, people read you for a reason. Whether it’s to laugh at you, to read about you, to find out more about you, they’re there for a reason.

I’ve always written my blog to teach because healing is not an innate skill. It can be easy to pick up but it can also be difficult to master and at the core of, I am here to teach. That doesn’t mean I can’t learn. I guess it’s always been a little easier for me to adapt to then the Bear since his blog was first for himself and for his buddies and pals. I’m a long term thinker and I knew that if I kept plugging away at writing and blogging and healing, I would reach a point where several things will happen:

  • People start disagreeing with you
  • People start emailing you
  • People start looking up to you

A great case in point are my two posts on Karazhan and Zul’Aman requirements. if you look at the comments, you’ll see like 50+ comments combined telling me that I’m wrong, or that my numbers are off, or that certain classes aren’t required and so on and so forth. There’s also comments that say “Great starting point” or “Excellent guide” and the like.

When you enter the public light of blogging, it helps to have extremely thick skin. I credit Doc Holiday for having toughened me up for the past several years with his constant slandering and demeaning ways. Of course he’s joking, but after a while you learn to not let it get to your head anyway.

Writing for WoW Insider is incredibly different then writing for our own respective blogs as BBB would surely attest to. Our audiences are different, our expectations are raised, and we have a job to do.

I know I’ve expressed retirement many times in the BA chatroom. But I know if I did that, I’d pull a Niedermeyer and come back around Christmas. I would rather not leave at all. Some days you’re the pigeon, other days you’re the statue.

Bear, TJ’s words were right on the money. There’s got to be a reason for you to do something and it’s not necessarily always fame. While we may not always agree (DEVILS SUCK), she is incredibly blog savvy. She knows what to expect and what will happen because she’s done this whole blogging thing for a while now.

So to all of you young and aspiring bloggers out there, be careful what you wish for. The responsibility and the workload you ‘feel’ is tremendous.

When I first started playing hockey as a goalie, I was terrible. I’d let in like 10 goals per game. However, to be fair we were playing half court and I was the only netminder (teams had to carry the puck back to the center line and then cross back again if possession changed, similar to basketball). I’d get teased, belittled, degraded by my friends but I knew they were joking and I knew they were also trying to get me fired up so I’d play more and prove them wrong. My first stint in backyard hockey, and I came way out of the net way out of position allowing easy goals to go in. I didn’t have faith in my team allowing the opposing team to set up “back door” plays where they would utilize 3 or 4 different people to get me confused. But I kept plugging away at it, played as often as I could, read as much I wanted to in order to get better. Fast forward a few years later, now I’m communicating with the players in front of me more.

2-on-1 plays don’t work as much as they used to because I’ll keep shouting to the player in front of me to “block the pass” while I “take the shot”.

Criticism is always going to be inevitable and the degree of which will range from stinging to “ouch, that actually hurt”. I have never listened to any of the podcasts that I’ve done. I also don’t often read the comments I get on my WI columns (I get Wyn to do it for me and she sends me all the good ones). Major insecurity Matt, shame on yourself, right? I’ll grow out of it sooner or later.

Despite all my responsibilities, all the things that I want to do on my blog, on WI, in the BA chat, and otherwise, there’s a great crew of people that I know of that have my back. And whether Bear knows it or not, he’s got some staunch supporters covering his furry backside as well.

Every so often I’ll question myself, my purpose here, my blog, etc. BA Chat’s used to it by now because I often scream “RETIREMENT”. Sometimes when I’m not doing anything, I’ll wonder what would have happened if I never played WoW or started blogging. Sometimes I want to throw it all away and I came close to doing so at one point (then I met Wyn, but shh, don’t tell her that. Her ego’s getting as large as mine). Sometimes I wonder if there’s anything I could have done differently on my blog or if I could trade it for anything else in the world.

Then I realize that I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. I love what I’m doing. I love to write and to teach and if I had to do it all over again and endure every pain staking email and comment I’ve ever received, I’d go through it all over again because this job and hobby rock just like every single one of you who read this blog.

A quick WHOIS query shows that worldofmatticus.com was created on August 18. We’re coming up on one year. If it were possible, I’d hold like an e-barbeque and serve up some e-steaks and e-beers. I wonder how tasty e-tauren would be. I’d love to do something special, but I’m not quite sure what.

Keep your chin up and hold your head high.

Dear Matt, What Should I Look for in Joining a Guild?

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I like to run an advice column every once in a while because even though I don’t get many emails, the ones I *do* get are quite the stumpers. This week, I don’t have Wyn around to help me so I’ve turned to guest writer and Guildmaster Auzara from Chick GM to share her 2 cents.

I’ve been a reader of your site ever since I started my first priest, and I must say the articles have been inspirational. I’m coming out of lurker mode to ask your (and/or Wyn’s) advice on joining guilds.

My wife and I play together and over the course of many months we have made many friends online. Through our entire course of leveling to 70, we have remained unguilded (as we are on all of our characters). It has mostly been unnecessary because, with a large pool of friends, we can always find a group when we need one.

All of our friends are in different guilds and almost all of them have invited us to their guilds at one point or another. We always kindly turn them down and explain that we’ve been considering creating a “vanity guild” for just the two of us.

But lately, a recent group of 4 additions to our friends list (who all belong to the same guild) have been pretty persistent in trying to recruit us to their guild.

They are nice guys, and have been going out of their way to help us get better gear. One of them is an officer in their guild and has even offered me BoE gear from the Guild Bank. So now are stuck in a corundum:

  1. We’ve turned down offers from many other friends. If we join these guys’ guild (and not one of our own making), it might look like we’re slighting our other friends’ guilds.
  2. We really wanted to make a vanity guild, but if we finally do that, our new friends might feel slighted that we rejected theirs.
  3. Frankly, most guild names are embarrassing, including our new friends’ guild name. We don’t like the idea of running around with something stupid displayed on our character’s nameplates. We put a lot of effort into coming up with clever names for all of our characters, and it seems wasted to have a bad guild name spoiling it.
  4. While our new friends’ guild is making PVE progression, inspecting our friends show mostly PvP gear. We did a little PvP pre-60 but don’t much enjoy it at the higher levels. I guess I’m just a little worried about their guild’s focus.

We live in an odd time zone (we play from Japan) so normally there aren’t very many people on at the same time. It so happens that two of our new friends also live in Japan and are on-line at the same time as us.

I guess my question for y’all, as people with much more guild experience, is “does it matter?” What things are important in a guild? Is it petty to be hungup over a bad guild name? Do you have any advise for turning down guild invites from friends without insulting them?

From Guildless in Japan

Dear Guildless in Japan,

First piece of advice I can offer is that you do not let gear dictate what a player’s primary interest lies. I have multiple characters with Vengeful and Brutal gear but I will always place raiding above everything else. Ask that Guild one question:

What do you do? Raid or PvP?

If what they’re doing is what you want and your partner want to do (IE, raid), then you should probably join it. Is it petty to be hung up over a bad guild name? Probably but this is a matter that’s debatable on multiple fronts. Although the reputation of a guild is important to me, the name isn’t. If I want to raid and I have to wear the tag of <The Chuck Norris Crew>, I’d probably go into my options and disable the showing of guild tags. But if it really matters that much to you, then you probably shouldn’t. I’ve always been performance based. For example, others spend hours choosing every facet of their character. I just hit the randomize button. It all depends on you.

To me, not joining a Guild because of the name is like not buying a car because it doesn’t have racing stripes.

For textbook answers on how to turn down Guild invites, feel free to use one of the following excuses:

  • Sorry, I can’t join your Guild. It doesn’t have what I’m looking for.
  • It’s against my religion to join Guilds ending in a (insert last letter of Guild here)
  • I can’t! I’m washing my hair!

But by joining a Guild, you’re already joining a group of people that already has it’s foundations down in terms of tanks and healers. No Guild can survive without a stable group of tanks and healers. Apart from that, you’re going to have to use your own judgment on whether or not the atmosphere of the Guild is one you want to be apart of.

For a more in depth answer, see Auz’s below as she offers much more from the GM perspective.

Dear Guildless in Japan,

It’s clear from your message that you’re feeling conflicted and pulled in many directions at once. As I read your message two things stuck out to me. The first is I’ve heard more about your what your friends want than what you want. The second is, if you have been planning to create a vanity guild, what has prevented you from doing this already? With those things in mind, I’ve tried to work my way though the things that are affecting your decision and the questions you’ve asked in a semblance of order.

“Does it matter?” How much being in a guild matters is entirely up to you and to a lesser degree the expectations of the guild. In a social game like WoW, your game time is shaped by the people you experience it with. Your guild doesn’t have to determine who you experience the game with. You can be as involved or detached from a guild as you choose to be and the guild expectations allow you to be.

“What things are important in a guild?” This is largely dependent on the individual guild. In some guilds your worth to the guild is determined by how much DPS you can provide. In others, your encyclopedic knowledge of your mom jokes might be the your key to success. The best way to find out what’s important to a guild is to find out what the guild requests from it’s members. Do they require 15 hours of raiding? 10 hours of role playing in Ironforge? That you refrain from cursing in trade chat? Active participation in their forums? A successful guild will tell you upfront what they expect from their members. From there it’s up to you to determine if that matches what you and your wife wish to provide.

“Is it petty to be hungup over a bad guild name?” No. Someone else may not be bothered by a bad guild name, but the fact is you are. If you weren’t you wouldn’t have asked that question. What bothers you is never petty. The question isn’t “is it petty?” The question is, “is it something that should prevent me from joining a guild?” The answer is to ask the question another way; “does the potential benefit of being in the guild outweigh the annoyance I’ll feel when I login   to find <I’m with Stupid> over my head?”

It appears there are three major things affecting your decision:

  • Loyalty to old friends and fear of causing offense should you join an existing guild.
  • Concern that joining an established guild may cause you to feel compelled to participate in aspects of the game that you don’t enjoy.
  • Fear of alienating your new friends who’ve been helpful, persistent, and a few share your time zone in a server where that is unusual.

I think you should put two of these concerns to rest right away. This game is first and foremost how you and your wife choose to spend some of your entertainment time. No one other than you and your wife has the right to impose their will on how you spend that time. Choosing to join or not join a guild out of fear of alienating your friends will make you miserable, which will in turn alienate you from your friends. (Funny how that works.) Regardless of the decision you make, if after explaining it to your friends, they aren’t supportive then you are better off without their friendship.

The remaining concern is something that needs further examination. How do your new friends react now when you want to do something that differs from what they want to do? (Especially the officer) Do they pressure you to partake in their activity? Do they offer a different suggestion for how to spend time together? Do they do leave you to your activity? Do they join in your plans? How they treat you now as friends will likely correlate to how they would treat you as a guildmate.

Another thing to consider when addressing this concern is to determine what parts of the game you two enjoy. You note that you don’t enjoy “higher level” PVP, but what do you find enjoyable?  Before you can decide if a guild’s focus might be counter to your own, you have to determine your focus. Next look at your wife and right now decide, how much time do you two want to spend playing wow? If they are asking for more of a time commitment than you are currently making and more than you want to make, then walk away now; that isn’t the guild for you.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but creating a vanity guild takes 8 signatures (other than your wife and yours) and 10 silver. If this is really what you want, it’s relatively simple to accomplish. I can see two possibilities that would prevent you from having done it already; you two are either debating the perfect name or you two aren’t completely sold on the idea of the vanity guild. Perhaps some part of you wonders what it would be like to be a part of a community like these friends are offering.

Hopefully at this point I’ve helped you unravel some of the things that are tugging you in different directions so that you and your wife can make the right decision for you regarding your guild status. From there you’ll need advice on one of two topics:

  • Explaining to old friends you’ve chosen to join an existing guild even though in the past you’ve declined theirs.
  • Determining how to head off future and current friend’s recruitment attempts.

Fortunately for you, the examination of what you want out of your gaming time that you’ve just done will help you in both of these conversations. In either case, take your friends aside and assure them that your friendship with them is valuable to you. Next explain your decision to them, highlight why you think this is the best decision for you. Lastly ask for their support, either in the form of ceasing further recruitment attempts or in helping you as you adjust to your new home.

My final suggestion is this, if you come to the conclusion that you and your wife are happy with your solitary ways, then go create that vanity guild! It will reduce the amount of invitations you receive AND you get a guild bank to share. Honestly, it’s just a winning solution all around.

Thanks Auz!

Illi-down: Joy and Disappointment

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I never expected myself to get Kalecgos down before Illidan, but go figure. We knocked him out after roughly 3 hours tonight. First kill took 19 minutes and 28 seconds.

Phat loot

Chestguard of the Forgotten Vanquisher x 2
Chestguard of the Forgotten Conqueror
Shroud of the Highborne
Faceplate of the Impenetrable

Well, there we go. Illidan is dead and we have several months remaining to try to get Kil’Jaden down before Wrath debuts. That’s the happy part.

Here’s the disappointing part and to many of you, it will no doubt appear sad that I’m sad about this. I just found out tonight the the Paladin who has more DKP than I will be getting the Crystal Spire of Karabor before I will. There’s nothing I can do to stop it because he’s willing to put up a substantial amount.

I wish players would do a bit of reading and research to find out what items benefit which classes the most first. The Crystal Spire is a topic that’s been written about earlier and it’s a weapon that should go to Priests and Shamans first. Is it bad for a Paladin? No. But the other classes will be able to utilize it better. I do firmly believe that items should be awarded to players or classes who can make the most out of it.

This is the one of the few downsides of DKP systems, but I’ll leave that for Wyn to touch on when she returns.

Now that Illidan’s down, I suppose I can just relax and retire. Maybe I’ll buy myself an island off the coast of Jamaica somewhere. Or retire to a nice little cottage in the interior and do some golf once in a while or shoot some birds or whatever it is that retired people do.