the eye

More Upgrades and a Plea for Recruits

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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.

Also acquired Breeches of the Avatar last Sunday thereby completing my 4 piece set.

We Need Help

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

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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.

We get the job done… eventually.

Raid Juggling

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In hockey, there is a term called line juggling. Typically, when a team has difficulty scoring and getting momentum going the coach will start juggling his forwards together in the chance that they will click, find chemistry, and score.

On Sunday, Carnage has been able to consistently transition from Phase 3 to phase 4 while losing no more than 1 player. We were able to get Kael down to approximately 70%. Earlier in the night, one of our Paladins had to leave due to personal problems. Instead of 4 Paladins, we ran 3 Paladins and replaced him with a Resto Druid.

Tonight we’re diving back into Kael. The confidence is there. In fact, all of our future signup raids have changed from SSC/TK to Mount Hyjal/Black Temple.

But here’s what puzzles me.

Apparently, we’re dropping our Resto Druid and bringing our 4th Paladin back into the lineup. Both of these players are trial members so there’s no issue of seniority here. Now I also know it’s not my place to question the wisdom of the raid leaders. My job is to make sure our players in the raid have the health required to do the job they need to do. I’m not the one deciding who gets benched for the rest of the period or who gets coupled with who out there.

But Sunday was the furthest we’ve ever gotten on Kael. Why change what has arguably had the most success? Not only that, but our last two attempts that night were so spot on that we got him down to that 70% range (+/- 10%) consecutively.

How does that old adage go again? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it?

I’m not going to openly question the decision of the GM’s in this one. It’s out of my hands anyway. They have more to handle on their plate without me asking why we’re changing the lineup. I just found it surprising. I don’t know enough about Paladins in a 25 man situation. I don’t know what kind of advantage we would capitalize by bringing a 4th Paladin (Kings, Salv, Might/Wis, Light?).

But for all you young GM’s out there, if you have a set group of players that have been able to deliver success then I say stick with that group. Ride their momentum. Players are on a hot streak for only so long.

On the other side of the spectrum, if your raid continues to have troubles on a raid boss that you should not be having problems on, then start raid juggling. Get your prot pally to respec Holy and your Warrior to respec prot. Start changing things up. Move your healers around, put your tank healers on the raid, your raid healers on the tank. Something is not working and you’ve given it 9 tries. It’s unlikely it’s going to work on the 10th. Bite the bullet, start juggling.

Tip for Shadow Priests on Kael’Thas

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Sasstar told me about this yesterday when we were busy heroically wiping on Kael. If you have Shadow Priests in your Guild, what you can do is have them cast rank 1 Shadow Word Pain repeatedly on all the weapons during Phase 2. This will stack the Shadow Weaving debuff (which increases shadow damage by a lot). Just cast Shadow Word Pain back and forth on the weapons.

Your Warlocks will love you.

By utilizing this, we’ve managed to kill the weapons quicker and get into positions for Phase 3 when all of his advisors are back up. Our best has been Phase 4. Sunday we’re going to spend the entire evening from 1630 – 2100 on Kael. Hopefully we can take him down early, go back to SSC and clear out Vashj.