We Thokked Thok (Raid update week of 5/25/2014)

Very Happy on this one,

      We started out on Tuesday fighting Wing 3.  With a couple fresh faces in tow we took down Malkorak, Treasures of Pandaria and Thok.  Yes, I can proudly say we took down Thok again and this time I don't believe we had some of the power hitters who were helping us out last time.  If we get him down a third time I will label him "farm status."

      Wednesday night we went up against our nemesis, Blackfuse.  This fight is still beating us around a bit and we are filling lots o' pain here.  The hardest part was that on our first pull we got the mother______ down to 12%.  This made my heart swell with joy and I was ready for us to two shot this guy and bring some pain down.  Instead we went back to people standing in the fire, dying early, and so on.  The biggest frustration here is that I know we can down this boss, we just can't defeat ourselves and right now paying attention is our biggest enemy.

       I am going to continue starting on Wing one, then Wing 3 every other week.  This will give us a chance to still get some gear for people missing a piece here and there, and to also push some harder  bosses the next week.  Wednesdays will continue to be wing 4.  I know there will be a lot of frustration on Wednesdays, but we need to keep pushing somewhere or people will get bored.  This is also my attempt to please people who want to push further, and those who want to farm the beginning/build some alts.

       I am really feeling like the time is marching during Warlords of Draenor.  To be honest, my hunter needs little or no upgrades from what we are working on, Siege has been out for six month now, and news is coming slowly but surely.  I am still betting on Beta coming out sometime in June.  Without the million or so players that were promised Beta access for MOP I have a feeling this Beta may be a lot shorter.  I think that we are looking at Blizzard trying to push this out before Blizzcon.  If they take as long as December I feel their numbers will suffer another half to a million subscribers, and not all will come back for WOD.

     I am curious to see how this expansion cycle works.  MOP has seen the biggest drop off in subscribers WoW has experienced so far.  There is always a drop off between expansions, and I'm curious to see how many players come back.  Honestly, if I was so invested in World of Warcraft I might start looking at Wildstar or another option at this point.  As it is, my family and friends are here in game and I'm not likely to go elsewhere and try to rebuild that.

     Starting next week when I queue us up for wing one I am not taking Lazyeye.  I may bring Lag in as Ret to play around and get some more gear for both dps and tanking.  Or if my lock or mage get enough love this weekend one of them might make and appearance.  Haven't decided yet.  Lazyeye will be back when we are pushing wing 3+ when we need the push his deeps brings.

See ya'll next week.
Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

I may be a little bit lost.

Houston, we have a problem.

      Tuesday we started wing one and started working through.  We got past Iron Juggs and called it a night.  It was a pretty smooth raid and we might have gotten further if we had started on time.  No complaints with our performance however, and I'm happy with how we are handling this first bit.

       Wednesday didn't happen.  We didn't have enough folks show up and I didn't want to pug in 3 dps spots to keep moving.  Instead we all jumped on some lower geared toons and ran some LFR together.  Doing LFR in a group makes it tolerable I have found and I think we still had some good time.  But this brings us to where we are.

      I think I want to start pushing progression again.  Since I went back to just going the first few bosses the last two or three weeks, less and less folks are showing up.  My fear of losing people to frustration has led us to a place where we are losing people anyway.  To be fair these folks that aren't showing might have dropped off anyway, but I don't think the lack of challenge has helped.

     This next week we are going to push wing 3 the first night, then wing 4 the second.  I want to see if that pulls some more interest in.  Yes we still have some obstacles to fight there, but I think we may do the first flex on Tuesday forward every other week, and then start wing 3 every other as well.  I'm going to find a way to get things to work.  I want to kill Gary Hellscream dang it!

     But I can't do it alone.  And I can't do it with less then 10 people showing up. If it keeps going this way and we have less and less people showing, I may have to call raiding until Warlords.  Don't make me do that, we have managed to keep a raid team going until the next expansion hit from Wrath on.  I would be very unhappy if this was the first one that defeated us.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

Busyness and Mother's day. (raid update for the last two weeks, 05/04/2014 and 05/11/2014)

That's right.  Mother's day killed me and now I'm playing catch up.  Well, work and Mother's Day.

     Last week I will keep simple, we started with wing one and started blasting through things.  Between the two nights we managed to get all they way to Treasures of Pandaria which isn't bad.  That pretty much means we cleared all the bossed up to the point we have been stuck at.  Past that point we have downed Thokk once, and Blackfuse once.  Both times with a little help.  I was very happy with the progress this week.

     Tuesday this week we got off to a good start and moved through the first four bosses of flex one.  We then moved to Galakras where several disconnects and other issues stopped us for the night.  I want to stress the reason we didn't get this boss down was because of the disconnects and other such issues.  We even tried another different trick that ended in flames, but I thought was pretty fun.  Next week It will go better.

     Wednesday didn't happen.  I had texts from a couple of people that said they weren't going to make it.  Then my daughter crashed her bike and had to be taken for stitches right before raid time.  This meant, I logged on, canceled raid, and did what I had to do.  It sucks, but sometimes life happens like that.  My daughter is fine though.  Seven stitches above the right knee and she was good to go.

     It is important to remember that sometimes life trumps game and raiding.  In a perfect world we could itemize every moment of our days into simple little compartments that never overlap.  However things do happen and there are times when you have to step out or miss raid.  Families have emergencies.  Power goes out.  Work calls you in.  So many different reasons that can come up because lets face it.  Life is busy and it's messy.  As time goes by there is just more busy and mess to fit into the same time frame you normally have.

     I am looking forward from where we are.  There are still people missing plenty of loot from the first bit of the raid.  There are still people who are gearing up and have swapped toons.  There is opportunity to work together better and to work on bettering ourselves as players.  In a few weeks we will be back to smacking Blackfuse and Thokk and the later bosses.  We will get back there in time.  We have a good bit of time before the next expansion comes out.  The fact that patch 5.8 is on the PTR and getting ready to load shows they are working on giving some bonuses before 6.0 and the walk up to Warlords happens.  At this point I want to guess we will see the new expansion in September or October if they get stuff rolling.  If they keep having set backs, (and I am assuming that with Zharym's recent tweet about things taking longer then intended.) Then it may take as long as December.  I think that is the last thing that Blizzard or the players want.

Next week will be better.  Soon, we will be moving forward again.

Lag/Lazyeye/Dizzty.

Cha, Cha ,Cha, Changes.... (raid update Week of 4/27/2014)

That's right.  I have a big stick and I ain't afraid to swing it.

       Tuesday we hit wing 3 and managed to one shot Malkorak.  We all cheered and were prepared for smooth sailing.  Then we hit Spoils of Pandaria.  All our work seemed to have evaporated on this one.  We did have a new tank for one half, but even after swapping back to a group build we have somewhat used before the fight just wouldn't go down.  We ended the night at one boss dead.

       Wednesday I was pumped, excited, and ready to down Blackfuse again and hit some Paragons in the face.  What happened instead was a massacre.  We had people who couldn't survive the first half of the fight.  We had random deaths from stupid things.  We had lost any and all co-ordination that we had achieved the week before when he went down.  It was like we had forgotten every thing we had achieved.  I was extremely pained by our performance.

        And that brings me to a hard decision.  We have long maintained that we are a casual raiding group, but I have been pushing us in the other direction.  I believe there is a balance between the two we can find that is a happy place.  A place where more casual raiders can be comfortable to show up.  But more advanced raiders can find some benefit over frustration at wiping on content they are used to clearing one harder modes.

        I have to made a decision here between being the person who starts telling individuals to not show up, or to find a way to keep them working on a path to advancement.  That is where I am.  My frustration level personally with the performance of some people has gotten to the point where I have considered walking away from raiding until next Xpack.  I am tired of talking to walls.  I just can't justify slamming our faces against the bosses anymore when a part of the raid isn't putting in the work.

        So here is the new plan.  We are going to start from wing one from now on.  I figure in a good night we will clear wing one and part of two.  Next night we start where we left off.  We will keep working forward in this manner for the time being.  We are not ready for wing four.  The fact we are burning through Brezzes etc.. shows we are not quite there.

        Think of this as a reset.  It's a good opportunity if you want to start gearing an alt, or swap toons you have been playing with.  If you having issues playing melee and surviving you can swap to a ranged or vice versa.  If you want to try healing/tanking we may be able to work you in a bit.  Let's make this an opportunity.

       Either way, we will see wing four when one of two things happen.  1.  If we are clearing content all the way to Blackfuse within the two nights.  2.   Our DPS is all averaging about 150k and we are simply destroying stuff.  I will tell you when we started flex, my hunter was just barely over the 100k mark on DPS.  I am now normally one of the top two on the DPS chart and it's not uncommon for me to be doing 230k DPS average.  This didn't happen because hunters got buffed, or because I got the best gear, but it helped.  The bigger part is that I worked on that character.  I tightened my rotations.  I constantly rechecked my reforges and enchants.  I have put the time and effort into Lazyeye that he needed to get to this point.  This reset should be the chance to get everyone to take a breath and make sure we are working in that direction.

         This is my last stop before I let things go until Warlords of Draenor.  If you are looking at the way raiding is going to change when 6.0 drops, you know that a bit is going to change with the way we raid.  Flex will become normal, and that means that the folks who have been stepping in and raiding with us on the side will either have to be come part of the raid team, or they will have to form their own.  That means one of two things.  Either we build to the point where we can keep up and give the more advanced raiders what they want, or the guild hosts two raid teams.  That is if they don't decide to drop out of the guild and start their own to make sure they can put all the resources to the team they need.  This is something to plan for now, not later when we are jumping right into the fray.

       I know not everyone will be happy with this decision.  We may even lose one or two people.  But I am trying to look out for the whole raid team.  I also want to find what we have lost recently pushing ourselves so hard.

       Our spirit and happiness we started out with.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.