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.