What the others are doing on Hodir..

I went looking to see what other Shadow Priests are doing on Hodir,  and I found one that did 14k dps  Ow.

Now the thing that worries me on that one,  is that their Shadow Word Death x 5 had an average of 26731 damage for each hit.  That meant that some were higher,  and some were lower.  I almost killed myself on one of our attempts due to my Shadow Word death, sure the output isn’t has  as high as the damage you do to yourself now, but still either way its taking a huge chunk off your health that needs to be healed.  I would think its rather risky,  but they stayed alive, so I guess it’s possible.

On that fight  their overall raid  DPS  had  three people on 20k dps Plus..  and the highest we have ever seen was 15k once by a warlock

Not sure how long their logs will stay up on Wow Metre online but if your interested in seeing it its here

and this one has a Shadow Priest doing 16k and another 14k one here.

I’m not feeling so good about my 11k now…

In regards to the priest that did 16 k , just to compare my gear against his They have a Imba Score of 616.35 and mine is 608.89 – they have slightly better gear,  but that should mean I can do 16kish too right?

Right.  Next week, need to break 15 K.

I Could say that my Dps was rare

A bit of a boast post..
We got the Hodir Hardmode finally a couple of weeks ago,  and still havent located where all my screenshots have gone to, and the person who does the WWS/logs wasn’t in the fight for the kill, and when I do a SS on my new pc I have no idea where its putting them, so  I lost my Dps Metre shot for that fight, 

However…

We got the hardmode again tonight and I managed to get some screenies. Just to show I wasn’t mindsearing on a pack mob to get these sort of numbers- I’ve included the detail window.

First on DPS.  11671 Dps. 4th on overall damage.   My first kill was I think only 9k, and our attempts tonight went from 6-9ish but its the final kill that counts right?

 

So my Dps on the Flashfreezes was dismal, but I can usually only get dots up on them anyway, and the strat we use as to what classes are allowed to stay on boss changes every week. but now I don’t have to dispel,  aren’t getting any screen freezes, and will chase the person with the stormcloud across the room  – and thats the result.   Shadow Priests Scale very well with Stormcloud apparently.

Caster Officer Postion is Open.

We have a DPS caster officer position open,  and they are after people from the guild who would like the position to come forward.

What would it involve? 

Attending officer meetings before raids,
Distributing Flasks/Pots
Managing of Guild bank
Interviewing applicants
Reviewing /providing feedback for Raiders
Knowing the caster classes strengths and weakness’ and strat application.

It wouldn’t be a cakewalk, It would involve having discussions with headstrong people about guild directions, being at the beck and call of people wanting stuff from the bank, telling people bad news about applications, or their spec, or play style. I would have to learn more about each of the caster classes. Besides ” Don’t shammys have a tremor totem?” I would need to be able to organise them, know what was needed for a fight, defend or critique them when wipes are called and blame is being directed at Dps,

It would be an interesting learning experience. Could I do it?
I’ve managed a team of people with a variety of skills and experience, of different age groups, I was great according to some, and terrible according to others.

What’s in it for me?
A say in the guild?
Change to some of the things I didn’t like?

Can I translate anything I learn to real life? Not really. It doesn’t improve my employment chances, I can’t make money from it, and it would be extra time that I would need to spend organising people, so that  I am not playing.

I’m outspoken enough to not be afraid to speak up, I’ve done the management course and learnt about the benefits and disadvantages of change, If I treated it as management of a team then I am capable. However Is it something I want to do?

I don’t know – hence the musing over the idea here, It would be another way of further involving myself with the game extending my experience even more. However the last 2 weeks I have been making more of an effort to actually do a lot more other stuff.   To add more time  doing game related stuff thats not ‘fun’ or self servering ontop of raiding, and blogging, adding officer on top of that, and real life in which I see real people and go to work,  I am heading down the thought path that its too much.

And who knows they might even laugh at me for even considering applying.

Playing In fear.

I got a new pc.    ( see below for a pic of its innards.) I’m happy and excited can’t you tell?  I don’t normally open my pc case unnecessarily but It had blue shipping foam in it that needed to be removed, and the case has some cool screws to take off the side panel easily ( no void warranty stickers on there either ) so I was taking pictures of my beast Aka Bigfoot and took a pic of the inside. 

Larissa  from the Pink Pigtailed Inn back in July wrote in her post “How my fps issues were solved and I was born once again”  about her experiences seeing Dalaran clearly for the first time after getting a Pc issue fixed, and how it was another world.   I can totally relate to that because upgrading my Pc has not only allowed me to see the detail in things, but I don’t have to be afraid to go places for fear of crashing.  My first experience in recent Dalaran was noticing the bubbles coming off the Brewfest signage in the city.    Posters with bubbles..  I love it!

Fixing my Norton problem on my old Pc was step one to rediscovering the world, upgrading to a bigger and better beast – step 2.

I don’t have to hang out in the Graveyard near TOC anymore before raid.  Hop on my bike and ride as fast as I can with my camera angle looking at the ground, and hope that I will make it into the instance before crashing.

I can use my dual screen again, without fear that too many active programs would overload my pc and increase the crash chances.

I can see the floor! 

I don’t need to fear having to go through Dalaran to get to a capital city.  I used to fly all the way to the Tundra and catch a boat to stormwind, rather then just use the Dalaran portal.

I can do cooking and fishing dailys

I rode around Dalaran on my bike laughing on vent.   This was amazing!  The sights, the sounds, sure I’ve seen it all before, but only in snatches  daringly stolen and hopeful I wouldn’t crash.

Oh, the  people – Had to stop my bike a couple of times to say hello to a few people, that I never used to see because I was never able to hang out in Dalaran like the cool kids

I copied my wow folders onto a portable hard drive, and then copied it to my Pc.  I am running Vista on the new PC, and I discovered there had been a new patch since my last log in,  ( the fix for 3.2.2)  and I was getting the error message that it couldn’t find the wow.exe  and I was still calm, I googled the error message and apparently I need to “run as administrator” a lot of my programs because of the pains of Vista.  Even my vent.  My push to talk wouldn’t work unless I had the vent application selected, but Running as administrator worked.

So minor hic ups,  but it is fully functional, and it has really been amazing to be able to play without fear of crashing.

When the Raid Leader’s away…

An interesting dynamic happens when the person recognised as the main raid Leader  isn’t there. Unless the new or reluctant raid leader is confident enough to pull it off, and is decisive enough to quiten down the naysayers then they will get eaten alive, or have their authority threatened because every one thinks its open season on coming up with a strat, or changing what has been done for weeks.

Even I find myself opening my mouth more for a suggestion, or even a offhand comment. We react to a weakness in the leadership.   

It’s also funny how new norms seem to slip into raid strats when people are left to their own devices,  they forget the way we did things.  We were doing Cat lady last night, and 15 secs to the pull someone says ” I’m sure the priests have worked out a fearward rotation”

I go – “uh.. we only used that when we didn’t have a Shammy so no tremor totem.  We have 3 Shammys in raid, aren’t they dropping tremor totems?.”

“Oh but there is lag so you need to do it.”  Theres always freaking lag  I am thinking.

So what happens,  the four priests come up with a fear rotation because we can.  I think it was silly because its unnecessary – yes maybe it free’s up a Shammy totem,  maybe it backs up the Shammys totem,  but I don’t think they even bothered laying one. It wasn’t being used as a back up, it was the primary system, we have never needed fear wards before,  and we have only have had one raid with no Shammy.  The fear rotation worked, after asking who was tanking the boss because no one had told us,   but at no time did our stand-in raid leader make that decision.  He has been in as many raids as I have,  and he let someone else change the normal strat.

Once someone shows weakness in leadership it opens the door again for other people to make far out suggestions, change strats or question decisions.  It happened again on Iron council, ( we went back for it)   everyone was looking to do easy mode stuff, and I suggested we do medium mode,  mainly to prove that we can do it with out our normal raid leader,  because I think we should already know what to do by now regardless of who is at the helm, and because we can.  It was agreed upon, and we wiped once because someone ran though the little arcane dudes when  the last guy was at about 20% , and someone tried to change something significant to our strat,  regardless that our wipe had nothing to do with their suggestion, and then they got upset when we refuted ( nicely ) their logic. I doubt they would have made that suggestion in the tone they did if the real raid leader had been there.

Our stand-in raid leader did do well,  he has stood in before,  he just needs to get more confident.   We had a decent night, but had to stop early due to instance server restarts at 10pm our time,

I think it’s  a bad tendency but it seems almost a natural inclination that the moment we sence a weakness, or indecision in a leader – we lose respect for their authority,  and say and do things that under firm leadership we wouldn’t.

Hunting for new possible guild.

This server transfer research is a pain. Especially since I am/was in a happy home.

I have a list of things I were I would  like them to be progression wise   Eg Yogg + 1 kill would be awesome. Yogg dead a must.  Half hardmodes done. TOC cleared, and either working on Ulduar hardmode  or HTOC.

Raiding 3 nights preferably,  am happy with extended hours if it’s only 3 nights,  but 4 nights a week 7.30-12 is way too much. I ain’t that hardcore.

 I need to log into some of the other oceanic realms and translate the server time to my server time because I think some of them are different, or maybe I am thinking about the Aussie guilds that raid on Us servers.

Some guilds advertise on their servers/on the oceanic forums, in trade channel, on the Alliance recruitment, and people laugh at you if you post in those same forums ( level 80  TOC/Ulduar geared shadow priest LF Guild.) not that I have – or ever will   – Its a taboo, but really, in the age where guilds are bleeding members, and crying out”  Ooohh summer slump”  you’d think that they would be a little more open to the idea of the people who are openly on the market, and genuinely want to find a good guild.  I am not saying skip the application process or a trail period, A real raider isn’t going to want to keep skipping between guilds on their trial period of no loots forever. When you now have the choice  of servers, and factions,  raiders looking for the right home are flexible.  There is no one place for me to see who is recruiting ( or who keeps their recruitment up todate)

Remember the days where better guilds wouldn’t use trade for recruitment because they were too special. Well that changed.

I know your supposed to make the effort and feel grateful that a guild even reads your application and maybe my attitude is a little jaded, I’ve had some bad experiences.  Over a 2 week wait to hear back from an app.  Rejected 2 weeks before wrath release for not having a ZG helm, and the rest of my gear was perfect. Enchants. Gems. Spec.   Have your DPS heal while the healers take their time leveling, and not be guaranteed a raiding spot when they finally do make it to 80. One shadow priest refusing to sit out  of any raids so as to share the raiding between 3 active Shadow priests.  The guild I have been the most happiest took less then 10 min to invite me after an application. I think its been a good fit.

I saw one application form that wanted me to post a ss of my UI in a raid, and another that wanted you friendly with the Bloodsail.    I think I would  get declined if they saw my UI,  I still use most of the default UI.  I haven’t worked out how changing it would improve my dps, and so what if it’s ugly  – well beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I will not grind bloodsail, because I remember how frustrating it was trying to hand in a quest in bootybay to find out my quest giver was dead.  I will not do that to another player.  

My new PC has been ordered, and I should have a lot of left over ‘power’ to do a lot more fancy things, and at least not have my PC reset during the 25 Champion fight.  So I won’t embarrass myself on any trials  I may have to do.

Oh – Yeah.  I am still being positive about the survival of the guild,  but with over a week or so left on our month ” Lets give it ago”  we have lost as many geared raiders as we have gearing up raiders,  and we lost 2 decent applicants apparently because we really stuffed up a Sar 3d zerg by repetitious stupidity –  It was only a filler run and it was supposed to be simple, but  yeah it didn’t work out,  we got yelled out. We died lots.  We gave up. ( not my fault – unlike a fail immortal filler run last night- where my impatience and frustration caused us to died on instructor)  We are even losing our members/non raiders to better progressed guilds.  ( I thought that was funny… )

So I’m being positive untill it’s an official announcement,  then I give myself a couple of days after and then will be off looking for a new realm.

Three Lights to a Gdisband Delay?

We got Yogg – 1 last night

Our designated healer recipient of the shards had collected his 30th Shard for the Legendary Mace  this week in our 25  Ulduar Run, and was waiting in anticipation for us to attempt Yogg without a keeper so he could throw the Shards in.

After about 8 attempts I think it was,  we got it.  We are playing with people for who this was their first Yogg kill, so I think 8 attempts was a decent go.  Only one set of yells to ” Get our act together” and lots of disparaging “Just wipe… ”  when too many people were dead or insane..

Its great when it all comes together,  167 dispels on my part I was told, as we didn’t invite Mim down for the party, so we were slower, and there was more things to dispel.  Shadow Priest Dps in that fight.. Lol.  No time, but it’s another notch on our belt,  and considering it had been a month since our last Ulduar Achievement I hope that its enough to tide the people thinking that we were going to fail as a raiding guild over for another week.

I will be pissed if we fall apart now –

They have picked a 2nd person to get the shards now,  as the back up person ( for when the main wasn’t in the raid)  who had gotten 4 shards already transferred off. It would be nice to be around for a 2nd mace for the guild.

  So among Toc Lag,  Instance server restart, and Server restarts in the middle of our peak raiding time,  we managed to kill Anub’arak finally this week too.

/rant  (  even though they were supposed to be 2 hours after)  Server /Instance restarts in the middle of Oceanic Aussie raid time 2 nights in a row ( our wed and thur nights last week )  really put a huge dent in the time we had to do stuff PLUS there was a bug because we had already made it to Anub’arak right before a instance reset, when we zoned back in,  there was no one to speak  to, to get us back down in his lair, and TOC was really laggy. Like really again..   Fix it Blizz please! 

/End Rant

Owning up.

One of Gevlons sentiments in a post about one of my posts  Brick Wall  – (  I think I’ve explained my thought processes in the orginal post Gamers or Raiders   and I’ve talked about wiping as learning experiences before)  

But Gevlon, in discussion about giving feedback  talked about a players reluctance to take ownership of an error, and that they will lie, rather then admit to making a mistake.

This is going to sound quite odd, but I am happy to admit I screwed up, firstly because that means I beat the person who tries to tell me I screwed up; thus depriving them  of superior satisfaction.  It takes the wind out of their sails**, and  secondly when I screw up now – I deserve to be ‘punished’ ( to a point) Yes, I  know I screwed up, and that the people who matter will probably know I screwed up, but I would rather take ownership of the issue because I think the embarrassment of you admitting an error is a lot less then   being called on it.

To stop being called out on things like missing interrupts we have macros shooting off all the time ” I kicked you”  “Misdirect on ”  I set a Shackle macro  up in the days of Kara so they would know I was casting what I was supposed to.  They are pretty much people trying to cover their butts.   “See my macro went off… I did cast it…”

Ideally you don’t want people to make mistakes.  It’s going to happen to the best of people,  If more people were honest  – and then fixed the issues  then there would be less pointless wipes, so the campaign of ” Own up – and Suck it up” Shall commence ( <– kidding) I do think that if you skip hiding behind your avatar hoping you don’t get busted will make you a better player, and put you in better light with your guildys.

I do have a funny story about the lack of ownership though.  last night while attempting TOC  we got to the faction champions and my game started lagging.  My fear didn’t work,  I couldn’t get my dots up on the skull.

At the time I was thinking  –  Awe crap – whats my PC doing?  Is my Virus Checker running? Is Windows doing an update?  Is  it a graphics problem and my Pc is going to die on me.  Is it my ISP  ect.

The funny thing is that 24 other people were thinking the same thing,  interrupts weren’t happening,  people weren’t being healed,  CC was breaking, and they were all too afraid to talk about their problem.

Until someone said eventually almost 40 odd  sec’s into this terrible lag.  “Uh is anyone else lagging really badly”  you should have heard the sighs of relief, and the ” I thought it was just me”  as people who were so worried that it was their own individual performance that no one was game enough to admit to having a problem.

I don’t expect people to keep the guild updated on the health of their PC,  but if the 1st person who noticed that their stun or heal or spell didn’t work said “I’m lagging” and it was just them, and said so,   it alerts the raid that eg the tank healer might not getting enough heals right now, that a CC target was going to be loose ect.

Should have I owned up  ?  Nothing I was doing was particularly important on that fight,  and to be honest I thought it was my Pc being sick again, not an instance problem so I was being slightly hypercritical hiding behind my avatar hopeing it would fix itself. If I died in a fire due to lag, I still would have said  I lagged, and it would have been true,  ( though it’s never happened due to lag)   When I died to the rocket on Mim, and  got hit by a Shadow Crash on General,  I DID IT – IT WAS MY FAULT. I did  find it  amusing how long it took for people to admit a problem, when it was raid wide because they didn’t want to admit it.

** not everyone has that tone.  My belief  is delivery of feedback is just as important as what you say.

Easy come – Easy go.

I might upset a friend if he reads this because its my take on his story, but I want to comment on it.

He became ‘sponsered’ by a guild before he had even hit 80, leveled elemental and  -they paid for his duel spec and gave him mats for enchants so he could learn to heal. Cakewalked through Naxx Runs,  and was taken to Ulduar 25 man almost from day one –   being given tier gear because they needed the healers that bad.

While I was wiping, and suffering through progression and competing with people who had also wiped and suffered in my own raids  for gear,  he was being handed shiny epics for free. 

Was I jealous ? No. I believe that the journey helps make the character, and has a lot to do with my learning to play.  It would also be contrary to my own personal motivations,  I want to be able to work for something.  I don’t like the price tags that come with free things.

So what happened?   They recuited a better healer and they no longer wanted him on raid, and he, so used to the next upgrade being handed to him  couldn’t justify  chanting his  gear even with the 2nd best Enchants, or working on his Hodir rep, or pugging any raid to improve his skills/ get some badges for additional gear. He logged off with no interest in the game and didn’t try and develop any further.

I am maybe being a little harsh to my friend.  Would any sane person say no to free lootz/Gold/Enchants?  What’s 1k gold to a guild when you need healers,  and that no one else will be missing out on gear when you don’t have the healers to give it to.

Had that guild not done what they did for my friend, the chances of him seeing Ulduar any time would have been slim. New 80,  unfamiliar talent tree, and learning to heal – no chance.

My friends guild did what it needed to do to survive, and a carried healer is still doing some healing .  It only prolonged their existence by a few weeks, as the guild has now  disbanded.

I am reminded by my friends story because we find ourselves in similar position, and like all the social theorists that like looking at the past for ways to understand the present.  Their method, free loot to an undergeared/underskilled player did not help them keep their guild.

 My guild are going to be trying to gear up some of our newer recruits  taken for skill over current gear level ( within reason) , as fast as possible so we get that decent shot at hardmodes. All the gold and shards in the guild bank are worth salt if we can’t raid like we want to.   The difference is, I hope between my friends guild , and our approach  is that the players have demonstrated their class understanding, and while they are getting loot, and killing bosses they haven’t seen before I hope that we are also building up a two way loyalty, and that they don’t expect constant handouts, ( they are still paying for their enchants)  and when it comes time to let them off their leashes that they will stay , and grow with us.

Gamers or Raiders.

The weekend brought a Guild meeting on our Vent, and the possible dissolution of us as a raiding 25 man guild.

Its not that we can’t kill the content,  we are 13/14 Ulduar  4/5 TOC on our 25 ‘s  The bosses can be killed,   we are just not being immediate successful on hardmodes and they are the true progression measure.

It seems its been a long time coming – There is a division between the people who want the hardmodes , and those who don’t.

Where do I sit?  I recognise that Hardmodes are progression, and I want progression,   Clearing content in 1 or 2 nights  without challenge would get old fast.

What I don’t want is feeling like I am hitting my head against a brick wall.

Apparently to be a hardcore raider I am supposed to enjoy hitting said head against the brick wall. I disagree.   I think there is a massive difference between productive attempts and attempts for the sake of it, and I think too many attempts are Die.  Run Back, Die, Run back ect  I want more dialog with the raiders as to why we died. What we did right, what we did wrong but too much dialog increases  the chances of another dc,  another afk, another slow person running back after a buff.   Maybe we just aren’t hardcore enough.

I wrote some more points, but they came out as more handholding,  even to me,   real life doesn’t like Machiavellian approaches,  regardless of the sense he can make.  “It is better to be feared then loved”  he said in The Prince, because fear lasts longer.  However no one wants to be afraid while they are playing a game, and maybe that’s the distinction.  I am a gamer that raids.  I am not a raider that games.

More people would be interested In the hardmodes if they were easier, that’s not the point though, hard modes are the new division between hardcore and casual raiders it seems,  and the most often quoted ( mis quoted ? )  stat is that only 1% of people playing  are expected to get the hardmodes.

I said before that this was my last raiding guild.  Would I have said that if I realised that I could be this far off the next expansion without being a raiding guild? I think not.  So as soon as the first lines came out of the Gm’s mouth about that the guild could not survive in the direction it was heading,  I was on another guilds recruitment forums looking. Just looking,  because that’s the decision, flog a dying horse,  or   revive the horse, and hope it stays on its legs long enough, to get to next destination.

I am fence sitting, because If I was a dedicated raider,  I would throw it all in, and start apping elsewhere because that hardmode call needs to be greater then guild loyalty if they can’t deliver.  I’ve found a guild where I am content, but maybe I like it because I can raid and have my friendly pieces of cake too,  but one of those pieces of cake server transferred for better progression, and it looks like the raiding might disappear.  I don’t want to be in a social guild.  I am beyond that.  I want to be in a place where I can see new content and succeed at it.

Maybe  the Asshats of the serious raiding guilds are just products of that progressive drive, because that’s what you need to be come better,  become the best.  Too many people not willing to lose ‘friends’ because they won’t make hard calls.  I worried a while ago I would need to be more detached  – I thought I found a place I didn’t have to be so.

Maybe I am also  still scrub,  and that the standards of raiding fell down to my level, instead of  me getting better, and that self doubt is also bad because I potentially have been comparing my performance to mediocrity.  I am doing ok in my fishbowl,  I don’t need to look for another, or so I thought.

The likely-hood of a success should be clearer in a week or so, and an injection of some fresh recruits, and a new or at least a defined attitude with the raiders in the guild, but it seems that maybe another hard choice is coming up soon.