Thursday raiding - The first cull to 2 10 mans

So people were all present yesterday, wondering who had made the cut.  In the 20 people there were 4 who had not killed Deathwing on normal - 2 healers (Biship and Targetme), 1 tank (Manbull) and 1 DPS (Augment).

Hwired is the officer who is the most patient and best at teaching people, so I wanted him to teach Manbull to do Spine and Deathwing.  I thought it would be easiest if he went to the 2nd group and we bring Entranosh over to the first group.  However, he wanted Manbull to be brought over to the first group where all the DPS had killed Deathwing.  But I wanted Targetme to go with Manbull so they could at least learn together - they probably do better together than separated I think.  So I was in everyone's bad books because I put 3 people in one group who hadn't done it before, and I refused to budge.  I took Voe and Beauti into the other group for longevity because the DPS in Group 2 was weaker than Group 1.  Anyway, Gutsy was with Bish and Targetme and he was grumpy at me and didn't talk to me because he felt like he had to carry the other two - but they hadn't done it before so that's what it was going to be like, and that will likely be the group set up in the long term (+/- substitutions with Bladewind when he gets back from holidays).  Falln was moved into group 2 making it a bit melee heavy but his DPS was good, so probably not a bad move in the end.

So my group had Belinia + Entranosh tanking, Voe + Beauti + Navi healing, Augment + Fallnapart + Lushnek + Azadelta + Barkhoof DPSing.  Ultraxion went down cleanly.  Warmaster Blackhorn went down easily as well.  But Spine was sketchy and it didn't help that we had a few hiccups that caused wipes.  A few people fell off during rolls - make sure when you're stacked you see that little red tendril debuff!  If you don't have it move around until you do.  People died from being gripped.  We were overwhelmed by adds.  The usual stuff.  On our kill attempt, we had to take 2 goes to get the last plate off but it was done.  And I forgot to FRAPS it.  Probably just as well as it wasn't a perfectly executed kill anyway.

Then on to Madness of Deathwing.  Me and my big fat mouth.

We were doing so well that first attempt.  Then I said "Hey it's going well."  "Don't say that!" said Az.  "You'll jinx us!"  And I think I did.

It started with a few funny things.  Barkhoof was running to the wrong platform.  Then he fell off the platform during the fight.  Oops.  We didn't DPS the Elementium Bolt fast enough and it hit the platform and knocked our health out big time.  We didn't DPS him before he cast Cataclysm and the world was destroyed.  Voe and Lushnek yelled out opposing things and we all followed Voe and died.  Oops.  Tanks died from not using their cooldowns on things like impale, or instant died from some 280k hit.  We didn't press our buttons for the shard thing (can't quite think what it was called).  My mana was rooted at the end of one wipe.  Bleh.  I think Augment might need to fix his spec a bit because his DPS was horrible that fight.

Anyway, the other group had their own whinges.  Hwired + Manbull were tanking, Sev + Moopie + Roshii + Bahada + Shabadu were DPSing, and Gutsy + Biship + Targetme healing.  They finally got Spine down, but it was painful, with lots of deaths and healing a bit low because of 2 of them learning a new fight.  But now both groups are onto Madness, so there is a little room to mix up a bit.  I think I might move to the other group and put Bish into Group 2 so to even it up a little.  See how that goes on Sunday.  But I was feeling a bit stressed after that raid, so went with Sev to PVP a little and won 2 out of 3 Arena games, which always makes me feel better.

So Sunday.  If both groups get Madness down that's 2 groups clearing Dragon Soul.  That would be good.

Comments

  1. voe got the raid killed? not a shock there

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  2. I guess i was not healing at all the night....

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  3. @Targetme - I didn't say that. Check the logs, you can see how well you did :)

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  4. we only cleared DS like 3 times and ppl already feel they "carry" those who doesnt have the title... gee those ppl they "carry" will be the ones that help clear heroics...

    Serious attitude problem here Navi
    Do we must have our "Destroyer's End" title from somewhere before we can be claimed not to be "carried" by guys that killed it maybe once or twice before? and to be so mad that he wont talk to an officer!?

    I think the officers need to talk to ppl to change their attitudes to raiding

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  5. On second thought, my comment is probably not fair for Gutsy, he probably is not confident on making up the lack of experience hence the response. But that is to be expected, even with our best group it is not guaranteed kill everytime (at least for now)

    Ksret

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  6. People will always have elitist attitudes, and I can't change their attitudes, I can only lead by example. We don't want to cull people from raids, well I don't because I like to play with everyone, but we tried to make raids on different days to ensure those people do get to raid (unfortunately I can't play 6 days a week or I'd help run those other raids too). Good players get frustrated when they feel held back, and less good players feel frustrated when they feel left behind. Where is the medium? I'm not sure, and if I had the answers to that, I am sure I would feel less stressed out and not have to vent on poor Alliance peeps :)

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  7. Lol @ Targets comment

    Voe (best resto shaman in frosties)

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  8. There is a difference between being overly elitist, and having reasonable standards. For years we simply accepted people as they were, tried to help them improve, and just did our thing week after week, usually never beating the end content of a tier. Over time this has cost us a number of very talented (and likeable) players who just got fed up with people who weren't meeting the expectations of everyone else.

    Two examples here - at around 355 ilvl I was pulling 20-22k dps in my offspec in the first tier (which was pretty good at the time, the upper end of the guild were 22-25k). Now that we are in the final tier there are people who are barely this much damage.

    Second - Ultraxion is a very simple fight, and basically exists as a dps check. To pull their weight everyone needs to bring around 28k dps - we have no choice but to set this as the target for everyone to meet. Being shy 1-2k can be worked around easily enough, but some of the people we have been running with are doing less than 25k (or worse, dying on what is one of the simplest raid mechanics in the games history).

    We have given a remarkable amount of leeway to people who have been underperforming over the years, and even now everyone had 4+ weeks notice that this would be happening (loads of time to figure out why they are doing 20-40% less than others of their class/spec), but now that we want to press forward into heroics I simply can't justify bringing people who don't even meet the minimum standards for normal mode Ultraxion.

    Just like navi this isn't something I wanted to do, but the overwhelming majority of talented players (the ones we couldn't get anything done without) are well passed being patient with those who simply can't/wont lift their game to the minimum level we require.

    TLDR Version - It isn't elitism, its having some very reasonable standards we expect people to meet - and even then its probably one of the worst things I've had to do as a GM :(.


    - Fueghan

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  9. @Voe - :)
    @Fue - Hey boss, thanks for dropping by.

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  10. @ Fue
    Thanks for clarifying the selection process for the heroic team that was very helpful.
    By the way, I wasnt calling team selection elitests. I was more referring to one person not happy cos the others in the raid have not done the fight successfully before (while all members have been thought to be able to perform adequately)
    Having said that, I believe I am falsely accusing Gutsy (appologies) as I think he is unhappy at the balance of the two raids than having ppl still learning to be in his group.

    And Fue I understand your frustration at people who consistently underperform for their gear level. Culling is a necessary step for progression and I am just happy I am not the one that has to pick the team and say sorry to guys that just missed out.

    @ Gutsy
    appologies to have you involved here especially with my comments

    Ksret

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