Previously … something has to give. A raiding guild is tanking (and not in a good way) on Burning Crusade raid content. Six of the raiders call “ENOUGH!” and follow through on that, and yet we wonder, how the FUCK are we going to clear Karazhan with six? Or five? Does it matter when it’s less than eight?
It really doesn’t matter if it’s less than eight. (Ya you hardc0re uber-skeelt people can clear Karazhan with seven, but I am not you.)
The second day of the mutineer guild we have five guildmembers. We only formed a guild through the generosity of former guildmembers’ alts and my nephew, because left to our own devices, we wouldn’t even have /guildchat to complain about the sorry circumstances we brought on ourselves.
But on the third day, something unexpected happened. Non-mutineering (former) guildmates joined. A few of them. People who are QUITE good at their class … without-peer type players. We cleared Karazhan that first week with 11 guildmembers. And I mean we cleared … Prince, Nightbane, Illhoof, Netherspite. Every boss was down with 11.
You want to lecture me about Karazhan and what it takes to raid in Burning Crusade or how easy Karazhan is or the transition into the 25-mans, tell it to somebody who hasn’t done it twice. I already sweat it out with eleven people to choose from, including one holy paladin and one (former shadow, newly holy) priest. (Moroes can be a bitch with one shackle, btw.) It weren’t easy, by any definition, but we did it because it had to be done.
While we cleared Karazhan that first week with 11, my prior guild (roster of 40+ members after the failed mutiny) couldn’t get through Aran.
We did well, quite well, but we couldn’t exactly send a /tell with HAHAHA hay we pwn with 11, nubs!!
Week Two, we had to down High King Maulgar and make a few Gruul attempts. Again … we only had eleven guildmembers, so y’know, that was going to hurt. (WoW nubs: Gruul’s Lair — High King Maulgar and Gruul himself — are 25-man raids.) Late in the raid week, just when we figured there was no fucking way, we recruited tricked a few more people to join, and, we got an offer from a small group of long-ago guildmembers to assist in Gruul’s. (That’s what we call “Making a Deal with the Devil”.) Talking numbers, we had 8 new recruits hostages and 5 long-ago members with us in Gruul’s Lair that first kill.
And so it’s been every week since the failed mutiny: we get a handful of the former raid core to join us, including long-ago Nefarian/AQ40/Naxx raiders, and slowly, we’re climbing to the top of the pile and are back in Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern, this time with 50% less bullshit. (Did I say no bullshit? I did not. Less is a start, however.)
I often think if only we had compromised more, or if they had at all, we’d all be three times ahead of where we are. I’m bitter that their recruiting is so easy, because, after all, they’re recruiting on the strength of the name we built. They’re bitter because we “stole” the raiding force. I imagine they’re also bitter because they spent ALL NIGHT in Gruul’s Lair yesterday and we were in and out in under 20 minutes and had moved on to Tempest Keep. (Update: Gruul’s Redux for them tonight too. Now I kinda feel bad about snickering. Almost feel bad.)
It hasn’t been all purples or void crystals for the new guildbank.
This week for example, when one of our paladins backed into the boss while the casters were finishing their mana drinks, and then again when ALL our warlocks died in the first minute of a boss fight (and you know when I say ALL our warlocks, I mean two, because my server’s warlocks are rarely outside of an arena), and later still when one of our shadow priests pulled aggro off the tank because he was happily mind flaying his way up the threatmeter (“hay guys, i forgot to check my threat lol!”), we just laughed and were glad that we’re all together in a new guild.
Are you nuts?
We bitched out their asses in Ventrilo and threatened to throw them back out into the wildnerness of the guildless. Wouldn’t be a true raiding guild if we didn’t end the night not speaking to one another at least once a week.
As I told the reconstituted private chat channel “guildbitchfest”, after we flew back from the graveyard and had run back through the long twisting hallways and ramps to begin the boss buff session anew: Same shit, different guild name.
In our guild we call this /o
“Guildbitchfest” is for the snarky guildmembers to make witty comments about the guild and raids like, “5 gold says that shadow priest will pull aggro again on the 2nd attempt”
thats still the /o chan in my guild as well :p
Well, you survived and all, so it’s not a terrible thing, and it sounds like your progression is good. But I wouldn’t blame you if you fled to another game with less BS.
/o ftw. Nothing quite like being able to vent about the stupid secondary tank getting out of Gruul’s hitbox and causing melee dps to die.
The more people in a game the more BS there will be. In fact the more human beings together the more BS you get.
There’s even some formulas out there to explain it:
Gab’s theory (from penny-arcade):
Normal personn + anonimity + audience = total fuckwad
Mine:
Number of people * loot * time spent = Amount of drama.
Mix these two together and in the end the amount of drama in a game comes down to how many people plays it.
Nicely done! Grats on rising from the flames.
Yeah, typical /o…
“i think our pallys all went for a drink and forgot to invite the rest of us”
Priests are so thin in our guild we’ve done it with no shackles. Sometimes it works, sometimes the pally fear sends one of Moroes’ buddies straight into that frost trap that had the MS Warrior’s name on it, and bad things start to happen.
Anyway, glad to hear you’re up and rolling again.
Hope you keep progressing (sorta at least :)+
Samownall World of warcraft blog
/o is the one thing I miss about being a guild officer. Definitely not worth the trouble that comes with the position though.
I’m not allowed to have powers, authority, or access to /o, otherwise, we’d be back down to five members.
LOL!!
Haha…glad to hear you’re mutiny went better than previously expected, especially when you can /brag to your former guild about how uber 11 can be against *insert random number.* Need a hunter? I’m always looking for new guilds and new drama =)
Well. I would not wish this kind of edgy combat on anyone … where the raid/Vent call is “holy priests, throw up dots!”
And they did, and we won, and I am amazed at how lucky we are with our healing core. They can DOT! They can HOT! They can POM! They can Rammel-lammel-dingdong! (Fortunately, none of them are Lightwelling.)
*grin* Glad to hear you’re steadily pulling ahead! Though truth be told, I wouldn’t expect any less from you.
lol Great, now I’m having Ony flashbacks :p
Thanks for sharing your adventures with us. Hope there’s many more ahead.
No priests in Kara was a common occurrence for our guild – even in 25-mans we have MAYBE two shadow priests show up, only one regular. We got real good at kiting melee mobs around the banquet table while we killed the casters. 🙂
Damnit Foton quit hogging all the good priests. We have 2 good shadow and 1 good holy. WTB priests!
And how do I sign up to learn how to get access to guild powers denied?
Then there’s the fun way – doing it with no shackle and two hunters. You shouldn’t be able to throw a brick without finding hunters “lfg kara lol”.
(disclosure: I play a hunter, and flawlessly kiting/trapping Moroes’s MS warrior buddy makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.)
i think ppl have this fantasy about the perfect raid guild where everyone logs on at the right time, ppl know their class, bring their own consumables, etc.
personally, i don’t believe that guild exists. you just can’t get 25 ppl scattered over the globe to act with that kind of synchronization. getting them to do ANYTHING together is part of the challenge of the game, imo.
regarding ppl’s comments about /o:
my old guild grew to be two guilds in one. you had the ppl in /o and the ppl in /gu, and the /o ppl absolutely bitched about the /gu ppl. it was bad for the guild and eventually turned into a split. the /o ppl left (and formed my current guild) and the /gu ppl had to pick up the pieces.
i learned from the experience. when i formed my new guild, i set the ranks to be officer-free. we have two active GMs and, when it’s raid time, a channel for raid assistants that acts as a temporary /o just for that raid (tank assistant, dps, healing. that’s it).
imo, it’s really cut down on the level of drama caused by cliques and secrecy.