Guild Progress
A new beginning has been progressing well over the last 12 months, we only recently started raiding ICC seriously and are now up to 7/12 ICC normal and will start on the second wing soon, tonight we are resetting for a farm run. This puts us #3 on the Guildox Nagrand-US 10-man Strict Progress ladder. For a guild of our size this is a tremendous effort.
Our first effort on Halion was a lot of fun, we did reasonably well for our first go.
We have a new member, Tortishifti has joined our ranks as a healer druid with some alts as tank and DPS. Welcome Tortishifti.
Humulupu recently hit 80 and will be able to start raiding with us. Grats Humulupu!
Raid Teams
Carlfish has been doing a great job leading the Monday night raid runs, as I said above he's lead us to 7/12 ICC, that is awesome.
Our thursday reset runs have been going well, we rarely wipe on the first 5 bosses of ICC now, even with the number of alts running in this team.
Guild Future
There has been discussions and debates on IRC about how we organize the raid teams, how we balance our progression with gearing up people, playing alts, availability and all the variables that exist between a group of 20 people.
As defacto guild leader its my job to get everyones input and try and work out the best plan for everyone. Before I start doing that I want to highlight my ideas about where this guild is going. Here are a few points:
Firstly, this guild is not at this moment, trying to become a regular 25man raiding team. We don't have the numbers, time commitment or desire to move away from the 10 man raiding goals. Most of us prefer to run 10 mans with our guild over pugging enough to do 25 man.
Secondly, and most importantly, this guild values giving people a go over progressing. We will run raids appropriate for the people we have and wont kick people from raids based on their skill or gear levels, we will simply run something easier.
The Plan
This is my proposal to overcome some of these planning problems.
- Create two teams, a Monday and a Thursday team.
- Appoint a team leader for the Monday and Thursday night teams. At this stage it will be Furgin (Monday) and Carlfish (Thursday).
- Have each team have a pool of no more than 13 players that will be rotated or picked from based on availability. No one character can appear on both raid teams but you are able to take alts to both teams.
- Both teams will need 2 tanks and 3 healers with one healer having a DPS off spec. Its up to the raid leader for those nights to balance the raid team each week.
- Its up to the raid leader for the specific team to decide on what that team runs.
- Its up to the raid leader to decide the loot rolling rules for the given nights.
- The Thursday team roster will be based on the Current Monday night team which is currently full so new players and alts will likely only be able to join the Monday night run.
- If you join a team with a character role, thats your role. You can't decide that you want to bring a different character at the last minute, this changes the balance makes it hard for the leader to plan a raid.
Please comment on this blog if you don't like this approach, or have a better idea.
7 Comments
Hide/Show CommentsJul 04, 2010
dennilan (Eric)
I am concerned about this proposal (although only mildly, and I understand where it's coming from). Essentially it means that, for people new to the game, we can only have the option of raiding one night a week, and rather than more rapidly gearing up so that we can run ICC (for example), we'll have a lower GS for longer, which will be annoying for the team that we do regularly raid with. The reason I'm only mildly concerned is that I figure there will be some flexibility around it, especially as people will be away from time to time. I also don't want to bitch and moan about it too much; AFAIK, I'm the only person in this situation. I can level another toon (probably my DK) on the other night if this turns out to be a real problem.
I don't care about the role restrictions. Dennilan is tank-specced and not very good at DPS, so he won't be queuing as anything other than tank.
I really like that the concern is more on having fun and being inclusive than on progressing.
Jul 04, 2010
Furgin
Although no team should force any player to play a spec/role/class they don't want to there needs to be some give. If we have 3 or more tanks in each team you are just going to get rotated more often. And on the other hand, if you're the only tank you are under more pressure to be available.
Just like the team needs to cater its balance and raid times to fit with its members, the members also need to be aware of the balance of a raid and fit in with that. There will need to be some level of give and take in both directions.
As far as new members, or new level 80s, i suspect we will just grow the team sizes until the teams until we have enough for a third team if thats what people want. I don't think that will happen too fast. If you are in the guild, you have a position in one of teams.
Jul 05, 2010
dennilan (Eric)
Awesome.
Yeah, although Dennilan won't queue as anything other than tank, I'm happy to do DPS... Provided its understood that I may not be any good at it for a while.
Jul 05, 2010
Mehemet
As someone with only a single 80 I'm in the same boat here. My raid time will be halved while others will have the opportunity to raid twice a week. I choose not to play alts so that makes it my own choice, and I do understand the need to give everyone a go in a managable and balanced way but from my perspective the change will be tough.
Jul 04, 2010
Andrew Lui (lolzcat)
Sounds good to me. I was experimenting with possible raid teams and it looks like having two raid teams will leave us short on melee dps. I'm guessing that the ideal mix is two melee and three ranged dps. The only solution that I can think of is for Rawm and Torti's warrior to tank Monday, I go dps with humulupu and Boorunn shifts to Thursday. Just my thoughts. I'll leave it to Furgin to sort this out for us
I do think we need better team names. My vote is for Team Coffee and Team Bacon.
Team Coffee (Monday)
Raid Leader: Zungarath (Furgin)
Tanks: Torti's warrior (warrior), Rawm (DK) / Lolzcat (druid-bear)??
Heals: Carlfish (pally), Miknight (priest), Rikitikitavi (priest)
Melee DPS: Humulupu (shaman-enhancement), Lolzcat (druid-kitty)??
Ranged DPS: Jirra (lock), Zungarath (mage), Conniecrashn (mage), Zunoz (shaman-elemental)??
Team Bacon (Thursday)
Raid Leader: Carlfysh
Tanks: Atlassia (pally), Furgin (pally-wannabe)
Heals: Thatrayna (priest), Swoon (pally), Tortishift (druid)
Melee DPS: Deadheart (DK), Boorunn (rogue)
Ranged DPS: Mehemet (hunter), Carlfysh (priest), Moonburn (hunter)
Jul 04, 2010
Furgin
I don't want to propose teams (yet). I want to give people the chance to sign up for the night they want to raid and with the characters they want to take first then, and only then, we will move people only to keep the teams balanced. If that ends up with a team with no tanks and seven healers, we will deal with it by moving people around.
Jul 04, 2010
Dan "Torty"
My warrior is called Tirius
I could get my fury set up to ICC standards reasonably quickly especially if Saurfang drops the 2H axe (not seeing anyone else in Monday team that would actually need it, oops sorry Rawm would want it as it is an excellent DK tanking 2H weapon). Then if Lolzcat wanted to go bear they can. Or if we both have a tank/mdps set we can swap from week to week.
Edit - Posted before I read Furgin's comment.