raid time changed this week and added Thu

so this week, blue raid is on Thu, Fri, Sun and Mon – invites going out at 6:30 pm server time and raid starts at 7pm server time. *do* make sure you have all your gear and consumables and repairs and out of other instances and out of battlegrounds by then. = )

make sure to read up on the strats for the bosses up to and including Curator. i recommend watching the videos on tankspot.com forums – ciderhelm has up videos of each boss fight.

sign up if you meet the kara quals we posted earlier here. sign up even if it looks full. then be online at 6:30 pm. people are late, bail, have a conflict crop up, or any one of a myriad of good reasons and an opening happens. if you meet the quals and are available, sign up! we will confirm the list early – but standbys can come when one of the previously accepted miss out. also, we swap out one of the tanks and swap in a ranged dps for Maiden.

GroupCalendar issue identified and resolved

aha! turns out some guildies do not have a check in the check box for “Use server dates and times” on the calendar tab. open groupcalendar (/cal show) and make sure you are looking at the Calendar tab (preferably after the 2 min synch) and make sure you have checked the “Use server dates and times”. that should fix the issue.

all events are posted in server dates and times. for now, the start time will be repeated in the Description field of the event to add further confirmation and clarification.

raid consumables

word to the wise: bring and use raid consumables (i.e. elixirs, flasks, pots, food with buffs, etc).

we’ve gone through several hundred gold’s worth of raid consumables – so far bill footed by Kazumaket. at the very least, if guildies are making stuff and putting it in the guild bank and you are asking for it (which nearly everyone did), put the gold back into the guild bank so we can buy more mats.

if you don’t want to donate to the guild bank – buy your own mats or consumables!

especially at this stage of our raiding where we are not over-geared for the boss encounters, those consumables are key to giving us a better edge and chance. raiding without consumables is for noobs. don’t be a noob. from here on out, raid with them – but do not expect Kazu to cover the costs for your consumables.

our healers need help gearing if we are to progress this week

the combat log does not lie. our healers need gear. every one of our healers needs to have +1200 healing at a minimum before we take them back into Kara. put your battlegrounds on hold. group up and go do instances. get your Kara keys. do not do heroics – if they are not geared for the first few bosses of Kara, they are definitely not geared for healing heroics.

go do regular instances with our healers – over and over until they are decked out in blues and their +healing is 1200 or greater.

#1 goal this week for the guild is to be able to field 3 healers into Kara with a minimum of +1200 healing each.

GroupCalendar start time issues – temp fix with comments

it was brought to our attention last night that GroupCalendar is showing different times in the addon UI for the start time of raids depending on which player is looking at it (i.e. it showed an 8pm start time in my addon UI and a 7pm start time in Heinkel’s addon UI).

through this week, i will be looking into what causes that to find a fix; however, in the interim, i will use the Description/Comments field of the event to state the start time in server time. (e.g. START TIME: 7pm Server Time).

kara started!

well over a month ahead of schedule, LR started Kara! Kazumaket did a phenom job raid leading and everyone did a great job of implementing the strategies. /kudos. Attumen down, Moroes down, Maiden 33% with a nine man incl shifting feral offtank Jacofox into off healing (to keep only 3 in melee range of the Maiden). with a full 10-man, Maiden would have gone down also.

raiding ‘home teams’ or ‘raid houses’ as some called them

almost every guild has a problem trying to keep track of who needs which instance and keeping up with right mix of classes/specs to meet the roles needed in groups and raids. one way to beat this problem is to assign each of the raiders to a ‘raid house’ as someone called it. it is really just an organizational tool but it does become their house in the sense of people that tend to follow the same availability patterns and that tend to group together more often (since they are online and available around the same times).

it does not restrict you from raiding with raiders from another ‘house’. raiders, whose home raid is the ‘raid team’ can raid with the ‘blue team’ – and should often enough as schedules permit just so that you do not end up with a 25-man raid that has two distinct halves that do things totally different from each other and cannot work well together. (note: key seats in a raid house should not raid with the other house without the both raid leaders agreeing – otherwise one raid group could end up without a tank that week!)

what it does do is enable both raid houses to effectively field 10-man raids each week – thereby keeping everyone raiding every week instead of just a small subset.

raid houses are set up primarily by availability (so that you have people that get online around the same times grouped into the same raid house), then by raid role (so you avoid all the tanks being in one house!). reliability is really a guild-level factor even if the raid leaders use it to make informed decisions.

each raid house is lead by a raid leader – who has to be an officer in the guild. if nothing else, it gives them the ability to add and remove members from the guild hence keeping the raids alive and healthy.

a raid house should have all of the raid seats filled (given whatever level of raids the guild is performing at) and have some reserves – so both breadth and depth. this enables the raid house to field a raid group for the raid bosses and cover off on weeks when some people are away. it also allows for folks to raid 2 days instead of 3 yet the raid house can raid all 3 days effectively.

we’ve assigned our top end levels to either the blue raid house or the red raid house, first filling the blue raid with as many kara ready and geared toons as possible in order to be able to start raiding in kara as a guild. red house is filled next and includes a balanced flow-over of 70s and the rest is made up of the toons that are likely arriving at 70 and geared in the next 2-3 weeks. hence, blue raid can begin raiding right away, and red raid can begin raiding in 2-3 weeks. those in red raid that are ready to raid sooner, simply sign up for raids on the blue raid GroupCalendar event! there will be some juggling until we have both raids up and running but after that, pretty much everyone that passes the quals and is geared can go every week!

if you are not on the list: i) you have likely not logged on lately; or ii) you have not confirmed with Ironhelm that you do want to raid and which raid role you want to fill. if you are in the wrong raid role, contact me for an easy fix! if you are not listed but should be, contact me for an easy fix! if for any reason you do not like the color or something – just contact me for an easy fix!

In no particular order:

Blue Raid House

• Raid Leader (RL) – Nightwind
• Main Tank (MT) – Ironhelm (warrior)
• Off Tank (OT) – Jacofox (druid)
• Main Heal (MH) – Rawdogg (paladin)
• Off Heal (OH) – Morepi (priest) cc
• OH – Blinded (druid)
• OH – Delai (shaman)
• Melee DPS (MD) – Nightwind (rogue) cc
• MD – Krisassasin (rogue) cc
• MD – Heinkel (shaman)
• MD – Nytfall (shaman)
• Ranged DPS (RD) – Liliana (mage) cc
• RD – Daybrayk (mage) cc
• RD – Cocorosie (warlock) cc
• RD – Dorknor (priest) cc
• RD – Brazin (hunter) cc
• RD – Agaguk (hunter) cc
• RD – Starnova (hunter) cc
• RD – Moonhowl (hunter) cc

Red Raid House

• Raid Leader (RL) – Kazumaket
• Main Tank (MT) – Frozendesire (warrior)
• Off Tank (OT) – Fallan (paladin)
• Main Heal (MH) – Chicoo (priest) cc
• Off Heal (OH) – Flodar (druid)
• OH – Dorkonus (shaman)
• OH – Vendril (paladin)
• Melee DPS (MD) – Kazumaket (rogue) cc
• MD – Cellwynd (rogue) cc
• MD – Galdars (shaman)
• MD – Shukaku (shaman)
• MD – Valdir (shaman)
• Ranged DPS (RD) – Criay (mage) cc
• RD – Poeticjustice (mage) cc
• RD – Delorina (mage) cc
• RD – Lumilin (hunter) cc
• RD – Maliris (hunter) cc
• RD – Catix (hunter) cc
• RD – Elishandra (hunter) cc

use GroupCalendar if you want to raid!

GroupCalendar is the addon that we are using to manage raid sign ups. if you are not running that addon (despite months of postings), then you are not signed up for the Sat and Mon raids. if you are not signed up, everyone that signed up before you (and that meets the quals and is geared) has a date/time stamp before you. that means they are going to Kara and you are not.

no whining, no crying, no kicking and definitely no feeding the drama llama.

e.g. for Maiden, we need 2 tanks, 3 healers, 2 melee dps and 3 ranged dps in the raid group. if i were melee dps, i’d be checking GroupCalendar at least daily for Kara raid events to make sure that my timestamp was one of the first two melee dps sign ups. granted – guild leader and raid leaders will make sure everyone gets to go fairly – so you don’t have to put your spouse on calendar sentry watch duty while you sleep – but fairly could still be a long wait for Maiden if there are a lot of melee dps that have yet to go and everyone else is signing up and you do not even have the addon installed.

the point, simply, is that the guild uses GroupCalendar to plan raids – including who gets to go that event. install the addon and use it *often*. all the officers can help you with any setup issues (it is rather simple to install).

point in case: we are only 1 day away from the Sat raid and only 7 people have signed up. 7 does not equal 10. it certainly is not 10 with extras for reserves or cancellations. less than 10 signed up opens the door to pugs taking seats. and i can see folks signing on once we are in Kara with pugs and then the drama llama comes to town to see if we feed it.

a lot of guilds run into the issue that folks do not sign up in advance, which limits their ability to plan the raids and do briefings beforehand or even start on time. we are not special and are likely going to have that problem, too (like now). we will handle it differently than i have seen most guilds handle it though – because we have a lot of organizational experience. and organizations – be they soccer clubs, companies, or wow guilds – all have some things in common. and one of them is the handling of folks not signing up for events. folks, if you do not sign up, and we fill the seats, “the class is full”. sign up for the next one.

once we fill the seats, we are not kicking them for someone that was too lazy to sign up. we will rotate seats per the raid plan for different bosses (if we are planning to rotate seats), but that may or may not open a chance for someone that did not bother to sign up to come. if others did sign up and they fill the same role/function – those get to go.

on behalf of the raid leaders who are all working very hard to make sure everyone gets to go to Kara each week, do not make it hard for them to get you into Kara by not bothering to indicate when you want to go.

signing up indicates you are available to go. NOT signing up indicates you are NOT available to go.

based on sign ups for Saturday, 7 people are available for Kara and the guild needs to pug three seats because no one else is available.

if you are available, sign up using GroupCalendar! the raid group invite is literally issued FROM the addon – i.e. you CANNOT get an invite if you are NOT signed up.

’nuff said.

second Kara group close – need to help tanks and healers level and gear

with two more tanks and 2 more healers leveled and geared, everyone can go to Kara each week. we can easily staff two raid groups.

Frozendesire (warrior) and Fallan (paladin) have said they’d be interested in tanking. Chicoo (priest) and Flodar (druid) have said they will heal. [note: we have plenty of resto shamans now and raid groups need a diversity of classes.]

give them your full support in helping them level and gear up so that they meet the Kara quals – then each week everyone that is 70 can go to Kara.

almost ready to launch first raid group – healers need help gearing up

we have enough toons geared for kara (meeting the quals posted here and passing the gear check website noted below) to launch a raid group into Kara. however, only 1 out of 3 healers is geared to +1200 healing & 8K mana. that will almost certainly prevent us from downing Moroes and might even prevent us succeeding with Attumen.

only rawdogg (paladin) and morepi (priest) have signed up for the Saturday raid. in the absence of a third healer signed up for Kara, we’ll likely bring Crion or Antoinette from outside the guild to heal.

the long and short of it is that it serves us all well to help our healers gear up so that we can succeed in Kara.