fyi: moved rank of GL *back* to Iron

Iron was one of the very first toons to join this guild – back then the default name the character creation screen had given it was ‘Daelia’. The more time I spent on Ironhelm, and the less I spent on Iron, the more difficult it became to do all the guild admin – so I switched it to Ironhelm.

It was convenient for a while. However, I started getting way too many tells in the middle of a raid from people wanting to know about our guild to see if they could join it, or general guild admin queries.

Now that I am spending far more time on Iron, and in hopes of keeping raiding uninterrupted, I have moved the rank back to Iron. Now I just need to get Iron up to 70, too!

raiding stood down this week due to vacations

both main healers and main tanks are “afk” this week for the most part or entirely. certainly pug if you want the badges; however, healers and tanks for the core raiding group are afk.

additionally, we have had some departures that will need to be replaced over the next week.

begin telling me how you feel about…

… making it required to have an active end-cap-level toon in the guild. we want to know how you feel about this as we take it into consideration as a potential shift in /ginvites.

in other words, reaching a point somewhere in the near-not-too-distant-future where you would need to have a level 70 (currently) toon that is in the guild and is active (i.e. not offline for a month). in order to join the guild, you would need to have a 70 to bring in, or have to get to 70 within a short period (perhaps from 60). at ‘implementation of the reg’, all characters at or above level 50 would have x amount of time to get to 70, gear and begin raiding and all others (under 50) would have y amount of time to do same — to accommodate all of our valued members now that are not currently in possession of a 70 in our guild.

we have grown a fair amount in the past several months and are rapidly reaching the point where we need more 70s that are active in the guild in order to meet expanding raiding needs (we need more raiders). requiring that newcomers join with a 70 or that they reach 70 shortly thereafter fosters a larger pool of 70s from which to draw on to fill raids. and it means we can do more of the same raids as well as more raids instances.

it also increases the number of 70s online and available to work together in non-raid instances, craft items, pvp and do dailies.

it reduces the situation (reduces to zero) where people use our guild to level to 70 and gear up, then leave to go to another guild “where their main is” (that would not level them up and gear them up) and leave behind yet another alt they want us to help level and gear (which then leaves also). we are not a farm team for other guilds to level their alts in.

it reduces the number of players that would request lowbie (e.g. VC) run throughs repetitively from higher level toons without being in a position to return the favor (to anyone).

there are downsides to the concept: what if you have a friend that wants to move to this server and start a new toon and play with us (you)? they would not have a level 70 on the server nor would a short leveling period necessarily be fair. if we make an exception for them, why aren’t we making exceptions for other friends you have on the server that just started out? or that have 70s in tier 6 raiding guild but would level a new toon in ours and keep it there?

putting in place a reg that keeps us from /ginviting unless they have a raid-level toon crimps growth of the guild size; however, not necessarily crimping where most of us are focused.

the number one reason for attrition (departures) from our guild over the past 12 months has been that they are leaving to help/play with a brother/friend/whatever and the number two reason is that they did not find enough 70s online to group with to get XYZ done.

not much we can do about reason #1 and we wish them all well. reason #2 gets resolved with more 70s online which is a factor of how many 70s we have and how many are online at similar times. increasing the number of 70s is conducive to more 70s online, which is conducive to more 70s grouping to get XYZ done.

while we are indeed enjoying a growth in our guildie numbers, reducing attrition is always healthy. on the other hand, restricting recruiting has the potential to reduce our growth which could lead to a reduction in guild roster if attrition exceeds growth.

no decisions have been made yet, and we are seeking your thoughts and feelings on this matter. you all have the opportunity to affect this decision. of course, nothing is set in stone and all can be reversed; however, we tend to like getting it right the first time around.

please talk to a senior officer or your guild leader and share your opinions candidly. we are eager to hear your arguments in favor and against.

pvp city raiding on the 30th each month

put it on your calendar: raid Thunder Bluff July 30th. thereafter, we will raid Horde at least monthly on the 30th. Jacofox and Nightwind have lead on organizing our strategy for Thunder Bluff. we will raid with at least a 25-man if not a 40-man of *all* Legends Reborn toons. that’s right. not a mish mash of Alliance guilds – a Legends Reborn raid of Thunder Bluff.

we will plan out our advanced party insertion (those stealthy types) routes and where they will await the arrival of the main body, hence giving us intel on head counts, types and levels of Horde in TB leading right up to our raid assault. they will find bottle necks and safe zones that break lines of sight from which we can re-group and mana-up/heal.

the insertion of the main body of the assault will be kept quiet until the raid kick off and we will travel an insertion route that does not make our destination obvious.

equally important, will be our extraction planning for a clean raid: insert, annihilate, extract. key objectives: shut down their auction house and bank.

mark your calendars!

netherspite /down

w00t!

netherspite put up a good fight the first time as we got him down to only about 46%; however, we were onto him and brought him down to within 2K health on the second attempt. third time around was the charm and he did not manage to get into his next Banish phase before we downed him.

busting out

naturally, we bust out the 70s p0rn music and everyone blew whatever visuals they had.

party really lets loose!

gratz to everyone for clearing kara this week – and thanks to psycosiis for dj’ing the p0rn music on cue.

another ride and raid

the call went out and eight mounted up and raided. there was a lot of dying. mostly Horde. they put up a fight over Tarren Mills – however that did not last long and they lost that town. Undercity was not prepared for us.

Gank the Horde World Tour - Undercity Bank Closed For Business

it was ‘quaint’ however the auction house and bank were ‘temporarily closed’ by us. sorry – no business while we visit.

Gank the Horde World Tour - Undercity

Ogrimmar put up a decent pursuit defense when we disboarded from the Zep. Crossroads was empty. that probably should have been our first clue. cuz Thunder Bluff was packed with Horde 70s!

Gank the Horde World Tour - Thunder Bluff

congratulations Blinded

please join me in congratulating Blinded on his recent promotion to the rank of Senior Officer! Blinded joined our guild back during our push to 70 and his immeasurable contributions to the guild every single day are countless. throughout, he has been committed to the guild’s members and our overall ability to accomplish objectives. he has an unblemished record of reliability. his humor, thoughtfulness and friendship are valued by all of us. i look forward to seeing how he will shape and improve the future of our guild.

/pause /cheer /play — raiding tips

last night was arguably one of the best raids our guild has done: it was a whole whack of fun! Jacofox and Blinded lead a solid raid. it was very serious business: like the 70’s p0rn music and more; or the flame dance party pre-Prince with our very own stripper cadre. most of all, it accomplished everything we set out to do and everyone had a great time getting it done.

a little grooving before grinding down Prince

if you are relatively new to raiding, here are some tips to consider.

before the raid:

• if you are leading the event, put it in Group Calendar for others to sign up for; if you are attending, sign up;
• assume everyone has forgotten in the last 15 minutes and constantly remind everyone to be online early – start several days before!
• show up early and gather everything you will need to raid;
• gather everyone up in one place if you can, preferably a major city with access to banks and an AH so that folks can grab their swag and their consumables;
• do something fun while you all wait, to fight off impatience – snowball fights work very well, so do heavy leather ball fights!
• if you are bringing in PUGs, tell them where you are starting from if it is not a fresh instance;
• deploy the full raid or a sizeable summoning team to avoid getting picked off one by one by the other faction;

during the raid:

• use readycheck as a tool to know if everyone was listening in vent – tell them to pick “No” in vent and see how many “Yes” come up;
• brief everyone on how looting works – even if they “know”;
• be respectful to others;
• re-read previous bullet;
• pre-fights, brief the strategy you are using so that everyone is on the same page; then do a readycheck and ask everyone to select “No” if there is anything they are unclear about or if they have any further questions;
• before a boss fight, everyone make sure any healthstones, soulstones, cool downs, whatever you are expected to have available are ready else ask for a pause for them to be ready – telling your raid leader before the fight that your battle rez is 2 mins left on cool down is priceless!keep the vent chatter to only what is required for the fight during the fights; however have a blast during the rest of the time!
• guests will pop in to the vent channel to “see how you are doing” – if you are in the middle of the fight, they will get the picture, do not pollute the vent channel further, let the raid leaders ask them to leave;
• give everyone a chance to grab their badges and then quiet them down so that vent is clear enough that folks do not miss out on a roll; link the loot in raid chat and post a raid warning to let folks know to roll for [X] random /roll 1000; give em a few secs to roll then start to count down audibly in vent: 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – and assign the loot to the high roller; if there is any question at all, hold on giving out the loot;
• after a boss, *pay attention* to loot rolls so you do not miss out;
• if no one needs the loot, shard it and keep the shards until the end of the raid to be rolled on once at that time; at the end of the raid, do one random /roll 1000 and take the top rollers for the shards;
• before a particularly hard fight, relax and blow off some stress – seriously! chill and let everyone get into their ‘zone’;
• after a major win, take a screen shot – it builds teamwork.

after the raid:

• before everyone leaves, de-brief; find out what went especially right and needs to be repeated next time and find out what needs to be avoided next time;
• high-light exceptional performances;
• thank everyone and invite PUGs to return to raid with us again – it’s a great way to end up recruiting them!

see you in the next raid.

Ironforge, Friday, 7pm server time – bring your tabbard!

*everyone* come to Ironforge Friday, 7pm server time and bring your tabbard! meet on the bridge in front of the AH and Bank.

*everyone* – that is ALL levels

the Kara raid will leave from there to start at 7:30 pm server time; however, before that, let’s draw some attention (good attention) to our guild by amassing in a very visible spot. make a good impression – ie don’t act like asshats and /yell stupidities! the point is to be visible and attract interest in our guild.

while the first time may not result in ‘droves’ of new recruits, repeating this will eventually translate into some good long-term recruits.

looking forward to seeing you there, i’ll be wearing our tabbard.

kara tonight!

last night, more than enough 70s were online to do a 5-man and all the right roles were present. in fact, enough 70s to haul into Kara were online as long as we brought along two of long-time raiding buddies (non-guildies). so tonight should go off without a hitch. everyone just needs to show up!

summers are always hard on our guild – on guilds in general. and with me out practically entirely for June and July, our raiding was hit even harder. the 60s that were supposed to move up in May didn’t for one good reason or another, so suddenly our raiding group shrank.

however, i’m seeing our critical mass of 70s online growing again even though it is summer and that bodes well all around. for one, it means we get right back to raiding. for another, it means our 25-man content venture in September is viable.

i’ll log on tonight and i am hoping to see a Kara raid in full swing – there not being enough room for me to go is a wonderful thing for our guild!

the more we raid, the  easier it is to recruit and retain quality guildies which makes it easier to raid which makes it easier to recruit…

and raiding is not the only pony in town – we have a lot of folks needing help in leveling up and gearing up: you folks need to clamor and make some noise! ASK for help! if you are over level 60, *ask for help* getting those group quests done. ask for help getting those instances done. heck, ask for help to know what you need to do and how to approach it. those 70s online have a lot of experience in how to earn reputation the easy way, which gear pieces you need, where to get it all, and they all have the ability to craft gear for you that is blue and pre-Kara readiness gear.

the more of you that get to 70 and get geared, the easier it will be to field a full 25-man in September.