Getting to the point...

Is not something I do very well. I am an academic…I'm 25 and spent the last 20 years of my life either as a student or a student-teacher. I tend to be wordy and spend 200 words saying what I could clearly get through in 50. This is why my posts run long and I end up not being able to get to all that I wanted to convey. I will attempt to amend this in this post, as there's a lot to get to.
Our guild(the legendary MAS…maybe not legendary, but at least notable) has made large strides in the last two weeks as a guild raiding. I feel partially responsible for us getting such a late start on making headway, since I was forced to go MIA as raid leader for the guild earlier in the year, just as we were beginning to make progress. But Ruhtra, our GL, had managed to get the guild through Naxx during my absence, and now with a surge in interest in raiding amongst guildies, we have been able to attempt every current raid in WoW(in 10man form) as of today.

In the past two weeks, we have seen Naxx, Ulduar, Onyxia, Malygos, and ToC. And finished one :)

Quick summaries…

Naxx was 8 guildies, 2 pugged members. The first two wings, Spider and Plague, went by fast, even though the group was not taking anything seriously(people rushed into pulls, paid little attention to parts of strategy, did not pay attention to pats,etc). The dps was poor, and the only reason we made progress was the two tanks(myself and our guild's most experienced tank, Scrawny) were overgeared and competant and the heals were above average. Once we reached Construct and Military, this was not enough. Yes, we got through those two wings, but at the cost of a lot of time(3 hours), a lot of wipes(5), a lot of frustration, and you get the picture. We ended at Kel, after 6 hours and much pain. I will never allow any raid to go on that long and be that painful again. It is not worth it.

Malygos was bad. Very bad. There was a lot of learning done, but we did not have the time to continue to figure it out, and a limited number of people who'd actually done it. I'm sure a few more attempts we'll get that blue bastard down, but we could not get past P2. While we had some slightly better dps, we started to run into a new problem; members of the guild who did not/would not get Vent. I cannot understand this for the life of me. No excuse of "I don't have sound of my computer" or something along those lines is acceptable. If you want to raid, you make the effort. This is more than just having your flasks and reagents(don't get me started on reagents) ready to go. It involves the real life stuff. Don't decide to not eat all day and then grab dinner 5 minutes before the raid starts. Get your addons. I never realized how easier raiding is just adding two little bitty things; DBM and Omen. Everything else is just sugar coating. DBM literally cuts out most of the "luck" involved in raiding. If you have DBM, and have faster reflexes than a drugged sloth, all you then need is to understand the fight and your role. And you can clear the boss 85% of the time.

Onyxia is a simple fight. One tank stares at her feet, the other stares at her leg; everyone else stay away from her ass. She flies, ranged goes pew pew, melee and tanks pick up 4.9 million whelps, she comes down, repeat part one. Its not a hard fight. What DOES make it hard is when your best dps can't stop going DC and your two best healers follow her into Offlineland on the best pull you get. We have the gear and the fight is easy; she will go down on our next attempt, I'm sure.

ToC, we knew going in, was going to be a massacre. Half of the raid doesn't have the gear to be in there. Over half the raid had never been in there. And even the ones who had were not comfortable explaining the fights(which I don't blame them, none of them I think had experienced that fight in any but one role). So we wiped a lot. And surprisingly, it was not(mostly) the guild's fault. People did their researched, they listened to explainations, and they responded the best of their ability. Two problems happened. One, see my previous rant about Vent. Two, we had to pug people to fill up. And we got the worst deathtard ever. Ever.Ever. I will not go into great detail about this DK(I wanted to bust him out fully, but I can't remember his name…Sunnysomething). He was there in a few 200 epics, quest blues, and resiliance gear. He did 1200 dps. He could not follow instructions…because he wouldn't get on Vent. But while I think we're a long way away from finishing ToC(and I was asked to PuG tank ToC the next day and we finished it without a wipe with a group that was extremely prepared and experienced in ToC) I now see what it takes and I do think we can at the least down Northrend Beasts soon.

Finally, Ulduar, where we're actually showing our skill as raiders and our ability to learn and work as a cohesive team. We've done it twice now. First time we downed FL, Razor, and the X002 robot guy. In our signature MAS pattern, we wiped on our first attempt on all three, and easily downed the boss on the second try. Well maybe not easily, but competantly. The second try we had to pug a heals as our raid healing priest Sactor had to back out. We picked up a very very good priest who was an immense help; we pushed her boundries with our inexperience, laid back attitude, and several longer-than-necessary breaks, but we were fortunate to have her come. After a screwup on FL, we downed it again, one shotted Razor and X002-bot and then downed…Koralon? Big titan guy, I just stared at his beltbuckle for 10 minutes. After that our borrowed priest had to leave, and we called it an evening.

I'm so incredibly pleased that a guild of incredibly opinionated, alpha-type people are managing to make progress, being respectful to each other and working hard to do their part. We're making fast, noticible progress and hopefully it continues.


P.S.On a side note, on Sunday I was asked to PuG tank H ToC, which I took up cause I still need the damn shoulders from there. And lo and behold….Sunnysomething, the terribad DK. He was once again at the bottom of the dps charts, with about a 1200 dps again. He had the nerve to tell everyone, who was looking at the charts, "What's wrong, Ive been doing 2400". Now I've spent most of my life as an asshole. I admit it, I'm a smart guy, I've done fairly well in the professions I've had, and I've got a bit of pride. But my wife has done a good job of letting me know that just because I CAN be an asshole doesn't mean I HAVE to be an asshole. But one thing I abhor is liars. Lying liars make me very angry. If you have bad gear, and you suck at your role, but no one is calling you out on it and realizing that we're carrying you, just count your blessings, take the drops, and please figure out why you suck. But if you bring the attention on yourself by referencing your dps and why you DON'T suck, make sure there's not a particular pally tank there who's seen you suck in other places. So I called him on it, and he lied some more. So I called him on his lying, and his suckage on top of that. He started to cry, and ask why I was picking on him. But he refused to admit his lying, so then I really laid into him. Then he admitted that he just hit 80 and had done the 10 man raid ToC in greens…which was ANOTHER LIE. WE CHECKED YOUR GEAR! You sucked so bad then, we had to know why. Yes you were in shitty gear. No, it was not green. So I called him out on lying for THAT as well. I frustrated him so much he left the party as soon as the Black Knight was down…without getting his badges and seals. And that's what you get for being at the bottom of dps as a dk and lying about lying about lying about sucking and lying about sucking, you liar.