Interregnum

Haven't written in a while 'cuz it's depressing.

We told Wodar that he'd need DBM to continue with us, but then we had a horrible day. Gizmo at 2.5k (minimum being 4k, average 5k); Aleon lowest healing despite it being a movement-heavy fight...

Rockness offered to join the guild and there was a unanimous vote to redo the roster. Wodar, Aleon, and Gizmo kicked off, and Tullison (DK) and Fluiddream (Moonkin) invited.

Then Fluid fails to show up to his first raid. Mity is also gone on vacation. We down 3 bosses (worse than average, which is 4). We fail to start up again later that week. Everyone's on vacation for Ski Week. We appear to be falling apart, in that I'm not sure I can keep everyone together for 2 weeks of bad raiding.

Shironi ended up getting a deal with a different guild: We merge, run our 10-mans with recruits from the other guild, and attend their 25-mans (sometimes). Seems good, in that we don't lose anything (other than our guild bank), and we gain recruits. Of course, it means we can't do our own 25's, and I probably can't make the guild 25's. But better than nothing. And that's the view from today.

Rotface at 10% - General Raid Criticism

Rotface at 10%. Rotface at 10%. What more to say? We nearly downed him, but failed.

Shironi wants me to be more open about criticizing people, so here goes:

Dechala, Gizmogearbob, Shaedine, and Rockness all did great. I don't think we noticed a single mistake the whole time (gizmo may've run into a slime spray what, once?)

We want Wodar to get DBM, but he didn't make mistakes on this fight and it's not necessary yet. Still, keep in mind... Festergut and beyond will probably require it.

Aleonushka has several problems, which hopefully are fixable; to summarize she heals like a paladin. Shironi frequently needs to help on raid heals (Disc priest ideally doesn't need to cast anything but shields on the raid, saving direct heals for the tanks). She doesn't heal well on the move (which is supposed to be a druid's strength) and she has a bit of trouble with mechanics.

What's the fix? She should have Grid and Decursive, for one. I don't know, but I suspect she doesn't, based on her time-to-dispel on Deathwhisper. Same as Wodar, raiding without addons is not going to be acceptable long-term. She needs to heal like a Druid; constantly spamming Rejuvenation on anyone with any health deficit. If people are reasonably topped, help out with Lifeblooms on the tank (without going over 3-stack). A reasonably geared resto druid shouldn't need to use Nourish except in near-wipe situations, rejuvenation and spot regrowths is enough. She's also slow on Rebirth, which can be the difference between winning and wiping on close fights. A rebirth'd DPS means more damage on bone spike, not just more damage on boss.

Rawlin was lazy, and that's unacceptable. He's constantly complaining, and at least 2 wipes could be attributed to him standing in slime spray.

Shironi had a couple problems with healing on the move and spray, and caused a wipe at least once; nothing repetitive though.

All DPS need to step it up. I don't know if it's gear (which is reasonable, as I have a 20-point average lead on everyone else) or something else, but we're doing 5.5k when we should be doing 7-9k. And as a druid I should not be doing highest DPS. As far as I know festergut is a low-movement fight so we should be able to gauge people's 'real' DPS (assuming that running around on Rotface was lowering it).

Loot and Roster Difficulties

We're faced with two problems at this juncture:

Our 10-man roster has 13 people (a problem we knew would occur at some point, the split between 10-man and 25-man raiding).

Our members want a fairer (read: benefits them more) loot system.

The roster is the harder problem, for me (loot will always be a problem, but we do the best we can).

The obvious solution is to kick out underperforming people. However, I don't consider any in our roster to be particularly bad; surely someone is worst and someone is best, but the difference isn't great enough to kick anyone. Furthermore, we *cannot* kick our tanks or healers (not only would Zeplar have to switch and fill in, at least 1 person affiliated with each tank/healer would also leave). This means we have 9 DPS to fill 6 spots.

I don't want to kick people off the team. For one, having extras is useful for when people can't make it. For two, I would want to keep personal friends (Connor, Brandon, Crystal) and that wouldn't be fair, plus Gizmo is more reliable than Crystal.

The solution I am going to propose in tomorrow's raid, which Shironi and Shaedine and I have talked over, is this:

Each week, the 10 people in our Raiding Roster will go to ICC. They are required to make at least 3 days (first wing and 2 progression days). At the end of the week (Monday), the group as a whole will decide who was the lowest performer. They will include DPS (damage compared to the other 5 DPS), survival (avoidable damage/deaths due to them), and excellence of role (switching targets on Deathwhisper, hitting bone spikes, kiting slimes on rotface). They will NOT include deaths or loss of DPS due to raid members (had to stop damage to avoid aggro, had to brez or help kite a beast, died because a tank messed up or a DPS blew up in your face).

The "Lowest Performer" will switch places with someone on the waiting list. If that person is good, they will avoid be "Lowest Performer" and will stay in the raid. Eventually, the worst people will all be cycling through the waiting list till they leave. If we're all relatively even, then people will tend to just cycle through the waiting list.

So that's the best I can do with the roster problem. Yes, some people will have to find their own raids. Yes, some people might leave us to become permanent members of another 10-man. There is no way to find a perfect solution though, you simply cannot fit 13 people into a 10-man.

One day we may have two 10-man groups, but still one will be superior to the other.

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The next problem up is loot. We're pretty balanced, unfortunately we don't have anyone on DPS or Holy plate gear. So far we've been doing luck-of-the-draw, you get to win 1 piece per night, resetting every night (one obvious permutation would be 1 piece per week).

The suggested change, to spread gear in a way more beneficial to the group, is as follows:

Greatest Upgrade: The person who benefits most, gets the piece. In order to avoid boosting, everyone is assumed to have at least the maximum gear they can get without raiding (232 for the most part, 245 for one trinket, ring, head, and shoulders).

Strengths: Regarding the raid as a single unit, the piece will make the biggest stat change (like upgrading rings, you want to replace the worse ring, not the better one).

Weaknesses: This system doesn't work well for PuGs, who either get boosted and "steal" gear from the raid, or don't get anything and have no reason to come.

This system encourages laziness and for people not to spend their Frost Emblems (spend it now, or wait till I get that shiny cape and then buy a tier piece).

First Wing on Farm

This is our second week clearing the first wing of ICC in 1 day; I think we can relegate it to Farm Status.

Marrowgar went simply enough, bone spikes went down very fast. I am ashamed to have nearly caused a wipe in the last 15% by pulling aggro after Whirlwind (one more difference in the fight to keep track of now that I'm DPS). Still, 7.5k DPS on 10-man, woot!
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Deathwhisper erased all the time we saved on marrowgar, taking nearly 45 minutes. We had DPS way too slow on adds, Shaedine disconnecting, Wodar missing adds. Hunters did great DPS on the shield, but we had to switch them with Dechala to get more deeps on adds.

Here I noticed Wodar's biggest tanking problem: He sticks too hard to his assignment. When I tank with Shaedine, we pull whatever's closest, and we keep all the adds under control. First attempt with Wodar, he and Shae fought over two adds while the third killed people. So I assigned him to 1 add while Shae took the other 2; when DPS was slow and two waves spawned, or Shae lost aggro, Wodar stuck stubbornly to his add and didn't pick up the loose ones.

After a while of Fanatics running around killing people, Wodar would go and taunt one... usually the same one Shae was on. Basically, he and Shae just don't work together as instinctively as myself.

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Gunship Battle went fine, of course, being the ridiculously easy fight that it is. I managed to jump on the enemy ship after it went down, and sailed away into Icecrown, before being despawned to an alternate universe that I had to be summoned back from. At this point Rawlin got all pissy over loot and refused to Need anything for the rest of the night, on the grounds that I don't like him or something. o_O

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Saurfang went surprisingly well, after Deathwhisper's fiasco; two wipes and we downed him, I think. Not only that, we downed him without a single mark being cast (as opposed to our other best attempt, in which Zelnick vanished the first mark). I think tanks got better at switching, and DPS got better at taking out hounds fast and getting back on the boss. Possibly we happened to be more spread out, reducing rage gained from Blood Nova.

Also, I noticed that Power Word: Shield by itself doesn't fully absorb the blood DoT. But, if I barkskin while I have it, then I don't take a single tick =D Other classes should use what defenses they have, paladins at least can Hand of Protection people.

What dropped? Cloth bracers, which pug Gizmogearbob won... Shironi wanted them, and Gizmo had "ninja'd" a staff in last week's raid, but I decided from his story that it was more of a misunderstanding.

My trinket from Deathwhisper dropped, but I gave it away to mity after the fight yesterday (over Blood Council or Rotface). Possibly a mistake, since it doesn't seem to have helped anything. Still waiting on the belt, before I just buy the Frost Emblem one. We didn't disenchant anything this run, thankfully.

Saturday we'll try our luck on Rotface. Hopefully Shae's internet is fixed, 'cause I want him kiting slimes (don't trust Wodar to do it right). I predict a few wipes at first, as people learn to cope with the AoE and kiting. We should be good as long as the Main Tank and Healers don't get slimes. If they do... Aleon can heal while running, but won't be as good at kiting. Shiro can probably kite, but he's limited to pretty much PW:S at the time.