An attempt at a hopeful tanking blog, as written by a warrior tank who is just starting the path to Ulduar, with looks into the past, into the present, and plans for the future, as a place those who are walking the same path can go to learn from the experiences of someone who came before them, and can inspire them to get through those all important levels that are so tough to get through alone.
Guild Woes
Posted 05-25-2009 at 08:44 AM by Karisita
Yes I'm a couple days late. The weekend was a long one, so I had to get my enjoyment in while I could. It's been rough too, but I'll live.
My guild is starting to suffer a bit, I mean it's not my guild - not at the moment, but my fiancee is growing increasingly frustrated. She was recruiting member after member after member before, and yeah, some of 'em didn't come back, but we wound up kicking them after three months of not being online once. But she's charismatic that way. She pulls in the members, like Azuremist, she got the first day we were open, she's actually a charter member if I remember right... and Banthermar ... some of our most charismatic and leadership-worthy people. I try, but somehow, I just don't get the people she does. Sure I managed to get Dragonshadow, but he left later for a chance to do more raiding.
Which brings me to my point. I really want to get started raiding, it's just not happening though. We don't have the people for even ten mans, and we can't get the people online at the same time to even do heroics. We've got a tree and a rogue that we're trying to get to 80, they're at 74 and 76 respectively, and then we have the unenviable job of gearing them. I'm afraid we're starting to get lost in the shuffle, that we don't have much longer to go. And that scares me because I love the people we DO have, Luminassa, Rougas, Laurithian, Banthermar, Azuremist, Selfpity, everyone really, they're all great people, I can't think of one that I don't like. At least, not since we got rid of Lesttat. Cocky bastard thinks he can do anything he wants and he'll be fine. We went back to stomp MgT once, and he was just running up to mobs and pulling groups of five and six that all turned, looked at him, waited for the frost nova to wear off, then killed him in one five man coordinated strike. All the while he was swearing he was fine. (then I picked them all up and tanked them after he was dead leaving him as the only one that died... thank god for intimidating shout.)
Not much news on the tanking front, I finally finished up my ore grind for 450 bsing.... of course why I tunnel visioned on that I don't know.
Any case, I think I'm gonna go in and pug some heroics.
My guild is starting to suffer a bit, I mean it's not my guild - not at the moment, but my fiancee is growing increasingly frustrated. She was recruiting member after member after member before, and yeah, some of 'em didn't come back, but we wound up kicking them after three months of not being online once. But she's charismatic that way. She pulls in the members, like Azuremist, she got the first day we were open, she's actually a charter member if I remember right... and Banthermar ... some of our most charismatic and leadership-worthy people. I try, but somehow, I just don't get the people she does. Sure I managed to get Dragonshadow, but he left later for a chance to do more raiding.
Which brings me to my point. I really want to get started raiding, it's just not happening though. We don't have the people for even ten mans, and we can't get the people online at the same time to even do heroics. We've got a tree and a rogue that we're trying to get to 80, they're at 74 and 76 respectively, and then we have the unenviable job of gearing them. I'm afraid we're starting to get lost in the shuffle, that we don't have much longer to go. And that scares me because I love the people we DO have, Luminassa, Rougas, Laurithian, Banthermar, Azuremist, Selfpity, everyone really, they're all great people, I can't think of one that I don't like. At least, not since we got rid of Lesttat. Cocky bastard thinks he can do anything he wants and he'll be fine. We went back to stomp MgT once, and he was just running up to mobs and pulling groups of five and six that all turned, looked at him, waited for the frost nova to wear off, then killed him in one five man coordinated strike. All the while he was swearing he was fine. (then I picked them all up and tanked them after he was dead leaving him as the only one that died... thank god for intimidating shout.)
Not much news on the tanking front, I finally finished up my ore grind for 450 bsing.... of course why I tunnel visioned on that I don't know.
Any case, I think I'm gonna go in and pug some heroics.
Total Comments 4
Comments
-
It's harsh getting a guild going from scratch man, I tried back in BC with a couple of friends. If you are desperate to get raiding (and/or the rest of the guild is getting twitchy about it) then you have a few options:
A) Approach another guild to ask if you can borrow a couple of people to help you out. This works really well if you either know someone in the other guild who can put a word in for you, or they are suffering similar problems to you. Even fairly elite guilds have alts that they wouldn't mind running, so long as they aren't egotistical asshats.
B) Merge, absorb or be absorbed into another guild. Two guilds struggling to make a 10man raid each can probably make a very solid ten man between them. Or you can be absorbed by a larger guild already doing raids, in which case you lose the guild (sad face, it hurt when I did it) and your officerhood, but you can play with your friends in a raiding environment.
C) Take a measure of where your core people are at. Sometimes they'll suprise you by how patient they are. I have played with some trully amazing players (including a shaman who solo healed Sarth+3 10man) who were happy to stay in a small, struggling guild cause they liked the atmosphere and didn't want to deal with a lot of the bs that gets slung around in the big guilds. If your core is happy to wait and help out, then keep recruiting. I figure it takes about 3 recruits to effectively fill one raid spot, unless you get lucky and get yourself someone 100% reliable.
Finally, I really hope you guys pull through. It really sucks when something you put a lot of time and heart into like a guild gets worn down by the fickleness of WoW.Posted 05-25-2009 at 08:17 PM by Baelaron
Updated 05-25-2009 at 08:21 PM by Baelaron -
Slightly different scenario as we’ve been raiding since last year, but somewhat relevant & aimed at cheering you up….
As a GM the largest pressure I feel is keeping raids going. I'm always keeping an eye on attendance trends, because I believe a sure way to break a guild apart & lose your best players is cancelled raids & bored core raiders.
We started this guild the day Wrath launched due to being unhappy with our previous guild's management. After months of consistent raids, once Ulduar release day was announced we faced the inevitable pre-xpac number shortages. Luckily, it wasn’t too severe. We'd end up taking 4-5 who I wouldn't call 'strong' raiders, and sometimes a couple of empty slots.
So I made the decision to not wait for, nor rely on, the raiders that weren't putting in. There was no way I wanted to be sidelined once Ulduar landed, hence a mass recruit with the intention of putting everyone's raid slot up for grabs. Members were duly notified of such raid spot insecurity & that we would be recruiting until such time as we had 25 pro raiders turning up at all times.
Thanks to the gods of WoW and the guild having a solid name for itself, I actually found a great bunch of solid players who've been the breath of fresh air we didn't realise we needed, and it's a joy to raid with them all.
We also partially absorbed another guild that’d had some time off raiding – which had opened them up to the bigger guilds poaching numbers from them. Their GM had friends in our guild and liked how we worked, so he approached me in game & offered up a list of names that he considered worthy to vouch for as recruits since they no longer had enough numbers.
Ironically enough we've also ended up with several people (old & new) from our last guild as it was collapsing (perfect timing for us & the defectors). I have an officer of said guild wanting to raid with us, not that we have ANY spare raid spots these days!
Moral of this somewhat sidetracked story: hang in there, and as the above poster mentions, check out where your cores’ heads are at. I'm fortunate enough to have an amazing core base, that would likely stick through anything and welcomed the incoming masses (at least it felt that way) with open arms. If your core base is the same as mine then just know that you can bounce back in the blink of an eye!Posted 05-25-2009 at 10:45 PM by Tygorl - I think our boys can hang around ... I appreciate all the great stories and input, it's really starting to make this blog successful at what I intended it to be, thanks to everyone for contributing!Posted 05-26-2009 at 02:18 PM by Karisita
- ::Sigh:: I had the same issue.. well in a way. We got an amazing group of people.. they were all in the guild for a while. Once ulduar came out we were trying to gear everyone so we could hit up some 25 mans. Well, the people who had the gear didnt wanna wait. Even though we got all the gear they had for them. I tried very hard to keep everyone happy, to set raids in the calendar for each week, I did as much as I could to get people the gear they needed. And also posted every tankspot video I could on our web page, but gear hungry people left and tried to get in the "raid" guilds. A few were un happy because there was no fun in the game.. it was more like a job. Most of them quit playing all together. The only thing you can really do is try to have more meetings so people can talk about everything, and also ask some of the people you like and who you thing are good people to start looking for members. You will find that the people who really care about the guild will do w/e they can. And if you only have that one core group.. no matter who comes and who stays you should do ok. Keeo your head up! You could also talk to the GM of another guild and do some duel guild runs till you have enough for your own. Show em how you raid and everything =)Posted 05-27-2009 at 08:37 AM by Missnowflake
