Upward Swing...

The past few weeks have been very very bumpy for my guild. Last week we barely even killed farm content. The guild itself is currently 6/6 4/4 4/5 4/9. Last week we managed to go 5/6 3/4 4/5 3/9. We degressed. We couldnt down Vashj, Kael, or TG. It was depressing. You could tell alot of people were affected by it.

We worked out the kinks with what little we could. Kicking healers that were getting out healed on boss encounters by shadow priests in shadow form, getting rid of bad dps, and working out the small flaws in our raid schedule...we were left short on people. There have been two days now that we did not raid due to healers not logging in. It did not settle well at all with many guild members. I honestly did not know how much longer the guild was going to last. We have developed quite the reputation, partly due to how we deal with people who mess up (usually resulting in a gkick or a removal of raids) and partly due to some people in the guild who became braggarts about our progression. I won't lie, I was one of those people. We had guilds attacking us, so we would throw in their face that we had already surpassed their progression. Were we in the right? Perhaps, perhaps not, but we were the new guild, thus we became the bad guys. It also does not help that many people do not like our raid leader. He is an asshole, but thats partly because his grasp of the English language is a bit off. I have heard him say things that were as rude as could be, and he did it without even knowing any better. Some people just cannot look past that.

We also worked out some issues with our loot system, with our officer system, and with the guild as a whole. I brought up the point that we needed more than just the three friends who created the guild to be put on loot council. I nominated the two people in the guild I felt knew the most about the classes they play and the game itself in general as well as people I did not see leaving the guild anytime soon, but this of course got me nominated. It was not a task I wanted. I've been the "titleless" guild leader and the raid leader, co raid leader, web admin, etc etc of a few guilds. I did not want the responsibility again.. but, I had no choice. I guess I have achieved the respect of too many people in the guild simply because of my nature of who I am to be able to hide from it. I deal with issues when I see them. I am usually that person behind the scenes exstinguishing the small fires that most guild leaders never get to see exist. We now have a very solid core group of officers and I feel the loot system is more stable than ever. We have not really had any complaints since...which is odd for a loot council. The last thing we fixed was our raid schedule. We were having problems with people not showing up on days they needed nothing from the raids scheduled, and only showing up for progression/bt/mh nights. So we switched to a chaos rotation. We designated our officer who shows up 5 minutes before the raid to determine at that moment where we are going. This way those that show up more often are rewarded and given chance at the progression kills rather than us taking those people who are more geared simply because they have all their farm content gear already and only want to log in for progression. I'll be the first to admit that I hate farm content. I was done with SSC after Lurker dropped my Mallet. After we downed Vashj the third time, I never wanted to step foot in that place again. However, I still show up every night, put in my effort of tanking for those people who need the drops, and sure..i complain a little bit, but I am still there doing my part.

This week, however, has been a blessing for us. One of the guilds that have been in BT for months broke up. This has opened the door for many many new healers to join us. It also opened our progression kills back up and moved us in the right direction. Our first night of raids, we cleared up farm bosses in bt/mh leaving only Azgalor and TG alive. Our second night, seeing as how we had 7 STRONG healers on for the first time in weeks... we put our attempts in on Archi. 40% was our best attempt which was not being seeing as how this was our actual first full night worth of attempts on him. I was impressed, and no one seemed to complain about the wiping. Everyone was excited to come back and down him. Last night, we got a nice kick in the face. Apparently someone has sold our Archimonde save to another guild notorious for stealing raid IDs. Go figure, huh? They cant down Brutallus, so they find it necessary to go back and bother other guilds. I wasn't even aware they even raided anymore to be honest. Another washed up guild that find it necessary to act like assholes because they downed Illidan. Oh well. We made sure that as a guild we did not let it bother us, and we moved on. We one shot Vashj and 4 shot Kael, ending the night in a high note and possibly ending the week since we are not raiding Sunday and possibly Monday due to the holidays and graduations.

I think last night was proof to the guild that we are still strong as a whole. We had about 25% of the raid new to the Vashj fight, and they all did a wonderful job. I was thoroughly impressed by it. We then moved on to Al'ar...and man...did I lose all that respect for the raid as we wiped on it once, and nearly twice. Void Reaver was just as bad. We lost over 50% of the raid on the last 10% because people pulled agro and died. Just goes to prove how much people wanted to be there for farm content. I was really edgy going in to Kael... but low and behold...even with over 60% of the raid never seeing the fight, only seeing part of the fight, etc etc... We four shot him. We would have 3 shot him, but at the beginning of phase 5, I forgot about the few seconds of him nuking before the gravity lapse, and so did my healers. I didn't have the mace buff and got two shot. Live and learn. This also brought about some argument in vent, which lead to our only resto shaman leaving the raid and logging out. He bailed on us, so we decided he was no longer needed. He was gkicked on the spot to prove a point to anyone else who wished to do it. We brought in our only semi-active tree druid...who had never done the fight before. Explained the fight to him in less than a minute, and proceeded to collect our vials and loot. It also showed the resto shaman, who later logged back in and asked for a re-invite that he was not our saving grace and that we really did not need him. Punishment ensued for him. We have all been there, gotten fed up with small things, and over reacted...but we all dealt with the consequences of our actions...and so shall he.

Other than that, thats how my wow life has been lately.

Outside of WoW, things have been crazy. My life has been so busy I rarely have time to stop and think anymore. I had to take a day off this week just to let me body settle down. My mind is constantly racing because of some stress that has been laid upon me. I found out a few days ago that I am further in debt that I knew. There is yet another college loan, that I had forgotten about, that caught up to me. Its a nice set back, thats for sure. Work has been working me extra hard lately as well. I work anywhere from 9-14 hours a day and raid 4-5 hours a night, leaving sleep to be the last thing time gets alloted for. I've had 3 hours of sleep in the past three days, and yet I am not even tired. I don't know what it is, but hopefully this weekend will give me a chance to catch up on the much needed R&R time. My cousin is graduating, so that gives me reason to step out into the real world and enjoy life some.

On a side note, perhaps I will also get time to work on the guide I started last week for Mount Hyjal Trash. Its in the rough format, but I hope it will be enough to help alot of people who have so many questions or struggle with the Hyjal trash. I know I have seen more than one person ask about it in shoutbox, so I figured I would write up a guide for how my guild deals with it and it will allow others to share how their guild does as well, thus giving tons of options out there for guilds to try or perhaps fine tune to better their own strategy.

Sorry for the long winded blog today. I had alot to say, alot to get off my chest. I feel much better now