Tag Archives: apotheosis

Looking for More

Posted on May 6, 2013 | 1 Comment

Apotheosis is recruiting!

We are an Alliance 25-man raiding guild on Eldre’thalas.

We are specifically seeking healers and ranged dps:

  • Resto Shaman (seriously, I’d like to keep one for more than 3 weeks)
  • Resto Druid (someone who reads this blog must want to come play with me… please? I’m lacking a resto buddy.)
  • Mistweaver Monk
  • Warlock
  • Plus 1 or 2 other ranged dps, open to pretty much any class

We raid 9 hours a week – Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, from 9pm ET until midnight. We are currently 1/13 heroic in Throne of Thunder. If you are an awesome healer or ranged dps and want to kill some new bosses with us, come apply. 

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Druid, Guilds, Monk, Shaman, Throne of Thunder

Tagged , , , , , ,

Anatomy of a Raiding Guild: Extracurriculars

Posted on March 12, 2013 | 1 Comment

There’s more to a raiding guild than just raids. Yes, raids are the main reason a lot of people play the game, but they’re not always the best venue for getting to know your guildmates and at times they can be more work than play. Group activities outside of raiding are a really good way to keep people engaged with the guild and the rest of the people in it.

At the beginning of the expansion Apotheosis wasn’t doing as much together outside of raiding than we had previously, which was unfortunate. There was just so much to do to be prepared for raids – dailies, rep grinding, farming, valor capping – plus a lot of new solo things to do like pet battles. By the time people did all that, many didn’t have the time or inclination to do a whole lot else. As the first tier of raiding was winding down, people had the time and energy to arrange and participate in more events with their guildmates and it has been a blast.

Here are some of the things the people in Apotheosis have been doing to entertain ourselves.

Challenge Modes

On Saturdays we have a couple challenge mode groups running. We use rotating groups, so everyone can get in on the action and get some medals. It’s a great source of valor and it’s really fun and challenging to work as a team in smaller groups. Since the groups change from week to week we aren’t really pushing for golds, but I’m hoping we can get titles and phoenixes for everyone who wants them. I’m also hoping that the experience everyone gets on these more laid-back runs will give them the motivation to make their own consistent groups and go for golds.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! (Brawler’s Guild)

Sunday afternoons a bunch of us meet up in the Deeprun Tram for some Brawler’s Guild. We all get on Mumble to chat, share strategies and cheer each other on as we try to beat everything Gizmo can throw at us. I know Brawler’s Guild was sold as a solo PVE activity, but being grouped for matches is a great bonus since we can get fully buffed up and have the spectators act as coaches. Sure, having ~10 people from our guild alone makes for longer queues, but having people to chat with makes it much more fun. These have been temporarily put off as most people have completed all ranks or have hit a brick wall but they’ll start up again soon, once people get a bit more gear. For now, people are doing old raids on Sunday instead.

Apoth After Dark

Friday night – grab a drink (or 6) and get on Mumble for some drunken ridiculousness. We rampage through old raids, have battles in the Gurubashi Arena, do scavenger hunts and races, play hide & seek (or Sardines, which is a name I had never heard before) and wake up not knowing why we are pantsless in the Dalaran sewers. What better way to get to know your guildmates than to get them drunk so they say things you can hold against them later? Just kidding.

Alt run

Monday night is the alt run. This gives some the people who want to raid more than 3 nights a week something to do and also allows some of the people in our non-raiding ranks to get in on raids.

Rated Battlegrounds

Wednesdays are RBG night. We did a lot of these in Cata, and got up to around an 1800 rating. We’re just starting them up again this week, hopefully we can do even better.

IRL

A lot of our guild members have met each other outside of the game. We’ve got a large group who live in or around Toronto, and we see each other regularly. We’ve also had people meet up at BlizzCon, or meet guildmates while traveling. I’ve met 13 people currently active in the guild (soon to be 15!)

Thanks to Sara, Serrath, Slout, Tikari, Zelix, Jaymz, Merk – the people who came up with these ideas and make them run smoothly.

What kinds of things does your guild do together?

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Guides

Tagged , , ,

Anatomy of a Raiding Guild: Evaluation

Posted on March 7, 2013 | 1 Comment

For me, one of the best things about raiding with Apotheosis is the quantity and quality of reviewing and discussion that takes place. We’re not shy about giving feedback.

Applicant Evaluation

We have a public application forum. After an app is posted, everyone in the guild can see it and ask the app questions. We also create a thread that is visible only to members where people are encouraged to comment on the application. I’m not an expert on every class and spec, so I rely a lot on the feedback from other raiders when making a decision on whether to have the applicant move on to a Mumble interview, and whether to accept or decline them after that.

Initiate Evaluation

Applicants we invite to the guild as Initiates are given a 9 raid trial to show us what they can do. During the trial period their role lead sends them written feedback every 3 raids. The feedback addresses the things we’re pleased with, the things they need to improve on and advice on how to improve performance. Each initiate also has an Initiate Review thread, visible only to full members of the guild. Just like with the app review threads, people are encouraged to give feedback on how initiates are doing – not just their performance, also things like how they’re fitting into the guild. The feedback collected here is often incorporated into the weekly reviews.

Once an Initiate has completed their 9 raids, the officers vote on whether to promote them to Raider, decline them, or extend their trial by 3 raids.

Raider Analysis

Raiders get formal, written feedback on their performance from their role lead fairly regularly. We initially intended to do these monthly, though it’s working out to be more like every 2 months for most raiders. Writing reviews for ~10 people in the case of our melee and ranged leads is pretty time-consuming.

For healing reviews, I tend to be pretty specific. I have enough knowledge of each healing class to go into a fair amount of detail. I will usually pick 1 or 2 raid nights and look closely at how each healer did on each fight. Things I look at include:

  • Overall healing output
  • How much they healed the people they were assigned to
  • Spell usage
  • Cooldown use (output cooldowns, mana cooldowns, damage mitigation cooldowns)
  • Any avoidable damage taken or deaths
  • I look at healthstone and potion usage, but it’s not something I put a whole lot of emphasis on

I’ll give each healer a brief synopsis for each fight, like this:

H. Stone Guard
Your overall healing on this fight was great, and you did a good job focusing on the tank you were assigned to. Your use of output cooldowns was good, but you only used Barkskin once in a 5-minute fight. You could definitely be using it more often. You took 5 ticks of Amethyst Pools, that’s not terrible, but it could be better. You did a good job at helping to clear Cobalt Mines when it was safe to do so.

Once I’ve given a mini review for each fight, I try to sum up with some general observations of strengths and weaknesses, like:

Your healing output is very strong, especially on fights with a lot of raid damage. You maximize your use of output cooldowns and use Ironbark often. You’re very good at providing extra utility on certain fights (helping to knockback/control adds, using HotW to help with burst dps while healing requirements are low). You do take a bit more avoidable damage than I’d like to see though – watch out for that. Your use of Barkskin can also be improved.

Each officer has their own style and things they like to focus on, so the reviews for healers, melee, ranged and tanks all look a bit different. If you want to see the kind of feedback our melee gets, Tikari has done a post about it.

In addition to this formal feedback, raiders receive more instant feedback when there’s an issue, whether it’s in a whisper, in their role channel or via PM.

We do have one gap in the review process though – no one reviews the role leads! Three of our officers are healers, so 2 of them do get feedback from me, but I don’t get any feedback myself. We should probably come up with a process to review each other or seek out raiders to give us some feedback on our performance every once in a while.

Raid Reviews

After every raid, the RL posts a raid review thread with a link to the World of Logs report for the evening and some comments on how the raid went. Everyone is encouraged to add their feedback on the raid – things we could do better, suggestions for strategy changes, problems they had – anything they think will increase understanding of the fight or make the raid go more smoothly next time. I should elaborate on that. Everyone is encouraged to add their constructive feedback. Finger-pointing and complaining is definitely not encouraged, or appreciated when it happens. We’ve got a lot of people who are very strategic and give very good suggestions on things we can change to do better. I find these threads very helpful. Not only do we often get suggestions that we incorporate into our strategies, but they also really expand my knowledge of the fight, especially in areas other than healing.

End of Tier Survey

This is something that Kurn did in Cataclysm and I thought it was a really good idea (but not always fully executed). At the end of Tier 14 I put up a survey for all of our raiders so they could share their feedback on the guild. It covers a lot – satisfaction with progression, recruitment process, raid organization, activities outside of raids. People are asked to rate the raid leader, GM, and their role lead. Once I’ve received all the feedback I plan to compile it, share it and address any issues that were brought up. Then we can try to fix the things people are less happy about and hopefully make our T15 experience more enjoyable for everyone.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Guilds

Tagged ,

Anatomy of a Raiding Guild: GM

Posted on March 5, 2013 | 4 Comments

This post is going to be less about factual information like the last post and more about me airing my neuroses about my role in the guild. Enjoy!

So what does a guild leader do? I think it can change from guild to guild. I’ve only been a GM for 5 months. When Kurn stepped away from Apotheosis, we all knew there would be pretty big shoes to fill. I volunteered for the GM role for a few reasons. First, I thought I was a good choice as a figurehead – I’m fairly visible in the WoW community which is good for recruitment and maintaining a good guild reputation. Second, as Kurn put it, I’m “not controversial”. I can stay neutral and calm in tough situations and I don’t piss people off too often. As far as I know, at least. Third, I’m willing and able to put lots of time and effort into the guild, whether in game or out.

There are a number of big differences between Kurn and I that have been (and still are) a bit difficult to overcome. Kurn basically did everything – GM, raid lead, rosters, strats, raid reviews, healing lead (until she gave that job to me), she did office hours for a few hours every week where people could come chat, she was always posting walls of text on the forums about changes or log dives or something. Her thought was that it’s easier to do everything herself rather than have to chase other people to do them.

As I said, I’m willing to put a lot of time and effort into the guild, but I’m not willing to put all of my time into the guild. Delegation is necessary. I’m also not nearly as vocal as Kurn, which I think can be an issue at times. I’m quiet and shy, in life and in game. I don’t really have that “hey, I’m the leader, I need to talk to fill the empty air and keep people on track” kind of mindset. In raids I’m most comfortable not talking much. I’ll call out healer cooldowns when necessary, occasionally call out other things that I think are helpful, but I mostly leave the talking in raid to the raid leader. I do communicate a lot on the forums though. I’m very opinionated about most guild-related things so I’m not shy about weighing in on review threads, or reminding people about raider responsibilities or be constructive.

To me, one of the best things about the current incarnation of Apotheosis is that responsibilities are clearly divided among the officers rather than 90% of things falling on one person. Each role lead is really responsible for their own people. They give feedback, they send PMs when there’s a problem, and the people in that role go to their lead when they have an issue. I think this is far superior to having one person responsible for communicating with everyone all the time. Anyone can come to me if they need to talk, but in general, having our raiders “split” among officers works out really well.

One thing I have trouble reconciling as GM is the idea of how much work I should be doing. When Kurn was around, or even in my old Horde guild, the GM and Raid Leader were one person. That meant they were omnipresent – always the most visible and vocal person in the guild by far. I really do think that splitting the roles is a good idea – that’s just so much work for one person to do on their own. However, it leaves me feeling a little unsure about my own place in the guild. For me, the raid leader is the most important person in a raiding guild and the person with the hardest job. That, combined with the responsibilities the role leads have taken on sometimes makes me feel a bit superfluous within the guild. Like I could disappear tomorrow and no one would notice anything but the fact that we were down a healer. Then we get 4 new apps in a week, a new boss kill and our RL is too busy to post raid plans and I stop feeling like that.

Here’s the list of things I consider my GM responsibilities (healing lead responsibilities were in the last post):

Dealing with applicants
After Sara has found us applicants, I take over the process.

  • Respond to every applicant and ask them questions
  • Seek feedback from other guild members familiar with the app’s class, weigh all the feedback received to decide how to proceed
  • Schedule interviews with the apps we are interested in
  • Interview potential apps (with other officers/raiders)
  • Extend invites to the applicants we want and turn down those we don’t 
  • Give feedback to declined apps when requested
  • Send welcome messages to all new Initiates and tell them important information (who their role lead is, where they can find important posts on the forums, etc.)

Forums
A lot of administrative-type stuff here.

  • Keep the front page updated with kill shots, progress and our recruitment needs
  • Keep the forums neat, move or delete old threads
  • Make sure everyone has the proper forum permissions
  • Deactivate spammer accounts
  • Keep policy posts up to date and post about any changes or important things happening

Raids

  • Primary lootmaster
  • As I said above, I tend to keep quiet in raids unless I feel there’s something important that needs to be pointed out
  • 3rd string raid leader (in the very rare occurrence that Serrath and Tikari are both absent)
  • Raid goals/plans – in the latter half of this tier I started to get pushier about our raid plans for the week and being more aggressive about killing new content

General guild stuff

  • I’m supposed to be the one who upholds the guild’s behavior/ language rules, though Tikari usually handles those things. I tend to be a bit oblivious to things that are potentially offensive, and he jumps on them first. 
  • Suggest changes to policies, weigh in on changes suggested by others.
  • Communicate with guild members. I’m always open to feedback, comments and complaints from guild members, though I don’t get a whole lot of them. People mainly come to me to let me know about RL issues that will interfere with raiding or to let me know they need to step down from raiding. (Please, someone just start PM’ing me with what you did today or something, all I ever hear is bad news).
  • Fill gbank requests

Officers

  • Make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to anything guild or raid-related
  • Mediate any issues
  • Poke the role leads when it’s time for raider reviews
  • Help out when another officer is too busy – doing things like posting raid plans and strats.

I do tend to work in the background a lot, so I get the feeling some people don’t really see me as the guild leader (or at least not as a strong guild leader). I’m going to try to work on speaking up more, I’m still working on figuring all this GM stuff out.

I’m not the easiest person to get to know, so here are some fun facts about Jasyla, the GM.

I love it when:
- People add constructive feedback to raid, app and initiate review threads
- Other people ask applicants questions
- I don’t have to be the lootmaster
- People are chatty in Mumble during raids and keep the atmosphere fun (at the appropriate times, of course)
- People share good ideas for things to do as a guild outside of raids

I don’t like:
- Snark in the forums, especially review threads. Criticism that is not constructive, or is not at all timely, makes me want to punch things.
- Having to police things people say in guild
- Negative attitudes in raids

I need to get better at:
- Enforcing guild policies directly
- Being more vocal in raids and in general
- Being more approachable so people will talk to me when they have a concern

I wish:
- More people would talk to me when they have concerns or suggestions
- Raiders would stop having babies

There they are! All my secrets about what I do as GM and how I feel about the job. I’d love to hear from other GMs who are not also raid leaders – what do you think about your role in your own guild?

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Guilds

Tagged , ,

Anatomy of a Raiding Guild: Overview and Officers

Posted on March 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Today I’m going to venture into some writing territory that is new for me. I’m going to talk about guild leadership and organization. I think it’s a really interesting topic, and I like hearing about how other guilds operate, so I’m going to share a bit about how Apotheosis does things.

The basics

Apotheosis is primarily a raiding guild. We do lots of other things, but raiding is our focus.

We have a 75% raid attendance requirement and we usually have a raiding roster of about 30-33 people. We strive to have:
- 3 tanks
- 8 healers
- 10-11 melee
- 11-13 ranged

We want a big enough roster that we can still field a full group when vacations and personal absences line up poorly, but we don’t want a roster so big that we have 10 raiders sitting on the bench every fight. We have never had to cancel a raid at the last minute due to a lack of people. We occasionally cancel a raid in advance (like when holidays fall on raid days, or half the raid is going to BlizzCon), but other than that, if a raid is scheduled it’s going to happen.

We have approximately 60 active, non-raiding members of the guild. All of our non-raiding members are either people who raided with us at one point but retired, or friends and family. We only invite potential raiders or people with personal affiliations within the guild.

We raid 25s three nights a week for a total of 9 hours. We are very strict about our 25-man designation – we never drop down to 10s to get new kills in current content.

How successful are we? At the end of Tier 14 we are 8/16H. WoWProgress has us ranked 1105 out of all guilds and 188 out of all 25-man guilds in the US. WP has tracked 15,549 total guilds and 1393 25-man guilds who had killed a boss in the US. Of course, I’m sure not all of those guilds are still active, but taking the numbers at face value puts us in the top 7% of total guilds and the top 13% of 25s. I’d love to have had 1 or 2 more heroic kills, but considering our rather limited 9-hour raid schedule, I think we are doing pretty well.

I think we strike a good balance between having a successful raid and providing a pleasant environment to play in. We have rules around behaviour and language – a few choice words and slurs are verboten and we want people to be respectful of each other. However, we’re not above filling Mumble with discussions about penises and bear butts while we’re clearing trash or buffing up before a boss pull >.> We’re serious about killing bosses, but we also like to keep things light and have fun.

Ranks

We have the following ranks:

  • Guild Leader
  • Bank – There’s only one character in this rank, Apothbank. This is the character used to buy/sell things on the AH to keep the gbank stocked. This character is the only one (aside from the GM) who can withdraw gold from the guild bank.
  • Officer
  • Officer alts – The only reason we have a separate rank for this is so officers can ginvite and access the bank without having to be on their main character.
  • Veteran – People who have raided with us continuously for at least 1 year. Veterans can invite people to the guild. We currently have 9 people in this rank.
  • Raider – This one’s self-explanatory
  • Initiate – People on trial to become raiders
  • Member – People who once raided with us, but have stepped down
  • Friend – Friends of raiders or members of the guild
  • Alts

Officer roles

Apotheosis has 6 officers, each of whom have specific roles in guild and in raids. The main officer roles in guild are: raid leader, recruitment, melee lead, ranged lead, tank lead, healer lead, bank admin, lootmaster, and GM. Since there are so many responsibilities a few people have multiple roles to play.

Here’s what our officers are responsible for:

Serrath
Raid leader

  • Creating and posting raid strategies
  • Posting the raid plans for each week
  • Creating the roster for each raid and determining what swaps will happen
  • Making calls during raids and addressing problems with strategy or execution
  • Posting a raid review thread after every raid
  • Log dives to discover problem areas

Serrinne
Recruitment officer

  • Finding applicants
  • Posting and updating our recruitment blurb on the official forums
  • Posting in the threads of people looking for guilds that suit our requirements
  • Talking to potential apps and answering their questions

Other responsibilities:

  • Filling gbank requests
  • Back-up lootmaster
  • Healthstone reminder service

Tikari
Melee lead – Role leader description below
Bank admin

  • Ensures bank is stocked with consumables and gear enhancements for raiders
  • Coordinates weekly EP drives (chooses the donation items, collects them, updates EP)
  • Sells excess items in bank (patterns, BoEs, etc.) to keep funds up
  • Fills gbank requests

Other responsibilities:

  • Back-up raid leader
  • Mid-raid log dives (for problems that need to be identified and fixed immediately)

Slout
Ranged lead – Role leader description below

Chronis
Tank lead – Role leader description below

Jasyla
Healing lead – Role leader description below

Role lead responsibilities:

  • Is the primary point of contact for any feedback, suggestions and complaints for raiders and initiates in their role group
  • Represents members of their role in strategy discussion
  • Centrally involved in the interview and feedback process for new applicants and initiates in their role
  • Keeps Initiates informed of the status of their trial
  • Provides feedback to people in their role. This includes both formal, written feedback on performance at certain intervals along with more instant feedback on performance (and possibly behavior) when required
  • Gives specific assignments during raids (interrupts, stuns, cooldowns, target switches, etc.)
  • Live calls during raids when required

Things that all officers have input in:

  • Adding new/revising existing guild policies
  • Whether to accept or decline new applicants
  • Promotion of initiates
  • Deciding our recruitment needs
  • Weekly raid plans
  • Suggesting changes to raid strategy or roster

That’s the basic information about what Apotheosis is about and how responsibilities are divided up.

Oh, hey, I haven’t talked at all about what the GM does. That’s a topic for tomorrow!

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Guilds

Tagged , ,

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Posted on February 25, 2013 | 6 Comments

Last night, Apotheosis killed Will of the Emperor on 25-man Heroic mode. It was, without a doubt, the most difficult fight we had encountered this tier. Hell, it was probably the most difficult fight we had ever encountered as a guild. I know it may just seem that way since it’s fresh in my memory, but I’m pretty sure it was tougher to execute than Heroic Spine or Blackhorn by the time we got to them, and nothing from T11 or 12 that we tackled (we didn’t really work on H. Ragnaros) sticks out as being this hard.

It took us more than 100 attempts over 7 raid nights to get this boss down. We changed strats often. Kill Rages 8 at a time, kill every pack, now back to 8. The strategy that finally worked for us was to kill packs of 4 or 8 during the first round then CC and kill all 12 at a time in between each add break period.

Heroic Will is a complex fight that requires a ton of organization. We need a CC order any time we’re controlling Rages. We need 4 tanks (2 on bosses and 2 on Strengths). We need slows assigned to Courages. Every dps needs a primary target (Rages? Courages? Strengths? Bosses?), then they need a secondary target when theirs isn’t up or is being CC’d. We need assigned Spark soakers. Hunters can soak every pack of Rage Sparks, the Strength tanks can soak their Sparks, a Rogue and Moonkin can soak the Courage Sparks – oh but wait, the Moonkin’s won’t be up for the middle one, he’ll need externals or a backup soaker. Then we need extra backups to Soak in case anything gets missed. The only part of this fight that did not require an inordinate amount of organization was the healing, for which I am grateful.

On top of the organization, execution needs to be pretty close to perfect. Lose focus for one second and stand too close to a Spark – you’re dead. Dance with the boss and mistime the swings – you’re dead. Stand next to a pack of Rages who are rooted – you’re dead. Pop your cooldown a second too late or early while soaking Sparks – you’re dead. Strength gets away from its tank and does a smash – a few people are likely dead. A second late on your Ring of Frost or Gorefiend’s Grasp on the Rages – they go everywhere and soon everyone is dead.

The thing about this fight I didn’t like was that it really required some degree of class stacking. When I asked people for tips when we were going into this fight, having a couple DKs for Gorefiend’s Grasp to control the Rages was always mentioned. Problem – we have one DK on our roster. I’m really not a fan of bringing alts into raids. I don’t think we should have to, and I don’t think it’s fair to anyone. However, after nights of failed attempts, I finally gave in and we had one of our Monk healers switch to his DK (whom he had raided on throughout Cata). We still had a ways to go after this, but controlling Rages got much better. Killing the Rages and soaking the Sparks is 100x easier when each pack can be gripped into one spot – which is something that couldn’t be done with only one DK. The fight also requires a lot of Spark soakers. Hunters are optimal since they have a 100% deflection every minute. Shadow Priests are good too, though their cooldown is longer. Rogues can soak well. Feral Druids and Monks are good for soaking single Sparks. Through Symbiosis, Resto and Balance Druids can soak as well. Apoth has 2 Hunters, 1 Shadow Priest, 1 Rogue, 1 Feral, 1 Resto Druid, 1 Balance Druid. One night, both of our Hunters were unable to raid. Result? We were unable to even attempt to do Will. We probably could have worked out a complex rotation of Rage Spark soakers but it would have left us no backups and no room for error. I really wasn’t a fan of the roster restrictions this fight put on us.

This fight really wore on people. Spending whole raid nights where our attempts didn’t progress past the 4-minute mark because of a couple mistakes got frustrating quickly. The fight was exhausting and tired people make more mistakes. There was one point when I even considered whether to not we were capable of succeeding on this fight as a guild. Had we met our skill cap? When Bashiok said 5.2 was going to be released on February 26th I thought about how absolutely soul-crushing it would be for guild morale if we spent all this time on this fight and didn’t get a kill.

Thankfully, we had not reached our skill cap, and it felt pretty damn amazing to finally see those bastards go down and see the Cutting-Edge raid achievement pop up on my screen. I’m really proud of my guild for their persistence – fighting through a non-optimal roster, adapting to strategy changes until we found one that worked for us, not losing focus after a heartbreaking 800k wipe.

For me personally, Heroic Will was full of ups and downs. At first I was excited about the amount of utility I could offer the raid. Aside from knockbacks, and options for CC, HotW could let me help on dps during breaks, I could Symbiosis a hunter and Deterrence would let me help soak Sparks. But there was a problem. I was bad at soaking Sparks. No, I wasn’t just bad – I was fucking terrible. I’d use Deterrence too early and it would wear off before I hit the last Spark. Over our first two raid nights this happened a lot. Way too much. In my eagerness to help, I was only succeeding in killing myself half the time. I felt awful and like a complete and total failure. Hearing our raid leader sigh and say “Please rez Jasyla” so many times was terrible. Thankfully, I got better. Actually, that’s probably not the truth of it. The thing that made the biggest difference was that our controlled killing of Rages got much better. They died closer together, Sparks spawned closer together, Hunters were able to get them all without the need for backups. By our latter attempts I only occasionally had to soak 1 stray Spark on its own, and that I could handle.

If I can put aside my Spark shame for a moment, I’m pretty happy with how I did on our actual kill. (However, if you’re watching our kill video, ignore the part where I need a rez). I felt really useful. My healing was good. I never stopped moving as I bounced between our two Strength tanks, healing them up when they soaked a Spark. I was able to do a couple million damage with HotW during one of the break periods (in between running between the Strength tanks). I picked up Mass Entanglement and helped to control the first set of Rages after each break, affording our Mages some more dps time on the boss before they had to start CC’ing. I used Ursol’s Vortex to help CC later on. I even soaked a stray Spark (on purpose, without it killing me).

It was certainly a rough ride, but I’m so happy we managed to complete this really challenging fight. I feel more confident and more excited about entering T15 with Heroic Will under our belts. 

→ 6 Comments

Posted in Achievements, Boss Fights, Observations, Raiding

Tagged , , , , ,

Three Years

Posted on December 30, 2012 | 6 Comments

It’s that time again. With the holidays comes yet another blogging anniversary. I’ve now been at this for 3 years. I usually take this time to talk a bit about how many posts I’ve written and comments I’ve received throughout the year. This year, WordPress has done it for me (isn’t that nice?).

I certainly got a lot more visits than I did in previous years, though my rate of posting was a little slow this year with only 51 new posts. You’d think since I was unemployed for 10 months I’d have all the time in the world to write blog posts, but with a great amount of spare time came a great lack of motivation.

Judging by my most visited posts this year and the search terms people find me with most often, Druids really like their gear lists! To be completely honest, gear is my least favourite thing to write about, but I’m happy people find those posts useful.

Next year I hope to pick up my posting pace a little and try to write at least a post a week. I want to update my World of Logs guides for healers early in the new year (maybe if I say that out loud I’ll be more likely to do it). I’m also hoping to broaden my horizons a little bit and write about topics not confined to Druids.

In game, I’ve had a good year. There are two things I’m particularly proud of. First, I think Apotheosis (we’re recruiting!) has done really well so far this expansion. Our raid team leveled quickly, even getting some realm firsts along the way, and aside from a couple bosses that gave us more problems than they should have, I think we’ve been progressing at a good pace. On November 29th we completed all normal mode raid content and since then have killed 3 heroic modes. I’m very proud of my guild. Good job team :)

Apotheosis and Sha of Fear
I’m also really pleased that my challenge mode team was able to get Golds in all of the Challenge Modes, which got me my one and only server first Feat of Strength, a cool mount and the best transmog armor ever. They were also a lot of fun to do.

Challenge Mode Conquerors

Thank you to everyone who has read my blog, left me a comment, shared a post or talked about Druids with me on Twitter. That’s a big part of why I’ve been doing this for as long as I have.

Here’s to a great 2013, with more boss kills, more blog posts and less unemployment.

→ 6 Comments

Posted in Achievements, Blogging, Update

Tagged , ,