Only in 'straya

WHAT WE CAN DO IN AN HOUR AND A HALF?

Wednesday nights raid answered that question.  We were able to clear 6/7 bosses on normal mode in an hour and a half with a short break. We also one hit Heroic Ka'garth with time to spare.  I think our team work was really great. I'd like to see what we can accomplish doing that kind of raiding for a few weeks in a row. I was so happy with our team it really makes me feel so proud. That raid was a true reflection of our capabilities. We even had time to have some fun with Panda Land raids. 

The new raid comes out next week. We have an Orgy on Monday night at 9pm server time. The topics for discussion are:

• Raid Progression Schedule for the next raid content
• Social Activities and Competitions
• Rated Battle Ground team (Times and Gear Development Strat)

Try to be patient pvpers it took us a long time to get the raid team going, it will take time to get a good team, once we do that we will do well.  Expect me to whisper to you as I develop a bit of a spreadsheet on your pvp gear and availability for times this week.

We even had time to do some old time raids

We were pugging it up in a completely different way

CHANGING THE GUILD NAME

I'm seriously considering changing the guild name to "Waiting to Raid".  Despite ongoing complaints about how long it takes Riftwarriors to get going, and the length of time between killing one boss and moving onto the next boss being drawn out to 20 minutes for a fight that lasts just 5, we are still persisting in this horribly boring practice of waiting around forever to get started. It's driving me to the brink of insanity.  This week we reached a new level, waiting one and a half hours to start on the first boss.  The guildies wanting to wait for the main tank to rock up so he could have a chance to get the helm. While I admire the idea of waiting for your mate, there's a few issues with this kind of thing going on firstly, we can just use Sven's lock out and kill the boss for his helm at any time. The fight takes something like 7 minutes to complete, it's such a time sink waiting for an hour. Secondly, it's just so boring waiting for an hour, when we have two other people who can pick up the tank role. Thirdly, in that hour and a half we could have made our way through most of the raid.

It's not really surprising that we are 101st in the progression charts, not that those things matter to us as a casual raiding guild. However, I can't help thinking if we had been raiding during the times we were sitting around waiting for people to turn up or piffling and poffling around between fights, we could be a bit higher on that chart. Thankfully, Holyfyre now has the helm, and has organised to leave work early on Wednesdays so there is no excuse for us to be waiting around again. People can always join in when they log on we have enough people in the raid team to get going earlier.

In the future please ensure that you have the following items before the raid starts:

• Food and drinks in game and irl
• Enchants for any gear that might drop
• Bonus Roll Tokens
• Flasks and potions

It's pretty easy to get yourselves organised with those few things. If you were wondering what the impact of these delays are having on the guild, think about some of the people who haven't been turning up for raids at all, there's your answer those are some of the people who are sick of waiting around to raid.  People have done so well in getting geared and helping other guildies get geared, we should be champing at the bit and ready to go when we get there. The effort that everyone has put in to the raid team is not reflected in our position in the progression charts.  I'd like to see us back in the 50's at least. I know we are capable of that if not more, even as a casual raiding guild.

The next raid is coming out next week. We will be having a meeting/orgy on the 2nd of February to discuss how we are going to tackle the next raid content among other things. If you have any suggestions or want to have an input into the raid and the guild please make sure you are there.

WHAT THE GUILD DO WHEN WAITING FOR SVEN

What did you guys do when I went to get coffee

Some of us farmed flying mounts

How close can we stand to the boss

The accidental pull

HUEHUEHUEHUE

EXCEPTIONAL ATTENTION TO GEAR

During the week I had the pleasure of re-writing the "regular raid" page of this blog site. As part of this I created links to each Character so that we could access the armory.  This lead me to making a spreadsheet of everyone's gear.  As I was doing this it became really apparent that some of the guild members had put an exceptional amount of attention into gearing their characters.  While I'm aware that gear is only one part of the raiding success equation, skill and attention to the raiding environment being equally important. I really wanted to reward the people who had put the effort into getting geared.

The reason I wanted to reward these players is because, it's really hard work. I know some of these people would have spent some time in PuG raids, some would have spent hours farming materials to craft gear and upgrade it to the maximum level. Some would have spent time upgrading followers to get the higher missions with the better gear. They may have done all these things. I know some of these players haven't stopped at gearing their own toons. They have also been crafting pieces for other raid members who simply don't have the time required to gear up. Doing trash runs for B.O.E gear to give to their raiding colleagues instead of putting them on the AH to get a cool 30k+ gold for themselves.  That team work above and beyond my expectations.

When our guildies are going to these efforts to help the whole raid team, not just themselves, it really motivates me to do better myself.  That's why I wanted to share this story because these players deserve a bit of a pat on the back for what they do for the raid team. You know who you are guys and I thank you so much for your efforts. I hope that others will be motivated to lift their game and be motivated to do their best for the team knowing that these guys are out there doing this stuff for you as well as the team. I have been in a few raiding guilds and while we are a "casual" raiding guild. I have never seen other players helping each other in this way before.  I'm so impressed. I'd really like to show my appreciation. It's kind of expected that the GM does these things, not the officers and raid members.

A couple of suggestions have been made regarding what these rewards for our exceptional players might be however, I'd like to put it out there to you guildies to come up with some creative suggestions on how the guild can reward the players who have put in the effort to gear their characters.  I'd like to include the officers in this competition as well as the general raiders, pvpers and awesome transmorgs. Perhaps we could host a fun event in my garrison where we have some judges and a bit of an in game event.  The judges could be from the guild or could be outside of the guild. Let me know what you think.

Some of the suggestions for prizes have included, Game Time, Rare Pets and Gold.  Has anyone else got any good ideas for prizes?

We had a good raiding week. We have the first 6 bosses down easily. We will now be working on Heroic Twins, Tectus and Brackenspore for the next few weeks then going back to Imp.

 I was a bit surprised that only a few ppl turned up for Rbgs this Friday, we had such fun the Friday before. I will still schedule these Rbgs in for Friday.   Could I get some feedback on why people didn't rock up this Friday? Should we move it to another night?

Turkey Time

Last nights raid was anything but turkey time actually. It was awesome!! I think that everyone would agree that this is the way raids should go. We had a nice balance of ranged and melee dps, everyone did great work as a team and individually.  Alyiana (known to us as Aly 2.0) did a great job of raid leading with everyone else doing a great job of following directions and calling out appropriatly.  We wiped on not on stupid things and we conquered a progression boss.  We have every right to be very proud of ourselves. Go Rifties :)

We managed to pick up a cross-server healer who did a wonderful job. I spoke to this player after the raid, he/she doesn't have a regular raiding schedule and would like to join us whenever possible.

We still need healers. Keep your eyes open for healers in PuG raids if you are doing them, even if they are cross-server healers.  There is always the possibility of them swapping servers or as Potter aka Icgankedppl did rolled a new toon to join the guild and has become an important part of the guild as a whole and the raid team on his rogue. It's always a good idea to direct them to the blog if they want to find out more about the guild. A good opening line to start a conversation with healers is "nice heals...are you interested in joining a guild run?"

We were joined by Kibbler (former guildy) and Sarior (our unofficial guildy) to down Ko'ragh.  I'm sure we could have downed this boss without them however, it is always lovely to be joined by Kibbler and Sarior. It's great to have our guild friends join us for these momentous moments of downing progression bosses. It demonstrates the power of networking and the importance of creating a friendly fun environment when Mythic raiders happily join our raid group just to be part of that environment and are happy to share their wisdom and experience with us.  We forgot to take a picture again.  I think that last fight gave our PvPers a good look at how awesome a well co-ordinated fight looks - It looks so cool :).  To get that kind of dance happening we do need to have everyone on teamspeak or vent. Communication is Key to doing this well.

The next raid is Sunday, after a quick meeting it was decided that we would start a bit earlier on Sundays so that we can spend a bit of time on our next progression boss the last one in this raid content. We will be starting at 6pm server time. We will be working on Imperator at first then we will be moving onto heroic starting on Kargath, then we will be going to Twins and perhaps if all is going well finish with the Butcher.  Please have a look at the videos by clicking the links.  However, these are a guide we will probably be using a different strat on some of the fights as Ephi usually works out better strats designed for our teams strengths and weaknesses.  Its a good thing to remember these guides on Youtube have been filmed by players who have wiped several hundred times first. If you watch them its a advantage, no doubt about it. All the above links are from different players just so everyone gets a bit of variety of places to go to get a look at these fights.

I would like to see us getting started sooner.  Even though the banter in Team Speak is great entertainment, for anyone we pick up, it is a bit boring and it does make us look a bit dis-organised waiting for 30 minutes to kick off.  I did get a screenshot of us waiting around to start most of us are turkeys thanks for the Elementalgoat :)

Our first attempts at RBG's were also fun and awesome.  Come on and join the PvPers and get a taste of their world.  It's my belief that a bit of PvP sharpens the senses. It really forces me to move faster, which I didn't do while doing arena with Oak where I won noob of the weak by not moving fast enough or at all losing two arenas. Bainmar is happy to take people to 2v2 who are a bit nervous however, its crucial that you have basic PvP gear to start an arena.  If you want to have a try get in to random bgs its pretty easy to get gear there. Next PvP night is Friday our pvpers will shout out in guild for players.  

Turkey Time while we wait for the start of the raid

Our first attempts at rbgs

THE OLDEST WORLD OF WARCRAFT PLAYER EVER

I'm going for the title of the oldest world of warcraft player ever.  There is of course competition for this in Markeedragon's friend who is 75 years old.  I'll be 50 in March so I've still got a long way to go. Many happy hours of gaming ahead of me.

I've been playing this game without a significant break for ten years or so. I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed or proud of the fact that I have racked up over 300 hours of played time on Krinsta. Over the years I've seen players come and go, players staying and changing classes and toons. Not me it's been a long Journey for me and my avatar Krinsta  who is almost like an extension of myself.  I've learned a lot about hunting over the years. I've been tested a lot by the young fellows and ladies who also play hunters.  For some reason they question my ability and knowledge. I know I will never play a hunter as well as the younger players and I am always aware that I am forever a noob in relation to hunting. I always try my best. Lately though something has been a miss.

My recent performance in the raids has been far from my best.  My dps plummeted from a solid 20k to a low 15k. I read the forums, I watched the guides again, I asked my fellow hunting friends around the world of warcraft, I looked up the stats of all the top playing hunters in raiding guilds all to no avail. I then had to have a long hard look at what the real cause for my failure to pull out the required numbers might be. This is where I found the answer, I'm just burnt out. I'm not loving hunting in the same way I use to. I'm not taking the care I use to take to get my rotation perfect in any of my favoured specialisations. I have had a lot on my mind lately and this is a distraction. It maybe that I just need a few days of not playing WoW at all, which is what I will be doing, having a break. I'm not going to be online as much now as I focus on getting a job and keeping my house.

I will log on for our next raid which will be Wednesday I will see if I have been able to get the numbers back up to an acceptable level.  I'm sure I'll be able to do this and love the hunter class again.

THE GUILD ORGY/MEETING

The Guild Meeting (to be called Orgy in the future) Resolutions.

Thanks everyone for coming along to the orgy.  Next orgy will be the first Monday of every month. Plenty of notice will be given prior to the meeting and an Agenda will be posted here and in the guild information.

• Raiding Nights  Wednesday and Sunday
• Raiding Times   Wednesday 8pm -10.30 (normal) Sunday 7pm-onwards (heroic)
• Raid Schedule   Wednesday we will do normal HM for 2 hours maybe 2.5. Sunday we will move onto heroic do what we can of this content then go back and finish what wasn't completed on normal.  When we have finished normal we will then move onto doing Heroic on Wednesday and Sunday until we are geared enough to try Mythic or move onto Blackrock Foundry which will be released early in February. 
• Loot - Master Loot- The reasons for this is 1. Higher Loot Chance  2. People who already have gear in Normal wont be rolling on gear therefore people who need the gear get more opportunity to gear their toons. If you don't like it come to the next guild orgy and vote against it.  This was voted on. No objections were raised.
• We are going to raid without breaks for one hour then have a break for 10-15 minutes then raid for another hour. 
• Get your self organised and keep joking around to a minimum.  We've been spending too long derping around. We're doing the ready check and then we are going.  

It was all very peaceful in my Garrison

And then we had the meeting

At first it started out pretty civilized 

And then things just went Crazy

MEETING IS ON TOMORROW

We have had a lot going on in the last few weeks.  We need to take stock.  Some of the things I have been considering is that as the leader of the guild, I want to reward effort. I want to make sure that the players who have been putting in the effort toward gearing up and contributing to the possibility of doing well in raiding and in PvP are rewarded appropriately.  The reward in this case is that I make every effort to design our raiding schedule around their busy lives and put together a team that will be successful.  This will ensure that the main goal of the guild is met that is "To provide and environment where raiders and pvpers can get the most out of their playing time while still maintaining their real life commitments".

I have been astounded at the team work of our guildies, crafting items for fellow guildies, running lfr, normal and heroic PuGs. Doing trash runs to get not only gear for yourselves, also using valuable rolls on getting gear for your guildies who haven't be online much. That's the essence of Team Work to be thinking of the team as well as yourselves.  We are all set up to raid and do pvp with a lot of players having full pve gear and pvp gear on multiple toons.

The meeting is really about how to put all these efforts into an organised format and setting up raiding and pvp times that will suit everyone. The holidays will be over soon and players will be returning to work, university and school. In the short time since the launch of WoD we have achieved so much. All we have to do is get our teams organised and regular raiding times sorted out and we will be fine.

You are awesome. You've really made the guild great. I'd really like to see that reflected in the progression charts, not so much to compete with others rather to see how far we can take our guild by doing what we do to our best ability.

Also a guild picture would be great outside of our Garrison after the meeting.  Get your transmorg gear on for that picture :)

The Boys are Back in Town & The Raiding Break is Over

It's been a tough couple of weeks for us die hard raiders, left without our raiding family, while they caught up with their real life families for Christmas and the New Year. We've been going together as much as we can to the delightful PuG raids (that's sarcasm right there).  Actually it's been torturous. I've tried to console myself and others that the torture of the PuG raid will all seem worth it when we are back together raiding as a guild. Practice makes perfect and we do get practice with the mechanics in these raids. We've all got some awesome gear the item levels are soaring. The transmogrifying has gone crazy. I think most of us are now around 640-650 and above which is really "heroic" raiding gear level.  We are going to be the sexiest casual raiding guild on the server.

There have been some highlights in the two weeks. I followed in the footsteps of Aly 0.2's Dad and complained to telstra about the internet speed. Lo and behold the problems I was having are fixed. This is a great lesson things don't change unless you do something about it even if that something is letting someone hear about where they are going wrong. Good one Aly's Dad. I'm going to be complaining more often now :) in a nice way naturally, honey catches more flies as the old saying goes.

I went raiding with most of you in PuG's and all of you did so well I was worried you would get poached.  I asked if Smokin' could join one or two of the PuGs I went to and ofcourse the skeptics didn't believe me when I said, Smokin was a smokin' healer and looked smokin' too.  After the first boss fight the healers were asked "was he really smokin" to which the healers all said "He practically solo healed, we could have all gone dps".  I was so proud.

I went with Oak and Aly 2.0 to try out the theory that survival hunting does top dps, I stumbled, I fell, I failed and had a girl cry, through which Oak and Aly teased me, then consoled me and very patiently put up with my later babbling on about the research I had done to fix my low dps.  It's almost respectable again now.

Alyina and I two manned a Garrison Scenario and got "Gold". Elementalgoat and I spent two days helping everyone who asked for help in the guild with their Garrison Scenarios. I think we have those down pat now.

After some kind of major drama unfolded around us, Alysith and I found ourselves alone together in an Heroic Trash Group,  We decided to have a go at killing a bit of trash on our own using my dinosaur pet named Lizzy (named after Thin Lizzy the Band, listen to the song across the way). We were successful, which goes to show the amazing healing abilities of Aly 1.0

Ephi and I teamed up for a few PuG heroic raids. Who switched from tanking to dpsing on a completely new toon (Bashybashy) and got its ilvl to 641.  Who also got me to download the addon GTFO, made by the DBM crew. Which I loved. It sounds an alarm when you are standing in stuff. In true Ephi style, Ephi made a great thing greater and also funny by changing the alarm to say "Move bitch, get out of the way". He did that for me from another country on my computer while I made a cup of tea.... shh he thinks I was paying attention to every detail, I was lost after about the 5th click.

The PvP arm of Riftwarriors is off to a flying start, with Rawpower, Bainmar and Jubilation (on his hunter). Smashing it up in 3v3. As an all dps team, this is pretty amazing stuff.  Who, Baranis, Bainmar and Nuthegera have teamed up to do a variety of 2v2 combo's. Much to my relief,  Nuth and Bain are using team-speak to communicate rather than shouting at each other through the rooms of our house. If you are interested in joining the guys send them a whisper, keep your eyes open for invitations to Battlegrounds and Arena's in  Guild Chat. Join in the fun of Player vs Player. It's ok if you aren't super at it, you will learn from the guys who take you with them.

I'm looking forward to raiding again with the all the boys. Vonds, hopefully Gaatos and I will be there too representing the feminine side of the guild.  I think we are going to Rip It Up and move ourselves out of 79th position on the raiding charts to who knows where, with all the work everyone has put into gearing up. It's really great to see the guildies both working as a team and taking responsibility for  gearing and preparing for raids. This shows great initiative. I can't wait to see what we can achieve together.