February 23, 2009
Achievement Spam
It was yet another busy week for me and the guildies at <Abyss>. I have two more resets to finish gearing up the guild for the 25 mans we should be doing. We spent the week taking two groups into Naxx 10. The first group got four bosses down, and the second group got 12. Why did one do so much better than the other? I’m not entirely sure, but I’m gonna guess it was luck of the draw and the route each group choose to take through the instance. I lead the second group and took them down spider first, then plauge, then construct and finally military. The other group started with the military wing. I’d assume that’s part of it. The other part would have been the gear levels of those involved. Our tanks and healers were already geared to begin with, whereas the other group had a healer and a tank that need some more lovin’.
I did spend the day and ran that healer through 6 heroics though, so she’s much better off then she was. Overall just on runs I did, I saw more than 40 upgrades go out to guildies who needed them. Already I can see vast improvement of our DPS. I’m very proud of them for working so hard in only 1 week’s time.
So in between the massive heroics each day and a Naxx group going in daily, I found time to grind out my Argent Dawn rep to net me a title, and then I finished off my gnomer rep for a title there, too. On top of the Naxx achievements I didn’t have, it was a bit of spam this week. Now I’m focusing on Sporggar rep, and then I’ll move on to the other netural to exalted grinds I need for that title, as well. So far, I’m 20 factions into the 40 I’d like to eventually have.
20 Factions, Woot!
Finally, as a guild we’re beginning to see what we’ve got, and getting to know each other. We did lose two DC’ers already, but everyone else seems to be going pretty strongly. Theres two or three that are being a little bit stubborn about the gear grind we’re having to do, but otherwise, everyone else seems to be on the same page. So, two more weeks of grinding, and off to 25s we go!
February 21, 2009
But Mom, All the Bloggers are Doin’ It!
So there’s a meme goin’ around that’s been a sort of craze lately… Gnomes are doin it, Banana’s are doin it, Hell even QQers, Wanna-be Hordies, and Gun Lovers are doin it. And lets not forget the Romantics, the Flower Lovers, The Married, The Raged, The Knotty, The Corner Lurkers, The Numerous Annas, and yes, even the Matticus’ of the World are doin it, too.
And Damnit, I hate being left out.
So here’s my shot:
Bronze Drake
That’s a bronze drake from the timed culling of stratholme event. I was quite excited to have won it, but didn’t get the chance to try it out until we went to Naxx, when I snapped this screenshot. You are supposed to tag someone for this, but seeing as the list above includes nearly every blogger I know, I’m just gonna let this one slide.
February 17, 2009
Let the Merger Begin!
We had a majority of votes. Out of 79 accounts, 32 voted yes, and a few of the accounts haven’t logged in in over two months… so we began the merger last night. Already I can see where the two sides will collide, Old <We Wipe On Trash> members are used to full clearing 25 man Naxx without blinking, whereas, <Damage Control> members had never been in before. So it will take patience from the WWoT people, and some quick learning out of the DC ones, but I think we’ll get there soon enough. I mean, for a raid where half had never been before, we cleared Spider Wing, got all but Lotheb in the Plague Wing, and all but the Four Horseman in the Military Wing. All in all, I think a really good week for all of us, and only one item DE’d. However, to help with the gear difference, we’ll be going into the 10’s some more to play catchup on gear for some people.
During the 25, I was given the job of being one of the two back tanks for the four horseman event. Now, I consider myself well versed in knowing what I can and can’t do, and I was fairly confident I could do this… but apparently, I cant. I can always make the first switch, but once I reach the other side, I cannot outheal the damage I take. It’s painful really. I wonder if some resileance would work for that?
Either way… still a good run, and looking forward to seeing how this merger pans out. <Damage Control> is now <Abyss>.
February 14, 2009
Love is in the Air
Happy national everyone gets laid Valentine’s Day. It’s a day of love, of kindness, and of expressing one’s self. For me, this holiday is usually fairly unobserved, except for taking our children with us to dinner. But for some people, the day is a big deal. Blizzard, for as long as I can remember, has always had the Valentines Day event, but this is the first year we have achievements for it. As you may know, a lot of people are going for the “What a Long Strange Trip it’s Been…” meta achievement. I’m not, personally… however it does effect me all the same. Why you may ask? Well, you see, I am a Draenei Paladin…. and apparently, there are not many of those on my server. I’ve been told we’re just about as elusive as a Troll Rogue… so everytime I’m in a major city, I end up looking like this:
Which really isn’t that big a deal, I just wonder if those petals will ever come out of my hair. So, everyone is in the spirit of love right? NO! There are some heartbroken fools out there that would do just about anything to spurn you, even been as crazy as to ninja a FROZEN ORB?! Yeah, you heard right… I suppose if you’re gonna ninja something…. take the least valuable item you can right? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned right? Too bad this one’s a dude…
February 13, 2009
25 Man Naxx
So, we ventured into our very first 25 man Naxx, and I did not have major expectations. Two of my healers were no shows, but we managed to fill the raid all the same, and it might sound bad to say, but we did way better then I expected us to. We started with the spider wing, and I must admit when the raid leader (who wasn’t me^.^) said that we’d be healing through the locust swarm, I had a little heart attack. I couldn’t heal through it in 10 man, how was I gonna do it in 25? Well, there was this uber druid helpin me out, and somehow we pulled through. (I would like to take a moment and be ashamed btw, I got SMASHED by that restro druid who overall outhealed me by 17%, despite his having 1800 healing and me having 2200).
It was messy, but we got it in one shot. We continued to 1 shot the rest of the bosses in the spider wing. We then headed into the Plague Quarter, and took a 1 shot at Noth, with minimal
Noth
deaths. We took two shots with Heigan the Unclean (I guess once to learn the dance, once to do it right). I was very impressed as DC had not done this boss before… I kinda intentionally avoided it in ten man, because the once we did try it, people were not understanding. Once we got Heigan, we headed over to Loatheb, but sadly we wiped once at 30% and the second time at 12% before we called it due to time. They’ll be going back on Monday, and I’m very excited for them.
So, now we’re into 25’s and I think we had a great start. So far, the merger votes have been in the positive… and everyone who went had great things to say. I look forward to having the two guilds together since they seem to get along fairly well…. now… I need to get the pallies to install pally power.
February 9, 2009
WTB More Healers
So, these last few weeks have been downright exhusting. I stepped out of guild management a long time ago, because I am just one of those people who can’t leave it alone. I have to micro manage it and supervise and do everything to make sure it is done right. This time around it isn’t I who holds the deed to the guild, that would be Lutrail… however, due to his schedule versus mine, and a severe lack of healers, I end up scheduling and leading the raids. It’s not a big deal, 3 or 4 days a week isn’t something that is too difficult to make, but since it requires both Garen and I to run at the same time, from 6pm to 9pm our time, a lot gets ignored.
Usually, we all get home about 4:30, have dinner around 5:30, clean up, do homework and all that. The baby went to bed at 7pm and the older child in bed by 8:30. I usually finished up any homework for the day after that, and Garen and I would try to be in bed by 10:30 or 11, so we can get up at 6:30 the next day. Typical family life right?
Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE to help my guildies, I love being there for my guild! I just can’t be there everyday… because now our schedule has changed… We get home at 4:30, I get my son done with his homework, and we rush to feed them dinner. We ignore the chores, turn on a movie for the kids, and prepare the raid by 5:30 my time. Leading a raid and watching kids is a skill I think I’ve fine tuned, but it does get incredibly frusterating from time to time. When we aren’t running raids, we are solving issues that arise, healing much needed heroics and farming our own gold for our repairs and reagents. On raid nights I’m rushing to finish my own homework, which is due by 10pm my time. Perviously, I was doing my homework, updating the blog(s), and updating my twitter stuff during the day. Now I am spending the day catching up on the chores we ignored to raid… It was getting tight, but still manageable right?
Well, I had something come up last friday night. My landlord is moving to Arizona, and is selling this house that we live in. She needed us to come down, meet the realtor and sign some paperwork right away because she was leaving the state the next day. This meant that Garen and I would not make our Friday raid. Well, I thought, not a big deal, as on the weekends we have two more healers available. So, I instructed the guild that the should go without us, and to take the two other healers, but a few protested that group two was supposed to stand up that weekend. And they were right, Garen and I had two healed the Naxx ten to free up a healer to work with the weekend healer to try a group two. So, I instructed them to instead, stand up the group two and I would try to take group one later. And so, I left someone in charge, told them to PuG the people they are missing, and logged out, feeling pretty bad.
I hadn’t been gone half an hour yet when I got a phone call from a good friend that is a guildie, telling me one of my tanks has left the guild. Communication issues he said. Great… So I get home about 9:30 my time and log in. I count 4 guildies in Naxx, so I ask whats up? Four was all that showed I was told, except the tank that quit was signed up too, so I asked about it. No one had a real answer other then communication failure, so I hit him up in a tell. I apologize for the error and explained I had something come up. He said he’d been rash, but that he wanted a few days….. So I’ll give him a few days…
But in the meantime, holy crap! I have to not make it for one day and I lose people and raids get messed up? I cannot be the only person capable of doing this…. I assume it must be the lack of healing available that is causing the trouble. I have searched high and low, in PuGs, in the realm forums, even on this blog. The healers on this server are pretty set in their current guilds. I was quickly running out of ideas until a nice woman named Plx whispered me and said, “I heard DC has some people leave the server”. “Yeah” I said. I didn’t know what else to add to it, it’s not excatly a high point for the guild, but she continued on…”We did too. A lot of people. Our guild was known as ‘We Wipe On Trash'”. I’d heard that name before, seen them running around too. I think they had pretty good progression.
“Wow, that sucks,” I said. “Guess we’re in the same boat huh?”
“Well, thats why I’m talking to you. WWoT and Nephilem on our server suffered the same fate, and so has DC. Our idea is to put the three guilds together into one new guild, and we’ll call it, Abyss”
….
….
Holy crap thats a great idea! We’ve got the largest numbers of the three guilds, but Nep and WWoT are a little bit ahead on the gear. I think we had real potential to help each other out, and the guild merger talks were born. So far, the guild has been very positive about the idea, and I anticipate a majority vote after Thursday’s joint run. The runs will no longer depend on me being able to make it! Yay!
So the point of this post? As you may have seen on our guild website, we may be merging with another guild. DC will not die, we will not disband it (if any old DC players are reading this you can take that deep breath now). There are too many bank tabs bought, and the added security that we could always go back should the merger crash and burn (and trust me, they often do). However a few measures have been taken to prevent that from happening.
- This is not a rush decision. We’ve been talking for a few days as of right now, but no one is to cast a final thought until after the joint run on Thursday, and we do want to hear from everyone, so it might take a few days to get all the votes.
- Garen, Lutrail and I have spoken to Plx of WWoT and Elio of Nep to make sure the leaderships are all on the same page.
- We made sure that everyone is welcomed, even friends, family, alts, and those not yet capped.
- No talks on offical guild rules, loot systems or any other major choices have been made yet. That will not be done until all three guilds are together into Abyss, and it will be rules we all agree on.
Most of all, the merger should provide the right kind of balance the guild needs to do the runs they’ve been dying to do. Without relying on my schedule to do them. The runs can be earlier for our east coast members, which is a HUGE plus. So, I’m crossing my fingers that the merger is indeed, a success. So far, I’ve enjoyed the members of the other guilds I’ve met.
On a totally unrelated to mergers note, Garen and I attempted to two man MC. We’re both healers, but since I wear plate, I can get away with
Luci
a little more then he can. So I tanked/DPS and he healed. We got the trash alright, and we got Luci after a 20 minute fight… but Mag we didnt clear all the dogs for (and got feared into them) and Gahennis got us with a nice big 75% healing nerf curse. I think I’ll need to bring a druid or a mage with us. I’d forgotten what most of the bosses do anymore, and that makes me kinda sad… but hey, I had fun trying.
Also, did anyone ever notice there is a statistic for “deaths by Hoggar”? I thought that was just awesome. Who remembers level 1 alt raids on Hoggar? I do I do! Additionally, in the things I hadn’t noticed before files, did you know it was possible to hit the bottom of the water in the rather large AN drop? I didn’t but, it happened, poor DK.
Also, Jaanu got the coolest achievement of all! Grats Jaanu!
Coolest Achievement Ever!
Finally, hopefully with the guild changes I’ll have more time to update this blog… I hope.
February 3, 2009
I Love You, Too!
Did you miss me? I’ve been around just incredibly busy. I’ve got a whole new fresh website for my guild all put together and running live (http://www.damagecontrolguild.net) And I’ve been busy running raids (we got Gothik, this week) and recruiting (We still need healers and ranged DPS, interested? Click the guild link to apply). Also, I’ve been enjoying my alts, particularly, my Death Knight. She’s level 70 now, and thanks to a little post about not mashing buttons, she’s making progess rather quickly. Now my guild knows who my alts are, but I don’t imagine that I’ve been on the server long enough for many to know my name, let alone my alts.
Goldfish and Hearts
So imagine my surprise when I log into my DK to find an email waiting for her from a guy named Lemonaid. Orginally, I assumed he was just a guildie being nice… however, he’s not. He’s a level 80 guild leader of his own, and one I’ve never heard of before. So I wrote him back, and I said I loved him too, and asked if we ever met before…. in which he replied with ANOTHER goldfish saying that no, we haven’t met, but he loved me anyways… cute I thought, So… I tossed out another email, gave him a happy fun rock and told him to spread the happiness around… we’ll see what he comes up with later today when I log in.
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