Dealing with an overfilled roster
With the release of patch 3.3, raiding has a new life. People are logging in again, and raids are getting roflpwnt. I am (as I’m sure every guild leader is) having to deal with a certain problem.
When times are slow and people just aren’t logging on, you might recruit a few new faces to fill in the gaps. Then when new content arrives and everyone decides to log on, you are left with one major problem: Roster overload. In this post I’ll be going over my exact strategy for recruitment, raid invites, and how I handle this particular issue.
In Fury Untold we don’t have a raiding requirement. I don’t want people to look at WoW like a job, so they have freedom to show up when they want or not when they don’t. The other side to this coin is they have to understand that I am going to keep a “healthy” enough roster to ensure that even if a few people don’t show up, we are still likely to be able to raid. Its the give and take of this type of system. I try to keep a few extra of everything: tanks, heals, and dps. This mostly sorts things out, but if everyone isn’t so understanding of why they aren’t getting into raids then you can have a problem.
How you handle raid invites, and making the process clear to everyone is very important. In Fury Untold, I value attendance and dependability over pretty much everything. If someone is putting forth the effort to show up to every raid, even after they out-gear it, I give them extra special brownie points. For the people who just gear their toon, then stop raiding till the next content patch take bottom of the list in my book. We are a guild and we need to operate as such. Just because you don’t need anything from the last tier’s raid instance, doesn’t mean everyone is in the same situation.
One thing that comes up a lot is integrating new members into a roster when there may be a little overlap. When I’m doing invites for a raid I consider new players as a sort of “clean slate”, whereas they don’t have any marks against them. So if I’ve got a guy that has been in the guild for a month, but has shown up to 3 raids a week every time, and a guy whose been in the guild for a year, but only shows up once in a while, I’m going to take the new guy with a good record. What this accomplishes is encourage the things I’m looking for in a raider: dependability, consistency, attendance. If your raiders are going to throw a fit and cry about not getting a raid invite when they know your invite policy, and what they’ve done to deserve being benched, then they might as well take their attitude and go cry in another guild. I have a very short patience for people who are self centered and do nothing but cause drama with it.
My last point for this post is what to do after the invites have gone out, and how to encourage people to show up each time, even if they didn’t get an invite this raid. We use EPGP and I offer a % of EP awards to people on standby. They have to be online (on any character, alt are ok) to sign their main up for EP gains, and they have to do so after every award. My point here being that you need to make logging on worthwhile, even if they aren’t included in the raid.
How to: Be.Imba
Everyone knows about the Armory, but all it does is give you the same data you see in game. What if there was a website that could take all that, look over it for you, and give you tips and tricks on ways to improve your character? ZOMG! It exists! In this post I’m going to be going over a recent audit of my Druid* and my Paladin to show you how to understand the website: Be.Imba.hu.
*Ignore the fact that he’s in two different sets of gear, these screenshots were taken over a short period of time.
Upon visiting the site you’ll see a form to input your region, realm, and character data. If you want to register for an account (its free) you can get a few extra benefits including guild and group reports, as well as forcing an update from the armory (avoiding cached data). After you’ve got your character in there, hit the Query Report button and it’ll fetch your character and process its (currently equipped) gear.
After the site has fetched your character, and “had its way with it”, it will display a quick summary of the gear and enchants near the top of the page. This will contain a quick overview of issues with the character, and the gear they are wearing. Right below that information is a list of the enchants, and any suggestions or upgrades that might be available.
By clicking on the “accepted”, “missing”, or (hope not) “improper” enchants heading, you can reveal a list of all the non-ideal enchants on your character, and by clicking the “…” after an enchant that needs improvement, you will be given options for upgrades. Please look at this information with a smart mind, sometimes they aren’t always good choices (particularly for weapon enchants). One particular thing to watch out for is Titanium Weapon Chain. While it does offer hit rating, disarm reduction obviously isn’t useful at all in PvE, therefore if you need the hit Accuracy is a much better option, however Berserking or Mighty Spellpower are usually better options (for dps or healing).
Right below that section you’ll see the gem breakdown, this will let you know what stats you’ve gemmed for, any missed socket bonuses (that you may or may not care about), low quality (“green”) gems in your gear, and finally and empty sockets that you have.
Now to move on to the Gear-O-Meter (which I have conveniently switched characters for). In this shot you’ll see what instances are “recommended” for you character in your current set up. This again should be taken with a bit of leniency, as what instances a person can run is largely dependent on the rest of the group. However this will give you a good idea of where your upgrades are going to be available from.
Finally is the characters raid history. This section provides a few pie charts (mmm pie) of your characters raiding history. I find this section more useful when I’m looking at new recruits for my guild, as I can see where they’ve been, how far they’ve gotten, and how many times they’ve done that.
When you hover over a raid instance, you get the breakdown of all the bosses, as well as how many kills your character has for those.
They haven’t added 3.3 support yet, so hopefully we’ll see that soon.
I’ll be posting a followup to this soon with an addon that has some what similar functionality, I’m just not at a computer with WoW installed at the moment.
My third opinion.
Ok, so now after a long thought process after the release of 3.2, I’ve finally come to a conclusion. I don’t so much mind that Blizzard revamped the Emblem system to make older content more appealing to “geared” players, however I feel the addition of the daily heroic (and soon to be weekly raid) quests are bad for the game.
I don’t want to feel that I must run old content to get current tier gear. I think the addition of EoTriumph’s to the weekly raid heroic was a mistake, and should have just been two extra conquests. If you run one ToC lockout, you get 15 Emblems of Triumph. Doing the daily heroic each day, net’s you 14 EoTs each week.
I think its perfectly reasonable to offer “free access” to the previous tier of gear, having heroic emblems be Conquest and ToC dropping Triumph.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not being elitist. ToC isn’t hard and its pugged several times a day on my realm (I usually pug it 2-3 times a week on my alts), but I don’t feel that a players gear progression should be held to how many heroics he runs each week.
*rant over*
PS – Trying to get up the material for my Tank Grid/UI post, but having started a new job, I’m a little inundated with work right now.
3.2 Emblem changes revisted
After reading the first few pages of this thread, the raid leader in me came out and got a new perspective on the upcoming Emblem of Conquest changes in patch 3.2 “Call of the Crusade”.
This post in particular has really struck the nail on the head. One of the problems I’ve run into recently (now that Naxx25 has officially been dropped), is roster change and the inevitable issue with gearing up new raiders. With the changes to Emblems, new raiders can effectively “catch up” to (current tier)-1, so in essence they are ready to start the content. The only issue I have with this kind of gearing is that weapons are not available (outside of raid drops) past iLvl 200. This means physical dps classes are going to trail behind a bit with this system, as they are more dependent on their actual weapons than casters, healers, and tanks.
Hopefully this will be a positive change, and hopefully won’t reduce guilds to their “weekly farm of Naxx25″ being the highlight of the week.
Patch 3.2 – The Call of the Crusade
Today the patch notes for the upcoming 3.2 patch, The Call of the Crusade, were released. These are the first round of notes, and will likely change a fair bit before this goes live. I’ll be going over a few highlights from the list here, particularly things that pertain to raiding, and raid tanking, as those are my primary focus.
Emblem System Changes:
- Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders’ Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
- Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
- The Heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
- The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
I hate that this is first on the list of discussion, but I don’t really feel like rearranging it. This is by far my biggest issue with this patch. Blizzard’s whole implementation of the tiered Emblem system was to prevent players from falling back into The Burning Crusade’s issue of getting high-tier end-game quality gear, from farming tokens out of low-tier dungeons. Extending on my earlier post, this is just going to turn some guilds into farm guilds that gear people up for the next tier, but aren’t actually running that tier of content. Now while there isn’t a TON of gear to be had from EoC, you can still purchase T8 pieces from the vendor, and in my opinion getting T8 from heroics is a poor move on Blizzard’s part. Additionally the Emblem of Triumph rewards from the two daily dungeon quests is a further watering down of the system. You’ll be able to purchase Tier NINE gear from a Tier SEVEN level instance.
Mana Regen Changes:
- Mana Regeneration: All items that provide “X mana per five seconds” have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.
- Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target’s maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
I agree with this, in the current state, Intellect is a very nice stat for a healer (particularly Paladins), this coupled with the Divine Intellect nerf (15% to 10%) and Illumination (60% to 30%) should make paladins appreciate the mp5 a little more, and not be Holy Light spam bots.
DK Tanking Changes:
- Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.
- Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
- Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.
- Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes.
- Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 30% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.
About time, DK’s are so completely overpowered at the moment. Stamina nerfs and armor nerfs are well deserved. Although I feel the nerf to IBF isnt enough, combined with AMS and AMZ (if specced) a DK still pulls WAY ahead on magic bosses (things like Mimiron’s Plasma Blast).
Now for the good stuff :)
Paladin Tanking Changes:
- Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.
- Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.
- Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker’s maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.
- Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration or mana cost, remaining until canceled or death. Also canceled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.
- Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin’s health to 10/20/30% of maximum.
Now I know I’m a little biased here, but I love these changes. Threat being where it is, I feel the Exorcism change is a great one (to keep me in my 9696 rotation against undead). Changing BoSanc into a Improved Blessing of Kings is a great way to consolidate the blessings and make Protection Paladins not feel so turn between the two when running overgeared content. Judgement of Light, finally, no more arguing with our holy/ret Paladins who gets to judge what. I’ll never be caught letting my RF run out in the midddle of a boss fight again either. Saving the best for last, An AD that cannot be leapfrogged and also a mini Divine Gaurdian. Awesome, just awesome.
All healer mechanics that increased the targets armor by a percentage have been modified to give a 10% damage reduction. Good mechanic change, I’m guessing eventually this would have pushed Feral’s to the armor cap, and also helps non-DK’s out a little on magic damage bosses.
All in all, I like the changes to the patch, but I’m still very disappointed in Blizzard for not keeping with the tiered emblem system. I hated having to farm kara week after week to get certain badge items. I wanted to be pushed to new content and rewarded for going above and beyond the first tier of raids. Hopefully this is something that will change in the time between PTR and live.
A different shade of casual
Before my horrific database loss, I had an excellent post on the line between different types of [PvE] players. .
In WoW there are 3 main categories of people you will encounter. There is Casual, Hardcore, and a group that tries to ride the middle, I’ll refer to them as the Semi-Casuals, as they often refer to themselves.
There are many subcategories in these groups, but for the most part there mostly the same. The one I’ll disect today is the Semi-Casual.
Futher in this post I’ll refer to the two opposite ends of the Semi-Casual group as Raiders and Casuals. I’ve been a part of multiple guilds that claimed to be Semi-Casual. All have had a serious flaw in their raiding structure. I think I’m getting a head of myself.
A Semi-Casual raiding guild is generally one that wants to raid a couple times a week, however with the determination and focus of a Hardcore guild.
That said they are usually built of a core of raiders that truely follow the ideals of the guild. They flask for farm content, bring full consumables, and research to push their class.
However, with the ease of WotLK raids (and was also prevalent in BC 25 man raids) it’s not an east task to fill a raid with 25 of these players. What usually is the case is that 10-15 players of this guild are raiders while the other half are true casuals.
I don’t mean to sound condescending here, however I’m a little obvious as to which side of the arguement I’m on.
The casual half of the guild, could be a little more effective in their time management. They don’t spend much time investing in their character. Either farming for crafted gear, running heroics for drops, rep, or emblems, or a multitude of other things that are prime examples of a persons effort.
This is a bit of a blurry line. Some people know they need work. They know where the drops come from. They just might have a hectic work or school schedule and not have the time to run things. Although I wish this was always the case, it unfortunately isn’t usually.
Most people come into this game with a big ambition, and little more motivation than that. They think that “raid guilds = epix” and that they’ll be able to come in and snag some of that uber loot. They don’t realize that these raid guilds are built on the shoulders of people that read strategy guides, watch videos, farm for gear, and take that extra step to be the best they can.
When they see the term “Semi-Casual” they think they’ve found a perfect home.
However there is a lot of tension in these kinds of guilds. They usually have to recruit a few of the casuals to fill the gaps in the raiding roster. The raiders aide of the guild will feel a sense of resentment as they put money in for flasks, food, and repairs. While the other half shows up a few minutes before the raid and holds their hands open to catch any loot they can.
As you can see, I’m personally against Semi-Casual guilds. It comes down to the old saying “shit or get off the pot”. You need to stand up and push yourself and your guild to reach it’s highest potential.
A common objection is that you can’t have a serious raiding guild without a lot of time invested. As I said earlier in my post, it comes down to time management. Effectively utilizing your time, your guilds time, and your raids time can allow you to accomplish all your goals and have time to spare.
I normally would break off into a how to on time management however I’m going to save that for my next post! :)
Guild structure
Insomnia is a horrible thing.
I don’t normally ask for comments to my posts, but this one is different. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have transferred my paladin back to Sen’jin and started a guild <Fury Untold>. The guild is still very new, and I am still finalizing many guild policies.
When I was still on Kael’thas and still in , I knew I wasn’t happy. For many reasons that I do t really care to go into. I have my two original 70′s on Sen’jin and I wanted to get everybody back together (well almost everyone).
During the time between me realizing that Entourage wasn’t working out and me purchasing my guild charter for Fury Untold, I did a lot of research. I have been a GM twice before, and was an officer and raid leader in other guilds. I took what experiences I had, and re knowledge I had gained since my last bout as a GM, and decided to try and make a place called my own on my home server.
I had it all planned out. Looting rules, officer structures, guild policies, the works. It boiled over in my head for weeks before I even left Kael’thas, not to mention when I was actually turning in the guild charter.
I hope that people in Fury Untold read this. I know the blog itself is new, just a month or two older than the guild. My original intent was a democratic guild with a board or officers that were appointed by me. Delegation was going to be a major part of my leadership style. I wanted to have my officers doing their specific jobs, so they would feel a bit of connection and involvement with the direction of the guild.
I wanted to have an even looting system, however I think I’ve decided against my original idea, as I want something more transparent as not I cause issues or confrontations directly at whoever is leading the raid.
I’d like to take a poll, specifically of any Fury Untold members that may read this, however I would love to hear from anyone. I have opened comments to unregistered users, so anybody can respond. Just make up a name and a email and give me your opinions. How do you like a guild run? Do you want a dictator making executive decisions? Or a comitee of officers that have meetings and take votes to decide what direction to move things? What about looting policies? We are going to remain a fairly casual guild for now, raiding 2-3 times a week once I can get the numbers met. So use that as your guideline for comments.
Death Knights
As I promised, I’m following up my previous post with a bit of rambling about DKs.
So far I’ve grouped with 6 death knights, two of which were on my paladin. One was played my an acquaintence of mine, second was a random pug. The other 4 were in a 5 DK group I ran on my DK Deathridden. For this post I’ll stick to the experiences from my paladin (the others were a group of power-leveling raiders that rerolled).
I understand that the Death Knight is a new class, deemed a “hero class” by Blizzard. This combined with several other factors have absolutely ruined the DK class for me. My conclusion of the issues:
- Previously mentioned, Hero class
- They wear plate armor
- Stated to be able to tank utilizing any talent tree
- The class is only a few weeks old
So Blizz has said DKs can tank as any spec. This doesn’t mean that every tree is a tank tree. It means every tree has tank talents. 9/10 people take the dps talents because they are much more fun than the mitigation/utility talents. Additionally people seem to think they are gods because they are THE hero class. I have run into an abundance of problems grouping with Death Knights and I’ve really only run with two “average players”.
Just because these stars have seemingly aligned does now make you the gods of WoW. You’re just another dos in my group that will kill the boss while he pays attention to me. I don’t want you to dps frost presence, out of marked order, claiming you’re offtanking. I don’t want you to Death and Decay in FP either. It’s your job to kill things, not make our healer freak out because they don’t know who’s going to get the next big hit.
So now I’m done with my rambling. Maybe I’ll go play my DK to try and put one more good player closer to the level cap.
Pugs and gearing
To continue my last post, I have been pugging a lot.
Having moved my paladin back to my old home server, his friends list isn’t the largest, and the guild is still small. I fond myself pugging, for multiple reasons. First is obvious, just trying to get the group going, but secondly a good instance run is a great way to impress people and hopefully get some new recruits.
Up until now, I have been pretty east going about who I pug with. I’ve got a few exceptions, that I’ll probably cover in a post immediately following this one. Generally I just slap a group together and hit some instance, but after reading a few threads on maintankadin I have been thinking about changing my game plan.
In a recent run there was an arms warrior that was rolling against me on tank gear. Now I know it’s just blue loot, nothing to get that upset about, however I would have rolled on the dps plate that dropped, however I had a retribution guild mate of mine in the group, and I didn’t want to piss on his chances. During my reading tonight, one line caught my eye, “if you want to roll on tank gear, go tank for your own group”. That just makes so much sense to me. I’m here trying to gear up my main set for progression and you’re stealing my upgrades so you can never use them.
So, in conclusion, I think I’ll probably keep my groups open, however I’m probably going to be much more of an asshole when inviting other plate classes.