The death of a guild, what does that lead to?

This week Ghostlands saw one of its core guilds disbanding. It wasn't something I expected, they were a great group of players, and they weren't full of themselves like many top guilds are. It was the guild I applied to before Cake, but got declined as they were full on warlocks. I tried explaining you could never have too many warlocks, but no luck!

This got me thinking. When are guilds due to disband? Cake formed from a disbanded Hide n Seek around the time attunements got removed, so it's fairly new compared to the other top guilds on the server.

We did come close to disbanding at one point when we realised most of our core Black Temple raiding team had either left or quit, but there was too much holding the guild together. Because of this soon after we had two officers leaving. As an officer myself the other officers start to become your biggest friends in the guild; they're the ones you trust the most to help with decisions or problems, so when two of them just vanish like that it feels like a huge chunk of the guild left.

The last nail in the coffin was when our GM also hinted towards leaving. We were given a heads up that he'd be leaving when 3.2 hit, and then it was announced a few days after that 3.2 was coming out that week. It was a very tense moment and he wasn't about to go back on his word. The other members had no idea what was going on, and it felt like chaos backstage too. Theories on what to do were flying around. Some which included taking the core players that were left and forming a close-knit 10man group. Another was merging with another guild on the server and do shared raids. These were just the tip of the iceberg.

We were asking ourselves what we'd do if the guild just disbanded. Some said they'd just stop playing, and I myself said I'd probably transfer off to the server my other friends play on.

All that's passed now. We made a smooth transition to a new GM and very few of the members seemed to be affected. We've cleared the Coliseum on normal mode, and are slowly making our way through the Ulduar Hardmodes. While I agree it's late, it seems to be keeping the raiders happy.

However, what dawned on me even more is that it's not just our core raid group that's changed, but the attitude of most of the new players who are new to raiding. I'm pointing my blame finger at hardmodes and achievements here. Before people raided simply for the joy of raiding, and the occasional loot drop. Now I notice that players feel like they need to do hardmodes so they can show what awesome raiders they are. While striving for hardmodes is fine, I feel like a lot of players are starting to get sour about it. Cake is not a hardcore guild, we don't kick players if they mess up too much or if they disconnect all night. Because of this, we can't expect to be the best guild ever and it's fine by me, I'm enjoying myself. We're a friendly group of players who like to raid; at least we were.

Something's changed, and I'm not sure what. It's got me confused, and constantly thinking about it. Sometimes while raidleading, something happens and I just feel like I don't have the patience for it anymore. Maybe it's me that's changed. Seeing things from on top as an officer, rather than just being another chess piece of a raider. Maybe I'm seeing things that frustrate me. Why can't that guy just move out of the fire in time? Why can't he just read up on what his rotation should be and do more damage than the tank? Why can't they do some research on what they should be gearing for? So many things to look out for when raidleading, and maybe I really don't have the patience for it anymore.

Or maybe it's the weather.

Blargh.

I think I broke it..

Heartbreaker down!

It's been a confusing couple of weeks. Between having raiders who eagerly want to do hardmodes, even if we wipe a lot, and raiders who don't want to do them at all. We've had to decide and it's mostly come down to 'We'll try once or twice and move on.' But this week we set out a game plan.

Guild MOTD last Tuesday:

"ASSIGNMENT: Study Ulduar Hard Modes - start with XT and Hodir"

Well I doubt a lot of people actually did that, but we gave XT some good hard tries and he eventually dropped. We'll be trying Hodir on Sunday, and Yogg+3 so that we could finally get the legendary mace.

Oh, funny thing; when XT died only one person was left alive.

Warlocks in the Coliseum

So all the bosses in the Coliseum are finally unlocked, and I've downed them all on the normal version already. Here's some things I've managed to pick up from each encounter that would help you do that little extra more.

Gormok - This fight is extremely easy and you shouldn't need to do anything other than stand and kill stuff. It's a good idea to run into the melee if you get an annoying snobold on your back, that way it gets hit with their AoE attacks.

Acidmaw and Dreadscale - At the start of the fight try and get a Demonic Circle up near your Dreadscale tank. This way you can make sure you get rid of your Paralytic Toxin as fast as possible.

Icehowl - This fight is extremely trivial, however if you are having a knockback with the charge here's a good tip. Drop a circle, and strafe a bit left or right from it. After the knockback stun wears off you can quickly teleport out of the way if you're the charge target.

Lord Jaraxxus - There's nothing complicated to this fight. if your guild asks you to drop the legion flames on the outer edge, feel free to drop a circle there to please them.

Faction Champions - I don't look for dps in this fight, but rather control and efficient CCing. At this point I give Belfip a break and bring out my felhunter, Nheekun. I've noticed the mages are too busy pretending they're doing anything by sheeping random stuff, so they don't actually interrupt the main first targets; the healers. I put Nheekun's spell lock on manual and do the interrupts. Use your fear as much as you want, on anything. Don't bother trying to keep one target focus feared, cause eventually DR will hit and they'll be immune to it. Once you fear one NPC, swap to another. Keep your death coil ready. It's happened to me twice where three of them bunch up on you. Death coil gives you that extra second for your tanks to react.

Twin Val'kyr - Probably my favourite fight in this raid. Keep your circle up on the opposite portal for quick swapping.

Anub'arak - Nothing really special to do here. If your guild asks you to nuke the adds, dump a CoD on Anub'arak.

Not one, but TWO.. Val'kyr?

I thought I'd hate raidleading, I really did.

To be fair, one large part of it didn't exactly tickle my fancy; the bit where you tell people to sit out. That's never fun. However, bossing people around during a fight is just, you know, awesome. It's almost like having 24 Belfips that you need to micro-manage. The first time I didn't think much of it, but yesterday I realized I was starting to enjoy it.

We stepped back into the Crusaders' Coliseum again last night for the new boss: The Twin Val'kyr, Fjola Lightbane and Edyis Darkbane. It's probably my favourite fight so far in the new raid. The mechanics are interesting, and it's a very technical fight, which means you're not just standing there pushing the same four buttons. I love it.

It's very tough to explain the tactics without having you see it for yourself, but I'll do my best. There's four portals, two light and two dark. Right clicking either will give you either a Light Essence buff, or a Dark Essence one respectively. With the Light Essence, you deal increased damage to dark targets (Edyis Darkbane) and less damage to light targets (Fjola Lightbane). You also absorb light damage done by Fjola. The Dark Essence does the opposite.

Apart from the portals, there will also be little orbs of concentrated light and dark floating around. Collecting the dark orbs with the Dark Essence buff gives you stacks of a Powering Up buff. Once you reach 100 stacks you start dealing 100% more damage, however collecting any light orbs with the Dark Essence buff blows them up, dealing damage to people in a small radius. Again, the opposite happens for people with Light Essence.

It all sounds easy so far, split the raid into the two essences, collect and avoid orbs, and pewpew. Fortunately, it's not just that. Every 45 seconds they use an ability which requires all the raid to think on its feet and react accordingly.

The first is an aoe pulse, dealing light or dark damage every couple of seconds. The raid needs to see which of the twins is casting it, and change their Essence accordingly. If Fjola Lightbane is casting it, for example, you switch to Light Essence.

The second ability is a massive heal. It's interruptible, sure, but you need to crack the shield first. Depending on which twin has the shield the raid again needs to change their essence to maximize damage and break the shield, which takes 250k damage to get rid of.

Some little tips from what I've seen:

Even though the twins share their health pool, you still need to split the raid, mainly for the shield. It takes a couple of seconds to switch essence and get in range of the twin, so you want to balance out the dps.

You're best of staying next to a portal of your opposite essence, so that you don't need to run too much to change if needed.

Healers don't really need an essence except for the aoe pusle ability. They can, instead, take the essence opposite of what the rest of their group is and help get rid of the opposite essence orbs.

Dear Wilfred

Yes you, Wilfred Fizzlebang. You really did fizzle out this time.

You're a disgrace to warlocks, and to gnomes. You enter the arena acting all high and mighty with your large ego. You tell us about the large fearsome doomguard you're going to summon, but use the wrong spell. Go back to level 60 and do the proper quests.

But you weren't done there were you? Nope. Not only did you get the spell wrong, but you couldn't even control the Eredar Lord you summoned. Honestly now, Belfip would've been a harder raid boss than Lord Jaraxxus, and I've been controlling Belfip since level 1.

On the other hand, this over sized pimple you summoned did drop some good loot for me and my friends, and for that I must thank you. At least your life wasn't a complete waste.

Not one, but two worms

So we stepped into the Coliseum today with a full raid, surprisingly, and we did eventually get the bosses down. While it wasn't difficult once we figured out the mechanics it was definitely new and exciting. Here's a quick rundown of what you're gonna be doing as a warlock in the Northrend Beasts encounter.

Gormok

• FIRE IS BAD. MOVE OUT.
• Nuke the snobolds hitching a ride on fellow member's backs.
• Stay away from said fellow raid members.
• Keep a 15yd distance between you and the boss.

Acidmaw and Dreadscale

Here's where things get different. These two worms both do a different type of attack; Acidmaw casts Paralytic Toxin that eventually slow you down then stuns you, while Dreadscale casts Burning Bile, which just does periodic damage. The catch is that they neutralize each other. The easier kill order is Acidmaw then Dreadscale, one gets a 50% damage done buff when the other one dies but it's not much of a problem on the normal mode.

During the first phase Dreadscale will be mobile whilst Acidmaw will be stationary. They both need to be tanked, but the mobile worm will cast his debuff on the tank, and the stationary one will cast it on random raid members. Therefore in the first phase random raid members will be getting the toxin that eventually stuns them. If this is you, you have to run to the tank tanking Dreadscale who'll have the burning bile debuff. This will neutralize the poison.

After a few minutes, both worms submerge and reappear. They swap roles in the way that now Acidmaw is mobile. This means the tank will be getting the paralysis poison. Random raid members will now be getting the burning bile debuff, who have to run it to the tank to get rid of the poison.

Rinse and repeat until they're both dead. Once Acidmaw dies all you have to do is heal through the burning bile debuff as there will be no more poisons.

Oh and stay out of the poison clouds.

Icehowl

Another straightforward, but still enjoyable boss. Force your tank to drag him to the middle and spread out around him. Every now and then he knocks the entire raid to the walls, looks at someone and charges at them. If it's you, you're smart enough to read this blog and know that you have to move. But anyone else is gonna get hit, and die. You could also be a nice warlock and tell people to move, then the boss crashes into the wall and gets stunned. At that point he takes 100% more damage so you can stay on top of the meters. It's a win/win however evil you decide to be.

Patch 3.2 tomorrow

So it's been confirmed that 3.2 will be applied during the downtime tomorrow, and it wasn't really a surprise after the Frenchies leaked all over the place. There aren't really any interesting warlock changes to boot, none that will change our dps rotations or whatnot. In a way I'd rather there was at least some very minor change that would leave us with something else to do. It'll probably get boring doing the same things we did in Ulduar all over again in the new raid. I actually haven't seen much of the PTR live streams, so I don't know what they're like, but I'm hoping that it won't be the same mechanics over and over again.

The most game affecting change from what I've heard is the resilience one and what it's gonna do to warlocks. I've seen various people starting to whine about how awesome we're gonna be in PvP, and it wasn't worded like that, it was more like "omg you killed me in 1v1 after I've been owning you for the past 7 months, nerf". It's definitely gonna make me try out some battlegrounds again, and by battlegrounds I mean the new Isle of Conquest.

I've been a fan of the whole vehicle combat thing since the release of Wrath. Malygos P3 was awesome. I think FL would be one of the funner bosses in Ulduar if he wasn't so easily tuned. The way they seem to have integrated ground combat with the whole vehicle thing in the IoC seems to be an act of genius and it's probably because one of the developers plays a warlock. How else would you explain it?

The first thing I'll do tomorrow is go to the Alchemy trainer and get the new transmutes, and after that try out the new 5man. We'll be doing the new raid that evening as well, seeing as Wednesdays are raid days for us. Realm Firsts will be out of reach, as I'm sure those 'awesomer' (recruit a billion players at the start of wrath and have 100 people sitting out every night. Yes I'm exaggerating but it's mostly true) guilds will be trying to log on as soon as possible. And there's probably gonna be some more photoshopped screenshots.. like anyone cares.

That's all I have to say really. To all you raiders, good luck in the Crusaders' Coliseum, I'll keep you updated on our progress.

And here we are now

Only half an hour ago, we killed Yogg-Saron on Heroic mode. We've worked at him for weeks, but what better opening post for a blog than a celebratory one?

Thank you Cake for such an awesome raid!