additions to the list:
- if you can't recruit
- if you don't know the GM's goals
- if you do know the goals but don't think they are right/enough/too much/murloc
- if you don't know how to wear the black hat and still be effective
- if you think the raiders are your friends
Did you know your RSS closing still says "Check out the Matticast"?
Guilds that jump from 10 to 25: Ceraphus's guild <PoN> does this every expac because they don't enforce or encourage their raiders to level up quickly. I believe he's discussed this on The Sundering before where his raiders take weeks & months to be ready for the first tier, then want to immediately jump into the second tier upon release, without the benefit of the farmed gear, or even finishing current tier normal progression.
I think Ted hits it right on the head in his counter to Darthkeller. Plainly put, we've lost players who couldn't cut it in 25s and they went on to full clears in 10s. Perhaps the environment rejuvenated them, but more likely the logistics of the fights better fit their skill set. The other thing I've heard from honest 10-man leaders is "it's not that we're good, just that we're consistent". A 10-man can be just 10 people, a 25 is usually around 30+ raiders to accommodate schedules, etc. I only bring this up because I agree with Moeshe's point in his response to the official forums; that having the gear itself be thunderforged instead of dropping an item like the crystallized upgrade deal in Firelands means that progression-minded raids will keep their starting line-up in on farm because of the slight chance that gear they need could drop. It will also mean that off-sets are build at a slower pace as thunderforged gear is not supplimental to the normal set of drops (the boss still only drops 6 pieces, not a 7th piece), and clearly the thunderforged would go to a main spec upgrading those few ilvls versus an off-tank or tank-dps, etc.
My suggestion: Give 25's the higher ilvl gear we got in WotLK, and compensate 10s by giving them 3-day lock-outs.
@amkosh I think your take would be better suited if we were discussing gear that was similar but had different designs or different applications, such as two pairs of shoulders with equal ilvl, one available from raid bosses and another available from rep content and then it was up to the player to decide which they were going after.
Unfortunately, in some cases we're looking at gear that was clearly intended to be either stop-gap or completely complimentary to gear that drops from raid bosses, and thus funnels the raiders over to the other style of play.
I actually would have been fine with rep requirements to buy loot, but not having to earn valor from dailies. That way, I'd only have to do dailies for factions that I was either interested in or going to benefit from later on.
Congrats on 5 Years. Maybe as a special gift I'll finally get around to writing more "Tough Call" columns and give you a day off once in a while.
The thing I'm most looking forward to in MoP is the day Conquest recruits another fantastic healing priest to compliment me, and we get to read posts on WoM about what it's like to try to get back off the bench from Matt's prespective.
You forgot "Blizz will release (patch/expac/raid X) on (date) to counter-act the release of (competitor Y)". After years of never having cared when competitors were releasing, I still see these assurances made in tweets all the time.
Using your example, I'd point out that Phelps & Co probably also made plans to stay in a hotel adjacent to the aquatics center the night before the race, not make excuses about how long their commute was from out of town because they couldn't be bothered to prepare accordingly.
I'm sure it seems like whining for whining's sake, really it's just another delay on new raid content when we're all burnt out following the longest period of time per bosses available without new content. Also, listing off the non-raid activities doesn't make me want to play then anymore. It's like going to the market to stock up on beer and the guy says "well, we can't sell you beer for another week, but in the meantime, why not check out all those vegetables you've been missing out on?". Nobody has ever made that choice and I don't see me thinking "oh yay, I love the gift of time!". If that was really a valid argument, turn those features live now with 5.0 patch pre-MoP launch.
In the end, we'll still seem the same guilds surge to the top, because they're good at raiding. Nobody who's achieved high rankings in the past will suddenly be "out-played" by other guilds due to a delayed raid start. Afterall, you get a "level playing field" every other raid tier launch.
What the heck. This is one of the best posts Matt's written in a while, tells a great story with actionable tips for players looking to move into a more progressed guild (or players who may be dejected from a recent denial), and yet nobody has commented on this?
Boo.
If you're going to consider Lolwell to be a cooldown, then PoM is up there, too.
@Rilandune I'd have to ask if your guild is really "pressured" to level to get to raiding, or if that's truly what they prefer. If it's a non-progression raid, it's counter-intuitive but still likely that they may prefer being in raid over leveling. I don't really like questing, though I do go slower and take in the content on my alts; I suppose I have difference purposes for different toons. Give me 2 extra weeks and it'll be just like in school, I'll work on that project the night before it's due.
Also, I still believe it's a fallacy that anyone needs to "gear through heroics" or otherwise gear-up for raiding. Sure, extra gear adds an extra margin of error on progression attempts, but at the launch of both Cata & Wrath I hit raids the first week in mixed greens & blues and either held my own or lead the group. 5-mans are great if you have the time, but I don't think they are something that you need to budget for.
I like this idea but not for the reasons indicated in the post. If you think that leveling time and gearing-up time is really what keeps your guild from the kind of progression accomplished by a Top 50 guild, you're seriously naive. If you don't have time to level the day or week of release, how much time will you have to raid the day raids come out? And how many hours/attempts does it usually take your guild to down a boss? At the average rate of server progression, any guild that can clear raid content rapidly enough to compete wouldn't need a two-week buffer.
That said, I do agree with the ideas CaerMorrighan pointed out; ship the expansion without raids, and give us the rest of the content first. Mainly I'd love it because the opportunity to level to 90 would get us out of DS, and at least break the monotony earlier. The only problem is, the content I'd be consuming at launch in place of raiding is what I'd normally use to not get bored with the game while waiting for the next raid tier to come out. So basically once you start this cycle, you have to keep it going.
25's are where the real raiding happens. Yes, we've proven that you can take the top 10 players in a guild and down progression content quite easily (sometimes even when they were playing alts/undergeared), but the fight is not the same and I always feel like it's a consolation accomplishment.
In BC, I was raider leader for 1 of the 3 10-mans in a guild, but we only ran 3x10 because the raiders we had all had different schedules, so we had to raid different days to accommodate. Even so, after a few weeks, when my raid was killing Prince repeatedly and the others were stuck on Curator, a number of people suddenly had their schedules clear up so they could raid on my days and not the others. Then whoever didn't get in on my run basically signed-out for the week because they believed the other groups couldn't accomplish content.
The only time I've seen multiple 10-mans work was when we were in ToC and could run 25's & 10's in the same week, and we'd farm trinkets on both, splitting up after the 25-man clear and racing each group.
At the risk of opening a bigger can of worms, separate but equal never really exists.
@mataoka I'd be interested to see how you'd expand on this idea. Are you saying 3x10 allows you to have 3 raid leaders and thus a better situation?
@Virsica Will you repeat this every tier? History shows that on average 30% of all loot leaves a guild from tier to tier, much less expac to expac. Is it worth it to the other 23 raiders to follow this format just for the rogues? I presume the scenario is just being over-simplified for space.
Without sounding snarky, I'd have to ask what exactly binds you as a guild then? Are you on a small server where your guild is the only game in town and thereby the best way to find raiders? On a high pop server, I can't imagine why I'd stay as just 1/60th of the raid team when I could go elsewhere and be a stronger part of the team.
I'd rather the assets wasted on aesthetics of improved death were put towards giving us a holy form aesthetic. At least that would be something we could move around and enjoy.
Objection: the announcers at Blizzcon '11 were NOT exciting. Kina & I talked about how poor the level of commentating was, and you could tell that none of the Blues on stage were used to casting or had planned ahead. I'm glad Kina got his wish and was able to cast this run himself.
Competitive PvE would be great. I think you could even skip the need to do actual raids and just do a ToC style encounter, but randomize the room and the boss on load-in.
I'd love to see this become a reality, but the truth is, Blizz would be supporting an esport that players couldn't jump into. Anyone can play SCII and with enough skill/practice/dedication work their way up to pro rank. No single player can work their way up to Vodka-level raiding without help along the way. Too many kids would be going into it expecting to be good and create negative impressions.
I'd imagine Mass Dispell CD around 8-12 sec for a reduced mana cost, not 30+.
As for Rapture, it's a cool idea, it worked well in Wrath, was valuable in early Cata as a work-around before everyone out-geared mana needs anyways, but it's not the most dynamic or fun way to play. "Stay off my tank" calls are always awkward. I'd be fine with Rapture being replaced by something more like our T11 2p (mana back for penancing a shielded target). Something that rewards us for playing appropriately and not just bubbling every x# of seconds.
@anafielle Ana is right (as she usually is). When it comes to community sites, you don't get your full value just with the paid services. I'm sure the number of clicks on the thread exceeded the number of applications received, and a strong segment of those probably did what Ana mentions and looked for guild member activities. Remember, EJ isn't AdWords, they aren't a paid service first, they are a community & discussion board first.
Similarly, I disagree with the idea of recruiting only after MoP launch. The first week of progression is not the time to be trying to fill your raid. You need kills that first week or two to propel your next 4-6 months of recruiting. If you wait til MoP launch to recruit, you'll be recruiting with 0/8 kills while guilds with less skill will be 4/8...who are the applications going to go to then? Trust me, the people who argued with me about the need to recruit heavily pre-Cata weren't able to catch up on recruiting until post-nerf FL.
Yes, there is a drought right now, players are tired of DS and aside from main-swaps and those trying to go 8/8 HM, have no motivation to move right now. But once the launch date is announced, you want a functioning team that is as lucrative as possible, so that you can pick up those few key players who will help you in early MoP. Don't let those guys go to your competition because you were waiting til launch day.