I posted about Heroic Warmaster Blackhorn yesterday and in that post, I detailed the number of ways my raid group struggled with the encounter. My guildies obviously took exception to the post and I got comments from them complaining that I made us look incompetant.
Clearly, if we’re 6/8 25-man HM, we’re doing something right, Kit pointed out.
So today, I will follow up yesterday’s post with a short (hah) discussion of where my raid group’s strengths are.
1) Healing. Myself excluded, my healers are fan-fucking-tastic. I can (usually) keep up, but the other healers are amazing. I guess that’s what happens when the guild master runs a blog tailored to a healing spec – the healers I tend to get are top-notch. I am consistently in awe of Jasyla, Featherwind, Kaleri, Sara, Kit and Walks. Not just their throughput, but their ability to follow instructions and mainly making good decisions. While I know I need to have enough healers to run raids in case a bunch of people have something come up, having more healers is genuinely problematic for me because so many of us make so many raids and having to sit someone out is always, always a difficult choice.
2) DPS. My DPS can bring it. No ifs, ands or buts. We have never had problems with an enrage timer if we have executed the encounter appropriately. We have a great group of talented, skilled raiders who bring their best efforts to the raid. It’s as though I’m a general and I have this elite force available to me and I can point at a target and say “THAT ONE, KILL IT!!!” and they go forth and kill it with ease.
3) Tanks. Not only do I have two talented players for tanks, I have three capable DPSers as designated OS tanks. I am fortunate to have five players (there are more than that, but a minimum of five) who know their classes well enough to tank through various encounters. We’ve had main spec DPSers be the main tanks on several occasions (Heroic Maloriak, Heroic Baleroc, just to name a couple) and we’ve kicked some ass with the versatility our tanking crew brings.
4) Attitude. By and large, we are not a cranky group of people. Sure, we all have off-nights and we all get frustrated sometimes, but we’re easily amused and our chatter during raids consists of things like poop (I don’t even know) and mocking Majik (and me). A good time is had. It’s a huge difference from the impending dread and doom I had back in Wrath when I was raiding with my RL Friend the Resto Druid (not that my friend is evil or anything, but the guild atmosphere was toxic). It is, overall, a joy to raid with this group of people.
5) Perseverence. My group doesn’t quit and my officers and I know when to push them and when not to. When to push? Tier 11 heroic modes. We got H Conclave and H Valiona & Theralion down and were working on H Omnotron when Firelands came out. When not to push? H Ragnaros. We pulled him a few times but recognized that wasn’t the best use of our time or energy given how close Dragon Soul was to coming out.
6) Interaction. We talk a lot. We tweet at each other, we comment on each other’s blogs, we listen to podcasts to support each other, we post on the forums consistently. We talk about all kinds of things, including, but not limited to, the current progression fight we’re on. My Ontario-based healers have Wine Nights every so often. There was a Vegas trip. People text and talk outside of the game. People play other games together. We’re not just a group of people that sees each other at raid time three nights a week. Actual friendships are born in the guild and that helps keep us going strong as a guild. It’s a real community that goes beyond the boundaries of World of Warcraft.
These are all strengths for my raid group, though I’m sure I’ve forgotten some. Those are the ones that came to me when thinking about what to write today, after discussing our flaws and weaknesses yesterday. We can overcome the weaknesses (as shown by defeating Heroic Warmaster Blackhorn) and the strengths serve to tide us over through our struggles.
Apotheosis, you rule. :)
You know, the community aspect is quite interesting – sure it’s social, but it has ACTUALLY improved my game play. I can sit around and talk to Kal about priesting for hours, learn new things, and not even realize I spent 30 minutes talking about 1 spell. So it’s sort of half social and half educational.
A new feeling for me here is that i’m actually MAD that i can’t meet MORE Apother’s. I think I’m up to 6, but there’s so many more I want to hang out with! Never had that feeling in a guild before. so PARTY AT MY HOUSE…eventually haha.
I’d add that Analysis is another strength.
Our officers and GM spend a ton of time during and after raids examining how we can improve our performance. WoL is used not just as a DPS meter, but for its real purpose, which is to figure out all of the aspects of every encounter.
Additionally, the rank and file raiders contribute significantly to that analysis in an effort to improve.
Its one thing to know that a boss attempt went south at some point. Its another matter entirely to identify why it went wrong and how to fix that for the future. I know if Kurn posts in a Raid Review that I need to work on avoiding some type of damage (Blade Rush for example) that its not simply her tossing around some thoughts. If she posts it, there’s WoL proof and I can make changes that will help the Guild improve performance.
The ability to Analyze the data and Synthesize solutions is a huge strength of Apotheosis.