I’m suddenly very happy that we’re not raiding this week because it means that I don’t have to organize anything. Which is good. What with the Shattering and such, I haven’t had a lot of time to do much of anything.
Recruitment is moving along swimmingly, with some of my old Bronzebeard guildies applying, including the ever-awesome Kaleri. I’m very excited at the prospect of healing with her again. Even more hilarious, someone actually applied to Apotheosis after listening to Episode 1 of Blessing of Frost, the podcast that Majik and I have started. And we’re taking him! Hi, Que! We’re looking forward to having you join. :)
The roster… is going to be interesting.
I’m now looking at this collection of people we seem to have acquired. There’s 11 melee, probably about 19 ranged, 9ish healers and 4 tanks. There are a few who have expressed that they may not be able to make the required raids or start days or such, or people we just flat-out haven’t seen or people who are now waffling a bit on whether or not they actually want to join. Which is okay. That’s WHY we have “so many” people interested in raiding.
Last expansion, I learned the hard way that recruitment sucks and is an energy-sapping chore that drains my will to live. This expansion, I’m learning that it’s only THAT bad when you’re desperately trying to grab people because you can’t fill raids.
The major mistake we all made in Wrath of the Lich King was thinking that we’d keep most of our raiders from BC.
Wrong.
We lost: Toga & Ribs to the Horde, one of our tanks and healers to a guild with their RL friends, then during the levelling process, we lost a mage and a warlock as well. Two more DPS left for another guild after a difference of opinion shortly after we started out in Naxx, then we lost (as in, they went AWOL) two officers (a tank and a DPS/healer) and then we lost another officer (another tank). Surprisingly, we were still okay on tanks, but we had just suffered so many losses in other areas that we couldn’t sustain raids.
Naturally, we’re overcompensating a bit in the other direction. The only class we have that has absolutely no competition for a raid spot is our lone rogue. And even then, with 10-11 melee, we’ll want to swap people around now and again.
Since our raid requirements are 75% of raids over a 30 day period, we have to assume that most people won’t attend more than 75%. Sure, some will, most we have to go on the assumption that most won’t. So we’re adding ~25% more people than are typically needed in a given raid night. Except we’re doing it by role, not by overall numbers.
Assume we need 3 tanks for most encounters (although I strongly suspect it’ll be 2 for most and 3 for some) — a fourth tank is the solution.
Assume we need 6 healers for most encounters, with an occasional need for 7. In order to ensure we have enough at all times, we basically need 9.
Assuming 3 tanks and 6 healers, that gives us 16 DPS for a typical raid, sometimes 17. But we need to break that up into melee and ranged:
Assume 7-8 melee DPS, that means we want about 10 on the roster and assume about 8-9 ranged, that means we need about 12. So 22 DPS, 10 healers, 4 tanks. That’s 36 people.
Add in the fact that some people can’t get started with us immediately or are having second thoughts or just flat-out haven’t shown up yet, plus the possibility that some people might actually not be able to perform at the levels we need them to and you suddenly understand why we have about 43 people signed up to start raiding with us. I’m looking at close to 20% of our signed-up people not actually showing up and raiding with us or not being ready for a variety of reasons, which brings us back down to… about 35-36 people.
Doing some raids pre-Cataclysm has been great and has allowed people to see how we work things in raids. Our tanks are getting used to being swapped around and while we’ve never had a surplus of healers online (we’ve had 7 but never sat any because on those occasions, some DPS were having connection issues), I’m pretty confident I can swap healers in and out pretty easily come Cataclysm.
Something that shocked me was the number of old Apotheosis folks on our roster. There’s not nearly as many as I thought there were.
There’s:
Andy – WotLK raider, BC casual, T (since Fated Heroes!), Football (since FH), TD (since FH), Sham (since BC), Hul – WotLK raider, BC casual, Toga (since FH), Maj (since FH), Euph (since BC), Ose (since BC), Kam (since BC), Tia (basically since FH, but she was in another guild for BC and WotLK), Legs (since BC), Dar (since FH), myself (since FH), Dayden (since BC), Fog (since FH) and Shadow (since FH).
That’s 18 out of the 43 people who have expressed interest.
11 others I’ve either raided with or have a SO or friend who raided with us or once upon a time apped to us and then went elsewhere and have spent all that time regretting it. ;)
That’s still only 29/43. That’s like 14 people who are taking a chance on us, who have no prior knowledge, commitment or experience with Apotheosis. That is AWESOME. App after app mention this blog or my enthusiasm and my fellow officers are still like “OUR Kurn? Someone actually READS *our Kurn’s* blog? And her TL;DR ramblings? ***REALLY***?”
I’m really pleased that my enthusiasm and energy for Apotheosis has been coming through to you guys, because I’m not even trying to do that. I’m just trying to document what’s happening with me and the guild. That it’s coming out as me loving this group of people and being very enthuasiatic about raiding with these people is just the cherry on top.
Okay, off to do stuff that has nothing to do with the guild, WoW or even the Internet!
Hope all the Americans out there have a great Thanksgiving, even though the real Thanksgiving was over a month ago. ;)
Well if I wasn’t Happy with my guild, Horde, and trying to stay with RL friends I ‘d apply to apotheosis based on your blogs if that’s any consolation :).
…I’m listening to your podcast right now and oh man, I wish I were able to raid on your days!!!! D:
You’re right Kurn, Thanksgiving was a month and a half ago. This is Turkey and Football Appreciation Day. Go Canada.
It’s not surprising that you’re getting a lot of interest from people who read your blog. You may not really be aware of this, Kurn, but your blog is probably the single most influential Holy Paladin blog out there right now. It’s amazing how many people I talked to that said “I just copied Kurn’s spec” when 4.0 dropped.
I was sorely tempted to apply to Apotheosis as well. I didn’t for two reasons: 1) I am in a great guild that has been together since launch day (I’m a recent add on, only been there since Feb), and 2) ummm… as a Holy Paladin, I think the OTHER Holy Paladin in your guild might have made me look bad. :)
Just remember that recruitment doesn’t need to be so soul sucking when you have people like Dahrla and I around. Her and I seem to be on the same wavelength, regarding applications and I think her and I have commented a couple of times that one of us was writing out questions at the same time as the other and we felt derailed until we saw the other had covered our points, precisely.
I can’t really speak for her, but I can say for myself that I’m more than happy to help out more with that area (as I’ve stated before). So please feel free to speak up, if you feel your soul is borderline sucked out and you can’t bear it anymore – lol
From previous attempts at helping with recruitment, I think we’re extremely fortunate and lucky to have gotten such quality apps right out of the gate. I think there were only 2 that were questionable and one willingly removed himself from the running before things got too far. That’s not bad! I still check back with the previous guild I assisted with recruitment for and they still get floods of bad apps that make me facepalm. I would hope that our luck continues with that and the hits just keep on coming.
I’m glad things seem to work out just fine!
I’ve only recently joined a 25 man raiding guild (one that’s quite high up there in the realm rankings, even) with my shaman and my wife’s shamen, and I was honestly shocked to see what kind of people dare to apply to such a guild. Lucky for me, the officers seem to really know their stuff and people aren’t accepted just like that.
On top of that, it was nice to see that this guild also required a bit of creativity and people were actually declined because of poor answers.
One question on the application form was:
What would you do to get home if you got shipwrecked and ended up on a raft with only a gnome, a razor, a line and hook, a piece of art and lots of cloth but nothing to make a mast of?
Now, I don’t know much about applying at Apotheosis, but to be honest, a good application form can really make things a whole lot easier.
Cyranor – Aw, thanks! :) It really kind of startles me that anyone wants to join, to be honest. :)
Codi – We would have a blast! Hope you enjoyed the podcast and that we didn’t bore you too much. :)
Fannon – woot, woot, Canada! ;)
As to people reading me… I can maybe understand copying my spec and all that, but wanting to raid with us? Transferring to a new server where they know no one but someone whose blog they read?
I honestly don’t think that I’m the single most influential holy pally blog (oh God, the pressure! haha!), but if I’m helping to influence even a couple of people for the better, that makes me smile. Thanks for sharing that you heard people came to my site and used the info at 4.0!
Stable guilds are a rarity. Find one. Stick with it. It’s a good plan. :) Haha, and I don’t make anyone look bad, except on Dreamwalker. ;)
Oestrus – I really do appreciate you and Dahrla. Your observations are excellent and I like having people to bounce ideas off of in terms of whether someone might fit well or the like.
And yes, the quality of our apps is amazing. I’m honestly blown away by the quality of 99% of the apps. Fingers crossed it stays that way!
Kaboomski – Yep, a good app is very important. I asked around on Twitter for a few good questions and got a really nice one that I incorporated:
19) There are four players, one each at the corner of a square, labelled A, B, C and D.
A is chasing B.
B is chasing C.
C is chasing D.
D is chasing A.
Given identical latency and FPS, which player catches who first and why?
Uhm, unless I’m (again) rushing into things without thinking it through.. and maybe just because it’s almost midnight and I’m exhausted from a busy day (or maybe I’m just making excuses)…
The answer to that particular question would be that you really can’t tell, because you left out certain factors. For example, if only one of those players has a speed enchant, or talented speed increase, but the others don’t, then that player would catch up first. If there’s a rogue using Sprint, he might be first. If someone uses Rocket Boots, or if one of them is mounted.. you get the idea.
Besides that, I’d say that no player catches anyone. Unless they finally start walking/running/riding/flying. You left that out. Gotta be specific there :P
But maybe that’s just my inner programmer thinking. Everything has to be specified, or nothing happens, or the wrong things happen :P