Beta is coming

The closed beta has been finally announced and the NDA ban has been lifted from Friends & Family alpha, so a ton of information is now available on the net. Yet again I won't apply for the beta. In the last expansions I was still busy running current content, but now I'm not doing much: some dailies, some alt leveling, raising my fishing skill on some characters, but my gameplay level has decreased. As commented before I'm burned out. If my guild was still raiding I'd be more active. And yes, I know it's a vicious circle: if I'm not there other people will also consider not showing up, but raiding has been scarcer and scarcer (we don't even place sign ups in calendar since we don't even have enough active members). Still the other day we were asked to help our friend guild with an alt run into ICC and I brought Valaak, my enha/resto shaman there, since they needed an offhealer, and managed to kill Festergut (something I already had done with my pally Turnak) and Rotface (first time for me). We also had a pair of attempts at Vampire Council. I really enjoyed being in the fray again and this time without the responsability of leading the raid. I wish I could do more raid runs without heavy responsabilities, either leading or tanking (even tanking isn't very complicated nowadays to be honest), even on known bosses like ICC's first wing it's great to be there and help others to get some gear (or even better, get some ICC gear for me too :D). Heck, I even would like to go back to Ulduar, possibly the best raid zone thanks to its diversity on boss strategies and go past Hodir.
Going back on track: I won't be applying to the beta to avoid being burned with the new expansion. I'm ok with reading about new areas, changes, skills, etc and seeing videos, but I prefer to reserve the real experience for when the expansion hits the streets, just like I did with TBC and WotLK. Having so much alts (already 11 at amx level) means I'll be visiting the same places and doing the same quests again and again and again... so I already have an "alt burn factor" I must consider. Wether the expansion will have enough power to hook me up like TBC and WotLK, only time will tell, but I fear it will be less than WotLK, but that can be due to several reasons: with each expansion you've been around for longer and it's harder to get any interesting surprises on each expansion or patch. Also I think Blizz did several mistakes in the way of delivering content, specially the Trial of the Crusader, the abuse of LFD for badge farming... intentions were good, and necessary, but execution has been somewhat deceiving.
By the way, I will try the new races, that's for sure. I've already tried or have characters (even if they're low level alts) with the existing ones, so I'm looking forward for worgens (specially) and goblins. I'm still wondering which class will fit better each one. Worgens look savage, so feral druids look appropiate for them. I'm not sure about goblins... typically in fantasy realms they're usually cannon fodder in the hands of bigger greenskins, but in the Warcraft world they've been (until now) a neutral race dedicated to commerce (or should I say to gather tons of gold). Warlock may fit well the goblin race, since shaman is not available (so I could create some kind of Warhammer Night Goblin Shaman), but rogues also look good for such a sneaky race.

A great and weird raid night

I find both weird and exciting when things go smooth where you were foreseeing a big disaster. Last friday night we went to raid ICC. I arrived late since I had a meeting to attend but made it on time to get into the Gunship Battle, where one of the tanks had to leave. So I got my pally up and tanked at the Alliance ship, while the other tank went for the mage in the Horde ship. This fight really seems a joke after Lord Marrowgar and Lady Deathwhisper, and specially when considering the next one, Deathbringer Saurfang. It's like some kind of holidays with free loot. Anyway we faced Saurfang and even we hadn't the most suitable classes to kite and take down the beasts easily we managed to kill him on third or fourth try. We lacked enough firepower for any of the next bosses, so we just cleaned some trash (and suffered an horrible death at Precious when he was at 8% or so) to get some rep.
Some people had to leave and we didn't have replacements to continue in ICC, so after filling the empty spots people asked where to go. Since we didn't have WG to try the new boss I proposed to take a shot at Trial of the Crusader. I knew I was calling for doom, since the only times our guild tried that instance without people from other friendly guilds it ended in an utter disaster (and call it coincidence, but I was never on these tries), but victory is only for the brave. There we went and I tried to explain tactics since I was one of the few that did the instance several times (in run with a friendly guild), but never as tank, so I was very afraid of encounters like the worms and the Twin Val'Kyrs. Surprisingly the run went like a (almost) charm. We killed the Beasts of Northrend in one go with only one casualty. Lord Jaraxxus was strangely the one that most problems gave and we wiped three times at him. Then the weirdest of all: the Faction Champions and Twin Val'kyrs were oneshotted without any problem. How can we do the most complicated and not the easiest fights? Keep in mind I didn't have much idea about the strat in Twins, trying to remember how I did it with the other guild, which auras to pick up at start and so. Finally I said: "ok, more or less I remember it was this way, let DBM tell you when to switch to what colour". And it worked, I couldn't believe it. Then Anub died at the second try and we finished ToC10 for the first time with only guild members.
People was still hungry for more (completing ToC10 was like an adrenaline injection) so the only possibilities were Naxx/CoA (eazy emblemz!) or take a tour through Ulduar. And there we went, some of us switching to alts since few items we could get from that place that were worthy. Flame Leviathan (sorry, Golf Caddy!), Razorscale and XT-002 Deconstructor were easily stomped to the ground. We skipped Ignis and went in the Antechamber, but instead of going for the easy Kologarn the main tank decided to take the Iron Council in hard more (leaving Steelbreaker the last one alive). We failed and wiped and since it was very late (around 2:00 AM) we decided to call it quits without any bitter sensation. It was a great raiding night for our humble guild. I was feeling both great and weird, since it was really great clearing ToC10 when before people couldn't even finish Beasts, but also had this strange sensation that maybe stars were aligned in the right position and next time we go there we won't get past the jormungars.
I hope I'm totally wrong about this sensation.

The King is dead, long life the King!

So finally the gates to the Frozen Throne opened. And before a day passed the Lich King was already pushing up daisies. Something's rotten in Northrend and it's not Arthas' corpse. Three things are bugging me a lot about the LK fight:
1. How fast the LK went down. It was a "blind" fight. No previous test in PTR, no data published that could help you through addons like DeadlyBossMods. You had to discover by yourself which were the LK's abilities and how to overcome them. The only info published when the patch hit the streets seemed to involve some beam dance like the Netherspite fight and the access to another room/dimension like Kalecgos. Everybody was expecting a very tough fight, but it didn't last even 24 hours and the published video of the fight it seems pretty easy (although the Frostmourne room isn't shown, maybe there are the beams). This says very few about the encounter designers. Fights should be a challenge, not something you can achieve on the first try. Neither should be something impossible to get, not even by the top raiding guilds, but the amount of time passed since the fight was available it's ridiculous. Other boses in the past took more time to be defeated, but it seems Blizzard didn't take into account how easy is to get good gear nowadays so you can kill the first 4 bosses in ICC with just purchased tier gear.
I was expecting a fight of these epic proportions to last much more, with people trying different tactics, getting a bit closer with every try. In one word: progression. But no, in only some hours we already had a winner. And if you check the videos the tactics seem pretty easy. Is that all the LK can offer? Bullshit I say. Where's that dreaded character that appeared since you first set your feet in Northrend and bragged about his powers, then sparing your life because you weren't powerful enough to challenge him? Gone with the cold Northrend wind. I got the impression it wasn't the last boss in the game but just a last 5man dungeon boss. Of course I'm sure he's a tough one, but in the video looks sooo easy. At least tactics don't seem to pose any complication or involving anything new than tank'n spank and move out of fire. Since I don't want to spoil anything just go and check the video, then tell me what you think.

2. This issue has already been very well addressed by Chastity at Righteous Orbs: why must be always be a Lich King? Just check Chas' post. The argument it's so weak it doesn't have any sense: without a leader, the Scourge would go rampant and destroy all life in Azeroth. Excuse me sir, but
a) the Scourge's goal has always been to exterminate all life on Azeroth, serving the Burning Legion's plans
b) it hasn't shown any trace of following any plan or grand scheme to achieve this, at least since Lordareon was destroyed. No coordinated assaults on major cities, no undercover operations to assassinate/control the Alliance and Horde leaders... so mostly has "ran rampant in Azeroth" killing whatever they could
c) without the pressence of the Lich King and the powers he wield, almost all the Scourge should crumble to dust since they lack the demonic powers that drive them forward. Only the characters with enough power before joining the Scourge or certain degree of free will should be still alive (erm, undead, sorry). And these ones most surely whould be trying to get the LK crown and command the Scourge
d) the LK doesn't show any traces of the former Arthas "being the only thing restraining him from sweping away all life from Azeroth". And the last human remains (aside the body with Arthas' form) were destroyed in the quest Tirion's Gambit. If he hasn't launched a total assault to destroy all life it's not because what's left of Arthas was still struggling to avoid it
Ok, so without anyone as the Lich King the Scourge would cease to exist and that would break the gameplay, at least in a logical way. No problem, I see the point. But that doesn't justify why putting another person in his place. If WoW still needs to Scourge you don't need to pick somebody to wear the crown. There're other ways, more logical: the body that held the crown no longer exists, but that doesn't mean the powers it contained have vanished too. They have only dispersed and just need a new body. You don't need to sacrifice someone, just let the powers rebuild a new body, something like Sauron was trying in the Lord of the Rings. It will take time, since the power it accumulated from the start has vanished or doesn't exist anymore (looks like Frostmourne is shattered and all the trapped souls are free now, so that's less fuel to the dark powers of the Lich King), but if Sargeras' death didn't stop the Bruning Legion, why Arthas death should stop the Scourge at all? It's a very lame argument.

3. The last point is just a personal opinion about Ensidia's being suspended during three days and all achievements and loot removed because apparently they exploited a bug by using saronite bombs in the LK fight. If you read all information available to me it seems a huge pile of bullshit from Blizzard. The encounter had a bug, ok, but that was Blizzard's fault. And doesn't seem Ensidia was exploiting actively this bug. Looks like Blizz forgot the fight wasn't tested previously in the PTRs, so nobody could known that using saronite bombs (something that rogue had been doing before as part of his dps rotation) would cause the platforms to rebuild. WoW is not a perfect game and there're still a good bunch of bugs that need to be fixed. Do you expect players during a boss encounter to see why some platforms reappear again, specially on the endgame boss? This is not like that old bug people were exploiting to get to C'thun faster. Somebody found some kind of invisible ledges that let you get to the Old God faster, avoiding a lot of hard trash mobs fights. Well, that's an exploit. People who did it was punished and the bug was fixed, and that's great. I also concede that with this bug the fight may be easier, but the fight already looks easy enough without it and also they weren't exploiting actively this, it's just something that happened while they were in the middle of the fray. Now it's that important for Blizz who gets a world first? Do they care which guild downs first any boss? It's the guilds who care, since top raiding guilds are sponsorised and get money for being the first ones in achieving something. It would have been smarter to just allow this achievement for Ensidia and fix the bug asap. or at least fix the bug and let them try again. Suspending their accounts and removing achievements looks very lame, like a spoiled brat who's been beaten at a game of chess by someone who's a better player, then gets mad and tosses the board and pieces away (heh, I did that when I was a kid, I never liked being defeated and specially in a game I did not understand at all). And let me tell you this is just my opinion, I don't have any relationship with Ensidia and I couldn't care less who's getting a world first.

Post soundtrack:  Kill the King - Megadeth

Hard to post lately

It's been a long time since I published my last entry. And no, I haven't been slacking with the blog. It's just... I don't find something consistent enough to blog about. During this time I prepared two blog entries that I realized weren't worth publishing. Even the second one was a kind of revision of the first and why I shouldn't post it, but again I find the entry futile. On the other hand I haven't found any remarkable situations inside WoW worth pointing out. Not even some epic failpug. Aside from the typical Oculus quitters and some noobish tank who couldn't handle threat properly, all pugs I've done lately were very smooth. I even did several runs with the same group that worked as a charm (in fact was a guild run from another server who just lacked a healer).
Raid stiuation is at stall right now. Saurfang doesn't seem a big problem if we have enough dps to kill the beasts very fast, but we usually have problems with Precious, even not being a boss. Too many zombies running rampant. And when we finally get that doggie down (Stinky is much less problematic) we're having problems facing Festergut. Our best try so far is 68%, with the tank survivality being the biggest problem even before he releases the gas. The poor chap goes from over 45k to flatline in a blink... Anyway we're trying as much as we can, since we're a casual raiding guild and we don't go there every night. Still is great to have gone this far, I'm sure very few guilds who do casual 10man raiding have gone so far inside ICC. We've also reached the Vampire Council but haven't tried the fight yet and this week opens the Frostwing. The first boss, being completely different from anything done before seems promisingly fun and chaotic at the same time.
My chars got also some upgrades, but it's hard to play with all of them without getting burnt out, so I'm not doing lots of randoms (also the wait time if you're dps is a killer, specially if the char doesn't have any gathering profession).
So here I am, in a certain WoW impasse, trying to find something worth to be posted. Meanwhile check the blogroll list at the right side and you'll find some cool people with interesting posts.

Can't focus

Thanks to the Christmas holidays I've been again playing a lot again. But the problem when you have 10 alts is the difficulty to focus on just one. Sure, I've been able to get some of them great new shiny loot, but after 5 or 6 random heroics with a char I get bored of it and need to switch to another. But then if I go on a dps char I need to wait several minutes to get a run, so I've been focusing more on my druid and shaman healer. The last one specially got 3 pieces of t9 now (when previously only had ilevel 200 gear) but still I don't feel quite comfortable with it. It's good at throwing small heals, but Chain Heal takes ages to cast. And when checking the available totems from the vendors you see all focus on Chain Heal... bugger. So I'm still using the old Totem of the Plains. Anyway once I got the fourth piece of t9 I'll guess I'll get one.
On the other hand we did some Icecrown Citadel raiding, since everybody wanted to grind some reputation to get the ring. After a pair of cleanings (without any rogue to see the traps that spawn these giant skeletons) we decided to try the first boss, Lord Marrowgar. As usual only two or three guildmates had read about this boss, so we decided to try and what was this about. I must say that we did great on first try, bringing him to 14%. Quite impressive for a bunch of casuals. On second try we had a silly wipe at start and I could only hold his damage for some seconds before I went splat!! on the floor. But at the third we did it and kicked Marrowgar's bony ass. Not only that, he dropped a tanking mace and a pair of pally boots and I got both items (yay!). After some rep grinding I also got the ring, so now I'm very happy with my paladin.
Now, on what char should I focus? Decissions, decissions...

Are you dead yet?

No, I'm not dead yet. I know I haven't written a single line for several days, yet I've been playing a lot lately thanks to some holidays I got last week. Just I haven't found anything remarkable to create a post (and still I have an unfinished one that's a pain to write). So what's been happening to the *urnaks these days?
Vurnak got exalted with Netherwing after several days of grinding rep. He doesn't have any gatherer professions, so I had fewer quests to get rep (well, one quest less, but it's a nice amount of rep less every day). Anyway he grinded everyday and is now the proud owner of the Azure Netherdrake (I still think the Obsidian looks better, but that's Kurnak's flying mount already). Also yesterday finally did The Oculus, the last dungeon I was missing and now I can create the Wispcloak. And last but not least also got the achievement for completing all heroic daily dungeon quests. Talking about achievements, got several of the Pilgrim fest, thanks to the teleport spell it's not a pain in the ass, but since I don't like much the frenzy people get in during festivals to get all achievements and claim the violet drake I didn't complete them all and won't do any on other characters.
Turnak was invited to ToC25 with our allied guild... as MT healer! (gasp!) An important responsability that I think I managed in a good way (I was only in ToC10 as dps before). Raid took several wipes since it was an alts/non-regular raiders and we didn't manage to kill Anub'arak in the end (damn enrage timer!) and the raid took longer than expected, so as a kind of compensation we went to Onyxia's lair to get some easy loot.
Surnak the warlock dualspecced destruction. Since demonology does such weak dps I wanted to try the only spec I haven't played yet (formerly he was affliction). Destruction spec increases his dps greatly, but it's boring as hell. At least it has a clear rotation to follow. He also got the epic flight skill and crafted the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine, since he's an engineer. I just lack now the rep with Alliance Vanguard to get the Chopper plans. I've been playing Surnak more and more lately and also since he can access the AH in Dalaran he's been selling tons and tons of gems that Turnak prospects. And I've made a ton of gold in a short time. I've almost recovered all the money invested in him (1k for dualspec and 4k for epic flight).
The rest of characters have been mainly inactive. Jurnak still needs to level leatherworking to 450 (he's 433 atm) and then all my characters main professions will be at top level.

Post soundtrack: Are you dead yet? - Children of Bodom


PS: This entry was supposed to be posted through Google Wave, but seems the Blogger plugin is not working correctly yet.

Headbanging on a dragon

So yesterday I was with my mage bored in Dalaran, trying to get in a group to do daily heroic when I see someone asking for some dps who had the Vault of Archavon achievements. Since it didn't seem I'd get into apug for that daily hardcore I decided to try going VoA and whispered that guy the Koralon and Emalon achievements and surprisingly got in. The raid wasn't a total pug but a guild run who only needed some spots to fill in. This usually gives more confidence it won't end in an utter disaster, so I was happy to finally found a raid outside my guild's or our "brother" guild that doesn't suck Hodir's Horn (copyright Tamarind again).
The three bosses went down easily since people was good geared and then somebody proposed to do Sartharion 3D (no, not the new Pixar's film in three dimensions). That sounded lovely, since I never did it with any drake on (and the times I tried ended wiping). Checking Recount dps was maybe a bit low, but hey, nobody ever wrote anything about cowards, so we cleared all the adds and then charged the big one.
Oh my...
First attempts were dissapointing, wiping at 20% or so. So some of the players switched chars to increase dps. I was doing around 3,8k dps by then and I needed to improve it (and I was blowing all my cds from start). Then I remembered I was carrying some Potions of Speed. And also remembered that even not being in frost spec I still had Icy Veins. My dps grew from 3,8k to 5k. Mmmm I must make more of these lovely potions, they're a great steampack. Still we couldn't down the bugger, wiping at 3 or 4%. But we were stubborn and kept trying, wiping over a dozen times. From the 20% at first try to 3% it was a big progression and we were happy of such improvement, yet disappointed because everybody knew we could do it and it was just a factor of luck... getting good flame waves so we didn't need to move much, timing the heals when first drake landed... but in the end Sartharion and his drakes won the match yesterday.
Anyway it was great to see such progression, so I'm not complaining. And rest assured, there will be revenge.

Post soundtrack: The Revenge - Russell Allen and Jorn Lande

Feeling better

Seems the heals and cleanses finally arrived (thanks Tam!) and yesterday was much better, enough to give a hand to the guild and do some Ulduar raiding (also after so many time in bed my back was killing me). Fortunately I could rid of the fever (thursday I was over 38ºC), the headache was almost gone and the choughing reduced to minimum. I've also taken so much paracetamol for the muscular pain that probably I'm still half anesthetized. Still my voice sounds like Darth Vader after smoking half dozen of cuban cigars, so the few times I talked in vent I probably scared someone.
We tried the Golf Caddy (copyright Tamarind) with the 4 beacons up, but there was too many shit going on and people wasn't that experienced and we wiped, so we took down 2 of them and then flatlined the caddy easily. A good start. Next was Razorscale who was also killed on first try granting also the Quick Shave achievement. Things were on a roll. XT-002 also was downed without any problems (no achievement this time, we lacked firepower). But things came to a dead end with Ignis. We tried like 6 times and we couldn't get him down, wiping at 9%. Frustrated we decided to move on because it was getting late and we didn't seem to improve on each try. Kologarn was going smooth until the left arm was destroyed, nobody said anything in vent and I didn't saw the adds on time, so they killed the healers. Darn! Not again with this boss! We rezzed, rebuffed and this time I set the camera so I could see the left arm while kicking the right arm. Luckily the left arm wasn't destroyed this time and the giant fell like a chopped tree. It was getting very late so we had time only for one boss more, the Crazy Cat Lady, that's it, Auriaya (a.k.a. Screaming Bitch). We cleared the sentinels from the right side but thinking we could get her down fast we didn't clear the ones from the left side. Big mistake. And mistakes here are paid with blood. After the Feral Defender was killed and we moved to the other side someone was feared into the sentinels, so a smooth boss kill turned into a chaotic hell. Of course we wiped, even after trying to tank the sentinels at the same time. This time we killed these sentinels and this time the screaming titan went down without any problem (message to Deadly Boss Mods creators: you should get Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden to record his famous cry "Scream for me (city name)!!!", so when she goes down screaming like mad we could hear Bruce "Scream for me Ulduar!!!". That would be truly epic!)
Let's see if tonight we can get enough people again to continue, at least I'd like to see some new bosses like Hodir and Freya.
Btw, Turnak got a new shiny shield from XT-002, the Pulsing Spellshield, much prettier than the Aegis of Damnation and that silly rune it has. Bye bye egyptian look.

Post soundtrack: Gods of War (live) - Bruce Dickinson

Happy guild raid

The Guild hasn't been raiding lately. Always we lacked enough people to put up a raid and pug the missing spots. Plus people was tired of going always to Naxxramas. So yesterday (friday, the usual raid day) we were 10 or 11 online and someone asked if we were going to raid. As usual my answer was: if we get enough people. That means not only getting 10 players willing to raid but getting the right classes.
After some minutes a raid starts to form and we manage to get 8 guildies plus one tank from Sempher Fi, a friendly guild we've raided with since the times of Molten Core. People is fed up with Naxx and also few items would be useful since all of us are covered in good gear thanks to badges and ToC hc runs, so they want to try Ulduar. Only me, the tank from SF and maybe two other players knows the place or at least have a slight idea of tactics. The only two times we tried an Ulduar run was an utter disaster (epic fail!), with everybody running around scattered and pulling everything that moved, so I was afraid this would end in the same way. At least we had a maintank who could run the place blindfolded and single-handed. Still there's a spot that could be covered by any class since I was willing to tank, heal or dps. Finally our tank friend (an imba tank, with whom I did Trial of the Crusader 10man) brings another tank from another top guild and I switched my pally to healer.

Everybody hops on their vehicles (I choose siege gunner since it's the one I know best) and the run starts. First beacons go down smoothly, big giants are tanked correctly. Wow, this works! There was a moment of panic when we got two mecha tanks firing at us, but we could manage it and headed to the Flame Leviathan (aka Golf Caddy) place. And down it went at first try! People cheered and danced over the Leviathan remains. My confidence grows, but the Leviathan isn't a complicated fight, now is when serious business starts. All to Razorscale, who also was killed at first try without anybody dying for standing on fire (hey! seems we turned pro finally!). Next one was XT-002 Deconstructor, where we got the first "oh shit!" moment of the night, since somebody pulled XT while we were still finishing some trash. Doors closed before people could run out and reset and we wiped. Ok, don't panic, was just a mistake with the trash. We ress everybody, clean the scrapyard and engage the giant robot with Michael Jackson's voice on helium. Maintank mistakenly assigned to clean the trash from one side to our guildleader who was playing his shaman. He didn't check he was enhancement, not elemental. Hello shaman, let me introduce you Mr. Boombot. BOOM! Ouch. This is what I call an explosive salutation. Anyway, XT was downed without much fuss (nobody died due to light and gravity bombs, hooray!) and we headed to Ignis. We had the second wipe with the trash since the flame cyclones decided to play ping-pong with us. Anyway we came back on our feet and engaged Ignis, who was tanked the safe way (maintank in the water) and killed for the joy of the entire raid, who got the Siege of Ulduar achievement.

I was happy things were going so smooth, but happier because people was seeing new content and getting some gear (although several items ended disenchanted!). The next fight was Kologarn. I always liked that fight, it gives you a great feeling of bravery when the colossus goes down. We even got an unexpected achievement, Disarmed, since the left arm (which nobody was dpsing) was also destroyed due to aoe fire when right arm and body were killed at the same time. So deeper we went into the antechamber to face the crazy cat lady, Auriaya, a frantic fight with that damn fear scattering the whole raid and kittens everywhere. Tank explained tactics and the plan was executed in a clockwork style (even nobody got damage from the void explosion) and she died doing what women know to do better than men: screaming.
It was a bit late and maintank announced he had time for only one try at the Assembly of Iron. Again tactics were briefed  and there we went. I wasn't confident enough since this fight can turn very messy if people doesn't pay attention. Brundir's the most dangerous with the Overload and Lighning Whirl attacks, followed by Steelbreaker and his Fusion Punch that must be dispeled asap. Fight started and we had the second "oh shit" moment of the night when a combination of Overload and Fusion Punch left the maintank at 1%. But from the deeps of the chamber a shining flash of light struck the tank restoring his life enough to survive. A brave paladin called Turnak (*wink* *wink*) had saved the fight with his Holy Shock. We kept pressing on and we lost our restoration shaman, putting more pressure on me and the restoration druid, but thank goodness he had reincarnation ready and again joined the fray. One by one the Assembly of Iron went down, awarding us two new achievements. We had cleared the siege and the antechamber and I couldn't be happier.

Failraids

We've usually posted about failpugs and how pathetically funny can be, but there's even a highrer level in this particular world: the failraid. If gathering 5 random unknown people can cause anger and shame, imagine now getting 10 or even worse, 25. We jump now to the epic level of retardness, a place only for the bold who don't care about their health.
Failraids introduce a new aspect that in 5man dungeons is usually not present: the leadership, or should I say leaderfailingship. While a 5man has a very simple setup, things escalate in 10man and specially 25man raids. And since this is a pug you never know beforehand who'll come for dinner.
Things a fail-leader usually does:
- Asking for the achievement to join the raid. Excuse me sir, this is a pug. That means random unknown people. It's ok that you want a minimum level for the people, but relying in the achievement system is stupid. I may have a certain achievement just because I was dragged in a raid by guildmembers with better gear and knowledge than I, or joined a pug-raid where my contribution was lame but still the raid succeded. Does that mean I am qualified for the place you want to raid? A big no-no. Also I could have got the achievement one year ago and never stepped back into that place. Again I may have forgotten all the tactics so I'm not qualified for the run. Even more, on the other hand I could have raided that place ad nauseam with other characters and now I'm playing an alt. I may know the tank, heal and dps roles and specific tactics but this char doesn't have the achievement. So in the eyes of the raidleader I'm not qualified for the raid. Great.

- Enlisting people without forming the backbone first. You stand in the middle of Dalaran and yell "going to X 25man, /w me for inv", and then the raid spots fill FIFO mode without any consideration to what class are you bringing. Then when there're 23 people inside you ask "how many tanks and healers do we have?" Then come the cries, laughs and people quitting en masse. Brilliant.

- Not imposing your will. A raid leader must give orders, and the first thing is keeping the raid a calm place so orders reach the people. This means kicking out the annoying players, like the ones who constantly demand for a summon, or water, or a specific buff. If you don't put some order expect people to leave before starting. Make also sure the roles are clearly assigned and every one knows what to do. Put up a MainTank list, marking tanks with raid icons is stupid (plus it annoys a lot bearing a mark upon your head that distracts the player). If anyone does not have a plugin to see the MT list is their problem, not yours.

- Be fair with loot rolls. Ask first for current spec roll, not main spec. If no one is eligible for the loot or nobody rolls (difficult that happens, but hey, this is Sparta! ops, I mean, pugland), ask somebody to disenchant the item and raidroll the shard.

Players are the main source of lameness in fail raids. Aside the typical problems you find in 5man (undergeared, not bringing food buffs and flasks/pots, being an ass) the most usual are:
- Asking for a summon when everybody is inside and after the leader has asked several times who needs a summon. Now people has to run out to the stone or a warlock waste a shard to summon your sorry ass. Mister, you should be kicked out for being stupid. Since anyway the raid will lose time summoning, it's better to get rid of a stupid before the run starts. Raid will runs smoother without you.

- Asking repeatedly for a certain buff, without checking if any other buff is overwriting it. It's ok to ask one time for certain buff, but if nobody casts it on you maybe there's no need to, so don't insist. Instead of yelling "BUFF BOM ON ME NOW!!!1" you could ask why aren't you getting Blessing of Might. Maybe there's a warrior using Battle Shout.

- Leaving without any warning. This is very common and can happen anytime. The first "batch of flees" happens before raid starts. While it's ok to leave if you don't feel confident the raid will take place, at least you could first wait 5 minutes and whisper the leader about this. Same if it's taking too long to start. Keep in mind you're in a pug, things don't happen magically when you snap your finger, even if you're playing a mage. It's specially sensible if you're a tank or healer. The second batch happens after the first problem encountered, usually ending in a wipe. You're in a pug. That means run won't go smooth as oil, so expect problems. If you want a perfect run raid with your guild and quit joining pugs.

- Being an ass. This may seem obvious and was mentioned before, but now you're not annoying four people. You're annoying nine or twentyfour, so the risk of provoking a bunch of quits is higher. Shut. Up. Your. Mouth.

- If you don't know certain tactic don't be afraid to ask. If you think it could end with you being kicked out of the raid whisper someone playing your class. It's better to appear as a noob before someone than ruining a whole raid because you went the wrong way or pulled the wrong target.

- Failbuffing. This is specially for paladins. Leaving Crusader Aura on (or hunters with Aspect of the Pack), buffing warlocks with BoM and rogues with BoW, overwriting other pallies buffs... please coordinate if there're more than one pally, make sure you're giving each class a correct buff. There're addons that will help you with this, like PallyPower or ZOMGBuffs (I really recommend this one).

- Lying on roll results. The peak of stupidity. Unbelieveable? it happens, I've seen it. There're addons that record the roll results, but even without these they appear in the chat frame. How can you be so fucking idiot to lie about a result everybody sees and can scroll up to check? If you think the main looter will be as stupid as you, trusting your dirty lying mouth then you should stop playing. Any kind of game. Same goes for the main looter if he trusts you.

Now that you've got a peek at what you'll find in pug raids, are you brave enough to dare into unknown territory?

Pugging ain't bad sometimes

Pugs aren't always that bad, specially when you know several of the members. And more specially when you know they're good players. Last week I was invited by Sempher Fi (a guild we've been playing with since the times of Molten Core) to play Trial of the Crusader 10man (normal) as dps and brought Kurnak since he's the best geared. Coliseum is serious business, so I didn't want to bring someone who wasn't truly prepared (well, Vurnak could do well but I wanted to bring a char that didn't seem it was slacking as dps). I thought it was a guild run but when I arrived I found people from other guilds. Ops... a pug. But people seemed well geared and the game was already started, with Northrend Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus already down, so the pug didn't smell like failpug. New content to see and the possibility to get some gear were enough :) so there I headed in my trusty Onyx Nether Drake.
The Faction Champions was a very tricky fight, were a good strategy is needed and everyone has to squeeze the most out of his character. After a pair of wipes we got them down and faced the Twin Val'kyr, another tricky and crazy fight that we also did after a wipe. Then came the Lich King (again the boring Arthas... sometimes I think he's going to appear while I'm grinding mats around Northrend to brag about how powerful he is and how squashable I am) and we faced the last fight: the revamped Anub'arak 2.0 (yes the last boss of Azjol-Nerub is back and on steroids) who was killed on first try. Everybody was happy with the group and agreed to do it again this saturday, hoping to convert this pug in a stable weekly run.
This time the game was a fresh run so I was hoping to get the achievement. And after some wipe here and there... you can call me crusader!
Not only that, I also managed to snatch three items to boost my dps: Girdle of the Impaler, Victor's Call and Legplates of the Silver Hand, so today I'm a happy warrior :) Waiting for more next saturday!
Post soundtack: Crusader by Saxon