When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

So that was unexpected

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. In the past week, my guild sharded and I have found myself in the position as GM for a new guild, Hope of Kul Tiras. Blogging from the outside has a different perspective than blogging from the inside, and I'm going to need some time to adjust and figure out what direction I should go from here.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

An Officer and a Gentlebear

Finally we get to some human interest! I have a strong academic interest in communication, leadership, and organizational behavior, and World of Warcraft guilds are like great little MBA petri dishes. If I thought I could get away with slipping “gnome warlock” into a dissertation, I would.

So recently, an Officer in my guild posted on our guild forums a short message asking for all of our stats in all of our sets. Now as far as our culture goes, I think we’re a very stat-happy and list-happy guild. We like numbers. We have minimum stats for T5 raid attendance (a.k.a. “You must be this tall to get on the ride”). We make lists of people in various categories. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s the way we are. We’ve been a functional guild for over 2 years, longer than any other guild on our server. We’re not in the top 10 for progression, but we are in the top 15. So this is, generally speaking, business as usual. I’m going to quote snippets because today we’re thinking about communication, and why not let people speak for themselves?

“For those of you declaring yourself tanks, please send me a P.M. with your unbuffed tanking stats. Please include the following:

Unbuffed stats and resists wearing your normal tanking gear
Unbuffed stats and resists wearing your nature resist tanking gear
Unbuffed stats and resists wearing your arcane resist tanking gear
Unbuffed stats and resists wearing your fire resist tanking gear
Unbuffed stats and resists wearing your frost resist tanking gear
Unbuffed stats and resists wearing any other resist gear you can think of that you happen to own, except pvp...

(I realize that some of these resist sets aren't popular, but for sake of completeness, I'm including all of them. If you don't have any items from a resist set, just indicate as such.)

I need this info as soon as possible :) Sorry for the short notice.”
Now one of our senior bear tanks responded thusly:

“Coming up with these numbers is a bit of work and I will post them later today or tomorrow.

I want to point out that, at least for me, these are not static numbers. I am continually replacing items in my resist sets as fortune allows. Additionally, as fights arise that require any resist set, I tend to concentrate my efforts on improvement of that set. Every set in current use is as good as I can make it. Period. (Right now, for Guild runs, this is the Arcane Resist for TKTE, the Frost Resist for Hydross and the 150FrR/150NR for Hydross.)

To be honest, the resist gear situation is somewhat complicated.

I have, for example, two arcane resist tanking sets: One for Curator and one for Arcane Protectors and Void Reaver.

I have two Shadow Resist sets: One for use on a few shadow bosses and one for Malacrass in ZA. I expect that I will be working on a very complete SR set as we approach Black Temple.

My point, assuming I have one, is that tanking resist sets are specific to boss fights. Right now in our progression, a raid tank only needs a resist set for Hydross (Nature 290 or Frost 290 or 150Frost/150Nature.) By the time we reach any other boss that requires a certain set, all of us will have changed our gear to a greater or lesser degree. That's the nature of our insanity.

As indicated, another tanking resist set exists and is not on your list, above: 150 Frost and 150 Nature at the same time while uncrittable. This is used during the Hydross fight.

I will oganize this data and give you a snapshot. Anticipate boredom. (Unless you are a tank. And even then.)”

And then:

“Just re-read your post and noticed that you have asked us to list our gear.

I respectfully decline to list the roughly 100 separate pieces of resist gear that I use on all sets.”

At this point, another officer chimes in:

“I'm not speaking for [First Officer] at all, but understanding the reasons may help with this chore.

We need to get a qualified list together for SSC (immediate need, others will follow). This of course, can be a GO/NOGO type of thing. Additionally, we are getting ready to spend some mats on more resist gear for other tanks, and are trying to prioritize how best to use the primals provided to maximize our inventory.

Perhaps listing ALL resist gear isn't required, particularly if you have hit a "GO" status, but if your a "NOGO" SSC tank, we need to know which pieces you have in hand, and which ones we have to provide mats for.

Again, this is [First Officer]'s project, these are only my unsolicited comments, and I grant her all rights to poke me for getting involved.”

(cue air circulation device. What’s that I smell… it’s kind of foul…)

Our GM then weighs in:

“Post your shit.”

(What’s this? Someone has thrown excrement at the air circulation device! Now we are ALL covered in excrement! I had NO IDEA that was going to happen!)

I’m not going to post the rest, because things got much more heated, and then everyone calmed down a bit and worked it out. The bear posted the appropriate stats, and everyone who went off the ranch seemed to have returned.

So how did a well-intentioned idea (hey let’s find out what you need, so we can HELP you gear up), turn into a fairly nasty disagreement among a bunch of otherwise good friends? And how did Coristad, who cannot shut the hell up about anything, actually manage to stay out of the way?

“Ask, don’t tell.”

Come back on Thursday for the rest.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Loot Karma

I'm fairly sure I was bitten in the ass by the Loot Whore last night (a close relative of the Karma fairy). I have now, finally, for sure, accumulated enough Arena points for my Merciless Gladiator's Gavel. Last night on a guild ZA pug, we clear the Eagle boss and the Amani Punisher drops. I have been lusting after this weapon since it came out, and I've posted numerous times on my guild's forums loudly declaring how this was a major upgrade for me. Versus the gavel, I would be trading 8 spell damage and 18 resilience for 3 stamina, 3 intellect, and 5 spell hit rating. Plus the Punisher looks snazzy, the Gavel looks like a marshmellow on a stick. Other than that, they're arguably functionally equivalent, and I was quite happy that I wouldn't have to spend the arena points. Everyone in the raid congratulated me, and I was preparing to loot the item when our Boomkin pipes up that she's interested in it as well. Naturally, I roll a 12 and the boomkin loots the mace. QQ. She has an epic staff already. QQ. It sits in her bag because it's not enchanted and she left her off-hand frill in the bank. QQ.

At this point, I am furious, and so I start chain pulling mobs. We clear to the bear boss, at which point I comment to the boomkin about how she hasn't equipped the mace.

"Coristad you sound so bitter."
"Yeah, I'm really pissed about that roll, but I'm trying to get over it and not be a douche."
"Well, you get an 'A' for effort."

We laughed, because I was getting an "F" for performance.

After that, the weight lifted from my shoulders and I was able to relax and focus on the instance again.

In retrospect, the Loot Fairy was extracting her dues from the 2 Nether Vortexes I ninja-rolled from one of the guild's Prot warriors who has been trying for weeks to upgrade his sword.


I suppose you could make the case that I didn't need it, as I'm getting my upgrade, as scheduled, on Tuesday. However, that was the first time I had really lost my shit over a loot roll in 2 years of raiding. I'm just glad I was able to get through it in about 10 minutes, as opposed to letting it eat at me for hours/days/weeks.

Grats Cell, now equip the damn thing. ;-)