FISHING... god, I know.. we all hate it, right?

See that ^ ^ Thats really shit, don't you think? we NEED 10,000 pools fished from so we can get the reward!

Now, I HATE fishing. Some strange people do enjoy it however (Yes, Faro, i'm looking at you!). Now, what i'm going to do is this:

For every pool of CATACLYSM fish you fish from (and you must send me the fish), I will give you 1 gold. Fish from 1,000 and i'll give you 1,000 gold. Remember that you could possibly fish up the awesome Sea Turtle mount and stuff too! So yea. How does that sound?

I'll be fishing too - but I wont be getting anything out of it apart from the knowledge that i've helped to get the achievement ;)

Firelands team, Sunday Jul 31

Names in brackets are backup

Tanks: Gallius, Quintala (Pallyative)
Tank-healers: Lusignan Oriion (Ludyfe)
Raid-healers: Egelis (Teiripeoir, Tusk)
Melee: Dent, Kyrios (Thabiff)
Ranged: Goboroy, Mathi, Lockness (Hiilk)

This is the last week before we officially begin the two-groups thing, so tonight's performance will be taken into consideration when we select Group A.

Last week, DPS was fairly poor (13.7k - 15.5k), we ought to have everybody in the 16k - 18k range. Remember that some casters can multi-dot and this fight is very good for that. We also had the same people consistently walking on traps or standing in the spear AOE.

We have plenty of backups, so if after the first 2 or 3 attempts, some players are consistently under 15K or consistently standing in traps or fire, we will not hesitate to swap them out for backups. (No pressure :)

Re-Post of the Guild and Raid Rules!

Raid Rules and General Information

Guild Mistress: Alexandra
Back-Up Guild Mistress / Guild Relations: Farolyn
Raid Leaders: Inshamniac, Lusignan & Dent (and respective alts)
Officers: Gallius, Mathilde and Jellibean

General Raid Rules.

• Raiders are expected to have a talent spec and gear set suitable for raiding, and have their raid gear gemmed and enchanted correctly. The guild bank can help with materials for gems and enchants.

• Raiders are expected to be on their main toons and ready to start raiding 15 minutes BEFORE raid time.
• Flasks and feasts will be provided. An officer will place feasts, and hand out flasks before the first boss.
• Breaks: There will be NO afking, brbing etc before the scheduled break time set by the days raid leader unless you have pre-arranged a break for children / medical reasons (this includes urgent toilet breaks etc)
• Constant afking/brbing without a valid reason will result in your suspension from the current week's raiding - please remember that you should be fed/watered/coffee'd BEFORE raid starts. You know what days are raid days and should be available if you have signed up.
• Signups: Members who have signed up for raid BEFORE the actual raid day will get preference over those who are late on signing up. If you are keen to go but are unsure if you can attend, please accept the raid with a tentative signup.
• Most importantly, please make sure you are repaired BEFORE you start raiding.

PLEASE DO NOT GET YOURSELF SAVED TO THE WEEKLY RAID OR CURRENT RAID THAT THE GUILD IS PROGRESSING ON

  Guild Bank

• Crux Guild Bank is available for ALL guild members. However, to reduce the impact of when someone's account gets hacked, most tabs are marked for deposit-only.
• If you don't have access to certain tabs, please contact an officer for items you need. We will be happy to help.
• Items on the "Important" or "Raid" tab can be bought at 50% of the auctionhouse price, please contact an officer.
• ALL gathered materials from raids are expected to be placed into the guild bank. This includes mining/skinning/herbalism/engineering/etc. drops, and disenchanted materials.
• Herbalists - please remember to donate your herbs to the guild bank so we can make flasks - these will be purchased from you. Let an officer know.

Guild Chat

• We are all adults. Please remember that. We're not going to get all silly about swearing etc in guild chat, but please try and be courteous. This carries over to Vent as well - some members may have children / parents listening in the background.

Ventrilo

• You are welcome to let your friends / instance party members join our ventrill server for instances etc. Please don't abuse this - we don't want every random and his dog on there being stupid.
• Vent During Raid - PLEASE don't talk over other people while we are raiding! If you are not raiding, please go to a seperate channel to talk to your friends. This goes for music playing over vent as well. Dont be silly with it. It can be very distracting for players / raid leaders while the raid is happening.
• If you insist on arguing over vent, please take it to another channel. Abuse will not be tolerated.

Raiding Loot Rules
Our loot rules are designed to spread the loot out fairly amongst the regular raiders, so that we all gear up together.
The following common-sense rules apply:

• Main spec is preferred to offspec (where main spec is the spec that the toon normally takes to our progression raids)
• If you already have an item of the same iLvl as the drop, you don't get it unless nobody else wants it for main spec. (There is no 'biggest upgrade' rule though; if one person has a 346 and another has a 333, then neither of them is preferred over the other).
• Gear should go to a class/spec it is appropriate for; e.g. +agility gear doesn't go to a warrior , and +hit rating doesn't go to a healer; unless nobody else wants the item for main spec. (Note: spirit is a DPS stat for some specs)

As of 1 May 2011, we are using the EP/GP points system for loot distribution in the progression rands. There is another post on this blog explaining in more detail; the EP/GP settings that we use are currently:

• +100 EP for being signed up and online 15 minutes before the raid
• +100 EP for each half-hour of raiding or standby
• +500 EP for the guild first kill of a boss
• MinEP threshold of 1000
• Decay of 10% per week.

Baradin Hold PvE drops incur GP , but not EP.



Progression Raid Selection 
If we have more than 10 people on for a progression raid, then the officers will make a decision as to which 10 go. The criteria will be (in this order):

• The right number of tanks, healers and dps (usually 2, 3, 5) and an appropriate mix of melee and ranged and class/specs
• People signed up and online 15 minutes before the raid start time 
• Reliable players (high DPS/HPS, doesnt stand in fire, correct spec/enchants/gems, etc.)
• Best attendance record

If more than 10 people are available, then those not selected can go on “standby”, meaning that they stay online ready to fill a spot if one of the raid group has to go. Standby players will earn EP (see the Loot Rules section).

• Trialling New Members: if we have a new member who is already appropriately geared and experienced, we may ask somebody to sit out a week in order to trial the new member.

Guild Invites

• Please direct people to our blog so they can apply to join the guild. Alternatively, they can apply via the in-game Guild Finder.

Okay, so that's your rules and regulations.
We have tried to keep it as simple as possible - some rules have been carried over from past raiding guilds that some guild members have been part of. Please remember that even though we are relaxed about most things, if we dont have rules in place, it will become a massive mess. Please remember to show a little respect for your Guild Mistress and Officers - they do outrank you and have the rights to remove you from guild should you choose to ignore the basic rules in place.

If you have any questions, please send an ingame mail to your Guild Mistress, she will be able to help you out.

Changes to Raiding.

Okay, here we go.
I appoligize in advance if this post is a little bit choppy and in & out, I'm writing as things come to me and adding things in where I think they are needed, so bare with me.


Firstly, I would like to state that the changes I am about to outline were NOT decided on solely by myself or Lusignan. Officers were not consulted on this matter, because as the GM, I wear the pants and I am allowed to make changes where I see fit. I have been sitting there in the background watching DPS meters, attendance, gear, attitudes and the work you have all been doing over the past couple of months. Guild masters actually have a busy wee job in the background! My job as Guild Master means that I have to make sure that our guild is happy and that we are all getting the most out of our games. In order for us to get the most out of the money we pay for our games, certain things need to change. What I mean by that, is our raiding.

I dont know about the rest of you, but I am completely unhappy with the way that the guild raids are progressing.
People are NOT pulling enough DPS when we know you are capable of it. There are too many late appearances, brb's, afk's and other such things (of course child breaks are allowed - hell, I have children, I know what it's like!) Anyway the point of that is that we are wasting too much time. From the beginning of our raiding in Wrath, we made the rule that Raiders needed to be online and ready to go on their raiding toons 15 minutes BEFORE raiding started. People seem to forget some of the basic rules and arent showing up. As I outlined in the post below about raiding firelands on Sunday, if you are not there on time, you wont be going. I'm sick of sitting around waiting for people to show up.

As to the DPS - Why are you not doing the best you can do? Whats wrong? Your specs / gear / reforges / enchants are all right. Maybe look at your rotations? Something isnt right! this leads me to bring up the next topic:

I'm not sure if any of you noticed, but we have a new Raid Leader. I welcomed Dent to the team this week to start running our second raid group. Now, this is where it begins.

As of the 7th of August, there will be an A raiding team, made up of the BEST DPS, Healing, Tanking going to firelands. These people were not made up of a list of favorites - they are people who consistantly pull the highest DPS, the best healing bla bla bla and I want to make things clear here, I am not one of these people. My healing isnt good enough because of lack of gear.
Alongside the A raiding team, there will be a B team. Now, PLEASE do not think if you have not been chosen for the A team (lol) that you are inferior in any way. The reason you wont have been chosen is because of whatever reason, your DPS/Healing/Tanking isnt quite there and we want you to come to the B team to run BoT, BWD, Tot4W to gear up, work on any DPS/Healing/Tanking issues so that we can progress together into Firelands.

I know everyone wants to get in there and start killing bosses and getting all the awesome gear, but the fact is, without the top DPS, it aint gonna happen. Wouldnt it be better to work on the things that need working on? I personally am looking forward to learning some more, getting better gear and owning face when the time is right.

I'm really sorry if some of you are offended by whats happening, please dont be. Its not because we dont love you, we want you to be able to make the most of your toon!

Next thing - I know this will come up - 'But Crux is casual, why are we suddenly becoming hardcore?'
Answer: We arent. Its about guild progression. Do you want to sit in Orgrimmar every night picking your nose? I bet you dont! And if you do, then go find a nose picking guild that doesnt care about you or what you do!

Raid nights etc.
A Team will run Firelands on Sunday night at the normal raid time.
B Team will run BoT etc on Thursday nights.
Now, it is possible that there wont be enough B team people to make up a full raid, therefore A team people may be asked to come along to help out. It would be nice if you could - afterall we are aiming to have 2 teams running thru Firelands at the same time!
Oh also, I want to make it perfectly clear - if you were not chosen for the A team, but want to pug Firelands, please do! just make sure it's not on our guild run nights (exc sunday, you can do what you like then). The more gear and practice you get, the better!

I hope this hasnt been too confusing. You can direct questions to myself or Dent - we will be more than happy to help you out. We have much guild love for you guys - you all work really hard.

Guild Emails

I know some of you can't be online during the week for personal / work reasons etc.
If you don't mind, I'd like to grab your email addresses so I can send you an email when I need to update the raid schedule etc. It wont be shared with any of the other officers, only me (Alex) for important guild info and to let you know when there are updates on the blog etc.

This goes for officers too please :) I decided not to post the raid schedule on facebook, as not everyone has facebook!

If you could mail me alex@lilweelamb.com with an email with your toon name in the subject, that would be fantastic!

Firelands, July 24th

Raid Group for the 24th is as follows:

Tanks
Quintala
Gallius
Sanllan (backup)

Healing
Teiripeoir
Alexandra
Lusignan
Egelis (backup)

DPS
Dent
ThaBiff
Goboroy
Malphyte
Hiilk
Lockness (backup)


Please be online 15 minutes before the raid starts
if you are not online in time, you will forefit your place and our backup players will be taken. You will also forefit your place for the following week. 




Backup Tank/Heals/DPS please also be online as above.

Sit-outs this week will get rotated for the following week so everyone gets a go.

Firelands DPS requirements

For Firelands raid bosses, we should have 5 DPS doing 20K on a single target .

If you are in 355 gear equipped (see Armory to find this out) you ought to be able to do 14-15K on a target dummy which translates into 18-20K on a boss. If your gear is 359 you should be easily beating the 20K mark on a boss. Of course, we're talking about damage over a sustained duration, say 5 minutes or more; not your burst ability.

If you do have this gear but are not seeing high enough numbers on the target dummies, it means that there are areas you can improve on in your gems, reforges, enchants, and your spell selection and spell casting. I keep abreast of the latest theorycrafting and can assist with these things, talk to me in-game about it (or email etc.)

While it's true that some classes are higher than others, all DPS classes are fairly close; certainly within 10% of each other.