What Have I Got Myself Into: Loot Rule Blues

So, first off, I want to make this clear.  I was approached by a guildy/fellow blogger (fannon) and was informed until he met me in our mumble, he thought I was female.  I am a Guy.  Always have been, always will be.  I just like female toons (don't judge me). 

So, back to the topic at hand.  Last week, we had a bit of guild drama and to your surprise, it had to do with loot.  Now,  I'm sure that all who are reading this have had loot drama at some point in their raiding career.  It sucks and it is always a pain in the a**. 

For those who are asking themselves "what happened," here it is.  One of our tanks, not gonna say the name, has not really been seeing a lot of plate tank gear drop.  So, when the BoE plate dps boots drop, he wanted to roll on them.  Now, usually this is not a problem, but it goes against our loot rules.  Most guilds, like ourselves, throw BoEs in the bank if they are not needed for anyone in the raid's MS.  So, after we down Beth, he was fine and we killed Bael without hearing anything.  But, on the way to Ryolith, he lost his cool and went crazy, dropped raid, and gquit.

So, now how do you prevent things like this from happening.  Well, its simple, YOU CAN'T.  In my experience, people will not have problems with your guilds loot rules until it affects something they want.  The only thing I can suggest is have set loot rules in place and follow them explicitly.  This is the only way that loot can never be the "Guild's/RL's" fault. 

If you got any questions or topic you'd like my thoughts on, which honestly who would, please send me and email at mylindara88@gmail.com or follow me on twitter at twitter.com/mylindara.

LATER!!!

Why You are NOT a Top Player

Now, many people reading this will first say this to me, "Myl, I am one of the best (insert class here) and I play flawlessly and never mess up.  Now, how am I not a top player?"

Now, why this may seem simple to some, it doesn't to others.  Let me elaborate.

I came across this topic while raiding one night and had it came back up again only a week ago.  The first instance was when we had a brand new healer in our guild and we were working on Cho'gall.  Now, as a healer, when some one gets the debuff at 25 corruption, you cleanse it immediately.  Well, there were some of us that were a little slow at getting all of them and the new recruit was frustrated telling us all to cleanse faster.  I then, checked the logs to see where our biggest issue was, and he wasn't even on there.  I was shocked at first.  He was doing all of this complaining and not even contributing.  I confronted him later and he said, "I don't spec for dispel magic because the top Holy Pally for Paragon doesn't have it in his spec."

I was furious.  Almost lost it and could have really just let this guy have it.  But, I calmly explained to him these reason why he wasn't a Top Player:

1. The guys in Paragon usually are pushing much harder content than the rest of us in much lower gear levels.  For this reason, Paragon utilizes every little point they can get in a talent tree to make them better.  Not taking the Dispel Magic and only relying on priests to do it is actually a pretty common thing at that level of play.  These guys are pushing for world first every Patch and to do so in much less gear than they need, they need to get every single point out of their spec.
2. We are not all as good as these guys.  These guys have crazy fast reaction times while healing and very rarely find themselves fixed on one thing in particular.  In a case where you are in a normal guild, the other people that do your job may not be as fast or could possibly be focusing on their raid frames to notice something like this.  A healer usually will be focused on their frames so hard they don't even notice a magic effect until a couple of seconds to late.  This is why have a spec that has Dispel Magic is crucial for everyone that isn't in a Top Guild.  There is no telling how bad the lag could be for one of your healers or if an addon that they use for this isn't working.  Having that in your spec allows you to help make up for things down the road: less mana, how long the person lives, etc.  
3. Now, the next reason why you are not a Top Player is quite simple, you are not willing to respec per fight so that you have a 1-2 point difference in your talents.  While this relates to point 1, it is still quite different.  For example, hunters most of the time don't spec differently per fight, but, on the Cho'gall fight,  a number of the hunters in these Top Guilds would go and respec so that they had improved traps to stun the bloods.  While this is a nice added feature that hunters could do, it is not necessary.  These Top Guilds pushing that fight in particular would only have 4-5 people on the bloods while the rest of the dps just killed Cho.  That stun time would allow the the healers to conserve more mana so they could keep people alive faster in the burn phase.  Most of your guilds don't do that.  They primarily just have your ranged take care of it, but as I have said, your normal guild isn't pushing for World First.
4. Finally, you chose us.  Now, while my guild is progressing, we still find ourselves in that middle ground: not to slow but not on pace with Top Guilds.  This is probably the biggest reason that you aren't a Top Player.  Most of you reading this post are not in one of those Top Guilds that fights for World First every Patch.  The fact is, you chose to actually take time away from the game to do other things.  A lot of these Top Guilds will raid 25+ hours a week on this content while the majority of us barely scratch 10.  You chose to be in your respective guild for various reasons, but I'm pretty confidant that if you were willing to dedicate the time it took to be in a Top Guild, then your guild would have never came into view.  

As I said earlier, you are Not a Top Player.  While this doesn't mean that you are a Fantastic Player, you just don't have the drive to put most other things aside for multiple weeks every 5-6  months.  These guys are now clearing content in one night.  Most of us normal Guilds take a night to clear farm, then wipe for a while.  It is just how it is at this point.

To those guys who are Top Players that might read this, keep doing what your doing.  And to the rest of us, please understand that just because the Top Players are doing funky things in their spec, doesn't mean that you automatically need to.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

So, its been about a month since my last post.  Some new challenges have come forth and I thought this would be the perfect place to discuss how to deal with some issues.

The Big Talk

So, some of you might have been there at one point.  Some of you may have had to give the talk, but eventually, everyone will hear about it.  Since in my guild we are a pretty tight group of people, there isn't really a lot that gets by my guys and gals.  But, the biggest problem with having the talk with anyone in my guild, is that we are all good friends and for the most part, have played together for multiple years.  But, the life of a GM goes on.

So, 'the talk' I have had recently was with a really good friend that I have actually been playing with for several years and have met in person.  Now, the issues that we had are not going to be brought up here with him directly, but more on how to approach them.

1. Now, when you deal with anyone in your guild who the leadership of the guild feels is either not going in the direction of the guild or is possibly detrimental to its success, you need to decide on an outcome of the talk.  Do you want the person to stay?  Do you want/need them to go?  Do you want them to just stand back from the guild for a while and not play a big role?  These are all crucial questions that you need to have with your leadership because this directly effects how the talk will go, the attitude that you take into the talk, and what you do if the person surprises you by doing something which you did not intend.
2. When you have 'the talk' with someone, you don't really want to be just all negative.  You do want to point out some good things that they have done, even if you have to stretch for them.  The reason for this is, if you do plan on trying to keep said person in the guild, you really want them to understanding of what is about to be said.  Now, in my experience, most of the time people are WAY more receptive when you are positive first than just going straight for the throat.  Keeping the person receptive will ultimately keep a good reputation with the guild and with the community on and off server.
3. Now, the different types of issues you will have to deal with is comes from behavior issues to performance.  One is usually easier to fix than the other, but when you are struck with the mixture of the two, things usually get a little more difficult at best.  For example, a person constantly not performing and their behavior sucks, its a pretty easy fix.  But, when you do have that nice guy/gal who is trying their very best on every fight, you really will have to kind of be the bad guy and let them know, "Hey, I'm sitting you this week because your just not performing well enough."  Now, an understanding person will say that's fine, but will be hurt by it none the less.  In this situation, follow it up with a way to help.  If you have class leaders, ask them to sit down with person or take the time out of your time on the game to sit down and crunch the numbers, stay at the training dummies, etc. 
4. Finally, the last thing you want to do is close it up with a very nice this isn't the last straw man.  Generally speaking, telling them that they can fix the problem and that they can get back to where they were if they prove themselves will get a lot of people motivated.  But then again, so people will actually find that they enjoy themselves more when they have less responsibility.  Who knows?

Guys, the biggest thing I can stress to all of you that has to give 'the talk' is that you must first and foremost remember that you are an officer of your guild and that you must do what is in the best interest of the guild, no matter who you must have the talk with.  I've told my guys, and they all understand this, that an officer is there not to receive perks, but to serve the guild to their best possible capacity.  When you take this role, you actually take on a second job, which sucks, but that is what you get when you get all those lovely perks. 

As always, feel free to send me a question either on twitter, email, or even in the comments.  Thanks guys, and enjoy.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

So, those that have talked to me and check this, I am sorry that it has taken quite a while to get back into blogging.  But, I'm back and here we go.

So, about 3 months ago, I took a journey down a road I never thought I would take.  I left my long time guild of almost 3 years.  The experience and friendships that I gained there will help me into the future.  Really and truly mean this, best of luck to all those friends I left behind and best wishes with the new content.

Now, yes, there were reasons I left, but the bottom line is, I wasn't happy.  The guild was taking a new direction that I wasn't ready for.  So, now what am I to do with myself.  I thought about it and came to one conclusion:  I wouldn't be happy with a guild again unless it was built how I saw fit.  So, the guild <Mountain Top> was born. 

Now, when I formed this guild, I knew I'd have about 7-8 people that would follow me out:  friends that had been with me for 4 plus years, new friends that weren't happy, etc.  I had no idea that I would have so many come to me asking to join.  After server transfers of friends from long ago, people coming back to the game, a couple of twitter recruits, and I now am the GM of a 10-man Raiding/PvP guild with 60 players(that is accounts, not alts).  While I was happy to see this at first, I realized now how much work this is going to take. 

60 people.  60 different objectives.  60 different mentalities.  That is alot to take on after only being a GM again for just 1 week.  But, with the help of my officer core, who I absolutely could not do this without (don't tell them that), we are underway.  We are now currently raiding 2-3 nights a week, doing RBGs 2 days a week, and currently working on getting another RL to run a second group. 

While I have absolute faith that Mountain Top will succeed, there are a couple things I have had to do to help me make sure that we get there:

1. Find other games to play.  While most gamers play several different games, I rarely did.  I had alot of fun working on alts, pvping, etc. in WoW.  Now, to relieve that stress that seems to never go away, I play LoL, have really gotten back into some console games, and just find myself playing Angry Birds.  Why is killing pigs with birds so addictive?
2. Upgrade my phone.  Now, this seems like something that doesn't need to be done, but I honestly find myself checking up on my guild all the time when I'm not behind my keyboard.  I've finally gone into the world of smart phones and have no idea how I did without it.
3. Buy more stress balls.  Now, I owe this one to a friend who told me once, "You can never have to many stress balls when being a GM.  That is why I have a crate of them."  Yes, I am using one right now.
4. Finally, find other successful GMs to talk to.  I have several fellow GMs from various servers that I talk to quite frequently about different things, whether it be Boss Strats, how to deal with certain situations, or just plain fun to keep each other sane.

I really have taken on a daunting task that I wasn't quite ready for, but now, I feel confident that I am. 

I will continue to keep writing about the guild and some guild management things I have learned every couple of weeks.  If you have any topics that you wish me to discuss, please feel free to ask me here or through my contact info. 

New Location

Welcome to Cleansing Waters' New Home on Blogger!  I have decided to move here after some troubles with the former host and after suggestions from a few fellow bloggers, (Fannon, Gneisha).  So please enjoy the new location and if you have any questions that you want discussed or even just answered, let me know.

Cheers!

Light of Dawn VS. Word of Glory

Lately I have been getting asked by my guildies and some other pallys out there when they should use Light of Dawn over Word of Glory.  The problem with this is there is no set answer.  So, I shall go over some considerations that I take into account when healing on my Holy Pally.
First thing, are you in a 10 or 25 man raid.  The problem with Light of Dawn in a 10 man setting is that you don’t really have to many melee or stacking moments where you need to cast it alot.  The most melee you should have in a 10 man raid is 2.  That plus 2 possible tanks in range, usually only 1 tank, makes it not as valuable as Word of Glory when healing your beacon target (which should be the tank).  However, if you are in the 25 man setting and have the Glyph of Light of Dawn (which you should) then you should most definately use Light of Dawn to heal your beacon target.  This is due to the fact that half of each heal goes to heal your beacon target.  Now, my LoD hits individuals for about 9-10k with my sp while my WoG only does about 16-17k no crits.  Now, if we take these numbers and add the half heals going to the beacon target, your WoG only does around 24-26k each heal, where your LoD will heal for 36-40k.  Now, with out crits, that is a huge upgrade.  Essentially, use WoG for this purpose in 10 man, but 25, stick with LoD.
Now, for all other cases, pretty self explanintory.  LoD on AoE healing phases and WoG for single target heals accross the board.
I will be adding Holy Paladin info more often to this website and throwing up a guide by the end of the week.  As always, feel free to contact me through email at mylindara88@gmail.com or twitter at twitter.com/mylindara.  Thanks guys.

Building a Solid Healing Core

Most guilds are trying to build a healer core based around the current healing situation.  We know that Paladins and Holy Priest are pulling the top numbers on most fights, but is it really best to fill your entire healing core with these classes?  The biggest problem with doing this is you lose some of your key abilities that make a healer core so flexible.  Today, we I will discuss how I build my healer core and what 3 big things I think about before making these decisions.

Capabilities

The Capabilities of certain classes varies depending on the fight and situation.  If you are fortunate enough to have multiple healers over the required minimum for your raid group and pushing game ending content, you can flexibly switch healers in and out of raids.  But if you are like the majority of us out there, you find it hard to build a solid group of healers that will be able to go through all the content.
Shaman
Shamans are some of your most flexible healers in a raid group.  But, they have limitations based on the current situation at hand.  For example, when groups have to spread out, it is very hard for Shaman to heal a group back up where as in the Chimaeron stack phase, Shaman excel at this role with Chain Heal and Healing Rain.  For this very reason, you need to make sure, depending on the fight at hand, what you assign a Shaman to heal.  Shaman also are pretty solid at being capable tank healers, not the best, but completely able of focus healing a single tank.
Druid
Druids are very good at keeping a single tank alive.  They also bring some decent AoE hots and if it is needed, spamming rejuvenation a little bit.  The biggest thing about having a druid as your tank healer at this point is that keeping your tank from taking constant dips.  But, they really don’t have a lot of burst healing in dire situations.  After these recent changes, Druids are becoming closer to their former Wrath selves with their great raid healing.
Disc Priest
Currently Discs are no longer bubble machines. The new mechanic of healing by smiting is quite different from any other class.  This can heal melee, not fantastically, but to an extent.  Also, PoH putting small bubbles with Divine Aegis on a group is quite nice and can save a couple of players from death.  Penance is still a fantastic ability to save a raid member.  And even though PW: S is not spamable, it is still an amazing ability with the recent changes.
Holy Priest
Currently Holy Priests excels at one thing, AoE.  With all of their new abilities within the 2 Chakra states, allows them to save people quickly or to keep up their massive AoE healing.  With PoH, PoM, CoH, and Renew still at their side, they are able to keep the majority of players healed when massive AoE is going off.
Holy Paladin
Pallys have received a major overhaul since the end of Wrath.  Their new Holy Power heals basically allow them to never go OOM.  That combined with the new Divine Plea, they will be ready to heal the duration of a fight.  Even though Beacon is not its awesome self anymore, it is still an amazing ability that a pally should utilize to its fullest.  Also, in stacking situations, the use of LoD and HR are very clutch.  They are the same power as maybe some of the other AoE heals out there, but it does allow for a pally to have some AoE healing capabilities.

Cool Downs

Now Cool Downs are clutch for most fights.  You don’t want to rely on CDs to the point where if a certain person goes down, then your raid falls apart, but they can really be life savers.
Shaman
Mana Tide – Even after the patch, still the single best mana restorer for a raid.  Since it is now raid wide, allows boomkins to possibly send their innervates other healers way.
Druid
Tranquility – This is absolutely amazing in dire situations.  The massive amount of healing that it does is incredible.  A well timed one of these can save a raid.  Fortunately all druids have this.
Tree of Life – Even though Tree can’t be sustained any longer, the amounts of heals that are able to be done with it is outstanding.  Throwing Lifebloom on multiple targets, Wild Growth hits 2 additional targets, and instant Regrowths makes this an awesome 3 min CD.
Priest
Divine Hymn – Not as good as Tranquility as a raid saver, but none the less a very good Raid Heal.
Hymn of Hope – Not quite as good as Mana Tide, but still a good mana restore.
Leap of Faith – A pretty good ability if used correctly.  Can save a raid members life if used in the right place.
Disc
Pain Suppression – A very good CD that can keep your tank alive when he takes big hits (Magmaw’s nomnom)
Power Word: Barrier – Another very good preventative damage spell.  Make sure to use when you stack up.
Power Infusion – Can be use in a couple of clutch situations.  Help your top caster dps throw extra dps out, throw it on a healer to keep the raid up.  Either way, a very nice CD.
Holy
Guardian Spirit – An absolutely amazing CD.  Increasing the healing on a target and preventing them from dying?!?!?  AMAZING!!!
Spirit of Redemption – Allows you to continue healing for 15 sec after you die.  Not a bad CD but don’t die.
Holy Paladin
Lay on Hands – Basically a heal that will take the player to full health.  Use only if necessary.  Has a long CD.
Hand of Protection – Protects the target for 10 sec but they can’t use physical abilities.
Hand of Salvation – Use this on your threat whores who aren’t tanks.

Skill

This is absolutely the biggest consideration that any healing lead should look at.  Make sure that the player knows their class.  For example, if I had the choice between a Holy Paladin who had the gear but just started playing it or a Resto Shaman who had been playing the class for years and didn’t have quite the gear, I would be more inclined to pick the Shaman.  9 times out of 10 a player’s skill will outweigh the capabilities of a class. Not to mention you really want people you can trust to do their job and not have to watch over their shoulder.
Thanks guys for checking this out.  If you have any questions, shoot them my way at mylindara88@gmail.com or follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mylindara.