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That's a great idea Waldy and closer to the kind of thing I was aiming for. I'd like to encourage EVERYONE to give me their list of items for the following bosses (only consider normal mode loot please). Ignis Razorscale Iron Council Auriaya I will give folks a couple (2) weeks to come up with a list, after that we'll make a decision as to which of these bosses we're putting on the chopping block. Also, please feel to split your list into 2 categories: NEED and LIKE TO HAVE, that way I can differentiate between the best-in-slot (or close to) items and temporary upgrades.

Hey guys, Tonight's Raid I hope everyone's well rested after our week off. Tonight's roster looks pretty solid. We will be missing only 1 person: Markenhoof. I'll likely be substituting him for a DPS (since our healers seem to be able to handle the healing requirements with their current numbers). Karrock and Heiliger will be late, but no more than 30min (so we'll be doing Leviathan without them). If you have friends who would like to participate in the first boss fight, please let me know. Progress On another note, now that everyone is refreshed I want to make a push to improve our progress. That means faster pulling, we spend an obscene amount of time "setting up". If we can keep focus we can certainly shave off a good 20min from waiting around before pulls. (To Holy: Yes I want you to pull faster, but don't kill our healers ) It also means we need to start considering which bosses we can skip. I want everyone to look closely at the loot they need. If we find spots where we can cut corners than that would be great! (i.e Ignis, Razorscale, Iron Council, etc.) Achievements Ok, so we haven't really been looking in doing achievements. I think achievements is a great way to spark some interest in the more boring/farmed encounters. I'm open to suggestions, if anyone wants to attempt a specific feat, let me know. =)

If you get in your car now, you can likely drive outside of the storm's range! Get moving Markenhoof!

Quick Reminder: *PLEASE* *PLEASE* *PLEASE* Read up on the the Mimiron fight before tonight!!!

My above post wasn't meant to poke the bee's nest. I tried to leave it vague and impersonal. I'm not trying to target any specific person or incident. My intent was simply to advise folks to be considerate in their hate. Not everyone shares the same sense of humor and your words made be considered offensive by some. Be careful not to cross the line between trying to be funny and being outright insulting. While Tizaria choose to speak to up, please don't interpret her posting as being the sole example of such incidents. Others also have had unpleasant dealings which were dealt with in a less public manner. Overall, I have no issues with our "hate" and I fully agree with the statements made above by our raiders. Try to be mindful of others and everything will be alright Zu

Post #3 - Hate This has always been an ongoing topic with our raid and is somewhat a distinct trait of our group. Like most raids we have our ups and downs but we always manage to pull through. Several folks have mentioned that they are noticing a steady upswing in the amount of "hate" that is being dished out. Typically, the hate is taken in jest and serves to lighten the mood or provide criticism to an individual. However, much of the "hate" lately has been far more pointed. We are starting see folks doing personal attacks and belittling each other. Raiding is meant to be fun and shouldn't have feel like high school recess where if you're not one of the "cool" people then you get verbally berated. All I ask is that you give a bit of thought before you speak up on TS. Consider the person you are talking to, some folks handle the "hate" better than others. Insults, verbal abuse and humiliation are totally unacceptable. You can't make a player better through verbal abuse, you end up alienating them and ultimately having them leave the raid. You don't have to like all the raiders but you have to respect them.

Post #2 -- Herbalist and Alchemist Loot in and Around Freya After giving this some thought and doing a bit of research here is what I have come up with: Herbs Distribution - This includes any nodes in the general vicinity of Freya and all herbs found in or around her corpse - We will have a fixed rotation among any player who have submitted their names as an interested candidate (same way we dealt with Runed Orbs). - A player who isn't a herbalist may also give his name provided he recruits a lackey to go around gathering the stuff Alchemy Distribution - All pots, elixirs and flasks will be re-distributed to the raid in a "best effort" manner by a designated individual - Distribution occurs AFTER the raid (looking a volunteer for this) SPECIAL NOTE: I'm only placing restrictions on herbalist due to the larger amount of herbs that can be found around Freya. There is no plan to set any restrictions on other gatherers (i.e. miners, skinners, etc.). I would like to encourage ALL crafters to please help their fellow raiders as much as possible. Share both your crafting skills AND your mats! We should all to cooperate together in order to conquer Ulduar. Hope this covers the issue sufficiently, Zu

The topic of raid preparedness has been cropping up quite often lately. I'm not sure why, it may be due to raid progress slowing down because it's summer or because we haven't been giving it our due diligence. I think it goes without saying that unless you're prepared to make a significant contribution towards having food buffs, flasks/elixirs and health/mana pots then raiding is likely not for you. If there comes a time when the effort to raid out weights the fun you have raiding then it's likely the time to give up your spot. My game play is most often spent maximizing both my own raiding potential and the potential of the group as a whole. I would hope that all our raiders share this philosophy (or at least contribute to it in some way). That being said here are my expectations in terms of flasks/elixirs: - You should consume a flask/elixir for any encounter currently being learned - You should consume a flask/elixir for any encounter where players sharing your role are having difficulties - You should consume a flask/elixir for any encounter where you are having difficulties and/or are under performing - You should consume a flask/elixir whenever we try to attain a particularly difficult achievement (which is to say ANY achievement in Ulduar) - I don't feel that enforcing a 3 flask rule in Ulduar at the moment is warranted (provided that the individual has some kind of buffing strategy) - The above statement only stands as long as we keep doing steady progress - I will not penalize a player for missing a flask for any ONE given fight (I will however penalize them if they are repeat offenders) - The BigBrother mod is meant to scare you, cause one day you won't have a flask and I'll be in a bad mood and you'll get the smack down of my DKP stick! So yeah that is all, ENJOY! =) Zu

Hey Tiz, Sorry I didn't have a chance to respond to your forum mail. Take all the time you need, we'll keep your spot toasty warm for your return.

Hey guys, Just a heads up, I'll be missing tonight's raid again. I'm terribly sorry, I wish I could be there but I'll be stuck at work from quite some time. I wish you all the best of luck. Zu

I updated the list of Runed Orb requests. Holy I put you down for both the belt and the boots. Many folks have 2 items that they want, so it's no big deal. Like I said before we'll be rolling on the distribution order this coming Tuesday, you have till then to give me a list of items you'd like crafted. Those of us that have 2 items listed will have to wait until everyone on the list has gotten at least 1 item before obtaining our second item.

Hey guys, Just a quick notice... The Runed Orbs (used for many of the newly craftable items) will be distributed in the same manner Nether Vortexes were back in the SSC/TK/MH/BT days. Raiders will need to register the item they are attempting to craft and the number of Orbs they want. We will roll this coming Thurs to determine the order of the distribution (who gets theirs first). So please take a min minutes between now and Thurs to figure out which items you'll want crafted! Zu

Then you are a shame to your parents. Scryll: 10 points! Nicely done! Now *THAT* was funny!

Ok, as for my part... So I said I was gonna fix up DKP. We had an entire thread about it and there were tons of good suggestions. My final decision is as follows: In order to keep things flowing well and to simplify both my life (and anyone else that may take over the DKP) we are going to stick to the same ZeroSum system (also because it has a simple to use mod and website). I know the system breaks down when there isn't a steady flow of loot, but we'll just have to deal with it (lest I start taking 30min per boss to dish out all the loot). Since we've just had a long stretch of poor loot distribution and with the introduction of new players as well as alts, I've decided to normalize the DKP. Here's how it's going to work: I estimated the average value of an item to be approximately 150DKP. Since DKP should really be used to better disperse the loot, I feel that folks shouldn't have a DKP offset that would exceed a 1.5 item advantage or disadvantage (if you're in the hole). This gives us a desired DKP spread of [225DKP, -225DKP]. So the calculation of the new DKP table is as follows: newDKP = (oldDKP - current max DKP) * (2*225DKP) / (average lifetime DKP) + 225DKP Note that I'm using the average lifetime DKP as the normalization constant (as opposed to the full DKP spread), this is because certain individuals have a DKP score that is way out there (i.e. some folks have HUGE DKP holes). These folks will simply be capped at -225DKP. I know some of you won't care, but I figured I might as well be transparent about the whole thing. I don't want anyone thinking I'm cheating them out of their DKP.

I was reflecting on what to do with regards to the patch. Typically things get quite chaotic with big patches. I think the best course of action is to simply go with the flow. A lot of folks will be upgrading their game and there's likely going to be a lot of lag. If by 8pm EST the server looks stable and we have a vast majority of folks then we'll raid. If too many folks are missing, if there's tons of lag, stability issues or if I get a lot of folks requesting some time off to explore the patch than we'll just call it off. No big deal. If you prefer taking the time off, please communicate with me so that I don't need to guess, it's cool with me. We will likely be raiding Ulduar until further notice so be prepared Things to do: - Read up on the fights (both trash and boss) - Read up on the loot (plan on what you'll spend your DKP on) - Rework your specs/gear if needed - Normalize DKP standings

I just want to put in a few points here as well. 1) The tactics we were using were pretty sound. We did slight variations on when bloodlust is used and when to AoE the adds. These aren't big shifts in tactics, but they allow us to get a feel of what's best for us. I plan on continuing along the same route and perhaps introducing a few more shifts in strategy again. 2) I agree with Waldy, there certain aspects of the fight that folks are not understanding. Hell, even I get confused and mixed up at times since there's a lot going on. A read up on the fight, even if this is the 100th time you do so, wouldn't hurt. 3) Now to my main point: This is likely the HARDEST fight prior to Ulduar. We are going to wipe A LOT. I cannot stress enough that everyone in the raid should be patient on these wipes, this is a lot like Archimonde, one or two people dying are going to screw it up for everyone else. Do not get overly frustrated with your fellow players and don't get upset if your comments, tactics and strategies are not picked up or if we choose not to adhere to them. Keep re-iterating your points if you need to, but please be patient. I'm saying this because towards the end of Thursday I had more nasty tells coming my way than I could count. If you can't take a few wipes to learn a boss, you don't belong in a raid. 4) Also, I know wipe after wipe can take its toll on a raid. I don't mind people getting chatty in between attempts to keep the mood fun and lighthearted. Just remember, the second an explanation is being given or an attempt is started, please STFU so that the important information can be relayed on TS. Zu

Hi folks, Just putting up a notice that I will no longer be participating in any more 10man raiding endeavors. Unfortunately I'm quickly getting overwhelmed with the shear number of nights I have committed to WoWing on top of an increasingly stressful work schedule. This will directly affect both Baracko and Karrock's teams. Sorry to have announced this with such short notice, but it's just something I have to do (if I intend on staying sane). I wish you all the best of luck and success in achieving your goals. Best regards, Zu P.S. For the time being I still plan on pursuing all my 25man endeavors, Tuesdays and Thursdays will not change.

Hey guys, Just wanted to state that I was able to find 4 volunteers to step out for this week. So the 20man achievement only needs to be done once and not spread throughout 2 weeks. I'd like to acknowledge the folk who are being the real team players here: Tyrandius Perthes Kalea Markenhoof They have volunteers to skip out of this achievement for the benefit of the raid and I hope everyone can appreciate their sacrifice. Thanks a bunch guys! Zu

So I neglected to ask... Instead of doing 2 weeks of 20man achievements...are there any 4 individuals that wouldn't mind sitting out? If I can get 2 healers and 2 DPS who really don't care for achievements we can bump it down to 1 week. (Volunteers would get the equivalent in DKP -- and I could even be persuaded to add in a bit more DKP to account for missing out on potential loot). Give it some thought folks...if I get no volunteer than I'll proceed as planned (with 2 weeks).

Ok...better late than than never, but here's the plan for tonight: Tizaria and Remmetta will be respec'ing for DPS. Here's a quick overview of the more difficult achievements (with respects to execution): [Heroic: Spore Loser] For this achievement we will NOT be taking the route proposed by Holyssa's web link. We have a single DPS warrior and I think it'd be best to have him DPSing Instead we'll have Kadi healing with Righteous Fury up. She can tank the spores with the help of Ascoli. Remember, DO NOT use multi-target abilities! [Heroic: Shocking!] Holyssa's recommended strategy is quite good. (If you guys have the time, I recommend watching the video, it's like looking into a kaleidoscope!) Unfortunately, I think without more time to practice and due to the complexity of the tactic, we're better off sticking to something that is more familiar. I will however shift the positive and negative groups so that they are diagonally opposed from each other (rather than face-to-face). This should maximize the distances and help prevent any shockings. [Heroic: And They Would All Go Down Together] So I did this achievement in 10man and had a bit of a hard time coming up with a tactic that isn't going to be pure chaos. Taking a page from Holyssa's wonderful tactic website, I propose using the strategy described here: http://mirrorshield.blogspot.com/2009/01/h...ll-go-down.html We will use 6 "tank"+healer pairs (3 for the front, 3 for the back) as well as 4 DPS groups (2 for the front, 2 for the back). The groups are as follows (this still assumes Tizaria and Remmetta are spec'd as Shadow): FG1 Ascoli/Kadiana FG2 Holyssa/Uglutz FG3 Tyrandius/Bralor FDPS1 Orcala/Elrikk/Foroshell/Xenojin FDPS2 Vierendelen/Taidenewy/Zuworty =================================== BG1 Kailand/Kalea BG2 Karrock/Lorgan BG3 Perthes/Markenhoof BDPS1 Draegoth/Jestin/Remmetta BDPS2 Zenitta/Hingon/Tizaria - DPS groups rotate to the next boss every 3 stacks. - "Tank Groups" rotate as follows: Boss1 -> Boss2-> Middle (no debuffs) - Healers ALWAYS follow their designated tank and must heal ALL DPS currently hitting the boss at which they are stationed - DPS groups hitting Thane and Baron MUST move as a single entity in order not to cause unnecessary damage due to meteors. - DPS all targets to 10% (and no less than 5%) and a CONTROLLED burn down to 0% afterwards.

Here is a tentative schedule for the proposed Naxxramas achievements: (I know the schedule is pretty hectic, but as I understand Ulduar will be making its way out sooner rather than later). Tuesday March 3rd: Spider Wing: [Heroic: Arachnophobia] -- Clear the Spider Wing in 20min (timer starts after Anub'Rekhan's death) Patchwerk: [Heroic: Make Quick Werk Of Him] -- Kill him within 3min Heigan: [Heroic: The Safety Dance] -- No one can die Grand Widow Faerlina: [Heroic: Momma Said Knock You Out] -- Cannot dispel the boss' frenzy (most folks should already have this) Thaddius: [Heroic: Shocking!] -- No charges must be crossed Loatheb: [Heroic: Spore Loser] -- No one must obtain the Spore buff Four Horsemen: [Heroic: And They Would All Go Down Together] -- All horseman must die within 15 seconds of one another Saphirron: [Heroic: The Hundred Club] -- No one with Frost Resist above 100 Kel'Tuzad: [Heroic: Just Can't Get Enough] -- Kill 18 Abominations Requirements: - We'll need to bump down to no more than 6 healers (for DPS reasons on Patchwerk). Since Tizaria has offered to respec already, I need 1 more healer volunteer to respec (please don't volunteer if you don't have a DPS set). - [Heroic: Shocking!] is gonna require slightly better placement and MUCH better timing on the part of certain individuals. - [Heroic: Spore Loser] is gonna require EVERYONE to avoid ANY type of multi-target DPS. - [Heroic: And They Would All Go Down Together] is gonna require a specific strategy (I will post on this soon). - [Heroic: Make Quick Werk Of Him] will require EVERYONE with a food buff AND a Flask/Elixir buff. - Due to the shear number of achievements for this night, please expect us to go over our usual time limit by 15 to 30min (hopefully it won't be such a big deal). Tuesday March 10th: [Heroic: The Dedicated Few] -- Defeat the bosses of Naxxramas with less than 21 people (Group 1) Thaddius: [Heroic: Subtraction] -- Kill Thaddius with less than 21 people (Group 1) Requirements: - We'll need to bump down to 6 healers again for this (we'll need the DPS, besides less people also means less individuals to heal). Tentative Rotation: Orcala, Zeniita, Remmetta, Kalea Tuesday March 17th: [Heroic: The Dedicated Few] -- Defeat the bosses of Naxxramas with less than 21 people (Group 2) Thaddius: [Heroic: Subtraction] -- Kill Thaddius with less than 21 people (Group 2) Requirements: - We'll need to bump down to 6 healers again for this (we'll need the DPS, besides less people also means less individuals to heal). Tentative Rotation: Hingon, Perthes, Tizaria, Uglutz Tuesday March 24th: [The Immortal] -- No one dies on any of the Naxxramas boss fights ? -- Any of the previously unsucceeded achievements A few notes: - For the first night of achievements I will be calling wipes on any bosses where the achievement has failed (as long as it remains reasonable to do so). Worst case scenario we will need to kill the last remaining bosses on Thursday. - I will be picking individuals being rotated out. Please don't argue with me on this...since the consensus is that folks want these achievements, this is the price we have to pay. - NONE of these achievements are seen as being mandatory. If we fail at any, I will not go out of my way to try them again. - Many of the achievements require individual raiders to listen carefully and act both efficiently and with purpose. Any player causing the failure of an achievement due to a lack of focus or a lack understanding will be held responsible. (They will need to explain themselves). Malygos & Sartherion Seeing as we are still working on getting Malygos comfortably on farm I will not be pursuing any of the EoE achievements. As for Sartherion, the main goal is to first get comfortable with Sarth +2D and then move on to Sarth +3D. Until that occurs, none of the other achievements will be scheduled. (Loot + progression > Achievements) Regards, Zu

Well the plan would be that to take 1 week to achieve ALL standard full-group achievements and 2 weeks to achieve the <21 man group ones...for a total of 3 weeks. That would also mean no screwing up on the first week!

Hey guys, I was talking with some of you late last night with regards to the Naxxramas portion of our raid schedule. I got the impression that many of you find the place quite unchallenging and most only have a couple of upgrades left in there (and mostly from the last bosses). That being said, some of the raiders expressed an interest in pursuing the set of achievements associated with Naxx. Now before I put tons of time and effort planning out the details of these achievements, I wanted to get people's thoughts regarding this. Note that some of these achievements REQUIRE that we rotate people out of the raid for a week (though I'd try to minimise that as much as possible). For those of you looking to get the title and special mount, I think we have to be a little more realistic here. The title and mount are being removed in patch 3.1, meaning we'd have to get ALL achievements done by then (which is HIGHLY doubtful). Personally, I think achievements are fun to do, but they are nothing more than a pleasant distraction. I'd rather not become an achievement-oriented raid. Please let me know how you feel about it. Either leave a post or answer the pole (or both!). Thanks, Zu

The video at the bottom was exceptionally good! I seriously recommend watching it to anyone in the main raid (or ANY raid doing Sarth!).

Wow guys, I'm definitely loving this feedback! Kailand: I'm not planning on doing ANYTHING until we see how the DKP table ends up when Ulduar comes out. This is discussion is really to inform people and make 'em aware of the decision process (so that it's not coming out of the blue at them). Tizaria: I think a full reset is a little extreme, even *if* most raiders wanted a full reset, I'm sure some wouldn't. Hence why normalization would be better. Based on how much of the raid wants a reset we can easily enforce a more radical normalization. Waldonnis: You bring up excellent points. There are so many "fairness" factors that come into play when deciding which loot system to take and I know ZeroSum may not be the most appropriate. One of the reasons why we use the loot system we have now is simply because of how easy it is to use. There's just way too much loot dropping every night for me to be able to re-calculate things on the fly, we'd be spending too much time waiting on the master looter. Above and beyond fairness, the system needs to be fast, efficient, transparent and accessible (so that others may see their standing)...all of this is easily provided with the mod I have selected (and despite what others may think, there isn't an abundance of DKP mods that allow for out-of-guild members). Anyways, looking at your suggestions you may be onto something. I'd have to asset how easily those measures could be put into place (whether re-coding the mod or doing it manually). The issue is in the deployment of the system in this case, not the idea behind it. Xenojin: I think you're right, we should make a bigger effort to promote upgrades to individuals who aren't as well geared. (This is quickly becoming less relevant I think, since the majority of the raid is coming along quite nicely though). I think at this point it'd nice to see similar specs/classes helping each other to figure out shared upgrade paths so that there isn't as many people waiting for the same item. Eigun: See the comments I did to Waldy. Unfortunately what you're proposing would likely be 10x harder to implement since I'd have to have a loot history easily accessible for all individuals in the raid and charge 'em DKP based on a person's historical DKP data. (yikes!) Not a bad idea, just a difficult one to execute. Thanks again guys... Zu