Windzarko
Well-Known Member
A few quick pieces of important info about our current raiding, now that we've actually started.
First off, raid nights are the same as before (Thursday and Friday), and for the moment it's best that people do not PuG Baradin Hold prior to those nights since for the time being it looks like it'll be regularly incorporated into one of the raid nights, although this may change with time, we'll see. After Friday, everyone (rank irrelevant) should feel free to go PuG anything at all or do stuff with friends outside of the guild. At this stage, people getting extra bits of gear can't hurt.
Secondly, sign ups are now done by the in-game calendar rather than using the forum-based ones. Whether we'll use the forum calendar again anytime soon isn't known at the time of typing, but we may end up using both. For those of you unfamiliar with the in-game one, it's quite simple; attached to the mini-map, usually on the top-left corner, is a a large circle with the current day of the month in it. Clicking on this will open up the calendar. If you are of the applicable ranks, you should also see a glowing "?" on the calendar button if there are any raids you can sign up to but haven't. To sign up to a raid, click on it in the calendar (the day with the raid should also have a big ? on it), and click one of the buttons presented. Off the top of my head, these include the equivalents for Yes, Maybe and No. All people ranked Trial Raider and up should be invited, and are expected to sign up, even if it's to say no. The exception is that unfortunately all of the Veterans' alts and Officer alts will get caught up in this signing process; whilst signing them as no would be helpful, it isn't mandatory. Also, if you know you're going to be away in advance of a raid sign-up going up and don't think you'll be around to sign as no once it IS up, please give one of the Veterans-or-above a heads-up.
Thirdly, consumables. There are now flasks for each primary stat, so flasking is pretty clear-cut and simple at the moment. However we do seem to be lacking in certain flasks (particularly the Int flask), and last I looked we weren't doing too well on the buff food front; if anyone can donate herbs and useful food (cooked or uncooked, so long as its useful), it'd be greatly appreciated. Also, when it comes to creating flasks, please please please get an Elixir Master to do it; whilst all alchemy specs do proc extras now for everything, the three Masteries have a higher chance to proc extra/more, and we still need 500-odd more flasks to get at Guild Cauldrons; getting Elixir Masters to make the flasks is of greater benefit to the guild.
Fourthly, ranks. Whilst things are a little unsteady at the moment while we get ourselves settled in, the intent is that the Raider rank is for those who are proven ready for raiding in both minimum gearing, capability with their class, and sufficient awareness to not stand in the fire, with Trial Raider being for the untried or the not-quite-ready-yet. Once we're settled in, it should be the case that only a couple of Trial Raiders will get taken along to a raid unless we're lacking in numbers (so that we have a raid largely composed of known, reliable quantities who can hopefully pick up any shortfall), and Trial Raiders will have lower priority on loot (they roll mainspec after full Raiders but before anyone rolls offspec). I'd like to stress that this isn't the case YET, so people currently ranked at Trial needn't panic about not getting spots and/or gear.
Fifthly, the raid listed on the signup event is the one we'll do that night. This might mean Blackwing Decent every night until Pirate (Dagen/Sabot/Soundwave, our raid leader/overlord to those of you who don't know him well, and the Dread Pirate Feelgood to... well, probably just me) decides otherwise, although we might try tackling the first couple of bosses in Bastion of Twilight as well. Baradin Hold will get slung in there as well as mentioned above. Whilst this means that we're not that likely to go to the Throne of the Four Winds just yet, it's still mandatory for Trial Raiders and up to seek permission first before PuGing the raids that there aren't signups for (if they're planning to PuG on Wednesday-Friday); the last thing we want is to change our plans and then find that people have gone and killed a few bosses somewhere else and thus either locked themselves out from our group or forced us to skip those bosses to get them into the group with us.
Finally, a few extra notes:
*Raid lockouts: for those who don't know, the way raid lockouts work has changed dramatically. You are now no longer locked to a raid ID like before, but you are saved to individual bosses. You can only do each boss once per week, regardless of what setting the raid is on; 10, 25, 10 Heroic, 25 Heroic, it doesn't matter. You get one kill of that boss, and that's saved to your character for the week. However this doesn't lock you out from other groups; if you kill the first boss of BWD and then leave the group, then find another group that's killed at least the first boss, you can join that group just fine. You only can't join a group if their version of the instances has bosses alive that you've already killed that week. This also allows you to kill one boss on 10, another on 25 Heroic, the next on 25 normal, etc etc.
*Guild Cauldrons: in about 500 flasks time (as of the time of typing this), the guild will get an achievement that allows its high-skill alchemists to buy and learn the recipe for the Cauldron of Battle; this is a single-use craftable item that takes four flasks (one of each kind apart from Spirit) and eight Deathblood Venom (a simple potion-style craftable) to create, and when placed down will give the first seven group members who click on it a "Flask of Battle"; this is a conjured flask item (can't be sold on the AH, fades 15 minutes after logging out, etc; same as mage food) which when used will give you the same effect as your spec-appropriate flask for an hour. There are guild perks at certain levels to increase the duration on the flask (the first we get this weekend and ups it to 90 minutes, the second is a fair bit later on and ups it to two hours) and one to increase how many flasks the cauldron gives (making the basic cauldron give 10 and the Big Cauldron of Battle give 30). Alchemists will still want to use their own flasks when they can, however, as theirs will last 2 hours and give increased effect (since the Flask of Battle cannot be crafted, it won't be affected by Mixology).
*Feasts: We've already unlocked the basic Cataclysm feast recipe, but we're still a ways off the better Seafood Magnifique Feast recipe, this expansion's equivalent to the old Fish Feast. To unlock this recipe for the guild, we need to accrue a total of 10,000 fishing pools fished from (this might mean fishing 10,000 times from pools or fishing 10,000 individual pools, I'm not sure). The counter goes up for ANY pools, and it doesn't matter where in the world or what level the person was who did it, so anyone that's willing to do fishing at 85 or to level it up with their alts or whatever, please do so and go for those pools!
First off, raid nights are the same as before (Thursday and Friday), and for the moment it's best that people do not PuG Baradin Hold prior to those nights since for the time being it looks like it'll be regularly incorporated into one of the raid nights, although this may change with time, we'll see. After Friday, everyone (rank irrelevant) should feel free to go PuG anything at all or do stuff with friends outside of the guild. At this stage, people getting extra bits of gear can't hurt.
Secondly, sign ups are now done by the in-game calendar rather than using the forum-based ones. Whether we'll use the forum calendar again anytime soon isn't known at the time of typing, but we may end up using both. For those of you unfamiliar with the in-game one, it's quite simple; attached to the mini-map, usually on the top-left corner, is a a large circle with the current day of the month in it. Clicking on this will open up the calendar. If you are of the applicable ranks, you should also see a glowing "?" on the calendar button if there are any raids you can sign up to but haven't. To sign up to a raid, click on it in the calendar (the day with the raid should also have a big ? on it), and click one of the buttons presented. Off the top of my head, these include the equivalents for Yes, Maybe and No. All people ranked Trial Raider and up should be invited, and are expected to sign up, even if it's to say no. The exception is that unfortunately all of the Veterans' alts and Officer alts will get caught up in this signing process; whilst signing them as no would be helpful, it isn't mandatory. Also, if you know you're going to be away in advance of a raid sign-up going up and don't think you'll be around to sign as no once it IS up, please give one of the Veterans-or-above a heads-up.
Thirdly, consumables. There are now flasks for each primary stat, so flasking is pretty clear-cut and simple at the moment. However we do seem to be lacking in certain flasks (particularly the Int flask), and last I looked we weren't doing too well on the buff food front; if anyone can donate herbs and useful food (cooked or uncooked, so long as its useful), it'd be greatly appreciated. Also, when it comes to creating flasks, please please please get an Elixir Master to do it; whilst all alchemy specs do proc extras now for everything, the three Masteries have a higher chance to proc extra/more, and we still need 500-odd more flasks to get at Guild Cauldrons; getting Elixir Masters to make the flasks is of greater benefit to the guild.
Fourthly, ranks. Whilst things are a little unsteady at the moment while we get ourselves settled in, the intent is that the Raider rank is for those who are proven ready for raiding in both minimum gearing, capability with their class, and sufficient awareness to not stand in the fire, with Trial Raider being for the untried or the not-quite-ready-yet. Once we're settled in, it should be the case that only a couple of Trial Raiders will get taken along to a raid unless we're lacking in numbers (so that we have a raid largely composed of known, reliable quantities who can hopefully pick up any shortfall), and Trial Raiders will have lower priority on loot (they roll mainspec after full Raiders but before anyone rolls offspec). I'd like to stress that this isn't the case YET, so people currently ranked at Trial needn't panic about not getting spots and/or gear.
Fifthly, the raid listed on the signup event is the one we'll do that night. This might mean Blackwing Decent every night until Pirate (Dagen/Sabot/Soundwave, our raid leader/overlord to those of you who don't know him well, and the Dread Pirate Feelgood to... well, probably just me) decides otherwise, although we might try tackling the first couple of bosses in Bastion of Twilight as well. Baradin Hold will get slung in there as well as mentioned above. Whilst this means that we're not that likely to go to the Throne of the Four Winds just yet, it's still mandatory for Trial Raiders and up to seek permission first before PuGing the raids that there aren't signups for (if they're planning to PuG on Wednesday-Friday); the last thing we want is to change our plans and then find that people have gone and killed a few bosses somewhere else and thus either locked themselves out from our group or forced us to skip those bosses to get them into the group with us.
Finally, a few extra notes:
*Raid lockouts: for those who don't know, the way raid lockouts work has changed dramatically. You are now no longer locked to a raid ID like before, but you are saved to individual bosses. You can only do each boss once per week, regardless of what setting the raid is on; 10, 25, 10 Heroic, 25 Heroic, it doesn't matter. You get one kill of that boss, and that's saved to your character for the week. However this doesn't lock you out from other groups; if you kill the first boss of BWD and then leave the group, then find another group that's killed at least the first boss, you can join that group just fine. You only can't join a group if their version of the instances has bosses alive that you've already killed that week. This also allows you to kill one boss on 10, another on 25 Heroic, the next on 25 normal, etc etc.
*Guild Cauldrons: in about 500 flasks time (as of the time of typing this), the guild will get an achievement that allows its high-skill alchemists to buy and learn the recipe for the Cauldron of Battle; this is a single-use craftable item that takes four flasks (one of each kind apart from Spirit) and eight Deathblood Venom (a simple potion-style craftable) to create, and when placed down will give the first seven group members who click on it a "Flask of Battle"; this is a conjured flask item (can't be sold on the AH, fades 15 minutes after logging out, etc; same as mage food) which when used will give you the same effect as your spec-appropriate flask for an hour. There are guild perks at certain levels to increase the duration on the flask (the first we get this weekend and ups it to 90 minutes, the second is a fair bit later on and ups it to two hours) and one to increase how many flasks the cauldron gives (making the basic cauldron give 10 and the Big Cauldron of Battle give 30). Alchemists will still want to use their own flasks when they can, however, as theirs will last 2 hours and give increased effect (since the Flask of Battle cannot be crafted, it won't be affected by Mixology).
*Feasts: We've already unlocked the basic Cataclysm feast recipe, but we're still a ways off the better Seafood Magnifique Feast recipe, this expansion's equivalent to the old Fish Feast. To unlock this recipe for the guild, we need to accrue a total of 10,000 fishing pools fished from (this might mean fishing 10,000 times from pools or fishing 10,000 individual pools, I'm not sure). The counter goes up for ANY pools, and it doesn't matter where in the world or what level the person was who did it, so anyone that's willing to do fishing at 85 or to level it up with their alts or whatever, please do so and go for those pools!