Rebelogic

If you stack enough intellect, sometimes bosses invite you over for tea and heated political debates erupt. By the end however, poignant discourse dissolves into Yo Mama jokes. Bottom line, stacking Intellect as a tank has become less favorable than mitigation and avoidance. However, the term "Stacking" usually implies "Only do this", when often a slightly more moderate and balanced approach is recommended.

It was a Saturday morning when I filmed this and I just came back from a run. My hair was kind of sticking to my head cause I hadn't showered yet I believe. As far as Yacoub, I think he was hanging out with his girlfriend at the time. I will eventually get him into a video post somewhere.

I will try my best with the limited technology at my disposal. What I lack in technology, I make up for with creativity.

Burns cannot be taught Boredman. Mine are legendary.

I hope everyone likes my post. It was fun to make and I am glad I got one up there to start things off. I hope to do them decently often, if you guys have any questions or ideas for me to talk about, feel free to post them on the forums. Eventually, I will get Yacoub to be in one, I have already gotten a lot of requests for that.

Damnit, I know. I forgot to do it early Sunday like I planned and today I got into work and thought I would just write one up. I will try and film a video tonight. Prydain is hanging above the door in my room, so I will make sure he is in it.

Listen my children and you shall hear another Rebel's Logic post, for all to revere!

Good Morning ladies and gentlemen, or whatever time it may be while you read this. It has been a really eventful raid week to say the least. Tuesday started out a little slow with us taking a little while on Marrowgar, but he went down with relative ease. After doing Deathwhisper on normal and then Heroic Gunship, we decided to get some good attempts down on Saurfang. We spent nearly an hour and a half on Saurfang hardmode before we did it on normal to move on. Now, doing Saurfang on heroic mode was an attempt to try and get our first piece of T10 Heroic and to see if we are ready for a heroic boss that is ranked 5th hardest in the entire instance. Our attempts on him we very good and we learned a few important details. For one, lusting 10 seconds in puts our DPS in a good position to easily time all their CD's to burn him off the start. Usually, we would lust at 30% when the enrage happens, but in this way, we can almost ensure that our CD's are up for around that part of the fight. Not having to worry about adds for the beginning will make us take maximum advantage of the BL. The second thing we learned was the Stun rotation we should use for the adds. We began with Kwicked using shadowfury which hit all the adds. After that, a couple shaman and Boomkin knockbacks and we basically had enough time to burn all adds. We clearly have the DPS for that fight, a couple random deaths from add damage and a mark death or two prompted us to just move on. Following our Saurfang attempts on Tuesday, we had some ill-fated attempts on Rotface Heroic. Oozes were forming under the boss and people were taking too long to run to the kiters. The result was wiping to too many oozes until we decided to call it on Tuesday. When Wednesday rolled around however, we quickly fixed our Rotface mistakes and got him down. The rest of the night was spent on Heroic Festergut. Initially, the people in the melee had trouble getting out of the malleable goo and people kept dying because the healers were all affected. To adjust the strat, we did two things. First we took our holy pallies out into the ranged so they wouldn't get affected by too much movement, and second, we had the melee move for every malleable goo just in case. After getting used to those two changes, all it took was proper spore reactions and on our last attempt of the night, we downed him! This was our first progression boss since Halion, which means up until the end of Wednesday, we had downed progression bosses on 3/4 consecutive raid days. When Thursday rolled around, the raid seemed to have a good atmosphere about it. Being stagnant for so long on LK, we had a renewed enthusiasm about the raids. We did Blood Princes on Normal, which was a good thing because we got our mandatory ATR ugly attempt out of the way. We went to BQ knowing that we were going to try it on Hardmode but despite reading up on the fight, we didn't know what to expect for damage. That would be the damage the boss would to do us and whether we could do enough coordinated damage to the boss with the possibility of needing more healers. Our healers and DPS both cranked and everyone did a great job because we downed her relatively quickly with only a few attempts, which means this was ATR's first kill of a Heroic Tier Boss! First of many I should say! After BQ, we went on to Dreamwalker who we only spent a few attempts on Hardmode. We discovered that the DPS and interrupts on adds was more than enough to down that boss. We had a few issues of stacks falling off in the portals and some random deaths, but for the most part, they were all really good attempts. When we switched it to normal, we one shotted it, and despite some new people not knowing the fight, we one-shotted Sindragosa Normal as well to end the night. For those of you keeping track, Our ICC raiding experience for the week ended with us downing progression bosses on 4/5 consecutive raid days! The following day, we got people to do a couple attempts on Halion hardmode which were disastrous but we downed it on Normal getting some people good loot and achievements. All in all, we had a really good raid week which according to Wowprogress has moved us 3 spots on our wowprogress rankings. On the Skullcrusher forums, we rank even better!

On the weekend, we had a relatively smooth Second run of ICC 25. We downed 7 bosses and could have downed more but we started a little late and it was getting late for some people. After a couple 23-manned attempts of Putricide, we decided to call it. After the Second run was over, I took what new things I learned from this entire week of raiding and wanted to relate them to you guys so that we can all improve for next time in both runs. One aspect of the raids which is really important is the matter of negativity and intent of words. A lot of times, I encounter a situation where a raider will complain about some aspect of the raid or another raider. Everyone feels the need to do this every once in a while and it can be harmful to the flow of the raid. Bring enough people down and we don't progress due to negativity. Don't get me wrong, if someone does something wrong, they should be notified and in worst case replaced, however it should be done in a completely objective manner. If you stand in malleable goo and we say, "Please don't get hit by malleable goo ________." It is completely objective. I don't need 5 people whispering me or saying in raid chat that the person who got hit sucks. It is clutter that just brings the raid down as a whole. If an objective suggestion is presented to a raider in a calm manner, he or she should take it upon themselves to act on it without complaining themselves. Btw, one thing that I consider complaining is dieing to a mechanic and then regaling a long story about why you died and how it wasn't your fault. You died, just say "_____ down." The raid leader can quickly decide to B-Rez you or tell you to ankh or whatever. After the attempt, you can quickly say what went wrong and we can discuss it. Speaking of brevity, try to cut down vent chatter when we are doing a boss. Cut down doesn't mean be completely silent, it means say something you are doing but just more concise. "Malleable goo coming now, switch to the other leg." which Geedub originally started with saying eventually turned into, "Goo move." and that is all we needed. Geedub did a really good job calling out the Malleable Goo on Festergut Hardmode btw, and that leads me into my next idea of coordinating raids. Before a raid, I want to assign 5 people, usually officers to pay attention to specific aspects of what is happening during fights. Two of those people will be assigned to call out things. In the case of Festergut, Wili handled spores and Geedub handled the Malleable Goo calls. The 3rd person is assigned to the melee group to make sure that everyone in the melee and the 4th person is assigned to the ranged. These two have the job of making sure that the melee and ranged are doing what they are supposed to be doing. This means effectively listening to the raid leader, not lagging/dc'ing, doing what is necessary to maximize their damage, not failing on mechanics, etc. The 5th person is assigned to the healers to make sure their efforts are being optimized just like the people assigned to the melee and ranged. This mentality of delegating responsibility among different raid members keeps everyone focussed on their tasks because a problem that has arisen many times before is 5-6 raid members giving me conflicting feedback on 10 different things. I then have to figure out who had the best view/opinion and act accordingly. Also, those people who got in the habit of watching everything, sometimes mess up themselves, it is a reverse-tunnel-vision effect. In this way, not only is the data the raid leader gets more accurate and clear, he is free to call out tertiary things in raids such as battle-rezzes, ankh's, phase changes, Lust, mechanics adjustments, etc.

Reasonable expectations of raiders is an important thing for raids. This applies to both runs and should be dealt with in a completely objective manner. Afk's, not getting into a raid, being asked to sit, suggestions on how you can improve your class, etc. happen all the time and how people present and react to these things is very important to building solid raids and interactions between raiders. If you have to go afk for an emergency or some non-dire but immediate reason, whisper the raid leader and let him know. Chances are, if you type, "brb bio", in raid chat, the raid leader will miss it. We take a break 1-2 times a raid so if you can wait, please do so. If you cannot wait, inform us and take your break at a non-important time. If it is after a wipe, at least get to the boss and buff up before you go afk. Dealing with afk's is a matter of common courtesy to your fellow raiders. Aside from afk's. often I hear of people giving suggestions to other raiders in a bad way or some players taking it really badly when a suggestion is presented nicely. This is a two-way street and can be helped if you talk to your healers about things before or after raid. Don't present an idea from the attitude of, "You are bad, do this." That just turns them off to any suggestions you make. Instead, approach them from a manner of trying to understand how they are doing things. Give them a chance to explain. Then, you can adjust your suggestion to their play-style. Everyone wants to improve, but not everyone needs to be broken down before they can be built up. The other side of this street is the person receiving the suggestions. First, you have to realize that someone is trying to make a fellow raider better so that together you can down bosses better. No one needs to be retorted with the, "I am the best, who are you to tell me I can be better." mentality. I fully support all classes talking with each other before and after a raid. If done respectfully from both sides, better raid unity and the increased comradery will yield smoother boss downings.

Being prepared to raid by most raiders has gotten a little better but we are still having some issues with it. When 7pm rolls around, I have gotten into the habit now of going into the officer vent channel and calmly start putting the raid together. On the surface, it sounds easy but I have to deal with people talking about random stuff and whispering me pointless crap. During this time, I am trying to deal with people who will be on that night, why some people aren't there, group comp, telling people that they have to sit and why, boss strategies/the overall plan for that night, etc. I give it till 8 to make any final decisions on raid comp. Before you get invited to a raid, please have your necessary items (symbols, flasks, food buffs, etc.). Being ready for raid means logging on time and flying to the raid being ready to pull. Please don't go afk between 7 and 8 as best as you can. I am aware that people need to eat dinner, but 90% of the time, people are just minimized doing something random. At the very least, inform me that you will be going afk and for how long. If you have to leave a raid early for whatever reason or cannot make it altogether, please let an officer know as early as possible. You can also send me an in game message or throw a shout on the website. It isn't hard to reach an officer. If you get sat for someone else because you have to leave early or for whatever other reason, don't take it harshly. It is an objective decision. This does not mean you will be sat forever. This also works in reverse, if you have been invited for weeks and weeks, you could still be sat for someone to give them a shot if they are deemed deserving of it. For example, we have cycled through a couple healers in the last few weeks. A few raiders had to sit in order to build the confidence of newer raiders. All in all it is for the benefit of the raid as a whole. The better the raid does, the better all individuals involved will do. By all means, if you are well prepared before we pull, feel free to joke around as much as you want.

I want to make it clear that all the basic rules that apply to group one in the realm of respect, apply to the second run as well. We have a lot of mains in this group as well as alts. If your alt is not deemed worthy of being in the run despite being in it before, we will not bring you. I am setting the bar at 5.4K GS for the second run (that doesn't include skill level, which has a higher requirement). Geedub for example has 3 toons with above a 6K GS all with 5.8K off-specs. That is an extreme, but it goes to show that everyone is able to bring their alt to Second run standards. Now, sometimes, we have raiders who despite their alt gear score are just not good on their alts. Again, take criticism well and you will benefit everyone. The most important people in this run are mains first, trials second, and alts third. If your alt is not doing good, we down less bosses. Downing fewer bosses means mains get less loot and trials have less chance to prove themselves. Basically, if you do not live up to a decent standard, I would rather take a good pug. You never know, a good pug could turn into a good recruit.

Well, that is enough for now fellas. Here is to a great raid week and the prospect of more HM progression in the coming week! Lastly, I know this isn't a video post, but I will do one soon, I promise, lol. See you on Tuesday.

This post will begin with hearty congratulations to everyone who participated in the last two raid weeks. Last week, we spent three consecutive raid days on Lich King, and I wanted to acknowledge the effort of people to not let a raid day go by without having at least a few attempts which were better than the best attempt of the previous raid day. That concept spread across five raid days technically culminating on the Lich King going down on Tuesday (Raid 4) and Halion 25 going down on Wednesday (Raid 5). This post is clearly overdue since it is now Friday and people were looking forward to my post by Wednesday morning. However, I wanted to add a little bit extra to my post than just congrats, in order to make it more complete.

The Lich King attempts were really good. We are tightening up our roster very well and the progression and effort people are putting in is showing. Specs/enchants/gear/rotation, etc. is all being scrutinized as I said in my previous post and it has resulted in good players really working hard to maximize their performance and figure out the best way to work together. Working together is an extremely underrated ability because a lot of people like to do what they are doing and assume it is the best way to help the raid. However, the key here is communication. If an idea for a class or player in the raid comes up, respectfully share it with people in an open unbiased forum so that it can be discussed freely. This not only promotes the idea that the raid as a whole is being thought about, but the idea that we as raid members respect the opinions and play style of everyone we deem worthy to be in our raids. This is where the satisfaction comes from raiding with you guys. Now, this is where I segway into the run we had yesterday night where respect was a key issue not being held to a high standard. Granted, the run we had yesterday in ICC 25 was not a main run. However, it had several mains deserving of core spots present. It is those people who we disrespected by fooling around a lot. For all of you who were lagging and didn

You are the man Glitter, we fully understand your commitments. Whenever you know you can come raid,, just let us know with some amount of advanced notice as you have done in the past and we can get you in somewhere.

I think I fully understand now. Between my talk with Gump yesterday and your insights, I will make sure that this does not happen again. Thanks for helping us understand his personality. This will make us work together better in the future.

At no point in the entire situation did I want Wili to be bad cop. I simply asked his opinion as to which class between two options would be best to sit for him. Ultimately, if he would have decided to come in for one of them. I would be the one who would have said that person is being sat. From now on, I will be more forceful in enforcing the collective view of all the officers. It was only my respect for him and his decision to refuse to replace anyone that made me drop the idea. Half the problem was him being too selfless a player. After the raid, I talked it out with him and we came to an understanding that 7 healers is too many for the raid. We need him on his mage for he is one the best ranged DPS we have. If you want to direct the blame for this situation, you can direct it at me because I could have been more forceful in bringing him back in the raid. Sometimes, we officers as a collective have to save another from being too caring about others. In the future though, we now have a plan to balance out group comp and fail-safes to prevent this situation from happening in the future.

The good part of this occurrence is that we have a clearer understanding of the areas in the raid comp that we are lacking in. Once we fix those few problem areas, we will definitely succeed.

"Heartbreaking, yet inspirational". As I was driving into work today, my mind kept wandering to the aforementioned phrase.

The raid week we just endured made us look at ourselves in a new light and cause a resurgence in an attitude lost in our ranks for a while. We had saved the ID from Group 1's disappointing 7-boss previous raid week. Out of those ashes, arose a new level of commitment from players. People showed up on time this week, ready to work hard. On the back of a guild get together that made us all closer, people showed that in their game-play. The veils of laziness and lack of effort previously hidden by sub-par standards were shed to reveal players who needed to step up their game to compete with the drive of players who were chosen to be in the main group. If you were asked to come in, first and foremost it was for the benefit of the raid. It was because we felt that you deserved a chance to use the skills we have seen in the past to benefit us as a whole. If you were asked to sit, it was discussed amicably on the most part and often didn't reflect upon your skills but something circumstantial such as group comp or lag. With all this in mind, I was proud of every one of you guys this week. Not only did we have a solid 3 days of continued raiding, we progressed on LK each day. Our record on LK on Wednesday was 31%, we beat that 3 times on Thursday with a best record of 19%. The entire week, I felt that we were getting closer and closer to ironing out all the little things that will not only make us get closer to downing LK, but get us all into the mind-set as to how our individual efforts can best compliment the raid as a whole.

After the raid, I went to the trainer and decided that I wanted to spec into aura mastery so I can help the raid survive on transition phases which need sudden boosts in resistance. Often, survivability of a raid is more important than an individual bonus. It is this mentality that will ultimately make us succeed. What we are doing now is taking a fine tooth comb to our raid comp and looking at the things that individuals can do at certain times, to best benefit the entire raid as a whole. So, to aid us, we ask that you take a few moments to go over your individual spec/glyphs/macros/gear/enchants/gems/etc. to see any improvements you can make. Take this entire weekend to pick a few moments. Gone should be the days where any person feels that they are above all suggestions. On a huge white-board at work, our CEO wrote down some business rules. The first rule is called the "1% Rule". That rule states that no matter how sure of an idea you have, always leave yourself a 1% chance that there could be a better idea out there. Humbling yourself in this fashion will not only make yourself better but will cause you to think about how you can work with others more. Discussion about what each class can do to benefit the raid should happen more often. When you are in Dalaran talking about something random; every once in a while, bounce a legitimate idea off someone.

What I saw this week were a lot of people doing the things that I mentioned above to a degree unseen in our ranks for quite a while. People, including myself, had the habit of coasting on what skills we already had and the hubris that we were already doing the best we could. We became complacent and that resulted in lack-luster raid attendance and performance. However, seeing everyone work harder to show up to raids and play their class to a new found higher standard, has made me want to optimize my efforts even more. Therefore, I come back to my original statement, "Heartbreaking yet inspirational". I say heartbreaking because with all the effort we put into the LK this week, we got so close so many times. However, the broken hearts simply meant that we were that determined to get better and better. The closer we get to a boss downing, the worse my heart breaks. However, the closer we get, the more I am inspired to work harder for you guys because I see that you are doing the same for me. So, I say, it is an honor to wipe and break my heart with you guys, for it means that we not only are proving that our resolve is steadfast but the glory of success will be that much sweeter!

Varibash, I am assuming you think all of us brown people look like angry mass murderers until we smile. When we smile, you probably think we are in the murdering planning process already.

Lol, thanks Perenelle.

August 13th-August 16th (Friday-Monday)

My brother and I are planning a big weekend full of all the stuff in Boston we have always loved but rarely get to do. So from the time I get off work on Friday till a recovery session on Monday Morning. I probably won't be online at all. I will be in Boston relatively close to my house the whole time and will have my phone on. If I need to log onto the website for some emergency, I can still do that, lol. We seem to have a decent number of people who are going to be available for the Saturday run and it looks really promising. At the moment, we have a lot of officers who can help run that raid, Sasha of course being the point-person for the trials we will bring for it. On top of that, Geedub has at least 2 tanks he can bring. For my Sunday ten man, I will make sure we are able to find a suitable replacement for me in the run. On Friday, we will definitely have a couple ten mans going and I will try to make those groups tonight itself and schedule them so it will be easier when the day comes.

It is only a weekend, but I will miss you guys

I don't know if this was mentioned earlier by anyone so I will say it here. My younger brother and I always like to go on road trips. It is really good to know that there are a lot of people within reasonable driving distance to us. When he gets a break from school, I will definitely come up with some plans to visit you guys. Somehow, thinking of this get-together, certain places I thought were really far away, don't seem so far anymore

That is fine man, things happen. Thanks for telling us a week in advance.

Next time, we will definitely plan earlier so everyone has a chance to come and enjoy. We clearly proved that as a collective, we epitomize the phrase, "The more the merrier."

I appreciate everyone who reads these posts and the feedback I am receiving. Also, Kieta never posts. Getting her to post something has made me really happy . I am glad my posts are getting a nice following, I guess I have to get off my ass and post more often.

August 6-8, 2010: A mass of rambunctious young people with only a game in common, descended upon a small town near Buffalo New York. The result was an amazing weekend of controlled debauchery that stretched the limits of many of us and proved that our relationships can not only grow but can transcend the game. We are not the characters we play, we are characters in real life!

"Three man", Sex toys, illicit pictures, camping, great food, tons of alcohol, assault rifles, being visited by cops twice, fireworks, more great food, etc. The list goes on my friends. I am sure that the intricacies of this weekend will all will surface in the forums but I just wanted to focus on big things that made this entire weekend a blast.

The most important thing everyone has to realize is that there was a disconnect between the people who were there. That disconnect was proximity to each other; basically most of us had either only met a few people in real life or none at all. Therefore, when people arrived, a sense of awkward greetings was bound to happen, or so we thought. I calculated the time it took for people to warm up to the new people who were arriving. That time period of course was next to immediate. Hell, before I ascended the stairs into Gump's kitchen for the first time, Hillshire gave me a death grip of a hug. A hug that lasted so long that me and her actually moved into the kitchen as a single unit and I began to meet people with my hand outstretched to the side. After hugging and meeting everyone, I was immediately presented with a cow blow up doll sex toy from Unholy. Now, I am the raid leader and am sure that everyone there knows me pretty well, but this sort of mischievous comradery was extended to everyone who was there. All people were accepted with open arms and treated like family from the moment that they arrived, and that is the biggest reason that this was such a blast. Xavres said it best in the car ride back when he said, "I have been to family reunions that didn't feel as close as that." Of course, we cannot mention acceptance without mentioning the hospitality of the people who made us feel the most welcome and they are of course Perenelle and Gump. The two hosts let a bunch of people they never met, into their house for a weekend party. They made sure that we all had a great time from beginning to end and on behalf of everyone there, I would like to extend my deepest thanks. I firmly believe that it is in honor of the Gumps that we as a collective desired to pay them back by respecting one another, respecting the house, and making sure that all of us not only had a great time, but kept each other safe, and took care of each other when we had a "little too much", lol. We might of littered the house with cups, cans, and on one occasion, underwear, but I am glad that we all pulled together to help clean up as best we could. I thank everyone who was there for that.

I have always preached the idea that before you can have good players, you must have good people. I cannot name a single person that was at the party who I wouldn't absolutely love to play the game with. Ventrillo makes the game so much fun because you are interacting with real people. This weekend took that enjoyment to another level and the game seems to be transcended that much more! For all of you who wished to be there but couldn't, you were all there in spirit! Prydain however, was there in inflatable cow-form.

In parting, I would like to thank everyone again for coming, and say that I can't wait till we do something like this again!*

*Actually, maybe not too soon, I need some time to recover, haha.

See, that is the mark of a true raider right there Perenelle. She is putting the guild above herself. Here is the thing. Ultimately, if you sit out every once in a while, not only do you get a break, you should be happy that someone else is benefiting a great deal. This attitude will result in us progressing faster and the prospect of having better loot when you come back into the raid. Every genuine sacrifice for the better of the guild will pay you back.

It is Thursday and I am at work on my off day just finishing up some work before tomorrow's trip to Gump's. Coupled with the fact that the eve of our get together is upon us, we have decided to make some significant changes to our raiding. All that considered, and along with the fact that my boss is in a meeting and is taking forever to approve my project plan for our latest client, I thought this would be a great time for a Rebel's Logic Post! BEHOLD MINIONS! Man, no one says "behold!" anymore, I am going to bring that back.

There are several issues that is holding our raid progression back. At one point, we were steamrolling ahead with almost a new encounter down every week in both groups. Now, we have hit a stalemate with progression and many people, especially myself ,are tired of it. The first and foremost problem is raid attendance. We used to have a lot of people show up for both runs and were able to easily fill Group 1 and Group 2 on every raid day. However, attendance has begun to wain as of late. There are several reasons for this and most of them are justified. The end of summer and the relatively soon to be released expansion has had people begin to focus somewhat on the Fall and all its trappings that mostly have to do with schedule change. We have people taking a break to focus on school, changes in work schedules, other extra-curricular activities, etc. Then we have the other less common reasons such as being burnt out, going on vacation for a long period of time, or in the case of Virage; ripping tendons in his arm trying to save his 3 year old niece from falling off the porch. I feel bad for Virage because that was his "dominant" arm, lol. Now, the issues I mentioned haven't been just affecting people in Group 1, Group 2 has been plagued just as much. Despite all this, there seems to also be a positive phenomenon happening between the people of both groups that I would like to emphasize. The heart and desire to progress has been burning strong in many people and lately, more have expressed themselves in many ways. Getting to raids early, being prepared with necessary materials, passing on loot for overall benefit of others, taking criticism constructively, going out of their way to help people get better, etc. Basically, as people drop off, the pro-active begin to prove themselves. These people exemplify the meaning of the word "raider". It is for these people who have stepped up despite the frustration, that we will be moving to one core 25M group. We will take the people who have proven that they can go above and beyond what is asked of them. The group will run Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 7:30-11. Some really good players cannot make all three days of raiding and to them, I want to assure that their efforts will still be considered. I want people to not only fight the content we are facing but fight internally to get better. The greatest enemy is yourself. Now, in the past we had the numbers to fill two groups. One group means a little more competition for spots. It is for this reason that I wanted to include a small section on what exemplifies a good raider:

The first and foremost concept of any raider has to be a selfless attitude towards raiding. It is about the guild, not about the individual. If you are ridiculously geared and I decide to sit you for a raid day so that someone can get a few upgrades, don't be discouraged. Sometimes, it is good to bring in an extra healer instead of a ranged DPS for a full clear so we can get them some badges of important upgrades. Sometimes a tank might be sat for a melee because the tanks offspec is not that good yet. There are a many reasons you could be sat, and whatever reason will be told to you straight up without any pretense. The key is, if you get sat, most of the time it isn't because you aren't good. It could just mean that for that day, someone else might need it more than you. For example, no one works harder with less time on their hands than Glitter. I myself would be glad to sit myself for him. Also, if you get sat one day and we bring you in for another day within the same raid week, do not bring the attitude of "No, I need a full clear", If you get sat for the farm clear portion of a raid, chances are you don't really need those bosses to actually down progression content. When we bring you in, be ready and have a positive attitude. Know your class, be open to criticism, be prepared with necessary food, flasks, etc. be raid aware, etc.

80% of success is showing up. Be on time! Things come up and emergencies happen. If you cannot be at a raid, you can text me, put a comment on the website, find an officer in game, etc. All I am asking is that you let us know. It is a question of being responsible and not letting 24 other people wait on you. Now, if you are going to be there past 8:15, chances are I am going to sit you. No hard feelings, it is simply because you couldn't be here on time. Speaking of hard feelings, the same can be said about being called out in a raid. If you mess up, we will tell you about it. Now, everyone knows my voice. I don't yell at anyone. Treating raiders with respect is very important to me. If you mess up and I call you out, 90% of the time, I will do it in a questioning manner such as, "Hey, did your stacks of Mystic buffet get to high?" or "It seems you weren't far enough away from Blistering cold, what happened?" Just take it on face value and don't let it happen again. I don't need to hear long winded apologies, explanations, or offended comebacks. Your situation is basically being used as a teaching tool so that others don't make the same mistake. It could be tunnel vision, It could be lag, it could be your girlfriend touched your crotch at the wrong time, whatever. Now, despite the reason, if you continue to make the same mistake over and over and it is causing us to wipe, be prepared for us to bring someone else in for that day. If you are having lag, and I replace you, don't send me angry whispers. Just calm down and fix the issue.

Don't go afk at odd times. We will have more clearly scheduled breaks which will be determined by how fast we progress or how good our attempts are going. As a general idea of when these breaks will occur, they will be at the end of wings mostly. If you have something important come up all of a sudden, just whisper an officer ahead of time. Now, in regard to wipes. As a general rule, you should release and run back as soon as we ask. Get there and food buff as fast as you can to lower downtime. Just because trash should be easy or farm bosses are easy, do not tunnel vision. Use every tool in your arsenal to make sure we down things efficiently. Use cc's, focus target more than AOE, etc. Less damage taken = less healing needed = less deaths = more focussed tanking = more effective DPS = efficiency. As a last note on being a good raider, being an officer is no excuse for messing up. Even if I am having a bad day, I will sit myself in order for the raid to progress.

Now that we have gotten the formalities of what constitutes a good raider. I would like to mention that we will still be doing a second run of ICC 25 on Saturday. Now this run will have many mains and many geared alts as well. If you cannot make it to the main run and you are designated to the Saturday run, please save yourself for it so we can progress in that run as well. I will be switching people around every once in a while between the two runs. As I said before, if you get designated to the Saturday run for a week, it does not mean you will be there permanently.

Between now and Tuesday, the officers and I will create a lits of around 30-35 people we would be glad to have in the Core run. If you are sat for Tuesday, it would benefit us and yourself to be online for the duration of the raid in case we need you. No spots during the first week are permanent so if we call you in because someone had to bail, well guess who we are taking from now on?

Now, in terms of the ten mans, we can only have a certain number of ten man runs throughout the week. My main ten man itself only goes 1 day a week if we are lucky. I try to run it on al three of my characters and Cyianna does too. If you catch us online, ask us about it. However, be proactive about it. Get a feel for when good raiders you see are going to run it and get a consensus. Don't just plainly ask in guild chat at midnight, "Hey, who wants to do a ten man ICC?" Asking individuals at proper times, is much more effective. If you present a group of 5 or 6 to an officer, it is easier for us to fill the gaps than to say, "Hey, I want a ten man, when are you running one?" As a general rule. The days we usually run our guild ten mans are Fridays, Sundays, and Mondays. Also, please refrain from asking to be carried. I would rather refuse an unworthy alt and grab a pug; it is for the benefit of the 9 other more responsible guildies in the run.

Well, that is a lot to digest this week. This weekend will be a blast in NY and I look forward to seeing a lot of you at Wili's house! For those of you who cannot make it, you will still be there in spirit!

Watertown, NY? Maybe Watertown, MA perhaps? Watertown, MA is like one tow over from me. Yeah, as long as we know ahead of time, we can plan a replacement for you. DK's are getting few and far between, lol. August 10th is still a decent bit of time away.

Why you had your authenticator on your ipod, I have no idea, lol. Oh well, be back when you can. Try to be a little more responsible, I have heard you disappear from the raid schedule at random due to these types of incidents.

I flasked to read Glitters post.

Thanks for all your input guys. I like the idea of doing standby DKP, I will look into getting it implemented. We will have to put some standards on it and designate specific people to getting it before the raid however. This will prevent people who don't raid from getting any sort of DKP. Since these standbys won't be here for any boss killings, I assume it would be only for hours spent on the wait list.

I haven't done this in a while so I thought it would be a god idea to post and get people up to speed on what the officers are thinking. Bare with me, this will be a long one.

The overall topic of this post will be the concept of stress. We set up processes and rules in the guild to relieve stress on everyone. If things are more cut and dry, there is no wondering and therefore stress is reduced. People ask me a million times where other people are when they are late or don't show for a raid. Now, I usually end up knowing, often ten minutes before the raid begins, why people are missing and end up frantically trying to fill the raid and keep with the plans of the evening. Now this issue is blanketed all over, not just our Group 1 25M run. It occurs in our ten mans, and our group 2 25M also. We will schedule a raid, be it 25M or 10M, and we will have everyone we expected online one week and the next week we will not be able to go or at the least get as far because we are missing people. Now, here is where we insert the classic false reasoning that always follows a statement like that: "No one shows up for progression nights". I have heard that so many times it is unbelievable. Here are some reasons why that statement is false. First of all, people who cannot make a certain raid day vary each time. "Replace the people who don't show up", not easy if it is different people every time. If it was the same people, they would be sat but that isn't the case. Secondly, people have real lives. I will give you yesterday for example, Unholyfaith had gotten into a car accident and had to deal with life/car issues yesterday so he couldn't raid. I can't remember the last time that he has missed a raid. I want someone to tell him to his face that he doesn't show up for progression nights. Ultimately, the problem is not that sometimes people don't show up, the problem is that we rely too much on a select few for raids to get anything done. If we have a list of 27 possible raiders that I would bring to LK and 5 cannot show up for various reasons, we can't do it. Therefore, my simple solution to this entire problem is a concept of putting the guild before individuals. I want to recruit 6-10 more people to the guild of various classes and specs. The recruiting for raid spots should have harsher criticism than in the past. If we get you in and you suck, we are going to tell you and you better fix it or you are gone. Now the purpose of these 6-10 raiders will be for both group 1 and group 2. On Tuesday, we should be able to clear the first 11 bosses in one day and be on LK if we don't do non-farm hardmodes. People who show up all the time won't need that much gear so let's just toss it to recommended new recruits who have proven that they are dedicated. No more rolling on Offspec gear if you know you will never use it; know that you are helping a guildy who can not only put it to good use but will ultimately help you achieve the ultimate goal. That of course being the downing of progression content. If we clear to LK on a Tuesday, and Wednesday rolls around and someone cannot make it, they can be replaced with someone who we have proven works well with our system and now also has the gear to do so. Recruit well, gear the dedicated, and have good replacements for real life issues = simple concept. Now, here comes a problem some might foresee: What happens when more than 25 good riaders show up for a raid? To be honest, I would love for that problem to happen, I yearn for that problem to happen. It beats the shit out of waiting an hour and a half on 2 people to do a LK attempt and being forced to call it. That will be a first come first serve issue basically. Like I have said said before, if you have issues getting to a raid for any reason, you shouldn't be upset if we replace you for the night and keep going. Now, if we suddenly out of the blue have the same consistent raiders who show up all the time everyday, the plan will not only be a success but the consistent people will have a chance to take a break on farm content if they choose too. For example, we have a lot of people who don't need gear off of the first 8 bosses on normal mode. If we have a new guy who is proving himself, I would be glad to sit for him so he can get some gear and I am sure that others would be willing to do that as well. The reason we would do this is because we understand that when we arrive at progression content, we will be able to rely on a new guy who has proven himself to not only skill-wise replace someone who can't be there for some real life issue, but they also have the gear to do so. Ultimately, we are putting the guild over the individual because the faster the guild progresses, each individual raider also progresses in gear as a result. In this way, we are not wasting time waiting on people who "are running late" for some reason, or "had an emergency" or whatever. It is not that you are being replaced forever, you simply could not make it on time so you are not in the raid for that night. This will make people less antsy and prevent me from having to call and whisper a million people to find out if people can make it. So, all in all, it makes the stress level of people who can't make it, the officers, and the consistent raiders, all go down. No matter what we know what we are doing for a particular night and no one has to wait. This will all pay off when we get to progression content.

As far as ten mans are concerned, we have to clean up their rosters. The new recruiting will help this in terms of filling some bodies but we have to be careful to not spread ourselves too thin when it comes to having too many ten mans going. We have an alt ten man which should go on Friday, we have 2 group 2-run ten mans on Tuesday, the Proxy team goes on the weekend, and Team Oh Man runs whenever it can. That is a lot of 10-mans, lol. As far as I am concerned, in Team Oh Man, I am mainly concerned about downing content that can get us our drake. We used to raid Wednesday/Thursday night for an hour after our 25-man to get a head start on our hardmodes because we wanted the gear from there. Sunday was our main day but I want to make it basically our only day. I will schedule the run to concentrate on a specific achievement every week and go only on Sunday to spend all our time on it. I would even save the ID just so we wouldn't have to do the farm bosses and waste time. Once we get our drake, we can always go back and get the few upgrades we need from there. As far as the people who need badges/gear from normal modes in ten man, please inform an officer so we can get you into some runs if others don't need any gear. People who need gear/badges out of ten mans and have proven that they want to be good raiders in either of the two raid groups will get priority in the ten mans over casuals who just show up whenever. Also, aside from groups who have already done it, lets get some more kingslayers out of ten mans. I know a few people, who have been downed a lot of hardmodes with various groups but haven't gotten their kingslayer yet. Now, one would mention that there isn't really all that good loot on LK 10M, why should we forgo hardmode 10M loot for a LK downing. To that I say the key reason is experience. If you have a lot of experience on the LK and have at least downed him in ten man, you will fully understand what is going on in 25M. Also, I am not saying that I am forcing you to down LK every week i ten mans after you have gotten a consisten group in which all members have done it repeatedly. I am simply saying, maybe throw a few new guys and some other people who have been there a while, the achievement. All this is an effort to ease the burden of consistently filling 25-mans with solid players. Solid players are built through experience, gear is peripheral.

In terms of informing us of raid attendance, there are many who are good at it and many who are terrible at it. We have a website, phone, and the ability to be reached in game. If you cannot make a raid, please inform an officer as early as you can in some fashion. It makes us think that you are actually putting an effort. We all have things come up but only rare occurrences should result in you not being able to inform us through any of the aforementioned methods that you cannot come. Don't be afraid that I will yell at you or something. I will probably give my standard answer of "ok, np" and just find a replacement. Where I will be upset is if you don't show for a day and tell no one that you got called into work. Having reliable people to replace people in those situations will relieve that anger, but it is still irritating.

Now that we have gotten that all out of the way, we can talk about some other things. I tried to upload a sample video blog of me to the officer forum to basically test what it would be like if I did a news blog for the guild. The video was done with a now-decently old camera. The audio was fine but the video was a little lower quality than I would have liked. I recently got the new iphone 4 so I am going to test out the video quality on that via sample blog and send it to Unholy so he can see what it would look like on the site. It should be good enough so be prepared to see my ugly face more often on the site. If people send in enough requests, I might even upload some video of Yacoub slaughtering a defenseless animal, or as he likes to call it, "me time".

We had an incident recently with a guy who apped to the guild because he was a friend of a casual player who joined the guild. The casual player is a friend of Geedub and just wanted to hang out, so his friend decided to app as well. When he apped, he linked his armory and had the bare-bones information. After we had several people tell him that he needed to do things like fix his spec and get some t10 as well as ICC 10 experience at least to the first 4 bosses, he flipped out and started calling us "elitist". He yelled at everyone individually who commented on his app because apparently it is too much to ask to enchant your gear correctly and kill 4 bosses in ICC 10M. Running the daily and the weekly will get you to 5K GS pretty quick. Despite all that, if he simply explained the fact that he was a friend of someone and that he just wanted to come in as a casual and jump into a raid whenever, everything would have been fine. So, if you have a friend who wants to app to the guild, please make him include as much information about himself as he can. Most important though, make sure he s capable of taking basic criticism. Elitists, bah! Well, maybe Glitter, he flasks for sitting in Dalaran.

Speaking of apping to the website, Prydain and Mastric are working on revamping the application. We are doing some research on what we really want to know from a player other than the obvious things. Mastric has also implemented a program that will research a players raid history which will give us a better idea about how much experience they really have. Other than that however, we would like to know things like whether they were officers in a guild previously etc. One guy said he had a dog named Spencer that was "mad Chill". Things like that are important damnit!

Well, since my last Rebel's Logic Post, we have gotten a couple more people the RS 10M achievement. I plan to schedule a RS 25M soon, if not this week. It will probably be on the weekend when we are more free to do casual raids. I predict that place will turn into farm content really fast, it is not hard at all. In terms of ICC, a lot more people/alts have gotten to 10M 11/12 in one day which is really good. Now with the 30% buff, we should be seeing a lot more ten man kingslayers going out as well as hardmode 10 mans. In 25M, Group 2 is now 9/12 and will soon be at least 11/12 before long. In group 1, we downed 25M Rotface hardmode last week which is progression. A heroic DFO or Trauma would be really nice. I don't think Festergut will be too hard to manage as well as some other hardmodes but I want to focus on doing progression bosses only when we are fully confident and have the people. Which, if our recruiting goes well shouldn't be too far into the future.

Well, for now if you are running with anyone who you think would be a good addition to our guild, tell them to apply. We need some more good raiders to fill our ranks. Please inform us if you are going to be gone to the best of your ability. If you want to be in a ten man and you are committed, inform an officer. As for me, I gotta create updates more often so I don't have to write so much in each one, lol.

Later for now guys.