Standard disclaimer: Leave your loathing of meta, World of Warcraft, or community diaries outside. If you think we should be playing your MMO instead, start a guild and write a recruitment diary. Don't leave a comment here and then get all hurtful when it isn't received with flowers and candy. Link to your recruitment diary is OK though
.
Standard advertisement: Wreck List is the Daily Kos World of Warcraft guild. We are Horde-side on the Garrosh server. To join, roll up a character on Garrosh and when you log in type
/who wreck list
and any officer can get you in the guild. Yes, you have to be Horde. No, you don't have to be hardcore - casuals, PvPers, and people that just want to hang out on guild chat are all welcome.
Happy Thursday, and welcome to another Wreck List update. The guild continues to astound me with the speed of progression. While I'm getting stomped into Blood Elf bacon bits by elite magnataurs, they're...well, I'll let Otoño (Eddie in ME) tell you under the flip.
Take it, Otoño:
Another week, another update. This week brings the hyperactive core of the guild into heroics, raids, you name it.
From last week, when we first entered a heroic dungeon and experienced pain beyond imagining, to this week, we've made a lot of improvements. We still can get our butts kicked, but it's always doing new things. Utgarde Keep is easy as pie now, with an occasional death but no complete wipes. Violet Hold is almost there, we cleared it last night without a wipe. Drak'Tharon is new to the rotation, but I think we have that pretty much under control. Nexus is... still annoying. Positive attitude, positive attitude...
I've been trying to attend raids as regularly as I can, to gear myself out to help everyone else plus learn the fights. When we hit Obsidian Sanctum, or Vault of Archavon, I'll be able to walk people through those. Naxxramas, I know some of, and plan to learn more over the next couple days as I take another trip in. When we're ready for raids, I'll be ready to help guide us through as cleanly as possible -- which of course means we'll wipe ten times on the first boss, and then the week after, kill him flawlessly. That's how we work. A bunch of smart cookies who've never played WoW means lots of dying, but also lots of learning.
Case in point: Last night, we ran Drak'Tharon Keep. First boss is cake and goes down easy. Then we get to Novos, and I'm a clueless new tank, so I don't know you can't tank him. Boom, wipe. Go in again as DPS, with Caelesta knowing that everyone will get kicked around a bit, yay, we win. Fight King Dred later, he fears us all over the place. Boom, wipe. Sanuk drops a Tremor Totem, busts up the Fear. A couple more attempts before we get it right -- but yay, we win. And the last boss there is just plain cake. Santiaga (the Aggro Diva!), Pinutos, and Sanuk (aka Crannies) always used to pull aggro because they'd just shoot willy-nilly at things. Now they all are near flawless, and don't get themselves killed. So we learn, and learn fast. I have good faith in our raiding capabilities, once we know what to do.
We've partnered with another small guild who is just a bit more progressed than we are. They're a pretty drama-free bunch run by who are by my understanding a couple of kickass lesbians, although the word "partner" does have multiple connotations. (It's not the sort of thing you ask new friends, y'know?) They're bringing our people into their ten-man raids as I deem them "raid-ready", mostly based on the gear they're wearing -- hard to run a raid in junk blue gear from quests. And they sometimes tag along in our heroics when we're short that one player we need. I basically trained their death knights, which resulted in a raid invite, which resulted in a partnership between the guilds -- proof positive that being nice, even around a bunch of juveniles in WoW, can have its rewards!
Needed classes: Another tank that can also DPS would be helpful. A Druid who plans to be Resto at 80 would be VERY helpful -- we need that desperately. We've been thinking of having one of our core players bring one up -- but I'd much rather we have someone new join us and do it, and get us closer to that 10-man guild Naxx run!
More next week, when I report that we're about ready to kill Zappy Pants in Heroic.
Oh, and an addition from Santiaga, our lovely and talented orc rogue:
As a Wreck Lister who was involved in numerous heroic dungeon wipes last week, I have to say it's great working together and learning how to operate as a team. Wow, what a difference a week makes. We are kicking butt and taking names now. I got my eye on YOU Zappy Pants! Oh yeah...we're coming for ya. It's just a matter of time now.
We also have more fun now. We goof around more...taking out our pets, saying silly things to the bosses. And when we wipe, we all talk and work together to figure out a new strategy. Sometimes this works...sometimes...not so much. But hey...I like to think of it as sort of like FDR and The New Deal. He tried lots of things; some worked and some didn't.
Been another week plodding towards 80 for me. I have the reputation for the Kal'uak Whale-Stick Harpoon, but not the actual level.
As far as raiding goes, I've done some of Naxx, but most raiding is a closed, burned, and buried book to me. I suggest our hardcore core watches some of the videos at Tankspot.
Violet Hold will be fun. I prefer fights I don't have to move around much for, which are getting scarcer and scarcer.
We're already making alliances and discussing letting non-Kossacks in. We have a screaming mob of rabid crafters, psychotically intense chefs and fishermen, no-holds-barred first aid combat medics, and some nice, laid-back raiders.
Not bad at all.
Until next time... for the Horde!!