We interrupt this program...

... to bring you a special news bulletin.

The Molten Core News Network has just received information that several key assets of Ragnaros' army have been murdered. This weekend, a terrorist organization known as The Pod People invaded and systematically assassinated seven of the Firelord's most trusted accomplices. Among the casualties in their reign of fear and destruction: Flamewalkers Lucifron, Gehennas, and Shazzrah. Also perishing in the assault: Members of Ragnaros' security detail. Magmadar, Garr, Baron Geddon, and Golemagg the Incinerator are counted among the dead. An untold number of Molten Giants, Lava Surgers, Core Hounds, and Lava Packs are unaccounted for. A late night attempt was made to include Sulfuron Harbinger in their campaign of destruction, but was thwarted by an inexplicable drowsiness that befell the invaders.

Witnesses at the scene report "shiny purple things" having been found amongst the rubble. Others near the location went on record as having witnessed acts of incredible barbarism displayed by the assault force, with one Lava Reaver who spoke on the condition of anonymity tells of the 40-man wrecking crew posing for pictures over the corpses of Molten Core's upper eschelon. A Lava Spawn who is a minor, and must remain unidentified, also told authorities that he saw several Pods severing the hands of the three Flamewalkers that were targeted for elimination. It is unknown at this time, the nature of their intent. A confidential source in Firelord Ragnaros' security detail says that although no charges are pending, Duke Hydraxis is considered to be "a person of interest."

Sulfuron has been notified that he is the last of the defenses before their swath of mayhem swings toward Majordomo Executus. Should they utilize their hideous strength to neutralize Majordomo's influence over the denizens of Molten Core, it is feared that he could be bent to their will and manipulated to summon Lord Ragnaros, himself. If this happens, even the Firelord may not be safe.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast....

Snap, Crackle, Pod

I'd already begun to mull this column over in my head today at work. It was originally under the working title, "Grace Under Pressure." Having finally been able to sit at my computer and made the rounds of my websites that I usually peruse, I caught Vespasian's rundown of last night's MC run. This is an accurate account of what went down. What catches my interest, however, is the dynamic that happens behind the scenes whenever The Pod People hunker down and decide to make something happen. There are two distinct versions of TPP, and I don't know that everyone realizes this.

In the red corner is the "Love and beer- but mostly beer" Pod. We /chicken all the bosses before we fight them. We stage elaborate 100+ Pod raids on Alliance capitals and perish straightway as we do not consider the implications of zoning 100 players into a hostile environ while the best geared players on that faction are already zoned in and just sitting around doing nothing. When faced with abject defeat in a battleground, we stand at the graveyard and /dance till the 3rd flag cap makes the sting go away.

In the blue corner, however, is the "Eye of the Tiger" Pod. We are lean, mean, killing machines that have honed the craft of our respective classes to a razor sharp edge. We have instances going at virtually every hour of the day. We have a guild culture of generosity, inclusion, and flexibility that borders on legend. When you absolutely, positively have to have it blown up overnight- call the Pod. No, we aren't on the verge of having Naxx on farm status. But coming from where we have in the last year, I'd say that we're doing pretty damned good for ourselves not to have fallen prey to the ailments of guilds that manage to get themselves into Molten Core. The blue corner Pod is the guild that was so intimidated by MC based on its reputation alone. Nevermind the fact that the very first MC runs were done by guilds that didn't have anything going for them other than gear they were able to farm from UBRS/LBRS/Scholo/Strat/DM. Nevermind the fact that once the blue corner Pod set its collective foot in MC, they had successfully cleared ZG to Hakkar, and were picking up epics weekly from there. This is a guild whose combined love for the game is so far reaching that the entirety of the membership actively participates in a constant mental engagement of the game when AFK. They listen to podcasts about the game when at work and at play. They post on the forums in an effort to understand some of the nuances of WoW. They tirelessly research new strategies and plan gearing runs like generals fine-tuning maneuvers. And most of all, in spite of all these overwhelming odds-raping advantages, this is the same Pod that is genuinely surprised when they one-shot three of the first four bosses in Molten Core that they encounter. These Pods put on their pants like the rest of you- one leg at a time. Except once our pants are on, we make gold records.

I've spoken extensively with our officers and raid leaders about what it is like to watch the raid dynamic on our highest notes, and the most sour, as well. According to Thayala, it is a mighty and fearful thing to see us pull ourselves out of the ashes of a boss attempt gone awry and to feel the resolve of the party gel and begin to shift into our Pwnage mode. I'd liken it to the assembly of Voltron, or the like, because once you see the glint at the tip of of that massive, outstretched sword, pity the soul of the business end of the blade. Kristyn has said that there is a detectable energy among the raid when we have set our collective mind to accomplishing a certain goal. The intensity is measurable. When I see this, I hear the Ironside psycho-snap music from Kill Bill, whenever you realize that someone has pushed Beatrix Kiddo too damned far.

Riddle me this: Why is it that with largely the same group of core raiders do we have such a wide range on our raid dynamic? We're all there because we want to be. If so, though, then why the disparity between those that bring their A game and those who seem to need to be led to theirs?

There's nothing insidious going on, but I honestly think that there is an unmeasurable battle of wills that goes on between the red corner Pods and those in the blue. By and large, whomever wants it bad enough will wrest control from the other. Sometimes, the majority has a deathgrip on the momentum of the group and the others will have to pry it from their cold, dead hands. There are also times when the two "factions" have a common goal, and will work together, and God help anyone or any thing that gets in their way. August 4 in Molten Core was one of those joint strike force nights. Last week's Thursday and Friday nights in ZG were clear examples of the Pods that had the Eye of the Tiger, and nothing was stopping them from standing in front of Hakkar on Saturday night. The tragedy, though, is that those Pods that were just happy to be there crushed the spirits of those who had already written Hakkar's obit, but it wasn't an intentional sabatoge. We suffered setback after defeat, after embarrassment through lack of preparation.

Here's the thing. We've been going on about the importance of making sure that we each are at our absolute best, headed into these raids. The officers implored our new (and approaching) 60s to do themselves and the raid as a whole a massive service by seeking the guidance of our experienced raiders and learning the 5-10 man raids, gearing themselves in the process. Somewhere along the way, some of the less sharp of our ranks had taken the notion that we were shoving them out of the door, saying "Come back and play with us when you've done something significant," which isn't the case. I suppose I could see how that were possible to divine from the wishes that we expressed to those that want to see what all the fuss in the big raids is about, but rather than getting the hint to ask for help, many metaphorically crossed their arms, stuck out their bottom lip and sat in the aisle of the store and pitched a fit. They opined that many of us aren't willing to help them do the very things we helped ourselves do.

Stop and chew on that for a second.

Granted, I'm not talking about everybody. Hakkar and Luci have had a massive "come to Jesus" effect on those Pods that have potential to be able to put on their game face and go places. In time, they won't have time to stop and smell the roses, because they're under the heels of their epic boots. These recent converts understand that what has heretofore been assumed to be arrogant elitism is actually the handbook to staying vertical during a boss fight, and they should be commended for it. As for the misinterpretation of our admonitions to focus on gearing and the set pieces as a way to get the "kids" out of the way while we do something infinitely more interesting, one of the core tenets of this falsehood is that those of us who raid regularly have no interest in stooping so low as to bother with BRD or UBRS- that's just silly. We've established the habit of going on these runs, even if it's just to keep our individual group skills sharp.

Oh, that, and WE'RE STILL GOING ON SET PIECE RUNS!!!!!

I don't care who you are, you don't make eight dungeon runs and then you're finished. Thank God and Blizzard that it doesn't work like that. Besides, when we say "set piece runs," some folks don't understand that doesn't necessarily mean that you are looking for your Tier 0 pieces, and that that is going to solve all your woes. This is especially true for the warriors and healers. Depending on your play style, I'd venture to say that these classes are the most multi-faceted, and as a matter of consequence, have the most outrageous gear requirements. I've recently begun the additional burden of outfitting myself with my Fire Resist gear for MC. (Most of this will carry on to Blackwing Lair, thank God, but we'll burn that bridge when we get there). But as for tanking gear, I would like to dispel any misconception that any of that stuff has the word Valor in it. It doesn't. This is where the +Stam, high AC, +Def jazz kicks in. That is a whole other grind from the Tier 0 stuff.

So, new 60s, bear in mind. If you want to have what we have, you must be willing to do what we've done. We will never ask you do to anything that we haven't done ourselves. The good news is that 99% of that stuff- we still do. Hop on board, it'll be fun.

Spec, the Final Frontier

Well, the cat was finally out of the bag, the other day, when Sehainne asked in Vent if I was still Fury spec. Historically, I have been known to tell as much of the truth as I can without venturing into "unmititaged frabrication," but there was certainly nothing to gain by not letting my guildies in on my deepest, darkest WoW secret: I finally respec'ed over to Protection.

/wrist

I kid about the drama involved, of course. Varice was Protection, from 58+, but bless his heart, he just didn't have the gear to be cool about it. The guild situation was so precarious on Magtheridon that there was no possible way to get him properly geared to make the most of everything that he had going on. All things considered, when I'd decided to roll a character on Whisperwind to play with this band of misfits known as The Pod People, I thought long and hard about which class to play. From the sound of that first podcast I listened to, I was just going to get eaten by a lvl 12 elite murloc, so it hardly mattered.

I considered resurrecting Ruckuss, my very first Horde character- a hunter from Skywall, then shaman on Shattered Hand, but the name wasn't available. There was the option of playing a caster, but to be entirely honest, that just didn't appeal to me in the least. Besides, Eloy and Kirn were casters, and Cromley was a shaman, so that didn't light any fires, either. I'd pretty much come to the decision to bring Kumite, my troll rogue on Shattered Hand, back from retirement, even getting so far as the character creation screen, reproducing him perfectly. I just wasn't jiving with the yellow facial tattoo set. At this point, I discovered that even bald, you could manipulate the face paint colors by changing hair color, though it not be present. I found a nice blue tint to the skin, and then I ran across a striking complementary navy for the face art, and I was digging it. With the default class for all races being warrior, when you're rolling a new character, something caused me to pause and look at this troll. Did I really want to see about going through this tanking nonsense all over again? Varice isn't even 60, at this point. I was torn as to what I wanted to do. Granted, I I'd just found out that Kumite was taken, name-wise, so there went that plan. I had to come up with a name for this bugger, and given the kindred spirits I'd heard on Taverncast, I figured I'd take a leap and put it all on the table, geek-wise. In this position, it took me about 7 seconds to dredge up a semi-obscure Star Wars reference that was suitable for this troll. Thus, Echuta was born.

As far as character class went, though, I liked what I heard from these guys on this crazy TC show. If I was going to play with these miscreants, I might as well make as good a showing as possible, and in the six months that I'd been playing the game, the only thing I knew to do was to tank. Oh well, here we go again. At least I knew what I was doing, this time, and where all the best drops for my class were. The one thing I promised myself, however, was that I wasn't necessarily going to sacrifice my own enjoyment of the game for stupid UBRS pugs, trying to get my Draconian Deflector. Protection spec was a miserable experience for me, and I wasn't going to get burned like that again. Not unless these folks were worth it. But this was going to be an alt guild, anyway, so it's not like I was even going to see Scarlet Monastery. Good, I won't ever really have to tank. That's gonna rock. I can stay Arms on this char, and everybody's happy.

/grin

The Grasp of Wrath

Ugh.

With all of the preparations to be made for the guild's month-long foray into Molten Core, I've been farming the daylights out of what Fire Resist gear I can get my hands on. Progressing nicely, however, as I believe I'm at 92 FR, unbuffed. Since Blackrock Spire is home to lots of great drops of that ilk, I've been spending a lot of time there. In addition to the FR equipment, I've also been on the heretofore-fruitless search since level 55 for the Spaulders of Valor. At long last, on lucky UBRS run #13, they finally dropped off Rend Blackhand. Once I get the Helm from Darkmaster Gandling in Scholomance, I'll have completed the entire Battlegear of Valor set, and have successfully converted the first 3 pieces to Heroism, and am in position to start working on the 45 minute Baron Rivendare run, in Undead Stratholme to convert spaulders, boots and leggings. As a result of the tireless UBRS runs, of late, I was also fortunate enough to get together with some close friends in the guild and work on our Onyxia key quest, which I am pleased to report, I have finished on my first character.

Last week in Zul' Gurub was a collection of some of the highest points in Pod raid history, and arguably one of the lowest. I understand that our widely-inclusive nature, lack of DKP, and general, long-haired hippy "Love and beer- but mostly love" approach means that we're not a hardcore raiding guild. That said, that doesn't mean that when we do raid, that we don't want to win. And Thursday and Friday, win we did. We tackled Thekal and Arlokk Thursday night, in an effort to get them out of the way. In a moment of guild history, we one-shot Tiger. Like buttah. No resets, no wipes, no nothing but a dead cat in the middle of the jungle. And left in his wake was nothing less than Thekal's Grasp.

OMFG.

I'd rolled a 78, Sam passed, and Loch came up way short on his. (Afterward, when he found out that this set was the object of my heart's desire in ZG, Loch apologized for having rolled on it at all. I didn't blame him, because he and I don't play together outside of the large raids, so there's no way of his knowing what a big deal to me it was). With 3 of the 4 warriors present having rolled on the item, the last left was one of our junior tanks who has recently dinged 60, and is trying very hard to make a good showing of his participation in our raids, and for that he should be commended. He's a good kid, and puts a lot into his game. He happened to ask over Vent, "Echuta, would you mind if I rolled on that?," to which I responded quite tersely, "As a matter of fact, I would." His next statement was, "Okay. Fine. You know what? Take it." As I have publicly and privately mentioned, after the fact, this was a terribly noble thing for him to do, and I appreciate his forgoing a shot at what is, truly, an unbelievable item. With a 78, I was doing pretty well for myself, but he didn't roll, and I thanked him for it. We've since worked together in a number of instances, and things are fine. Short story shorter, I now have half of the Primal Blessing, and just need the off-hand drop from Arlokk to complete the set.

Nevermind that virtually no one in the guild even knew of this thing's existence, save my incessant pleadings to back the hell off of Bat, Snake, and Spider and please, please, please let's do Tiger and Panther. No one ever gives fist weapons a second glance, anyway. (Hunter weapon!) I had previously made mention among my circle of friends, since respec at 53 that as a Fury warrior, that pair was the only thing I truly wanted from ZG, save the two tank weapons, and anybody that has any desire to MT/OT should be gunning for those. (By the way, Lochzar got the Bloodlord's Defender, Saturday, when we one-shot Mandokir. It was my first time getting to MT Bloodlord, and was Loch right- is he ever slippery!). Here's where I get controverisal. The part of that exchange that I took offense to was the tone of voice and the impudence in his verbal statement, "Okay. Fine. You know what? Take it." Like it was his to bestow upon me. Yes, it was a marked improvement from the weapon he was using. Here's the rub- we're talking about upgrading a 1H from LBRS. There are lots of better weaps from other instances that drop on a regular basis- you have to go to see them, though. Scholo, Dire Maul, UBRS, either Strat. Run any of them, and you're going to find a more suitable 1H for tanking, so he's hardly hurting from lack of prospects. Like I said, things are more than fine now, and there's no harbored resentment on my part. There wasn't any then, either. It's just that I've been running Zul' Gurub since most of our new 60s were in Uldaman. I'm hardly going to consider myself at anyone's mercy for much of anything until I see significant evidence that it is earned.

And that is nothing less than I expect of anyone else, when it comes to dealing with me, either.

Besides, Hakkar taught our up and coming raiders- blinded by visions of 3-4 epic drops, and partaking in the glory of showing up for their first big raid or two and killing this bastard- everything they NEVER wanted to learn about set pieces and gearing runs, Saturday night. He's a rather convincing Set piece salesman, it seems....

Pwn, Pwn on the Ranged

The steady march of PodPwnage through Molten Core continues at full speed. Friday night we went back and began anew, as Tuesday's server maintenance resets the instance, as always. Unlike Zul'Gurub, which has a 3 day timer, we have a full 7 days to clear this place out. Friday would be the big test as to whether or not the previous week was a fluke, and we just happened to get extremely lucky on 2 boss fights that maybe we shouldn't have. This was not the case. We had a "come to Jesus" meeting with Lucifron and Magmadar, instead of them being nail-biters the entire way through. Only a few people stumbled during Luci (three, maybe) and Magmadar was much easier to keep under control with three hunters on Tranquilizing Shot duty. (And they were rewarded well for their efforts, as Magmadar dropped the Striker's Mark and Giantstalker's Leggings).

We marched all the way down to Gehennas for our first encounter with him. Kristynn laid out the battle plan, and we began. (Note to other Pods: When Rain of Fire starts to fall... FRACKING MOVE!!!1! That's all I'm sayin'...). Because of the lack of familiarity with the fight, we sorta fell flat of our faces in that episode, but we wore this particular Flamewalker down to 31% thereabouts. We were going to make another go of it, but the groups assigned to the smaller adds accidentally aggroed the guards and Gehennas, and they mopped the floor with that group. Not accustomed to looking to see whether or not I was in combat (I was rezzed by someone in the center group, and headed back to my spot), I retreated to where I was rezzed and accidently drug the rest of the group in combat by being halfway in between the two. Whoops. Check out my book, Noob Mistakes, and the Noobs That Make Them. I apologized vociferously to the group, should the error have been mine, but we also realized that Blizzard had modified the boss encounters to bring the entire raid party into combat when any members enter a fight, as to keep priests, etc from hanging out in the backfield and rezzing folks since they were still out of combat. Maybe it wasn't me, after all. That made me feel better, but I still made sure to bring it up. It was late, and we were already over time, a bit; so we called it a night, and vowed to bring the fight right back to these guys Saturday night.

And bring the fight, we did. With Magmadar dead, there was no respawn of the Core Hounds, so that was nice. Made clearing down to where we left off much easier. Here we go, Gehennas, Take Two. Guards go down nicely. Free Action Potion, FTW. Engage the boss, avoid curse and Rain of Fire. Watch ranged group in then distance get oblitterated by a pair of Molten Giants and Destroyers. WTF? It seems that in the heat of battle, somebody managed to wander backward into the aggro radius of two Molten Giants standing at the entrance to Garr's room.

"But Echuta," you might say, should you know the layout of this section of MC, "how is that even possible?"

Oh, it isn't. Dives said it best when he noted, "It's not even remotely f*cking possible." And yet one of our distinguished ranks managed to, nevertheless. This might raise another question as to how on earth I can sound so derisive about someone bringing in adds, when I just said that I might have brought the other group into combat when Gehennas was accidently aggroed. Here's the difference: I spoke up. Whomever this error was attributed to, they decided to weasel out of the responsibility of fessing up to their mistake. The funny thing is that it wouldn't have mattered, had they said something. "No worries," we would have said; "just be more careful next time. In fact, let's clear those mobs once we get our stuff back together and we won't have to worry about it." Which we did. And we took down Gehennas almost flawlessly afterward. What bothers me, though, is the symptom of a larger problem in that individual to where they wouldn't own up to a mistake. Granted, it means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. The boss was killed, and it was only about a 10 minute setback. It wasn't a big deal, but whomever the offending party might have been, it was a big enough deal to where keeping their mistake to themselves and hiding behind the anonymity of the moment was a much more attractive option to soothe their ego rather than just being transparent about their gaffe. Saying something about being responsible wouldn't have rezzed anyone that was dead, and it wouldn't take the sting away from otherwise being able to down Gehennas in one take, but it would have made a world of difference in terms of their strength of character. They walked up to that line and didn't have the fortitude to cross it. I might be being silly for even having the thought occur to me, but that sort of behavior strikes me as being almost insidious in nature. Our guild's culture is one of transparency and authenticity. We love you no matter what, so there's very little someone could do to genuinely garner our collective ire. Looking back, it is pretty funny, but I still find myself taking note of little character flaws like that, even when it's done anonymously.

Possibly the funniest commentary on the incident came from a good friend in the guild who had PM'ed me and said "I don't mind losing when we deserve to lose, but -FUCK!" No lie. Now, all of this being said, that's not to say that I don't have a theory at least to the class that was responsible for it. Oh no, I do. It could be absolutely wrong, and that's fine. This is an op-ed piece, not a newscast, so I can theorize all damned day on it. There was far too much action going on to scroll back through the combat log and see who was first hit by the giants, and proximity aggro wouldn't show up on the log anyway. Even then, it would hardly matter, as anyone that drew damage aggro upon seeing the giants come into groups 3-8 might have been trying to save that group (what a futile effort that would've been :D). Even money says it was a hunter, just because that's what hunters end up doing, many times. I can say this because I've played one. I can't tell you how many times I've been in LBRS, and a hunter in the group has backed up into the orcs just before Smolderweb, trying to get ranged distance to maximize their effectiveness. Those end in wipes, more often than not, too. That's not to say that it was a hunter that did that last night, but I can't think of any one class that would blindly back up like that, otherwise. (We were already onto Gehennas, too, so I don't even know why anyone would be in reverse, either, but it's just another layer to the conspiracy, at this point...).

On positive notes, Sabatons of Might dropped off Gehennas. Lochzar won the roll with a resounding 97. Grats, man. It's about time you won something first :p I didn't even address the fact that we took down Garr in a largely effortless manner. Evidently the addition of the Lucky Charms to the raid interface makes life much easier in that fight. Our warlocks pwned those Flamesworns and we are now 4 bosses in, on MC. Noteworthy loot off him was the Drillborer Disk which Vespasian won. I thought the poor guy was going to have a heart attack. There's no lie, that's one of the best-looking shields in the game. I think it might be cursed, though. He died somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 times after winning the roll. Another 97, too. Well done, Ves. I know that you've had your heart set on that one for quite some time. Across the two evenings we had something like 3-4 BoE Tier 1 pieces drop off trash mobs, and a goodly number of them off each of the 4 bosses, so every little bit makes a difference. I'll be interested to see how we do on Hakkar, this coming week. We've got 3 days in ZG, coming up next weekend. I think we can do him by Friday night, and move on to Edge of Madness/ Jin'do for Saturday. I'd sooner skip EoM, just for now, as that is highly aggravating, and at least from the warrior's perspective, the trinket leaves a bit to be desired. For our casters, Jin'do the Hexxer drops loot equivalent to Bloodlord Mandokir for the melee classes.

Get set up for your attack run....

Here we go again, kids. Back into MC. We've made "some special modifications" to our raiding calendar, beyond this month, and beginning with September are going to be headed to the 40man instances on our prime-time nights of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. This is to maximize raid attendance for nearly everyone that wants to go. Worst case scenario, the inclusion of a Standby list on the signups page on the forums means that there can be an impromptu ZG run that forms from those that weren't able to make it into MC on a given night.

This brings me to an interesting thought, though, and it's one that I've mulled over quite often. RPG Outfitter says that we have 88 lvl 60s. Almost a solid dozen of those are alts of 60 mains. (Agnok, Kristyn, and Shendo being the chiefs of sinners :p) We'll go over the top and say that we have 70 mains. Not everyone can all be on at the same time, but we're looking at 40 signed up and 4-12 standbys. This obviously means that we're good to go for the main group, should someone need to bow out at the last second. In something so large of scope as MC (and upward) it is certainly the case that no one person, no matter how well geared they might be, is going to make or break a raid like this. My concern, however, comes from the question of what happens when our internal publicity becomes so contagious that we have 5, 10, 15 regular raiders that happen to be displaced by the enthusiastic ranks of the newly-minted 60s? Having watched the signup patterns following almost the entire Zul'Gurub progression, I caught on to an ebb and flow of interest based on what sort of success we were having with each boss, down the line. Venoxis' going down was pretty much a given, once I hit 60 and started raiding. Jek'lik was usually taking the entire evening after Snake was offed, and even in my experience, suffered many resets and numerous waves of bats before she fell to us. I was there for the first kills on Bloodlord, Spider, Panther, and Tiger, however, and once we'd take down a new boss, the signups would go quickly for the following week. Thay would have his badass panoramic trophy shot of us standing over the boss, and the interest would be renewed.

We've had evenings where we've taken nearly half of a new group into ZG, and I'm thinking that even then, we were fine. We did Snake and Bat, but managed to stumble on Spider, if my memory serves me correctly. There reaches a point when gearing and experience with the instance surpasses seeing the dungeon with "new eyes' and being armed with a willingness to learn. That's just the way the game works, and there' s nothing wrong with finding yourself on either side of that equation. We've all been there and will find ourselves there again and again with each boss on our progression through MC and beyond.

To be sure, they have every right to sign up for a particular raid, should the signup sheet go up when they're on the forums, but I'm just curious as to the cumulative effect of players en masse that haven't braved the gauntlet of the nightly set piece runs, ZG progression, etc. Would it stand to encourage newer players to follow the path that we have in our gearing discipline? Does it really even matter, given that any boss you take down with 25-40% new players means that the group is going to be better geared one way or the other, coming out of that evening's encounter? I don't believe that this really has everything to do with gear, to be honest, but with warriors being the most gear-dependent class in the game, you might imagine that it's going to flavor my outlook a bit. It's more a function of the team-building and cameraderie that develops when you put your heads together collectively and overcome something sinister and malevolent that wants to eat you, than the drops themselves, but I daresay that the loot doesn't help.

I'm just wondering would it help if we toyed with the idea of setting up some sort of minor league circuit that we encourage the new 60s to be running while they're a new 60? What about an "attunement to 60" phase that lasts for your first month after dinging where you work on the endgame quest chains, do 20 man raids, etc, exclusively before jumping into MC/Ony with both feet? We already have a class-based reservation system in our forum signups. Would a cap on one first-timer per class per run serve dual duty of getting the newer raiders acclimated to our endgame insanity, while keeping a veteran corps largely intact, providing for much smoother sailing for the group as a whole?

I ask about this from looking back at what those of us who have been raiding the UBRS/ZG/AQ circuit for months have done, ourselves. This isn't to buy the existing raiding group time to have our way with MC, or be spared the indignity of explaining a particular boss fight again. It's quite to the contrary. The only reason I would hope that our newest 60s would follow the progression regimen that we have endured is for the simple fact that we've submitted ourselves to it, and admittedly, we've done all right.

I'm likely being paranoid/ overly concerned for the experience of those new to the endgame. At the same time, I'm also very protective of the dynamic that we have going on in our fairly static raid party. Rather than being xenophobic about monkeying with our existing chemistry that we have, I'm far more focused on what we can do to make what we have done so far as duplicatable as possible, allowing us to multiply our successes among our newest members at the top of the food chain.

/Cast EndConcernedBigBrotherRoutine (Rank 7)

Purple Rain

Wow.

Just wow.

If last night in ZG was an evening when we were off our game, then tonight was the polar opposite. The A game was certainly brought by the PodPwnage crew tonight. To a point, Vespasian and Eloy had mentioned in whispers that NO one handles the trash mobs like we did. Not their first time in, at any rate. Perhaps the beautiful thing is that we didn't know any better. The Pod Tank Column knows what our job is. Our healers are as pro as they come, and the DPS is furious. I heard it said once that people that say that things cannot be done are often interrupted by the people actually doing it. That certainly seems to be the case. We downed Lucifron on the first attempt. Nevermind the fact that we've never encountered him before. Let's not even get into the issue of most of us never having even been to Molten Core, either. Add to all of the inadmissable evidence the tiny detail that we lost 5 of our 6 tanks and a solid half of the raid before Luci got to 50% health, and you have some righteous pwnage to talk about. Ves was the last tank standing, and the healing on him was unbelievable. Don't ask me how, but we did it. The deaths during that encounter were the only ones we'd suffered, save one sporadic bad pull from one of our hunters. (We entirely expected him to pop back up, but alas, it wasn't to be. He was really, most sincerly dead). :(

There had been a bit of "drama" on the guild boards about the fact that Thayala, (in spite of months of running ZG, and even having won a few rolls, but deferring the gear to some other team member who came in 2nd, usually) has yet to leave ZG with one of his Hakkari epics, or any of the epics that drop there, otherwise. We had come to the conclusion that we aren't going to roll on anything else till he wins something. Words fall short of describing how on the money his raid leadership has been, all this time, and it would be nice to see him come away with something for himself, for the simple fact that he's earned it. Well, first off Lucifron dropped the Cenarion Boots. These are the first Tier 1 epics in the guild. Everyone insisted that Thay take them, but he got legitimately upset at this notion, and flatly refused to roll until all the other Druids did. And so they obeyed, and then Thay /rolled. And sucker hit a 100. Vent exploded. More than when we were standing around, giddy with nerves, waiting to get started. And because of the folks in this guild, there was more of an outpouring of legitmate excitement that one of the most deserving members of our officer corps, and someone that has been our fearless leader for many, many incursions into the ruins and temples across Azeroth had at long last been rewarded for his unflagging devotion. Thay's 100 goes down as one of punctuation marks of what makes our guild so awesome. Every guild fights over loot in MC, but only our guild fights over who really should take it.

We burned through the Core Hound packs, since Magmadar was 3 pulls away. We were pretty much riding on a high from clobbering Lucifron, so a good, old-fashioned Pod wipe wasn't about to dampen our spirits, at this point. There was a false start when we got ready to do Maggie, and I don't think our hunters and healers were all on the same page. (Maybe there was a flag on the play; if there was, I didn't see it. It was likely underneath one of the 40 bodies that littered Magmadar's nook of the Core). There's something in this fight that has to do with hitting him with Tranquilizing Shot when he enrages. At any rate, you're supposed to do him with at least 3 Marksman spec hunters who set up a rotation so that somebody's always ready out of the cooldown for it. We had 2. And we took him down, as well. What an amazing evening. 3 epics off Magmadar. It was a great night to be a Pod.

Our priest arm of the pro healing team was rewarded with the Pants of Prophecy, their Tier 1 leggings. Immaculata got those, and as a measure of commentary, she is coming along to be quite nicely geared. Ironically enough, probably the only roll in the history of the guild that will forevermore be as famous as Thay's roll tonight was when we took down the Spider priestess in ZG for the first time, and Flowing Ritual Robes dropped. Imma and her husband Zayd were relatively new 60s, having just dinged together (fitting- as they leveled together the entire time on this server), and when the casters rolled, she was first up. And rolled a 6. There was a flurry of activity from the other casters as they all passed. She was floored, and rightfully so. Tonight's Tier 1 legs were the 3rd piece of epic armor that I've been present to her winning, and it's great to see one of my healers rewarded for being so leet. As a warrior, I've got a very special affinity for our healers, particularly our priests. We have a very special symbiotic relationship. If I don't do my job, they can't do theirs. And if they don't do theirs, I don't live long enough to have one. :D

Ves got an uber-sweet tanking necklace, Medallion of Steadfast Might, and Akando took home a sweet 2H mace Earthshaker. In the interest of full disclosure, I am pleased to say that I also left MC with a goodie of my own. It is my obligation to report that the Gauntlets of Might are now in my possession. This is my first piece of Tier 1 armor, and rounds out the 3 that are now in the guild. Given the fact that we hope to be dropping these 2 punks on a regular basis, I might not necessarily be reporting MC/ZG/AQ20 drop-by-drop, because I hope that we begin to see much, much more of this. So much, in fact, that I anticipate that it will become problematic to chronicle it all. That's a good problem to have, by the way.

We carved a path across Kalimdor afterward, razing in turn, Astranaar, Auberdine, and Darnassus for those of us who were too excited to do anything else with our time, afterward. (Well, maybe not so much Darnassus).
Thay has all the gory details and the ultra smoove PS skills with our boss trophy shots, too. Do it. Do it now.

The Plan-net CORE

Wow, the eve of the first Pod Molten Core run. I'm extremely excited, and I assure you that the rest of the Pods are, too. After last night's lackluster ZG performance, it'll be nice to see some new scenery. Hopefully, we'll down Lucifron, and begin to see what the big deal here is. It's taken us quite a while to get to this point, but at long last, we're here. Ragnaros is hardly in danger, just yet, but we're good mammals, we'll adapt.

If it weren't for the numbers issue that I discussed in an earlier post (i.e. 20 < 40), I'm sure that we't have been doing MC long ago, but the massive schism that the guild suffered about 3 months ago took about a 1/3 of our 60s, so we were starting from scratch, in essence. Rebuild we did, and are far better for it, now. We've picked up some nice loot from ZG, and that'll definitely help in the Core. I'm sure that there was considerable frustration from those that have been there before, that were stating over and over again that MC isn't harder than ZG in many respects. I can neither confirm nor deny this, but I know that when it comes to the general Pod raiding crew, we have a great chemistry and group dynamic, so we tend to be a bit more resilient to things that might go wrong. As to the ones that preferred ZG to taking a stab at MC based on gearing of the group, it's always important to remember that the very first MC raids went in with UBRS gear and nothing else. That's all there was at the time. Looking at the roster for tonight, I'm only seeing about half a dozen people that aren't in our regular raid rotation- if that. Even gold farmers get to 60, but Pods got skillz.

At any rate, it'll be interesting. Get to see what Core dirt tastes like. New menu items rock.

PS- The final seal has been broken. The moon will turn to blood, and the sky as black as sackcloth as all the stars fall from the heavens. The Horsemen are unleashed on their infernal ride. Grats on 60 Siobhanne!

That man's just a crazy old wizard....

So far, I've really been enjoying playing Amperage. At long last, I've been able to get the rhythm of rooting mobs, and then nuking the ever-loving hell out of them from a distance, as I am wearing what looks to be a bridesmaid's dress, lately. /sigh Dear God, please let lvl 39 come quickly so I can run Razorfen Downs and get the Robes of the Lich....

Just for grins the other day, Shendo and I were going to run each other's 30-something mages through the Library in Scarlet Monastery to see about getting the Illusionary Rod for each of us. Agnok was kind enough to overhear this, and offered to drag both of us through while he dual-boxed his warrior and priest. Ythia was on Vent and asked what we were doing, and if we needed any firepower to do it. He had Julya, his 51 mage. This was shaping up to be fun. It made for a fast run, and at some point before; I'd used Echuta to do the same thing for Narcissia and Plageuis repeatedly (but to no avail on any of those runs). I'd mentioned to Shendo that when I was the only 60 taking them thru, we'd made it to Doan in about 16 minutes. At that point, the gauntlet was down in his mind, and he wondered how we would measure up. First run was just over 10 mins. Illusionary dropped first time, and since I was half a level from using it, I got the first one. With Amp being out of the race for the staff, it was game on, now. I hearthed back to Grom'gol, and brought the pain with Echuta. Our fastest time ended up being 9 mins, 15 some odd seconds, and that was just blinding. It took a total of 3 more runs to get Shindi's staff, but by the time it was all said and done, we'd done it. The best thing about that one is that virtually every other staff in the game until about lvl 50-ish pales in comparison. Ask a caster friend. I know that they have it.