Forged Alliance

While Eunn is leading? Never again. I'd sooner sit out and raid with another guild before I'll go while that guy is leading.

Eunn is inexperienced, rude, shows obvious bias towards himself and his new guild (which used to be us, but apparently we're not good enough anymore). I know I keep going back to this, but until a short time ago, he didn't even know other classes had multiple (Tank, DPS, Heal) tier sets. This lack of basic WoW knowledge hurts.

He changes the loot rules on the fly. In the beginning it was said that the highest geared spec was "Main spec" so far as loot was concerned. That didn't last. Loot rules changed each time Eunn was asked. He also seems to think nobody else would want the Artifact weapon. I guess Ofie and Sxycoree just got those fragments for fun. It was never said that the first roll for the Fragment would determine all future fragments.

49 minutes to fill the raid and start Flame Leviathan? I expected this to be faster than when we do our runs. Quite a few times when FAers screwed something up, I hear them getting called out about it on vent. When Benediction people screwed up? Silence.

Despite successfully tanking up to Yogg-Saron on 10 man and Auriaya on 25 man, and 2 years of experience Raid tanking, I'm casually tossed aside like a pug after 1 wipe that was a result of my death because of two unfortunately timed hits? And then afterwards you admit you weren't healing as much as you could have.

And all the whiny little comments directed at the raid group during the raid "I can't believe you guys...", "This is terrible". Yo. You were in the same group pal. Every person counts, including yourself.

Whether or not joint runs with Benediction happen again is up to the guild, but for the rest of this week and the future I will not be attending any runs while Eunn is leading. We have other options.

fair enough.
Sorry for the bad lead.
I ran this run like a pug cuz that's all I've been doing.
Sorry Dustin if u felt that way.

I didn't change the rule on the fly, I always try to get everyone at least 1 gear per run like I mentioned earlier on the raid.
Obviously that isn't good enough for some of you.
Also switching the tank on Ignis was only because Bhoss had 3k more HP so I figure he could survive the Oh shit moment. I never said u were bad tank, I think u are one of best tank I know. Apparently you know lot about this game so then you know gear matters a lot more than just skill.

But u can't always be the main tank. I know you always been, but give other tanks a chance.

Also give me 1 more chance, and if you don't like it this time, I'll gladly leave your guild and I'll never bother you nor FAs again.
That's all I'm asking.

This was just first run and u didn't even give me chance to improve. I don't think you are being fair.

One gear per person sounds good on paper - BUT. If you're giving offspec gear to a person when others need it for Mainspec, then it is epic fail.

Judecca declared his tank gear as his best set. And thusly by your "rules", his Main spec. When he tried to roll on Tank gear however, you told him his tank gear was crap. Then later on you had him tanking stuff. Wth?

In a joint run I don't expect to necessarily be MT on the boss each time. However, had I not bitched I wouldn't have been tanking at all since I was asked to switch to DPS in favor of Benediction tanks. The way you called for it sucked though. And then to tell me about getting "Mass Whispers" and "Officer chat" about something but never explaining what. The following successful attempt I'm told to tank one thing, then I see another tank doing the same thing.... So much confusion in your raid.

Am I being fair? I'll let others chime in. Hopefully they will instead of just being silent in the forum and complaining to me in whispers.

My major issue with the run was the loot rules. I don't ever want to see an offspec get loot over a main spec just cause he got something earlier. (and ticketing a gm to switch the first piece over is silly.) I understand you are trying to be fair and keep people from hording loot but if no other mains want it, then give it to the main who already got something. I also don't think you fully understand the point that was being made on the shard. Since it was a joint run a lot of us assumed that fairly both guild's fragment collecters would be equal chances on each drop. Also you told Judecca he wasn't considered a tank as far as tier drops were concerned but then he kept getting tanking assignments when came like he was being cheated out of loot. But then we got rid of the tier restrictions anyway.

Honestly, i think our guild members were doing a little too much putting words in other peoples mouths in gchat. A few people made comments of 'he thinks you are a bad tank' in gchat when eunn switched thanderann. But noone said that and in fact he was complimented buy at least one person fromm their guild on vent. SO the rest of the raid people kept saying in gchat cant belive they think you are a bad tank. I could tell right away he just switched cause of HP, even though I didn't think it was necessary.

There are things that could definitely be worked on for sure. But a lot of the worst things that were said were our own guildies putting words in people's mouths and over-exaggerating every thing they didn't like.

Something like this isn't going to go well on the first night, period.

My issues were this:
1. I was expecting this to be a progression run, since that is what it sounded like in the forums. Yet we didn't try to move toward any of the keepers and were clearing Ignis & Razor rather than going straight to Cat Lady.
2. Like the runed orbs, since this was a joint guild run, I thought the frags would be distributed within both guilds.
3. Not because he's my cousin or anything like that, but saying Judecca's tanking gear is horrible and he's a bad tank, but giving him tanking responsibilites and asking him to tank other raids... Well enough said there. Had that been me, I would have been offended, and shit rolls off my back.
4. Way too much explaining/talking on vent, not that I don't like the socialism, but it was starting to give me a headache. This could just be nerves for a first run, so w/e.
5. Like I said last night, this had way too much of a pug type mentality for a combined guild run. For me, there is only soo much pugging I can handle, since I absolutely hate it. I deal with it on mind-numbing stuff like Naxx, cause I really don't have to listen most of the time, but Uld25 is way different.
6. The loot rules probably would be better if they were set prior to the raid, rather than changing on the fly. Main spec should ALWAYS come before offspec regardless if they already received something.

I was definately one of those that was not enjoying this at all. However, I slept on it and thought about how difficult the first night of combined raid is. There is a lot to deal with on both sides and leading it or co-leading it and trying to satisfy both parties will never be easy and never be attainable.

Overall I think for a first night it went ok. We downed 5 bosses without too many causulties. It is a joint effort so there will be bumps in the road to set up. I think overall these things can get worked out. Eunn, more experience leading a 'non-pug' type raid will definately help, but for the first time eh it wasn't tooo bad. Like I said last night, w/e don't worry bout it too much. For me personally, I went to bed with a massive headache after this and I really don't plan on doing that again until it's all ironed up. Hopefully after I come back from vacation that will be done and we can see where it goes from there.

Again I'm so sorry if I offended u any way Dustin. I always think very highly of you and always tell my friends how good u r. The reason for the tank swap was like I said earlier was purely based on hp.
Also reason for judecca not rolling tank gear is so tank gears are more focused on fewer ppl. But next time if u give me 1 more chance we will set up better system. But if u are still upset with me then I'm gonna call it and go back to what I was doing.

I personally feel not giving eunn another chance now that he's gotten some feedback wouldn't be fair. We told him our problems and he seems receptive to them and isn't saying things like well that's how we do it so screw you guys. Esp since running a joint guild raid is really a nightmare from the get-go.

There was miscommunication going in on loot priorities, role assignements, etc. but now they we've done a run the officers on both sides can smooth things out, knowing what needs to be worked on.

So my vote is for another go, esp since as far as boss killing itself went we had a good run. It was all the other stuff that needs smoothing out. (Although no matter how good a run goes, I don't see it working out at all as long as offspecs can get loot over main specs)


On the note of another go though, I just found out today that one of my relitives is moving out of state so I won't be there tonight since I want to see them before their gone. So hopefully if you guys do go, it goes well. I should be there tomorrow night either way.

I can't believe there aren't any posts about lasts night raid yet. (I started this so early in the morning that nothing was up yet. But by the time I got to post it we had a new thread:))

First observations:

Loot - Looting was terribad. Never should offspec come before main spec. And when you open something up to offspec rolls people shouldn't have to give up there mainspec gear for it. If you're going to play the alternating loot game that’s fine, but mainspec and offspec are on different alternating patterns. I do agree that we should gear tanks first, that’s just common sense. However if we do go this route then it would be nice if we could spread out the tanks among the other tier pieces. 3 of our 4 tanks being warriors would definitely suck for our shaman and hunters. Raiding every other week could mean that mail is out 6 weeks before it even gets a /roll.

Orbs and Fragments - Fragments absolutely need to go every other just like the orbs were. There is no reason not be fair about it. Eunn, the argument you gave trying to get all the fragments is BS. If you are going to make any argument at all to try and get all the fragments then you should have brought up the point that your Pally has been to as many or more raids for us then your mage has. You've been playing this game for 6 months and you're already trying to get your nuts off over a Legendary. Lots of people have played this game since release and only seen them in trade chat.

Vent Chat - Waaaay too much vent chat even from the Raid Leader. I can understand Eunn pretty well but I have a lot of distractions going on around me. The more to the point you are the easier it is for me to understand everything going on. That db that came in while we were on Ignis is definitely a no-no. Thank you for kicking him, maybe on raid nights we can get a different password so we can be sure that doesn't happen again.

WWS and Raid Performance:

I was happy with the progress we made. 5 bosses down and only 2 wipes one possibly due to RNG and another to miscommunication. Miscommunication on our first night is not so bad. I was surprised by how badly we failed at FL but still managed to down him. It really makes me wonder WTF we were doing in our all FA raids all that time.

WWS: I'm not the best at reading WWS.
----Healers: Did we really have 9 healers? I thought we wanted 7. Tonight we could probably have Turnpike come as a different spec or class, and have Jehoum bring Namas.
----DPS: DPS looks good. Bene had less DPS'ers and after looking at the WWS it seems they held tough hanging out right in the middle of the pack generally. Only Lightingbol seemed to hang out at the bottom, and the dps he was short was made up for by his utility (totems). For FA only Brooster hung out at the bottom of the DPS meter, and he's spec'd for utilitarian raid DPS. If there was any shortage of dps it was more likely due to having 9 healers rather then any one person's performance.
----Tanks: Tanking was fine. Thandrenn went down one time, but that has been discussed over in the WWS thread for last night’s raid.

Final Thoughts:
Just to sum it up, I liked the raid. I thought we did pretty well for our first time. We got off to a slow start, and there were communication errors on a few bosses but all in all it wasn't bad. I think we owe it to ourselves to at least finish this week before getting too worked up over anything.

Also for progression wise, The reason that I go for ignis and Razor is that Ignis drops best Tank trinket in the game(bhoss has em already) and Razor drops best Range weapon for tank. Like I said, we can't progress unless we gear our tanks and easy boss like Ignis where we prob gonna be 1 shotting from now on, why not spend 20~30 min to down the boss?

After many constructive feedbacks, I came up with this.
1. Main spec ALWAYS first.
a. But the golf scoring system still in effect throughout the whole week. (Only apply to main spec)
b. Tier piece is going to be open roll. This does not count towards rules above. If 2 of same tier piece drops, it’ll be rolled individually. (not 2 highest roll)
c. Only 1 upgrade per slot. As in yes, rings and trinket also.
2. Off spec has its own golf scoring system that does not share with main spec items.
3. Orbs will be shared.
4. Design Plans / BOE items / Shards will be shared just like orbs. The very first drop, Inori and I will roll for it to see who’ll get it first. He and I can decide what to do with it after. Gbank it etc.
That covers the basic loot rules. Please feel free to post feedbacks.

Now here is an extended loot rules. As you know, Ulduar is heavily depends on the gear of tank and I really would like to gear up tanks equally. These rules only apply to TANKS.
1. Both Guilds provide 2 main tanks that will be designated for Ulduar. They must be geared enough to OT.
a. We have Bhoss as our MT and FA has Dustin as MT. FA need to decide who will be the designated AOE OT preferably DK or Pally, and we’ll decide our own OT.
2. If Tank gear drops, MTs will take a first stab at the loot. If MTs already have it, or not too much of upgrade, then it’ll go to OTs.
a. The golf scoring system will be in effect in between Tanks (MTs share with MTs only and OTs share with OTs only).

Those rules seem a lot more fair, as long as your are saying that someone can have two epics in one run if their own competition is off-spec. I dunno how others feel about tanks first but i was always fine with it.

The tank thing sounds good, idc one way or the other. The one question I have is wtf am I? I know for a few FA raids I requested to dps to compare gear sets and gems and find out what is the optimum gear/gem setting I should have. Now that I've done that and have my dps gear set up, I really dont care if I tank or dps. I know for last night and some of our other raid nights, we've had an abundance of tanks, so there was no real need for me to do that.

Your dps is just far superb compare to other. So I'd like ur dps unless fa decide u to be their ot.

I had an equal number of issues with some of our raiders and some of the Benediction ones. Half the time we were being treated like a PUG, and it was slightly insulting.

The vent chatter was giving me a splitting headache. Stuff was made up and changed constantly and on a whim, and that just can't work in the long run. I won't repeat the mainspec/offspec business since it's been taken care of.

The fragment thing was pretty bogus. I personally think they should be going to Inori or Sxy, and not laying out the rules for them before they drop is not a good idea. Especially when the rules involve the leader and master looter getting all fragments.

I think that Inori should lead the raids IMO. He's concise, calm, and clear. At the very least, we should switch off who does it.

And as for our guild, I think before we hear anyone else whine about performance and progression they should check their own performance. I held my tongue on a lot of things last night, but only because it was a combined raid. Hypocrisy is just not going to cut it.

That all being said, I always just basically go with the flow. I'm not refusing or agreeing to anything, but whatever we as a group decide to do I'll support.

Edit: Beiner, I think you should do what you like doing best. I'm sure by now you have equal tanking/dps gear.

I'll give it another try tonight. Hopefully things are fixed.

Beiner: Personally I'd rather have you tanking. You rock at it. But what you want to do is up to you. We have enough tanks it looks like that if you want to DPS all the time, that'd be fine.

Good luck tonight. One thing I wanted to say is this was meant to be an experiment to help both guilds. It would be sad if animosity came out of this.

Just finished reading the thread. I think I've got a good analogy to straighten everything out (it involves football and coach Tony Dungy!). It'll be a little long winded, so I'll write it after the raid (check it out tomorrow morning).

-HP

I can only think that some of this statement was aimed at me, since i admitted to falling asleep during the first ignis try, and it was mentioned to me after the raid that i "should watch what i say when im falling asleep"

All that aside if you check your logs you just might find that TADA even asleep i did 3k dps which makes my point about every single post i made.

Im taking this a bit personal because im the one that started the whole discussion, so if i give back a little strong then only take it if you aimed that at me, and the whine comment is frankly just lame.

I kinda feel as though FA showed some poor behavior myself. Alot of people appeared to come with an attitude that things were going to suck, and while i agree that some things didnt go well, many others did, or at the very least did no worse than FA raids, so that needs to be acknowledged.

If you want to work as a team you have to be ready to compromise on things as well. If you have never led a raid, then you really need to be a tad more forgiving of a raid leader. You also cannot be ready to take offense at the slightest thing, regardless of how you feel.If we are supposed to help guildies that dont perform, then helping Eunn to learn to lead in a way that works for us all is YOU job since you are the officers and leaders of FA.

I see us standing at Auriya with a real shot at taking her down on our second night of joint raiding, and while it may or may not be this guild we joint with, doing joint raids looks to be a salvation for everyone.

There are some things you can't teach, and the way someone leads a raid is one of those things. Raid leading requires experience and people skills, and those are things you acquire over time through the game, not just hop in and know what's what. People also have to not only be open to suggestions, but also intend to follow through on them.

This is going to be long winded, but I think the analogies are things people can relate to.

When asked the question, "How did the first joint raiding night go?", my first response was, "I felt like I was treated like a PUG and it hurt my pride a little.". The follow on question (paraphrasing in my own mind) was, "In what way were you treated differently? As a healer, you got a healing assignment just like any other raid.". This was absolutely true. Thinking about it some more, it wasn't how things were done, but it was a very subtle difference in style.

If I were directing a contractor to build a shielded room (I was told this by a course instructor once and may be remembering it slightly wrong), I would want him to wipe down overlapping metal pieces with alcohol before joining them so that the contact area is clean and more effective. If I were to simply tell him, "You need to wipe down the surfaces before mating them.", the following outcomes are possible.

1) He'll do it and the job gets done.
2) He'll think what I'm asking for is unnecessary and not do it (maybe do it the first few times, but reach this conclusion later and discontinue doing it in the future).

If I were to rephrase it and say, "You should wipe down the surfaces before mating them so that the electrical connection is better. That way, we'll have a superior product.", the following outcomes are possible.

3) He'll agree with me; he'll believe there is value in doing it this way and will always do it.
4) He'll disagree with me. At this point, I'd have to explain it in greater detail to convince him to do it.

In both cases above, I just demonstrated that I respect him by not giving him an 'order from above', but reasoning with him as a peer. In other situations, it may also turn out that I'm wrong or that he has an even better idea for accomplishing the same goal -- when I was a student teacher, I was amazed when my students came up with a better solution than the one I came up with.

Applying this to raiding, compare the following two statements.

5) "All right guys, since no one in this raid is going to fail, we're going to stack up for XT. People with light bomb will go right; people with shadow crash will go left."

6) "All right guys, since I think most people here are on their toes about the bombs, we'll try stacking up for XT. We'll have people with the light bomb go right and people with the shadow crash go left. Even though the light bomb will hurt more people in the raid, since we have everyone in the same place, AE healing should make up for it. It'll also mean that everyone with a bomb is always in range of a healer. It should also make things easier since we don't have to find a place to go when running out. It'll also help during tantrum since the prayer of mending and chain heal will go after those with the lowest health."

While 5 and 6 accomplish the same thing in terms of giving direction, the longer winded one makes it clear why it's in the best interest to stick to the strategy. It also establishes that as a raid leader, I understand the underlying mechanics for why we're doing things.

Looking over how Jeff used to lead Forged Alliance 25 raids in BC, he and I had similar styles. So far, I've established that we are always willing to change the strategy to adjust for raid composition or better understanding of fight mechanics. I have always purposefully stated when I'm copying a raid strategy from somewhere, but don't understand why they do it that way. I view raiding as a collaborative effort.

This method of leading raids is something that Forged Alliance is accustomed to. It definitely is not the only way to lead a raid and in many cases is not the best way to lead a raid. If you're leading a PUG with constantly changing membership from week to week, there is little incentive to build a collaborative atmosphere. In fact, it may be counterproductive since there may now be 'too many chefs' in the kitchen. Even within Forged Alliance, it may cause people to "do their own thing" which I personally encourage (within reason), but probably drives some people crazy when it takes us an extra attempt or two because "I'd like to try something out".

I've always thought that WoW raiding was a lot like team sports; it takes the cooperation of a lot of people to improve themselves and get things done. Forged Alliance leads raids like Tony Dungy -- a low key style; never yelling. For a PUG, it's probably better to be like Marty Schottenheimer -- a fire and brimstone style that gets things done. I generally won't cut someone down in the middle of a raid, but it does have it's drawbacks. It's entirely possible that getting cut down in front of the team will inspire someone to redouble their effort (it happens in sports sometimes); but it can also make someone quit the team (for a PUG, that may be good so you can bring in someone else, but I have no intention of doing that in a guild). I will admit that I am extremely vague in terms of discussing performance issues with people after raids; I've always used 'generalized' forum posts to suggest that we can't progress much further unless everyone picks up their individual games.

The last analogy I'll use (told you this was long winded), is that raid leadership styles are a lot like bosses at work. Everyone has probably had or knows of a boss that just tells people what needs to be done -- it's what bosses do. A lot of them don't give a reason ("I'm the one in charge, just do it my way.") or don't remember the reason ("That's the way it's always been done, just do it that way."). Some people may have seen another boss take their time to coach an employee and wonder, "Boy, it sure would be a lot faster if he would just tell him to do it.".

Using an authoritative leadership style is most certainly the best way to deal with a PUG and is most likely the best way for progression guilds to get things done. Using a collaborative leadership style is more suited to a casual guild and probably sacrifices a lot of progression speed.

This joint raiding experiment is a compromise. On alternating weeks, Forged Alliance is raiding with a greater focus on progression, and on other weeks, raiding with a greater focus on inclusion. As raiders participating in a joint raid and raid leaders leading a joint raid, there's a little to give on both sides.

7) To the Forged Alliance raiders, please bear in mind that I have probably steered the raid in a direction that isn't optimal for progression. I probably should be calling more things out and holding more people accountable if we want to keep pace with the latest content. We may need to stomach our pride a little bit to adjust to a raid that is focusing on progression with a different leadership style. While WoW is a game, we can treat it a little like a job every other week where we can "just do what the boss says and see where things end up".

8) To the Benediction raiders. Not knowing many of you for very long, I would like to let you know that Forged Alliance has traditionally been an older guild. Within our guild, we have a lot of working people, wives and husbands with children of their own, and not as many younger folk. While this is just a game, respect means a lot to us. Progression raiding that isn't enjoyable may not be worth it if it just adds even more stress to what we've already got (boy, I sure sound old).

9) Lastly, to the Forged Alliance raiders who didn't make it into the joint raid. Please understand that for the initial weeks, the 'best' criteria that I can come up with for the raid invites is 'performance reputation'. As I mentioned in another post, I have not been poring over the WWS reports to figure out who is tops in DPS. All that I know is what is ingrained in my head from weeks of raiding with our guild. A lot of it is hearsay since I generally don't look at the DPS numbers unless I'm shadow for the night (I spend a lot of my time looking at player death replays >_<). Going forward, to maintain some 'objectivity' in the raid invites, I'm going to use the WWS report for the alternating Forged Alliance weeks as a guide. I don't want this to become an insane competition for topping the charts; I don't want people refusing to switch to utility specs (e.g., taking a performance hit to provide replenishment to the raid) or refusing to perform certain roles (e.g., I don't want to be on spear duty for Razorscale). I don't want people AEing at the wrong times to inflate their numbers (trust me, people notice when this is going on) and I don't want people standing in the fire just to squeeze out a little more. I do ask that all raiders who wish to participate in the joint raid please respect the Benediction raiders who want to progress. If you are declined an invite or asked to step out due to underperformance, please take it constructively. Progression raiding is like playing team sports -- if you're put on the bench, redouble your efforts to earn a starter position. I respect everyone willing to come help, but I also ask that everyone respect the desire of others to be successful at progression raiding. If a lot of people are playing at a high level, we'll work out attendance rotations.

-HP

After reading Henry's thought's I have to admit he seems to be right about most things as usual. I do apologize for being critical about things when I wasn't even there. That "being critical" I am talking about; the people that know what I am talking about are the ones that need to know I am sorry for jumping off the handle a tad. I just was jumping to defense of our FA guys and not really taking everything into account. As for the other post, seems like there is a big number of tanks, hope there isn't any good pally ones out there....