Every night after raid, the officers of GamingLyfe and myself have a little chat just to talk about what went well on that night and what we can do to improve on the next night. This week we had a lot of chats about the things we were trying, how they worked (or didn’t) and what our next directions are. I’ve decided that everyone should be in the loop on that and have the opportunity to see and discuss what directions we’re taking. And that will happen in the form of a weekly recap of events and a plan for the next week! A lot of this is focused on raiding since that’s where most of our discussion was based.
Mythic Content
This week, we got our feet wet in mythic Emerald Nightmare with a night of fun on Nythendra. The water was very, very cold and perhaps we just weren’t quite ready for that yet. And that’s perfectly okay. We still have content to clear (note we did kill Guarm in heroic for the first time this week, woo!) and we’re going to be moving forward in that direction until we have a consistent 20-man roster that we can tweak and groom into a mythic raid team. Keep in mind, we’re still so very close.
Attendance
With our key focus being on progression and getting into mythic content consistently, it’s very important that we have people online and ready to go at raid time. We are going to start raid invites at 5:30 PM PST sharp. Anyone who can be online should be finished with their solo things and ready to be invited to the group and heading to the instance of choice for the night. And, yes, we will decide what we’re doing before 6PM and be ready to start pulls right at raid start. Anyone who is in the group at raid start will get a large bonus of EP for being on-time.
Schedule Change
After running a 5-day raid schedule, we’ve seen that it’s something that’s really not doing anything for the guild in terms of progression or otherwise. And no day in the schedule was dedicated to farming the content that we’ve cleared consistently. That’s a problem because things like heroic EN and normal TOV can and will drop loot for our raid team (even warforged items). We’re bringing a farm day to Tuesday. On that Tuesday, we’ll clear the 2nd most recent content first (in this case normal TOV) and then move into previous content after. This will also be a night we bring in our prospect raiders to test their abilities. Attendance is still required and EP will be awarded for these nights. Our new schedule is as follows:
- Monday – 6:30 PM PST Normal raids (not required, no EP)
Run with guildies who maybe don’t get to run very often or can’t commit to a full raid schedule. Will be led by the lovely Cris. - Tuesday – 5:30 PM PST Farm night (required, standard EP)
Start off with heroic EN and full clear it, afterwards go to Heroic TOV to show prospects what a real raid looks like and see how they perform. Prospect raiders are welcomed as we will be aiming for a 20-man group here. - Wednesday – 5:30 PM PST Core Progression night (required, standard EP)
Working on clearing content we haven’t cleared yet. Heroic TOV for now, Mythic EN as soon as we have a full roster. - Thursday – 5:30 PM PST Core Progression night (required, standard EP)
Working on clearing content we haven’t cleared yet. Heroic TOV for now, Mythic EN as soon as we have a full roster.
Raid Consumables
As we move further into progression-based raiding, it’s become clear that some of these fights are going to be tight on damage, heals, and survivability. We provide flasks (thanks to the lovely Strangecraft) to all of our raiders. Food and potions are things we see brought along consistently and that’s great. However, we’re missing out on augment runes. These runes provide a very noticeable increase to damage and healing that cannot be made up for in any other ways. Please bring these to raid. I will continue to have them available but they may start costing GP for each time you get these runes. Save yourself the trouble and bring them yourselves.
The Return of Drunk Friday Fiestas
Previously, our guild made a habit of getting mad drunk on a Friday and palling around in Discord running rated battlegrounds, raids, whatever we wanted. It’s been a while since we had one of those and that’s just no fun. So, they’re coming back. Depending on availability of certain key members, we will either be running RBGs or raids or mythic + groups on Friday nights. No commitment and no pressure. Just good old fashioned fun.
Rated Battleground Groups
We’ve been spending so much time focused on PVE content that we’ve really let the PVP side of GamingLyfe fall to the wayside. This is something that we’re in the works of changing to make sure that everyone in the guild can be involved with something. One of the big projects we’re working on is the logistic side of making the entire weekend dedicated to Rated Battlegrounds. On Saturdays, we’re planning a marathon run similar to how Hydra ran back in WoD for Ashran. We’re going to publicize it, open it up to more than just guildies, and make it an amazing experience. We’ll have 4 or 5 people running groups throughout the day that people can join and we’ll make sure we always have one running. The best players in these groups will be invited along for the next day’s activity which will be rating pushing.
That being said, we are looking for 3-4 capable people that are experienced in leading rated battlegrounds that would like to step into a role leading them on Saturdays. Contact Papaganja if you’re interested.
Conclusion
Lots of exciting things are coming up for us in the future and I’m glad to be able to help lead the group into it’s next stages of progression. If you have any questions about any of these things, please reach out to an officer and we’ll be happy to answer anything that you have. See you all on Tuesday!
