Haha, pun intended. My guild, WORK, is a conglomeration of folks from Illidan and other servers. Most came as a package deal for the lack of a better term. But for whatever reason we are having issues filling a raid. Interestingly enough, for lack of DPS (although a couple healers wouldn’t hurt). So the question we had to ask ourselves is why are we having issues filling our raids?
We have 38 players on 37 accounts. That’s right, we have 1 single alt in the guild. Only a single person on our roster is under level 80. So what’s causing our player shortage? Some of it can be chalked up to server queues. They are forming on Illidan sooner and sooner each day. We would have hoped they would actually subside, but yet no such luck. Maybe the lag in the 25-man instances has turned people off to raiding. But today when we went to do raid invites we only had 16 people online total.
Some people over-reacted. We had 3 Shaman quit today after we couldn’t do a 25-man raid. Some went to other guilds, at least one said he was transferring off the server. We got the 16 people online to hope in Vent so we could have an ad hoc guild meeting with those who cared. Our core group of players are incredibly skilled at this game. High-rated Arenas, some of them hold top DPS records on stat tracking websites, etc. And they are known around the server, so finding new players won’t be particularly difficult. Illidan is a very crowded server with lots of recruiting potential. In fact, in the short period of time we have been recruiting (about 4 hours) we picked up a new holy Paladin, and a really geared TG Warrior and Blood Death Knight. Not too shabby.
We really wanted to make sure that everyone still wanted to focus on PvE progression. That way we know that the folks who didn’t panic and leave still want to do what we set out to do. We wanted them to know that we still have the intent of raiding once we filled our empty spots. As any one can tell you, gearing people is easy. Finding the good players is the challenge.
What can we do now to make sure we retain our players that we currently we have while we recruit?
1. Keep running 10-mans and whatever 25-mans we can, even if we have to PUG that last few spots.
2. Keep guild PvP groups forming getting players to interact with each others.
3. Continue recruiting players to fill ranks. We need to have at least a few to fill in case of absences.
The list is short but it is really our key focuses. We have the capabilities of conquering some of the harder achievements and the upcoming Ulduar. We almost got the Undying title on accident during our 10-man Naxx the other night. We had some mis-communication on the Razuvious adds of all things. :)
This post feels . . . scrambled. Although I know what I wanted to say, I don’t know if I conveyed a clear message. On another note, Blizzard has hinted at some changes for Hunters other than the buffs/nerfs coming in the next patch. In fact they stated we will have to be re-tuned once they implement changes to make us “more fun to play.” What does that mean? Who knows. We also know there are changes coming to how ammo works as well. And mah little brain churns. :)
That’s all for now. Thoughts, comments, etc. Post ‘em!
Drotara (or BehemothDan) considers himself a geek on many levels. A web developer and programmer by trade, he has no shortage of geeky hobbies. Whether it's trying to stay current in World of Warcraft raiding, playing competitively in the WoW TCG, Magic: The Gathering with friends, or a night at the local shop playing DnD, it's all good to him!
And the answer is simple (yet the solution might be complex)
Get more accounts and multibox =)
I mean, since you guys are so good at what you do, why not clone that skill into more of the same good’ness?
At the moment I am leveling three new hunters (hehe, yeah I know, kinda silly, isnt it?)
Pro tip: Refer-A-Friend does wonders! level 58 on all three in a few hours /played-time!! Gonna start outland today when I get home, grinding instances with my friend which has 2 hunters on the rise. Hehe, imagine the pewpew’ness, 5 hunters, 5 gorillas… Mmm.. smells like WIN!
.Sillie.
Kor’Gall (eu)
Haha, nice. My friend ias “abusing” the Refer-a-friend system as well. He has like 5 characters he has leveled recently but they are all too poor to buy the new skills. :)
Drotara’s last blog post..Getting our guild to WORK.
I get it, mock the broke man. lol. I didn’t realize that training 5 alts would be expensive. Stupid skillz, who needs them anyway. I’ll just hit you with my rank 2 ability and ride around on my level 30 mount. ;)
Really sorry that your guild is going through tough times with attendance. My guild had the same issues with sunwell but we managed to make it through the tough times. Hopefully the truly dedicated and more hardcore players in your guild stick through the tough times so you can continue to be a guild.
Good luck with the raiding scene in the future.
P.S. Although I no longer play my hunter I still really enjoy reading this and it’s by far one of my favourite blogs :D Keep up the good work.
Hello Drotara, fellow guildie :)
I think the main problem is the queue and lag. The main problem is people logging in, I fell victum to this last night as the queue was 855! That’s about 1h 30m give or take… Not to mention, even IF people can get on before the queue boss (I stole that from a friend I’ll admit), they log in to face 2 ~ 4 second delay on every boss encounter. I could go on but I’de rather listen to my Metallica and talk on AIM :)
Nice post and props to you sir. We’ll be back no time killing Kel’T
Also, agree with the skill vs gear thing. Nice posts, read ‘em everyday
Unfortunately, RL is coming down hard on me Drot, so I’ll accept responsibility for a lot of that BS. But I hope to get on some time this week, maybe monday, to get our games in.
We’re actually suffering from the same exact issues over in Shmii land, from the unbearable lag and DCs to the MIA people. Getting DPS isn’t so hard as getting DPS who know’s what they’re doing. Which, is a little lacking on our server (Let alone a couple in guild who’s DPS has barely increased since level 70, L2New Rotation?). >.>
Of course, a couple less priests and another resto shaman or holy paladin would be nice too.
Drot, what are your thoughts on the latest ES nerf, and the slight pet buffs? I know personally I’m not the best geared Hunter, but i’m far from the worst, same goes for me as a player. However in my guild 25 naxx runs I go anywhere from 1 to 4 deeps depending on the boss. I am 50/21 atm. I just can’t see the justification for the current nerfs with a look into the distant future for parity. Obtw a ret pally(super good gear), a fury warrior, and mage are the other three competitors..ie when our DK isn’t off tanking then he is in the mix as well. We all have 200 and 213 gear save maybe one or two pieces ie sphere of the red dragon blood trinket, and i still use the crafted bracers for the hit.
I think Blizzard, obviously, was too eager to nerf us early in LK. As you have seen personally and many others are seeing other classes are quickly catching up and surpassing us.
I haven’t spent much time on the PTR so I am hoping they didn’t go overboard. The problem is that people were exclaiming that Explosive Shot was now the end-all ability and Blizzard changed it accordingly. I guess we shall see what the actual coefficients are once it goes live.
I’m in the same position mate.
Took a gamble and joined a brand new guild of hard core raiders and grumpy pvper’s thinking I was only going to be doing dps. Now I’m in charge of recruitment, pouring over parses to see where we can improve individually and as a whole, getting mobbed by whispers whenever I log on, etc. etc.
We also keep thin ranks so we generally pug potential guildees and our friend networks, take what we can amidst the dross, weed our own ranks (what’s great is that they uproot themselves sometimes) and trying to suppress any drama before it gets out of hand.
Hi Dro, although I only said hi outside of Nax once once to you I am an officer in a guild called Torment on Illidan. I really hope that nothing happens to your guild but if it does send me a tell ingame and I’ll try to help you out. Also as much as I hated to say that we have a number of guildies that may or may not have to sit from our raids. We have everything cleared up to 2 drakes Sath an are working on the 3rd so these people know how to play. If for some reason that week we cannot use a player that week, and you need one send me a tell we want and NEED to keep these people in guild and you may need a player or 2, lets get something started maybe?
Sucks when guild’s lack players :/
My guild “Cupcake” does really good progress now. We have cleared all 10 man content, and almost cleared all the 25man content. Starting to get some gear now finally ;p
-Skvæn Aggramar