Tuesday (14 Feb) - The Three Things

Tuesday (14 Feb) - The Three Things

The first thing JB wanted to get to was the two lfr Dragon Soul runs. It was her first big test of the new pair of i378 blades that she got from Baleroc in the Firelands on Saturday. In Siege of Deathwing, JB held her own, dealing around 20k dps on average on the bosses. JB had made some changes to her AoE attacks as well, to try and improve on her dps in that area, but the results were mixed. Trash mobs remain a problem for JB and generally lower her overall dps.

Remember that JB paid a 1,000 gold for the i377 pvp shoulders, in the superstitious expectation that the i384 pve shoulders would then drop in the lfr? The T13 shaman shoulders token did indeed drop. Superstition confirmed? Only halfway. JB lost the roll to the other shaman in the raid.

JB did pick up a T13 gloves token and a nice pair of pants, both of which can be used with JB's off-spec. JB's off-spec has a gear score of i364, but that is still mostly made up of pvp gear. Who knows, JB may end up with a pve elemental spec after all.

JB wasted no time getting into the second half of the lfr, Fall of Deathwing. There were no surprises. JB has now already wrapped up her lfr DS runs for the week. JB is still without her pve shoulders.

Oh, bashful JB did forget to mention one other thing. JB won [No'kaled, the Elements of Death] off of Deathwing. It's an axe. An i390 axe. The Best in Slot (BiS) one-hand weapon for shaman at the lfr level. Poor Bonecrusher, I barely knew ye. JB's equipped gear score is now i380.

The second thing was supposed to be Twilight heroic runs, but, this being Valentine's Day, our afternoon was busy with things other than WoW. JB only got in one random Heroic, End Time, and picked up no drops.

The third thing was raid night. JB signed up for the G1 raid, her first Accept of a raid invite since earning Raider rank. Raid invites don't mean the same thing that they once did. For most of Wild's raiding life, raid invites were defined as follows:

Decline: Will not be raiding. Should the raider show up anyway, will not get an invite unless there is a spot open.
Tentative: Will try to make it, but don't count on it. If the raider does make it, after all, will not get an invite unless there is a spot open.
Accept: Will be there on time and ready to raid. Invite priority goes to these raiders first. "Core" raiders have the highest priority, with "fill-ins" next in priority. As always, the needs of the raid come first.

I don't know how it is with other guilds, but MM2 has changed the definitions Wild was used to. The basic definition is the same, but the rules for inviting raiders were changed. Core raiders always have priority, regardless of what they sign up as, or even if they don't sign up at all. For example, if a core raider selects Decline or Tentative, but still makes it to the raid, it's as if he had Accepted.

The problem with the above is that there is no commitment. Both raids struggle with raiders who select Accept and then don't show up. That issue has been raised and guild leaders are trying to improve on that, but our own rules make that difficult. Pressed about selecting Accept, raiders have learned to select Tentative, which lets them off the hook but has no penalty. The raid leader selects his team from whoever is in game. Since Cata, I have yet to see a guild raid where ten raiders had selected Accept. Every raid is a crap shoot, because who knows who'll be there on raid night?

So, you know what's coming. Six guildies had Accepted the raid invite, including JB, on Tuesday night. We had what is for us a pretty good turnout. There were 13 level 85s in game, 11 of which JB knew to be raiders. That information was pretty well known by the time the 7pm raid time came around. However, they had a problem with roles. It got pretty silly for awhile. I counted, I swear, ten times when guildies swapped toons around to get the right mix of tanks, healers, and DPS. I guess that's one of the disadvantages of having a great many raid capable alts. I wasn't in on the raid leader conference in vent, but they could have been considering raid composition for the RG2 as well. Maybe, but I'm not sure we think that far ahead.

Anyway, they didn't get the raid in motion until 7:30pm. According to the guild roster, only nine guildies were in the raid. JB could easily ferret out the roles: 2 tanks, 3 healers, 2 ranged DPS, and 2 melee DPS. That left them short one DPS, which I assume was filled by a friend outside the guild. We have a few of them, too (mains who left the guild, but still have an alt in the guild). On Monday they had wanted 3 melee DPS. If that held true for Tuesday, then JB "could" have filled that last spot. JB got no invite.

This isn't sour grapes, it's just how the raid is run. This is the G1 raid, JB has to remember that. After all of the effort put into getting JB raid ready, who would have known that the biggest obstacle of all was getting an invite?