Meitha Calls a Flex Raid

Meitha Calls a Flex Raid

Wild's guild, Meitha, scheduled a flex raid for Friday and Saturday. The target is the new Siege of Orgrimmar (SoO). There are fourteen bosses spread across four wings. Since this is a flex raid, I don't think there is hard requirement for a minimum gear score. The raid leader has the flexibility to invite whoever he wants, and how many he wants, regardless of gear. Of course, gear is an important factor in having a successful raid. Raid difficulty scales in a flex raid, so the more players in the raid, the tougher the content. Raiders with poor gear would certainly hurt the raid. I read somewhere that typical gear requirements were at least in the i510+ range. To be sure, I took a look at those players that had already signed up for the raid:

Raid Leader: Hekktor (i486) - I seriously doubt this is the character the raid leader will use in the raid, considering most of his gear has no gems or enchants in place. I don't recognize the name, so he could be a guildie Wild hasn't met yet, or a friend on an alt I didn't know about. With everyone having multiple level 90 alts these days, it's very hard to keep track. In fact, Hekktor is also Porkkchopp (i497), the guild leader.

Shimmi, friend and superb shaman: (i465), not so good, but again, probably has a better alt.
Sho: (i517), ok, that's more like it.
Vareyne: (i528), looks good.
Adrenalin: (i490), some enchant issues.
Goover: (i530), a good friend who looks ready to rock and roll.
Grommash: (i517) and ready.

I probably can't rely on what character they posted for the raid, although not posting the character you intend to raid with would greatly annoy me were I the raid leader. But, at least it's starting to look like a real raid.

Wild is on the invite list. That's a surprise, although the raid leader might just be casting a large net to see who responds. Wild's gear score has improved since the last report, but it's still only i480, lower than almost everyone on the above list. I can't imagine Wild actually getting an invite, unless the intent is just to see SoO, rather than thinking we could defeat even the first boss. Or the trash mobs, for that matter, assuming there are some. Stay tuned for further developments.

Friday Night - A Raidin' We WON'T Go

Over the glare of the Missus, who had dinner almost ready, I had Wild hang out with the guild for about twenty minutes before raid time. I even checked that Teamspeak was up and running. Back when Wild was raiding the Voice over Internet (Voip) software we used was Ventrilo, but for some reason the guild switched to Teamspeak, which I had never used before. I had no problems connecting to the server or hearing the talk of the other guildies. Of course, Wild doesn't ever actually speak, and I didn't even have a mike hooked up. But Wild was ready. 

With ten minutes still to go before raid start time, guild leader Porkkchopp called off the raid. I was surprised. I counted six raid ready players, far less than the ten usually needed, but there was still time to see if others showed up. "We'll try again some other time," the guild leader said. No mention of trying again on Saturday. Meitha's attempt at a raid was over. A couple of the old guard lamented the inability to gather up a raid group from among the over four hundred members of the guild. Honestly, though, there was little enthusiasm, and the group quickly broke up to go do other things.

It was a hard thing to see the decayed state of non-raiding that Meitha had sunk to. It seems like another world now, when "Lady Hunter (Tala)" would cajole, tease, and browbeat guildies to sign up and show up for the weekly raids. If we were short at raid start time, Tala would canvass other guilds and friends, looking to fill in the holes, even when it took us past the start time. Most of the time she was successful, too, so those of us who waited were patient, and were rewarded by being able to raid. Wild's last raid was with G2, on April 18th, 2012. At the time Meitha was "officially" running three raids. However, the G3 raid was listed as "still forming," G1 was "rebuilding," and G2 had lost it's raid leader. It was never the same after that.

Wild had hoped that flex raiding would save raiding. That doesn't seem likely anymore, at least not for Meitha.