Phoenix

Members of Phoenix,
The end of this season of raiding is finally here. It is time to take a month break and prepare for MoP. I want to thank everyone who made this raiding season possible. You showed up night after night, during the highs of stomping through progression, the challenges of grinding out that impossible boss, and nights when it seemed the guild was unraveling all around us. But you stood by this guild and you stood by each other.
Thank you
I will see you next month
-Pingo

Kill shots? Kill shots.

The bitch is dead! Not since Heroic bale has this group been more happy to see a dead boss.

We need to do 9/7/7!! Ok 7/7/7... Ok, fine, 7/5/5 but idk if the dps will be enough to *dead boss*

Funny thing about this photo. You might notice victer is not in it. He thought it would be funny to jump off the ship in the back ground as I count down for the photo. Vent lag is a bitch.

Our first heroic kill after getting back on track. Was a good feeling for all.

It seems I don't have a kill for heroic Morchok. This is due to him being a truly unremarkable boss.

But guess what I DID dig up. I thought I lost it but our actual first death wing kill

Ok, thats all I got for screen shots guy

Guildies,

As you may or may not have noticed, I have not been online to play recently. Most of my raid group took a break, and while I planned on rebuilding a group (even going as far as to make a roster spreadsheet and writing recruiting messages), I just did not have the modivation to actually log into the game and do it. I tried to rekindle desire by taking a short break, but for the first time in 7 years of playing this game I went a period of time without playing and I had no desire to start again.

Over the last few months Pingo has done a spectacular job of running things as my leadership began to wane. As such, I am turning the guild over to him with my blessings and hopes that he will continue the excellence he and the other officers (not only current, but past) have shown in this guild.

As for myself, I will play Diablo when it comes out so if you have me as a RealID friend (and most of you do), feel free to chat me up when you see me. I will be playing other games, but also focusing on my career. I enjoy my job so much that I literally do it for free, as well as doing work at nights and on weekends. Not having a raiding schedule frees me up to put even more work in.

I have made many many friends over the past few years and I hope to keep in contact with all of you, but as I am stepping away from the game, I needed to make an official switch to Pingo being the new Guild Master. I wish him luck and continued success in raiding and other persuits. Thank you for all the hard work and time you've given me.

John Livingston a.k.a. Runereaver

A quick congratulations to Pingo's group who got their Firelands mounts this week! No picture because Pingo is terrible at remembering.

They say better late than never, so Here is our first domo kill... 2 months ago

I was digging through my screen shot folder and I realized that I had not posted a couple screenshots of first kills. The only screen shot that seems to be missing are the one Pingo's group did of Majordomo.

This first picture is our guild first kill of Rhyolith

From Guild Screenshots

This second picture is when our two 10 man groups combined to kill Ragnaros

From Guild Screenshots

Congratulations to phoenix for our first Alysrazor and Bale'roc kills. Grats on 5/7

New content and we have two new guild kill shots! Technically this Shannox is from the second kill, but as it was a partial pug, this was the first true pure guild kill.

What a long and strange trip its been. If you did not attend the meeting please read Runereavers post below this one for all the greasy details. The short explanation is: Phoenix has split into two groups... again. Oh and look who volunteered to raid lead, Mr.Druid Mc Fansy pants.

Real quick I wanted to touch up on why I’m stepping up to this. While I was a big advocate to going back to 10 man, there is no getting around the fact that Phoenix has more than 10 core players. You have stuck it out though 25 man raiding, showing up though the good times and bad. You have seen recruits come and go and you carried you’re own and then some of his. I have watched many of you develop into great raiders and had the privilege to watch some of you help develop players into great raiders. Whatever your motivations, whatever kept you with us, ultimately you have stuck by phoenix, so I will stick by you.

I am still waiting for you guys to log in and I am still recruiting, there is no core 10 yet everything is still fluid. Raid times, dates, whatever I’m up for anything. For now I’m using runes old raid times because that's what we all know. 

If you read one thing in this post I want you to read this. For anyone who didn't make Grens group and everyone who did I want to make one thing clear. This will not be a second rate line up. I will not take players who can't perform. If I don't have 10 raiders who cant meet expectations then its a night, go about your day and I will go back to recruiting. If you carry your own you shouldn't be carrying his. The last 4 months has taught me this; I will not raid for the sake of wiping.
What are my expectations

1. 90% attendance
2. Full understanding of boss fights before raid time. No exceptions.
3. A quick learning curve in game.Spacial awareness
4. Meeting dps/hps/tps potitional of you gear level

So what do I need you to do? I need you to show up. Every night. Non-stop. I need you to step up your game. Go to a practice dummy and work it like a mother fucker, work that punching bag for 5 min. Are you under 17k? Research spec/imteization/rotation. Are still you under 17k? Go back and do it again. Know that rotation like you're born into it. When you're a better play it makes us a better raid.

If anyone has any questions, comments whatever you can hit me up in game.

Finaly I’ll leave you with our current raid times 845-11 server. I'll see all of you there.

Thanks Phoenix.

-Pingo

In a vote of 4 to 1 (myself being the holdout) the officers of Phoenix have decided that in order for the guild to survive, we need to go to 10 mans.

The reasons for switching back are as follows:

1.) The guild was running 10 mans on a regular basis anyway. Frequently due to attendance, or inability to handle the content, the easy bosses were killed in 25 man, and a 10 man crew would go back in and clean up the more challenging content.

2.) Progression was simply not being made in 25 mans.
2a.) The guild was progressing well (11/12) before in two 10 man groups.
2b.) It took four to five months for the 25 man raiding core to get back to the progression that were already achieved in 10 man.
2c.) Hard modes were simply not being killed in 25 man, in fact frequently the 25 man group was struggling with normal content (Chimaeron and Atramedes being prime examples)
2d.) Too many people would be late or miss raids on a regular basis, and teaching new people the job of replacing those missing was preventing further progression. We were constantly having to work at maintaining current progression, rather than working on furthering progression.

3.) Some of the core raiders and officers were/are already looking for other guilds to join, so if 25 mans continued, the raiding core would cease to exist.

4.) The members that are performing well have grown tired of carrying the weight of the members that are not pulling the dps, healing, or tanking required to do the content.

5.) The computers and internet connection required for 10 mans is significantly less than what is required for 25 mans. There are individuals who struggle in 25 mans, but would perform at a much higher level if they were in a 10 man setting.

Now I want to reiterate that I was against the change, however, I do not hold my vote higher in value than the other officers. If every single other officer felt like the change NEEDED to happen or else the guild would cease to be, I am not going to stand in the way of progression. I want to progress as much as the next guy, and if this is the direction that we need to take to get it done, then I need to support it.

For the members of this guild there are three options:

A.) Hang around and be on standby for the main 10 man, waiting for someone to miss a raid, underperform, or have connection/computer issues. Also if we get to the point loot is being sharded we can sub in people that need the loot. All decisions will be made by Grenoya.

B.) Form a second 10 man group with the surplus of people. This guild was a multi-10 man guild in the past and I can manage that again. There will be a single officer per group, no more.

C.) Seek a new guild elsewhere. I understand this is a jerk move (to say the least) and if you feel slighted by this guild, I apologise and completely understand you wanting to go elsewhere.

Quick note: I am going to be looking for the officer positions of DPS officer and recruitment officer. Only those who are core raider and above (including another officer if they want more to do) are eligible.

Recruiting officer is pretty straight forward, but the DPS officer will be tasked with watching and managing dps; making sure they have all the proper consumables, spec, and other class-specific knowledge to be able to function correctly in the raid.

Well it's official, we're a hard mode guild. After clearing all normal modes, we killed heroic halfus!

So last night the guild killed Nefarion in 25 man! Now to hard mode content!

Also, just for posterity, here's the picture from when we killed it in 10 man a few weeks ago;

So tonight, in our alt run, we tested an alternate loot system, the one the Emininent guild on Crushridge-US uses and made a mod for. I am considering switching to this system and need opinions. You can find more information in our forums, as well as a link to the mod itself.

Note: You do not have to download or use the mod to use this system, it just makes it easier in my opinion.

Not gonna lie, I can picture Pingo as this guy, especially the end.

First off I've removed the Friend/Alt rank and created two new ranks in its place. No Auth is the lowest rank and is for people without authenticators. It is locked down, no guild repairs, can't touch anything in the bank, all you can do is see the bank and talk in guild chat. Has Auth is the next up, and it requires an authenticator. It has all the bank privilages that the Friend/Alt rank used to. You get access to the first 5 bank tabs, though withdraws are limited to 2 per day per slot.

In other news I have decided to lower the attendance requirement for core raider 10%, to 80%. The reason I'm making this change is so that I can adjust ranks every two weeks instead of having to wait to adjust ranks at the end of the month. If you miss one raid per 2 weeks that puts you at 80%, the minimum for being a core raider. If you have to miss more than 1 raid in a two week period, you are demoted to a lower more appropriate rank and your guild repair limit is adjusted accordingly.

Attendance Link: http://goo.gl/YtFT0

In the past I have calculated attendance percentage based on overall attendance. This was a pain for new players as missing a single raid would impact you more, while old raiders could miss an entire week and not see their attendance budge. It also was complicated dealing with the multiple "total raids" number for each person since every person in the guild had a vastly different number of total raids they've been in the guild for.

A combination of the above reasons, plus the technical "I don't really know how to total other sheets", I'm going to be doing attendance on a per-month basis. Meaning I will not promote or demote you until the end of the current month, where I can see your attendance for the entire month. I have tried to include total percentages that include a color automatically so that you can clearly see what your attendance is at. If you're below 50, you're in red. If you're between 50 and 90, you're in orange. If you're 90 or above, you're in green. Green are our core raiders, orange are our general raiders, and red are our friend/alt ranks. This makes it very easy for me to update someone's rank, and it provides a clear and open method of determining which rank someone should be.

Just for clarification the attendance percentage does not take into account excused absences. This is intentional and is my policy. The reason I do this is two fold: 1.) People frequently don't tell me WHY they're going to have to miss a raid or will be late (late being defined as past 8:15pm) and 2.) Regardless of the reason why people have to miss a raid, the guild raids that night and I'm forced to find a replacement, same result as if they played hookie and didn't show up. The difference between an excused absence and an unexcused absence is the difference in me keeping you in the guild or booting you for never showing up.

If you have any questions/concerns/etc. please speak to me.

A while back I posted a general concept of how I wanted to divide the guild up into ranks, depending on how much a person could commit to raiding with the guild. Today I want to be more explicit and put defined attendance percentages on each of the ranks, so that there is a written record of what I expect of people and there is no surprise when I promote/demote someone into a more appropriate rank.

If you are wanting to see what we know about your personal attendance so that you can be assured your percentage is correct, Click Here. Please note that while we keep track of excused/unexcused absences, it has no affect on your overall attendance percentage. If you are not there in the raid, I have to find someone to replace you. If I have to find someone to replace you often enough, whether for an excused reason or not, I am better off finding a replacement.

Core Raider - 80-100% attendance. While I don't mind needing to take care of the occasional RL issue, this person is basically always here. Authenticator Required.

General Raider - 50-79% attendance. This person can't really make our 4 day raid schedule but is willing to fill in when we need people. Authenticator Required.

Trial - Has been in guild less than 2 weeks.

Anyone that dips below 50% attendance will automatically be demoted to the Friend/Alt rank as they really don't have time to raid. Also, should someone reach the end of their Trial period and not have an authenticator, they also will be demoted to the Friend/Alt rank until they get one. I have installed the free emulator on both Macs and Windows machines for those people who can't afford a $7 physical one or don't own a smart phone (Android, iPhone, Blackberry).

If you have any questions regarding this policy, please speak to me.

I haven't ever really written a post on how I handle our guild bank, so I thought I would. First off while I have control over it, I don't really see it as MY guild bank. I see it as the guild bank full of stuff that the guild as a whole has accumulated that I organize.

I want people to go through the tabs and take things they find useful. I want people to use the guild bank gold for repairs. I want people to throw things in the guild bank they find useful. Only thing I don't really want is items for lowbies. While people do have alts, I've found that people throwing in items for alts to use tends to just clutter up the guild bank and take space away from things that are really useful.

As far as BoEs and Maelstrom Crystals, all you need to do is ask. For the Crystals I might ask if the item you want to use it on is best-in-slot, just because they are a limited supply for now, and I don't want them used on a piece of gear you'll be replacing soon. If you're not going to upgrade a piece for a while (say tier chest), then I'm all for giving out crystals to get the good enchant. I have very few requests for crystals, and I assume it is because people are afraid to ask.

The basic rule of thumb for this guild is that if I've given you the ability to do something, chances are good I did that intentionally and I want you to use it. I can always remove access if there's a problem down the road.

I just want to make a quick post saying that in addition to videos on tankspot I've made some graphics on our forums depicting what players will be doing on Monday.

Well assuming we get council on monday we'll have killed 6 bosses for the week. On one hand I wish we could have gotten more, but with 10 or so pug spots throughout the week, I can't expect a full clear (side note: recruiting!). It  does seem that every raid we have 2-3 more guild members in the raid, and that's always a good thing, plus the people who have never raided before in cata are really getting the hang of the new instances.

I am ready to switch to my modified loot council system though, and I'm ready to have a guild group that knows the bosses and we don't have to spend time picking up pugs or relearning fights. It's coming along though, and I was patient at the end of wrath, and I'm going to be patient again.

In addition I am doing combat logging nightly and taking my time to sit down with people to help improve their performance.