Congrats New Starcallers and Rust-bound Drake Owners!

Job well done tonight - some very impressive footwork on execution of the fights. Fun times and great to see a new crop of people go through and accomplish the Ulduar achievements and challenges.

The Algalon fight in particular was executed amazingly well with a record clean kill time.

Azeroth saved from re-origination!

There are some finicky points to preventing Azeroth from the reset button called 're-origination'. Namely things like black hole handling and the whole Big Bang.

Last night, KOU handled them with impressive footwork including a couple of pugs. It took a couple of wipes to see and learn the specific footwork demands and the timing of tank swaps -- no, you cannot just sit back in 85 gear and hammer the boss down -- however, once people saw it, it was a beautiful thing to see them execute against it.

Congratulations to all the new Starcallers!

Totemlly Awesome

Some nights, things click just right. Some nights, not at all and your footwork can be completely off, your timing just not right and the simplest of tasks becomes infeasible.

We like Ulduar hard modes for a number of reasons: it's a great fun raid environment to be in with a bunch of friends in a relatively non-stressful setting; it challenges you to execute mechanics with finesse and to respond to changes in the fight and raid leader requests; it requires you to develop the habit of going to learn fight strategies and to become familiar with the tools where you find the same; and most of all, on some fights, it demands exceptionally high "raid handling" or "footwork". ICC is a poor "training ground" for new raiders: the fights are simply just not complex enough as evidenced by the simplicity with which they can now be brute-forced with level 85 gear. Ulduar, on the other hand, has mechanics that have nothing to do with gear - for example, going insane in Yogg's prison with no Keepers. (Of course we also like it because you get a nifty looking mount and titles.)

The other night, after raiding enthusiasm had set in a little too deeply and we were up way too late, we suddenly stopped clicking and kept making small mistakes that prevented us from working the General correctly in hard mode: we would accidentally nick an unseen saronite vapor spawned inside the boss and have to start over; or someone with the Mark would happen to run past a bunch of us and heal the boss enormous amounts.

It was late - we were tired, and we were getting sloppy. True to KOU form, we didn't get upset - rather, we took a breather and gave it another push. We had been making cleaner and cleaner passes at it. This time we executed it perfectly and it was a major rush at the end - as if it were current tier! Not because it was difficult to handle the complete lack of mana re-gen or because the boss fight itself was hard, but rather because our footwork had been impeccable and it was an exemplary personal performance each new raider put in!

We do not have to wait for challenging mechanics like Yogg-Saron to sharpen the saw - we each have an opportunity in every heroic we do to improve on our footwork and in our execution of our role.

As you gear up and rep up in heroics, take as many opportunities as you can to perform each boss fight and each pull with the best footwork and execution that you can - it will serve you well in the demanding fights ahead in Tier 11 and coming in future content releases.

Missing: You!

Last night, we kick started doing raids and raid yoga again together. It was good to stretch out those muscles and habits again and it is the beginning of consistently raiding again. What was missing was most of the guildies. We need you back! Log back on!

As should be expected, the next few weeks will be 'painful' in the sense that we will schedule raids and have fewer people show up than needed - which always has its issues and bumps. Plenty of time has past for people to get to 85, get geared, take some time off, recover from departures and arrivals, and whatever else has impeded us from returning to a steady raid schedule of progression.

Everyone I have spoken to online has requested that we get a raid schedule up and running right away.

So there you have it. The schedule will be going up tonight (it is our 'usual' raid days and times until influenced by people to change it).

Raid 'seats' are going to be given in preference to those who consistently support the raid group -- so please do not show up 'once it is all running smoothly' expecting to take the seat of someone that 'helped get it running smoothly from current state'.

As always, those that do not have 85 mains and are leveling up, will take their place in our raid group once they get appropriately geared (and 85!). However, all those above 60 can contribute now by supporting the legacy raid events.

We will continue to fill empty seats with pugs and by raiding in combination with other guilds -- until we have no more empty seats.

We are raiding again. We need you. Work with us and we will get back up to progression speed sooner.

See you online.

Raid Yoga

Yogg-Saron hard mode is still harder than ICC LK. It has nothing to do with gear or damage; there is fancier footwork and coordination needed with Yogg-Saron. Now that we have enough guildies leveled and geared to form steady Tier 11 raid groups, the challenge in downing the bosses lies in the execution of good responses to raid situational awareness.

Raid yoga helps us practice our raid situational awareness, our good responses and our execution of those responses. For example, the Magmaw fight requires raiders in the ranged/healing group to immediately stop what they are doing and move out of the soon-to-be-erupting flame and requires all the other ranged/healers to be move away as well - all together, preferably. With everything going on, heightened raid situational awareness triggers our recognition that the erupting flame is about to happen or if we missed that cue, that someone has initiated the move to avoid it. The good response is to interrupt casting and move - which often goes against the grain, especially if there is very little left in the cast bar. The awareness, knowledge and discipline to execute that fight properly comes with practice and not from leveling activities. This practice is what we refer to as 'raid yoga'.

You can work on your raid yoga in heroics, in BH and in prior-tier raids such as Ulduar or ICC hard modes. In essence, it is practicing your raiding skills. Take every opportunity you can to hone your skills when not actually in the specific Tier 11 raid fight! There are many opportunities in heroics where you can practice the raid skills - which I believe Blizzard did on purpose. For example, in Stonecore, you need to interrupt casting to jump during Quake; in VP you need to jump to avoid static cling. Every time I run Stonecore or VP, I see people taking damage from Quake or getting static cling - myself included sometimes, too. We can all benefit from honing those skills to make clearing our current progression tier time-effective.

DKP system posted for discussion

A DKP system for use in KOU raids (mainly to keep looting fair and respectful in the combined KOU25 25-man raid and with regards to none-guild members raiding with us) has been posted on the 'Raiding' page of this blog.

The information therein is for discussion so that we can adjust it accordingly (which can include not using DKP at all!). It is presented well in advance of being put into implementation to give us copious time to discuss. Please take this time to familiarize yourselves with it and discuss with the guild officers. We will, additionally, have this as a topic of discussion in the next open town hall meeting within the next 14 days.

All DKP balances are currently set to zero - we recognize that the Earlier Starting (ES) raid group is still gearing up and the purpose of the system is a suggestion on how to keep the looting in the combined 25-man equal - not lop-sided to the Later Starting (LS) raid group which has started raiding. We may decide to give it a dry run in the LS raid group and then reset values to zero in a few weeks when both raid groups are 'online' for raiding current progression content. We will be very careful to not give one group or another any advantage over the other - again, it is meant to keep clear and present that looting in the 25-man is fair and that looting in either 10-man or 25-man is fair to non-guild members.

Take the time to discuss and make suggestions.