Bring out your dead!

Our strategy for downing the Stone Guard includes a very important preliminary activity of covering the ground in bones! - Beartooth

Survey: Raider Availability

All of our raiders and raiders in the iRaid group, please take the very brief moment to complete and submit the survey so that we can take your preferred raiding times into account as we consider changes (if any are required) to the raiding schedule! Last time we checked was back in August and we have new raiders and we also understand some of you have noted other nights you are also available.

Thank you! - Beartooth

Survey is located here.

Stone Guard down!

nicely done everyone!

-Beartooth

MoP - with a BANG!

Always fun times when you see so many KOU people ranked in the top ten for their class and spec - some in the top one or top two for their class! ALSO exceptionally fun when the guild is ranking 5th on the server!

This week we did not have a guild group working through MSV as some of our team is still gearing or leveling. However, our KOU-lead pug has made better progress than most guilds on the server, and world! Last night we dropped Gara'Jal to 19% before we ran out of time on the raid clock for the evening.

It was brilliant fun and solid to raid with some like-minded raiders who typically are saved to their own guilds' raids.

More fun to follow!

- Beartooth

Cata Raid Success!

We accomplished all of the raiding goals that we set as a raid group for the Cataclysm expansion.

That is worth repeating: we accomplished everything we set out to do, and we accomplished it as a group. Of course there are always circumstances that lead to some raiders needing to leave and some new raiders joining the raid group; however, for the most part, the raid group that is closing out Cataclysm is largely the same raid group that started out our raiding during this expac. That is a huge accomplishment in of itself.

Why were we successful - despite a late start - in our raiding and in accomplishing them as a stable raid group? Simply, because of each and every one of our raiders! Everyone embraced and took to heart our raiding culture of keep it respectful and fun, be reliable, perform - or as I often remark, "do what you say you will do, and do it well."

Our raiding goals included:

• establish and preserve a respectful and fun environment - CHECK!
• provide a reliable and stable weekly raid and foster reliability in our raiders' attendance and performance - CHECK!
• do what you say you will do, and do it well! - CHECK!
• structure the raid group (iRaid) so that it crosses guild boundaries and provides fair and common sense-driven raid leading and loot distribution - CHECK!
• reward reliability - CHECK! (two raid mounts have already been distributed)
• clear all content for the expansion - CHECK!
• obtain at least one current tier legendary - CHECK!
• successfully begin Heroic raiding - CHECK!
• down Ragnaros - CHECK!
• down "xpac final boss" - CHECK!
• cover raiding 'costs' as a raid group (repairs, flasks, feasts, etc) - CHECK!

We succeeded in landing in the top 50 of several hundred raiding guilds on our server. Our peers in server standings raid the current tier multiple times per week whereas we raid it only one night a week.

We succeeded multiple times in having guildies rank as #1 on the server or in the top ten - without having to become a 'hard core' 6-nights a week raid group.

We repeatedly encountered something new and overcame it shortly thereafter - be it a new boss, a new achievement, a heroic version.

We successfully morphed around players' interests to try out new raid roles and new characters while preserving our overall raid performance and raid roster.

We did what we said we would do, and we did it well!


(On a personal note, "thank you" from your raid leader for such an awesome year and such an amazing group of people to raid with!)

Mists Strategy

Below is the link to the document containing details discussed last night and expanding on the high-level strategy going into Mists xpac (release date 9/25).

Mists Strategy

Don't forget to complete the survey linked in the previous post.

Survey to Assist in Scheduling Raids

As we tend to do at least each year, we have posted a survey to assist us in ensuring that we schedule raids at times that are best suited to the personal schedules of the raiders. With the coming expansion in less than two months, and a new Fall season schedule for many, we would like to confirm when are the best times to schedule raids.

Please complete the survey.

Thanks!

July 2012: Summer, end of xpac, storms, diablos, mists

June and July have seen, as usual, the downturn in online presence that summer always brings and this year it is compounded by the beta for the near releasing Mists, the released-and-long-awaited Diablo III, brutal storms that have decimated the Eastern region with power outages, and of course, the pull of family fun during the sun!

Yet, we have seen a larger than usual online presence, and we have seen the downfall of Ragnaros and Madness of Deathwing.

Our goal was to see those people presently raiding downing Rag and DW before the release of Mists - and this has been achieved!

There has been a steady influx of new people into the guild and despite the summer usual downturn, we have a strong enough presence - storms aside - to continue raiding and having fun.

Several people are "wrapping up" or "working on" different things and can be found online very regularly. Others are on more sparsely and are suitably enjoying family and summer fun.

We are looking forward to seeing the new end game in Mists later this year and getting into the groove of exploring the new content and raids. Blizzard has re-designed the end game so that there is more to do at level 90 than there ever was before at 85, 80, 70, or even 60.

Good times, now and ahead!

6th Guild Anniversary

On April 14th, 2006, the guild charter was completed and the present guild formed. Last night, in celebration of the guild's 6th birthday, we lived the moment. Thank you Novastorm and crew for throwing a great pre-raid birthday party! It has been a long time since I have seen many of those trinkets, toys, and special effects - and it is always good to see them pulled out en masse!

A grand party!

Once the 'clean up' was complete, we had one of the best and most fun nights of raiding in Firelands that we have ever had. Brilliant!

Happy birthday to KOU, and to all present and former KOU members!

Boss Down!

Fun, quick clear to Yogg, down he went on second attempt and mounts for everyone! W00t!

iRaid website

If you are looking for the iRaid website:

https://sites.google.com/site/iraidalleria/

DS 10M started...

A week ago, we were not fielding even 5 KOU guildies into current raids. Last night, we had a KOU (8/10) DS 10m raid kick off it's first night and we even had one KOU guildie away last night. So a week later we are standing at capable of fielding 9/10. Good progress for 7 days.

The sheer preparation for getting to the point where we could zone in with legitimate expectations of downing a boss and making progress was intense and rewarding to see. Congratulations to all that participated and made it happen. A lot of work went into it before we ever even zoned in. Keep it up.

More work is needed. Everyone should know the fights - information that is published in the common sources such as FatBoss TV (YouTube), Wowhead.com, tankspot.com, wow forums, and your favorite boss strat website. It is, of course, not enough to know that Morchok has a spell - Stomp - which you can watch the effect of, and hear about on FatBossTV, and read about on wowhead.com in the Morchok write-up, you have to act on that knowledge when you are in the raid. If you are outside the range of his Stomp, you are not affected by it -- which given the ability, may or may not be a good thing! The point is that you should know that. In the raid, we can discuss how we are going to respond as a raid to the encounter, we should not be spending time explaining what the encounter is as this is not only time-consuming and unlikely to register correctly the first time, it is a strong indicator that you are not prepared.

Reviewing the logs: the tanks are geared enough and need to work on their footwork and the smoothness of their managing the series of events that are a boss fight; the healers are geared enough and need to work on casting the right spells rightly (timely and on the right targets) and to always be casting (interrupt those casts if you do not want to finish the cast but always have one loading up to deliver); and, the dps is mostly geared enough (some need to gather more gear and we knew this and that was fine with overall raid gearing) and need to work on eeking out more dps by having more uptime on targets and stronger execution of their rotations/priorities. ALL of this is standard, published information either in the boss fight strategy write ups or videos and the handling of your class' role and performance is well documented and advised in the wow forums for your class.

Which is to say, we need to work on our footwork, people -- it isn't the dance clothes that make us look stilted and rough on the dance floor.

This is good news. We have the right people with the right track record of looking at what we can do better and then doing it better each time.

What I would like to avoid, is people zoning in next week with little or no additional work on their footwork. Take the next several days to make some personal progression so that we can make some raid progression next week.

Start by watching the FatBossTV fight videos for each boss... at least 3x times. THEN go read about the fights. Then go read about your class in your role in those fights. Then go watch the fights again! Then run those fights in LFR in your role. As you are doing them, pay attention to where LFR is different than 10m. Watch for boss timers. After you run LFR for VP, run it again, and likely again, until you can predict what abilities the boss will cast and when and what effect you expect it to have.

When you can anticipate that the raid group's health is going to collectively plummet within 25 yards of Morchok and that the two closest characters to Morchok will take twice as much damage as everyone else, whether you are a tank, a healer, or a dps, you will be the better enabled to help your raid seamlessly transition from pulling the boss to looting the boss.

This week, work on your footwork and envision seamlessly transitioning from pulling the boss the looting the boss.

Go be awesome and bring it next week!

Smoking Hot!

Outstanding work last night! We formed a Saturday night raid group by recruiting awesome people into it that are just a pleasure to spend time with and then stepped into Firelands. For almost half of the group it was the first time entering Firelands yet we still cleared our way through up to the fourth boss in the limited time we played for.

Fabulous performances by all! We have made some new friends and had a blast. We fully expect to clear the first few bosses much faster next week now that everyone knows the fights first hand.