Plan B

As most of you know, the officers have tried for several weeks now to help fill out our 25-man raid.  Regardless of our efforts, however, we seem to be losing people just as fast as we're gaining them, if not faster. 

At this point, most of the people that want to raid heroics (and are good at it) are comfortably in guilds already clearing most of the heroic content, and are either riding the rest of the expansion where they are, or have gotten the "end of expansion blues" and are taking some time off until MoP.

This has been making it increasingly difficult for us to find people still wanting to push heroics.

One of the problems was our late start on this tier of content.  We were changing from a 10-man to a 25-man raid. Ben and I moved and were stuck in a hotel for a while. So we didn't really get started until late February. This put us behind everyone, and gave us a disadvantage at recruiting people from the very start.

Due to lack of attendance for the last few weeks, we haven't gotten to do any heroic progression. That's not fair to anyone in the raid.

So, with a heavy heart, we have decided to do two things:

1. Keep the 25-man raid going, but allow everyone to bring any of their characters that they choose. This raid will be held on Monday evenings, 8-11pm, and will be a quick and fun run-through on regular difficulty. Free rolls.

2. Start a 10-man heroic raid in our regular raid spots (Thurs/Sun 8-11pm). This raid will be focused solely on heroics, and won't be doing a full clear until we get heroic Madness down. Loot council.

This way, at least some people are getting some heroic progression, rather than none. 

We have every intention of keeping this guild a 25-man raiding guild come MoP. Those of you that stick around (and hopefully keep coming to the 25-man on one of your characters) will be the "first cut" picks for the 25-man when MoP comes out. A lot of people will be coming back to the game, choosing that time to change guilds, etc. and recruiting for the 25-man should be no problem. And anyone that sticks around from now till then will have a guaranteed raid spot, assuming that you can keep attendance and performance up.

There is a signup thread for those of you that want to apply for the 10-man, which will begin this week. You'll have until Tuesday to sign up. But before you mindlessly sign up, please read the requirements AND ask yourself if you're really wanting to continue to push heroics for the rest of this expansion (even after we get Madness down, we'd like to go back and do some of the earlier heroic tiers from this expansion, as well as some achievements). Some of you may have been continuing only out of a sense of obligation, and really wanted some time off. Or maybe you've gotten addicted to Diablo III, and want to play that a while. This is your chance. We only want serious, dedicated signups for the 10-man. People with both high attendance and high performance, so we can do as well in Heroic DS as I know we can.

There are more than 10 exceptional players in our 25-man raid. Keep in mind that we're going to want a few more than 10 players, though, so that we can do some switches for certain fights, raid composition, etc. Anyone that doesn't get put into that week's rotation will still have the option of the full, regular clear on Monday nights.

We did everything in our power to keep up the 25-man... even kept it going a few weeks longer than we should have, after we noticed how hard it was to find more like-minded recruits. Our apologies for letting it get stagnant these last few weeks while we tried to convince ourselves we could still find people. So thank you all for your patience.

While I know that we may lose a few people over this, we hope that you'll consider sticking around even if you don't make it into the 10-man (or don't choose to apply). Plan B really is a guild full of good people, and our 25-man regular runs should be a fun way to ride it out till the next expansion -- which we have every intention of hitting hard and fast, plowing into heroic content as early as possible.

Signup to be considered for the 10-man heroic raid here. Remember - think it over first, but you only have until Tuesday, so that we can get started this week.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact an officer.

After a couple heartbreaking 8% wipes on Thursday, and an incredible 0.8% wipe earlier in the night, we finally downed this bitch. Flawless performance in the end. Great job on everyone's part pulling everything together.

I'll get right down to it, because I have quite a bit of information to get out.

Last night following the raid, we had a discussion with several members who had some excellent ideas on how to improve the way in which we conduct our raids. Afterward, we had a an officer meeting to determine what to implement and how to implement it. In the words of Michael Bolton, "Boys, let's get to it."

We'll be eliminating the Veteran rank and changing it to Raid Assist. These individuals will be responsible for evaluating certain classes and specs. They will need to familiarize themselves with World of Logs and CompareBot to analyze the performance of our raiders. They'll look at why people died or took excess damage. They'll look at what abilities are used when and how often in comparison to the top raiders on our server (I suggest using a member of Refined, as that is the current standard). They'll also compare our raiders specs, gems, enchants, and reforges to the accepted standard (i.e. Mr. Robot, WoW Reforge, Elitist Jerks, Noxxic). Officers will also share this duty.

Raid Assists and Officers will also be assigned individuals in the raid who may need some extra TLC, whether this be help with their DPS, consistently dying on certain encounters, poor HPS, or whatever. They will conduct an analysis of this individual's performance as described above and work with them one-on-one to help them improve.

Effective immediately, rank requirements are as follows:

• Officer: The whims of your leadership.
• Raid Assist: 90% attendance and 75% percent of limit as tracked on our 25-Man Raiders spreadsheet.
• 25-Man Raider: 75% attendance.
• 10-Man Raider: As dictated by the raid lead.
• Member: 1 million guild activity.

Note that a player may have a character with a rank of 10-Man Raider and 25-Man Raider if they meet the qualifications for both.

Guild repairs will be turned off for Member rank. This serves two purposes: 1) As this is a raiding guild, we want to reward those members who raid and maintain attendance. 2) We would also like to use the guild's gold to run contests and give rewards. As such, Officers have the added responsibility of organizing guild events. As a team, they are expected to organize and run a guild contest at least once a month. The prize can be anything from gold to items in the guild bank to whatever. We do appreciate everyone's contributions to the guild, but in the long run, I think it will benefit us more to be able to organize contests and give out gold for prizes than simply giving free repairs to everyone. Also, keep in mind you can maintain 75% attendance while sitting on the bench, even if you don't raid a single night.

We will continue to recruit until we have a stable roster of 30 players with 90% attendance and who are performing at a level that will see us down hardmode Deathwing before this expansion is over. Raiders with a low percent of limit will be replaced with those who are able to perform at the heroic level. Healers who are constantly blowing up the raid, dying at inopportune times, or have an HPS considerably lower than the rest of the heal team will be replaced by those who don't. However, we will also take the time to help our raiders improve. Our Officers and Raid Assists will do everything in their power to ensure you are doing what you're supposed to be doing and have the tools you need to succeed.

The rest is up to you.

If you are interested in being a Raid Assist and meet the qualifications, talk to an Officer. And, as always, If you have any question, concerns, or parables, we'll be happy to address them.

Thanks.

2 April Update: Obvious April Fools joke is obvious, but it was fun nevertheless!

Upon the launch of Mists of Pandaria, Plan B will be renamed Plan Panda; we have the name reserved and ready to go. We will be changing ranks now to reflect:

1. Boss Panda
2. Co-Panda
3. Sensei Panda
4. Big, Fat Panda
5. Fat Panda
6. Big Panda
7. Panda
8. Baby Panda
9. Wannabe Panda (for anyone who doesn't race change)
10. Alt Panda

We hope that these change will really make Plan B standout and bring even more mature, respectful members into our fold.

As always, if you have any suggestions or concerns, please address them to a Sensei Panda.

Several weeks ago, Morgreal approached me about finding a home for some of her friends. I don't remember the exact reason why they were leaving their old guild, but Morgreal knew that we had a great group of people here, and figured they'd find themselves in good company. They had a 10-man raid that planned to continue its progression upon joining us. I didn't see anything wrong with it, as long as they understood the principles under which Plan B was founded. She didn't think there would be any problems and, if there were, she trusted that we'd do the right thing when handling them. She also assured me that they wouldn't be poaching members from our 25-man raid to join them, and they'd recruit their own members.

So we got a few new members, and time passed without incident--or word of what was going on, apparently. My fault for not being more forthcoming about it.

It was almost as if an uneasy truce existed, with these strange new faces on one side of the fence, and our regular 25-man and 10-man raiders on the other. For whatever reason, no one was willing to break silence.

Then Warlug, Morgreal's fiance, transferred servers to raid with her and help lead the raid. Several more individuals were recruited to add to their roster. Then the hushed whispers began. Who are these strangers? Why are they here? What do they want from us?

They are simply a group of friends who liked the idea of Plan B and have gathered together to raid under our collective banner. I've spoken with Warlug, who comes from a 8/8 DS HM raiding guild. He has experience in all of Cataclysm's raids and oftentimes runs them for achievements. He's also willing to schedule achievement runs for the guild. Feel free to sign up. Feel free to see if they have alts who want to do 5-mans, raids, or achievements.

In short, please make them feel welcome.

As always, if you have any issues, questions, or concerns, please do not hesistate to talk to an officer. And, might I add, please talk to an officer first rather than attempting to handle them yourself.

Congratulations, Káleios!

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

It's official. Plan B is now a hardmode raiding guild. Let's think about that...

/waves his fingers in the air like Wayne and Garth

Doodly-do, doodly-do, doodly-do.

Putting it into perspective, we didn't become a 25-man raiding guild until Dragon Soul. We were still filling out our roster when 4.3 launched. The holidays left us short-handed, struggling to fill raids due to the real life commitments of our raid members: holidays, dinners, time with the family. You know what I mean. Distractions.

I'd say we didn't get serious about progression until January. Even then, we only raid two nights a week for three hours each. That's six hours a week.

But what if we didn't?

Let's pretend we're Engima, the #4 raiding guild in the US. Let's pretend we raid four hours a night, four nights a week, or 16 hours a week.

Where would we be?

Since the launch of patch 4.3, it took us approximately 84 hours of raiding Dragon Soul to down Heroic Morchok. If we raided as often as Enigma, we would've downed Heroic Morchok December 18, 2012. That's less than two weeks behind Refined, the #1 guild on our server, and that includes the month of little-to-no progress during the holidays and during our transition to 25-man raiding.

That makes me hella proud of you guys, this guild, and the team we've built. Yes, we raid only two nights a week, but if you do the math, our progression is on par with some of the best raiding guilds out there, and we don't have to give up our social lives or neglect our children to do it.

Yeah, yeah. I'm forgetting the 10% nerf. I don't care. Given the time and dedication, I'm certain we would've adapted our strat and downed the SOB, nerf or not.

Plan B isn't a great guild because of the leaders. It's a great guild because of the officer team we were lucky enough to find and because everyone in the guild pushing each other to improve, making us laugh, or cracking the whip when it's time to put on our focus hats. It's why the first thing I do when I get home from work is strip out of my uniform and log on. Sometimes naked. Just kidding. Seriously, though, I do.

As always, if there is anything you think we can be doing better as a guild, negative feedback is appreciated just as much as positive.

Thanks.

Happy New Year, Plan B!

It's been an extremely hectic month for Iophiel and me. Between the holidays, a move across the country, and buying a new house, we haven't had much time to spend in-game. I know I've already said it once in the forums, but a big THANK YOU goes out to our officers for keeping things running smoothly in our absence. We love you guys. Things will remain chaotic until we're able to move into our house (closing date is Feb 10), but we'll try to be around as much as possible.

On a similar note, we found out when we got here that the far western tip of Texas is in the mountain time zone. That puts us two hours ahead of server time, which means I will probably be an hour or so late for most Thursday raids, depending on how hectic work gets. I talked it over with the other officers, and the solution for now is to 24-man the first couple bosses until I get home from work. I think that's a better option than changing raid nights to suit one person, and I know we're more than capable of doing it. If we need to, we'll adjust accordingly, but I plan to keep raid nights the same unless the majority decide otherwise.

I've also heard rumblings that not everyone is content with 25-man raids. I can understand that some people prefer the 10-man environment. Whatever the reason, I think it's better for everyone involved to give you the option of 10-man or 25-man raiding rather than forcing people into something they'd rather not do.

As a result, the officers talked it over and decided to start a 10-man raid on Tues/Wed, 8-11 pm, led by Diskord. This also gives those who aren't able to make Thurs/Sun the opportunity to raid. Priority will go to mains, and we will fill in the gaps with alts and pugs as necessary. Whether you raid Tues/Wed or Thurs/Sun is entirely up to you. Like I said, we'd rather you do what you enjoy.

World of Warcraft consists of two types of raiders. One really enjoys the challenge that raiding gives them and focuses on progression before socializing. They will always be ready for a raid, because that's how you progress; you know your character, you study theorycraft and logs, and you focus on being the best that you can possibly be. The second type of raider enjoys socialization and having fun over progression. They don't spend hours and hours studying their character and learning the optimal rotation, because that's not what makes the game fun for them. And there's nothing wrong with either type. We all enjoy the game a different way, and we want to accomodate both types in Plan B.

The 25-man raid will continue to focus on progression. We will recruit and build our roster until we have 25 consistent raiders with a like mindset, who know enough about their character and class to back it up. These will be the players who would like to eventually see hardmode content. 

The 10-man raid is ultimately Diskord's baby, but our intent is to focus it toward those people who want to raid a bit more casually and socially or who simply can't make the Thurs/Sun raid because of a schedule conflict.

There is no "A Team" or "B Team." Neither of these teams is "better" than the other. They are merely focused on different things. 

I also want to take this time to remind everyone of the two principles upon which we founded this guild: 1) have integrity and 2) treat others with respect. I think some people may be losing sight of this, and both I and the other officers will step in as necessary and talk to those who need talking to. Please keep these principles in mind on a daily basis.

As always, we are more than open to any suggestions to improve the guild. More than anything else, I want YOU to have fun and enjoy your time in Plan B, whether that be chatting in guild, questing, achievements, or dungeons and raiding. That comes before anything else. Please contact me, Iophiel, or any of the officers if you have complaints, suggestions, or parables which you'd like to share.

This week, the individual with the most weekly guild activity received 5,000 gold and, more importantly, bragging rights as the winner of our first ever guild-sponsored contest. Many tried, but in the end, one druid proved too much for anyone to overcome, alts or no alts included.

Congratulations, Lilacblossom.

Thanks to everyone who gave it their best. Hopefully, you got to spend a little more time in guild dungeon runs, arena, etc. getting to know some new people. If not, you can sleep peacefully knowing that this week definitely helped to expedite our journey to guild level 25.