Things your raid leader shouldn't have to say...

...that you need to know anyway.

1. Do not sign up on multiple toons for a single raid. I know who your alts are and if I need them, I will bring them. You should read the fucking calendar invite and note where I spelled out "Accept on your main only."

2. Don't presume to dictate the raiding schedule for the night to me. Nearly everyone else has shied away from handling this job. If I get all the headaches, I also get final say on what we're doing and I don't give a shit if your alts want something from a particular fight. You might feel like a princess, but that doesn't make you one.

3. If you don't sign up for a raid more than once a month, you will not get preference for the one time you do happen to get around to doing that. Quite the contrary, I will consider you dead last.

4. If you always sign up as tentative you're sending me a message, and it's not a positive one. Want to know what tentative means to me? It means you're a lazy asswipe who thinks that he can sneak around the rules but no, I see what you're doing. And I am not impressed. Even if you're not trying to sneak around the rules, it tells me that you are unreliable and that's just really not who I need in my raids.

5. Our raid schedule isn't complicated. At all. It's also been on the calendar for a month. Don't get on and start asking clueless questions such as "Are we raiding tonight? Where are we going? Am I confirmed?" That information is as available to you as it is to me and I'm not here to hold your hand every step of the way.

6. Hanging around trying to snipe a raid spot doesn't impress me at all. I will always, always go to people I've put on standby first.

7. Sign up and show up, means just that. There are no hidden clauses or secret rules in there. My rules apply to everyone equally. Along with that, "be ready" means I don't want to wait for you to repair or make potions or buy a gem off the AH. Again, these raids are not surprises and no one is forcing you to come. You chose to come, you damn skippy better follow through.

8. If we have done a fight many times, don't pretend that you're in there for the first time. You know what your role should be and you know what the important targets ought to be. You also know our kill order. So don't focus on the unmarked mob when we have a skull right there.

9. Don't talk over me in vent. Ever. If I am explaining a fight to the new guy, wait until I ask if there is anything else that should be noted. If I am passing out loot, I don't care to hear over vent that you're passing or you like the looks of those particular pixels. Just, really, shut up and bid when I say to. Blather all you want on easy trash pulls or on boss fights that we can do with our eyes closed, but otherwise show some respect.

10. Don't stand in the fire/green crap/black holes/blue lines of doom/red circles/clouds of putrid/whatever else Blizz throws at us. If you can't make it through a raid without my barking at you to move outta the damn hurty stuff, you maybe shouldn't be raiding. Because it is not my job to watch my feet and those of nine other people, if I think I can get away with it, I will not say anything and let you die of your own dumb and hope that maybe next time you'll remember. More and more, that hope is frail and wasted and you are making me die inside.

Leadership from three angles

I know all of this has been covered elsewhere, likely by people far more clever than me. But recent events have made me stop and compile everything I know about leadership and from all the angles in which I have experienced leadership. I don't expect this to be groundbreaking by any means, but I wanted to organize my thoughts.

Leadership from the bottom
  
In my real life job, I unfortunately have been working in non-leadership roles for the past several years. So I know what it is like to feel like the under-appreciated, unknown, faceless and nameless cog in the business machine. From down here, it is certainly tempting to believe that everyone who is in a supervisory role has perks that I will never get.

In the position I held before this one, I was expected to keep the phone/desk covered at all times, along with another secretary in the department. This meant having to coordinate lunches with her and being as punctual as I could be. If either of us made it to work a little late, that was a problem. Leaving early was nearly out of the question. And God forbid we ever wanted the same day off or both happened to get sick at the same time! To see every other person in the department strolling in whenever they felt like it, taking long lunches, going to the gym mid-day, being able to go to the bathroom without having to clear it with someone else first (no wonder I hated that fucking job), yeah, they had perks that came from their position.

However, I made a lateral transfer to another department where the requirements are different, and suddenly the game has changed. I take long lunches. I can come in a little late and work over to make up for it. I don't have anyone making me dress up 5 days a week. I also get stuck with all the grunt work no one else wants to do and I see my supervisor abusing the living hell out of his "Exempt" status (no one has as much sick time as he takes). There still seem to be perks I will never have.

I have to assume that there are parts of these leadership positions that are less desirable. Perhaps dealing with the budget or attempting to steer an agenda through the turbulent waters of campus politics is more onerous than I imagine.

Still, it's difficult to respect most middle management here - the "officers" of the business world. There are some who clearly watch out for their teams, but there are just as clearly some who play favorites or seek only their own interests. Some seem to be completely checked out as far as interest in their jobs. Sometimes the person watching out for their team might also be the same person who then plays favorites among them.

So what are the bright spots for a lowly grunt? What are the positives I have seen from management here and how might I be able to take that and translate it into watching out for my guildies? What should I avoid because it'll make me look like a jerk? Here are things I would like to tell my boss (only without the WoW references, obviously).

Extra special guest post edition

As the Raid Turns, So do the DPS of our Lives

Hi My name is Jinx Deluna, luckily I know Alas in real life and spend many moments in front of her desk going over whatever raid we've been in or whatever is on my mind. She usually has a kind word to say, gives the pep talk and life is good for me. Well it has been Christmas break, days off sick, and I haven't gotten my Alas time in a few weeks. Then the cookie began to crumble for me and I was getting close to hanging up my raiding keyboard for a simple questing life somewhere else. I had the opportunity to talk to her today and well my mind has been put at ease, to a degree and here's what was going down.

So several nights ago, we are hitting new areas of Ulduar for our guild and I find myself eating pavement as 9 other people killed the boss with joy in their voices and a dead druid on the ground. Three times this happened, once ok, twice ugh, the third time, I see a pattern here. In order for the raid to kill the boss, Jinx must kiss the ground and watch as her buddies take down that boss that we've been struggling over. Dude, I'll take one for the team but my mind says, “You're not good enough, your dps sucks anyway and if someone else had died you couldn't use your battle res cuz your dead on the ground. What good are you?” Then that other quiet but reasonable voice says, Blame it on the healers! And how many times has Asmod died two nights before? And how many times did Noxy have his own macro by the healers because he died all the time? Ok maybe it's not so bad…maybe…

Then last night OMG everything hit like a brick. First Noxy is sick and I'm at his house trying to take care of a runny nose, fever running, sick boyfriend and his only wish, “Please go to the raid and have fun, it's ok, really.” I roll my eyes fine, I'll go.

I show up early as usual, do a few dailies, and notice from the FU that I'm not in a channel that Alas has, I join it through the FU and type: So, where are we headed tonight? It didn't show up. I typed it a second time and again, it didn't appear. Fine, I checked my settings and it doesn't show up that I'm a part of this channel WTF? Check it off and ask a third time, So, where are we going night? What I didn't realize was that Alas did see it post and answered and just because my chat window didn't show it, hers was. No one tried whispers or anything to clarify, so what's up with her snarky remark that I did see? “What about my post Jinxy” or something to that effect. What post? Oh the Kiss My Alas page, went back found the post, it reads something to the effect of things that piss me off: “when someone asks hours before raid where were going.” It wasn't hours, it was 30 minutes. I want to feel useful, like I'm contributing something, so, now I'm pissed and trying to figure out what I've done wrong to get a snarky remark.

(Note from Alas: I feel bad about about that, but it's also sort of funny in a comedy of errors sort of way) 

Then from there it went downhill. Tanks pulled agro without a raid leader designating where ranged DPS is supposed to watch, a pally ran out of mana asking for innervate - what if I needed it, get your own damn mana, I don't care if you are the tank and are you using Divine Plea, oh wait, I'm almost full, fine, have the damn thing. (Remember, I'm already pissed and normally this doesn't bother me in the least). Then add almost wiping on a trash pull because people weren't gathered on the stairs and the biggest thing Star or X? Which one dies first? I don't want to ask on each pull which mob has to die first, why can't we use skull and X…EVERYONE else in the game does. So I watch the health bars and see our DPS is split. WTF can we have a little bit of freaking consistency here, is that too much to ask? Please?

(Note from Alas: Bad raid leader is bad. Since it was only the weekly [XT-002], I was being lax. Thought that surely people had a handle on what to kill, when. But Jinx is right. There is not a lot of consistency since the star mark is only for what a certain person is tanking and doesn't signal anything other than that. Sometimes we need to take down the starred mob first, sometimes it's the X. We're going to have to switch back to skull, X or simply say that star = skull so it has to go down first, I don't give a damn who is tanking the mob.) 

So I vent this out at Alas's desk today with most of the day to cool off and I am actually finding the humor in it, I also found some truth. We need the consistency in raids, people need to know where they are supposed to stand or what is expected. I don't need the mechanics of the fight but tell me which adds to watch for, folks need to make sure the healers have mana, and for goodness sakes what is a damn ready check for? *smile* OH I get it, just for shits and grins? LOL…one last thing: WHO DIES FIRST?

We have an awesome team of folks that raid. I do enjoy the game and raiding. I fuss over my DPS like it is an only child and feel that everyone is watching Jinx and asking, Why does she get to come to raids, her DPS is the shit. In reality It's not horrible since I'm a hybrid but everyone else pulls 3500 to 6000 and I'm pulling 2700 to 4000. I feel so inadequate sometimes.  I leaned over Alas's desk and said, “But my dick isn't big enough”. She leans in and says, “But it's a hybrid dick…it is ok.”

Fine, I'll take care of the sick boyfriend until he's recovered, then I'll belly back up to the raiding bar again and take my hybrid dick and kill what I can kill and not fret over the other stuff. …Well, I'll still fret because it is my OCD but hopefully I will not let the mind chatter muddy the waters.

Jinx

Note from Alas: And here we are, letting this site be a place to rant. For the record, other guildies who come here, you all can guest post any time. It makes me lol and helps me learn what's important to you and why.  

I like to worry in advance

Because that's also how I roll.

There was some discussion in the officer's channel last night about people asking about raiding, saying they wanted to. Which, you know, great. But also, I feel as though we're looking down the barrel of a gun that's about to go off.

Between various websites and discussions, I've counted up several raiders potentially coming back soon. Several of them are excellent and I look forward to getting a chance to raid with them again. The others, meh, they've been at the center of some drama (of the mild, loot/raid spot variety) more than once. Or they've been really lazy about small requirements, like signing up at the guild forums and reading and agreeing to the raid rules. Also, they're mostly dps. DPS. We don't need more dps.

At the same time, Azzah is coming back. Which, yes, I told him to because I wanted some totems to make sweet, sweet love to, and he's an excellent healer. But along with him comes another dps. A warlock. It used to be that I would murder for ranged dps since we had about 3 billion DKs all wanting to raid like thisismynewmainlol! Now I have one rogue. And 3 billion ranged with more wanting to come back. And people running heroics to gear up and thinking gear = all I need and since they just pug the hell out of things I have never once run with them and I don't know that they have actual skill which is pretty damned important to me.

All of which is to say, yeah, woo, we have like 5-7 people back or threatening to start raiding or come back to the game and they're all going to want to get in on ICC raids and I can't blame them for that. But I don't see giving up my spot or asking anyone else to do the same when we have been the ones working at this for months and months and there every week learning the fight and gearing up before it was all badge purchasable.

I guess I wish Blizz would stop making gear so easy to get because gear doesn't say anything any more about skill. And no, I don't think I'm some elite awesome player. But I know my class and I pull down decent numbers and I have been consistent.

And I don't want to, in the coming weeks, have this perfect, delicate balance that we've finally achieved overthrown by a bunch of fair-weather raiders coming along, buying the gear and expecting to be able to go at the expense of someone who deserves it more. We are not, in all likelihood, going to end up with enough people to man even two full 10-man raiding teams, let alone one 25-man. So there is the very real possibility that within a month, I'm going to be sitting 5-6 people out every night and all I can tell them is:

Team balance first, the appropriate number of tanks, heals and dps and past that it's first come, first serve.

Hopefully I'm worried about nothing, but I don't like the way this is looming on the horizon.

Weekly raid and me

I love me some weekly raid, generally speaking. So far, everything that has come up has been excessively easy to get to and to pwn.

Then yesterday, the thing I had dreaded more than anything else happened.

The weekly raid was Malygos. Eee. Oh. Eee. Our nemesis.

I've mentioned before that it should be an easy fight but that people tend to want to give Malygos hugs while they're on their dragon mounts or not give the tank time to grab aggro on the mobs at the start of phase two or assume that it's everyone else's responsibility to kill those nasty sparks o' doom.

So when I heard from Noxy that the weekly raid was Maly, I started mentally drinking then and there. Had I been not at work, I might have started actually drinking.

Raid time rolled around and I sent out invites and we got everyone summoned out to Colderra. Then I kicked everyone out of the raid, yelled "psyche!" over vent and gquit.

Okay, not really. I did tell everyone to split into two teams though, and that we were going to practice our dragon skills while doing the daily quest Aces High! The healers practiced their healing and the dps practiced their button mashing and every now and again I would bark out "move!" and people would practice strafing to the right. It was delightful, sort of like being in Kindergarten and practicing drawing circles when you know you and all the people with you should be at least at a college equivalent level.

Once both teams had completed the daily we reformed into a raid group and headed in.

The first phase went well enough. Although we didn't manage to actually stack any sparks and in fact killed one before it even reached the platform so that it fell uselessly into the abyss, at least we managed to kill them rather than let them reach Maly. The second phase also went well enough. The two hunter's pets decided to kill the mob that the tank wasn't working on but that was sorted out and no actual raiders were harmed in the process. We also saw our melee dps get up on the discs first, rather than some random healer.

We hit the third phase with just under 4 minutes before enrage and...

...everything worked like a dream. The healers healed and absolutely no one crashed and burned. When I told people to group back up, they did. When I told them to move, there was not a 5 second delay before they did. We one shot Maly with time to spare. Some people even managed to obtain the heart thinger they needed for the quest from the key from when they got that a year or so ago killing Saph. Other people finally obtained their "Champion of the Frozen Wastes" title.

Then we went and kicked Ony's ass and it was very good.

It gives me hope that we'll maybe someday manage to find the time to go finish out the back half of Ulduar. I know we're all capable raiders. The trick is getting everyone to pay attention and understand what exactly they should be doing and when.

Open letter to raiders

Dear, dear raiders.

What the hell?

I am not the raid leader because I love to hear myself talk all night long. Nor do I take it on just to abuse raid warnings and other specially colored text. I also don't get any perks from being the raid leader. If you think being loot master is fun, try doing it sometime when people won't shut. up. in vent while you're trying to talk about what's on the block.

I am the raid leader because I'm practiced at being aware of what is going on throughout the raid and not just in my own little bubble. You think that's easy? Try it sometime. I dare you. Try to call the twins sometime and say everything you have to say at the right time in the right way so that no one else gets confused and takes out the rest of the goddamn raid. Just make sure you try it when I'm not there, because frankly, I see a lot of death.

On top of being able to call out what's about to happen and what people should be avoiding/dispelling/targeting/controlling/hitting/buffing/whatever-the-fuck-else-everying, I am also keeping an eye on such factors as, oh, I dunno, how many people are still up. How far the boss has been burned. Who is kissing the floor, if anyone is. Whether or not we're about to hit a phase where we're going to need big DPS or heals or both. And on and on and on.

Do I get it perfect all the time? Hell no.

But here's the rub for me, after the last few nights: I certainly can't do my job if you all won't stop making decisions on your own. Did I call for a battle rez? No? Then don't do it. How about that heroism? I don't remember saying hey, let's blow heroism right now instead of saving it for later when that other guy over there is going to gain additional abilities. Did I determine the attempt was a wipe? No? Then why the fuck did you DI the tank and take yourself, as a healer, out of action?

If you think you can do a better job of raid leading, by all means, let me know and I'll step back and let you try it. But if you just think that your toolbox is your own and how you use your abilities is a decision that affects only you, think again, dammit. And then shut the hell up so I can communicate what I need to without wading through static and calling for something that isn't available because you decided to waste it two minutes ago.

I would really, really fucking appreciate that.

Love,

Alas

Thoughts on fire magery

I got to looking a little bit more long and hard at my gear, gems and stats last week. I'm not sure what triggered that, other than suddenly obtaining something like five new upgrades all at once and subsequently realizing that - Sweet Fancy Moses - I have a lot of hit. No really. Tons. More than anyone needs.

 

Without bothering to put a whole lot of thought into it initially, I respecced fire. The next day, it occurred to me that I might want to put a little more research into the whole spec changing thing. It's been some time since I was fire - like about a year - and there had been a lot of changes I only half-heartedly kept up with since my focus was on wringing everything I could out of arcane. So I cruised by EJ, talentchic and a random smattering of articles turned up by a Google search. I hadn't misplaced too many points, but there were a few that I thought I should change over. Naturally, I went to respec again and farked up one point so a third outlay of gold later, I was finally happy with my build. 

 

Of course, now that I am writing this, I am contemplating the virtues of dumping Precision and putting some points elsewhere, since I do not at all need the hit. Good thing I have money to burn. 

 

Anyhow, I ran some 5 mans to try to get used to the rotation again and ended up doing a lot of stupid stuff in the process. Hell, I was blinking when I meant to be casting a pyro last night - still! - so it's not like I've really got it all down just yet. (What kills me is that it's not like I've moved blink from its keybinding, so there's no real reason for me to make that mistake as often as I do.)

 

But last night was meant to be the real test of my dps output since last night was the first time I would get to raid since my respec. 

 

So, naturally, the weekly raid was Flame Leviathan. On the plus side, I suggested we leave Freya's tower up, along with Thorim's, thinking that we had downed that stupid piece of metal with two towers still up. Turns out we hadn't, so there were achievements all around, plus a nice epic tailoring pattern that went to me. 

 

With enough time left to run Ony, we put up a portal to Theramore, swapped some people around to get three heals, and headed down. 

 

It was a very sloppy run, and thanks to me being a dumbass, I died on the second deep breath. Still, while I was alive, I wasn't completely displeased with my output. 

 

 There do seem to be a few bugs to work out there. Despite the fact that I had something like 50 iterations of on my screen, I didn't actually get the instant pyro and kept getting hung up on the cast timer, jumping out of it and trying again. But Living Bomb on as many whelps as I could tab to before the bombs all started exploding? Yes, please! I'll have some more! I am looking forward to further experiments with dps output next raid night.

 

In the meantime, I'm on an addons hunt. Hoping there's something out there like "Shock and Awe" for mages. Anyone know of anything that's specific to fire mages that is a must have?  

Le sigh

No sooner do I get done enumerating some of the good qualities of my guildies and then I have to be the bad guy. In truth, I might have acted a bit precipitously, but I think the end result was going to be the same and so perhaps I have only saved myself some headache down the road. Not much point in speculating, I suppose, as there will never be a way to know.

 

Without going into specifics, I ended up stripping someone of their raider rank. So far as I know, they have not logged on since. The conversation we'll have whenever that does happen is one of those talks I mentioned that I do not like having.

 

Ugh.

 

On the heels of that, I was minding my own business, fiddling with the calendar and I noticed that there was suddenly a person missing from every scheduled raid. I combed through the calendar and then the guild roster and then poked at the officers to double check and make sure I hadn't missed something. 

 

And, sure enough, another one of my snowflakes was just... gone. There were no /gquits in the log (which has suddenly filled with "Alas has demoted" messages, most of them playful demotions because an officer was making fun of me) and so I went to Armory and.... nothing.

 

All we can do is speculate on what happened. Did she delete her character? Change names and servers? Was she hacked? All her alts were demoted for safety's sake and it gave me one more thing to sigh about, because she was a healer, even if not the most reliable person in the world.

 

Between those two aforementioned things and the fact that one of my husband/wife healing teams may not be able to afford their subscription fees until he can find work, we are looking very, very slim. I don't particularly want to pug and I hate recruiting and most of the healers we have currently are... not raiding. Or playing.

 

I am trying not to stress over it too much and might need to just gracefully accept that raiding is going to be spotty at best as we head into the holiday season. Once I make it to the new year, I'll be sure to reevaluate where we seem to stand and then do whatever needs to be done. Even if that means clubbing my real life friends over their heads come New Years and tell them that I have resolved that they get back to the game and their mains and not flake out on me within three weeks like they've done the last few times. Or, you know, recruiting.   

Open letter to rule breakers

Maybe it's me. I am pretty anal. But, seriously, guys, c'mon... is it that hard?

You know what I'm talking about. I mean, I'm going to have to work my way around ranks and spend another how many minutes of my life pissing around with moving people up and down and why? Because you're either too damn stupid to have comprehended the raiding rules (rules that YOU signed and agreed to) that said, "only sign up on your main and we'll bring alts in if we need them," or you are so stupid you already forgot about that or, and most likely in my opinion as far as a few of you go, you think that if you sign up on your alt and decline on your main I'll just somehow forget that I wrote those damn rules and have those rules in place for a reason and won't enforce them.

Well, you're wrong. And I'm pissed off because I can't help but see this as pure selfishness on your part. Oh, your one character already got all the loot you can get off this fight? So what? I'm supposed to agree that it's fair for nine other people to have to carry you? Or rearrange what other people can bring based off your different role you think you can just assume? I'm supposed to pat you on the head and give you gear at the expense of someone else's main just because you think, in your mind, that you can have two mains? Or three? Or four?

I don't think so. I really do not.

So now you don't even get the option. Enjoy that.

Pwned a noob!

We just one-shot Anub'Arak and it was most of the guild's first time seeing him. It took a little more to work through the faction champions (three tries) and the twins (like, 6 or 7 tries?). I walked away with two upgrades and then went a bit nuts spending badges. So, that's four things to get enchanted and gemmed tomorrow. For now, I am tired and euphoric and hoping I can get some sleep.

Grats to everyone who was there!

Sarth +1

Last night's 'quickie' turned into more of a 'longie.' (longy? long-y? Look, I know it's not a damn word but still...) We headed out to EoE right away, after some initial shuffling wherein I left my poor mage at the stone and brought in my priest for heals because one of our other priesty heals had real life familial sickness come up and had to care for them. He did send me a note about it, which of course he should have because hi! He's an officer! But damn all if I'm not seriously happy that he is one of the few responsible ones. I think I owe him a cookie.

Um, anyway, dropped my mage, grabbed my priest and picked up a dps. It was a quasi-pug, because the guy I picked up is a former guildy. Indeed, his wife is still in the guild, although not an active raider, and he has come and gone so many times it makes me crazy. Still, he has nice gear and decent dps and totems, so we brought him. 

And proceeded to wipe a few times on Maly. Again. This time, errors included several people trying to go give Maly a big old hug instead of strafing to the right.

...

I have no idea how that even happens, but a few people managed to do it.

Our other significant problem was on phase one. Our only Death Knight had serious lag issues and  most of the other dps seemed to think he was the only person who should be concerned about getting the sparks to drop in the right place. At least, that's how it seemed from the little I could make out in between frantically spamming heals and yelling at the tank to "OMG Noxy! Point his face away from the raid! Away! Everyone else move!" I am sure all would have been much uglier had we not had our helpful druid rooting those damn sparks to the ground. 

After a few tries, my impatience and the aforementioned DK saying he was going to step out so we could get someone without lag issues and my overall unwillingness to subject some random person to a fail pug of repairs, led me to suggest we go try Sarth with a drake up.

Everyone agreed and we went (after swapping out the other mage for a warrior tank) and had some truly epic trash pulls (one tank, all the trash from the front of the room, lolwut) which we weathered beautifully. Pew pew! went the lasers on the first drake. Pew pew! went the lasers on the second drake plus the big guys who pat that far and seriously, I thought everyone knew that, wheee! But no one died and we won and it was very awesome.

We left Tenebron up, of course, because she's supposed to be the easiest one to handle. Our first attempt was somewhat sloppy and we lost half the raid by the time Tenebron was down and still struggled with add roundup and destruction, to the point where my husband and I were alternately calling out: "Healer has adds - get em off!" I was fading every chance I got and bubbling in between and chanting at the tanks: "Don't die, don't die, stop dying!" 

It was delightful. 

We got him to 4% and he enraged and we all died.

The second attempt was beautiful. I was the only person to go down (adds!) and within a few minutes there was a battle rez available. While I was kissing the floor I made sure to call out such helpful advice as "Um, flame wall. Move - uhh, crack!" and "Watch your feet!"

The loot was a damn joke. No one wanted anything except the bag and badges. I suppose there was also a tanking something or other that got picked up. But really, the overall experience was that it wasn't that bad and I don't see a need to ever do Sarth +0. On the flip side, it was enough of a circus that I can't even contemplate the notion of Sarth +2, let alone +3. At least, not on 10-man.  

And through all of that I kept futzing with a new addon since we are going to try the Suicide Kings loot system and see how it goes. As a side note on that, least intuitive opening control panel ever. I must have spent the better part of an hour switching between WoW and the documentation for the addon at the site. And perhaps I missed it in the general frustration and trying to keep up with multiple conversations in game, and goddamn lua errors spamming the hell out of my UI, and everything else that was going on, but no where did I see anything that told me to click the icon in the top left  that totally looks like it's just there for decoration to flip through menus. 

On the plus side, I was the GM for about 45 minutes. Or, as we like to call it in WWAB, the Co-Queso Grande. 

Seriously?

So Tuesday and Thursday are 'quickie' nights in my guild. This is mostly because I manage the calendar and I am lame and sometimes think I am funny. The reason for these 'quickie' nights is the fact that our raider base is spread all the way the hell across America and up into Canada a bit. Most of us are Central time people, but there are a fair few of us on either coast as well. As a guild of mostly (really, all) adults, with jobs and kids and other Responsible Things To Do in the Morning, we have to work pretty hard at finding times that we can all overlap enough to have at least 10 people on and able to raid. 

Hence, quickies. The balance is found somewhere among two West Coasters, two Midwesterners and one East Coaster. And there's about an hour in all that overlap that we can head into one of the fast raids, maybe two if we do well.

Last night started off great. We headed out and murdered Ony in one shot, no deaths, no stupid, and a shiny new achievement because for once no one got hit with the deep breath flamey thing. Loot went quickly as always and I looked at the time and then my map. It appeared that we were in possession of Wintergrasp so I proposed that we all hustle our asses out to Vault. Only thing is that when we stepped through my portal to Dalaran there was no "Yay, you have Wintergrasp" buff in my buff bar. Looking again at the map, the dirty rotten horde had control. And we had two options.

"It's EoE or Sarth with a drake up," said I. "And if it's EoE, we're gonna have to lose a tank."

So we voted and shuffled and one of our tanks grabbed her mage and we asked another mage to grab her shaman and headed out to EoE.

Now, in case the two paragraphs above did not make it really clear, we're sort of a casual group with a lot of alts and we still struggle with stupid fights, like EoE and Sarth with a drake up. I think this is mostly because we haven't really tried to master these fights until just recently, and were giving most of our raiding attention to the long raids, like Naxx and Ulduar. But I know if we practice we can usually get something down and on farm status swiftly. Or swiftly for a casual guild. I mean, we went from many wipes a night on Ony to about three to walking in and one-shotting within about a month. 

Anyway, I was riding the high and thought that surely we would be able to make some progress on Malygos. We did okay on the first try. DPS was a little slow on the first phase and we failed to get all our melee up on the discs before ranged/healers started hopping on in the second phase. The third phase was an unmitigated disaster.

There must be something hard to comprehend about stay together, omg, I mean right fucking on top of each other and why the hell is someone way off on their own? If you can't see dozens of other flapping wings overlapping you, you're doing it wrong. Also, "Move!" meaning "strafe to the right for a few seconds!" seems to require some additional processing time. About 30 seconds before the enrage, I was alone in the sky. And then I was blasted out of it.

Before we tried again, I made everyone stack on top of me and pretend to be on their dragons in the air. I started babbling the way I do so well when I am tipsy and then interrupted myself by barking out: "Move!" I strafed to the right. There was a pause. And then about half the raid started off and were followed a second later by those who hadn't gotten there yet. 

"I think," said I, "that I know why we're dying up there."

We practiced a little longer on the ground and I still wasn't happy with reaction time but it was getting a bit better and we were running out of time. We went into it again and managed a fairly quick burn on the first phase. Second phase was really sloppy and we ended up with a few people dead on the floor because the tank suffered a massive lag spike and couldn't pick up aggro or, indeed, even tell what the hell was going on for a few seconds. As a result, the burn was slow and we had maybe 1.5 minutes before the enrage by the time we hit phase three. It was obviously a wipe but I knew the practice would be good so we hung in there. Not too much later, I was alone in the sky again, facing one pissed off magical dragon aspect. Needless to say, I was quickly dispatched and, God save me, we better have Wintergrasp on Thursday because I don't know if I can grin my way through a whole night's worth of wiping on EoE, no matter how drunk I am.  

What tips and tricks does anyone else have for keeping the raid together and reacting well on phase three?

My dream

Sometimes I think that I should strike out on my own as a guild leader.

Don't get me wrong, being co-GM is nice. Nicer still is that I share the title with my husband and he freely admits he is a figurehead so I am pretty much free to do what I want. My biggest problem is actually that I have been an officer, a raid leader, a simple raider with no responsibilities, thank you very much and good day, Sir, and then an officer again. This was all within a period of about six months, which makes it worse.

But the truth is, despite the last half year of dramatic ups and downs with regard to what role I wanted to fill in the guild, I pretty much want the same thing I have always wanted. And that is for people to understand that I am always right and they should just shut up and do what I say.

I don't want to be mired down in this committee activity of rewriting our raiding rules yet again and finding myself having to defend my points to the officers and the figurehead GM. I would much prefer to be able to say, "These are the rules and if you don't like them you can leave."

I feel this way despite knowing that the feedback I am getting is important as it helps me to shape my ideas and explain exactly why I think what I think. And for every victory I get in carrying through my points I also get immense satisfaction.

But my impatience often gets the best of me and I don't want to wait for the refined and finished product. I want to go in like the mage I am, silencing my opponents by turning them into barnyard animals and then roasting the hell out of them.

Is that so wrong?