Regroup and kick some...

I'm sure that you've all heard the saying, "There is no I in team". And by now, even the comeback "But there is an I in win" has gotten old. I know that I only believed it back when Michael Jordan said it. But even back then, he had a strong cast of supporting players. I used to love watching the Chicago Bulls back in the 90's. It was the last time I ever really got into professional sports. Sometimes I miss those days - they really were something to watch.

So what does this have to do with anything? Everything really, and nothing. But it's definitely something to think about. You don't become a great team just by showing up for the game. As I reflect upon our ICC 10 man team, truth is we're not doing very good and we need to fix it. We need people that want to fix it. And we need people that aren't just here for the game. We need people that want to win, and are willing to work a little for it.

How many of these items can you honestly answer yes to?

1. I am one of the best at what I do. If I put in an application to a top-50 guild I think I'd get accepted.
2. I regularly (several times a week) read websites related to my class to continually find ways to improve.
3. I look at what other players of my class are doing in top guilds to compare myself to.
4. I review our combat logs on world of logs to see how I am doing for comparisons.
5. I know best practices for gemming/enchanting/gearing of my class. If I do differently it's for a specific purpose.
6. I use addons that allow me to reach my fullest potential.
7. I use test dummies to improve my dps.
8. I give my full attention to raiding whether it's on trash or bosses.
9. I respect the time and committments of everyone in the raid.
10. I understand at least the basics of all boss fights before we encounter them.
11. I come fully prepared to every raid.
12. I am 15 minutes early for invites to every raid.
13. If I am going to be late or miss a raid, I message the raid leader ahead of time.
14. I don't mind if we wipe for hours on a progression boss.
15. I don't need things to be called out for me in raid because I use DBM or am aware of everything that goes on.

I'm sure I could come up with more if I spent time thinking about it, but you get the idea. We are not progressing and there are PUGS getting as far if not farther than we are. You can only imagine how that makes me feel. Our team is filling up with great people - who need to become great players. Every one of us is on the team because we're a good player. But our version of good isn't turning out to be good enough. So hopefully - we all want to fix that and take down the Lich King!

Think about some of the ideas up above. Pick 1 thing that you know you could use some improvement on, and fix it! 1 hour a week dedicated to just seeing how you can improve your character will make a ton of difference. It has for me several times in the past. I'm sure it will continue to do so. Nobody's perfect, but constantly reevaluating and improving ourselves is part of life. And right now - WOW is part of that life as well. Does it really deserve any less. Does our group really deserve any less?

By the way, I put #1 in that list as more of a reality check. Not trying to be funny, but if you answered yes to #1 please /gquit now. I don't believe you, and you'll be much better off somewhere that I'm not. In fact, you might want to consider transferring servers. That way you won't have my LAWL's haunting you every night in trade chat. Unless your name is Helioz. Unfortunately you have to stay.

Please think about it, and give your ass a nice big kick! You never know, you might just like it.

-Boman

I know I did but then my gf already knows im a bit of a masochist....tmi? lets see im a no for 1-4 probably 5 too, 6 no clue probably not, 7 only time I ever used a target dummy was when I first switched to arcane 8+9 are a big yes, 10 not so much, I do when I remember too but usually raid time is my only wow time with papers and what not due and 11-15 are all around 95% of the time yes.

Honestly I'd say we're going through a rough time with our ICC 10 man cause we've gained some new players because of recent or not so recent losses and yes they aren't up to snuff yet but the qualifier there is yet, hopefully with time and gear they can be helping us progress more- we only just changed a few members so unfortunately that means it takes time for abilities to sync with the group as a whole and unfortunately that is what is going to happen every time we lose someone- its just the way of the game. Only with the same 10 people doing the same thing together week after week after month do guilds progress, they progress because they know how each others moves, they have cohesiveness, billy knows that johnny has his back - when we're constantly having to grab new people we don't have that same connection with each other and it is not an instant thing.

Yes pugs get to the same place we are, but because of constantly having to grab new people we ARE a pug and there is no difference between our group and any other pug until we have enough time raiding together to make us a guild run.

Honestly if you think about it how many people do we have in our 10 man who have raided with each other since naxx 10 man? 4 of us? Other guilds progress because they continuously have the same teams who have done these instances together consistantly. Until we can say the same we will be at the same lvl as a pug because thats what we are to each other, and unfortunately it takes time to become more.

This isn't meant to discourage anyone but hopefully make everyone realize that time constantly raiding with each other is what it takes. Gear score, addons, bells and whistles are all fine and dandy but unless we all know each others characters, strengths, weaknesses, whatever, we will always be below our potential. Spend time with each other- do 5 mans together, learn cohesiveness with each other instead of animosity and we will start to progress again. We need to become a group and becoming a group isn't about one single person but every single one of us understanding each other.

a fun example before I go of the knowledge that comes from cohesion is how ranged was set up for the rotface fight (the poison cloud spore sucking one) because I knew about the strengths and weaknesses of myself, stalar and nef, I positioned nef in the middle to be our meeting point and stalar and myself to be the ones who would move should 2 spores be in ranged. This came easy to all of us once it was first explained and we have, since the first time we fought him, never had a problem with 2 spores being in ranged.

With a pug (using sat morning as an example) only after working with anura for many weeks do I know her strengths and weaknesses so I would put her in the middle, but the other ranged is a random, an outside chance that I don't know, so in that case do I place the weakness that I know in a position where she needs to do something vital to the raid? or do I make the unknown someone do it, hoping that they are smart enough to not only understand what I am saying but also follow directions. The entire fight then becomes an unknown because who will run/who will stay becomes only as good as the minds of the people being told.

This seemingly simple difference is what makes guild runs progress and pugs fail. Now granted there are quite a few more smart players on this server able to do what they need to do (as compared to my old server) but that cohesion will always be the deciding factor on early progression.

Heh on my old server the highest stuff people could pug would maybe be ulduar at this point in time though even then the pug would probably get FL down and then have massive troubles with everything else in there, and yet here we are with pugs for ICC. crud im late for meeting with teacher good luck all =)

Great post Nez! I'm personally a believer in continual improvement and doing my best to push people to do the same. So that tends to be where I go first. I hear what you're saying, and I don't disagree that it's an important ingredient. But I do also believe that there is more we all as individuals can be doing. I can't magically make us all work better as a team, that comes with time. But I can give everyone that little push that motivates them to work on... just one thing. It may not bring magic, but I think it can't help but make someone a better player. That's always something to strive for.

-Boman

Peanut gallery reply here...

These are my observations. This group has the talent and gear to progress farther. But there are a coupld of things I would suggest you guys try out.

Communication-Commitment-Cooperation

1. Practice. ICC is game day. You guys need to get together and do some less challenging content to finess group continuity and get everyone working as a team. Go back to Uldar 10 man and work on teamwork there (it's not about the gear). Nothing beats success in fostering a winning attitude and many of the Uldar boss mechanics are the same as ICC. Just showing up once a week for ICC probably isn't enough time to get the teamwork down. The group should probably spend 3-5 hours a week NOT in ICC doing a 10 man so they can work on teamwork. If you can't put in the time on the practice field, you can't expect success on the playing field.

2. Class synergy. WoW is designed so that having a mix of classes supports each other better. For example, if your group is caster heavy, having a Moonkin adds to that. A Priest + a resto Druid/Shaman is better than 2 Priests. A Mage and Warlock better than two of each of those. Going one step farther, find out what classes support each boss/encounter better, and have situational replacements. This would mean making the team larger than 10 people and having 2-3 people (specialists) waiting on the sidelines to come in when needed. Saurfang could probably use less Melee, for example.

3. One person calling out what to do in vent > DBM. Not saying don't use DBM but some classes can get too focused on what they are doing and miss the DBM alerts.

4. Attitude > gear/skill everytime. A 5500 gearscore slacker isn't as useful as a 4900 gearscore player busting his ass to get better and paying attention. This needs to be addressed to that individual also.

5. School the team members in what each class brings to the group, it's strength and weaknesses. Know what your teammates can do for you. For example, it seems few people understand Resto Shaman mechanics and chain-heal. Not pointing any fingers at the Hunters or anything. Knowing your class is important, but knowing the other classes is also.

Well, that's my unsolicited advice. Good Luck.

I definately support the idea of us doing some other 10 man during some other time of the week so we can work on coordination skills- the only problem is when hmm maybe we should ask everyone who is currently on our list what other days they might be available for something- perhaps sunday? I'd suggest the possibility of tuesday as well- or maybe depending on availability sometime earlier on friday (before 25 ICC)- even 1 hour of doing something like that together should allow us to get comfortable with one another which I believe will help in the long run. Plus it helps point out weaknesses that we need to work on in an environment where it is less critical.

Heh like going back to naxx for the safety dance and having everyone work on their safety dance abilities =P
ulduar is good too.

hehe i said yes to number 1 BUT IT WAS A TRAP DAMN U BO!! now i feel bad for haveing a big ego. i dont use dbm i think i do just fine with out it i tryed healbot its cool but not for me i like keybinds to much and sorry bo i never been to world of logs yet hehe i already no iam 1 of the best oh look theres my ego again hehe.We just need a lil work on healing and dps then we should be fine are tanks pwn but bo could use a lil work like adding a b after bo would make him rape face .like Nez said we need to work together like a big happy famliy.I miss raiding with u guys ill be back soon u guys would fail with out my uber heals lol

Although I'm sure for whatever my reputation is worth generally.... I cant say for sure I'd ever get to do anything close to what I'm doing now in any other guild.

But, that's another story.

For me, I love Oz. He's my love child. Although, Bo shares much of the blame for his existence because long long ago in an expansion far far away, I offered myself up to Boman to be the guild's Paladin tank. So, the priest was sacrificed and the dark paladin rose from his ashes. (and what a monster Oz became, in frustrations as well as in stats)

But, that's another story... or is it?

I think the big question I had for myself was, "why am I doing this?"
"why am I playing WoW?"
and, "why this character?"

I naturally am a puzzle solver. Been doing it since, well, forever. And WoW is a nice big puzzle to me. Partly, because it presents a situation where combinations of gear, talents, and coordinated finger movements produce the best possible means for solving the puzzle of generating the most threat; the most dps; the fastest most lifesaving heals. And, partly, because it represents a place where other living people have to arrange themselves and put aside ego for the moment to really forge efforts together to solve the puzzle of the boss fight. In this respect, WoW is a testing ground for people's abilities to solve puzzles. And believe me, the puzzles are only getting harder.

Sure, some people probably play less for the raids or the gear. You know who you are... Loremaster So-And-So or So-And-So The Lovefool. And many just like the look of the game, or the story lines involved.

WoW is alot like a book. Much of that book is written (with a damn good story line at that), some of it is being developed in-game as we speak, and some of it is left up to us. If being on this RP server for so long has made me anything, it's made me insane... wait no, I mean it's made me think about my own character of Oz and what it means to play him. WoW is like a book I get to write myself!

I still count myself as a casual raider, and probably always will (short of winning the lottery, in which case I'd probably buy lots of stock in Blizz and spend tons more time playing).... Nah, even then, there's only so much WoW I can take. And, although some 20-30 hours a week of my time is spent on WoW, 15 of those hours are spent raiding (three different raids). The other time is pretty much me tabbed out looking at... something... or doing dailies or just generally hoping around or doing minor achievements.

I bring this up, because I heard a comment in trade (the fabulously reliable source that it is) that made me stop a sec and just blink a few times at my screen. It wasnt really a lightbulb going off, more just a bug hitting the zapper. Someone had asked why Fruit of Elune hadnt downed the Lich King by now (which was 'then' at the time). And, the reply was something to the effect of "because they cut down to only 20 hours of raiding". Now, my first thought was *blink* as I had mentioned staring at the screen above. But after that, I thought, "that's like a part time job". And then, "if they 'cut down' to 20 hours, they must have been spending some 40 hours just in ICC; possibly near 40 hours just in ICC10 with several more hours in ICC25)". And, ergo cogitio sum, "40 hours is like a full time job!"

So there's the rub (or a big part of it as I see).

I don't believe we're as far as these other guilds right now because we're not putting the outrageous full-time-job hours in to be as far. Even supposing this, that FoE puts just 20 hours into their ICC10, that's still 4-5 times as much time as we do (8-10 times as much if they do in fact do 40 hours). It isnt to say that we all just suck. More, that our time is fairly limited. We might have just reached some natural time barrier. Even at 15 min from trash to boss with 5 min on each boss fight, that's still some 220 min or near 4 hours. But, that usually doesnt happen until the end.

For progressions sake, I'll throw in my line of thinking when we go into any raid. Progression to me is the boss continually dropping in health (regardless of the number of wipes). But, if the bosses health isnt dropping or we're stuck in a certain phase, then around the 3rd wipe I start checking meters. I calculate how much dps and healing is going on and point out to Bo who might not be pulling their weight. The 4th and 5th wipe I start checking raid morale; checking for people getting pissy or pointing fingers. Around the 6th wipe I'll inform Bo of more weak points I see and why we might not do it. Generally by that time we're ending with the boss's health higher than on previous attempts, and I suggest to Bo that we're done.

Ulduar is a step back in my opinion. If we're going to agree on more time, then it should be more time in ICC10.
If we want the people doing their best, then we need to move to 2 healing exclusively on all fights and push those healers to just pick up the slack. Ozzy loves trials by fire... but seriously, we're only gimping our healing and dps by having three. If we want better dps, then people will need to be singled out (discreetly of course) and told to improve by the next raid. If they dont know how, that's one thing and someone needs to spend time with them explaining how to improve their role in the raid. Dont just send them to various websites. If they're very attitude-ish about it... that's another thing, and probably need to be reconsidered and replaced.