The deadline for our “Let’s Get Social Giveaway” is getting closer and closer! Remember to get your admissions in soon. As of right now, we only have one entry, so your likelihood of winning is very high!
Announcements
Words of “wisdom” from Guild Master, Officers, or other leaders within the Ministry of Defense. ONLY posts including this category will show on the homepage!
So, let’s say you’re looking for a guild promotion and/or want to get noticed. With a guild the size we currently are, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. What can you do? Well, for example, at 6pm EST tonight we have a resources farming event. Sign up! Get involved! Put yourself on the map! Also, having a character in the guild that is max level (120) is a huge plus.
As everyone knows by now, we raid… and we raid three times a week. That is definitely a fast track to get a promotion within the guild. All you need to do is attend 5 of our raids. And wham-o! You’ve got Vanguard status. The same policy exists for our PVP section, which usually holds events at 8pm server on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Attend those events, and you’ll be boosted to Gladiator rank. Keep your attendance up, and you’ll remain at your respective rank. In short, attending events and actively participating in them will get you to a status higher than member.
Don’t like to raid or PVP? We run several events throughout the week you can be apart of. Saturday’s at 5pm EST we usually run a guild LFR run. Sure it’s ‘raiding,’ but it is a much more relaxed atmosphere then a normal/heroic or mythic raid. Later that evening, we have a mythic dungeon key event at 7:30pm EST. Jump in!
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Sunday Funday at 6pm EST on Sundays. The rotation of what we do is constantly changing on that day, so check the calendar! Also, we have a non-raiding/non-PVP promotion status called Champion. It is a specific status to recognize guild members that don’t fit the traditional raiding or pvping criteria that attend our other events.
Just don’t find yourself promoted to PITA. Nobody wants that!
Thursday: Mythic
I’ve never seen a turnaround quite like this one, and I think I speak for every raid lead when I say how incredibly impressed we are with our team. We killed MOTHER in 3 tries (2, really, because we had an early wipe-call when people died on a crossing), which is a massive upgrade from the 52 previous tries. Normally when we down a boss, we continue to struggle on it for a few weeks. This was a welcome relief.
As a result we got our first look at a new boss on mythic, Zek’vos.
Zek’vos has overlapping add packs and overlapping darkness with deceit. We’re going to need steady coordination for calling out who needs external healing cooldowns / defensives, and making sure people run as far away as possible (not simply dropping to the side).
We also suggest getting comfortable using a microphone for this fight. It’s highly likely that now more than ever, you will need to call out when you need external heals or when you’re using interrupts.
We’re also going to be auditing interrupts much more closely. What’s important is not whether or not you are interrupting, but whether or not you are interrupting out of turn. If someone calls out they they’ve got “next”, and you cut them off, there’s a potential that both your AND their interrupts go wasted, and a cast might go off next time. Also, don’t interrupt early. They only stand around casting and re-casting, so interrupting them late ensures there’s more time for our interrupt rotation to recover. Those with ranged interrupts (like Balance druids) will be saving theirs for the 3rd add, which overlaps with the darkness (pain donuts).
Tanks did a good job moving the boss around, but he needs to be moved much quicker. Consider starting to move him when the add is at 85-90% HP instead of it being at 90-95% hp.
Little adds are going to need to die faster. If you’re running the same talents you ran on MOTHER, chances are you’re doing it wrong. Certain individuals will be told to instead swap to a full AoE build, even if it means they output less boss damage. (In phase 3, you can probably expect them to be the first people to pick up an orb to go down as well, since they won’t be single-target specced for boss or person damage).
Save displacements like typhoon, ring of peace, etc for when the little adds coincide with the darkness.
Friday: Heroic clear
Friday was a pretty decent clear. We downed all the way up through G’huun, which is the farthest we’ve gotten on Heroic in one sitting.
We definitely has issues of boss-tunneling. As a baseline comparison, I had a 316/320 ilvl character in on heroics (it’s a balance druid, because I am the height of originality). Through all of our wipes, I did more damage to the Hexers than 3 other DPS, including one ranged. I did more damage to the crusher than 6 DPS including one ranged (though melee DPS are not able to DPS her for as long as others). I out-DPSd 3 ranged DPS on Ichors. I didn’t out-DPS anyone on crawgs.
Guys, that’s bad. Some of you are in the 360, 370 range. A 320 boomkin without an offhand should not be out-DPSing anybody on priority adds, especially not other ranged DPS (melee get a slight pass, especially on Crushers, but still).
A few of us swapped to our mains to down Zul, but as Zex pointed out, we shouldn’t have to. We shouldn’t have to swap to overpowered 380 geared characters just because some of you have no concept of prioritization on targets and are stubborn.
Now, some folks were new to heroics that night, or hadn’t done the fight with us before even on normal. That’s OK! I expect you guys will get more comfortable with looking around for these adds in the future. However, there are some people who have been around the block who don’t have an excuse. I won’t name names, but you know who you are.
TLDR:
Saturday / Sunday: Timewalking
We took a few hours instead of LFR and then picked up the remainder on Sunday to kill Illidan for the weekly and do something fun and different. It was a long slog and I think it made some of us appreciate how much trash has been cut out of raids (though if you ask me, Blizz took all the raid trash and threw it in dungeons instead), and how blissfully short modern raids are compared to the olden days.
Monday: Alt Night
On account of some internet issues I missed the first hour of alt night.
Every boss was a 1-shot, including G’huun. We had a few new orb runners and they did wonderfully. People listened well to directions given and we have high hopes for our newcomers.
Thanksgiving Break
On account of the holiday, no raids on Thursday and Friday. Feel free to PUG, watch videos, or take a week off.
This weekend, the usual Saturday LFR is cancelled and we will be doing Black Temple timewalking instead during that time slot. Since this only comes up once every six months or so, it seemed like a great idea!
Come get your transmog, Demon Hunters 😉
We had a super awesome week this week! It was nice seeing so many new guildies take interest in running rateds with us. Shout out to all of you!
We are still having issues with getting a full group together for these, so I want to remind everyone that if you have an interest, don’t be afraid to message me with any questions that you may have! I promise I’m not going to turn you down, and we will work with you and get you where you need to be. Practice makes perfect, so practice with us!
Play wise, everyone did amazing and even surpassed expectations tonight. I had to step out for a bit, but I heard nothing but good things when I came back. Teamwork makes the dream work, and we have the teamwork aspect near on point!
If you want to start playing with us, but you aren’t sure if your main character is viable or not, I have so many guides and resources pinned in the pvp announcements discord channel. Read up on your class, make your own decisions, and know that with practice, every class can be amazing. If you have a character that you would like to play, but it isnt quite geared enough, just let me know! I will help you and work with you.
Thanks again to everyone that participated tonight, and I hope to see you all again in future events!
Next Tuesday, I will not be seeing any of you, due to work reasons. But I hope to hear continued improvement!
We’re going to ignore Oct 30 – November 5 and pretend it never happened.
Thursday: Mythic
It took us a few tries to get Taloc down. We had some problems with lasers or getting knocked off by the bloods. Generally however, Taloc is as easy on Mythic as it is on other difficulties.
MOTHER
We had some very good pulls on MOTHER with very little downtime between them. We also adopted a new strategy of pulling the boss, resetting, and running into the room to stack right next to the wall. This made the initial transition much cleaner. Crossing became easier over time as we settled into the specifics of knowing when to cross, how, and making sure not to move too far after crossing over.
We still had mishaps caused by lag or improper use of defensives, but we’re really getting the “step 1” part down. Arguably, this is the second hardest part of the fight.
After crossing, we need to kill adds. I will say that this week was generally pretty good. We had casts get off on occasion, but on account of smoother crossings we also had smoother add kills.
We also got better about standing near the wall to melee MOTHER through it. Pets will harmlessly cross through, treants and other summoned abilities can do damage, and of course even casters can safely whack her with a staff! This smidgen of DPS may not seem important now, but you’d be surprised how much it helps later…
After crossing MOTHER into Room 2, dodging mechanics there is pretty easy for us. Then, it becomes a waiting game of knowing when Spirit Link is back off cooldown and making sure we’re ready.
The transition from Room 2 into Room 3 is the most dangerous transition and the hardest to achieve. We need a good setup and we need everyone on the same page.
The yellow line on the left is the wall between rooms 2 and 3. The unhappy face is MOTHER. The silver crescent is Quetzie, marked with the Moon over her head to people know where to stack in Room 1 and now.
During the final Wind phase of room 2, players need to be nearby – but not directly against – the wall of Room 3. Many times, players are spread incredibly far across the room – even close to the wall of Room 1! They’re never going to make it to the Room 3 wall in time. Instead, during the final Wind phase, drag your character over to Quetzie. Line up with her. She’ll be standing nearby the Room 3 wall, with MOTHER between her and the wall. After the final fire is cast (not before!), the group books it to the wall, throws down all defensives and heals, and crosses as a quick succession – ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR – just like we do in Transition 1.
If all goes well – and so far it only has a small handful of times – we’ll be in Room 3, casting lust, and gunning down the adds, then treating Room 3 just as we did Room 2.
It all came together, however – in the nick of time.
We moved up to #11 on the server and remain #1 Horde.
By the way: Remember what I said earlier about DPSing through the wall? We killed MOTHER when her room was at 94% full. That left us with mere seconds left for a kill.
Or, as expressed by Miatreeleafa on stream seconds before we got her:
Also, congrats to Tusker for hitting a gold parse on the kill:
For those curious: we had 51 wipes on MOTHER, or 45 not counting the “week we don’t speak of”. We really only had 2 nights spent working on her, so that’s not so bad!
Friday: G’huun and friends
Because we had a saved lockout from last week, we jumped right into G’huun.
We only had 5 pulls that were what I will call “net garbage” as a result from orb mishaps in phase 1. We had many pulls reach well into phase 2 and 5 into Phase 3, with 3 pulls at 90 and higher. We comped down and swapped some people around due to mechanic failures, and had a few missteps but not many. Our kill was clean, however – once again we had nobody die until Phase 3.
Congrats to our new AOTC title holders: Deathhoss, Eviandrae, Avianne, Nari, Lillithh, and Sylvvannas.
After G’huun, we went to Ripblade’s lockout: he had an opening on Zul and Mythrax.
Zul was a 1-shot, which has never happened before. Everyone was very clean. Interrupts on Hexers, downing Crushers fast, the tanks did a good job at dropping their debuff, and ranged stacked mid. We had a good transition, too. Hopefully we can emulate this in future weeks.
Mythrax was a little less clean (to say the least). We actually had both tanks die, resed one, and he dies again. Fortunately, we had enough DPS and HPS to keep the fight going for a kill.
Monday: Alt Night
Alt night is slowly but surely transitioning into more and more Heroic bosses. We went on Normal first, skipping the first three bosses. In future weeks we’ll be continuing to up this number.
Normal is almost boring at this point, even 2 healing it as we were sometimes. G’huun we needed more healing and had a few problems with orb runners (mostly healing issues and a miscommunication with new runners). But it only took us 3 tries.
Taloc and Mother on Heroic were 1 shots. We did move MOTHER into room 3, which is unusual for us on heroic, but we needed the practice transitioning.
BoE Farm and Guild Bank repairs
On account of having a post-MOTHER lockout, we spent some time Sunday and after alt night on Monday farming BoEs. We’re happy to announce that we got 5 Mythic BoEs and 1 random-drop BoE. This windfall ensures that we will have plenty of money in the guild bank, and thus the repair allocation for Vanguards and Gladiators has been increased. Hopefully we can make this a recurring event as we continue to kill bosses on Mythic, and then will be set for quite a while.
Social Media
As you might be aware, MoD is now on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We’re holding a contest for anyone who follows us and submit their MoD stories! You may have already read Deiselboy’s account, so it’s time to share yours!
Plus, who wants to miss out on this sort of quality content:
Do she got the booty? Urostek says she doooo! #WorldofWarcraft #forthehorde #modaeriepeak #uldir pic.twitter.com/k90bO4Q8jh
— Ministry of Defense (@MODaeriepeak) November 11, 2018
I love endorsements!
Posted by MODaeriepeak on Sunday, November 11, 2018
Submitted from Deiselboy:
Our first dabbles into organized raiding were fun. The homework assignments, struggling to get 10 people all to log on to raid on 2 consecutive nights, our first kill of Xavius, and the deafening on discord that almost cost me my hearing. Having people kinda drift away and come back. Mostly the guild is about community; we love a good laugh, and we get stuff done.
I’ve been a part of this guild for 4-5 years now and have seen it grow from a quiet guild that barely had anyone on, to a small tight-knit guild that had 10-12 regulars on, to an explosion of players on that we currently have almost any time of day. It’s been a journey and I can say, hands down, this is the best guild I’ve ever been a part of in any game.
It doesn’t feel like you’re a stranger in this guild. You may not know who anyone is outside of their screen name, but outside of my family, this is my online family.
How heartwarming! This truly is a big, happy family.
We love seeing your submissions and stories. Feel free to submit them here to be featured on our website. We can never have too much spotlight on our members!
As you may have heard by now, we are now on social media!
To celebrate this, we will be giving away a game store mount AND 20,000 gold to one lucky winner!
To enter into the giveaway, all you have to do is follow us on social media and submit your favorite MoD memory, something you would like to share with the class, artwork you have done, or really anything!
You can find all of our social medias here.
If you only follow on one social media, you will be given one entry. If you follow on all three, you will get five entries!
To share your submission, you can either use the member submission portal on our website, post it to Twitter or Instagram using #modaeriepeak, or you can share it directly through Discord! (Be sure to include your handles that you followed us on, as well as your in game name, so that we can verify your submission. Don’t worry; your personal information will never be publically shared or posted.)
This giveaway will run until January first at midnight. The winner will be announced that day!
Thank you to everyone who participated in tonights BOE Farming event. We scored two Uldir mythic level BOEs which will be sold to help fund guild repairs. As a result, guild repair allocations for gladiators and vanguards have been increased!
Thank you everyone who has contributed to the guild bank repair fund by either donating raid BOEs, gold, or items for me to sell on the auction house. More guild bank repair funds means more guild bank repair allocations for everyone, and I hope to increase the repairs again soon. All the guild bank money goes solely to fund guild bank repairs. It is not used for any other purpose.
Just a reminder, we do have a mythic Uldir BOE farming event tonight at 6pm EST. Please try to be available to attend. You do not have to be a mythic raider to participate. The purpose of this event is to collect Uldir mythic BOE drops for sale on the auction house to fund more guild repair allocations.