Coming with stat-squish, pre-patch, and the “off-season”, we’ll be changing a few things in raids. First change will be until Battle for Azeroth drops, and the next will be until Uldir drops.

Raid Pre-Patch Schedule

First and foremost, we’re dropping down to 2 raid nights a week maximum until BfA. We’re dropping the Saturday raid (party animals rejoice!) and keeping the Monday normal night. Keeping our normal night will allow those who want to level alts, those who are returning to WoW, or those who are joining us for the first time, a chance to get gear and get into the habit of raiding with us.

We’re potentially keeping our Wednesday night raids for heroics. Bosses will be done “as requested”. We may not go for agg/argus. Due to stat squish, things on heroic may be way over- or under-tuned, especially as we adjust to our new talents, missing talents, missing artifact abilities, and more.

Keeping our Monday normal night also gives those of us struggling with the class changes a chance to adjust to them in structured content we’re already familiar with.

BFA Raiding Timeline and Schedule

This 1-2 nights continues until BfA launches. When BfA launches, we will be taking a break from raiding until Uldir drops, which will be 3 weeks after launch. Then Mythic will be opening. Around that point, we will be using the information from the BfA Raid Planning Spreadsheet to determine raid dates & times. Then the raid team will start focusing on raid progression again. This means that if you already filled out the sheet, but your schedule changes, you can update the sheet until we start prepping for raids in BfA.

Attendance

66% attendance to maintain Raider status is no longer mandatory until Uldir. I am putting a “freeze” on raid attendance until Uldir drops. This allows those who are burned out or who want to concentrate on other things in the pre-patch ample time to do whatever they please. If you have previously attained Raider status, you will keep it, unless you choose not to raid in BfA. As such, I am going to be wiping all attendance records for current Raiders, and no longer keeping track of them. This will clear up the Raid Attendance page significantly, as well as clean up the back-end for that page. It makes my life a lot easier!

Don’t worry! You can still earn Raider status until BfA launches. If you are a new or returning guild member, attending 5 regularly scheduled raids (not bonus “argus kill” raids – I don’t keep attendance at those) within a 1 month time will net you Raider status. This grants you more daily gold for repairs and greater esteem by others in the guild. Oh, and speaking of Raider rank…

Changes to Titles

Not too long ago, we created a Champion rank, for those in the guild who go above the regular expectations of members but don’t quite commit to, or fall into, the Raider and Veteran categories. Not long after, we created a Gladiator rank for the upcoming PvP team. Our Raiders were jealous – Champion and Gladiator are really cool titles! In order to appease whiners raise the level of badassery in the guild, we’ve renamed many Guild ranks.

Raid Leader has become Warlord
Raider has become Vanguard
Veteran has become Centurion
Officer has become Legati

Guild Assistant may be renamed as well. We’ll keep you updated.

Other Scheduled Activities until Uldir

Burned out on raiding? Bored of Antorus? Here are a few alternatives that can keep you active in the Ministry of Defense family. Being really active could even net you Champion!

Old Raid / Dungeon Achievements

Consider joining Bulborbish for Sunday Funday, and filling out his poll to determine what sort of achievements people would like to chase down.

PvP

Lunzzul is starting a PvP team. Fill out her spreadsheet to help determine what times and days would be best. No experience necessary!

Mythic Keystones

For now, Foxxie (Tiv) is continuing to run Mythic Keystones. After stat-squish, it’s going to be an excellent opportunity to hone your new or changed class skills and work together in small teams to figure out how changes to threat generation effect dungeons, in environments we’re already familiar with.

TLDR

Just a reminder that we will be making our final attempt at downing heroic Coven this Saturday at 2pm server (5pm EST) before the Battle for Azeroth pre-patch launches this Tuesday. Also, a little birdy told me.. well, maybe a Violet Spellwing told me, that everyone who has received AOTC: Argus is welcome to attend a guild photo event at Aerie Peak in the Hinterlands at raid time. Please be on time tomorrow!

Tonight was another PvP event. Recently promoted Guild Champion Bighoss writes:

“After a slight hiccup on grouping together, a few brave souls started the PvP event for the night. We did our best to bring honor to the Horde! Fflarn, Fistlok, Gulluthord, Lvana and I fought with great tenacity. The first rated battleground didn’t go as planned, but we didn’t let that stop our hopes! Everyone showed vast improvement compared to last week’s attempts.”

Congratulations, you guys! Take it from a raid leader, there’s a lot of work that goes into forming a team and working together cohesively. That you’ve already seen improvement is wonderful. Keep it up!

“We then did one Kotmogu Brawl and to our surprise, pulled out the win!”

Guild chat was lit up with Temple of Kotmogu Victory & related achievements.

“To all who came tonight, thank you. I hope for many more in the future. And to Lunzz, even though you weren’t there, we tried to make you proud. PVP events are planned on the calendar. We would love to see you all on the glorious field of battle!”

We’ve got a lot of PvP planned! Now that the raiding season is winding down, we hope you’ll join us. I myself will be spending most of the next few days in Ashran, as both Ashran and Strand of the Ancients are disappearing in the BfA prepatch, which is confirmed for the 17th (4 days away). If you’re more of a battleground kind of person, there’s another Rated Battleground night planned for Tuesday, and a Random Battleground night planned for next Thursday. Take advantage of the battleground bonus event next week!

In honor of our recent PvP pushes, I’ve added a new category to the posts on the website: PvP. Now you’ll be able to view all PvP related posts in one convenient location! Stay tuned for other exciting events in the PvP lineup, and how we intend to give improved support for this new direction from the Ministry of Defense.

This Saturday, at 2pm PST / 5pm EST, we will be taking a photo at Aerie Peak (in the Hinterlands) in front of the large eagle statue to commemorate a successful season.

If you have raided with us and have achieved AOTC (even if you’re not a “Raider” status!), please join us for this little get together to celebrate our successes in Legion.

After we take a group photo, we will be downing Coven on heroic!

Can’t make it? No problem!

Quetzie is willing to add people to the photo later on. Submit a few photos of yourself in the skies above the Eagle, zoomed out, against a plain background, with NO UI OR NAME showing within 1 week.

Acceptable examples:

Here is where to find the eagle:

A big thanks to everyone that came out to the For the Horde! achievement on Tuesday. We had 27 people show up! It was a great time had by everyone. Lunzzul was unfortunately out of town and couldn’t make it, but big props to Bighoss for leading the attack and showing all of us the best way into various cities. Between good entry paths and quick mage portals, we finished our run in under an hour (really around half an hour if you discount all the dicking around before our first go).

Following are a ton of pictures and a synopsis!

Continue reading →

On account of the holiday and my absence from Heroic night, enjoy a short roundup this week.

Wednesday: Normal Bosses (Holiday!)

On account of the July 4th holiday, we opted to clear through Normal instead of Heroic. it gave our regular Raid Team a night off if they wanted, and ensured that those who had chosen to partake in drunken hijinks wouldn’t have to feel bad about potentially slowing things down.

As per usual, Normal was a breezy night. We had a few newcomers and all seemed to do pretty well, though it’s important for those with DBM or Big Wigs to please pay attention to your addon callouts. It’s good to have addons to help you, but they do you no good if you don’t pay attention!

We had a couple minor mishaps with tank swaps on Aggramar, but he went down smoothly after that got figured out (except for one poor hunter memorably launching himself off the edge with a disengage).

Wednesday Logs

Saturday: Five Hour Frenzy

Unfortunately, I was absent for Saturday’s raid…sort of. I came online at 10pm and found our raiders still going. That’s five hours of raiding. I joined for two pulls before they called it for the night (and I don’t blame them). If one of the other raiders wants to give a rundown on what happened, I’ll include it here. I do know that they downed Aggramar and were banging on Argus for a little while.

Sunday: Bonus Argus Kill

On Sunday, we decided to take advantage of the “at Argus” lockout to give it another crack. In only 3 pulls, with our own tanks (no 970 external carries!) we killed him. And we only had 1 PUG drop from start to finish. It’s hard to gauge what can be improved with so many PUGs involved, but I’m proud of us for getting another Argus kill, and getting a few AOTC for those who didn’t yet have it.

Sunday Logs (Please forgive the inclusion of a Ulduar run, as I forgot to turn off combat logging after we were done)

Monday: Finishing Up Normal

On account of the holiday, all we had to do was finalize the remaining 5 Normal bosses. We had 2 wipes on Vari but otherwise smooth sailing. It was great to once again see a few new faces, even so late in the xpack. Hope to see you Wednesday!

Monday Logs (Sorry again for forgetting to turn off logging for Pandaria bosses)

I missed today’s raid, but I just want to give a huge shoutout to the group that endured a grueling 5 hour attempt to down bosses all the way to Argus tonight. In the spirit of their attempts and so as to not waste such a precious lockout, we’ve scheduled another attempt to down Argus at the usual weekend raid time (5pm EST / 2pm PST). This should hopefully not interact too much with the all-day Draenor Flying grinding, or the Herald of the Titans attempt later in the evening. Perhaps, with a good night’s sleep and a fresh attempt (and some different PUGs), we’ll get him down for some of our guildies missing AOTC.