Just wanted to personally thank everyone who was online last night and attended raid and also welcome all of the newer recruits we've picked up who, thanks to them, made the raid possible. And while we didn't progress as far as I would have hoped, we managed to take down several bosses without a hitch which (given the time we had) is great.

Good luck this week on raiding and your loot drops. Hope to see you all there!

Well done earlier this week guys, as we one shot XT-002 Deconstructor Hard Mode! Having been our first hard mode attempt on any boss, this can only lead to more good things.



Keep up the good work, everyone!

So we're at a crossroads here. We've lost two of our officers, some of our more dedicated players, and even more people to a lack of attendance and now we're at a tough position where it's becoming a struggle to even run a Naxx25 without being men short. Prior to the officers leaving, some of us were in the works of restructuring and repairing a lot of the problems, ranging from gear issues to attendance to a better raid setup/signup system. Sadly, these fixes will need to be put on the back burner for the time being. We now have a new problem, one that we've faced in the past, and hopefully can overcome again.

In Burning Crusade, we pushed through Tier 5 content and began making headway into Tier 6, and could have been successful in doing so. We got through half of Hyjal and started working on Black Temple when, shortly after our start at progression through BT, players stopped showing up. We went from a very wide range of players and classes, filling out nearly all of the necessities of a raid, to having to bring practically nothing but Holy Paladins and whatever DPS was on at the time, to not even being able to get into SSC/TK due to attendance.

Much to my sadness, we're facing a similar problem once again. We went through Naxx, many nights of which we had people sitting out in order to allow others to come in. We did our Obsidian Sanctum and our Malygos every week and could almost always fill a raid, sans a few bad nights (but those things happen.) With Ulduar not far off, we stopped progression of Three Drake OS25 and focused on the last few pieces of gear people needed. Come Ulduar, everyone was excited and things looked hopefully. We got in there, had a few snags along the way and still managed to get in and do it. We had a lot of problems with the difficulty vs skill level of the raiders, but (especially after a few hotfixes to bosses) opened up to a lot of the content.

In other words, we were entirely capable of clearing bosses, picking up loot, having a good time, and moving on after raid to be anxious for the next raid. But, something happened. Slowly people stopped showing up. Next thing we know, even taking people who are not yet ready for the content we can't fill a raid. Something happened along the way. Not too long ago, a post was made basically saying that the officers (or what I will assume is some officers) are taking things way too seriously and draining the fun out of it. I get the feeling that this is part of the issue. I also think that maybe the timing of Ulduar coupled with things like finals and the end of semesters is another part (that hopefully fixes itself within the next week or so.)

As for what I think the real problem isn't exactly my place to say. It also doesn't matter now what caused the problem in the first place. What now matters is what we must do to get back to where we were.

We have several options as to where we can go, but I want to return us to where we were about a month or two ago. It's obvious that we've lost a lot of people that we have brought up along the way, and since then have made efforts to replace them. We're at a point, though, that we have a lot of replacements who are not yet geared for Ulduar or do not know their mechanics enough to produce enough healing/threat/damage/reaction time (all things that grow over time with practice) but I am not yet sure that, with them and the higher ups in guild, we are able to even fill a full raid. Hopefully in the coming week many of our older players who have been flaky or very occupied with things are able to return to allow us to continue raiding. We're at a good spot in progression, so I can't say that people don't want to show because we're at a wall.

What I'd like to see right now are some ideas. The remaining officers and I will be trying to come up with some solutions to our problem, but I am curious to see what people have to say. Also, I would really like to see something from everyone regarding where they've been as of late. The more people I hear from, the better I'll be able to figure some of this out. I've put too much into this guild to have it crumble now, likewise with many of you who have dedicated yourselves to Dance Commanders. Sadly, at this time, I really need the help of everyone to try to fix this. The guild is not entirely made up of just me. Without everyone in guild, we wouldn't be where we are or who we are.

Well done last night guys. We've downed both Flame Leviathan (obtaining Shutout) and Razorscale (obtaining A Quick Shave) last night in 10 man within a few attempts.

Tonight at 8PM will be our first official Ulduar 25 raid. Come prepared. Please try to read up on any fights we may be doing (Ignis, XT-002, Flame Leviathan, and Razorscale) and know at least roughly what to expect. I will be going over each fight, but some prior knowledge is good to have.

There are currently no raid sign ups for two reasons.

1. We're working on a new way of signing up/reserving spots for people in raid
2. I am taking the best of the best tonight


Ulduar is NOT a joke. At all. I was watching a live stream last night of a guild attempting to do XT-002 TRASH. This was a guild that has raided everything from Molten Core to Naxx40 to Sunwell. And they were wiping. Over. And over. And over. We had very similar experiences in 10 man last night with it. The Ignis trash is just as bad. While that is more doable than the XT-002 stuff, we were losing half of the raid on every pull.

If you haven't already, check out all of the new information in the Important Stuff folder.

See you there, let's get us some first kills.

In case you all haven't been paying too much attention, we are doing Sarth3D next Wednesday, pushing Naxx25 off to the side until later in the week. Seeing as it's all we've got left in progression and it's the only fight we seem to have problems with attendance on, we'll be doing it first. So, come prepared, bring flasks or money for them (assuming Milad has his medicine cabinet full again) and be ready for some hard fights. Let's end this guy for once.