2.24. Back on Tracks

"Wage Slave"
Artwork by Michael Dashow

A Positive Work Environment

"Use your fucking head. You're a fucking train wreck."

I sat in stunned silence, looking up from my desk. She waited for a response and didn't get one, so proceeded to question my reasoning further.

"Honestly, I might as well just call Google themselves. Because I don't have time to sit around and wait for you to come up with a estimate on how long this work will take. So that you'll just come back to me in, what, five days? And tell me some bullshit number. I need speed."

Anything I said at this point would more than likely make matters worse. Yet I felt the need to speak anyway, a chance to remedy the situation.

"How about...half that time, then?"

She shook her head in disgust and walked away, "Whatever, Shawn. I'll just make up a number, how's that?"

Agency work wasn't exactly all that it was cut out to be. On the plus side, we had the luxury of putting big name clients on our resumes, certain to improve our worth in the field. On the downside, the game came down to money, and the wider the profit margin, the deeper the sales commission filled pockets. Sales wanted things done quickly, cheaply, in as little billable hours as possible. Yet the developers wanted the exact opposite. To take their time, produce some thoughtful, quality work. Two worlds completely at odds, forced to work together on a daily basis, in order to keep a business afloat. I looked back down at my laptop and watched as another guild application arrived in my inbox, and doubted if I had any development worth outside of these walls. If I was able to do anything of any real value outside of a virtual world slaying Internet Dragons. I was a self-taught programmer after all, how realistically viable could I have been? I hadn't even been able to come up with an original idea for a web application in years.

I looked over to the empty chair on the opposite side of the table, where Ater used to sit. Since the merger, he'd been pushed up to a high profile project for a major sub sandwich chain -- a time-tracking app that was sucking up more and more of his time. Most of the work day was spent in the other of our two offices, while he focused on creating cutting edge technology in the UI. He was definitely the right man for the job. But I saw him less as a result, and was left to fend for myself when sales came calling with aggressive schedules and a call for the least amount of hours possible.

I packed up my laptop and headed home for the night, unsure if I'd see Ater in the raid. The bigger concern was setting foot in as a Shadow Priest, my first official class change since Vanilla. I'm certain if I had any opportunity to be a train wreck, tonight would be the night.

Descendants of Draenor defeats Fathom-Lord Karathress,
Serpentshrine Cavern

Fathom-Lord Karathress

DoD had a poor track record with council style bosses.

Fights involving heavy coordination, tons of communication, and which required significant spatial awareness were not our forte. Blain's strategy wasn't anything particularly unorthodox for our attempts, it was a by-the-book strategy. Separate Karathress from his guards and kill them one-by-one. The shaman Tidalvess would die first, due to his spitfire totems causing collateral damage. From there, we'd move to the hunter Sharkkis, which drained our casters of their mana. Once he and his sporebat pets fell, it was time for the final guard, the priest Caribdis, which would heal Karathress, requiring a dedicated interrupt contingent -- a challenge when you are constantly being knocked up into the air.

If all three guards could be executed, the raid would collapse on to Karathress himself, who absorbed the powers of his fallen defenders. It was going to be a long fight. If we had the endurance to survive his guard, and continue to stay alive during the final phase, it would be a done deal.

If.

The strategy required us to split up into individual groups responsible for handling individual mechanics. Adding insult to injury, these groups would then shift responsibilities with the death of each guard in the council. Rogues helping us burn through Tidalvess, for example, would then split apart, a few going to lend their DPS to Skarkkis, while others moved back to the Caribdis to assist with interrupts.

Chopliver was one of these rogues.

Chop had joined us months earlier, and his gnarly attitude with a headbanger-quality voice lent itself well to the undead rogue he had chosen to play. Chop may have come across as a metalhead in Vent, but come raid time, tore shit up. His damage was excessive and he prided himself on moving through targets quickly and with extreme prejudice. Blain picked up on Chop's refined play from the sidelines, long before I reached out to him to resume his role as our raid leader. Now in command, Blain had promoted Chop to raid assistant, and relied on him to mark targets and act as an effective focus target, if players weren't certain which mob we were on.

It was on an particularly gruesome attempt on Fathom-Lord Karathress that things looked like they could go either way. The start of the fight was always the toughest, just surviving the barrage of damage and many mechanics from all four bosses was a testament to will. As we poured a desperate amount of damage into Tidalvess, closing in his remaining hitpoints after having burnt out another spitfire totem, Chopliver opened his mic and the raid heard him hammering on keyboard as if trying to drill a hole in the middle of it.

"I got this, I got this, I got this..."

A solitary Cataclysmic Bolt leapt from the Fathom-Lord's fingertips and ended Chop's life in a single shot.

"...nevermind."

The raid had a good laugh at poor Chop's expense, but his death wasn't in vain. A few attempts later and we stood proudly atop the fallen council and their Fathom-Lord. I checked the date: it was August 14th.

Descendants of Draenor defeats Hydross the Unstable,
Serpentshrine Cavern

The Duke of Currents

Three days after defeating Fathom-Lord Karathress, we once again stood at the head of Serpentshrine Cavern, staring watery death straight in the face. Technically, Hydross the Unstable was the first boss in the instance, but no guild (short of a world-first one) in their right mind would've started with him. The Lurker Below was a much easier pill to swallow, as were many others in this underwater pumping station -- the last few weeks had proven it. But before we could stick a fork in Lady Vashj, and Leotheras the Blind, we had to overcome our fears, once and for all, and deal with this brutally unforgiving fight.

We knew the issue all too well. Ater had struggled with it. Volitar had struggled with it. The success of the encounter hinged on a surgical handling of the transition. Each and every time Hydross moved away from...or into...his watery beams, Water Elementals would spawn and his aggro table would wipe completely out. In an environment where people are being healed nearly non-stop, the threat of a healer pulling aggro was very real and happened constantly. Even so much as a totem drop would cause a double set of Elementals to spawn, rendering the attempt futile. I was no longer in the position of dropping totems, but just as he assured me, Ekasra was right there filling Kerulak's spot. Hydross had it in for Ekasra, but his totem aggro would no longer be an issue. Not if I could help it.

Nature damage stacked higher onto Ater to the point that he could barely withstand each of Hydross's hits, and he dragged the colossal Elemental, shifting it back towards the beams. Blain called into vent, "Prepare for transition, no more DoTs", and I followed up, addressing Ekasra directly. "Ekasra, stop heals". Ekasra did as instructed, moving far away from the tanks as they got ready to shift. Hydross sloughed off his greenish tint and became bright blue as the Lady's water-system purified him, and Dalans moved into position, swiping the four miniature elementals that spawned as a result. The transition was clean. Kurst now had control of Hydross, and began taking stacks of Frost damage while Ater recovered.

With a little extra micromanagement in Ekasra's direction, we managed our way through the encounter, whittling the Elemental away a bit at a time, healing through players encased in bubbles. There was no brute force here, all movements, all attacks, every single heal was measured. It was an exercise in discipline to maintain control and not panic for the full 15 minute fight. One wrong move, even near the end, would mean a wipe.

As Hyross' health dropped down into the final few percent, I felt a guild first approaching. We kept calm, cool, collected -- we treated that last 1% of health as if it were still at 99%. In a gush of water, Hydross spun into a vortex and dissipated, his shackles falling to the ground in a splash. The Duke of Currents was down, and we had gone from a completely stagnant guild, progression-wise, to 4/6 and 1/4, completing a total of four new bosses in the span of two weeks. Perhaps a bit of Blain was what pushed us over the edge, perhaps it was Ekasra's newly found confidence and strategy in handling his fellow raid mates. Maybe a little bit of Replenishment was all we needed.

Whatever it was, we were back on the tracks...full steam ahead.

2.20. Replenishment

"Sabrine of Runetotem",
Artwork by Sabrine

The Forsaken Role

I couldn't sit back any longer. We hadn't made progress in months. I was losing Ater to work, only able to call on him in needs of great emergency, yet these were happening nearly every week. I couldn't stand by and let the guild implode out of raw apathy. I had to do something. The most logical place to start was with myself. Get my own shit straight. Figure out what the guild needed from me and make it happen, rather than sit around wishing people would do the right thing, or that the right player would fall into my lap. The shaman core was now reasonably extensive. Gunsmokeco and his brother Deathonwing had joined the crew, as had an older crew member named Deathflurry -- he would go on to rename himself Mcflurrie, in an attempt to diminish confusion. With these three grouped next to Ekasra to soften the blow from a chain heal perspective, I gave serious thought to benching Kerulak, filling another much needed role that we lacked.

In Vanilla, raiding specializations were rigid. Each class had 3 talent trees, which changed the way that class was played. Spec into Protection, and your Warrior becomes a tank, wielding a sword and a shield, standing at the front of the raid, holding the boss in place and bearing the weight of its attacks. But, change that same Warrior’s spec to that of Fury, and now the Warrior wields an edged weapon in each hand, and instead of tanking, the Warrior is now relegated to melee DPS, burning the boss’s health down as fast as possible.

During that era, multiple specs existed, but only one was viable per class due to the way in which the numbers broke down statistically. Only the Warrior could ultimately bear the immense burden of a boss pounding on it, even though two other classes could technically tank. And so, those two other classes that could tank...didn't. Blizzard aimed to fix this in The Burning Crusade. They granted a few new abilities to some of the other hybrid classes. Druids and paladins received a few new tricks that made them viable tanks. shamans and druids began contributing to DPS instead of always healing. There was one other class that received changes in The Burning Crusade that gave it more flexibility in raids, but unlike the others, this class was the only one to receive a very special ability that was essential to raiding: the Priest.

Hanzo (playing as Breginna) eyes Melkezadek's
place on the damage meters for Shadow,
Gruul's Lair

Amen

When we were felling bosses like Ragnaros and Nefarian, Priests were healers, end-of-discussion. They had two styles of healing that they could adopt, either Holy or Discipline. Discipline was simply not viable in Vanilla. It couldn't match the healing throughput needed to raid competitively and make serious progression. Our priests certainly wouldn't have been able to keep our Main Tank up through Maexxna if they had been "Disc" in Vanilla. In fact, the Discipline tree itself wouldn't be reworked by Blizzard for another year-and-a-half. As a result, all priests were Holy...at least, all the ones we were privy to, in our research of the furthest progressed hardcore raiding guilds.

Those were the two healing specs a Priest had as an option. The third option, however, was vastly different than Holy and Discipline. It was a class archetype that simply hadn't been heard of before (at least, in the mainstream MMO sense; I'm sure it exists in the annals of Dungeons & Dragons lore). In this third specialization, a priest no longer healed, was no longer a being of the light. Instead, a dark shadow draped down across the player, nestling the priest in a shroud of violet fog. And, rather than mending the wounds of her party members, this "shadow" priest would hurl dark energy from a distance, loading up their targets with curses, plagues and diseases. Where once there existed a Power Word for a player's savior, in its place was a Shadow Word for the target's suffering, pain...and eventual death.
It was the shadow priest who melted faces in World of Warcraft.

Shadow priests were an incredibly cool option when WoW launched. Visually, it was stunning; no other class had the unique look of a player surrounded by a swirling shadowy mist. But like the other hybrid classes, the damage a shadow priest produced simply couldn't be matched by its ability to heal. The Burning Crusade changed all of that, and did so in a very unique way: Aside from the standard "buffing its damage to competitive levels" that Blizzard applied to the other hybrid classes, they bestowed upon the Shadow Priest a uniquely important buff, one no other class provided:

When the Shadow Priest dealt damage, she would replenish the mana of all of the casters that shared her group.

Vampiric Touch, one of the tools in a shadow priest's belt, was the only spell that brought this game-changing buff to the table. Its value was unmatched -- by bringing a single Shadow Priest to a raid, the casting classes that shared a group with a shadow priest would gain a huge boost of endurance, allowing them to last much longer into a difficult fight.

A boost that could easily turn a 1% wipe into a kill.

Hanzo continues to level Zanjina for 25-Man raids,
Thunder Bluff

Perfect Timing

The end of the Arena season was fast approaching, and awards were soon to be dolled out to those on the server that had proven to be the best and brightest PvPers in our battlegroup. It was no surprise at all to hear that Blain and company had earned Armored Netherdrakes for their dominance against other players. But the end of the season also meant the chance to stick my foot in the door, before Blain committed to another season of mindless PvP. There was work to be done. In his absence, things had crumbled. Without him to crack the whip on the whiners, we had grown weak and full of excuses.

I jumped into Vent and called Blain in to chat, while I flew my priest Zanjina across Nagrand in an attempt to collect Clefthoof dung.

"I'm retiring Kerulak," I told him, "Shadow priests are consistently absent, and we're overflowing with shamans."

"What about Melk?" Blain named Melkezadek, one shadow priest that melted faces like a champ when he was available.

"His schedule is all over the place."

"Isn't Ben using Anni's account now? The one you gave him for his High Warlord present?"

"Yeah, he is. He renamed it. I think it is Aeden now. Anni's basically given him the account to use, but he mostly PvPs on it. I mean, he comes to the odd raid, but it's a crap shoot. I need a consistent one there every week."

"Yours isn't even 70 yet." Thank you, Captain Obvious.

"Gimme a break, I'm working on her now! Anyway...I'll craft the Frozen Shadoweave set when I get her leveled. In the meantime, I'll bring Kerulak to the last few raids and step down from any loot that drops."

"Ok".

The awkward silence loomed.

"Volitar is skipping out on raids. He's not helping Ater anymore. Unreachable. I don't have a contact number, I don't know who to call or what to do...the guy is shutting down. Things were much easier when you ran shit."

"Nobody listened to me," Blain fired back, "Too many cooks in the kitchen. Tired of having to re-explain myself over and over to people who don't listen."

"What if we could change that?" I proposed.

"Then I would come back and do it. But not without control, not without support."

"Ok. I get it. I will give you that support. If it means me telling each and every officer to shut their mouth and take direction from you, I will do it."

"What makes you think they'll keep it in check this time?" he asked.

In a moment of confidence, I blurted out something that sounded like what a leader might say.

"They'll have no choice in the matter. The alternative is to dismantle and go join PPP."

Blain chuckled at the prospect, while I sunk Zanjina's blue troll fingers into piles of excrement.

---

The next day, July 16th, 2007, I emailed Blain:

So, yeah...Volitar MIA. What can I do to convince you to going back to the full on raid-leader? What were you missing from me the first time around that I can make happen this time so your life is easier/job is done better, etc? I know you got harped on a lot and I can shut that down right quick, but the discussion that went long in vent last night kept pointing back to having you be a single solitary raid-leader, and that if that was indeed your role that people would shut the hell up and follow. I would like to discuss it with you if you have time. Volitar did mediocre but this uncommunicative shit is upsetting me a lot and the Paladins are spiralling out of control.

He called for a meeting with Ater and I in Vent, to put all our cards on the table.