2.26. 9:53

Positioning for Leotheras the Blind
Source: WorldofStrats.com

The Totem Trick

Players were dying to bad luck. The uncontrollable whirlwind was too much for them to handle, and a series of ping-pong movements across Leotheras' underwater cave picked people off one-by-one, bleeding them out. Chief among the bleeders: yours truly. My shadow priest had only been a part of progression for a few months and her gear was essentially unchanged from the moment she first set foot in the Cavern. Not due to a lack of progression, mind you...but more a product of the poor itemization that SSC offered shadow priests in The Burning Crusade. With little option to augment her attire, I was forced to fall back on Blain's age-old idiom, repeating it to myself as a means of staying motivated.

In the end, your gear doesn't make you succeed. Gear won't make you good. Your skill at the game will.

If gear wasn't the solution to my problem, I would have to find a way to survive without it. I'd have to make my own luck. Just as anyone else in the raid.

Sifting through the logs and forum threads of guilds well past Leotheras, we made a clever discovery: a shaman's totems could be targeted by Leo during his whirlwind. The epiphany was a relief, yet bittersweet. I was already dealing with the guilt of benching my shaman in lieu of being the only consistent Replenishment provider of the raid -- and the subsequent loss of control I perceived as a result of giving up healing. But, with the discovery of this tactic, I felt worse! If only I had Kerulak again. I could drop totems seconds before the whirlwind, bolting for safety and once again bringing control to the chaos that unfolded. It wasn't an option. I'd made my choice. Zanjina was there to be a mana battery, and I accepted this decision inexorably.

I had to put my faith in the team. Only they could kill their inner demons while I dealt with my own.

Descendants of Draenor defeats Leotheras the Blind,
Serpentshrine Cavern

The Blind Killing the Blind

The intricate dance began with Blain setting Eacavissi up for Demon Form tanking. Our trusted warlock geared for the fire resistance necessary and wrestled for control of the boss via Searing Pain, a spell with increased threat -- vital to a warlock tank. As the fire vulnerability stacked too high, Blain called Sir Klocker for a Divine Intervention, cleansing our warlock of all his debuffs, sacrificing the paladin in the process. The expired paladin would return to life via Breginna's battle resurrection, as Blain's carefully choreographed strategy continued to unfold. As for the whirlwind, Blain laid it out on the table: he'd announce to the melee when it was time to get to safety. At that point the shamans would drop their totems and head for the hills, while the remainder of us dashed into the nooks and crannies along the outer edges of the room. The hope was that by being out of line-of-sight, Leo would prefer the totems over players, saving us from a painful bleeding death.

Once we got the timing right for getting out to safety, the totem gimmick appeared to do its trick. Leo spun into a mad frenzy, bouncing back and forth between various sets of shaman totems like a pinball working on a high score. Every precious second the gimmick granted us grew the margin of error further, allowing us a flatter learning curve; a more approachable encounter. With a greater margin of error, the raid team began to close in on the final 15% with everyone alive. It wasn't long before we were into the final phase, having to deal with both Blood Elf and Demon Form at the same time. This was the real madness, and it was intense. Having already used Divine Intervention, Eacavissi's life fell into the hands of the healers, which realistically only lasted ten or twelve seconds before the fire vulnerability burned him to a crisp. Lacking that warlock tank, the Demon Form pummeled the raid with blasts of fire damage as he walked the threat list, looking for a new target. Meanwhile, the Blood Elf form hacked away at the tanks while healers struggled to keep them alive, moving to avoid incoming blasts of fire in the process.

With the whirlwind continuing to bounce between player and totem, I ran to the back of the room to get out of line-of-sight. To my horror, Bojax and Raziei followed me, yet stayed in plain sight. Leo headed straight for us; there was nowhere to run. A single thought jumped into my mind. You're doomed. Doomed by your own blind players. As predicted, Leotheras struck the group I cowered amongst, and the bleed ticked of handfuls of my health. Facing imminent death, I sprinted from the room, laid on a final Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain, then collapsed to the floor. My attention turned to the roster. Gunsmokeco was still alive. Ekasra was still alive. The shamans continued to blanket the raid with their chain heals, dropping more totems to act as targets for the spinning saw-blade. The tanks were staying alive. DPS was staying alive. Leo's health ticked down to 3%....2%....1%.

And it was over.

A cheer filled vent as Blain added the icing to the cake, "with seven...seconds...remaining."

We beat the enrage timer by seven seconds, clocking our first official kill in at 9 minutes 53 seconds. As close a shave as any could get...without bleeding out. I glanced down at the damage meters, to see where I placed.

Ninth.

Any progress is better than no progress.

That Public Relations Spin

It was time to start moving our recovery plan into action. Ater, Blain and I decided to set a new precedent for the guild -- one that separated the wheat from the chaff. In order to identify "rock stars" in the environment we'd bred, a certain level of diplomacy was needed. That involved careful language and setting the expectations of the players appropriately. The first part of that plan came about in the wake of our recent success. The proof was right there in front of us; after Blain's return, we'd gone from seeing no progression in months, to 5/6 and 1/4 across Tier 5. That fact alone spoke volumes -- that we absolutely possessed the potential and crew to accomplish great things...even Illidan himself. We just needed the right leadership. In the face of that mounting evidence, I moved to the next step in the plan -- a promise I made to Ater. Acknowledge the accomplishments of the team.

At the close of the weekend which produced our first Leotheras kill,  I created a new section in our forums called "Accomplishments". Here, I demonstrated to the guild that their work was not going unnoticed; that their individual contributions had real value and worth. To leadership, it was clear as day that Blain's return had caused an about-face in our approach, but my next move wasn't to bolster the rogue's ego, it was to affirm to the troops that what they brought to the table each raid night was a quantifiable contribution. Regardless of what organizational changes brought about our recent success, I wanted one message to be common: It was because of the raid team that we were back on track today,. What went on behind closed doors in the officer channel was no longer relevant, who we happened to be talking about or which "carries" were next on the chopping block. The public face of our success is what was most important now, and we wanted to hammer that home. The raiders would focus on these accomplishments, and in turn, have less time to devote to rumor and innuendo.

I let the guild know that this forum topic would never be purged and would stand for eternity as a reflection of the many great deeds that the guild had accomplished in progression. I played it up, big-time. The forum thread was even made viewable to the public for others to see. Members of our team could use it to show off to their friends in competing guilds, maybe even entice them into joining. We'd call out a show of thanks to those individuals who helped us work through the boss mechanics, so that players could see their name in lights, make them feel important...

...make them feel like they were good at something.

The "Accomplishments" forum thread was the start of a revolution in how I approached the management of DoD; it was an audit trail of our success. A means to show thanks for the effort players were giving us. A reminder that each individual player was important. A sales pitch to anyone interested in investigating our guild further, to see if we had something to offer them...

...and all the evidence I needed to start leaving certain people behind.

2.25. The Zanjina Monologues

"Undead Priest",
Artwork by UnidColor

The Feeling of Power

The first weekend of raiding on my shadow priest left me feeling like a bullshit leader. In the face of some of the greatest progression we had seen after months of stagnation, the guild leader was the lame duck. I saved face as best I could, congratulating the guild for their terrific wins in SSC, while quietly sickened by my own performance. Feelings of regret floated to the surface regarding my decision to bench Kerulak. Damage-producing machines like Turtleman, Blain, and Eacavissi dominated the meters, while Zanjina sat at a dismal 10th overall. It was the predictable result of a freshly minted 70 shoehorned in to the middle of TBC progression. My only consolation was the knowledge that we now had a dedicated replenishment buff that Blain could freely utilize in whichever group would gain the most from it. I knew mana regeneration was valuable. I was well-aware of the impact my small role played in the grand scheme of our progression. Those nights where boss kills easily could have been 1% wipes we'd now have the edge over. But I still couldn't shake the feeling that I was a burden more than a boon. And as I thanked each player for coming to the raid that night, reminding them that we were once again focused on getting to Illidan, nobody thanked me in return for sacrificing Kerulak in place of few extra mana points.

It was my job to motivate and encourage others without any expectation of warm-fuzzies in return. Self-sacrifice: all part of the job description.

Every day we returned to SSC to plug away at bosses, the damage meters stared back at me, a stark reminder of what my "contribution" looked like. Up went Shadow Word: Pain, then a Vampiric Touch, followed with a series of Mind Flays, my damage production capabilities continued to languish as the rest of the crew bubbled to the surface. As a leader attempting to set an example for others, this was an embarrassment, at best. It bugged me. I felt like I had no control to determine the raid's success. With Kerulak the rules were much simpler; the power of controlling players' lives through healing was much more palpable. My tauren shaman flung totems to the ground and dazzled raids with leaping beams of healing energy, saving tanks from imminent death and keeping facerollers in the fire from meeting their makers. Kerulak kept the raid progression alive. In his hands rested the fate of the players he healed. That was control. I would even go so far as to claim that a healer held more control of the raid than a tank, whose sole purpose was to bash a boss's brains in and not let the boss return the favor to others. The rejuvenating power of healing was intoxicating, which made it difficult for me to see the rational side of my current mediocrity.

I held the fate of our raid in Kerulak's hooves, and that felt like real power. I felt no such power in Zanjina. All I felt -- after looking at my 10th place on the damage meters -- was shame.

Shadow Word: Fail

Avatar Regalia:
Great to look at, set bonuses that
were nothing to write home about.
(Cosplay by Stéphane You)

The weeks that followed ate away at me as we neared the next hump in progression. One boss remained before Lady Vashj, Leotheras the Blind, and he would be the most unforgiving encounter yet. Every waking moment I spent in-game was to polish Zanny. I practiced in 5-man Heroics The Steamvault and The Shattered Halls. I struggled to keep myself alive in Eye of the Storm. I did anything I could to diminish my perception as a bottom-feeder. And to be quite clear, there wasn't much to adjust. In the days of The Burning Crusade, mastering a shadow priest was about as difficult as tying your shoe. Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, rinse and repeat. As your target approaches death, add in a few casts of Shadow Word: Death for good measure. That's it. No complicated priorities. No "change your rotation when this one special ability procs" or "use this sequence while moving". The only flavor to the mix was an occasional Inner Focus, granting a free Mind Blast with a 100% critical chance.

Only a person who tied their shoelaces into knots could mess up a shadow priest's rotation.

My numbers remained low, and I continually enjoyed the luxury of random nagas leaping out and striking me down, my limited health pool and elegant Frozen Shadoweave ensuring a quick and embarrassing death. I gave new relevance to the phrase "standing in the fire"; a phrase no longer reserved simply to persuade others into getting their shit straight. If I was to lead by example, I was doing a piss-poor job of it, dying (it seemed) just by being looked at. Hyper focused on my pathetic damage and simplistic spell rotation, I became the textbook example of how to fail at raiding. And each time I was killed in the game, it killed me in real life.

I wasn't even able to take solace in loot. Yes, we were back on track, killing bosses and doing weekly imports of DKP strings boasting fabulous loot assignments. The raid's power grew stronger. But there was no loot for me. Not only had my DKP pool reset by switching to a new character (which was only fair to the rest of my players) but no items in tier 5 held significance to a shadow priest. We weren't going back to Tier 4, and as for the Avatar Regalia, its set bonuses left a lot to be desired. Under the oppressive iron fist of TBC raids, a steady boost of self-healing via Frozen Shadoweave's set bonus far outweighed random breaks in mana.

Mana cost was never an issue for a shadow priest. Replenishment...remember?

So, the steam train pressed on to Leo, clearing bosses and looting gear while gaining both power and strength. And I brought up the rear end, endlessly tripping over my knotted shoelaces.

Coagulation

September 2nd, 2007. Seven months into The Burning Crusade. Kael'thas Sunstrider's five blood elves, previously sent to Illidan to train as demon hunters, had produced only one viable candidate. Of the four failed students, three had perished in training. The remaining demon hunter apprentice had gone mad, exiled to the depths of Serpentshrine Cavern. We drank our flasks and ate our food, eyeing the three Broken that kept him leashed to the floor in draenic magic. The tell-tale blindfold wrapped tightly across his eyes marked him as a demon hunter. As it was with Illidan himself, blinded by Sargeras and granted new, truer sight to find and slay demons wherever they lurked. The only demons Leotheras saw were his inner ones, and it was up to us to bring his madness to an end.

Leo shifted between two forms for the duration of the encounter. In blood elf form, he would wail on the tanks, stopping on occasion to perform a whirlwind that bounced him around his cave like a pinball. This was when he was at his most treacherous; the blow from a whirlwind not only struck for a massive amount of damage, it left a bleed ticking away at the health pool of the afflicted player -- especially damning to a shadow priest already suffering in the hit-point department.

In his demon form, Leotheras focused fiery attacks on his highest threat target, and with each successive ignite, caused his target to take increased fire damage. Without a viable solution, whomever he chose would eventually burn to death, no matter how many healers were assigned. But this wasn't all that demon form had in store for us. His transformation caused five random players to face their own inner demons -- splitting out a copy of oneself that only the afflicted player could target and kill. Only Ater could kill Ater's inner demon; only Zanjina could kill Zanjina's inner demon, and so on. Failing to do so before Leotheras shifted back to blood elf form would cause the player to lose her own grip on sanity. And under the influence of this madness, fellow raid members would turn and cut one another down in cold blood.

The final 15% of Leotheras was the deal breaker. He proceeded to split into both forms at the same time, forcing the raid to deal with multiple sets of mechanics at once. With a solid 15% of health in his pool, this could not be handled as a final hail mary of damage, sacrificing tactics for bloodlust. Without keeping a cool head and staying focused on the strategy, 15% would most certainly eat away at us like parasites.

It only took a few attempts to truly understand how handicapped my undergeared priest was. Leo's whirlwind killed me more times than I could count. Fully raid buffed, I barely scraped past 8k in my hit-point pool...but in less than 4 seconds, the bleed did me in. But, Leotheras wasn't about surviving the bleed.

It was about not bleeding.

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.

2.18. Decay

Hanzo's alt Uld digs into Bael Modan with Neurcrotic,
The Barrens

The Weight of the World

I woke up screaming.

It was 2:00 a.m., and my jaw ached as if I had been struck by a drunken biker. The pain from an impacted wisdom tooth seeped through the barrier separating the woken from the asleep. Although video games had been my life for the better part of thirty-six years, I rarely had dreams of them. This night was different. Concerns had been weighing heavily on my mind. The exit of Kadrok. A roster of players unable to stay out of the fire. My responsibility to play a restoration druid while the owner was away; my own shaman collecting cobwebs in the process. Feelings of guilt about our lack of progression. My wanting Ekasra to excel, to be accepted by his peers, only to see him continually ridiculed while he played at a sub-par level. Ater becoming more focused at work, putting extra hours in on projects I wasn't involved with, spending less time in-game, less time mentoring me in management and leadership. And now, a new threat loomed: players were starting to check-out.

I dragged myself out of bed and went downstairs to the computer room. I needed painkillers, the best I could hope for was a handful of Advil to keep me going until the Dentist's office opened. I wasn't going back to sleep with my jaw ablaze in agony, so I sat down at the keyboard, logged on, and began leveling my rogue Uld in Hellfire Penninsula. In solitude, mindlessly jumping through the hoops that Thrallmar sent my way, I couldn't escape the problems of the guild. My mind continued to dart back to them. We'd defeated The Lurker Below weeks before and had yet to secure another kill. Of course, any sort of work on any other bosses was laughable at best. Initial attempts on Hydross the Unstable had been complete and total failures. The threat wipe between transitions was so incredibly touchy that even the slightest bit of aggro at the wrong time meant Ater would lose his grip on the Corrupted Water Elemental. Ekasra struggled here, and managed to drop his totems at the wrong time, causing a double set of Water Elemental minions to spawn. The attempt was a wash.

I flew Uld over to Zeth'gor, trying to keep my mind occupied, keep it from drifting back to the pain in the recesses of my jaw. The guild's problems continued to be my dental relief. When Breginna returned from her work project, resuming control of her druid, I hopped back onto Kerulak to try to show Ekasra the ropes as best I could, keeping close tabs on those transitions and being mindful of threat. Yet we stagnated on Hydross and lost whatever temporary gusto was present during The Lurker's defeat. Once again, we were wiping to farmed content. Volitar became a no-show, absent from the signups and missing-in-action come raid time. The load then fell back onto Ater's shoulders, who remained silent in Vent as he carried the weight of a failing raid while his work piled up at the office. And like the pain in my jaw, I could do nothing. Just sit back and watch the tower crumbling.

A player swooped down out of the sky to mine some ore near Uld and I glanced up the guild tag; the pain resonated deeper into my head, throbbing and aching.

Pretty Pink Pwnies.

PPP prepares for an Illidan kill, boasting
various ex-DoD members in their roster,
Black Temple

Management By Fear

The furthest progressed Horde raiding guild on Deathwing-US was Pretty Pink Pwnies. They raided twice as long as us each week (4 nights, minimum), and destroyed us in terms of progression. They had a colorful roster of players who wouldn't think twice about tossing some racial slurs your way. Led by a blowhard named Bru, they were difficult to keep up with. I never had the luxury of speaking to him myself, but whenever I asked for people's opinions, players lavished him with praise:

"He's a genius."

"Superb raid leader."

"Doesn't take a lot of shit."

"I've heard the guy make people cry in Vent."

"Only speaks in a steady stream of curses and insults."

Bru was famously recorded tearing a guild member to pieces during an Archimonde attempt -- a boss we wouldn't see for months. I listened to this clip and was astounded. All I could think of was how am I losing players to this guy?

My aversion to such disgusting treatment of people was entirely the reason I had folks like Ater in place, preferring kindness over abuse. Ater knew how to call people out while keeping the belittling in check. Derogatory name-calling had no place in our guild. That was, after all, one of our selling points in Descendants of Draenor: a tiny bit of humanity, as opposed to the standard guilds where the underlying rule was "If you fuck up, you're out."

But all the touchy-feely mutual respect we preached in our ideals did nothing to prevent DoD from hemorrhaging players to guilds like Pretty Pink Pwnie. I stood in the dark, unaware of what motivated them, what drove them to blindly follow a person that was devoid of any real people skills. Annihilation shared his opinions with me on this bizarre tendency of human nature.

"He's not a bad guy, Kerulak. Bru's actually cool, once you get to know him. His management technique just happens to be different than what you're used to."

"How can you say that? I mean, the guy has made people cry in raids. That is some stellar people management!"

"Some people need that. People flock to what gives them a sense of comfort. A sense of being part of a family. He runs it like a business, but that isn't what everyone strives for."

"Yeah, but a boss doesn't yell at people and make them cry like babies. What's the point of being such a d-bag to your people?"

"Every leader is a d-bag to someone down the chain. Doesn't matter how nice you are. Someone is eventually going to think you're a tyrant. Bru's just cut-to-the-chase and gotten it over with early. Result? He can focus on what he does best: Get a raid going and get shit done."

I didn't like Anni's answer. He was touching on something deep in the recesses of the human psyche, but I remained doubtful. There had to be more to this condition that simply "they feel like they belong". Would I get to meat of this mystery?

Eventually.

Elephantine examines Xplotos of Depraved, getting a
first glimpse at what raid rewards lay in Molten Core,
Orgrimmar

Own Up

I couldn't waste time worrying about other guild's management techniques, no matter how much of the douchebag quota they fulfilled. Like the impacted wisdom tooth, I continued to ignore problems until they reared their head, out of fear and ignorance. If I ignored them, someone else might take over and handle them on my behalf. That may have worked to a degree in Vanilla when my guild was bursting with officers and people-friendly role models; folks with natural leadership qualities. But I didn't know the first thing about dealing with people, about encouraging or motivating them. I didn't want to have to manage by fear, but my passive, family-friendly way wasn't working. And the longer I sat on my heels, the faster my guild would float to the surface, belly up.

Sooner or later, I had to take control. I had to own up to my responsibility in leading the guild, as opposed to taking a passive approach on the sidelines. Continuing in this manner would lead me down a path destined for failure. Members chose their own path, used their own interpretations of my unwritten rules to excuse inappropriate behavior toward one another -- and their laziness upon setting foot in our raids. The order of execution was as follows: Find out why our guild wasn't taking raids seriously enough -- find out the root cause of their myriad of excuses. Find a way to get a hold of the stagnation of our progression, flatten the slump, and get us focused again on a schedule that would lead us to Illidan.

The most important tasks on my to-do list was to put a stop to the endless "woe-is-me" perception of the brutality in these raids. Guilds like Depraved and Pretty Pink Pwnies didn't boast successful raid histories because they were experts at whining and complaining. Yes, raiding was hard, but not impossible It only felt that way because we weren't exploring every option, weren't looking at the minutia that we once held as gospel: those tiny bits of theorycrafting that would reveal great secrets in performance gains. These fine details should have been the focus of our research in the off-hours, like a change in keybindings or adherence to the 5-second rule. Utilizing all available tools is what turned the tables on bosses previously immune to our many charms. There had to be an explanation to the practically nil margin of error that we continually faced. What was the secret? What was the thing that we were missing that would turn our weekly raids from depressing 1% wipes to consistent executions?

---

I glanced up from my monitor, noting that the sun was starting to rise. Thank God. In a few short hours, the Dentist's office would be open, and I could at last get some relief for the pain. In my half-asleep, semi-distracted state, I failed to notice an Alliance Shadow Priest close the distance on me. The priest sent out a bolt of dark blue energy and proceeded to melt Uld's face off into the dirt, finishing her health bar off with dark tendrils swooping downward into her skull.

Shadow Priest, I thought to myself. What I wouldn't give for a few more of those in the roster.