3.58. Procrastinators Anonymous

DoD defeats all ten Faction Champions at once,
earning "Resilience Will Fix It (25 Player)",
Tournament of Champions

Sands Through the Hourglass

Blain wasted no time pushing Si Team toward achievement completion. He took hold of the 10-Man stagecoach with all the seriousness of his former 25-Man leading days that I remembered well. The last wintery month of 2009 saw our 10-Man's total obliteration of the first wing in ICC, a shower of achievements raining down in the process. Si Team's first official outing took place on the evening of Saturday, December 12th -- one day after the progression team's first exposure to Arthas' army. In that introductory run, we claimed victory over both "Boned (10 Player)" and "I've Gone and Made a Mess (10 Player)", but Blain wouldn't let up. The next two weeks were primarily spent alleviating the burden of "Full House (10 Player)", an annoyingly complicated kill in which the team artificially dragged the encounter out, spawning far more cultists than was necessary for a standard execution. Dispatching the cultists was easy...forcing an abundance of them to spawn while not being overwhelmed was a tad more vicious in difficulty. Still, Si Team had positioning and strategy polished by the 30th, knocking both it and "I'm on a Boat (10 Player)" out in the same evening.

Aside from the one signifying a full clear of the first wing, the 25-Man had not yet completed an ICC achievement.

Before you rush to condemn Omaric and Bretthew, however, allow me to add some context that may be absent from the story thus far. The dual 25-Man raid leaders had an entirely different mission to accomplish and were busy leading the flock to that end. As noted earlier, raiders who plowed through the Lower Spire were left with plenty of time on their hands, but this free time slowly trickled away as The Plagueworks' unlock date approached. Like a whiteboard from bizarro land, legacy boss names yet to be murdered still appeared in blood red. For Omaric and Bretthew, their immediate concern was to wipe the red away, and rewrite those names in black. Whatever held us up by this point -- gearing concerns, poor players over the holidays -- had to be put to rest.

---

Our tour of duty started on a cold evening in the middle of December, beginning with Faction Champions. Omaric and Bretthew led us through a granular, heavily micromanaged attack on the Alliance heroes. The goal was to have them all killed within 60 seconds of the first champion's death; the ten Alliance heroes would not make it easy for us. Not only were they randomly chosen from a pool of a possible fourteen, causing to us to adjust our strategy week-to-week, the fight unfolded as if we had dropped out of the sky and into an Arathi Basin blacksmith battle already in progress. Each enemy acted like a player would in PvP, they'd crowd-control, silence, fear, do everything they could to perplex the raid team. In order to pull this off, the raid team would have to demonstrate a bit of PvP savvy of their own -- street smarts that didn't often come naturally to players preferring PvE. Attempts to complete the achievement filled the majority of our evening, finally coming to a close at just three minutes shy of 10 o'clock. The Faction Champions lay at our feet on the floor of the coliseum, within the time dictated by the achievement. "Resilience Will Fix It (25 Player)" was off the whiteboard, the investment of time acting as a painful reminder that some of us needed to revisit Arenas.

The raid leaders weighed the differences in difficulty between what lay ahead in ToC against other outstanding red names. Their judgement was to shift gears once again. So, we returned to the snow-capped peaks cradling Ulduar. We hopped off our Ironbound Proto-Drakes to enter the ancient titan city, making our way deep behind enemy lines, through ancient twisting architecture, arriving at the sealed door marked by four elements. Omaric pressed his virtual hand up against the lock where four symbols were marked: a green leaf, red flame, white snowflake, and blue bolt of lighting. The locks beamed brightly upon activation and spiraled apart; the enormous doors slid open to reveal a massive chamber of stars. We approached via a long causeway, and the floor itself became glass as our insignificant selves collected near the circular platform. We were in the Celestial Planetarium, home to a timeless Titan guardian charged with observing the "Azeroth Experiment" in the absence of his creators.

This was Algalon the Observer, the solitary hard-mode only encounter in Ulduar.

DoD defeats Algalon the Observer,
earning "Observed (25 Player)",
Ulduar

Astral Walkers

When not fielding the excitement of homeless people suffering heart attacks at my front door, I had the luxury of attending a 10-Man defeat of Algalon a few weeks earlier. Much to the delight of the raid leaders, a sizable chunk of the 25-Man progression team shared similar exposure. Ostensibly, this first hand experience would ease us into a flatter learning curve for the more significant 25-Man execution on deck. The gamble paid off. No mechanics significantly differed between 10 and 25. The only noticeable change was the most logical: everything hit harder, the go-to stratagem Blizzard employed when attempting to scale raid difficulty. In many cases, scaling damage while keeping all other mechanics intact was a viable solution, the effect of which produced a "lite" version in 10-Man mode, perfect for those guilds who chose to approach raiding with a less serious amount of dedication. On the flip side, being exposed to this simpler version gave 25-Man raiding guilds an edge in learning the more brutal implementation. Like add-ons, I saw the 10-Man versions as tools, and we would take advantage of every tool we could in order to maintain competitive 25-Man progression.

Algalon attempts were noticeably tighter. One might predict this behavior was a result of the looming timer hovering atop the raid's UI -- a permanent reminder burned into all eyes that every second was precious...and slipping away. With only one hour of attempts per week, attempts had to be efficient, recoveries quick. It was imperative that the mechanics of the encounter remained fresh in players' minds from week to week. The more new faces we took each week, the tougher the challenge grew as we revisited mechanics: dodging the cosmic smash, watching out for the living constellations, being aware of black holes and their tendency to appear underfoot. Indeed, December was focused heavily on ridding ourselves of Algalon, and after what seemed like an eternity, he fell on the fifth week of attempts, two days after Christmas morning. To us, Algalon seemed to stretch out the fabric of time, but for the Celestial Guardian himself, it was a mere four hours and eleven minutes in a room with Descendants of Draenor.

Algalon's defeat by the 25-Man progression team marked our official completion of Ulduar in its entirety. To this day, it remains one of (if not) the most remarkable experiences ever put in front of us. The addition of a final "hard mode only" boss provided an unmatched level of polish to Ulduar. It was a final, significant challenge to sate the hunger of progression-focused raiders, giving them one last chance to push themselves to new levels, ones they most likely never thought achievable. In the changing landscape that was raid content in World of Warcraft, where "hard modes" were optional, and standard clears were a mindless endeavor, bosses like Algalon sent a message back to the raiding community:

We know that not all raiders share the same dedication to tackling difficult content, and that shouldn't be a barrier to entry...

...but some of you are still out there. Let's see if you have what it takes.

The 25-Man progression team poses after their defeat
of Algalon the Observer,
Ulduar

Descendants of Draenor took up that challenge, and became Astral Walkers for our efforts. "Hard mode only" bosses would show up again in Cataclysm and beyond, but Algalon the Observer would be last hard-mode only boss that Descendants of Draenor ever completed in 25-Man during its relevance in raid progression.

DoD keeps everyone from staying impaled over 8 seconds
during Lord Marrowgar, earning "Boned (25 Player)",
Icecrown Citadel

Cramming

A blue post confirmed our suspicions. The second wing of Icecrown Citadel, the Plagueworks, would unlock on January 5th, 2010. We'd spent December diverting all our efforts into ToC and Algalon; we had some catching up to do. The final weekend before the 5th saw the 25-Man progression team shifting into overdrive in an attempt to make up lost time. The first checkpoint was "Boned (25 Player)", an execution of Lord Marrowgar in which no member of the raid team remained impaled longer than eight seconds. Rogues and warlocks dominated this fight; burst damage exploded out of players like Riskers, Blain, Eacavissi and Mangetsu, essential to freeing impaled players. Sandwiched between their yellow and purple bars sat our lone boomkin Bulwinkul, bending the night sky to his whim as gestures painted in the air forced blasts of moonlight into Marrowgar's three heads. Meanwhile, I continued to focus my attention on improving DPS, noting that Hellspectral -- a fellow death knight whom had only just respecc'd to frost -- was quickly gaining on me. Without serious improvement on my end, he'd surpass me, a lathe continuing to shave off what little credibility I clung to as a means of justifying the first Shadowmourne.

Five different cultists are on deck as Lady Deathwhisper falls,
earning the 25-Man Progression team "Full House (25 Player)",
Icecrown Citadel

From there, we moved to Lady Deathwhisper, forcing the same artificially drawn-out kill that Si Team had, weeks earlier. We struggled to get the Lady in position, her green Death and Decay painting the floor as players leapt out of the way. Ghostly apparitions headed toward us like ticking time bombs as we called out for shields and freedoms. Melee proved the greatest threat to this achievement's execution: if targeted by a Vengeful Spirit, sprinting away from the tank was the immediate emergency maneuver. An AoE explosion produced by a Spirit reaching its target would most certainly kill the tank, taking out a chunk of other melee as collateral damage.

The Alliance Gunship is blanketed in explosions
as DoD earns "I'm on a Boat (25 Player)",
Icecrown Citadel

Omaric and Bretthew struggled to maintain control while handing the Lady off to one another. Her threat suppression mechanic increased Deathwhisper's likelihood of turning and swatting melee during this touchy transition. As we neared our completion of Full House, both Blain and Riskers had been dealt a fatal blow. Moments earlier, our warlock officer Eacavissi fell alongside Larada the hunter in a similar ghostly explosion. But the 25-Man team persevered. Lady Deathwhisper gasped her last breath surrounded by a myriad of cultists, and the golden bar flashed up on our screens indicating success.

Twenty-five swarm scarabs are destroyed in under thirty
seconds, earning DoD "The Traitor King (25 Player)",
Tournament of Champions

"I'm on a Boat (25 Player)" immediately followed, requiring little coordination beyond our standard setup. The cascade of explosions billowed out as the gunship lost control and plummeted downward to the glacier below. We then engaged Saurfang, burning every cooldown available, racing for a kill before he completed three casts of Mark of the Fallen Champion. We pulled it off with two hours to spare, granting us "I've Gone and Made a Mess (25 Player)". We immediately folded those remaining two hours in the Tournament, killing Anub'arak alongside twenty of his insectoid friends, a feat that granted us "The Traitor King".

---

As the final grains of sand trickled through the glass, our plate was in much better shape. We'd taken a huge bite out of the achievements in ToC; Algalon had also been devoured. We took a deep breath of relief and prepared for our entry into The Plagueworks. After the rush of challenging encounters behind us, I thought Team Si's first venture into the second wing would be a breeze.

I thought wrong.

3.55. Nine One One

Patch 3.1 - The Secrets of Ulduar
Official Artwork (Algalon pictured)
Copyright © 2009 Blizzard Entertainment

The Incident

Talk to enough World of Warcraft players and eventually you'll get the story about "that one night". A player remains fastened to their chair while, two rooms away, an unattended skillet of bacon catches fire. The stove ablaze, the player recounts the boss's health trickling down, staying just long enough to secure loot before brandishing a fire extinguisher. Whether dull (drove around stealing my neighbor's wi-fi) or disgusting (puked in a bucket next to my computer through an entire night of attempts on Sapphiron), sooner or later, a raider lives through such an experience...and our guild wasn't exempt. A car crashed through one raider's living room wall, another raider was escorted away from his computer in handcuffs. These bizarre raiding-under-duress stories resonate deep in the hearts of players who've experienced such circumstances themselves. 

In today's blog post, I join those ranks.

---

The weekend before patch 3.3 landed, there was an incident.

I hoped for a laid-back weekend. Guild issues consumed most of my attention in the weeks leading up to the next big content patch. My attempt at appointing a new Alt-25 leader led to an almost immediate shitcanning of the player, damage quickly repaired thanks to the help of Mangetsu (his efforts earned him the Avatar rank in the process). Bheer had dropped a bomb on me, walking away from the 25-Man progression team and his Elite rank, providing neither forewarning nor explanation. And my finely crafted loot rules were about to get their first amendment, something I hoped to save until the end of the expansion. It was a lose-lose scenario: avoiding the loophole would have compounded its effect, but changing rules ad hoc carried the stigma of a dictator arbitrarily "playing" his people to suit his own needs. With these latest upheavals, I gladly welcomed a weekend with no surprises. 

I was about to get one I would not soon forget.

It was Saturday evening when the text message arrived from Blain,

"10-Man Algalon?"

The progression raid had only spent one weekend in the Celestial Planetarium thus far, a star-filled room locked tightly in the recesses of Ulduar. Our attentions had been divided. Focus shifted to the Tournament of Champions once our Ironbound Proto-Drakes were in hand, yet loose ends dangled in Ulduar. Algalon the Observer was a unique hard-mode only boss, and few 25-Man guilds on the server had wrapped him up by this point. We were going to have to bite the bullet soon. Blain's text optioned a chance for me to get more hands-on practice with the Observer, get familiar with his airtight tuning and mechanics. With luck, we could leverage that experience in the 25-Man, communicating his subtleties to the remainder of the team. The night was a blank slate. The kids were busy entertaining themselves in the living room, and my wife was out running errands. I rarely got the chance to raid on nights I hadn't scheduled real life around, and so thumbed a text back to Blain,

"BRT"

Excerpt from "World of Warcraft Comic - Special #1
Beginnings and Ends"
Copyright © WildStorm / Blizzard Entertainment

Celestial Assembly

The invite dialog popped up as Mature materialized on screen; I glanced at the assembled team while popping into Ventrilo. Omaric was present on Ikey-bear; I saw no other tanks...which meant the plan most likely pointed to me for tank No. 2. Healers appeared to be Neps via his paladin Jlo, alongside the 25-Man healing officer (and Eh Team member) Gunsmokeco. As for DPS, familiar faces stood next to Blain. Turtleman was present, as was Crasian, my "departing" death knight who hadn't quite cut the cord. Was he back already? Had he even left? It wasn't clear. Borken the shaman, a long-time veteran of DoD, offered up his power over the elements. Also present was Shiftr, a druid dating back to TBC, he had taken time off and was now back, lapping up our recent successes. Rounding the team out was Razzy, a player often seen chumming it up with Neps in PvP during the off-hours. Raz boasted multiple characters; tonight, he chose the retribution paladin. So, the final role call consisted of:

2 death knights: one blood, one unholy,
2 druids, one feral, one boomkin,
2 shamans, one restoration, one elemental,
2 paladins, one holy, one retribution,
1 fire mage,
and 1 assassination rogue.

Then ten of us headed to Ulduar while Vent lit up on the topic of strategy. How were the healers going to coordinate a rotation on the Big Bang tank? Should Crasian retain sole responsibility of the living constellations? Would the tanks be moving Algalon near a black hole in prep for Phase Punch? The conversation was almost entirely tactical, peppered with occasional reminders about the fateful one hour limit. Once we loosed our first arrows upon Algalon, the clock began to tick. From that point forward, we would only have sixty minutes to defeat the boss. Sixty minutes of attempts, wipes, running back, cleaning up, and getting mistakes straightened out. Baby steps, the core ideology fueling our progression since Molten Core, was no longer a viable option on tonight's agenda. We would have to move swiftly, adjust on the fly, and play with surgical precision. Repeating mistakes would waste precious minutes, so for the purposes of speed and efficiency, we did away with the politically correct formalities.

Tonight, it was about not fucking up.

As the first seconds ticked off the sixty-minute clock, the team jelled with synergy. Those present from Eh Team already claimed first-hand experience, calling out as many live adjustments as possible. I watched my health spike as the titanic guardian laid me out; Algalon hit like a truck. Every ounce of willpower bubbled to the surface in an attempt to keep me from spazzing out. I reached for Icebound Fortitude as he bashed my skull in, but resisted as Guns and Neps kept me alive. That cooldown needed to be ready for Big Bang while the rest of the team escaped the incoming celestial blast. Any and all mitigation was necessary to withstand its power; without IBF, I'd surely die. We survived the first transition, but a series of mishaps led to a healer death. This prevented Ikey from receiving much needed protection during the second Big Bang, ending the attempt in a wipe. 

With the clock ticking, we rushed back to the Celestial Planetarium, buffed, and prepared for a second pull. This time, it was well into the attempt before things fell apart. Someone stood too close to a Cosmic Smash, its AoE damage lowering their health just enough to be picked off by the implosion of a collapsing star -- further AoE damage which tore a black hole open in the planetarium. We judged the death too early in the attempt to recover from, so decided to call a wipe and raced back for our third attempt. 

Fifteen minutes of sand had already slipped down through the hourglass.

I heard the familiar scrape of the computer room door behind me, its hinges clung for dear life into a frame boasting multiple repair jobs...none of which had been successful. What intruder dared enter the cave during raid time? Hunter, my eleven year old son, stood there. Across the room, his older sister Ariel glanced up from the Alienware laptop I won four years earlier at BlizzCon, images of Invader Zim flashing off the display. Hunter's wide blue eyes prepared to deliver a message he wasn't entirely sure how to deliver.

I lifted my headphones off just as the sounds of Blessing of Might and Arcane Intellect echoed in the distance, and I gave my son a foreboding "Yes?", intent on conveying the severity of time at this very moment. I expected a request of ice cream or a new movie to be queued up.

"Dad, there's someone at the door. He says he's having a heart attack."

My headphones hit the floor.

A Denver Emergency vehicle not unlike the
one that showed up at my door during Algalon

Paramedic Equation

I slammed my hand down on the 'talk' key, fumbling to grab the headphones' mic off the ground.

"Guys, I have an emergency. I think. BRB."

I kicked my chair away and nearly ripped the door from its rotted frame, racing past Hunter to the front door. Swinging it open, a stranger stood there in the cold Colorado night. He looked about six foot two inches tall, late fifties, hair wild like a mad scientist and beard disheveled and unclean. A tattered, filthy dark green jacket struggled to keep his frail body warm, and his jeans were caked with patches of mud. He swayed uneasily as drool dangled from his mouth, and his left hand clutched at his chest. Unintelligible sounds gasped from his mouth; the only ones I could decode bore a vague resemblance to "help".

I guided the old man out of the cold, kicked the door shut, and helped him to the couch several feet inside. He slumped down like the weight of the world had been taken off his shoulders, yet continued to grimace in pain. I spun around to face my kids, now both standing and staring wide-eyed. Pulling out my phone and reaching for the only three numbers anyone dials in a situation like this, I pointed at the cave like Steve Jobs calling out his critics, "Hunter. Go tell them I'm calling an ambulance for someone having a heart attack. Go! Go!" He tore into the computer room with his father's assignment. In moments I was rattling off my address to the 911 operator, explaining the situation. An emergency vehicle was on its way.

"And can you give me the name of the person who needs assistance?" she asked me.

I stared at the old man on the couch, still grimacing, unable to articulate.

"I have no idea. He is a complete stranger."

Not two seconds after we were disconnected, I heard the wail of sirens spin up in the distance -- a convenient side effect of living in the downtown area. Red lights pulsed from the street, soon painting my living room through the main window. One by one, medical personnel flowed into into my living room, each with a different mission. One began shining a flashlight into his eye, another held his wrist, listening intently for his pulse. Still the paramedics continued. "Hey how are ya?" "Hey thanks for coming." "Hi come on in." "Hey there, he's right over here." 

What was this, the clown car of ambulances? How many paramedics can they fit in one of those things? The room swarmed with medical staff. One shorter, female paramedic began drilling me for more information. Oh, this homeless dude that's a complete stranger to me? Here's his entire medical history!

"It's like I said on the phone, I have no idea who he is. Just showed up on my doorstep."

Notes were scribbled onto paper attached to boards. Blood pressure cuffs went on, then came off. Black leather emergency kits were unzipped, and produced medical tools of various sizes and shapes. Before long, they had the old man back up on his feet, and were hobbling him off to the ambulance waiting outside. I stood there for a few minutes, stunned, not realizing that the last paramedic was heading out, shaking my hand on the way, thanking me for making the call. 

And just like that, my living room returned to silence.

As I began to mentally process just what in the hell had transpired, a surreal daze set in. Hunter walked up to me.

"Dad, they're still waiting."

Fuck. Algalon. Sixty minute timer.

I ran back into the computer room, grabbed the headphones, shuffled them onto my head, and pressed the 'talk' key.

"OK. I'm back. Sorry about that."

Digital voices on the other end of Ventrilo spoke hesitantly, "So...Hunter said you had to call 911?"

"Yeah. There was a homeless dude having a heart attack on my doorstep."

"Oh my god! Is he gonna be OK?"

"I'm not sure…I mean, I think so. He was able to limp out of here on two feet, with help from the paramedics. That has to be a good sign, right?"

The digital voices all agreed that 'walking' was a positive sign. An uncomfortable silence followed. I looked at the clock under the mini map. Thirty more minutes had clicked off. We were down to our final fifteen minutes of attempts.

"So...should we finish Algalon or…?"

I put their minds at ease.

"Yeah. Let's do that."

We made our third pull on Algalon. My senses seemed heightened, no doubt a result of adrenaline still coursing through my veins. I dodged cosmic smash a little easier, I brought the boss next to black holes a bit quicker. And I think everybody else seemed like they were sitting up a little straighter in their chairs. And in those fifteen minutes that remained of our original hour-long countdown, we defeated Algalon the Observer, the golden achievement bar flashing "Observed (10 Player)" up on the screen.

"So, now we know what it takes to get new bosses killed!" someone said over Vent.

"Please," I replied, "I think I've had about all the heart attacks I can withstand for one guild leadership."

Mature assists a crew in securing their
first 10-Man kill of Algalon the Observer,
Ulduar

3.48. Here Comes the Airplane

DoD earns "Set Up Us The Bomb (25 Player)",
granting them a server first achievement,
Ulduar

What Fuels Progression

Concluding Glory of the Ulduar Raider catapulted our raid team into a series of successes that spanned the remainder of November 2009. Interest in raids was at an all-time high, and so it should have been! One look at the Ironbound Proto-Drake and people wanted in. Omaric and Bretthew obliged the guild and continued to push raiders through mounds of content, acquiring gear and assisting those players missing one or two of the metas for their own personal Glory, while I manned the rotations of the roster. Our high churn in the roster was evident by how many people still needed a Firefighter here or a One Light there. As was our modus operandi, I didn't force anyone to raid, so I was fully prepared to have a handful of stragglers missing various metas. Omaric and Bretthew made good use of this time, punching out additional Ulduar achievements in the process. Halfway through November, they had added six more achievements to Descendants of Draenor's 25-Man scoreboard: Nerf Scrapbots, Can't Do That While Stunned, Nine Lives, Getting Back to Nature, Deforestation (a server 2nd) and Set Up Us the Bomb -- one of our rare server 1sts. Throughout the process Fragments of Val'anyr continued to drop, and before long we had crafted our second Hammer of Ancient Kings, this one going to our healing officer Gunsmokeco. The core team now had two permanent legendary healers, and progression was nearly ready to tackle Algalon the Observer. But for all the successes our 25-Man progression team was enjoying, there was more to be proud of, outside the blinders of a hardcore raider -- a pet project that ex-officer Annihilation had taken on.

Fielding multiple raids was something my guild had coordinated as far back as Molten Core, but it wasn't until the middle of The Burning Crusade that we began to approach it with more focus and greater concern for its success. Prior to that, an unfortunate mentality had arisen surrounding the A and B teams, which devolved into the two groups being pitted against each other. A team had driven progression, and B team had been kicked to the curb, as we plucked who we wanted from it, and when. And when A team needed augmenting, B team suffered, compounding the issue. "The good of the guild" was simply not enough of an explanation to justify the sacrifices that B team endured to keep A team's fuel tank topped off, and the pent up animosity led to my guild's second exodus. Annihilation went back to the drawing board in TBC after hearing about the idea from competing hardcore guilds, calling the second raid the "Alt-25", and he made it perfectly clear what the purpose of that team was. Like a drill sergeant, he rattled off its intent: you're here because didn't get a rotation in progression this week. That changes nothing. You're expected to be geared, play professionally, get shit done. What you do here will give you the opportunity to get your foot in the door with the 25-Man progression team. And for those of you who are here on alts from the 25-Man, you simply have no excuse to perform poorly.

This "rebooted" second raid team produced wildly successful runs. Come Saturday evening, the Alt-25 filled up almost as quickly as the main progression raid, and they cleared content with the same energy and gusto as what was being pumped out of our Fri/Sun runs. Annihilation continued to field this Alt-25 on and off throughout TBC via his warlock Fatality, picking up the reins once again in Wrath on his death knight Poprocks. The Alt-25 served many purposes. One, it gave players rotated out of progression that week a second chance at gearing and getting experience, being shown the ropes by one of the original no-nonsense officers of the guild. Two, it allowed us to test out new recruits, to see what capabilities the fresh meat had to offer. Anni frequently reported in to me during our late night conversations with folks he thought were up-and-comers; likewise, he warned me of players who were exceptionally good at wasting space, and better suited to games like Hello Kitty Online. Ultimately, Alt-25 was successful this time around because there was a conscious decision not to beat around the bush with them, not to mince words or pull the wool over their eyes regarding its purpose. Being in the Alt-25 was a privilege, not a right. It was the guild's gesture of good faith to extend to new players, that second chance to prove their worth. They could show us they had what it took to step in the 25-Man progression team and keep Descendants of Draenor on the map, rather than give them a cold shoulder as so many other strict hardcore guilds did.

The Alt-25 was vitally important to the success of the guild. Failing to provide it to the guild could jeopardize the stability of progression. Which is why I grew concerned with the latest turn of events.

Mature earns "Lance a Lot", while Annihilation (via
 Poprocks) coordinates an Alt-25 run in officer chat,
Argent Tournament Grounds

Too Good to Be True

When it was time to take a leave of absence midway through WotLK, Anni looked for a replacement to man the Alt-25. He passed the reins to a player he felt shared a common interest in getting content completed, while helping fellow raiders in the process. That player was Crasian. Anni had picked up on Crasian's selfless acts of running folks through 5-Man heroics for their own achievement-focused agendas, and had personally vetted his efficacy of the death knight on a number of occasions. Anni felt the Alt-25 would be in good hands with Crasian, and indeed, Crasian took over for a good many weeks, continuing to help churn people through whenever something could be put together. But Crasian was leaving. Having announced his departure at the end of Glory of the Ulduar Raider, the Alt-25 was now without a leader, and its state was hurled into limbo as a result. Yet, before I even had a chance to sit down and fret about what to do, a solution practically fell into my lap...which is probably what I should have been suspicious of.

Divineseal's brother, a death knight who called himself Bloodynukels, waved his hand in the air to catch my attention. Bloody was still reasonably new to the guild, but during this period of accelerated growth due to DoD's rising popularity, new faces were popping up all around us. At times, I had offers from many different strangers to help with whatever they could; I appreciated the support. But my excitement should have given way to calm, thoughtful decisions -- even regarding things like the Alt-25. So I put in what due diligence I could on Bloody. Unfortunately there wasn't much of anything to say, neither good nor bad. He had no history, nobody had played extensively with him, and asking Divineseal himself an opinion of his brother was only going to produce a shower of of confetti and balloons. This lack of detective work, coupled with a surprising absence of offers from other guildies to take on the Alt-25 left me in the dark. 

The dark complicates things.

Lacking options, I decided to give him a shot, under the assumption that if I made myself painfully clear on what was expected, I could produce a reasonable amount of responsible leadership from the guy. The Alt-25 was important, but it also wasn't rocket science -- they wouldn't be expected to knock out heroics, just clear content and get gear. I pulled Bloodynukels into Ventrilo and went over standard operating procedure with him. 

The Alt-25 may not seem like a big deal, but it is. Officers are rarely present in those runs, so you not only have to take on the responsibilities of a raid leader, making sure that the basic fundamentals are covered (instruction, fixing mistakes, etc.) but you are also acting as a representative of the guild -- a salesman, so to speak. If you have to fill the Alt-25 with random people from trade, they're going to be watching how you treat them and how you treat others. They may even take that into consideration if they're contemplating a guild change...and we want that. Keep things prompt, on-time, don’t put up with a lot whining. 

"Can I get a promotion, then?" he asked. The request caught me off-guard. I didn't have a "sub" officer rank; previous folks in charge hadn't needed it. "It'll let me coordinate with the officers better." Thinking quickly, I bumped his position in the roster up to Avatar, the role designed for identifying star players in the guild who had gone above and beyond the call of duty to contribute to the guild. It was the only rank available that kept him separate from the officer core, yet granted him access to officer chat.

And it was a mistake.

Mature concludes Noblegarden while Bloodynukels
seeks priestly information from the guild,
Orgrimmar

Buckling Into The High Chair

After only one week at the helm, guildies began to report in that Bloodynukels had been instructing them to perform the Twin Val'kyr in a suspiciously exploitative way. Word on the street was a "trick" may have allowed a tightly crammed group of players into a crevice of the doorway to the Tournament of Champions, bypassing the many orbs of the death that the twins filled the room with during the encounter. These orbs traditionally had to be dodged by the player, and certain strategies called for various positions around the arena, minimizing collateral damage from the bouncing black-and-white balls.

When questioned on why he employed this tactic, Bloodynukels responded, "It's not an exploit."

"Why? Because Blizzard hasn't taken an official stance on it yet?"

No response.

"If they haven't said anything yet, it's probably because they're busy trying to get Icecrown out the door. Any raider that's worth his salt will take one look at that strategy and immediately see how it is sidestepping mechanics of the boss intentionally to make it easier. This isn't something that falls into the "clever use of mechanics" bucket. You are purposefully avoiding the primary damage dealing component of the twins by doing this. Not partially avoiding it...entirely avoiding it. Trivializing the encounter. Explain to me how that isn't an exploit."

"Ok, so I won't do it again."

That wasn't an explanation.

I felt like I was scolding a child. Did this stuff really have to be said? Wasn't it common knowledge that exploiting the game's mechanics were forbidden? Perhaps he saw it as one of those more malleable rules, easily fudged as a result of where your level of ethics sat that particular day of the week. Long term members of DoD should have known this stuff like the back of their hand. But that was the problem. Bloodynukels wasn't a long-termer. And what was the norm? To do exactly that; to find short-cuts, tricks, even exploits...in order to accomplish something, as so many scrub guilds on Deathwing-US were attempting to. Where do you think the word on the street came from? It was literally the type of thing discussed in general chat while hanging out in Orgrimmar. I guess it was asking too much to consider he would think for himself, question the validity of such a shady strategy. So, like so many recruits before, I had to spoon feed common-sense to him like a child strapped into a high chair, making airplane sounds just to get him to open his mouth long enough to shove it down his throat.

I hoped that this would be the end of the spoon feeding, and had high hopes for his second week. But you know what they say about things that are too good to be true. He'd be back in his high chair before you could even smell the diaper.

3.46. Glory

The big red button that activates Mimiron's hard mode,
Ulduar

Firefighter

"Stand right here in this corner."

Twenty some-odd players crunched together, backs pressed up against one of the metallic walls as instructed. Omaric and Bretthew shuffled around to prepare for instruction. An enormous red button hovered above us like a canopy, larger than the entire group of raiders. I hovered my mouse over it, the tooltip revealing a message: "DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!" Two weekends had passed since our completion of One Light in the Darkness. Last weekend, we'd cleared up through Auriaya and made initial attempts on Mimi. Tonight, four hours were on the clock; only a few minutes had passed since the official start time for a DoD raid.

Another new feature added with the release of Ulduar was the ability to extend a raid lock. Further adding to a raiding guild's convenience, raid lock extension provided guilds with the option of saving their weekly progress. Rather than starting from scratch each Tuesday (or Wednesday, for you Europeans), guilds could now return from whence they left off; a sort-of raid progression "save game", if you will. Casual raiding guilds wept with joy at the inclusion of this feature, freeing them from the brutality of clearing an entire instance in under a week. It was a feature to, again, grant guilds the necessary flexibility to experience endgame content, one piled on to an ever increasing list of compromises that the more hardcore of guilds questioned.

Extending a lock was not without its consequences: all the loot that would've gone to gear up lackluster players would be flushed down the drain. Truly hardcore raiding guilds cared little for loot, extending only if and when it made sense to secure a server or world first boss kill. As DoD continued to walk the fine line between casual and hardcore, we had our own stance on when it was appropriate to sacrifice gear in lieu of progression: when we needed to maximize the use of our eight hours per week on only the most difficult of encounters.

Like tonight.

"The flames aren't as random as you think. They spawn near you, and they'll seek you out...so the key is controlling them."

Bretthew continued Omaric's thought, "So that means everyone moves carefully. Together. Spreading out is actually a bad idea. What we ultimately want is fire to spawn near other fires, and you do that by staying near existing fires. This is mostly on melee's shoulders..."

"...so we're perpetually fucked -- is what you are saying."

Bretthew laughed, "...more or less."

The two raid leaders began to square away positioning, suggesting various movement strategies for the groups. Having seen the 10-Man version first-hand, Jungard was well-equipped to direct melee traffic. Among those drivers stood the guild leader, having cut over to my new role -- in training for legendaries to come. To my left, a familiar old face listened quietly to Jungard's direction, taking his place among melee, his weapons dripping with vile poisons.

"Fancy meeting you here," I whispered the rogue. He returned a smiley and said nothing.

Descendants of Draenor completes "Firefighter (25 Player)",
wrapping up the final meta for Glory of the Ulduar Raider,
Ulduar

Multitasking

How much do you think you can keep track of at once?

This is what we had to look forward to, on the off-chance we executed a clean transition into phase four:

• Three synchronized health bars: The health of all three mini-bosses making up the V-07-TR-0N. As we depleted the boss's health, each of the three pools had to remain in synchronicity; killing any one of the three parts of V-07-TR-0N's body too soon would cause the remaining functional parts to resurrect it.
• Shock Blast: No player could risk being near the clockwork construct when shock blast was about to go off, not even the tanks. 
• Mines: Ejected by Leviathan MKII (V-07-TR-0N's feet), stepping on any of the freshly laid mines that formed a ring around the boss was nearly always fatal. The risk of setting them off was increased now that Omaric and Bretthew were dragging the boss around the circumference of the room.
• Laser Barrage: VX-001 (V-07-TR-0N's body) continued to produce a focused stream of instant death. All players had to move around the boss, avoiding impenetrable purple beams of focused fire on a full 360 degree rotation. It could not be healed through. If players didn't move, they died.
• Rocket Strikes: Also from VX-001, the floor continued to feature randomly painted targets, offering players mere seconds to sidestep impending rocket strikes. These crosshairs were now infinitely more difficult to see on a screen ablaze with fire.
• Frost Bombs: Slowly moving blue orbs forced anyone near them to get away as fast as possible. Ten seconds was the grace period. After that, any player within fifteen yards was a tax write-off.
• Emergency Fire Bots: These annoying contraptions distracted and confused the raid; their silencing aura shutting down casters and healers in the process. Raiders were instructed to keep their distance, specific players were assigned to blow them to bits.
• Fire, fire, fire: Always and forever. Fire covered every inch of the screen, closing in on players, suffocating them, turning feet into inches, reducing what little safe spots remained in the room.

On top of all these things, we had our roles. Healers had to keep people alive. The tanks had to drag V-07-TR-0N around his room with care and precision. DPS had to unleash every ounce of Hell onto the boss they could wring out. Roles we had all come to perfect over the course of many months of play in multiple tiers of content.

Except myself, of course. I always had to be the exception to the rule.

I had to keep one eye on the wealth of items bombarding the raid, and the other eye on what little DPS I was able to contribute, always struggling to find a better groove, push my damage up the meters with what little off-spec gear I'd managed to piece together. Hour after hour we sunk into Firefighter, walking the tightrope, imminent death a constant threat. When the raid perfected its handling of one roadblock, we'd fall behind in other areas. Nervousness and exhaustion led some pulls to go down the drain right from the start, annihilating the tired and the weak before even getting a chance to see phase two.

And the fire...

Flames scorched virtual flesh, closing in with a claustrophobic intensity that hypnotized players. When focused on moving just enough to keep the fire at bay, they lost sight of the multitude of other risks on their plate. Early deaths in phase one were our first obstacle. Healers caught in Flame Suppressant would have their healing slowed, though most of the deaths couldn't be helped by heals. Careless players met a quick and painful death by stepping on ejected mines. A rocket strike here. A frost bomb there. A few seconds late in rotating around the boss, getting caught in a laser barrage as a result. Then, it was the long run back. Half the time was spent perfecting the art of returning to Mimiron's room quickly, buffing, preparing for another pull. How many more attempts could we fit in? An hour ticked away. Then another. And another.

Phase four continued to devolve into a pyromaniac's wet dream.

---

Only thirty minutes remained for the evening, the second full night of work practicing the million and one things Mimiron had planned out for us. Countless pulls over the weekend had been attempted, and slowly, the 25-Man progression team had begun to refine their system. Frost bombs were now less of an impediment, players had learned their Pavlovian lesson to move their ass...or have it handed to them. Fire bots were a non-factor; casters dodged and weaved out of their silencing auras, unleashing bursts of magical light that blew the contraptions apart before the bots had a chance to wreak havoc on the raid.

Baby steps.

We were fast approaching the definitive "famous last pull" of the night, but the sheer randomness of luck offered us no insight into how close we were to wrapping things up; each pull felt like the first. Omaric and Bretthew dragged the enormous robot across the outer edges of the room, a ring of discs flipping out onto the ground. I glanced up at my raid frames. Neps was out of commission, as was Jungard and Abrinis. I continued to eat into the boss's health with every Obliterate I could, dumping Frost Strikes as soon as my Runic Power capped out. My gaze darted back down towards the damage meters for a split second.
9th.

A wave of deja vu washed over, remembering Zanjina's first night of crossing into the top 10. I popped my remaining trinkets and potions, dug in deep, Mature's refreshing runes scrolling down the screen like Guitar Hero.

The picture stuttered a moment, as it typically did when uncached assets were being loaded by the game client for the first time. In reality it was no more than a second, but to me, it seemed that the game had stopped completely. When your screen locks up, your heart sinks and you know you're about to be kicked off the server. This would have been a shit-poor time for that to happen. But I wasn't kicked off the server, and nobody was disconnecting. Instead, a flash of yellow text scrolled up through guild chat while the familiar gong sound-effect of an achievement bellowed out of the speakers sitting atop my desk. Wide-eyed, I glared at the screen, just below Mature's health. Two golden bars delivered the news.

The 25-Man Progression team displays their freshly
acquired Ironbound Proto-Drakes,
Dalaran

Ironbound

I slumped into my chair and looked up at the ceiling, while cheering and screams overflowed from those speakers and filled my computer room with the noises of triumph and celebration.

On November 1st, 2009, six-and-a-half months after Ulduar was released to World of Warcraft, Descendants of Draenor completed Glory of the Ulduar Raider in 25-Man progression.

Completing Glory of the Ulduar Raider was both euphoric and empowering; the events of the previous tier had now been redeemed. As the 25-Man progression team coalesced over Dalaran in a cloud of purple Ironbound Proto-Drakes, our heart-aching loss of The Immortal was fast becoming a distant memory. As our Twilight Vanquisher titles had done so before them, these proto-drakes would act as badges of pride to those dedicated and loyal to the raid team, and to the guild. As well, they would provide the necessary sales pitches for those on Deathwing-US who continued to a seek a place amongst a 25-Man progression raiding guild, when the hardcore ones had turned them away.

---

One day after we completed this massive raiding accomplishment, a post was made to "The Leaver's Lounge". The Leaver's Lounge was a section of our forums set aside to wish players well on their quest to pursue new interests, outside of the confines of Azeroth. Stickied up at the top of the forum was a popular internet meme; an appropriate final message I directed to players, mocking their exit from World of Warcraft. In the photo, a stereotypical nerdy gamer wearing a headset sat in front of a keyboard and mouse. But in the place where a monitor would normally sit, the gamer instead faced an open window, peering out into his neighborhood with focused concentration. The meme's message read:

Reality: Worst. Game. Ever.

The newest post to The Leaver's Lounge was from Crasian.

Snow was coming, and he yearned to ski atop the Colorado Mountains. He thanked us for the community we provided, congratulated the 25-Man team for their tremendous work on Glory, and wished us well as we headed off toward the next big challenge deep within Icecrown. He thanked Cheeseus for putting up with him, the progression team for the fond memories he'd take away. And he thanked me, for allowing him the chance to hold the rank of Elite and help be a part of the team that drove progression, week after week. It was a heartfelt goodbye message, followed by virtual waves from the members of DoD that had had a chance to play with him.

I read his goodbye forum post, slowly scrolling down the series of replies made by his former teammates, and could only think one thing:

So. Mr. "expected to be at every raid." You wanted to claim Shadowmourne all to yourself, and yet this entire time your plan was to take a leave of absence. Why had you failed to bring this up in any of our conversations regarding a promotion?

What else had you kept from me?

3.44. Bullet Points and Lies

What Their Body Language is Telling You
Source: 9gag.com

The Read

When you sit across the table from someone, leafing through their resume, you're trained to pay attention to the cues that are present. The stranger staring back at you is now more than just a name and some impressive typography printed on fancy paper. When their credentials first hit your desk, the best you can hope for is to look beyond the literal content and examine the little things like their choice of fonts, how they've decided to prioritize their education or their experience. If their name is enormous in the header, are they demonstrating a mastery of Microsoft Word or are they overcompensating for a deficiency in their confidence? Do they describe their work history as a series of things they've done or ways they've made their former companies successful? When you look them straight in the eyes, it's much easier to read the nervousness, the constant uncomfortable shuffling; the body language of folded arms shielding them from the onslaught of incoming questions. When they're in the room with you, it's a little bit easier to tell if they mean what they say, or if the resume you hold in your hands is just a series of bullet points and lies.

But if you never get them in a room, it becomes more of a Herculean task to get a good read.

There aren't so many cues when you run a guild. You don't get the luxury of a professionally written resume, and there is no table to sit them at; all the body language is absent from the equation. Without these cues to help bolster your ability to read their true intent, you're left with what floats to the surface: their actions, their measurable contributions, and if they treat both stranger and friend alike -- the kinds of things you might consider when judging a person's integrity. If the person is genuine, it is a simple task to walk your list and scratch check marks next to the ones demonstrated by candidate X. But when a person has another agenda in mind, the items you check off your list become their strategy. The key is determining what parts of their behavior are just for show, and digging through the dirt to reveal their actual motivations.

I know this strategy because I've employed it myself. I've changed my own line of questioning to suit an agenda I felt my interviewees wanted to fulfill, and it may very well have been the deciding factor in gaining The Final Cut back in Vanilla; my last real opportunity to leapfrog into 40-Man raiding. When I began to ask about how they would handle fixed schedules, strict start times, the administration of DKP...it all added up to the same underlying theme: we're a casual guild that has the professional approach of the hardcore. In actuality, we hadn't pulled off a single, successful raid by that point. But it was enough for them to take a gamble on us, thankfully, and it paid off in dividends.

I was closing in on my decision regarding who to go with for melee officer. I had conferred with Neps and Dalans, rounded the candidate pool down to two options, and attempted to wrap my arms around who was more aligned with the best intentions of the guild. For Descendants of Draenor to continue down its current path of success, leadership had to be just right, and I was becoming hyper-vigilant at scrutinizing my decision-making process. Mistakes of the past coupled with recent events made this a choice that I couldn't gloss over.

It was time to sit both Jungard and Crasian down and determine who was going to be the best fit for my next melee officer position. I wanted their perception of things. In my mind, listening to them explain how they saw events unfolding would paint a clearer picture of who I was considering. This, in my mind, would be the best opportunity to get a read of the candidates. And when I stepped into the interviews, I prepared myself for the same treatment I dished out to The Final Cut years before. If players were prepared to tell me what I wanted to hear, how would I be able to cut through their bullshit?

I did this by asking them their opinion of each other.

---

"So, which do you like more right now?"

"I dunno, I really like the idea about armor pen at the moment, and Blood is pulling some sick numbers but you really need the gear for it. Having to re-gem everything across the board like that? Doesn't seem very practical. I mean, I like to change it up a bit, and I can pretty much do that now if I want to flip between Frost or Unholy. Strength is strength, y'know?"

"Yup."

"I'll probably give it a go at some point but right now I'm getting the numbers I need from Unholy. The rotation gets a bit dull but it's doing more than Frost at the moment, so I probably won't change it up anytime soon."

"You don't mind losing Frost's burst?"

"Well, there are ways around that. It's just a lot of Death Knights aren't paying attention. Y'know? I mean everyone seems to have a DK but that doesn't mean they know what's going on. Simple things like spreading diseases before dropping a DnD on the twin valks. Most DKs could give a shit. It's pretty common knowledge. But instead they have to resort to exploits and pulling the valks into the doorway, or whatever. Sad."

"Crasian, let's change the subject quickly. What's your opinion on Jungard?"

"Ho, boy. Jungard? Um, he's a good guy, I guess...I can't say I really know too much about him, y'know? I mean, like...we've run some stuff together. He's offered to help out on a few fillers in the Eh Team runs, so we've brought him along for those. But I know he's helping his brother run Starflex throughout the week, so other the 25...I don't get much of an opportunity to hang out."

"Do you think Jungard's competent enough to lead the melee team in 25?"

"Oh, no doubt. No doubt at all. Yah, he's sharp, he knows his stuff."

I waited to see if Crasian would offer anything else up in Jungard's favor.

"So...how's the decision on Shadowmourne coming along?"

And just like that, the discussion shifted to more important things.

"Still deciding. I'm getting close. Just a few more loose ends to tie up."

"Sweet! Yeah, let me know how it goes!"

I went into Crasian's interview with a hunch. His responses confirmed where my head was at.

"Yogg-Saron"
Artwork by Dan Scott

Insane in the Brain

Omaric and Bretthew made it clear to the 25-Man progression team that in order to execute One Light, the keeper we would have to leave alive was Thorim. By phase three, we'd already be stretched thin by moving slower, taking more damage, and receiving less heals. We'd probably be down a few folks as they lost their minds to the gaze of Yogg-Saron. All of these hindrances would add up to a drawn-out phase three; we'd need every last ounce of help during the final burn. That meant Thorim had to help us kill those Guardians. So it was decreed. During our clear toward Yogg, Omaric and Bretthew directed players to talk to Mimiron, Hodir, and Freya, removing their protective gaze from the Antechamber.

Omaric's primary tactic was, first and foremost, for players to get a handle on managing their sanity. Many of the progression raiders voiced their opinions in this department on the forums. Jungard, Crasian, Mangetsu -- folks passionate about their play and determined on being focused towards the win, shared their thoughts on the DoD boards. Omaric remained resolute in his stance: by reducing the various mistakes players could make throughout the course of phase one and two, the raid would ultimately transition into phase three with a healthy abundance of sanity. Without Freya's sanity wells as a crutch, players would have no choice but to perform with a high degree of precision. This essential tactic had far reaching effects in our One Light attempts for the duration of the raid that Friday evening.

When we returned to the instance Sunday, rested and ready to dig back in, it was as if we had never left. Each pull got a little cleaner. Transitions from phase one to phase two got a little quicker -- Bretthew expedited each attempt by purposefully walking into clouds in phase one, artificially spawning more Guardians than the default -- their subsequent deaths eating away at Sara's illusion in greater haste. Meanwhile, phase two continued to receive the spit polish. Jungard helped direct our melee in the nightmare, reminding folks to face away from the skulls as they dug their way through each dream sequence, eventually exposing Yogg's brainstem. As the attempts continued on into the evening, we closed the gap from three nightmare cycles to two. If we could burn the brainstem hard enough during those two cycles, we'd have enough sane people alive to deliver the true death to Yogg and transition the Old God to phase three.

At 9:18pm, the dual raid leaders made the call to melee: Get out now. This is it. We're pushing into phase three.

DoD defeats Yogg-Saron under the sole watch of Thorim,
earning "One Light in the Darkness (25 Player)",
Ulduar

One Light

With my back to the Old God, I resumed my role, calling out in Vent which tank was getting the next Guardian. Omaric and Bretthew did the same. Players continued to catch a peek of Yogg's horrific face and their sanity bled away. Another guardian spawned in the chaos, too close to pick it up. With maximum health, the Guardian was at its greatest strength. It turned to Sixfold, killing him instantly. The tanks fell back into our rotation. Crasian and Jungard hammered away at Yogg along with the rest of melee, risking their own sanity in the process. Turtleman came up snake eyes in the luck department and his sanity melted away. Bretthew called out to kill him, and the raid converged, blowing the undead Mage apart. More succumbed to Yogg: Abrinis, then Sir Klocker. Crasian focused on the kill as the last bits of his own mind were stripped away; the raid soon turned to kill him as well. Yogg's health continued to drop. Jungard held his faculties for a few additional moments, slashing his dual two-handed weapons into the hundred gaping mouths. Finally, he joined the list of the damned, killed by the raid amid his own insane ravings. In the last remaining percentage of health, Bretthew, Omaric and I could barely keep ourselves alive with the weight of the Guardians continuing to press down on us.

And then...brilliance.

Our screens lit up with a double dose of achievement spam. Both "Two Lights in the Darkness" and "One Light in the Darkness" had proc'd side-by-side, the result of our urgency to complete Glory. Cheers and screams filled Vent as we picked ourselves up and distributed loot. The reality of how close we were set in. Only one meta remained. Adrenaline pumped through our veins and we felt unstoppable. With forty minutes remaining in the evening, we celebrated our accomplishment by taking the raid back to Obsidian Sanctum and executing a three-drake kill for old times sake. This produced a Twilight Drake flying mount for Omaric in the process. It was well-earned and well-deserved. I took a moment to address the raid before they disbanded and headed out for the night.

"I just wanted to thank you all for the hard work everyone's been putting in on Glory. We're just about there, gang. Make sure you hit the forums and do that research on Firefighter. While I have everyone's attention, I have an announcement: I've come to a decision on the guild's next next melee officer. Most of you probably saw this coming, as the guy contributes so much to the guild and progression, that he's practically an honorary officer by this point. So it's time to make it official. Everyone, please join me in congratulating Jungard."

Again, the Ventrilo server erupted -- this time with congratulations and cheers for DoD's newest officer. A random voice piped up as the cheering subsided, "So does this mean Jungard's getting the ol' legendary axe first?"

"No," I replied, "I am."

3.43. Showtime!

The 25-Man Progression Team defeats The Twin Val'kyr in
under three minutes, earning "Salt and Pepper (25 Player)",
Tournament of Champions

The Definition of Insanity

Cheeseus had taken a bow and exited stage right. Upon his exit from DoD as raid leader, some significant hurdles remained. Omaric and Bretthew took control of our 25-Man progression team at a time when it was most critical for DoD. Only three meta achievements remained outstanding in our quest to complete Glory of the Ulduar Raider, but they were arguably the most difficult ones of the bunch. All eyes were on them as we returned to our instance locks that Sunday at the start of October 2009. How would they approach it? Would Omaric's voice impressions and Bretthew's chatty nature distract the team from focusing in on the most brutal of these final Ulduar achievements? Would the raid follow their direction, or get caught up in unrelated conversations as they began to wipe to trash? Did the boys have the capacity to keep the peace and identify problematic players, or were we headed into attempts that Blain warned me about years before; attempts where you repeat the same thing over and over, changing nothing yet expecting results. Would Omaric and Bretthew deliver? Or would they slowly drive us insane?

The lights dimmed, and the curtain went up on their first act.

For their first trick, Omaric and Bretthew drove the raid up through the Tournament of Champions and had us target a three-minute burn on The Twin Val'kyr. A month earlier, The Eh Team had knocked out "Salt and Pepper (10 Player)", so this achievement was a safe play for them. I casually suggested that they keep their strategy and opinions hidden away in officer chat. We needed to keep a handle on the perception that The Eh Team's influence was broadening in scope. Many of us had first-hand experience in performing the 10-Man version by this point, so it was common knowledge that "Salt and Pepper (10 Player)" was an order of magnitude easier to accomplish. Repeating this information to the twenty-five as a teaching device would have been a bad idea. That tactic could have been misinterpreted as "we beat it a month ago because we're better than you" -- a situation not so difficult to imagine in a game where the difficulty between 10 and 25 was blurring in the public eye every day.

After securing "Salt and Pepper (25 Player)", their next trick involved Mimiron. We were dodging mines, bursts of damage from mechanized guns, and making our way into phase three. Omaric directed the raid to leave an Assault Bot alive in an attempt to force Mimiron to destroy it with a rocket strike. As it turned out, I had an Assault Bot on me, and kited it around while Mimiron transitioned into his final phase, combining into a giant clockwork monstrosity. I scanned for the rocket blast targets being painted on the ground while the raid began to chip away at all three parts of Mimiron's body. I missed the first target by inches, but remained diligent, zooming my camera out and spinning it like a top, watching for new crosshairs to paint. Another showed up across the room and I made a mad dash for it, squinting as I prepared to mess up in some horrific fashion; the guild leader ever-confident in his abilities.

The Assault Bot tailing me sputtered, whirred, and fell backwards, while achievement spam lit up guild chat: "Not So Friendly Fire (25 Player)". We were clear to burn through Mimiron, and the steampunk Voltron soon sagged its shoulders as it ran out of power.

Their opening act was a success. The main event was yet to come.

DoD defeats Freya with all three Elders alive,
earning "Knock Knock Knock on Wood (25 Player)",
Ulduar

Knock Knock Knock

To say there was a lot going on would be an understatement.

Freya's adds made up the majority of our suffering. While Ancient Protector himself wasn't terribly oppressive (as the raid very quickly moved under mushrooms to evade the silence from Conservator's Grip), a random person would be selected for Nature's Fury, doing repeated damage to players in close proximity. If players were sharp, the Nature's Fury target would zip away from us in no time at all. It didn't always play out that way. The ring of Detonating Lashers were also not much fun. A warrior tank could deliver a Shockwave to AoE stun them, allowing the casters to chain into a massive shower of AoE damage, while we gained a safe distance from their explosives deaths.

It was a pity, then, that our warrior tank decided to become a druid.

Meanwhile, I had my own struggles to deal with. Snaplasher, Storm Lasher, and Ancient Water Elemental all spawned together, and required us to kill them within twelve seconds of one another. Yet, the "group up and AoE down" method wouldn't fly here, either. While Storm Lasher's chain lightning could be mitigated with stuns, Riskers was having a tough time of it on his own as the sole remaining rogue in progression. Ancient Water Elemental had a tendency to want to charge out in a random direction, and made it difficult to keep damage focused on him. As it turned out, both of these adds were my responsibility. Meanwhile, Snaplasher was kited away, its own damage growing as its health dropped. In 10-Man, the Snaplasher would eventually be frozen into position, affording the kiter a buffer of freedom. In 25-Man there was no such allowance. Poor timing on the part of the kiter would cause player death as Snaplasher's own life came to an end.

The deficiencies of modifying a 10-Man strategy for the 25 were starting to rear their ugly head, and the audience grew restless.

Mangetsu, along with his warlock officer Eacavissi, worked  in tandem to perfect an extended Shadowfury chain, which Turtleman helped augment with a Frost Nova tagged on the tail. This was our best bet to eliminate the threat from the ring of Detonating Lashers. Meanwhile, Bretthew, Omaric and I worked on our own system: Ikey-bear held Freya while Bretthew AoE taunted Snaplasher, Storm Lasher and Ancient Water Elemental. Without skipping a beat, Ikey would pull Freya back (as she was also subject to Bretthew's AoE taunt), while I gripped Storm Lasher and Ancient Water Elemental, facing them away and keeping tabs on Riskers so he was in range for stunlocks.

The baby steps slowly emerged over the course of the evening. The Detonating Lashers remained in place just a bit longer. Those with Nature's Fury moved away from the group a bit faster. The Snaplasher dealt far less fatal blows to random players in the raid. But it was grueling to perfect, and our attempts filled up the evening. Even when all looked good and we transitioned into the final phase, Freya still managed to play us, locking random players down with grasping roots, only to end their lives with the toss of spore-like bombs that we needed to avoid.

The worst part is when you feel like you have a phase down, only to be awakened to the brutal truth that you have absolutely no handle on what comes next -- and the work begins anew. In the days of Kael'thas Sunstrider, this sort of raid mentality was par for the course: entire weekends spent working on one phase, while four more waited in the wings. But now, in a new era of raiding where everything was a "pushover", getting a taste of what got us here was a bitter pill to swallow.

"Knock Knock Knock on Wood (25 Player)" eventually wrapped late that evening, in DoD's trademark famous last pull of the night. We sealed the deal eight minutes past our raid end time. Exhausted, we congratulated one another and retired for the night, replenishing our energy in preparation for the remaining two metas. The raid retired, rather. A guild leader's business, as they say, is often never done.

Jungard and Crasian go head-to-head in Recount as
the guild wraps up "Con-speed-atory (25 Player)",
Ulduar

An Axe to Grind

The decision on Shadowmourne still hadn't been made; a melee officer promotion hung in the balance. With two tanks now leading raids, melee lacked guidance -- a role formerly held by Cheeseus. I was lucky that talented players like Riskers were able to work through their own issues as he had on that evening's boss kill. But our guild needed to provide a better support mechanism than that. We weren't a true hardcore raiding guild; it was unfair to expect that every player could act as their own troubleshooter. It was our job to provide an official person in which to assign the responsibility. If we claimed to take players of all shapes and sizes (read: skill levels), we had an obligation to prevent them from impeding the work of our existing successful core. I needed a melee person that excelled to such a degree that they could not only keep their own shit straight, but had the capacity to clean up after other people's messes as well. Weighing the options on deck, two names rose to prominence.

First on this list was Crasian, the Eh Team's resident death knight who demolished the damage meters each night in our progression raids. Having climbed up to Elite rank, he was one of the primary drivers behind Descendants of Draenor's melee DPS being absurd throughout Wrath. Crasian was a likable guy, full of energy and carried with him a completionist mindset -- he was one of the first guild members to finish Glory of the Dungeon hero, earning a Red Proto-Drake in the process. Crasian had been sacrificing much of his spare time to help others knock out these heroic 5-man achievements, demonstrating that guild spirit I often looked for in people. Still, he was reasonably new to the guild, so his perceived selflessness had to be tempered carefully against other criteria. Crasian made a regular habit of checking in with me on the status of my decision regarding the legendary, and I assured him it was my number one priority. One thing was certain: putting Shadowmourne into his hands would secure his place in the #1 DPS spot for many months to come, and when I imagined how many heroic mode kills his boosted DPS would guarantee us, flashing images of golden achievement bars filled me with glee.

A second option existed, the yin to Crasian's yang. The warrior we called Jungard had been a steady source of high quality melee DPS since joining our 25-Man progression raid late in Mount Hyjal, way back in The Burning Crusade. Jungard was less of a show-boater than Crasian, but no less timid than the death knight when wrecking the meters. Jungard had recently helped grandfather his brother's guild into ours, augmenting the roster and adding another 10-Man team to the weekly clears. Jungard and I saw eye-to-eye on a good many things, and shared conversations over IM. He supported my changing guild structure as we moved from TBC to WotLK, and never once missed a raid he hadn't cleared with me before hand. Jungard was one of those few individuals that had never red flagged me once; never for a moment giving me a question to doubt his loyalty or honesty -- and with every bit of praise I showered on to him, he remained humble, thankful, and ready to prove himself worthy at the start of the next raid weekend. It stood to reason, then, that Jungard wielding a Shadowmourne in one hand and a Shadow's Edge in the other would be a force that few on Deathwing-US could threaten.

With my sights set on both Crasian and Jungard, the next quest in my log was clear to complete: Promote a New Melee Officer. It was time to schedule some interviews.