The 25-Man Strikes Back

So first off I’d like to apologize for taking so long to write this post. You see, being recruitment officer for a 25-man guild means I never, ever stop recruiting. This is especially true because we’ve found that Dragon Soul requires strong DPS and healing as you get past the first four encounters. [Oh hello, Ultraxion, you jerk.] Between Mumble interviews, poring over logs and searching the forums, I just haven’t had time to write much of anything. Sorry, folks.

Of course, getting people into the guild is one thing, and them performing at the required level is quite another. We’ve had to cycle people in and out to find what works. And yeah, we’ve received OVER NINE THOUSAND rogue apps who yell “GIEF ME LEGENDAREEE!” [No, not you, Critality and Kiwe the Fruit Cup!] Things got so bad we even considered going back to 10-man just to catch up on progression.

Fortunately, this week people picked up their game and Criticism killed Ultraxion and five-shot Warmaster. This makes us 6/8N, and I guess we’re staying 25-man for now. Now if only Wowprogress would update our kills. Grr. Apparently the site can’t tell the difference between LFR — which we are doing each week on the side — and normal bosses. Our server has something like 140-plus 10-man guilds and fewer than 10 25-mans. All this raiding has given me my uber-haxx four-piece feral set with Mass Regeneration. This spell can boost my healing (as a bear) to as much as 70,000 HPS at its peak, and even end up doing a cool 15,000 HPS for the whole encounter. Of course, Blizzard saw fit to nerf the actual healing amount, but Mass Regen is still insane. This does mean I’m kind of done for loot this tier, at least until I get Kiril, Fury of Beasts, Wrath of Unchaining and Seal of Primordial Shadow. I can get my helm, relic, second ring and my necklace from either valor or conquest.

So we are a 25-man guild for now, as Spine and Madness await this week. Before this experience, I never fully understand the “herding of cats” premise that 25-man raiders always mentioned. I guess maybe loot to our raiders is kind of like catnip or fresh tuna to the cats you’re herding. Hmm. [As an aside, my cat doesn’t really like people food, except if it’s vanilla ice cream or spaghetti sauce.]

As our other officer said, on 25-man, it’s a lot less obvious sometimes when one person makes a mistake than it is on 10-man. (Logs can help, of course, but that’s after the raid.) People who have poor computers or Internet connections are, conversely, more obvious because they tend to disconnect at key moments (i.e., Ultraxion’s Hour of Twilight).

I haven’t done more than one boss on 10-man this tier. So I don’t think I am qualified to say which format has it easier now. It does seem as if everyone has an opinion on the issue, and they run the gamut from “lol 25-mans are easy” to “10-mans shouldn’t even exist!” That is another story, for another blog post.

For now, I have to get ready to interview some applicants and impress upon them that Deathwing is in heat and is going to DESTROY ALL WORDS. Or something. Until he dies and comes back — as my Twitter friends say — as a pterodactyl bent on devouring every single cabbage on Azeroth.