Post by Berg: God of Raiding on Jan 15, 2013 23:04:47 GMT -5
The Sha of Fear is dead.
One August evening, Romo messaged me about starting a casual 10-man raiding guild for the about-to-be-released Mists of Pandaria.
I said no. I had no interest in World of Warcraft. Unlike many "ex-WoW players", I didn't have the urge to jump back in. Firelands looked like a poor man's Molten Core, and I had only heard horror stories about the year-long Dragon Soul. I hadn't taken a glance at MMO Champion for more than a year. I was completely done, and more than happy modding Morrowind and assisting the guys at GYP.
But I'm cheap, and there's nothing cheaper than free. Romo, backed by a small core of former Uprising members, offered to supply me with a copy of Mists of Pandaria and waive my subscription fee. They even tried to get Uziga, but, well--Diablo 3.
Diablo 3.
I said fine.
17 hours later, the plan had abruptly changed: we were going 25-man, and the majority of Uprising's core would be returning. The moment I logged on for the first time in two years, I was dragged into Heroic Dragon Soul, where we accidentally killed a few bosses without the 40% buff--in our Tier 11 gear. It was one of the most underwhelming experiences of my life, but Heroic Ragnaros was able to tide me over until Mists of Pandaria arrived. I passed on the mount. This tier did not belong to me.
Maybe the adrenaline faded. Before our first scheduled raid even took place, that majority of Uprising's core either changed their minds about getting MoP or transferred to established guilds. Unperturbed--but certainly disappointed--we recruited. This would not be the first time the guild would have to be rebuilt from the ground up. It happened in Sunwell and Ulduar, and the guild always grew stronger for it.
We didn't know. Two years later, World of Warcraft had become a lonely, self-obsessed game. The recruitment pool consisted of WoW newbies who had only ever raided Dragon Soul (and thought they could handle raiding because of it), and older raiders who didn't have the patience to deal with them. While recruiting for Mists of Pandaria, we were exposed to a new generation of WoW players--a generation incapable of teamwork and unable to understand that real raid tiers take time to overcome.
We did what Uprising always has done: we mass recruited. We kept the ones that learned and rised to meet MoP's challenges, and we let the rest go. By "we" I mean Speak and Romoredux. These are the people responsible for creating a new guild from the ground up two weeks before Mists of Pandaria was released. These are the people who took us from a mere legacy to US 21.
Stone Guard - Excellent boss. A wake-up call for selfish, low-skill raiders bred by Dragon Soul.
"<Alone> is going to beat us this tier." I remember saying that in guild chat about five pulls into Heroic Stone Guard--and I meant it. I knew that no pep talk or raid instruction could fix the absolute mess that was our raid team. For over 30 pulls I watched virtually the entire raid die to some of the easiest mechanics I have ever seen. It was an absolute nightmare, and I knew at that instant that, by the end of the tier, most of the raid would have to be replaced.
As for the fight--it was bugged. Most of the crystals didn't work on the first week. I was very satisfied with the difficulty and design of the boss, though. I knew that Mists of Pandaria was going to offer a type of raiding that hadn't been seen since Ulduar--a type of raiding that teaches people how to conquer seemingly impossible tasks. Nothing is more rewarding than overcoming adversity.
Feng - Awesome, and a sign that tanks would be doing more than just staring at their cooldowns this tier.
The crystals were bugged on this fight too. The majority of our wipes were caused by the (required) crystals simply being unclickable. Heroic Feng also made us realize that our healing sucked, and that MoP's 25-man raid content favored healing classes capable of on-demand burst raid healing. By Heart of Fear, <Uprising> had completely phased Resto Druids out of its roster.
Gara'jal - A great encounter that forces your raid to communicate, but gets inexcusably easier with gear, Priests, and Execute classes.
Faced with a dwindling roster, nowhere near enough RDPS to actually kill Gara'jal, and relatively no gear from Sha or Galleon, we made the difficult decision to exploit Gara'jal--the same decision that was made when Ensidia exploited Lich King, and Exodus exploited Yogg, and The Nephilim exploited Mandokir, and 408 guilds exploited Flame Leviathan, and 177 guilds exploited Atramedes, and Premo exploited Magmaw, and Paragon exploited LFR, and Nihilum exploited Eredar Twins, and 24 guilds exploited Amber Shaper (in 3 separate ways), and Nihilum exploited Vashj. We knew that if we didn't kill Gara'jal soon, we would not be able to upkeep the level of rank that was allowing us to recruit so efficiently.
About 60 attempts later--yes, our roster was that bad--Gara'jal was dead. As you can imagine, the kill was very unsatisfying, and bans quickly followed.
Elegon - A fight that looked very cool at first, but didn't live up to the hype. The "do more DPS sometimes" gimmick just isn't interesting enough to carry a whole fight.
Four Kings - "STOP DPS STOP DPS STOP DPS STOP DPS STOP DPS STOP DPS STOP DPS" was all it took for us to kill this fight--well, that and a lot of gear. We admit that Four Kings would have been way way harder if we weren't so overgeared for it when we killed it. Four Kings is one of the best-designed fights this tier, and it's a shame that we didn't get to experience it in its prime.
Will of the Emperor - An encounter that could have been good, marred by bad tuning. Blizzard had more than nine months to realize that, in the 25-man version of the encounter, there are not enough damage soaks to survive (unless you stack specific classes/specs). The result was the Mage Strategy, which has irrevocably destroyed this encounter. Will of the Emperor is one of the stupidest things I've seen in raiding, and the ultimate example of why tuning and content testing is important. We lost this Realm First to <Alone>, deservedly so.
Blade Lord Ta'yak - Proof that simple encounters can be very fun.
Ta'yak went down quickly after we re-acquired some of the core raiders who had left before MoP raids began. The Uprising Curse seemed more in effect than ever: you'll be back, we said, and this tier was no exception.
Garalon - A very unique fight, a very tight enrage timer, and a sign that no raider can be carried anymore.
Wind Lord - An overly-complex retard check. Most raids spend more time setting up this encounter than actually killing it, which is a flaw in my opinion.
Amber-Shaper - Our longest-lived boss. Heroic Amber-Shaper generally requires that every single person in your raid be adept at driving a vehicle. It's Teron Gorefiend on steroids. Amber-Shaper is definitely difficult, but I don't think it's a very fun encounter. Most people don't find "kill adds for ten minutes" and "wait for all 25 people to learn the vehicle" entertaining. All of this combined with the various bugs on the encounter made Amber-Shaper one of the worst WoW bosses I've ever seen.
Vizier - A boss whose bark is worse than his bite. After being fixed, Heroic Vizier is a well-tuned bullet hell sort of fight. As someone who loved Valkyr Twins, I loved Vizier too. Unfortunately, most of our raiders don't like Gradius III as much as I do, so we used a cheese strat to kill it.
Grand Empress Shek'zeer - We shocked a lot of people when we killed this boss and got Realm First. Though Shek'zeer is intricate, it's a little too long for my tastes, and recycling phases seems lazy. The amount of healers required and the "bring tremor totems or die" mechanic also left a bad taste in my mouth. I loved the Dissonance Field mechanic, and Phase 2 allowed for many different strategies. I like how, in MoP, there are many ways to go about defeating many of the bosses.
Protectors of the Endless - Bloodboil, everyone's favorite boss fight. Oh wait, Bloodboil is one of the most boring fights ever and I'm probably the only one who remembers it. So why, then, did Blizzard decide to recycle Bloodboil? I don't fucking know. Somehow, our raid spent 90+ attempts on this boss. I guess we were slightly undergeared for it (after extending our raid to kill Empress), but it was mostly just poor play and laziness that kept us on this boss for so long. You'd be amazed how much coersion it takes to get some DPS to actually set up unitframes. Protectors is an average fight, and its (poorly tuned, surprise) "Hard Mode" pales in comparison to encounters like Mimiron Firefighter and Freya-3.
Lei Shi - One of the most underwhelming fights of the tier. Because of how easy Normal Lei Shi is, we were expecting Heroic Lei Shi to be very hard. On the contrary, Heroic Lei Shi is very easy. Lei Shi is an example of a simple fight that ISN'T particularly fun, unlike Blade Lord Ta'yak.
Tsulong - Looking at the Dungeon Journal, I was very excited for Tsulong. The night/day mechanic looked very interesting. Unfortunately, the description of the mechanic is more interesting than the mechanic itself. Ultimately, Tsulong is just a fight that favors Monks and Death Knights, and there's not much else to say about it. Is anyone else getting tired of "kill the adds" fights?
Sha of Fear - Armed with a severely undergeared raid, we got Realm First on Sha of Fear today. Dread Spray, Water Spout, and the Champion of Light are all original, awesome mechanics--but not when a fight is this damn long! Why is Sha of Fear 20 minutes long?! If Sha of Fear had been shorter, and its mechanics deadlier (or more varied), I think this encounter would be appreciated more. Sha of Fear is definitely one of the most lackluster endbosses in WoW history, but in my opinion, it is the best endboss in MoP so far. Quality over quantity, Blizzard--and don't think we didn't notice how lazy the Dread Expanse looks. Did you run out of time or something? I hope you did, because the Dread Expanse is a very boring-looking, anti-climactic map.
We raided a lot this tier. We put in a lot of time--the amount of time required to go from nothing to US 21. Next tier, we hope to accomplish more in less time, with a more stable roster. World of Warcraft's raiding community has been irrevocably changed by the pathetic end of Cataclysm, but <Uprising> isn't going to give up. We believe that any player can achieve anything if they simply want to, and so we continue to seek players who are willing to learn, evolve, and become some of the best raiders in the world.
SHOUT-OUTS
I'd like to give a shout-out to <Alone>, our rival. Despite <Uprising>'s progression, <Alone> won this tier. They raided significantly less than us, and less than most guilds, and yet their progression was extremely impressive for the amount of time they put in. It's a running joke (and truth) in <Uprising> that if <Alone> raided more, they could probably compete for top world ranks. Congratulations to <Alone> for becoming such an excellent guild these past two years. No offense, but two years ago, you sort of sucked. You really surprised me.
Shout-out to <Gamble> (<TM>), too. I tried to Game of Thrones your ass and it didn't work. You have a hard head, Sean, and that's part of what it takes to run a successful raiding guild. Congratulations, and see you next tier.
@<Vigil>, you are doing fucking awesome.
@<Midwinter>, <vodka>, & <Blood Legion>, thanks for all the help guys.
@blizzard: The raiding is great. SSC, TK-level good. Almost as good as Ulduar, but Terrace seemed uninspired. The leveling was pretty good, but the story is lacking direction. The Jade Forest set us up for something epic, and then we ended up making beer and shit in Valley of Four Winds. Huh? The dailies grind is nauseating. Dailies aren't fun. Please get it through your fucking heads. CRZ has further destroyed the sense of community in WoW, but we know there is no going back. Remove the Dungeon Journal! The existing version is misleading/full of errors anyway. All it does is make the game less mysterious/interesting, which is a bad thing. Expand fishing! Fishing is boring as fuck! Nerf 300 food requirements! Tune your damn fights. I never want to see another Will of the Emperor again.
In a few months, <Uprising> will be heading into 5.2 with an already-established roster. We'll have gear, we'll actually have gold in the guild bank, and we won't be two years out of practice--unless <Exodus> decides to poach our entire roster again.
See you all on the Throne of Thunder.
One August evening, Romo messaged me about starting a casual 10-man raiding guild for the about-to-be-released Mists of Pandaria.
I said no. I had no interest in World of Warcraft. Unlike many "ex-WoW players", I didn't have the urge to jump back in. Firelands looked like a poor man's Molten Core, and I had only heard horror stories about the year-long Dragon Soul. I hadn't taken a glance at MMO Champion for more than a year. I was completely done, and more than happy modding Morrowind and assisting the guys at GYP.
But I'm cheap, and there's nothing cheaper than free. Romo, backed by a small core of former Uprising members, offered to supply me with a copy of Mists of Pandaria and waive my subscription fee. They even tried to get Uziga, but, well--Diablo 3.
I said fine.
17 hours later, the plan had abruptly changed: we were going 25-man, and the majority of Uprising's core would be returning. The moment I logged on for the first time in two years, I was dragged into Heroic Dragon Soul, where we accidentally killed a few bosses without the 40% buff--in our Tier 11 gear. It was one of the most underwhelming experiences of my life, but Heroic Ragnaros was able to tide me over until Mists of Pandaria arrived. I passed on the mount. This tier did not belong to me.
Maybe the adrenaline faded. Before our first scheduled raid even took place, that majority of Uprising's core either changed their minds about getting MoP or transferred to established guilds. Unperturbed--but certainly disappointed--we recruited. This would not be the first time the guild would have to be rebuilt from the ground up. It happened in Sunwell and Ulduar, and the guild always grew stronger for it.
We didn't know. Two years later, World of Warcraft had become a lonely, self-obsessed game. The recruitment pool consisted of WoW newbies who had only ever raided Dragon Soul (and thought they could handle raiding because of it), and older raiders who didn't have the patience to deal with them. While recruiting for Mists of Pandaria, we were exposed to a new generation of WoW players--a generation incapable of teamwork and unable to understand that real raid tiers take time to overcome.
We did what Uprising always has done: we mass recruited. We kept the ones that learned and rised to meet MoP's challenges, and we let the rest go. By "we" I mean Speak and Romoredux. These are the people responsible for creating a new guild from the ground up two weeks before Mists of Pandaria was released. These are the people who took us from a mere legacy to US 21.
Stone Guard - Excellent boss. A wake-up call for selfish, low-skill raiders bred by Dragon Soul.
"<Alone> is going to beat us this tier." I remember saying that in guild chat about five pulls into Heroic Stone Guard--and I meant it. I knew that no pep talk or raid instruction could fix the absolute mess that was our raid team. For over 30 pulls I watched virtually the entire raid die to some of the easiest mechanics I have ever seen. It was an absolute nightmare, and I knew at that instant that, by the end of the tier, most of the raid would have to be replaced.
As for the fight--it was bugged. Most of the crystals didn't work on the first week. I was very satisfied with the difficulty and design of the boss, though. I knew that Mists of Pandaria was going to offer a type of raiding that hadn't been seen since Ulduar--a type of raiding that teaches people how to conquer seemingly impossible tasks. Nothing is more rewarding than overcoming adversity.
Feng - Awesome, and a sign that tanks would be doing more than just staring at their cooldowns this tier.
The crystals were bugged on this fight too. The majority of our wipes were caused by the (required) crystals simply being unclickable. Heroic Feng also made us realize that our healing sucked, and that MoP's 25-man raid content favored healing classes capable of on-demand burst raid healing. By Heart of Fear, <Uprising> had completely phased Resto Druids out of its roster.
Gara'jal - A great encounter that forces your raid to communicate, but gets inexcusably easier with gear, Priests, and Execute classes.
Faced with a dwindling roster, nowhere near enough RDPS to actually kill Gara'jal, and relatively no gear from Sha or Galleon, we made the difficult decision to exploit Gara'jal--the same decision that was made when Ensidia exploited Lich King, and Exodus exploited Yogg, and The Nephilim exploited Mandokir, and 408 guilds exploited Flame Leviathan, and 177 guilds exploited Atramedes, and Premo exploited Magmaw, and Paragon exploited LFR, and Nihilum exploited Eredar Twins, and 24 guilds exploited Amber Shaper (in 3 separate ways), and Nihilum exploited Vashj. We knew that if we didn't kill Gara'jal soon, we would not be able to upkeep the level of rank that was allowing us to recruit so efficiently.
About 60 attempts later--yes, our roster was that bad--Gara'jal was dead. As you can imagine, the kill was very unsatisfying, and bans quickly followed.
Elegon - A fight that looked very cool at first, but didn't live up to the hype. The "do more DPS sometimes" gimmick just isn't interesting enough to carry a whole fight.
Four Kings - "STOP DPS STOP DPS STOP DPS STOP DPS STOP DPS STOP DPS STOP DPS" was all it took for us to kill this fight--well, that and a lot of gear. We admit that Four Kings would have been way way harder if we weren't so overgeared for it when we killed it. Four Kings is one of the best-designed fights this tier, and it's a shame that we didn't get to experience it in its prime.
Will of the Emperor - An encounter that could have been good, marred by bad tuning. Blizzard had more than nine months to realize that, in the 25-man version of the encounter, there are not enough damage soaks to survive (unless you stack specific classes/specs). The result was the Mage Strategy, which has irrevocably destroyed this encounter. Will of the Emperor is one of the stupidest things I've seen in raiding, and the ultimate example of why tuning and content testing is important. We lost this Realm First to <Alone>, deservedly so.
Blade Lord Ta'yak - Proof that simple encounters can be very fun.
Ta'yak went down quickly after we re-acquired some of the core raiders who had left before MoP raids began. The Uprising Curse seemed more in effect than ever: you'll be back, we said, and this tier was no exception.
Garalon - A very unique fight, a very tight enrage timer, and a sign that no raider can be carried anymore.
Wind Lord - An overly-complex retard check. Most raids spend more time setting up this encounter than actually killing it, which is a flaw in my opinion.
Amber-Shaper - Our longest-lived boss. Heroic Amber-Shaper generally requires that every single person in your raid be adept at driving a vehicle. It's Teron Gorefiend on steroids. Amber-Shaper is definitely difficult, but I don't think it's a very fun encounter. Most people don't find "kill adds for ten minutes" and "wait for all 25 people to learn the vehicle" entertaining. All of this combined with the various bugs on the encounter made Amber-Shaper one of the worst WoW bosses I've ever seen.
Vizier - A boss whose bark is worse than his bite. After being fixed, Heroic Vizier is a well-tuned bullet hell sort of fight. As someone who loved Valkyr Twins, I loved Vizier too. Unfortunately, most of our raiders don't like Gradius III as much as I do, so we used a cheese strat to kill it.
Grand Empress Shek'zeer - We shocked a lot of people when we killed this boss and got Realm First. Though Shek'zeer is intricate, it's a little too long for my tastes, and recycling phases seems lazy. The amount of healers required and the "bring tremor totems or die" mechanic also left a bad taste in my mouth. I loved the Dissonance Field mechanic, and Phase 2 allowed for many different strategies. I like how, in MoP, there are many ways to go about defeating many of the bosses.
Protectors of the Endless - Bloodboil, everyone's favorite boss fight. Oh wait, Bloodboil is one of the most boring fights ever and I'm probably the only one who remembers it. So why, then, did Blizzard decide to recycle Bloodboil? I don't fucking know. Somehow, our raid spent 90+ attempts on this boss. I guess we were slightly undergeared for it (after extending our raid to kill Empress), but it was mostly just poor play and laziness that kept us on this boss for so long. You'd be amazed how much coersion it takes to get some DPS to actually set up unitframes. Protectors is an average fight, and its (poorly tuned, surprise) "Hard Mode" pales in comparison to encounters like Mimiron Firefighter and Freya-3.
Lei Shi - One of the most underwhelming fights of the tier. Because of how easy Normal Lei Shi is, we were expecting Heroic Lei Shi to be very hard. On the contrary, Heroic Lei Shi is very easy. Lei Shi is an example of a simple fight that ISN'T particularly fun, unlike Blade Lord Ta'yak.
Tsulong - Looking at the Dungeon Journal, I was very excited for Tsulong. The night/day mechanic looked very interesting. Unfortunately, the description of the mechanic is more interesting than the mechanic itself. Ultimately, Tsulong is just a fight that favors Monks and Death Knights, and there's not much else to say about it. Is anyone else getting tired of "kill the adds" fights?
Sha of Fear - Armed with a severely undergeared raid, we got Realm First on Sha of Fear today. Dread Spray, Water Spout, and the Champion of Light are all original, awesome mechanics--but not when a fight is this damn long! Why is Sha of Fear 20 minutes long?! If Sha of Fear had been shorter, and its mechanics deadlier (or more varied), I think this encounter would be appreciated more. Sha of Fear is definitely one of the most lackluster endbosses in WoW history, but in my opinion, it is the best endboss in MoP so far. Quality over quantity, Blizzard--and don't think we didn't notice how lazy the Dread Expanse looks. Did you run out of time or something? I hope you did, because the Dread Expanse is a very boring-looking, anti-climactic map.
We raided a lot this tier. We put in a lot of time--the amount of time required to go from nothing to US 21. Next tier, we hope to accomplish more in less time, with a more stable roster. World of Warcraft's raiding community has been irrevocably changed by the pathetic end of Cataclysm, but <Uprising> isn't going to give up. We believe that any player can achieve anything if they simply want to, and so we continue to seek players who are willing to learn, evolve, and become some of the best raiders in the world.
SHOUT-OUTS
I'd like to give a shout-out to <Alone>, our rival. Despite <Uprising>'s progression, <Alone> won this tier. They raided significantly less than us, and less than most guilds, and yet their progression was extremely impressive for the amount of time they put in. It's a running joke (and truth) in <Uprising> that if <Alone> raided more, they could probably compete for top world ranks. Congratulations to <Alone> for becoming such an excellent guild these past two years. No offense, but two years ago, you sort of sucked. You really surprised me.
Shout-out to <Gamble> (<TM>), too. I tried to Game of Thrones your ass and it didn't work. You have a hard head, Sean, and that's part of what it takes to run a successful raiding guild. Congratulations, and see you next tier.
@<Vigil>, you are doing fucking awesome.
@<Midwinter>, <vodka>, & <Blood Legion>, thanks for all the help guys.
@blizzard: The raiding is great. SSC, TK-level good. Almost as good as Ulduar, but Terrace seemed uninspired. The leveling was pretty good, but the story is lacking direction. The Jade Forest set us up for something epic, and then we ended up making beer and shit in Valley of Four Winds. Huh? The dailies grind is nauseating. Dailies aren't fun. Please get it through your fucking heads. CRZ has further destroyed the sense of community in WoW, but we know there is no going back. Remove the Dungeon Journal! The existing version is misleading/full of errors anyway. All it does is make the game less mysterious/interesting, which is a bad thing. Expand fishing! Fishing is boring as fuck! Nerf 300 food requirements! Tune your damn fights. I never want to see another Will of the Emperor again.
In a few months, <Uprising> will be heading into 5.2 with an already-established roster. We'll have gear, we'll actually have gold in the guild bank, and we won't be two years out of practice--unless <Exodus> decides to poach our entire roster again.
See you all on the Throne of Thunder.
