The Chaos Theory

The wife and I are in different guilds now.  We both appreciate the structure and organization of my guild, but she kind of got sideways of their threshold to raiding.  I made it into their raiding cadre with two characters now, and it was effort.  Getting there with my Warrior Tank was particularly painful.  Getting there with my Elemental Shaman was far easier.  She’d have made it with her Elemental Shaman, but the barriers to her were something she chose not to overcome.  Her second night with a new guild found her in Karazhan.  Sadly, that guild decided not to field two Karazhan teams thereafter and instead concentrate on their “A” team.  (Their “A” team had not done a full clear yet.  They’ll get there.  She’s not in their “A” team.)  And when half that “A” team of theirs bailed and joined a guild more into raiding, she was left with a group of people who logged on and just existed in the game.  She’s willing to work towards progression.  But to sit there idling… No thanks.

We have a couple of friends, another couple, that we’ve known in-game for quite some time.  All the way back to fighting dark iron dwarves in the Cauldron.  And our first “old-style” assaults on Jintha’Alor in the Hinterlands.

They were with our first guild.  Left and joined a raiding guild that made it to Gruul’s Lair, before falling apart.  I convinced them join with the guild I wound up with, and whom I’m with now.  It was quite something to have these two along, passing on absolutely everything, since they’ve already gotten every upgrade for it.  They wound up joining some other friends (also guildies from the time of the dark iron dwarves) in a new guild.

Now my guild has very strict requirements to raiding with them.  You’re an initiate until you get six runs with the guild in.  These aren’t spur of the moment runs.  We have a calendar with runs five nights a week.  It’s got to be with the guild, to a scheduled instance, with someone of at least a certain rank in the group.  At that point you’ll then be required to run Heroics.  When I did it the requirement was for runs in 3 different zones.  Now the requirement has been raised, now that entry to Heroics has been made easy, to runs in each zone, i.e. 5 zones.  So if you’re a tank, you’ll need to successfully tank a heroic instance in every zone.  “Successful” is every boss downed in the same run.  Take your pick:  Heroic Durnholde Keep or Heroic Black Morass.  Heh.  If you’re a healer, you’ll need to heal them.  If you’re DPS, dps them.  Now you might see the burden is a lot higher on the tank and healer than on the DPS.    (Image success being a three-legged stool.  Take one leg away and you have failure.  The tank is one leg, the healer is another.  Now the 3 DPS, they share the 3rd leg.)

And that’s just the runs.  There is also the requirement to get +140 Arcane Resist.  No AR, no raiding.  This serves for the Curator fight.  Now it’s recognized that some raids never worry about it and do fine.  My guild chose to worry about it and every raider in Karazhan has that on them.  It’s helpful elsewhere (Setthik Halls) and serves as a hurdle to jump to show committment.  And gear.  At least 4 of the DS3 pieces, or their equivalent.

Farming the motes of mana for the +AR gear she’d need nowhere else, for nothing else, was one thing.  To never get that last Heroic she needed.  Nobody wants to run Heroics, do they?  You’re tanks burn out first, and the guild only needs 3 or 4, tops, for progression.

So the wife left my guild.  She joined a guild that had some old guildies from our first guild, and went to Karazhan with a group that didn’t worry about all this.  But they floundered.  Why stay around in a glorified chat channel, the folks she knew in the “A” team already having bailed, she /gquit.  Within 15 minutes of being guildless she’s whispered by another guild.  “Are you Resto?” they asked.  “No.”  “Would you be willing to respec?”  “Maybe.”  Next thing we know she’s in.  Oh, yeah, this was not prompted by her in the least.  They just invited an unguilded level 70 healer type.  (She’s got over 1000 +Healing, so her gear is decent.)  It’s also the guild where our friends wound up.  On getting invited she got a “DROOOONDA!” as greeting.  They’ve got two Karazhan raids going every week. And she’s been on one.  With my help, she’s been there for a full one-night clear.  They didn’t stop until it was done, and it got real late.

Now my own guild celebrated a bit of a milestone ourselves this week.  We had two Karazhan runs going at once.  Both teams required two nights since we do put a stop to things in accordance with our schedule.  So we feel we’re really close to starting Gruul’s with a really strong group.

Here’s where the “Chaos” comes in.  My wife’s guild uses an in-game calendar.  And they don’t follow it.  There’s Karazhan sign-ups.  Like last night for instance.  (No pun intended!)  She’s looking forward to getting back to Karazhan and learning how to heal in a raid.  So she signs up.  What do they wind up doing?  Gruul’s Lair.  I’m doing my Netherwing dailies on Msaker and she’s in Gruul’s Lair.  They don’t really explain the fight, so I tell her she’ll learn it by experiencing it.  They must have gotten King Maulgar because next thing I know she’s at Gruul himself!  I’ve never even seen him.  And she’s “raiding” him.  !!!  As they say “You’ve come a long way, Baby!”  I see two attempts to within the 30 percent point.  Not sure if they got him lower than that.  She’s got to log off and so she doesn’t see a successful Gruul’s kill.  But, who knows.  Maybe she would have if she stayed for a few more attempts.

Her guild is like Chaos.  They just go do stuff.  It looks like they get stuff done too.

My guild is like the Transit Authority.  We do stuff.  We might be late, but we’ll be on time.

We’re at about the same progression, because I know if we were actually in Gruul’s Lair, Gruul would die.

I wonder which modus operandi works best.  Those end-game guilds, the ones killing Illidian.

Are they Structured and Sure or Chaotic and Competent?

So I ask you, among my readers who are sporting T5+ gear, how does your guild do it?

Do you live by a structured approach, set and enforce high standards, be punctual to a fault.

Or, do you just get 24 of your buddies and just “git r done” because you’re all bored?