Is your Guild a Farm for the other Guilds

BadCharlie

Im playing wow since June 2007 on the Alonsous server. Since August i have been playing for one of the top 8 guilds on the Horde side. We have good players and some very well equiped players. But ever week or two that goes by one or more go on to bigger guilds. Then u have the guys coming into your guild who are lvl 70 but might have only been to kara ones in their life and gear is not all that good. Or they are still trying to get their kara key.

It makes me feel i want to give up wow cause i cant get past kara due to people coming in and out of the guild. You need lots of well geared people to do Gruul and guys who become well geared dont want to wait around for others to catch up, or waiting a month is boring and i can undestand why they want to move on.

I have cleared kara my self to many times to keep track. My gear is all epic and i nomaly out DPS everone in the raid week in and week out.

I don't like the guild jumping people do. I sign up to a guild and stay their. But like last night ones again our main tank left us . The MT before him left us 2 months ago, so its just a trend that keeps happening week in & week out.

Evac101

We had this problem for a while pre TBC and again in about May-July last year. Our solution on both occasions was to go mass recruiting and only 'pass' those trial members that fit into the guild socially. We found that the people who became vocal on guild chat and the forums were much less likely to 'trade up' and to grit their teeth to get progression done.

Basically recruit based on personality rather then gear/experience, the last two can be gained, the first is either there or not.

rainbow kirby

I'm an officer in a similar sort of guild to yours, for 7 months we've been in Kara because either we can't recruit, or people leave for better-progressed guilds. The frustration is really starting to get to me tbh, and with an offer of a tanking spot in a 5/6 SSC 2/4 TK guild on the table for me as of last night I'm sorely tempted to take it. I'm sick of dragging people through Kara every week, and putting up with massive emo from others - I don't need that stress tbh.

calis

this happens to alot of guilds. people want to progress .. some faster than others. some are able to progress and some just dont have either the time or the skills to do it.

the guild i was in before my current one was a excellent community. very friendly and with a eye for raids. we had about 70 members and of them 70 about 30 were hard raiders. of them 30 20-25 had what it takes in both time and skill to goto TK. many many months passed and it became more frustrating to the raiders that the lack of progress was been held back by others. they left and we found repaclments. like ur story we were caught in a cycle of grulls and maggys and some alars.

anyways .. it ended soon after. i left and am now currently in the 3rd guild on the server raiding black temple and mount hydjal. others from the guild are actually in the top guild and have killed illadyn.

my point in all this is simple. at some point you will have to decide when your loyalty to your present community outweighs your need to progress and enjoy your game. you seem to have stuck in there for a long time but im sorry to say it is a never ending circle. get out now is my advice and find a more raid focused guild that will suit your needs. your friends are still there on your friend list.

BadCharlie

Another thing that I find very distasteful is that the bigger guilds, like the top 2 & 3 go out and head hunt our guild members. One of these guilds have over 10 ex my guild m8's.

Some to be honest I don't mind when they left, they were bad players and epic gear don't make good players. Just the tank that left last night has been in the same guild as me for a long time. We are friends when in our raids and joke and help one another when not in raids. And he just left.....

I don't care to much about getting to end game. I just would love to say the people around me are good & im in a good guild.

Sorry about going on about this... have to say its doing my head in.

calis

thats the problem.

we all want different things from wow.

u dont care about end game .. well ur MT and all the others that left did.

we all want different things from wow wheter its end game, role playing , pvp , social friends. find what u truely want and stop worrying about what others want. your never gonna keep players that want end game or pvp or whatever if ur guild is not that way iclined.

and in the end u win .. people that leave for end game and may even be there now just have to keep repeating stuff they already done. whereas you have something to aim for.

Splinter

we have had and will continue to have a similar situation in our guild and the funny thing is that most of the time the guys that leave come back. due to them not hacking it or the guild they join disbanding...

calis

Another thing that I find very distasteful is that the bigger guilds, like the top 2 & 3 go out and head hunt our guild members. One of these guilds have over 10 ex my guild m8's.

no guild can make you leave ur current one. people have a choice. if i was you i would wonder how easy it is for your members to choose to leave rather than stay. the easy answer is always epics or better epics. yet you want to stay. so why all the the want to leave?

copeyhagen

all of the baove posts are the reason that i have never been interested in raiding.

6 hours a night or whatever it is.. it seems to take the fun out of the game imo..

BadCharlie

This is my toon, not sure what gear i will have on when u look. Could be my pvp or pve or a mixture of both.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Alonsus&n=Muppetkiller

Yes people that left want end game well prob most of them. But their are people in the guild that also want end game. By building up the guild we want to progress. I will go along with that, hell i do lots of raids on kara . but i dont think end game will be reached is all im saying and i don't mind if its not. Very few take down the end boss after all.

But would love a good team of about 40members of the ones we have well geared. and well able to play.

But at the moment we cant even get 20 with the amount of them going to better guilds and not wanting to wait around for others to catch up.

DRakE

rainbow kirby wrote: »

I'm an officer in a similar sort of guild to yours, for 7 months we've been in Kara because either we can't recruit, or people leave for better-progressed guilds. The frustration is really starting to get to me tbh, and with an offer of a tanking spot in a 5/6 SSC 2/4 TK guild on the table for me as of last night I'm sorely tempted to take it. I'm sick of dragging people through Kara every week, and putting up with massive emo from others - I don't need that stress tbh.

take it

ZorbaTehZ

I've been lucky in that I've never experienced this on my main. Imo it's all about creating a community in a guild, getting to know everyone and having craic. Otherwise players couldn't give a **** about the welfare of the guild and only have their own self in mind. A lot of the time gms dont tend to realise how significant this can be.

smellslikeshoes

Tougher entry requirements would probably make a difference, like has already been said recruit on personality rather than gear. Basically if someone joins just to gear themselves up they aren't going to stay and they aren't going to do you any good.

anonymous_joe

DRakE wrote: »

take it

What he said, never worth the stress.

Anyways, in my guild we're 5/6 SSC, 3/4 TK, second best on Horde side (talk about weak, eh?). We're seeing a lot of people fleeing the more chaotic and short lived guilds and trying to join us. We're also losing a trickle to the only guild better progressed than us, but they're a good bunch usually, so there's no real ill will. Plus they bribe us with pots, flasks, etc.

The obvious suggestion was mentioned above, recruit en masse, and keep personalities. Aim for people who want to raid at the same time as you, with the same intensity as well.

Ivan

Its pretty simple, you get the guild applicant to input their character details into http://www.warcraftrealms.com/charhistory.php and list you the resulting link.

This will give you an idea of what sort of guild hopper they are. But ultimately, the best option is to quiz people on their realm/realm boards. Obviously though this takes work

Regretably though, guilds before SSC suffer the most at this because there are the most steps up the ladder that their members can go to in other guilds. Personally though, I've found that if I enjoy the people in my and enjoy raiding/spending time with them, it wont bother me what stage my progression is at compared to other guilds.

rainbow kirby

I moved guild last night. Half my old guild has me on /ignore now

anonymous_joe

They'll relax eventually.

Problem with WoW is people are hugely unwilling to look beyond themselves, and realise they're holding people back.

rainbow kirby

Yup, it's still pretty horrible though when the people you played with for so long, the guild I busted my ass as RL and officer with, they pretty much won't acknowledge my existence just because I no longer wear a <Requiem> tabard.

On the flipside, raided with my new guild last night and they killed Gruul, Magtheridon and Lurker, none of which my old guild had ever killed. They hadn't even attempted Gruul since November because our last try then resulted in a mass emofest.

Evac101

Good luck in your new guild Kirby - only pity is you couldn't transfer your toon to Emeriss to join us there - which reminds me - still looking for a second, decent, paladin tank if anyone knows any looking for an alliance PvP server guild :P

BKtje

Was Gm ina guild that was farming gruul and mag, and had downed Loot reaver in a 3 week space before christmas. People left for their christmas holidays and when they came back they started dropping away to the bigger guilds who were farming TK/SSC.
We lost so many members that we either had to start a new, just farm ZA for ever or merge. In the end we found a suitable guild (took a while believe me) and have now merged. Hopefully we can progress quickly enough now not to start loosing people again.

Last time a guild i was in merged it ended up surviving for almost 2 years and went to Naxx. Only reason it disbanded was due to players loosing interest in TBC and the rest decided to reroll Horde. If you can find a good guild to merge with that is on a similar footing as you then that is a very viable option.

BadCharlie

Well we took down Gruul over the weekend for the first time. Going to try him again this sunday and hope for the same result.

rainbow kirby

Congrats

New guild killed Al'ar for the first time the other night to go 3/4 TK, we're having our first proper tries on Vashj tonight - my old guild wiped on Maulgar at the weekend.

sunzz

Originally by rainbow kirby Congrats

New guild killed Al'ar for the first time the other night to go 3/4 TK, we're having our first proper tries on Vashj tonight - my old guild wiped on Maulgar at the weekend.

Ah Vashj, good good times

Evac101

Aye, bumping up against Vashj and Kael'thas now ourselves - interesting fights, expensive nights :P That said, everyone I talk to tells me that the Kael fight is probably the best fun in the game.

Weidii

I recently joined a guild which I consider to be very well organised and fun, it was such a shock to me to see a constant flow of 70s leaving the guild for "better" ones. I don't think I'll do that when I hit 70 because of all the time the guild master has put into me and the other lowbies in the group. I'm constantly given runs, gear and good advice. Even though it's not the top guild on the realm, I love it and I'd never leave.

smellslikeshoes

Weidii wrote: »

I recently joined a guild which I consider to be very well organised and fun, it was such a shock to me to see a constant flow of 70s leaving the guild for "better" ones. I don't think I'll do that when I hit 70 because of all the time the guild master has put into me and the other lowbies in the group. I'm constantly given runs, gear and good advice. Even though it's not the top guild on the realm, I love it and I'd never leave.

When you end up having to grind Kara non stop for months on end with no hope of progressing further your opinion might start to change slightly.

AL][EN

Weidii wrote: »

I recently joined a guild which I consider to be very well organised and fun, it was such a shock to me to see a constant flow of 70s leaving the guild for "better" ones. I don't think I'll do that when I hit 70 because of all the time the guild master has put into me and the other lowbies in the group. I'm constantly given runs, gear and good advice. Even though it's not the top guild on the realm, I love it and I'd never leave.

Id have to agree, Im in the same boat. I joined the guild im in now at level 15 im now low 50's. The help I've gotten from my guild, advise on how to play my char. gear and general help on quests/raids/PvP has been priceless i dont think i would ever leave them. Of course i say that now. Once i hit level 70 everything could change as it could for you Weidii. Nothing is ever constant especially all things WoW related.

While i cant see myself leaving id be very much like yourself in that i feel indebted to my guild for all the help they've given my toon really like the guild im in i dont know if i'd stay in it forever. I'd like to think once i hit level 70 id start PvP'ing allot more my guild is a mixed bunch and they do allot of raid/instance runs and dont do allot of PvP.

BadCharlie

I think the easy option is to join the v good guilds. In the past people have said their is noting in Gruul, kara, ect for me. A few weeks later they move onto another guild that are doing end game raids.

The only way around it is to gear 4 or 5 of the same class. so when one goes its not as big a hit as it could have. People do get tired if your only doing the same raids and no drops from these raids is going to help them.

Well we have taken gruul down twice now. Almost got him again last night. I felt we did not take him down last night due to more new people learning the fight. You could see the new guys dieing so early on in the fight which does not help.

Dustaz

They key is constantly moving onwards and upwards. Theres no reason that any guild who farm karazan cant do gruul and mag. Theres no reason that any guild with those bosses on farm cant move onto ssc and tk etc etc and so on up to BT and MH.

rainbow kirby

Vashj first kill last night with my new guild - *so* glad I made the move, my old guild is now losing players at a crazy rate. Sometimes you gotta do what ya gotta do.

(2x Defender/Prism of Inner Calm/Runetotem's Mantle... ****e loot)

Ivan

The problem there being, that as soon as you hit HJ/BT it becomes drastically more difficult to replace players of a similar skill level/gear level as the rest of your guild. Add to this the overly complicated key process and you can develop alot of problems.

When you move onto SSC and TK there is never any reason to go back to Karazhan or gruul or Maggie, aside from maybe the handful of good items that are still upgrades for your guild members. But when you get to HJ and BT and dedicate yourself to fully focusing on it, you are still forced to go back and do a full clear just to key up your one or two new players to replace the jaded/afk ones...

This can ultimately destroy a guild and/or force other guild members to abandon ship and head to another guild.

rainbow kirby

Ivan wrote: »

When you move onto SSC and TK there is never any reason to go back to Karazhan or gruul or Maggie, aside from maybe the handful of good items that are still upgrades for your guild members.

I tanked Vashj in Righteous shoulders. Champion tokens from both Maulgar and VR don't exist.

/curses having to turn up to every farm raid (and most Karazhan, because Moroes owes me a trinket and Maiden owes me a neck) due to having no luck with drops.

BadCharlie

Update.
So long since i posted here i thought i would come back and add some more.

We kill Gruul & HKM each week, on the same night move onto mag and kill him. This takes about 2 hours in total. We hope when blizz fix the bug in TK we will start going back on the same night we do mag & gruul to kill void also.

Also Killed
Domewalker
Hydrous 2 times ? first boss in SC
And are doing well with the luker below and should down him shortly, just at the moment its sprout that kill us. Seems to be the same people getting hit by it each time. Have to say i like this fight and so far find it very easy. Just people need to learn to avoid the sprout.

Don't seem to be losing as much players as before. An odd person here or their but no player of note.

rainbow kirby

May as well update here too. Has definitely been a good run since I joined my current guild a few months ago - we're 4/5 MH 3/9 BT now, and we *DID* kill Kael before 2.4 (/flex). 16k HP unbuffed in my boss tanking gear now (I don't get to use it much, but whatever), and at 550 unbuffed spelldmg in my AoE threat tanking gear (gogo getting Hammer of Judgement and Kaz'rogal shield within the last week!).

Nice to hear you've made some progress BadCharlie, now go pimpslap those nubs who keep dying to spout! Honestly, I think the step from Kara to Gruul is a bit of a killer for quite a lot of guilds, and it's very easy to get stuck in a rut.

Evac101

Boo hiss Kirby

Congratulations BadCharlie. I would suggest that once you have Lurker down you go straight for Morogrim Tidewalker - he seems more forgiving in terms of healing/dps then Leotheras and, providing you have a competent Paladin tank + a couple of Hunters he goes down fairly quickly

On the Inq front, we're farming SSC (inc Vashj - last night before 2.4 she finally died), and 1/5 MH, 2/9 BT after only a single visit to each KT is still alive but on the backburner for the moment since the GM felt (and I agreed) that the benefit for the raid of learning/killing KT wasn't as much as going straight to BT/MH and getting the easy epix :P

BadCharlie

2 Big problems in our guild

We have no pala tank good enough to do anything. Bad gear and have not tryed them in 25man raids. And any of them dont seem to be very active.

Next problem is we are lacking in Healing druids.

rainbow kirby

Evac101 wrote: »

Boo hiss Kirby

Congratulations BadCharlie. I would suggest that once you have Lurker down you go straight for Morogrim Tidewalker - he seems more forgiving in terms of healing/dps then Leotheras and, providing you have a competent Paladin tank + a couple of Hunters he goes down fairly quickly

On the Inq front, we're farming SSC (inc Vashj - last night before 2.4 she finally died), and 1/5 MH, 2/9 BT after only a single visit to each KT is still alive but on the backburner for the moment since the GM felt (and I agreed) that the benefit for the raid of learning/killing KT wasn't as much as going straight to BT/MH and getting the easy epix :P

Anetheron and Kaz'rogal are easy enough too, go keeeeeeeell!

Evac101

Aye - found that out on our 2nd or 3rd visit - equally, Naj'entus and Supermus fell over neatly on our first trips to BT which was nice of them. Top tips for Naj'entus - let a healer with Grid say when to throw the spine - they know best when everyone is ready for the damage, with Supermus get a bear to OT - excellent threat gen while offtanking = easy threat to stay under for other melee = no squishy melee during the tank phase.

BadCharlie

Downed Lurker Below last monday, did it first attempt on the night so that was nice & spout did not get me once . Once you learn the fights they do become easyer and you know what to expect.

We went and tryed Leo & Tidewalker i think his called but i was unable to make this raid. But at least we are making some progression all though so far behind other guilds but we were not ready for this raids due to mass amount of guild member leaving us. To go to guilds with more progression.

Evac101

Leotheras - good paladin tank (using more +spelldamage gear then usual) or a good bear tank is very useful. Have a shaman drop a searing totem @ the tank before each whirlwind, this ensures that Leo usually (70-80%) aggros the totem first when he finishes the whirlwind, making it easier for the tank to pick him up. Melee need to run out of range @ 2.5-3 secs on the whirlwind CD, Lock tank needs maxed FR + fel hunter out + 'share damage with pet' spec.

Morogrim - hrm - tbh it's a simple enough fight but difficult to describe positioning/etc without diagrams or video. Check out the How to Morogrim video on youtube by Slapen seems my best suggestion.

BadCharlie

Ya im after watching loads of movies of these fights and done some reading on them also. Leo looks tricky & will need more work before we kill him.

Have to agree the Morogrim fight looks easy to be honest. All you need to worry about is the adds "pala tank" and dont over aggro the MT. Also get in the correct position at 25%. I just hope our pala tanks are ready, will soon find out.

rainbow kirby

Agree with Evac - let your tankadin MT Leo. He hits like a pussy anyway, so you can stack more spell damage gear than normal (hai2u Runic Spellthread-ed T5 pants ) and it won't have a major effect. Stacking Seal of Vengeance on him and using AS for fast burst threat when he comes back out of whirlwind really helps to cement aggro quickly - and faster than a prot warrior can do it.

The same spelldmg gear is also great for being lolmurloc tank at Morogrim Tidewalker. Get a lifetapping warlock and get your tankadin to heal him 3-4 times, should give decent aggro on all the murlocs. Be careful with healing aggro from other healers though.

Ivan

*grumble* *grumble* Seal of Vengeance *grumble*

rainbow kirby

If I was ret, I'd be making the same *grumble *grumble* Seal of Blood *grumble* argument.

Ivan

touché

Evac101

I'm prot and I grumble about the lack of a spell interrupt as an alliance paladin - especially on the caster trash packs on the way to & around Solarian. Oh what a thing of beauty an AoE silence would be there....

BadCharlie

Well last night we got around to killing Tidewalker, wiped at the first attempted but got him on our second, so thats now 3/6 ssc clear. Think we are going back to leo tonight but im going to miss this fight again cant make it.

But still guild progression is good.

Ivan

Pretty much everything in raids are immune to the AoE silence. Now Gift of the Naaru is something I think we can all bitch about

Though perception rocks for arenas

Evac101

Congrats Badcharlie - Morogrim is a fun boss to take down

@Ivan
Pah - can spam r1 consecrate constantly without ever actually loosing mana

@Kirby
Go go MH - if you can down KT then 1-5 in MH is easy mode for you Though a little luck with flames on Archimonde is nice

<edit>
Upon reviewing my comment I've come to the conclusion I use too many smileys >.<

rainbow kirby

Evac101 wrote: »

@Kirby
Go go MH - if you can down KT then 1-5 in MH is easy mode for you Though a little luck with flames on Archimonde is nice

4/5 MH 5/9 BT *\o/*

Gurtogg Bloodboil down last night, being able to bubble yourself when someone's fel raged to get rid of the acidic wound stack is awesome

Now to try Archi and RoS... hoping to get to MT RoS p3, we take less dmg than warriors from Soul Scream.

Ivan

I was really surprised how easy Gurtogg was at the level gear I was at. Considering the similaritys between it and the Void Reaver fight which I had awful issues with, Gurtogg was a dream. Archimonde was horrible, but then I was always off-healing on that fight. If you arent already engineering for the helm, the Parachute cloak makes the air bursts even more trivial as a paladin, though its easy enough with BoP + DS. But you'll likely want DS for the flame waves. Never got to see RoS sadly

And Evac, I've recently started arenas with my rogue and I can tell you with improved sap and some skill, I can sap hunters with flare up, paladins with consecrate spam, priests with holy nova spam and mages with AE. Its all a question of timing. Or popping cloak of shadows if you are particularly crap

Perception is way better in arenas than any sucky blood elf racial. A 2 second silence with a 1.5 second Cooldown = 0.5 seconds of silence. Not quite that useful except as an interrupt, albeit an interrupt that most NPCs become immune to after Karazhan