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re: The future of Pyre
This is, by far, the longest post I've made to a guild forum.
I have a very simple reason for not scheduling raids over the past several weeks or the next couple. Everyone's timing is all messed up because of the holidays and mine and Laiste's wedding is coming up. There's just no time to do anything productive.
I will, however, start scheduling raids for the week after the Jan 19 server reset. Where will we go? Naxx is completely irrelevant now, so I'm going to skip that completely. So is the Obsidian Sanctum. I've always hated the Eye of Eternity, so that's out the door as well.
Our first major raid will be Ulduar. I don't know what kind of reception I'll get at this, so I hope we can get enough people together to do a 25-man. If it has to be a 10-man, then so be it. We might even be able to do two 10-man runs if we can work out the healers and tanks. 25-man would be more fun, though.
Now, I fully know that people have their own lives and can't devote incredible amounts of time to a game. Believe me, I'm in the same boat. I've been playing this game for three years now and have been raid member, loot master, raid leader, and raid coordinator for a good part of that time. I know that real life comes first.
I also know that some people don't really like to raid because of the amount of time invested for the hopes of getting something to drop. If that's the reason someone raids, then they're not a very good raider, in my opinion. For me, I want to raid for two reasons: 1) an elusive upgrade, 2) more importantly the chance to run something complicated with friends. It's fun.
For many of our members, we cannot upgrade our characters with anything but drops. For them, a raid becomes an essential part of the game. If you're not in that boat (and can still upgrade through emblem purchases), I cannot express how frustrating it is to log on to your favorite character and sit there thinking, "Ok, what do I do now? All my rep is exalted. My professions are maxed. I've bought everything from the vendors. I don't have anything on my calendar." The game becomes boring.
When we hit level 80, the game radically shifts and does center around gear, especially now that Blizzard has made it so easy to gear up. We can spend our time running heroics and get emblems enough to gear us up to a point where I've never thought the player's would reach.
When I run heroics as a tank, I concentrate on the fights. They're easy. They're pitiful. The only real challenge in heroics is the Halls of Reflection.
When I run as a healer, I concentrate on the strategies and how the other player's in my group are doing. I watch recount. I see what spells and actions are being cast most. Sometimes, if I have a party that doesn't need much healing, I look people up on wow-heroes.
I have noticed something that I need to stress to everyone. If you have a gear score that's over, say, 2200 (an arbitrary number on my part) and you're not doing a minimum of 2,000 DPS on a boss fight (in Recount, check the current fight or name the boss; I'm not talking about overall DPS), then you seriously need to look at the rotations you're using.
When my warlock was around 2250 gear score, I could pound approximately 3k DPS on a heroic target dummy (Johnny was watching and cheering me on). That's not very well geared compared to where everyone can be. I'm not bragging at all. I'm pointing out something I've personally seen.
People in Trade say, "Gear score doesn't matter." To an extent, it doesn't. It's ridiculous for many people to say, "If you know how to play your class, you should be able to get in anywhere." I highly disagree with that.
If I were to enter heroic TOC with a tank who has a gear score right at 2,000, I would worry. The same goes for a healer. At a GS of 2,000 they may not have the powerful heals needed. Blizzard has done us a favor of locking some instances out if player's don't have a minimum gear rating. That prevents fresh 80s in greens from entering Halls of Reflection saying, "Let's pwn this!"
I know running many heroics can get boring. Believe me. I know. I've been gearing up my warlock, I've already geared my rogue to 2200-ish from before 3.3, and I've geared my Druid's resto and tank sets to over 2500. We do need to run them for the emblems and in turn, the gear.
I know how frustrating it can be to run heroics and come out with a high repair bill. So what? Repair bills are a part of life. In all honesty, a 100g repair bill is what, 8 dailies? It can be made up. It can be obtained through selling stuff in the AH.
We have to tough it out and keep running them so we, as a guild, can progress into the more interesting areas like 10 or 25 man TOC or even Icecrown Citadel. I would love to get bored of running ICC. It's truly a challenge and very fun. Also, Blizzard has stated that how ICC runs is how Cataclysm instances and raids will work.
We're a great guild. We have lots of fun together. We help everyone who needs it. Let's continue that and keep pushing the guild, as a whole, further into the game. I need everyone's help to do this.
Push on, move on.
-- Jaleric
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. Maybe I'm doing it wrong... wait, what the....am I doing?! Oh yah! The name should be a dead giveaway of whom I am. 
