Well while we have been busy for the last two and half months the front page has slacked, mainly because there really is nothing to celebrate at the moment. We await the Wrath of the Lich King because at the moment he seems only mildly annoyed and how his armies have not been beaten by a collection of small fluffy animals is a mystery.

The changing face of raiding has ensured that everyone can walk into raid dungeons and clear them with the minimum of effort and skill. The guild levelled fast with the vast majority of members hitting 80 within a week of release and piling into the heroics. The more dedicated members raced for the server firsts - achieving it in several classes while the spam-o-meter (achievement announcer) went into overdrive during that first week.

The skipping of ‘normal’ dungeons was to be expected and we amused ourselves in the heroics as soon as we hit 80. Disappointingly they were swiftly cleared and the list of achievements for “Glory of the Hero” started diminishing at a rapid rate. After a few days of getting locked out of every heroic and having nothing more to buy from vendors except Mammoths we delved into Naxx, an instance which had caused a lot of trouble in its original form and one we were hoping would have retained its flavour and a degree of difficulty. Sadly that impression was not to last long.

The original Naxx might only have been seen by 5% of the players and I understand the reason for recycling it given the amount of work/lore in the dungeon. However the difficulty of the place has been completely removed as was discovered in our first trip to the spider wing where it transpired that tank kiting on Nub’s locust swarm was a total waste of time and effort - far simpler to just stand still. As we progressed deeper it was also gratifying to note that if your dps are incapable of stopping damage on Maexy in order to time the enrage it makes no difference at all as she could not fight her way out of a wet paper bag even when in that state. On and on it went; once proud encounters now reduced to zergs which can happily ignore most abilities. While entry level dungeons should not be overly challenging it is not really ideal when you one shot most bosses. Ten man Naxx was in the same vein.

The achievements promised to provide some challenge but by then Blizzard had implemented it’s own additional tactic - chronic lag. Providing some additional difficulty to Naxx was a splendid idea but most raiders would have appreciated more damage from bosses or more hp or tighter enrages. Instead we got massive lag spikes. Thaddius takes on a whole new level of amusement when you can only dps for 40% of the time and your polarity charge takes 6 seconds to appear. Poor Gluth got so confused he simply cast decimate every 15 seconds for the whole second half of the fight while his zombie cohorts teleported around and into his mouth and we particularly enjoyed the amusement of Nub’rekhan instantly casting 10 stacks of locust swarm without the cast bar ever appearing. Our dreams of achieving “The Immortal” disappeared as the only realistic option was to raid at 4am to try and avoid any lag at all. Of course some people have been frustrated at not getting their achievements!

Ten man Naxx was a different proposition and the lag was a lot less noticeable. Both the Undying and 8-man are very possible here and for added fun taking a single healer makes it faster and more challenging (you will need a Sp or a Ele to heal the 4H and top up a tank on Gothic).

Other than Naxx Wolk brought two other encounters - the new Onyxia (Malygcos) and the new mechanic in Sarth and his little friends. Malygcos provided some amusement with the dragon riding and was a refreshing encounter which, as new encounters should, took a little time to learn and was gradually mastered. The achievements for Malygcos are distinctly tougher than the Naxx ones and the 8-man one allows for very few mistakes and if you get unfortunate sparks can be very very tight with the enrage. They were probably not helped by some additional features such as Maly landing in p2 to help out his minions.

We would like to extend our gratitude to Blizzard for their continued use of chests - it’s fabulous when it takes longer for 25 people to loot the chest than it does for 25 people to kill the boss.

Sarth is the one ray of hope in the current raid encounters. Sarth alone could be pugged by 20 rather un-ambitious people who have consumed 10 litres of Diamond White apiece and then had 10 MacDonalds cheeseburgers each. The thinking behind the encounter is excellent - differing difficulties for differing levels of raid guilds. Sarth +3 is a decent encounter - maybe the only one in Wrath thus far that is a substantial gear and retard check. Again the difficulty is supplemented by lag every time Wintersgrasp starts or every time someone talks to an NPC. Having killed all three drakes it is somewhat frustrating to lag and discover during that time Sarth ate your tank and your entire raid missed the chance to cook their marshmallows as they got flayed by a breath.

Blizzard has stated that it will have more encounters of this type and that is nothing but good news - everyone gets to enjoy the content and the more skilled/ambitious people can increase the difficulty. We can only hope that new dungeons bring an increased level of difficulty and ensure that content both lasts for more than 2 weeks and separates the skilled raiders from the unskilled.

At the moment the guild is relaxing - clearing the 25 man raids as fast as lag allows and then trying out various combination on 10 man Sarth +3. Blizzard has done some good work with wotlk but a lot more remains - server stability, raid difficulty and class balance remains key. Alhtough nerfs to Beacon of Light are simply not allowed.

Recruitment remains open for a few classes following a spate of unsuccesful trials…..

We are especially eager to get a high-attendance, skilled warrior to keep the druids and paladins in their place and prove warriors are the kings of tanking! A successful applicant would look to maintain at least 80% attendance and be prepared to both main tank and off-tank the new encounters are they arrive. Plus you get this guy as your classleader!

And briefs from this guy!

As the guild gears up and meanders through the initial instances is a good time to apply - both to ensure you are familiar with the guild and them with you. We also have potential slots for a hunter and exceptional players in other classes. When the new dungeons arrive if you want to be challenging for server firsts and experiencing bosses before their inevitable nerfs and changes - come and speak to the relevant classleader or one of the officers. Full details on how to apply and who the classleaders are is contained on the forums, shockingly enough in the Recruitment folder.