We are so close on Spine it is not funny. Last night we just cocked up every single attempt with something silly and it just caused a night of annoyance really.
The best we got was to the last tendon with about 20% left, but then we got overrun with bloods as the amalgamation was blowing up for what would have been our 1st kill.
Long boring brain dump 
Feel free to skip the rest! I won’t be offended.
I really do like the people in the guild, as people, but as players – they frustrate me. I am not naive enough to think that any guild is not going to have annoyances, however I don’t want that to be because people can’t follow instructions. I have always been a firm believer that as long as people can follow instructions and get peer level skills out of their toons, any boss is beatable.
I will admit, I am not a strong healer – although my only healing experience is one month on a resto shammy in BT – I would not even consider being a healer if I didn’t think I could compete with other healers of similar spec and gear.
I am not worried about my tanking, I could do that with my eyes closed since Blizz made it so much easier for us with the changes to threat..hardly a challenge really if you get the first hit off (admittedly I need to change some of my gems around for more defence).
My DPS is probably comparable to other fire mages in similar gear, I know in LFR I can get about 48k dps on Ultrax on a good night and about 53K on Madness – if i get good procs and nice runs. That’s of course top top end. If I get no procs or combos, I will be lucky to crack the 30k mark. I don’t often get to just play my mage though, so it is hard to figure out in a normal DS – where my DPS sits.
Honestly, our raids are almost like a vocal DBM mod running, me and the GM have to call out every single thing for people to do what they are told. Jump into crystals, stack for stomp, watch out for the bouncy ball , run in and pop cooldowns, stack for red slimes, spread for green, get the mana void, get to ice crystals, hour of twilight, get the sapper, twilight onslaught, jump into purples, L/R side drake…you get the idea. If we don’t call it out, it generally doesn’t get done, which means I barely get to actually watch my rotation properly because I am watching other people – the bane of every raid leader I am sure. How do you then show those logs to people to impress them with your less than 15k dps 
???
I am still looking for guilds, am now checking out GuildOx (I have always preferred GO to WowProgress in its layout) to see if I can find any guilds that are suitable.
US guilds are definitely out unless they raid at about 5am, or even 2 am…but I can’t imagine I will find many of those. I am now just looking at all guilds – that have cleared content even all the way to 8/8H – if the guild sounds like my kind of place, that is more what I am interested in at this stage. I don’t want a guild – I want another home – where people are nice, determined and passionate about the game without the nasty aftertaste that is sometimes left.
I have a couple I am keen on and will be creating toons to chat to GM/RL etc this fortnight. I have to stop getting nervous about applying to guilds, but to me – it is as important as a job interview. I want them to like me and think I am a good fit, so I tend to waffle….not dissimilar to this post in fact!
Anyway, I just wanted to put this down somewhere so it isn’t clogging up my brain space! And with all the bloggers out there, surely you can add some insight into the world of applications for your guild and if you are a raid leader how that affects your DPS?
Don’t be so quick to toss the US out! There are always people raiding at odd hours. My guess is that those guilds tend to be pretty close knit as they don’t have much to choose from in trade if someone doesn’t show.
Try doing fights without leading. Inform everyone ahead of time that they are on their own so make sure DMB/BigWig/whatever is up to date. Only call very specific things (such as calling who you want to use a brez or unexpected dispel) and let them flail about on their own. Do it on a fight they should know well, such as Morchok. Fail at it until they get it right.
It might be a bit too much for the group (sounds like they aren’t keen on personal accountability so this one might sting), but think about getting a raid fail announce add on. If someone sits in Black Blood or fails to click the button on Ultraxxion it will notify the entire raid that person just fucked up and why. It should open some eyes as to why they aren’t progressing. Sometimes a little public shame is all it takes to get people back in line.
Not every guild in the world is 8/8 regular but I bet the vast majority of the ones that are genuinely trying (and have put in the same hours as you) have downed Deathwing at least once. Unfortunately, it only takes 1-2 people in a 10-man group not trying to drag down the rest.
Yes, some of the fights are DPS-races. But with 20% nerf in place you’ve got a pretty good margin for error. Cut yourself some slack about the DPS dip while raid leading and show them what you’ve got when trying the not-leading thing. Get them to focus on the fight mechanics, not their damage.
hehe I used to love the fail chat thing…for the life of me I can’t remember the one I used briefly…I am pretty sure it was in Ulduar? and I got slammed by the guild for having it, a couple of people were very vocal about it being very detrimental to the overall guilds morale.
I think the major issue is that people in our guild want the progression – they want to down content but they want to raid with friends and just enjoy themselves. I am not saying the two can’t work together in some guilds, but you would need everyone playing to their strengths and not on toons they are not suited to (in my humble opinion). It doesn’t work like that in our guild, we have people playing toons they really aren’t all that good on, simply because that’s the spec/toon they enjoy playing the most. It is almost a walking contradiction.
I might try the no raid leading thing with advance warning though – it would depend on everyone being able to just follow that and not start calling things out themselves. I know if I am not constantly talking others start calling out what needs to be done. I like that idea immensely
Then everyone could just talk crap and we could just roll through the bosses….lol…maybe 
Yeah some fights are dps races – but not really all that many, and it isn’t hard to get that little bit more out of a toon with a little tweaking after the first night when you can clearly see you need more. Maybe that is more for experienced and passionate people though – who understand the game/mechanics? I don’t know.
I will also reevaluate the US guilds, I had not thought of the tight knit groups that would form if they had weird hours, which could be very nice. Thanks for pointing that out!!