Hello all –
Today marks the 2 week countdown to our next home – Herod. We’ll complete two more raid lockouts and then slide over to the new server. The target date for all players to transfer is Friday July 16th, 2021.
Why Herod?
We’ve specifically chosen Herod due to its stability, lack of Stalagg refugees, and healthy community. I’ve been tracking specifically the Alliance population on the server and it has continued to maintain itself since launch and even growing a bit. Horde is definitely outpacing Alliance, but that is just fine. I do not think the faction balance is of large concern as the stability of the balance is infinitely more important.
We Are and Will Be Stalagg’s Best Guild
Stalagg by and large has been very good to us. We’ve managed to stay out of pretty much all childish and straight up cringe server politics while maintaining our own schedule, raid plan and expectations. We are the only guild left on Stalagg that has held the same guild tag or not had to mass recruit or merge in well over a year. Meanwhile petty guilds are fighting over scraps like vultures.
We are packing our bags as our raiding schedule continues to grow, with this week generating our 8th Karazhan and 3rd Gruul’s. This is all with absolutely zero recruitment for the last 6 or so months. For this to happen on a dead server speaks volumes to the strength of our foundation and community. This is also precisely on schedule as written months back.
Our goal was 6+ Karazhans and 2 25-man raids prior to waving good-bye to Stalagg and per usual, we have exceeded that. World bosses have proven difficult for us to capture, but it is just not our strong suit and likely never will be. To properly snag those it requires putting players in a position that is not particularly enjoyable or collaborative. In a lot of ways it is the antithesis to core values that I build this guild on. Play what you want, do what you want, and have fun. While Raze’s “Time DKP” system is very predatory and clearly being abused due to one player already having 3 world boss pieces, it is effectively the only way to motivate people to AFK there 24/7. That being said I am very impressed with the effort that was displayed by those who reacted to every single world boss tag. If nothing else, we definitely tried. Our need to be perfect and overprepare was ultimately our biggest weakness as these things in a lot of cases just require some serious YOLO.
I’m also very impressed with how helpful everyone has been within the guild throughout the leveling process, profession leveling, and gear grind. A handful of our players who are playing classes that overlap with tanks have put a hold on their DPS desires to tank and it has provided a major boon to our ability to raid so effectively. Big shout out to Kootwigs, Milkthot, Yaacob, and Zelt for making that happen. Also to those who leveled tank alts to step in as needed.
At the end of the day it’s all about how you measure success that determines where we ultimately sit within the Stalagg history books. From my perspective, it does not matter how fast you clear an instance or how many High Warlords you have if you are constantly burning through players and treating the rest of the server like shit. We kept our head down and out of the day to bullshit, maintained order and never had any struggle that wasn’t internally self inflicted.
That all being said, I need to be clear about expectations on Herod.
Expectations on Herod & Phase 2+
On Stalagg we have a good passive name for ourselves due to our consistency and posture on the smaller realm. That will not exist on Herod. For the remainder of Phase 1 we will continue to operate as we are – maybe stacking a raid here or there to get some useless execution/speed metrics on the board. However on SSC launch, we will be starting that raid differently to how we have with others.
For Phase 2 launch – we will be stacking the ever living shit out of a single progression raid. A first for us in CTC Classic. We will not even attempt a second raid that week, and I will be forbidding almost everyone from locking themselves to another ID until specifically told that it is okay. By all marks, Phase 1 is all about generating as much power for our opening raid team as possible. I want every DPS with a DST, every Healer and Tank with their full BIS in that opening roster. I want a THICK rotatable progression bench so that we can punt out useless classes on certain fights and bring in selective power if needed. Provided WarcraftLogs doesn’t limit the amount of players allowed to count for progression – we may as well consider this a 50-man progression raid.
This opening group will be expected to play similar to how we did in Naxxramas, but even better and even sweatier. Plan for an opening 8-10 hour raid, and an immediate re-enter the next morning.
It may seem extreme and it definitely is – but it is what we must do to position ourselves high on the progress charts on a brand new server that has a significantly more talented raid pool. If you were to look at Herod’s Phase 1 opening, we would have been #11 on the server, #7 Horde based on our Mag kill day. Absolutely acceptable ranking given the server size, but we can do better. Once we get that ranking our recruitment will continue to be organic and easy, per usual.
To: Socials, Trials
For those who are a bit iffy as to where you stand within the guild due to being new to us from TBC, or social rank… you are of course welcome to join us on this new journey. I do not expect or want to run 3 25-man raids in Phase 2. Given that we will still need to run Gruul for DST’s and Karazhans for select items that will not drop – our raiding schedule is going to hit an upper-max that we cannot reasonably maintain. It’s not impossible, but it is not within the current plan. This is the uplift and talent focus our raiding roster has needed for a while and Phase 2 raiding content will force it on us. However for the remainder of Phase 1, we can maintain what we are doing within the constraints of whatever roster lands on Herod. So if nothing else, Karazhan’s and Gruuls will have plenty of room as time goes on.
In order to make sure there is a written path into our dual 25 man raiding rosters, I’ll be piecing together a clean set of expectations for socials and recruits to reference for the methods and goals they can shoot for to obtain one of those spots. In addition to this there will be a new feedback system we’ll be utilizing on the leadership side to make sure everyone is aware of both good and concerning things players are actively doing that we can measure at a high level. Most importantly to provide input when needed to increase operational transparency. More on that in the coming weeks.
Names & Professions
As we transfer many will take the opportunity to change their names. This will be reflected within the guild note. In addition to this, I’m working on a comprehensive spreadsheet to help determine who has what for critical professions.
Financial Assistance
Lastly, all of our financial states are very different. The requirement to transfer your main or a critical alt may not be a cost you can afford right now. There is enough internal support on the backend to assist with this if you require it. Just reach out to me privately and we will get you situated. There are plenty of arrangements that can be made to ensure we all land together and leave no willing bodies behind. Confidence will be kept regarding the topic, of course.
Thanks everyone for sticking through and being great sports with this. This will be a huge boon for everyone and it’s a great opportunity to show a new community what we’re all about.
Reed