Hello all!
With both of our BWL’s back in working order and in full swing, I thought it would be good to take some time and go over in somewhat heavy detail a handful of topics that have come up over the last few months.
Cue the Credits has maintained an excellent raiding roster throughout the entire Classic run and shows no signs of slowing down. But, like any organization with moderate size like ours there is always room for improvement and slight bragging.
Officer Promotion
I want to start off by thanking and congratulating Xyvera, who has accepted a promotion to Officer as of next Tuesday. By all marks he is already performing these duties, we are just applying the rank to make it match the workload. He will still continue to manage Rogues and Recruitment, we just want to make sure he has a direct line to Officer discussion should any questions arise during his many chats with you guys and recruits. I know a lot of you confide in him, especially those new to the guild. We just want to make sure that it’s known he carries the voice of the Officers during these chats.
Welcome our first non-Veteran to /o!
Ahn’Qiraj 40
Now that ZG is more than completed and most of the raiding sector of the guild nearly Revered, we are about to hit potentially the longest stretch of content farm we’re going to see within Classic. Right now it’s looking like Blizzard is sticking to the original Vanilla timeline fairly closely, which would put us at around August for a potential release date. Hopefully they cut it short by a month at least, as early July feels about right. 8 more weeks of BWL seems reasonable to me, especially considering a lot of our most dedicated players have a good amount of their pieces currently.
Our current plans as a guild for AQ40 will be to expect the same treatment for opening week of BWL with a slight taper on the Thursday raid. If you recall we went into BWL only expecting to string together a single opening raid with the remainder of the roster on the backburner. Given the surge of recruitment and interest right before BWL launch changed more or less two days before launch. We fully expect a similar event and will prepare for the same situation this time around for AQ40.
However, C’Thun is considerably more difficult than Nefarian in addition to AQ40 as a whole being the hardest instance yet by a considerable margin due to it not being nerfed at all. We’re running on patch 1.12 currently, which has all the latest gear and MC/BWL nerfs. AQ40/Naxxramas were never nerfed. So AQ40 is set to be the first instance we’ll be raiding that matches the base level of gear that we had back in the day. Obviously we’re much smarter now so any DPS thresholds will be a joke, but there are a few mechanics in AQ40 that should provide a challenge.
That was a long way of saying on launch day we will again take that Tuesday off work, and Thursday will take all the lessons learned from Tuesday and raid at a normal time with the goal of reaching C’Thun, but being perfectly okay with not killing it. Given we will be prepared for this situation this time around it should feel a bit less sloppy overall for Thursday, but it is impossible to say until we see the raiding roster we have in the Summer in addition to any other unforeseeable variables from now until then.
For me personally AQ40 and Naxxramas are the reasons why I wanted to play Classic again so adamantly. There are a lot of unturned rocks in those two instances for me and our guild as whole from 2005, and it’s going to be interesting to see what little we understood back then.
Raider Ranks
So as a natural transition here, let’s talk about how we’re approaching raider ranks in AQ40/Naxx. When we were setting up for BWL, we did a staggered promotion run that left the Officer/Class Leads with a ridiculous amount of stress in the final weeks leading into BWL. We run a very balanced raid structure with no A or B team. With how Tuesday and Thursday alternate month over month as to which is the “best raid”, I’m very happy how this balance has turned out. I think it’s great for morale and makes recruiting much easier as there is no ‘core’ spot to worry about for the majority of our raiding time.
This balanced structure works great for farm content which is 95% of our raiding experience. But on progression release it is a nightmare to sit down and develop the ‘perfect raid’. Everyone was very understanding of how difficult it was for us to build the opening raid for BWL and it’s very appreciated. Given the talent has only increased since then, that process is just going to become more difficult.
So all current raider ranks will be changed to Member, and a new Raider rank established. That is the “guaranteed” raid slot for AQ40 opening night. Holding a previous Raider rank does not guarantee a new raider promotion, but it is a fair indicator of it. If you are currently holding a raider rank and feel you are being outperformed considerably, do not be surprised if the slot skips you. (I have no idea if this applies to anyone currently, but just saying it as I type and think of it.) As for “guranteed”, I only apply air quotes because things could change with class balance.
So in order to really set in stone what we’re looking for and how you can set yourself up to lock yourself into an opening AQ40 position, we’re looking at the following factors, sorted by importance:
Performance – Obviously being a top performer is going to be a key element. This is largely your median WCL parse, but as well as the ranking overall. Players busting their ass during farm content are well equipped to go all-out on a progression raid. Median matters because it means you are consistently performing, and not just going all out every few weeks when Darkmoon Faire arrives.
Factors
Attitude – A substitute for less than perfect parses is a great overall guild & raiding attitude. There’s more value to a guild than your WCL rating.
Class Need – Some classes are just less desired than others and as a result, spots will be harder to slot. To no surprise, Hunters, Warlocks and Druids will be particularly impacted here.
Reliability – Being a reliable raider is crucial, especially if we are planning on taking that day off.
Length in Guild – This is somewhat the least important factor, but it does result in a bit of a tie-breaker when we’re making our choices.
So nothing particularly surprising. We do not currently have a written list of names yet, but we will begin pulling one together in May just to see what we have. Ultimately we’re at the mercy of attrition and other unexpected elements. Given we’re potentially looking at 12 weeks of BWL before AQ40, a lot can change between now and then.
So as we hand out loot now, we will be distributing with a loose expectation of who we see as a guaranteed player in that AQ40 opening raid. As we get closer, say in the last 6 weeks or so when we have a better idea of the release date and player composition we can begin to flood all missing items to that opening raid team.
Loot
While on the topic of loot, you likely noticed that this week’s raid sheet did not have an expected award breakdown for each item. We had our suspicions that this would end up causing more stress and concerns when we implemented it and it has. In addition to that it has greatly reduced the council’s flexibility within a raid. If a certain player is slotted for a Shadowflame Staff and it’s known publicly, then any major upgrades sent to that player outside of that item has added unneeded stress to the decision. But what if that upgrade just made sense at that moment? The council tries to account for everything, but sometimes we miss things. Such as “Oh wow, didn’t realize it was SUCH a huge upgrade for that player. Let’s give it to him and we can reroute the Staff.” Or whatever.
This has been particularly difficult for Rogues and casters, simply because the depth of their loot table within BWL is so huge and can vary greatly throughout the instance and drop pattern.
So moving forward we will not be posting direct loot orders for any item, but if you want to know your rough position for an item we can do our best to provide that. Just know that it is subject to change simply because items are random. You may find yourself getting 2-3 items you didn’t even have your eyes on that ended up shifting around other more higher demand slots. The purpose of a loot council is to reduce rot and make sure the raid is receiving a strong power spike for every award. Being pigeon-holed into a structure that may not make sense anymore due to unexpected item drops has made the last few weeks of looting particularly difficult.
So I’m glad we tried it, but at a guild level we will be stopping that. However at a class level where applicable, it’s recommended the leads try to make sure everyone understands where they stand within their own classes.
Attrition
Another implication of 12+ weeks of BWL will be a spike in attrition. We’ve nearly hit the 1-year mark for Classic and for the first time I am being privately told of players who will be making the conscious decision to raid-log until AQ40. It’s totally understandable if you fall within this boat as the game in its current state does not leave a lot to do during off-hours.
We’ve never actively applied any negatives to our players who raid-log, just maybe added some small potential “bonuses” to those who are on all the time. (Crafting patterns, etc) Ultimately what we’re looking for is folks to participate within the guild as a whole, and that does not mean exclusively Classic.
We have a private server TBC team running, we run multiple boardgaming nights throughout the week that support 15+ players (you need to try Blood on the Clocktower if you haven’t!), Valorant has been pulling some competitive spirit in and it looks like a strong retail team is building to do a run on the latest content before Shadowlands.
Xyvera has been doing an excellent job at managing recruitment in addition to his regular Rogue lead duties. Anytime our raiding pool is appearing to be at risk, he has been able to pull together a set of recruits to more or less immediately replace the missing talent. It has been a tremendous stress relief for myself and honestly really allowed Cue the Credits to remain where we have throughout this entire BWL run all the way to AQ. Thank you!
Raid Sign-Ups
While we drudge through this latest attrition run, it’s particularly important to make sure you check both days you are able to raid during the sign up process. It will allow Tyler to be more flexible with the raid configurations. The last few weeks have caused some rather weird class compositions due to some fairly limiting schedules. One of the major advantages of running two raid teams is that we can accommodate events that might come up throughout the week. But continuous selection of a single raid day becomes difficult. If you can make both days, please choose so. If you would prefer to be on a certain day for any particular reason, just leave a note or send Tyler a message. It’s generally perfectly fine.
Stance on Server Transfer
Since it’s asked often enough, I’ll place here what our thoughts are in regards to server transfers as we get closer to AQ.
Stalagg is obviously very Horde dominant. But frankly most servers are, or the opposite. A balanced server is basically a pipedream at this point unless Blizzard intervenes. Odds of that happening are pretty low it seems, so our best route is just to stay where we are until recruitment becomes a legitimate issue.
For the most part, every guild who has left Stalagg has either died or transferred again by now. The latest example would be the Incendius exodus that ended up killing not only Incendius, but the two transfer servers Horde ran to afterwards. Ruining the new servers economy and breaking faction balance, again.
Ultimately, while we are a PvP server the primary drive of the game is PvE. As such, once the world buffs become contested and more hardcore guilds are no longer able to reliably enter raids fully buffed, they jump at the first opportunity to transfer to an allied faction dominant server. So whichever faction is the one getting bullied is most likely to leave since this Classic run is so world buff dominant.
In regards to the AQ Gates event, it seems like there is a strong effort from the Horde side to begin handing off resources to Alliance characters to make sure each end is met. I’ve seen a few Discord servers and spreadsheets relating to the requirements but nothing considered Official yet. As I hear more I’ll let everyone know but this will definitely require every serious guild to really grind out these materials and for the home stretch, sending a bunch over to the Alliance to meet the requirements.
So in short, no – we are not transferring and do not have any plans to. Our bar is recruitment and nothing else. And if we did transfer, it would be to a server that is already used to a Horde faction imbalance simply because we know the Alliance at that point are already used to dealing with threats to their parses. It’s clear moving over to the ‘balanced’ Incendius server pissed off a lot of BUSTIN and Washed Up members to the point where they ran crying the moment the free transfers opened.
As much as absolutely nobody wants to admit it, the key to running a successful raiding guild in Classic is to raid on a PvE or completely faction dominant server. Several ex-Stalagg Horde guilds failed to realize this and ended up becoming locusts that brought multiple servers to their knees as a result of their short-sightedness.
Bank Needs
Final subject I want to touch on will be a question I’m asked about once a week. “What does the guild bank need?”
So right now I’m shooting for the following goals on AQ40 launch and will be creating a new bank alt ctcbankaq to manage all the related materials. It’s relatively simple frankly, but there are the targets
200+ Greater Nature Protection Potions
200+ Plaguebloom (Mana Oils, using our Large Brilliants)
200+ Dreamfoil
10,000 Gold (Currently at 5000 of this post)
Flasks run about 300-600G/week, so current MC boe rates are maintaining the bank with the random purple BoE’s increasing it. I will try to update the bank.cuethecredits.net more often so everyone can see where we stand with materials on both characters.
Conclusion
To close out, things are running great. We still sit as the best guild on Stalagg without any private server history which is something I am very proud of. We know who we are, where we stand and actively improve upon it. We ride a really fine line at times, but I’m proud of all the work we’ve done to match the level of talent on this server and in the game overall. Our WarcraftLogs looks great considering we are not running an A & B Team. It takes quite a bit of scrolling to reach the first purple parse when you look at our rankings page.
Here’s to another year of consistency and hopefully being able to eat at a restaurant before AQ40 launches!
Reed