Raiding with Legion

[Deleted]

We've been raiding casually with Legion doing joint Flex ventures for about a month now, and we've got 2 weeks under our belt trying out a 2 team method as originally pitched to you during the last guild meeting. You, the members, asked for a shared chat channel with Legion and a party to address social concerns - the party is tonight and a chat channel was setup last week (TBVV). Other concerns were raised more privately that this whole venture was Warlin's idea and done for his personal benefit at the expense of others within the guild. Actually, it was my idea and to dispel any fears that people were "being thrown under the bus" for my own gain, I elected to remain off the 10-man team to continue supporting the Flex team.

This has been arguably the most controversial move undertaken by this guild in its brief history. There were definite feelings of being railroaded into it last month when it was pitched. What I was fighting for was that you all maintain an open mind about the idea and give it a try. I am glad you have all chosen to do so. Now as promised you can vote on the matter and whatever you decide will be considered binding. If you like how things're going, we can continue as originally discussed. If you're unhappy, we can change the current arrangement or stop it entirely. We've certainly seen a few changes with just the change of day and start time of events aside from the issue of dual teams and raiding with new people. 

I encourage all members of the raid team to give their thoughts here for good or bad. I will post my own thoughts in a few more days and shed some light on the guild leadership's perspective in setting this up. I've kept silent about things because I wanted you all to form your opinions based on your own experiences, I've forced the issue enough.

I'd like to settle everything by the guild meeting next Tuesday, but if this discussion is more ongoing then that's what it is.

[Deleted]

Greetings~

        Initially I was just going to click proceed with both, but as this is something that potentially will affect people both in good AND bad ways, I thought it deserved a more thorough explaination on my part. Personally, I enjoy running flex with everyone. It's almost always a good time and offers me a slightly more challenging scenario than LFR, while not throwing me in over my head. That said, I also don't mind the dual teams either, as it allows me more practice time. The main drawback that I personally feel is the most hindering (again, IMO) is that there's not a whole lot of consistancy as far as classes go. I'm finding that in certain group make-ups strategy A will work, but then a week later in group make-up B, I have to change up my approach. Don't get me wrong, being adaptable is a key part of the game, I understand that, but when we begin to do more challenging runs or a boss I'm unfamiliar with,  I don't have an instinctual feel for the group. So rather than performing at my best, I kind of DERP out while I re-figure out how to best fit into the group dynamics.

also, As a personal side-note, the Monday raids are at 6 for me locally, so it can be hard for me to get home in time to catch it...Nothin that can really be done about it, Just explaining. While I would love to Raid every Monday, sometimes I just am unable to. I wouldn't mind continuing on with things as they are, I just don't want anyone to feel like I'm unreliable either. I want to contribute as much as I can, but missing raids may seem counter-intuitive to that.


That all said, I've enjoyed meeting some new people and everyone has been easy to work with, so as far as the people themselves, I have no complaints whatsoever. All in All I guess my vote is continue as is, But I'm open to just about anything so long as it works for everyone else as well.

thanks for your time

[Deleted]

Where to start... Get comfy, this is gonna be a long post.

I first concocted the idea to form a joint raid effort with Legion in response to our guild hitting a brick wall on the Spoils of Pandaria fight in flex several weeks ago. Malkorok represents the increase in dps check for the rest of the raid and we could meet it because it's a very simple fight mechanically, whereas Spoils is more stop and go with a lot of target switching where it's hard to maintain higher dps. Looking more extensively at our raiders' gear, most of us were over 540 and thus nearing the maximum ilvl we could hope to get from doing flex and thus would be plateauing. That meant we couldn't rely on gear to get us over the hump, we would need to get higher dps with what we had already. I decided on a 2-prong approach to this problem.

The first was to approach Legion about a joint team. Warlin has been raiding with them for the past few months. His assessment of their team is that they have a number of skilled players, likely a higher ratio then we have, but that something doesn't seem to gel. As such, we actually outperform them. We've progressed further in both normal and flex then they have been able to. My accounting of this is that we function better as a team and they rely more on individual performance. I thought a joint effort would allow us to take the best of both worlds and thus benefit both guilds. We've made efforts in recent months to reach out to other guilds for joint endeavors with other events, mostly with rp, talking to Divine nobility and reaching out to Drop Forged Death. The belief is that as a community, the more the merrier and having more people participate in events would bolster our existing repertoire of events to make them more fun. 

The second was to refine my use of SimC to better understand what were the underlying causes of people's dps not being higher. At least 2 other people currently possess the gear to match me and Warlin. So I did some number crunching and then approached people to discuss those findings, a departure from my usual approach where I offer or wait for people to come to me. I know some people weren't too thrilled about me taking such initiative since I was imposing. My belief was that a 5% increase in performance from each raid member based on how well they utilize their existing gear, would be enough to net large results for the entire team. I leveled a 2nd alchemist (with a potion specialty) and began stockpiling materials to craft potions for all members of the raid team, introducing them to potion and pre-potion use the way me and Warlin had been doing for months to aid in maximizing performance.

The second plan was in case the plan with Legion didn't work, but also as part of a long-term view of improving the raid team. We've come a long way since we started a few months ago struggling with MSV in 520 ilvl gear. We've progressed to where we can actually raid current content. That's a lot of improvement in only a few months. Understand that by a serious raiding guild's standards, we're still something of a joke. I don't say that to be offensive, but to provide a different perspective on how much more room we have to grow into our potential. I believe the next expansion will see us continue to improve as both individuals and as a team. We're currently running flex as our mainstay, and I think we could be doing heroic next expansion (heroic being current normal mode).

Seeing as we've gotten over the hump with Spoils of Pandaria, downed Thok and are now in striking distance to clear the final few bosses, it is debatable if my 2nd plan was effective thus justifying it, or if we simply got lucky or acquired enough gear to force our way through those bosses. Either way, it removes the need to ally with Legion to keep our raid team progressing, we've shown we can do it without them. Therefore, any reason to continue to work with them would be based more on enjoyment or a desire to perform even better then we currently are.
______________________________

Working with Legion has been fairly frustrating for the guild's staff and we've been mindful not to say anything. That was because we wanted things to work and any mention of issues while people were reluctant about the idea would ensure it was derailed. Now that you've all had a chance to deal with those initial concerns, we feel it is important to discuss them so you can see the whole picture.

I met one of their GM's, Cyynna and an officer, Eleeshan late in December with Warlin just after our guild meeting. We discussed our plan of how we saw the teams working and brought forward our guild's concerns. The first concern was the social aspect and we pitched to them our party idea, based off something Zeenjan had tried to do back in August, as well as the shared chat channel suggested during our meeting. They agreed to both ideas and we told them we'd plan the party and get back to them. The second concern was about the 10-man team unfairly excluding members from the flex team, and from early on I was debating whether to stay off the 10-man team to soothe such concerns and also ensure the flex team wasn't stripped bare of the most talented members for the sake of the 10-man. Cyynna said she too was considering doing the same.

Zeenjan later informed Cyynna of the party's details, though there is some debate as to whether or not she remembered to mention a start time. The party was scheduled to be held before we formally started the dual rad teams, address social stuff before it had a chance to become a problem - ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure and all that. I reminded Cyynna of the party the night before. The night of the party only one member from Legion showed any interest in attending, others laughed at the idea. Cyynna had forgotten why we were even holding the party and thus it was seen as a VV event that they happened to be invited to. We postponed the event and tried to save face for them in front of the doe of our people who made time to go and had gathered. I spent the night getting caught u on the details with the rest of the party planners and told Cyynna I would give her the full details the next day and discuss what to do about it.

The following conversation was problematic from the get-go as Cyynna wanted to know why I was so adamant about the party happening, suspecting us of using it as a way to poach their members. I attempted to fill her in on the details of what we'd planned with an eye towards getting their approval and refining ideas further. The party had been restructured to be more enticing to their membership based on what Cyynna had told me about their priorities. One of those ideas was for a race to valor cap based on teams of 3. 1 person would be randomly selected from each guild and the 3rd would be a pre-screened candidate to take my now vacant slot on the 10-man team - the teams would compete to win their teammate the slot. The idea was to use this as a team building exercise and offer a tantalizing prize for their membership to want to attend.

What came next was three and a half hours of arguing in circles. Cyynna accused us of making decisions that affected their guild without consulting them, ignoring the fact that the whole point of the conversation was that it was a consultation and that what was being pitched was still only a proposal. She also accused me of talking past her when most of what I said was aimed at trying to better understand her reservations to the whole idea in order to find room to compromise. She also was angry we'd planned the party without their input, something they never mentioned wanting the first few times it was brought up. She walked away from the computer in anger for a bit, only to secretly call up guildies in rl to leverage against me. We proceeded to go into talks with another GM from their guild Sigmaton. He pretended to play mediator but the whole while was forcefully making Cyynna's points. The shot down the whole idea of how to fill the 10-man slot under the premise that the slot had to be filled from within our guild. Reasons given ranged from: it's how their guild (a former conglomeraton of 3 groups) works, it was what was prior agreed to and thus the agreement could not be altered until the very first night of the raid, and because if they went back to their members saying the plan had been altered it would undermine their credibility. I have not found any of these to be sensible reasons but after a certain point I simply had to accept I was being stonewalled. They placed restrictions on how the slot was to be filled, within our guild, ranged dps, comparable dps to my own - which left only one candidate struggling to meet those guidelines. In effect, they were all but dictating to our guild how to do things, making decisions for us as they accused us of doing. We made no restrictions or demands of our own. Mind you, the Monday raid night as well as earlier start time were their requirements. 

After three and a half hours, no party planning had actually been discussed, it was spent entirely arguing about this one point. They delayed the planning for later. I was to send Sigmaton details, which he was given an hour later, and he would get back to me in 2 days time. We didn't hear back for 11 days and then nothing was discussed, they rubberstamped all of our submitted plans after making a huge fuss that we planned it without their input. When given the opportunity, they neglected to give any. Moreover, in the first discussion with Sigmaton, he support the party idea and offered to contribute prizes to the effort, including a Vial of the Sand their guild had been trying to give away for months. During the party planning meeting with Mirannah this past Sunday, 2 days before the party, they retracted their offer to contribute anything, leaving us to shoulder all of the cost.
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Our first night raiding with Legion, from the Flex team's perspective...

I was made raid lead for the night and when I attempted to include one of theirs to share the role, my whispers were ignored. We cleared 3 bosses within 45 minutes and one of their members played telephone with their GM, who passed it to Warlin, who had to tell me we were moving too slow. One of their members made up a family issue and bailed out of the raid, I later discovered they felt I was being condescending and walked off in disgust. For my part I can tell you I acted no differently that night then I had on any prior raid night you have all seen, save to shorten my explanations to move things along faster...and we were moving too slow. Lastly, there was also a complaint our strategies for the bosses were unfamiliar and thus uncomfortable. None of this was discussed at the time, it had to filtered back from multiple source days later.

This past Monday Sigmaton simply took raid lead without saying a word.
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For my part, I've found working with Legion to an exercise in frustration. I do not feel they have extended their friendship to us as we have to them. Their leadership's inability to communicate effectively had caused insult and hampered efforts. Most importantly, I've found I'm simply not having fun during raids anymore. For the most part, they make me uncomfortable and as if I have to walk on eggshells to please them lest they whisper behind my back instead of trying to address problems. I understand those people on the 10-man team have enjoyed themselves a lot, but looking at the flex team, it's been a very quiet experience. There is no friendliness there, talking or joking - something we've all come to appreciate in our time together. Warlin's theory is that all of the fun personalities ended up on the 10-man team leaving something of a void on the flex team. We may be clearing content faster with our joint efforts, but I'm just not having any fun doing it.

I'm also concerned that the 10-man team has already broken its mandate. We told you the 10-man team would work to clear the content before exchanging a few members so they could have a chance to participate. In our second week we've already see the 10-man team start a fresh run in order to farm gear. I doubt even a thought was given to this and that a 2nd clear of bosses comes after the raid has been cleared once already.

I don't know if anyone else feels anything like I do, maybe feels the isolation on the flex team, so I'm considering myself in the minority here. I tried to list several options above in the poll to avoid an all-or-nothing response to the situation. I neglected to include the possibility of expanding this to full-time, making our 2nd raid night centered on both teams. I can't edit the poll, so please consider that a viable option as well.

[devesh]

Hmmmm ok soooo I've been a member going on what 3 months now maybe 4. Here are my thoughts on the subject (Thoughts being based off of many years playing with raiding guilds). First of all pls understand if I wanted to be a hard core raider again I would probably look to another server, but I much prefer the friendly/family feel of VV (that enjoys raiding together). Any time guilds join together in a joint merger to raid there are or have always been difficulties... VV hit a DPS wall LoS didn't have dependable tanks and or healers so help each other to progress. Ok so in my opinion (purely mine and only mine on the matter not influenced by anybody so help me god lol) LoS needed us way more than we ever needed them. They also come across as young arrogant and obnoxious (annoying or objectionable due to being a showoff or attracting undue attention to oneself: an obnoxious little brat) (some not all). If any of our members are losing interest in this merger because it seems a little 1 sided (which i believe) then i say drop them. If hard core raiding is in VV future i ask only 2 things.... 1. That it doesn't lose its friendly/family allure 2. We get her done without any outside influences and with friends like deathsdoor who just like to raid with VV. But that's just Devesh's thoughts on the subject and will help no matter what the leaders of VV decide.

[<3 :] Mirannah :] <3]

Dev, we're putting this to a vote because we want to leave it up to you guys.

Just to clarify, since I've heard this concern from a few people: we have not and will not ever make a decision behind your backs.
If we leave something to a vote, then majority wins whether or not the leaders or staff are for or against it personally.


Now, my beef with LoS has nothing to do with the raid teams. It actually deals with countless social complications surrounding the party and in general. That may invalidate it in this topic since I don't raid, but I figured ya'll should know.

To be frank, their communication sucks. And it doesn't matter how hard or how many times you try to get through to them, it's a constant game of cat and mouse as to who you should talk to, and who *will* actually talk to you.

Regarding both the party and pleasantries, Cynna ignored me for weeks. After her fight with Ten, I tried every method possible to contact her for several days and received nothing from her. You don't miss, like, three in-game mails and at least ten different instances of whispering someone. What that said to me was that I'd been written off, since she didn't get what she wanted from Ten which was to scrap the party altogether.
I believe it was Sigma who finally got her to message me back, saying that she didn't see or receive anything from me prior to that conversation. And once we did actually manage to get a few minutes to speak, she wouldn't discuss the party at all, or things with Ten, *just* the raid team, and how much all of them loved Warlin.

Sigma, as interested as he seemed to be in making this alliance work past the raid teams, took his time getting back to me about party planning after insisting that he help. Actually, just like with Ten's mail, he didn't respond to mine either. It took me cornering him on Timeless Isle in order to actually pull him into a meeting about it. That happened twice, and the only actual discussion to come out of it regarding what should be changed about the plans was that they felt the vial of the sands they offered (which was the only way in which they were actually helping) was "too large of a prize" to award to any of the events (even the valor-capping contest, which would have taken a lot of time and effort had we gotten to it.)

Cynna was online and didn't show up to the party, and Sigma didn't even log on that evening, nor did he check with anyone afterward to see how things went.

I think it's safe to say that at least a decent majority of you know how patient I am with people. That being said, dealing with the leadership in LoS without being a member of the raid team, just approaching them as a friendly fellow guild leader trying to accomplish *one* thing felt like I was ripping my hair out in clumps.

I don't think I have to go into trying to get people to actually use the combined chat channel to no avail.


Truthfully, I don't think *they* want this alliance to be anything more than raiding. They'd be trying a lot harder to be friendly and involved, like we have, if they did. They're perfectly fine with this being a mutually-beneficial business relationship, but anything more than that is just trouble.

[yon]

Heya! I know I haven't been involved in everything, but from my perspective things hadn't been too bad. While things in flex seemed cold, I didn't really see it as a problem. I thought the party wasn't bad, but I did think it was odd there weren't more LoS members. Well, not until reading these posts did the things begin to click.

What especially bothers me is that from what I am reading here, they are seeing us as competitors rather than allies. They only begrudgingly raid with us. Faking family issues? I'm not sure I'm alright with that. I don't care how awkward things are, that's a little too far in my opinion.

I had previously voted to continue both teams since it only seemed like minor issues were holding us back, but if they aren't having nearly as much fun and a relaxed atmosphere about them as we were... What's the point continuing the flex with them? I do think the 10 man team should continue, even if just to continue to test the waters. If they don't like the idea of pushing until we can rotate others in... well that's very unfortunate. I can see why they might be wary about parties and shared events, but if they aren't willing to listen to our pleas like we have with theirs it just isn't appropriate. Even business alliances are give and take. If you take too much you'll only be causing problems.

It might just be better to carefully stop this now before it evolves into something even worse. If they aren't happy now, I would bet heavily that nitpicking and found excuses will cause this to go from begrudging friendliness to outright animosity.

I have faith in our abilities, and I hope they have the same faith in their own.

But what I wonder the most about this is... Where does Warlin stand on the issue?

[Deleted]

Here is my short and sweet (just how I like it).


Seems to me that VV tries to do things to try and create a friendly environment between us, and LoS, with what just seems like a lot of ignorance and hostility coming back from them.
I absolutely hate the fact that there is this air of hostility between the guilds.... I hate this environment, and when we made VV I never wanted to see things like
this happening... I want to enjoy raiding with my friends here in VV, without having this going on.

I am all for progression, and becoming better.... But I have a lot more enjoyment in that when its just us working together as a guild to take down a tough challenge. Its more, rewarding in my eyes... I'd much rather have a lot of fun doing those things with all of you than to have the before mentioned hostile and awkward feel of LoS lingering with us while we do this.... That's just my opinion.

[vivex]

I came here to slap my vote on keep the ten man and leave but now i have mixed feelings. 
On one hand the ten man is fantastic we move fast and well as a group, the vent started with jokes and fun times and didnt let up for a second. To down almost all of wing 1 and 2 that quickly was great and it had like only 2 wipes. 

The 2nd night we didnt redo the first wing just to farm it for gear if i recall correctly 2-3 people didnt show and we had to move some people around to even get the thing going i can't seem to remember who didnt show but i know for a good while we thought it was going to be a bust and have to call it. When we did get the people we were unsure if we could progress with the team how it was so we decided to test the waters and it went fine for the most part till we got to galk which took a few attempts.  

I'm sorry to hear the joint flex team is becoming unfun, if they act how i hear they are acting then my gut tells me to just cut the ties and burn them the last flex with only us showed that we are more than capable of progressing through it on our on. However i have not seen this being on the ten man team and have not been to the joint flex. When i think of the other guild i think of those guys on the 10 man and they are cool dudes. 

I havent voted yet cause i don't what to pick, my thoughts on it are this i would love to continue the ten man team because again it moves quick and is fun assuming everyone shows up if they don't then it may be time to call it. In regards to flex if they can't play nice with us then they wont play with us, work as a team or leave. I raid because i enjoy the challenge and for the fun when we raid no one is shouting dkp minus when i stand in stuff because im staring at the pretty green bars jump up and down. If the raid is not fun for people then something must be done.

[Deleted]

So far I'm seeing a fair amount of agreement with my assertion that the Flex team isn't such a friendly place and thus not being interested in continuing it. I've yet to hear anything negative about the 10-man currently, so that's a sizable contingent of our raiders who want to see that continue.

At current I'm thinking the best compromise is to nix the joint Flex team and maintain the joint 10-man team. The benefit of this is that there's no competition for drawing extra people in to the raid if someone is missing for the night. On the downside, this would cut raiding down to 1 night a week for a lot of guild members, so I think we should be looking at reinstating Saturday night Flex raiding. This would mean Monday's 10-man team would be a 3rd night of raiding for people on that team, assuming they opted to raid all available nights.

However, I should point out the following. This whole idea started because we hit a wall, one that we've now gotten over. The more we bring Flex onto farming the better geared and experienced our members are; at what point do we no longer need to joint 10-man with Legion? If at some point in the next month or two, we're able to field our own 10-man team without their participation, do we abandon the current arrangement in favor of that? To be clear, our 10-man progression struggled at Norushen, a fight it took us some time to fully grasp how to handle properly even in Flex at the time. I am fairly confident we could progress through Nazgrim at current with a purely internal team. These are things to think about that could become an issue in the near future. Currently our plan is to swap a few people off the team to make room for others, and realistically that may be only 1 or 2 people from our guild. Is that going to be satisfactory if people start feeling dead-ended on the Flex team? Admittedly this was not seen as a concern several weeks ago when we were struggling with content, I had not anticipated our raiders' performance to continue to develop this quickly, so me and Warlin weren't expecting to be brushing up against that sort of ceiling.

[yon]

Well as odd as it may sound... I am thinking about their team too. Will they be happy if it turns back to just their team, or will they feel slighted even more?

[<3 :] Mirannah :] <3]

Truthfully, from what I've seen of the leaders it could easily go either way, Lici. It's 50/50 as to whether they'll be okay with it, or want to scrap working with us entirely--including on the 10m team.

[thalen]

So, from someone who hasn't been raiding recently... Here's what I get after reading all of this. We are a fun loving, social guild who enjoy doing a variety of things together. They seemed to be a focused raiding guild who don't socialize among themselves, just raid, and do things to support raiding. I don't think it's fair to judge them based on them not wanting to become our kind of guild anymore than we want to become like their guild. Clearly, there are two very different guild cultures at play. Instead, I think we need to ask ourselves if we can be content meeting up with them during the raids and settle for that. Seems to me like we are asking them to be a sister guild, part of our extended family and they are clearly saying No Thank You. They seem to be looking for help raiding period. Any tension in either raid group may be coming from forcing the issue. Personally, I expect to enjoy the things I do in WOW and with VV. We have been rebuffed enough times now that the message is clear from them. Raiding yes, everything else no. If we can't live with that we should withdraw from the relationship. It sounds like the 10 man team is having fun so go with that. If we can't rotate people into the 10 man like we planned, without drama then the heck with them. It sounds like our key people are gaining experience that will help the rest of us clear the content also. I haven't been there so I don't know what to think about the flex team as it stands now or how it would do without their help.

One thing is very clear, this has got to be fun. And I mean fun for all of us, Ten and Mira included. If we can't live with raiding and nothing else we should walk away. We are in different guilds for a reason. If we can enjoy raiding with them that way then I'm okay to go forward otherwise I say no, either just 10 man or both 10 man and flex.

Ten mentioned possibly adding back Saturday night raiding. While I think that many people won't want to raid three nights a week there are a number of people who want to raid and whose work prevents them from raiding that early on Monday nights so a third night might still be feasible.

[lightpenguin]

The 10 man team has been going well, but I see all the flaws mentioned. They have some funny folks that want to chat, but others are quiet and perhaps arrogant. When we hit walls on fights there's very little suggestion of improvement, folks just want to keep pounding their heads against it and make a simple change. I would guess their used to expecting everyone to know the fight and to just call out the flaw. I'm not surprised to hear they found Ten's thorough explanations as slow, it's much better suited to a team that's building together instead of showing up to just do their job.

I will go on record of calling us out last week on starting over instead of continuing. The LoS perspective seemed to be to keep farming gear and not worry about a full clear, which would come in time. As a raid team looking to just progress forward this makes sense, but it isn't what I expected or what seems to be the idea behind this joint venture.

It seems like LoS just wants to raid. They were missing some solid people, they got them, and they're happy. I suspect they don't care about swapping people and keeping the flex/normal rotation, I'd guess they'd be unhappy if we had suggested some rotations last Monday. I'd suspect that if we'd have cleared Normal, they'd sooner suggest we move on to Heroics.

Last we did Malkrok Flex as just VV, we had about 4-5 folks above the minimum recommended 540, the rest were lower and we just barely beat the dps requirement. If we've gotten past that then great, but my only concern this whole time is that we hadn't been attempting to farm ever. As a raid team we seem to bang our heads against a boss we're stuck on potentially for nights on end, when I feel we'd do a lot better reclearing so we hit that boss again with better gear. Getting the strategy down is important, but being overgeared never hurts.

Our guild has some folks that are well past geared for Flex, and I worry Normal modes were a welcome change for them. I for one would rather see us go back to a single-guild Flex than deal with a team that doesn't care about a sustainable plan.

[thalen]

I think that at the very beginning there was a HUGE disconnect in what each guild saw as what they were agreeing to. Hence, the feeling from them that we are trying to renegotiate the deal. While I can't imagine being happy in a different type of guild it's clear that their guild is just that. As a raiding team partner, maybe they're a go but as a sister guild with shared goals not so much. It's not fair to try to force them to be more like us or vice a versa. Having a sister guild could be fun but that doesn't seem lot be this guild. Maybe we are unusual in having such a varied focus instead of being tunneled in on raiding. I say look elsewhere for social interactions.