Back once again.

What happened I hear you say. Where have you been?

Well not really I've had a look at the tracker statistics for the page and interest dropped off two months ago. I'm entirely convinced that there were a number of people waiting with baited breath on my next post, the distinct possibility of a search engine visiting my blog hasn't even entered my mind.

So why post now?

I haven't had anything to say I left my old guild, set up a new one with a friend a couple of months before the release of Cataclysm killed just about everything in ICC then there was a significant *meh* from half the raid team. we went from killing heroic modes to having 6 people signed. Some of our top dps left to go to other guilds who were still raiding and what followed was a raid void till the release of Cata.

"It will be fine once everyone is levelled. . ."

Is something my self and my fellow guild founder must have deluded ourselves with. Skimming over the fact that the new cataclysm raid landscape was harder and less forgiving than ICC. So Cata dropped. We levelled to 85 at a steady pace (3rd and 6th in guild) and waited. Eventualy we had ten players at 85 two of them though were entirely social members with no interest in raiding. we wait again, post a raid for two weeks time, invite everyone in the guild. that should do it. Then it starts four, five six sign ups follow in a few days, then seven and eight. The raid light at the end of the tunnel is looming and a week to go there are 13 85's in guild and eight sign ups.

One week later eight sign ups and no raid 15 memebers at 85. Three posted raids and a week later we have our first raid. We 8 man Ulduar.

Where are we going wrong?

So with this in mind we recruit, we pick up a damn good tank, and 3 highly performing dps.
Our first Cata raid is on the horizon 2 days later we enter Bastion of Twilight and kill magmaw and play about with Omnitron for a bit. One of our new dps that was blowing the meters away in blue gear server transfers with no notice and another says "I'm having exams at school and might not be able to get on as much for a couple of months". Fair enough. I can deal with that. Next posted raid 8 sign ups but the raid after full house. I accept this as a trial of patience and wait. We kill Magmaw again and head to Omnitron and wipe we wipe mercilessly for a couple of hours. People stand in the fire, people hit the shields, people get hit by the slimes, the only group performing well here are the tanks and one of them is slightly under geared. The least geared healer is out healing the other two put together almost on some occasions. There is one dps at an acceptable standard for awareness and not dying to everything and still putting out strong dps.

Thats it! These people killed Magmaw two hours ago for the second time and managed not to get hit by flame pillars, dps the adds when they spawned and do it consistently for long enough for the boss to die. What are they doing now?

I look over the logs notice 3 major sources of raid wide death. Post my analysis of the logs on our guild forum, detail why it happened and what we can do to fix it.

Next raid 6 sing ups, no raid. Next raid 6 sing ups, no raid. Next raid 5 sing ups, one apology, no raid. Fellow guild founder blames the apathy to challenging content lays down a decree that this is the end of our guild raiding, cancels subscription.

I'm left with half a team of raiders half of them under performing. I apologise to the excellent players we have just recruited signpost them to some friends in guilds raiding and killing bosses and stop.

For a short while.

A real life friend on another server where I levelled another toon points out that they could use a solid dps to shore up their raid team, they raid (mostly) convenient times and he doesn't hate any of them, which is a bonus. So I pick up this alternate server alt a week later I got to my first raid with them half way through a lock out. We two shot conclave of the wind practice on Cho'gal. Next raid we kill Cho'gal. Raid after we one shot Cho'gall practice on Alakir. next raid we kill Alakir , practice on Nefarian.

Here I am up to date killing all the back end bosses without any real stress.
We aren't bleeding edge progression though there are very few guilds on the server have any heroic kills and Nefarian will go down this week. My Main I left behind got shuffled into a top 10 guild as a social but to all intents and purposes is hibernating.

Well with that out. I would really like to see the content on my main and where he is now is the best chance of sneaking into the content and stealing achievements but I stopped short of server transferring as I had a perfectly serviceable toon ready to go on the other server. Total time from 80 - 85 a little over 12 hours.

What are your feelings on your main? Could you leave them behind?