Raffles International.........THIS IS YOUR LIFE

If I ever were to be interviewed in a this is your life style way, it would have to be by the "WE ASK THE QUESTIONS!!!" Stotts (above). I have decided to give you a brief Raffles history today in line with some up and coming blog posts. After the fall of our old guild “Unspeakable Villainy” or rather when Esme couldn’t be arsed to play anymore and didn’t promote any officers to take over, we were left without a home. It was towards the middle of the end of TBC and our guild was mainly a heavy RP guild and raiding was on everyone’s minds. The guild was a good place to be and we were quite frankly, SCARED about where to go. The sister raiding guild "Unspeakable Destiny" (LOL I KNOW RITE) we were not inclined to go for various yiffing reasons, so after days of being the only members online me and two ex UV members created Raffles International. It was a momentous day, that day being 17th October 2008, filled with dreams and ideas of finally doing things our way, seeing end game content, being officers and leaders, it was magical. But we had to hurry to get signatures as that day is my dad's birthday, and my mum had put a spread on. We kept alts in UV so we could entice the few and far between members to come over to Raffles where the grass was greener and slightly raider but still crude and abusive. It worked; we had a large base for a new guild within the first few days. Jeb's bank guild "Raffles Industries" on the alliance is run by a gnome called Raffles, who I believe was banned for a day for fucking up the auction house economics and making too much gold. We had a spate of time where we played on alliance and we found a home in that guild. It was really only ever us three with the odd persons alt every now and again. So when we decided to make our new horde guild we thought that Raffles making an international franchise would be the best way to go. I have a few rl mates in Raffles, I met my boyfriend of now 18 months in the guild (although a stupid amount of drama surrounded that, to which I am now known as the Cindy Beale Resto Shaman Lover in my officer note). The Co founding member Jebarus is a very close and very dear friend the basis of this was solely from our goings on from the guild. Now new members have become good friends, some of which I would consider very good friends and who I contact regularly on a daily basis via other mediums such as skype, facebook, and mobile phone. There really isn't a day goes by when I don't have a retarded text conversation about how life and warcraft combined could work with Jebarus, or a chat on facey about something with Marge and Danika or Ren.

Raffles rules are very far and few between. Mainly we want to have a laugh, with mates, like you would down the pub. Although we hold some of the server’s most skilled and best geared people, we are idiots and we are shit and as Jebs once said "RAFFLES ISN’T ABOUT RAIDING IT IS ABOUT NOT BEING A CUNT." So talking shop, which I guess a lot of other guilds do, is really limited and talking about how some people are actually men and not women for 2 hours, and Marges and V’s disgusting sex life is the preferred topics of conversation. I really love my guild, and therefore over the coming weeks, I will be doing additional posts in between my usual posts about my top 20 favourite moments in Raffles history, complete with screen shots.

Raffles about to murder some soon to be one armed idiot

1. Saurfang Rituals and why Jebs screams DEY COT MY EYE OOT
2. Garatiphoar and Xiola Base jumping off of Borean Tundras answer to Beachy Head and then Garatiphoar and Xiola base jumping off Thoriums mountain
3. Raffles various TV show and films made for TV ideas - UCWS (underwater warlock squad) Transexuals in Transborea, Dalaran news,
4. That Time that Clethllan griefed a fountain all day till I got home from work
5. My Top 5 comedy Camp bosses and our various adventures just to visit them
6. W H Smiths Dalaran
7. Why people think it is funny to make tits and the word LOL out of items in the gbank
8. Xiola’s Sabaton Collection
9. Claudina’s Turban Collection and the time she went to Dalaran University
10. Comedy dramatic Raffles Gquits and Gkicks such as why someone quit over lady gaga
11. Jebarus’s Big Belf Arse
12. Driving round the Barrens pretending to be the Police
13. Gittles Comedy moments, including the time he ate his own family, the time he ran off in Shatrath and the time he ate a rare mob Skepsis’s alt hunter was trying to tame
14. The best Raffles Wipes
15. Comedy Mistells/ or “/2 Trade: Jebarus: I LIKE TO HAVE VIOLENT SEX WITH ROBOTS “oops WC”
16. Comedy moments from Voidwalkers including that time I saw Kalvug fagging in UC alone and that time a mine collapsed on Zagkrit
17. Meddlesome Time travelling dragons and how they ruin my gaming experience
18. Hambeasts, Gaspigs, you stupid fucking Movellans, and other guild “pet names”
19. Raffles travels to old school raids
20. Sex with Robots and why Belf vendors are so abusive “DO NOT LOITER”

When Velouriah goes shadow form Riot Grrrrl....

My feminist beliefs often boil over into WoW. Having only ever had female guild leaders and play with females in what is to be considered a male dominant environment has always felt empowering, however I don't believe that we are moving towards equality to gender behind the players in Azeroth and inside Azeroth.

Lore

At a casual glance, or just someone who doesn't have a brain filled with lore and is more interested in murdering people, inside Azeroth it is a pretty male dominant world. Firstly the heads of the the two factions Thrall and King Varian are both male. OK in the real world it would be considered more unusual for a woman to be a head of government, not unheard of, the standard is male.

Velouriah hanging out with that lump of pure green testosterone sexiness that is Thrall

This doesn't bother me so much, what bothers me is these second in command people. Horde side we are looking at Vol'jin head of the trolls, male, Cairne Bloodhoof, head of the cows, male, Theron, leader of the bloodelves, male, and finally best supporting actress that fierce bitch Sylvanas Windrunner leader of the forsaken - female. Alliance side is head of the dwarves is Magni Bronzebeard head of the Dwarves, male, head of the Gnomes, Mekkatorque, male, head of the spacegoats Velen, a male spacegoat and then head of the bloody nefly hippies Tyrande, female, but only acting head of till some bloke gets back. Then of course Arthas' ex the head of the human nation of Theremore Jaina Proudmore. So not a great deal of female presence from these leaders either.

It is of course Sylvana and Jaina that I have beef with. Both very important in the lore side of things, whether you be horde or alliance one of these females has taken you through the battle of the Undercity, through Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and then Halls or Reflection and have a strong presence in quests and story lines. My beef is that both of the only real two female role models and leaders are seriously flawed and therefore could never be heads of the two factions.

Jaina Proudmore to me is portrayed as a fucking idiot. I mean she went out with the LICH KING for godsake. Only a stupid weak minded person would end up with fatty Arthas a bloke made of pure evil, we are constantly reminded of this. She is following the stereotype of that women who always chooses the wrong men, that girl who goes out with bad boy after bad boy in a string of failed relationships. It is well documented that she wants a bit of Thralls cock, and if she goes to make this hippy dippy lentil eating new faction with him in Cata, I am sure she is going to get her grubby mits on him. Looks wise she is blonde and softly spoken, even at Saurfang she bursts into tears. GET A GRIP WOMAN.

Velouriah telling Jaina to get a grip

Slyvanas Windrunner the head of the Forsaken. SHE IS DEAD FOR GODSAKE. Stupid enough to get killed by a bloke then bought back to some disgusting zombie life and let the Forsaken get all out of control. She is by contrast to Jaina a bit more tough, she doesn't give a shit and will point blank shoot you in the face, also she manages to shoot down massive ice walls with some arrows whilst Arthas is waddling towards us in Halls of Reflection which is pretty impressive. But looking at her, she is all black which has such negative connotations with evil and fucked up looking, she lives in an underground city, banished away for what she did almost, so we don't have to look at her. In exchange for her hardcoreness she has had to give up her appearance. She would never be head of the horde either.

Velouriah in awe of that fierce bitch

It kind of reminds me of original sin. Women are stupid enough to get themselves into such messes and will be punished for eternity for it. This is not gender equality, and to me gives out such a negative view of the leading women in World of Warcraft.

In Game

To tag a blog post with the word "feminism" that includes such classic statements in it as "It is wonderful to see someone so consistently intelligent about the craft of end-game and explain it in such an easy-to-understand way. Having someone to look up to who also plays the same class we do and is a female is really nice sometimes" isn't exactly inspiring me here. Perhaps the blogger is confused about what defines feminism idk, (and yes I am aware that is an argument all by itself) that is not what I am here to argue over. My understanding of the above statement is that because we are female, it is harder for us to understand things like elitist jerks and other theory crafting? So it must be really nice for a fellow fluffy female to explain to us other dumb female players in a female friendly way how things work because are heads are filled with cupcakes and healing classes?

In vanilla WoW I remember my old guild leader telling me that she was able to extort gold out of player just because she was female. It is NEVER assumed that you are female, in trade channels when someone has replied to my bored efforts of trolling and doing the 9' o clock Dalaran news or in a heroic if I am not just called "priest" I am referred to as a him. I will always point out that I am in fact a girl. I am not in anyway easily offended, especially about tongue in cheek sexist jokes or remarks, I find it hilarious in fact. However I do find myself being undermined in game if people find out I am a girl. I am pretty sure that my opinion counts less when people are aware of my gender, and if raid leading and get a bit stroppy it has been put down to "that time of the month" or because women are prone to being more "emotional." but when I have seen male raid leaders throw hissy fits and nerd rages it would be put down to the fact he is frustrated at the way his raid are playing and is probably right. Raffles is full of women, officers include Ren, Foxy, and Ama, and other senior members of Raffles like Herja, Marge, Danika, Nora all female and all of which are just as capable as the male members. I think only one of those started playing WoW because their partner did, which I find to be a common reason for women to get started in WoW.

However I have found playing with females that they can get bitchy and snidey in a way that the blokes just don't notice. I had an now female ex officer make really underhand and bitchy comments to me and my raid leading that only a women would understand. I say this as because when I pointed it out to my fellow male officers they just could not see what she was doing wrong. I chatted about it to a fellow female officer and she had noticed the same issues. It wasn't until the ex officer went mental and elitist and left the guild in a dramatic exit that everyone else realised. It was VERY frustrating and it was perfectly obvious that the blokes thought it was just a women overreacting.

I don't want to fit a stereotype here about girls and emotions,but I have cried once over WoW (sorry Ghunana). I could never ever ever get the hang of the Heigan Dance. After what must have been a million goes and my many deaths a fellow officer went bollo at me over vent and I ran off to my bed crying and refused to come back. We made up since then, and is one of my most favourite people in the game I have had the luck to meet, however I will always be reminded of that moment of weakness, my girlish emotions taking over whenever someone mentions that boss. I suppose to move into a gender equality in gaming, mmo's or WoW specific we need to look at the games themselves and how they portray influential women, and also help move the stereotype that only blokes play games. I love leading a guild, no one has complained (out loud) of our matriarchal dictatorship so far and I long may I hope it continue.

edit: Iggles and Luissa are not females. After all these years of playing with them. LOL.

4 Reason why Raffles will excel in Cata

I love my guild. I really do. I am sure a lot of people will agree that their guild mates, people you spend A LOT of time with have become close friends, almost like family. After a mainly guild PuG for ICC 25 man that didn't even get off the ground due to some awesome guild camaraderie and this post at wow.com got me thinking about how awesome my guild really are. Last night my boyfriend Malkier/Anivia/Skepsis (he has many alts) decided after our frankly shocking train ride across country for close to 4 hours we should partake in some mob mentality on a larger scale and murder marrowgar. We had a strong guild presence for a Sunday evening, and decided to pug the remaining 8 or so. I was herbing round Howling Fjord and awaiting my summon, so I wasn't hanging in Dalaran or in the citadel. One of the pug people said "someone here only has a gearscore of 3.5k" straight away this got my guilds backs up as Raffles do not, in anyway, endorse that add on. I bloody love gearscore myself and tried to play without it but just missed it so much so got the lite version instead, in the Skill vs Gearscore debate I am in strong favour of skill > gear and never judge anyone on their score, I just like knowing that I am deep red in score and some people who think they would do better outside my guild and left in a strop are in orange level of gearscore. So straight away I said "So fucking what?" I have successfully taken 10 people up to and including saurfang with gearscore lower than 4k, so with 25 other players and the 20% buff, I couldn't see a problem. He was from the guild, it was an alt, he is more than competent so clearly our decision to take him should have been taken into consideration. The bloke was wrong anyway it was 4.5k, but it descended into chaos. The pug people then became annoyed at the way we didn't care about gearscore and all jumped on this elitist idiot swearing and shouting and defending our guildie. I could see it now, if someone is moaning about gearscore whilst I am still herbing in the howling fjord just wait till someone fucks up a pull, or dies, or we wipe on gunship the shouting and l2pnub and general blood boiling behaviour from others. No thanks, not tonight. Also the lol count was up to about 15. Jebarus said lets fuck off and do a guild run and leave these dickheads behind. So we disbanded and did 10 man instead.

I could do an endless post on my favourite Raffles moments. I think I might do that on another post. My most recent moment in that list is Raffles doing a gay pride march in front of Saurfang (see below) I am more than confident on how we will perform despite variety of shitness and pure useless skills such as organising a slow walk on our mounts in front of Saurfang doing a gay pride march, as the Cata changes seem to all point in our favour....



Item 1: Guild leveling

Guilds will gain experience when their members participate in the following, rated battleground wins, dungeon or raid boss kills, completing quests unlocking guild achievements, Max level will be 25 and each time a guild levels, it will automatically get perks. Previously these perks would be chosen with talents.

OK So, rated Battlegrounds. We have 3 dedicated PvP'ers and a few others who do it regularly, Wormwormer with over 100,000 kills Dakey has over 35,000 kills on his paladin alone and Barney with 88,000 kills as from tonight (or so he says). Raffles therefore will ownage this part of the guild levelling.

Dungeon or raid boss kills. We raid regularly, although progression isn't our strong point we are tenacious, and grind heroics like no bodies business, currently we are 34th on SWC, which isn't bad considering.

Completing Quests. Raffles is full of alts. I have 3, which is considered a small amount in Raffles. Jebarus has 6 that are well geared and can do ICC and 3 others around the 70 mark. My boyfriend has 4 that are ICC ready and Malk has about 2 minutes played time levels 1-79. Everyone else has about 3 or 4, I can't really think of anyone who only has a main. However, no one, but NO ONE can beat Ama. Ama has an add on that lets him run 5 accounts at once, 5 accounts of which is full of alts. That is 50 alts. We couldn't even take the amount of alts so he made his own guild called "amas stupid fucking alts guild" or something. THEREFORE THIS LEADS ME TO BELIEVE THAT DUE TO THE STUPID AMOUNT OF ALTS THAT EVERYONE IS PRETTY GOOD AT QUESTING.

Item 2: Guild reputation

You will gain reputation with your guild the same way you help the guild level. The reputation is per character and not account-wide. Gkicks and gquits do not wipe your reputation right away, just in case it was a joke.

I must admit that my confidence has wavered here and that is because of Comedy Gkicks. Our retention ratio is high. Employee turnover is low, generally once we hook them in they don't leave. So on that basis it looks good. Our comedic gkicks and gquits however are high. So high that once I believe our resident essex boy Memphoz got record gkicked 18 times in a row. If there isn't enough drama in the guild Mashman will gquit, he did it last night, and I actually forgot about him till he whispered "er can i come back please?" No more comedy gquits. Sometimes when the guild is bored they will push me by saying lol over and over till I kick everyone, or to relieve the boredom the next person who gets a stupid achievement gets kicked. It was fucking hilarious, will we stop? Depending on the gkick/quit timer I am guessing not.

Item 3: Guild achievements

Guild achievements are by guild, not by member. Raid achievements don't have to be earned by groups made up of only guildies. But you have to have at least 7 guildies in 10-man achievements and 20 guildies in 25-man achievements.

As Danika said last night "I DON'T LIKE THESE STRANGERS" and our limited tolerance for pugs, Raffles will excel at this.

Item 4: Guild rewards

Rewards will be unlocked when guilds earn achievements. Once unlocked, guild members can purchase them with gold as long as they have the appropriate Guild Reputation. The rewards will include: mounts with flags that display the guild tabard emblem, heirlooms, tabards

IMAGINE THAT GAY PRIDE MARCH WITH ALL RAFFLES MOUNTS. END OF.

Although we hold some of the servers most skilled and best geared people, we are idiots and we are shit and people know it, but these changes as i have just shown are going to show the server just how awesome a bunch of idiot wipe artists we really are. I want to get that server first, and I think we are pretty capable.

Healing ungrateful idiots and now bosses too?

Um, I wasn't aware that Blizzard now required me to not only heal Tanks, DPS that take needless damage by standing in vimto, other healers that have only have eyes for their add on's but now A STUPID DRAGON THAT GOT CAPTURED BY ARTHAS? More fool you Valithria I say, M O R E F O O L Y O U.

Ok, according to wowwiki Valithria Dreamwalker has been available to murder... sorry, heal since February 2010, so I am a bit slow on the uptake. To be fair Raffles had lower spire on farm at this point but were too lazy/disorganised/shit to reach futher into the citadel. Fuck, we were completely flummoxed by the trash Val'kyr Heralds and had to furiously Google their tactics only to come up with nothing (as clearly only noobs need tactics for trash) then having to shamelessly whisper a friend from one of the top raiding guilds for advice. I couldn't see beyond Saurfang, at the very most festerslut at this point, and Velouriah was still running round Tarren Mill dreaming of healing Scarlet Monastery. I don't read tactics of new bosses until a couple of days before we plan to do them, and looking further into the future seems to get my hopes up and depressed, so I just don't bother. I rely on Jebarus to somehow fit into his busy lifestyle of playing WoW for at least 8 hours a day, blogging, and his chosen career of meeting the UK's underworld on a daily basis, whilst frequenting London’s hottest (see popstars near central point) clubs each night to memorise the tactics. That or ask my boyfriend Malkier during the fight over skype whilst alt tabbing to facebook "er what the hell is going on here?" So when we strolled up to Dreamwalker, I was a bit shocked. I HAD TO HEAL A STUPID (probably meddlesome timetravelling one as they all are) DRAGON IN ORDER TO COMPLETE THE ENCOUNTER.

Previous to this Raffles killed Rotface for the first time. I take Xiola out to ICC progress, but for some reason unknown, one of our healers was absent. We tried with just Jebarus and Foxy, but it wasn't working. Raffles + moving + slime + awful professor Farnsworth impressions were distracting. I want Xiola to have all ICC bosses down, so in a petulant manner I went and got Velouriah. We did it first time with her, it was pretty easy to heal as long as I stood under Rotfaces foot and used my priestly AOE goodness. It was a raffles miracle tbh. My take to raid leading is SCREW RAID MECHANICS AND COMPOSITION LETS JUST GIVE IT A BASH. (see below my successful effort in a 3 class trip to VoA containing a raid of only Priests Paladins and Warlocks) But it doesn't always work out like that.




Before Dreamwalker is another novelty, A FREE FROSTIE BOSS! Well this was encouraging for Raffles, Rotface down, free frosite, and a boss we didn't actually have to damage. What could go wrong? Loads apparently. We get inside her room and all that is protecting this sleeping meddlesome idiot is a few mini litches and some blue shit. Awesome we say. Not so awesome. The healing her part was pretty easy for me though. Stick a renew on her, and Guardian Spirit, I have Glyph of Guardian Spirit, and a few flash heals every now and again. The issue was this, a load of what seemed to be untauntable mobs (untauntable as no tank was removing them) rushing towards my body, which might I remind you is covered in garments that may as well be made out of jiffy cloths. Ghunana and Anivia were off through some dream portal or attacking something else and the DPS were running round like headless chickens. I don't know if the fact that this boss is for healing and not damaging made them think "oooh lovely just attack a few adds every now and again and we will be fine, I can probs even alt tab to facebook." NO YOU ARE WRONG. After several attempts we called it a night. I am looking forward to giving her another bash this week, as we extended the raid lock out (!) and then having the knowledge that my awesome heals actually did the encounter.

Vote to Kick bumspastics from outerspace? yes please

As I made a post about PuG's this week as Raffles had a surge (three) of 25 man PuGs over the past seven days, keeping in line with that, WoW.com has a good post this week on the new changes for patch 3.5.5 "vote to kick" option. It appears that the patch is going to change the cooldown and have a more reward style system. So if you are a good patient helpful pug member and don't get kicked/quit regularly you will be rewarded for when those times you have to ragequit by not having a thirty minute debuff. When the vote to kick came in with the random daily heroics, I must admit I was relieved. Steamwheedle Cartel is a resonably mature server, being RP and all, there are less lols and L2P N00B in /trade and general communal chat areas. As I mentioned previously it is somewhat a cliquey server and on the small side (although thanks to recent free server transfers has got slightly bigger)so in the pre 3.3.0 olden days when you had to rely on your guild or LFG it was rare that you would get some leet speaking unskilled twatend, and if they were very badly behaved, it was more than likely you knew their guild leader and could advise them of the situation. In wrath I admit heroics were a lot easier to zerg through and rinse badges even without the random dungeon finder and your group if shit would all be over soon, unlike the burning crusade days. Doing a heroic was an epic event, took ages to find a tank or healer, and generally wasn't over in 15 minutes. There was crowd control, actual leading of a group and tactics, and sexy voiced eastern European princes with monkeys in bins to show you. The thought of kicking someone after you had got this group together was unheard of and you gritted your teeth through it to get your reward despite aforementioned twatended behaviour. With my only experience of other servers was a brief visit to Bloodhoof on my warlock, which made me miss steamwheedle and realise it was my home, and battlegrounds with annoying Italians, I was scared of this prospect. I do not suffer fools gladly in this game, and as my guild can tell you, although having been trained in the burning crusade in tenacity with pugs, my temper is short. Not with peoples abilities, but with peoples behaviour. I get that not everyone has a gearscore of 6000, or knows their class inside and out and might body pull on the odd occasion, or is temporarily distracted and doesn't heal the tank, or can't aggro more than two mobs to save their (and the rest of the pugs) life. It really doesn't bother me. What bothers me is "gogogogogo tank" "Healer u suck" spam recount, spam recount, spam recount, "lol nub" the thought of having to be in a group with people like that for more than 20 minutes makes me sick. The thought of not having the ability to remove such an offensive and needlessly rude person from my group, or have a limited amount of time to remove this person, from destroying my precious spare leisure time away from work actually makes me feel a bit violent. Our battlegroup Emberstorm has a couple of realms that are offenders of this, mainly Spakkar the leet speaking orb ninja's, and therefore I am welcoming the changes, I have no idea if it will work or not and change peoples behaviours so I will have to wait and see, and I can only hope for those rare occasions when I see I have an entire SWC pug, and everyone relaxes and talks to one another.

Pugalicious

This week Raffles actually got their arses in to gear. My previous post noted the wipeartists full clear of the lower spire, which was followed by a semi successful alts run again to the lower spire. Having a few wipes on Marrowgar, we called it a night when we got to Lady Deathshit, but picked up again and cleared to Saurfang the next day. Bank Holiday weekend is always quiet on Steamwheedle, I guess having mature players they decide that it is probably best to go out and get some sunshine/get drunk instead of grinding heroics and getting together 25 man pugs. For those of us not wanting to brave the great outdoors, a mix of marathon run of Flight of the Conchords DVD, randoms, and pugs were on the agenda. I am not the biggest fan of TotC as healer or DPS. Being locked into an arena with loads of people watching you, in a gauntlet style of never ending beasts, Legion lords, mutated yetis a giant insect a couple of deranged twins and the most hardcore 5v5 team you will ever meet just does not appeal to me. However me and my boyfriend Malkier did have a laugh doing a Xfactor/Britains got Talent style dance off imagining Thrall as Simon Cowell.



I don't fare well in new places either, my first go healing in TotC freaked me out, I had just tried grid for the first time and was not keen. Call me a masochist but I always try add ons whilst being thrown in a the deep end to see how I fare with it. If I don't get something first time round I am not interested and grid was not doing it for me. I was also not keen on spamming of mass dispel, whilst two man healing, and having to keep away from violent PvP fetishists moving towards me with no hope of survival other than: rubbish holy bubble power word shield and fear which always seems to be bloody immune. Since that horrific time, I have healed lower spire four times, and countless pugs with healbot and was feeling more confident when my boyfriend pestered me to pug a 25 man. Reconfiguring healbot so I could dispel with a right click away we rounded up a bunch of people from /trade, the new LFG channel for SWC apparently. Now, don't get me wrong, I would take my SWC comrades over a spakkarian ninja but on a Saturday night, the only people coming are going to be unguilded, or people part of the huge raiding guilds who are either too shit or never invited to go with their guild, or for some reason not saved and are super elitist. Raffles have a laid back approach to the raiding, and would rather discuss how Dolphins are not in fact fish, but insects or how someone’s eye got COT OOT. This combined with people from the most prestigious raiding guilds and impatient people often causes a conflict. It was a constant battle for Malkier to lead the raid as so many egos are fighting for the position, or their guild have done it 25 man superduperhardmode blinded and gagged with a pencil sellotaped to their nose guessing what spells are bound to what hotkeys whilst maintaining 11k dps/5k hps 17million times. Due to the snowtwunts gripping peoples faces, everyone needs assist in order to raid warning, but this then leaves open for people other than main assit and raid leader to start ready checks etc. Leading a pug, 25 man, is stressful, you don't really have any support or back up to people pissing you off, because they are not in your guild so no punishment will work, and kicking them just means you have to search for another one, and there are 24 of them. Raffles have a no lol policy, but obviously cannot practice this in a pug. The raid went well, I was second on healing and was coached by a lovely person in the pug named Wraven and Jeb's disc priest, who managed to get in 160 dispels during faction champs, to my 60. Loot also is a MAJOR issue in raid pugs. Raffles operate a loot rule where roll 1 is MS, roll 2 is MS but won something already/ OS and roll 3 is kind of all of the above. It is very casual, and generally if someone is more deserving or a on a progression toon whoever won the role with hand it over no quibbles. I don't think Raffles have ever had a loot fight before, so this week two arguments broke out with officers over pug loot. Icewalker Treads dropped and the hunter and the druid rolled. The hunter got the higher roll. My main is a hunter and this was a huge upgrade for him, but obviously the druid got upset. I said highest roll wins, which perhaps was unfair, but with my biased hunter eyes on I would have been pissed if i had lost out to the druid. Malkier called it and passed to the druid. I was furious with Malkier, the druid was rude and spammed readychecks and moaned that loot rolling was taking more time than actually killing the bosses. Which to be fair it was, however distributing this loot was proving to be hard work! The raid was actually successful, with a couple of wipes on faction champs and Anub. 25 man raid healing in my most hated raid was fine. More than fine actually, I really enjoyed it, except for what I perhaps experienced more in the VoA that I did, there don't appear to be any assigned healing arrangements in these pugs. Mark the tanks and off you go sort it amongst yourselves. Being a holy priest my AoE heals are pretty awesome, but I find that I am having to bounce these off the tank, and overhealing him is fine. When I get just heal raid, I feel a bit put out really, I don't know how to take it, I need a plan and a focus and so far have (rightly or wrongly as no one has died yet) ignored this and stuck to my plan of AoE heals off tank and flash heal raid members when needed.

Our second venture was 25 man VoA. SWC Horde side only ever win WG on a Wednesday. Without fail I come home from work on a Wednesday have some dinner, relying on the fact my SWC horde friends have beat the shit of the alliance as they do every Wednesday, go VoA, weekly raid then ICC. When we had won Monday everyone scrambled to get a group together. In the spirit of 25 man raid week, Raffles got one together and I tried out my new UI, and watched Malkier contend with people asking for recount spams before we had even started, moans about the ratio of pallys to other classes. Again I was not given a specific healing assignment, I stuck to my trusty PoM and CoH tank with flash heals and renews and shields being popped on to random damage takers. Downed first time, with relative ease.

Last night we were invited to an ICC 25 man, with the ratio of Raffles to other guilds about 5:1 I felt more comfortable. The raid leader set out the loot rules straight away, and despite the healers do want you want policy there was very minimal annoyance. We wiped on Marrowgar but this didn't seem to discourage anyone, no one finger pointed, no one moaned, none of the usual pug traits. I called it a night at Gunship battle and took away with me this week that I really enjoyed 25 mans, they seem a lot more epic, and enjoyable, and a lot more of a challenge for me, in old repeated content. If you can get past the issues I have pointed out I would highly recommend pugging 25 mans on SWC.