In our little shindig last night, we went over some of the rules and opened everything up for discussion. As we still have many more weeks before season 3 starts, we still have plenty more time to continue to revise and revisit so that everything works for everyone that plans on participating. 

Make sure you read until the bottom, as it will contain anything that was also spoken on a bit.

Meet our Leaders!

  • Lunzzul
    • Head of guild PvP.
  • Deathhoss
    • Second in command for PvP. Does things sometimes.
  • Arianrhod
    • PvP Fun Day Captain!

What do we do?

  • For short, we PvP!
    • We have done Tol Barad, For The Horde, Gurubashi arena events for prizes, as well as just making raid groups to run other forms of world PvP and be the bane of the alliance!
    • We currently have a funday being ran on Sundays, which includes things like random BGs, weekly brawls, and more fun stuff! This is for the people that want to just PvP casually.
    • We hope to have a lot of success in rated PvP and wargames this season!

Conduct

  • One thing that is very detrimental (and will be the most policed part of this) will be conduct. Anyone who is being toxic, rude, or unpleasant will not be allowed to attend future events with us. This goes for casual events, rated battlegrounds, and our more organized events.
  • Consequences will be on a case-by-case basis.
    • If it is a minor offense, you will be given one warning. Nothing more. If the actions or behavior continue, you will not be allowed to continue coming to events.
    • More serious actions will be determined as needed.
  • The PvP community is known for being very toxic. We are not wanting this branch of our guild to be like this. This is a FOR FUN branch, which will have some aspects of competition.
  • If (and when) we have to PUG a role, you will be expected to treat them with the same courtesy as you would a guild member.
  • It’s no fun when people are assholes.

Gladiator (Guild Promotions)

  • This will give you 800g for daily repairs, as well as increased bank access.
    • The promotion will be given to people who actively attend guild PvP events.
  • If you decide to become part of the Rated team, you will be responsible for attending  the rated date set.
    • If you cannot attend, let us know ahead of time!
  • If you do not want to be on the rated team, you can still get this promotion through Funday!
  • If you do not show up for a week of events with no contact made to anyone, you will lose your status.
  • You can always gain it back

Scheduling

  • Funday
    • Sunday: 12pm server/3pm Eastern
  • Rated*
    • Wednesday: 6pm server / 9pm Eastern
    • Saturday: 8pm sever/ 11pm Eastern
*As mentioned in the beginning, this is still up for debate and decision. Let us know what works and doesn't work for you!
Though there are no immediate plans to start running until 8.2s release, let me know if you think it would start sooner so we can get a little practice in before the season starts!

Rated-Specific Rules

Eligibility

  • You MUST confirm your role(s) and that you have read the rules and regulations with Lunzzul/Judaspriest on Discord 24 hours before a rated time slot.
  • Lunzzul must have the following information:
    • Class:
    • Spec:
    • Role:
    • Mic for Discord?
    • Experience?
    • Are you able to participate each Wednesday at 5pm server time?
    • Do you have more than one role that you can play?
  • If you aren’t immediately eligible, don’t worry! We will still set a time aside that week to get you some more experience, gear, whatever you need!
  • To be invited, you must be signed up ON THE IN-GAME CALENDAR at least one day before RBGs (the Monday before).*
    • This helps us by seeing what roles we will have on a day by day basis and what we will need to PUG.
  • Be in Discord 15 minutes before RBGs begin. 
*Look, I know no one likes to use the in-game calendar. I get it. But, everyone confirming their spots beforehand takes a lot of guessing and strain off of me. Obviously, I would like to ASSUME that everyone will be present and eager every night, but that's not entirely realistic. It just gives a quick little confirmation that you're for sure going to be there.

Gear

  • Item level requirement will be set at 395.*
    • As ratings increase and such, you will be expected to eventually become more geared.
    • Gems and enchants will be required.
*Required iLvL does not have to be exactly 395. As long as you are current with the patch and everyone else and you know what you're doing, it's okay if you're a bit low!

Discord and Add ons

  • Discord will be required.
    • If you do not have a mic or do not want to talk, there is a chance you won’t be able to participate. We cannot have a team full of people who won’t make call outs when necessary.
  • There CANNOT be any extra chatter during a match.
    • If it happens, you will be given one warning to cut it. If you don’t, you will be benched
  • Required Addon List*
    • Reporter: A detailed battleground map that shows where all of your teammates are, as well as capping times, enemy flag carrier, ect.
    • BattleGroundEnemies: Shows all of the enemy team’s buffs, debuffs, health, ect. It helps with target calling and quick targetting. Only the Enemy half will be required, but the Ally side is also helpful. 
*Please make sure you have them. We can tell if you don't. ;)

Roles

  • Roles will be partially determined on who we know will perform well in said role. It will also be determined on who we have night to night.
  • Because there is a limited number of roles,  I encourage everyone to have multiple roles available to ensure you have a spot.*
  • If we have to rotate people, it will be on a week-by-week, first come-first serve basis.
  • Flag Carrier
    • Most of the time is not needed, but it is nice to have. Someone with high mobility and high sustainability will hold this role.
  • Healers
    • We will always have 3. Some maps require 4 healers, so we encourage an extra healer that has a strong DPS offspec.
  • DPS
    • Self explanatory. Can kill things. But at the same time, people in these roles must listen to call outs from the leads or the target caller.
    • There needs to be a good balance of melee and range. The goal is to have three melee and three range in each battleground.
  • Target Caller
    • They will be calling who the team needs to zerg. The person assigned to this role will depend on the comp we have each night.
If you do not currently have another class or spec that you don't play, but you would like to make sure that you can have a spot each night, let me know! The more guildies that we have to fill each role, the better it is for us to grow and learn together (and we don't have to waste time pugging!)

Other Things Covered

  • “Can we start doing the weekly bonus objectives? Like the Call to Arms, ect”
    • I would love to! But, as busy of a schedule as the guild has, it wouldn’t be entirely realistic right now. Maybe in the future? But, remember that you can always start running your own events too! Speak with any officer.
  • Does anyone remember when we were looking for a Warbringer to specifically help run RBGs? Well, we never found one. If you would like to help out with it, message me (Lunzzul) anytime on Discord or in game.
    • You would be helping build comps, assigning roles, calling strats, running the actual battlegrounds, and any other fun things that you think would be helpful and beneficial to everyone’s success.

 

 

If you are worried about not having a spot in the rated teams, you can always create a new toon and the Gladiators and PvP leaders will happily help you level and gear for rateds.

Never be afraid to tell us something. We don’t bite (hard.) We cannot know something if you don’t let us know!

Thank you to everyone who came and chatted with us briefly last night. If you missed it and have any additional questions, ask away!

We want to make our rated team(s) the best that they can be. My Discord is Lunzzul/Judspriest#7740 for confirmation of the rules and roles, as well as any questions you may have about anything that isn’t clearly stated above. To fully confirm you have read the rules thoroughly, send me “toxic love muffic” along with your role information. I hope to see everyone on the battlefield, and let’s kick some ass!

Mythic Night 1

Champions of the Light

Most people on the Mythic team have already seen and/or killed Grong as a result of Jibbles’s Gob Squad runs on Sundays. That said, a number of new people were with us for the kill, and there were only 3 deaths. No Angelic Renewal casts got off, and Divine Mallet damage was comfortably low. That said, Atesies and Coldryder were (I believe) the ones with new Champion kills. We forgot to take a picture. Whoops!

Grong

Grong was fun, but challenging. Everyone we spoke to suggested it was a 5-healer minimum. But since we hate listening to directions and hate the easy route we stuck with 4. (This also means we either hate or love our healers. Use your own discretion.)

We had a few problems. Initially, our second orb holder kept dying because he wasn’t receiving enough direct heals. We assigned a specific healer to watch him during tough spots, which solved that issue wonderfully. Another problem was syncing when to use the item to cancel Throw while also draining his tantrum as low as possible. A third was part of the common Heroic issue: people not running out far enough with Throw, while also remaining stationary long enough for the tank to land and not be horrified. We improved communication as the fight continued. Myself and Kamahl (orb holders) got better about recognizing when we would need externals (without memeing BIG HEALZ); tanks got better at recognizing when they would be in trouble during Throw; the group coordinated interrupts smooth like butter.

In the end, we only needed 13 pulls for the kill.

Jadefire Masters

After Grong, Jadefire felt…easy, really. The hardest part of Jadefire is staying alive during multi-sided strike. However, once it was pointed out that the pattern of colors always remained the same (BLUE GREEN RED GREEN BLUE) and I threw together a quick Weakaura to show the color order, most people were able to survive the transition. There were still problems, of course – it’s mythic! We initially killed one explosive orb to start, baited magma traps, then moved on to the second explosive orb. Unfortunately, there was simply too much damage and bad timing with the third explosive, multi-sided strike, and the transitional phase. We eventually evened out timing, but still only managed to just down Mestrah twice – once with Manceroy around 30%, and later, with 19 total people, Manceroy around 18%.

Thursday Logs

Mythic Night 2

We had a rough start to Jadefire as new people joined us for the night and had to re/learn how to do multi-sided strike. However, we overall had better damage to orbs and got a new strat: we burn both the first two explosives, THEN bait magma traps, then kill the third explosive. By that time the third explosive was either dead or close to it before the transition happens.

We had 14 pulls total between both nights for the kill.

Opulence

Opulence will be our first real problem and the first boss we spend a lot of time tinkering and restrategizing on. It’s likely that we will swap healers around going into this week, as certain specs are better at dealing specific types of damage / situations. We’ll also be reinforcing a useful graphic that we pulled from <Am I Muted>’s discord, which will help with the lightning orb drop points significantly.

We also don’t want anyone running 3 stacks of Treacherous Covenant on Opulence or onwards until we have them downed a few times. The extra damage taken and loss of DPS, especially in poison room / dot situations, is enormous.

Downing Jadefire put us at #7 on the server. In order to gain ranks, we have to defeat Opulence, Conclave, AND Rastakhan.

Friday Logs

Heroic and Normal

I was not present for the Saturday Heroic run, but it looks like everything went well and the run was slightly over 2 hours. In the future, we may decide to do either 2 or 3 hour runs, depending on what people feel like. We may also save lockouts from the previous weeks to try to push AOTC for those that need it. We will try to announce this ahead of time.

Monday we originally planned to concurrently run heroic and normal. In the end we opted to run only normal, as a number of people who were originally going to do heroic either could not make it or didn’t feel well enough. In true alt-night fashion, we 1-shot every boss including Jaina, and came in at just over 2 hours. This is an excellent return to form and we know it boosted some spirits. It was nice to see people able to gear alts and run characters they haven’t been able to during progression runs.

Saturday logs
Monday logs: 1, 2, 3

Loot Rules

In the face of a Mythic team and the return of alt nights, we’ve tweaked the loot roll rules for alt nights and clarified what to do with loot we don’t need.

Check out the updates to Loot rolls.

Mythic Team

After much deliberation amongst one another and a vote on time slots, the Warlords chose Thursday and Friday for Mythic progression, replacing Black Team raid times.

The following individuals are part of the Mythic roster:

TANK:
Telann
Rip

HEALERS:
Corignis
Phallamore
Liv
Ubernuts

DPS:
Zextol
Lillithh
Quetzie
Kamahl
Foxxie
Harmesi
Fokolamagexd
Lineda
Niraffe
Donkay
Demonestra (transitioning to Houndmaster)
Grimmbrew
Jibbles
Cameltotem

BACKUP/FLEX:
Coldryder
Urostek
Atesies
Bulborbish
Bellelina
Shaynanigans

These individuals were chosen based not only on the numbers performance of their main spec, but also on mechanics, listening to directions, flexibility to other roles / classes, communication, availability for times, and most importantly, attitude.

This is NOT a permanent roster. If you think you were unfairly excluded (example: maybe you can make the times and we didn’t think you were able), please feel free to reach out to us. If you are on the roster but wind up benched because of underperformance or attendance issues, please don’t take it personally. We’ll work with you to show where you can improve as best we can.

If you’d like to try out for the Mythic roster but haven’t raided with us before, please get ahold of a Warlord. We’ll run you through Heroic and M+ to evaluate your performance and where you might best fit on the team. Assuming you’re approved, you’d start as a fill / bench before being placed on the main roster.

We’re looking to have fun but also be successful. If you think you can provide a class / role / functionality we’re missing, please reach out. We’re going to work hard in the coming weeks to gear people’s alts / off specs in M+ and heroic / normal raids, practice rotation, provide WAs, etc.

That said, we’re still a casual guild. Nobody expects Cutting Edge, and we’re not looking to recruit hardcore mythic raiders to replace the friends we’ve been playing with for months or years. When we reach a point where the best of our best can no longer proceed, we’ll likely halt progression to simply farm lower bosses or do other fun activities as a group, catch up AOTCs, etc.

If the stress of Mythic becomes too much and you stop having fun, there is no shame in sitting out. We chose the above individuals because we think they can take the stress of Mythic raiding, but this is a game and everyone should enjoy themselves. If you find it’s not what you expected, don’t feel that you have to keep coming for our benefit. We’d rather everyone have fun, and we can find someone to fill your slot in the future.

Current Teams / Names / Designations

At some point I need to update the Raid Team Roster page. I can separate the Mythic group out from the rest of the Vanguards; move the Mythic team to Black team and move everyone else to Red; keep Red and Black roster the same but add a separate Mythic roster; combine our (incredibly large) roster into 1 listing; give the Mythic team a brand-new designation; or any other number of things. If anyone has suggestions, please get ahold of me. Otherwise I will use my best judgement, and then nobody is allowed to bitch about what I choose :^)

As some of the raiders move into Mythic, the Warlords decided to adjust the rules regarding loot rolls. We also added some rules we’d mentioned in Discord that never made it to the online sheet, some from way back in Uldir!

Old Loot Roll Rules:

Once loot has been received, players who wish to offer up an item for roll will whisper the item to Telann. All loot rolls will be posted and closed by him (highest roll from 1-100 wins). Main spec rolls will be offered first, followed by off spec, and lastly character alts. Transmog and Disenchants are allowed after those priorities. BoE items belong to whoever receives them and may also be offered to others for roll at that players discretion. You are not required to offer an item up for trade.

New Loot Roll Rules:

Once loot has been received, players who wish to offer up an item for roll will whisper the item to Telann. You are not required to offer any item up for trade. Telann will then call for rolls in order of roll priority (below). If you win the roll and find you don’t need/want the loot, it then goes to the next runner up.

Roll Priority:
Main spec upgrade, Azerite or Trinket side grade *
Side grade for main spec
Off-spec
Transmog
Disenchants

* If a raid night is an “alt night”, alts / newbies are given main-spec priority rolls over those characters who are in main progression runs, as higher-geared characters have more opportunities to get the pieces they need. During alt nights, progression characters are considered “off spec” in the loot priority listing.

Note: BoE items belong to whoever receives them, but may also be offered to others for roll at that players discretion.

Reasons Why

Azerite and Trinkets may be ilvl side-grades for many classes, but the difference between a BiS trinket or trait is phenomenal (as an example, my BiS azerite trait does more damage than my spam / builder spell).

Characters who are not in the core progression groups (whether we’re on Mythic or Heroic for a given tier) have fewer opportunities for upgrades; it’s important that we give everyone opportunities to get gear. Progression characters going to alt runs are generally there to supply loot to alts / newbies who need it. We may make an exception for incredible titanforges above Mythic-level loot drops.

If you win an item and find you no longer need it (maybe it wasn’t a good upgrade via sim), please return it to the original owner or pass it off to the next-highest roll, rather than a friend or someone you “think” should get the item. You are also more than welcome to cancel your roll and say “No, I don’t really need it, give it to [person who rolled next highest]”. (As a one-trick, I do this all the time if I see the next-highest roll would be getting a massive upgrade, or if someone is gearing a new progression toon.)

If you’re going to roll on a piece for transmog / disenchant, hold off until you’re sure there are no upgrade rolls. Telann will call for “need” first, and then for “transmogs and DE” if nobody rolls on upgrades/sidegrades.

This is going to be a slight change for everyone, so it’ll take some time to get used to. If someone rolls out of turn, don’t get mad at them.

Take a refresher on all the Rules and Regulations, but you don’t need to re-confirm them with us.

Let’s just skip the part where we all know I’m behind.

Heroic Boss Kills

Geeks and Freaks:

Geeks and Freaks – Mekkatorque – 3/11/2019
Geeks and Freaks – Stormwall Blockade – 3/16/2019
Geeks and Freaks – Jaina – 3/18/2019

Masters of Mayhem:

Masters of Mayhem – Mekkatorque – 3/01/2019
Masters of Mayhem -Stormwall Blockade – 3/14/2019
Masters of Mayhem – Jaina – 3/21/2019

Mythic

There is / will be some restructuring as we move into Mythic. More on this will come in tomorrow’s roundup.

Mythic nights will be taking place on Black Team times, though the Mythic group will comprise both Red and Black team members. We haven’t decided whether to keep the team names / identifiers the same, change them, lose them entirely, or something else. If you have opinions, let us know!

Raid Roundups will likely majority cover the Mythic raids, though will mention saturdays and mondays here and there.

Vanguards and AOTC

Vanguards who wish to keep Vanguard status but are not on the Mythic team will only have to come to 50% of the remaining raid dayss (saturdays and/or mondays) until the next full tier to keep Vanguard. The requirements for new raiders to earn Vanguard are the same (5 raids in per month).

That said, we still have a number of guild members and raiders who need AOTC. Keeping on top of raid mechanics, continuing to run M+, etc, will help ensure that we can get AOTC for them before the next tier. We had 6 successful AOTC runs in Uldir. We’ve already done AOTC twice on Jaina. Let’s shoot to get everyone AOTC who needs it, just like Uldir!

Crucible of Storms

Once Crucible releases we’ll be running that on Saturdays and Mondays instead of Heroic BfD, at least until it gets cleared or people get bored of it. The Mythic group may run it during their time as well, or we may decide to split into 2 groups on saturdays / mondays. Essentially the schedule for the Mythic group doing crucible is TBD, but everyone else can plan for Saturday / Monday to be Crucible runs when it releases.

How To Become a Mythic Raider in Less Than 20 Minutes:
Being a Better Player and Notes on Mythic Raiding

Hey guys, Mythic raider and card game enthusiast Tiraffe here. Given the recent announcement from Uro about looking at the possibility of pursuing Mythic Progression, I figured I’d whip up a guide to help out those that are looking to improve their play or are afraid that they wouldn’t make the cut for a Mythic roster now or in the future.

Continue reading →

Can you believe it’s been over a year since we launched the guild website? (It launched on March 17th, 2018)

We’ve seen a lot of changes over time. The original site didn’t even have a search function. We didn’t have a PvP section, either. We didn’t have a way of tracking raider attendance, or even showing off our raid team. We changed the way the menus work on mobile, and added submenus to the raiding and PvP pages. We changed a page about discord bots into a page for our social media. We added a calendar and, briefly, a page to vote on the guild Halloween contest. We have an updated tracker for our raid rankings, and dozen of other tiny tweaks.

What’s your favorite website functionality? What would you like to see from us in the future?

Quetz is back! Yay! You can expect Raid Wrapups to return, as well as a brief overview of the screenshots from previous boss kills that we didn’t cover in March. I currently have a huge backlog of changes to make on the site as well, obviously. The Attendance and Raid Team pages need to be updated, as they’ve been outdated since February. There are a full 18 plugin and WordPress updates. Expect the site calendar to be brought up to speed as well. I’d like to thank everyone for being patient with me during a very difficult March, and am looking forward to a much more fun April and beyond.

I’ve been recently asked, and routinely asked, can I help recruit members to the guild?

The short answer is: Yes.

Every one of Ministry of Defense’s members in good standing can recruit a new member by issuing a new member invite in the guild communities window. However, please do not spam out unwanted, or unrequested, guild invites to people. We prefer for potential new members to seek us out, rather than the reverse.

Also, in your recruiting travels, please do not make promises that we might not be able to keep. For example, telling a potential new member that they would be guaranteed a position on a raid team… that decision is always up to the warlords for each team.

If you are so inclined, and want to help recruit new people into the guild, feel free to utilize the following recruitment message… or make your own!

<Ministry of Defense> is looking for casual players, raiders, and pvpers! We offer an adult friendly, non-toxic guild atmosphere. Currently celebrating 9 years of being awesome! Website: ministryofdefense.net. Currently 1/9M, 7/9H, 9/9N BoD.

Have any questions, please use our Discord #general channels for comments!