It is done. The PuG, the no-attendance, no-vent, no-DKP, no-social chit-chat guild has completed the normal mode WotLK content.
Of course it does not make us a topguild. But it places us above the friendly social guilds.
It does not fully prove the magic skill. But it's going that way.
If you have not yet killed the LK with your "friends", he, Halion and all the others like ToGC, Ulduar-drake, Undying, Sarth+3 are just a transfer/reroll away. Join The PuG!
Note to "trade chat pugs kill LK lol" trolls.
PS: the last evildoing of the LK was dropping the same mace twice, both sold for minbid.
PS2: Tobold wants to post about blood elf porn (he already posted a link!!!), just needs a little push! Comment "u need 2 post belf porn lol" on his poll to prove that asking random people what to write on your own blog is a very bad idea.
Of course it does not make us a topguild. But it places us above the friendly social guilds.
It does not fully prove the magic skill. But it's going that way.
If you have not yet killed the LK with your "friends", he, Halion and all the others like ToGC, Ulduar-drake, Undying, Sarth+3 are just a transfer/reroll away. Join The PuG!
Note to "trade chat pugs kill LK lol" trolls.
PS: the last evildoing of the LK was dropping the same mace twice, both sold for minbid.
PS2: Tobold wants to post about blood elf porn (he already posted a link!!!), just needs a little push! Comment "u need 2 post belf porn lol" on his poll to prove that asking random people what to write on your own blog is a very bad idea.
Congratulations! Looks like a great guild to be in.
ReplyDeleteWell done guys. Interestingly it dropped the same two maces when we did it.
ReplyDelete"This little list disproves the claim that the guild just attract pro people reading the blog."
ReplyDeleteHow does it? The claim has always been that the people in The PuG and Undergeared are alts of mainstream raiders who know the fights, etc etc. Not sure what that list proves other than you finally got 10/10 people together for the fight.
@Squishalot: it might be true for Undergeared. But why would a hard mode raider roll a new alt to get a "lousy" normal mode kill when he is in 25HM?
ReplyDeleteThe only explanation would be that he is scaling back from HC attendance to a more casual - but still competitive - raiding, but this case he can hardly be called an alt as he is leaving the HC environment.
gevlon said:"it might be true for Undergeared. But why would a hard mode raider roll a new alt to get a "lousy" normal mode kill when he is in 25HM?
ReplyDeleteThe only explanation would be that he is scaling back from HC attendance to a more casual - but still competitive - raiding, but this case he can hardly be called an alt as he is leaving the HC environment."
Let me explain. As you might very well known, gear is only a way to give us a better chance to progress on the bosses. It isn't a e-peen-o-meter. Once most serious raiders meet their goal, they simply "burn out". Very few actually care to be decked out in bis gear for the next x-pack.
So, for me and many others, the fact that we can enter a serious but still progressing guild is god-send. That's the biggest appeal of this guild
Will you start working on hard modes next? Or are you going to keep "farming"?
ReplyDelete@Shintar: everyone has his own answer for that question. I will try to start a hard mode ID. If there are not enough people interested, there will be boost raids, where I won't attend except when they are already 10/12.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: this makes no sense. If someone "reached his goal" and "burned out", why would he join another guild to do the same (OR LESS) than his already reached goal?!
gevlon said:this makes no sense. If someone "reached his goal" and "burned out", why would he join another guild to do the same (OR LESS) than his already reached goal?!"
ReplyDeleteSimple. People, including me, get a sense of enjoyement out of progression. We actually enjoy wiping and finally seeing the boss die.
The truth is, I don't really care about WHICH boss I kill. If both premises are fullfilled, I have a good time 1) people aren't idiots (aka, I don't enjoy pugs) 2) we actually progress on SOMETHING.
That's why I also participate in a vanilla-only guild. It gives me this sense of progress.
to prove that asking random people what to write on your own blog is a very bad idea
ReplyDeleteA) You're not proving that asking people what to write is a bad idea, you only prove that you can send readers of your blog to make a nonsense comment on mine.
B) As the "fake" comments are easily recognized, I can still distinguish what the real readers want.
C) You still don't understand comparative advantage, do you?
Ok i have no idea what this proves!!!
ReplyDeleteHow is this any different from a weekly pug ?
Except the fact that it takes you ages to clear it and you're proud of it because you get new people in low wings ? and then you keep the good ones for serious tries ? C'mon dude this is a simple guild nothing more!
Oh and you guys will down at least 7 HMs next reset, it's nothing special about them.
PuGs don't suffer from a mysterious lack of "magic skill", just from lazy leaders that have no clue how to fix a wipe
"why would he join another guild to do the same (OR LESS) than his already reached goal?!"
ReplyDeletecause his goal is not seeing the credits at the end of the movie... the game isnt over when lk hits the ground. and some of "them" are looking for a new guild now... dont forget that most guilds are social so for "them" they need to get "into" the guild and make "friends".
on the otherside games are about "fun" (for most of the people i think)... and for many people raiding is "fun". so why not raid when you want to raid instead of 5 nights a week? sounds more fun to me. even more fun then 50% more armor.
"Of course it does not make us a topguild. But it places us above the friendly social guilds."
ReplyDeleteMy guild is social. We only join or make pugs except our sunday ICC.
In the 5th week we had LK down with only me, a tank and 2 healers that were there every week. We don't use ventrilo or teamspeak either. Almost none had ICC experience further than first 4 bosses
I just only took people that could learn and adept to what I said (I'm an ex officer of a HC raiding guild so I know how to lead)
Does that make us pro too?
Does anybody in this guild organize raids besides you? I see about 75 people with level 80s in the guild, but if only 10 of them are raiding (maybe as many as 19 showed up), I have to wonder what the rest of them are doing.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to denigrate your achievement or anything, but at least on Windrunner our trade pugs and social guilds have been downing the Lich King for over a month. Not all of them of course, but at least a good number. Heck, a number of trade pugs are doing 4/12 heroic or more these days.
ReplyDeleteSo I wouldn't say you've put yourself above the level of the social guilds, rather you're finally reaching their level. You've certainly done it much more quickly than they have, since social guilds and trade pugs have been working on ICC for over six months, but there's also the buff to consider in all this.
If it'd been 25 man Lich King you'd beaten it would be different, that requires at least some serious coordination, but the 10 man version has been easy since the 10% buff.
@Wilson: it's always different 10 people. On Thursday we had some good tries on LK. 4 people from that raid were present on the kill.
ReplyDelete@Last anonymous: http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2010/06/irrelevant-content.html
A lot of people overestimate the extent to which the buff helps a group on the LK fight.
ReplyDeleteSure, you can soak a vile spirit hit in the final phase. Ok, the raging spirits go down a bit faster, so even a "mediocre" group can start the defile/valk phase with only one raging spirit up. Valks can be zerged 30% faster, for sure.
But, most groups that wipe on the LK simply lack the coordination to handle the valks that come around the same time as the defile. Managing this part of the fight is not substantially easier on 30% than it was at 0%, except that it's easier to keep the tanks alive.
Your raid still needs to collapse correctly when the valks come, and spread for defile at the appropriate time. When the valk comes *right before* defile, you have to collapse and then immediately spread. When the valk comes *right after* defile you usually just have to improvise.. this has always seemed rarer to me though.
A theoretical group with straight ilvl 277 gear and 30% buff but with pug level skill (e.g. 6/12 icc) will wipe many times before they get this right, unless they have a really good raid leader to explain it all for them and call everything out.
Likewise, if half the raid has done it before, a lot of times they'll compensate for the other five, by correctly identifying when SOMEONE ELSE gets defile, and they DON'T move correctly.
A lot of people who have inflated views of how successful pugs are tend to be used to pugs run by 5+ skilled players that are compensating for the suckiness of the rest... which is much easier at 30% than 0%, and definitely made easier by their superior gear.
"A lot of people overestimate the extent to which the buff helps a group on the LK fight..."
ReplyDeleteThe buff trivializes the only two DPS checks in the fight (Valks, and Phase 2->3 transition), removes the potential for tanks to get 2-shot by the debuff LK puts on them, and makes it much easier to survive 2 Vile Spirit explosions.
That's huge. Most of my guild's progression wipes happened because of:
Tank deaths.
Defile.
Vile Spirits.
Two of those are directly addressed by the 30% buff (All the spirits can be AoEd with it before they land, a huge amount of pressure is removed from tanks and healers due to the 30% buffer), and one is indirectly addressed (Raid does not need to stack in the center, reduces potential for M&S to fail on Defile).
I'm going to propose that the reason a lot (Not all, mind you) of social guilds can't down LK at 30%, is because they don't want to extend their raid lockouts, and they don't want to wipe. They'd rather farm gear then progress.
thats...weird.... we have killed LK10 normal 3 times now. the last 2 times we killed him, we got two identical items. this seems more like a bug than just a strange coincidence. especially with you and commenters both reporting the same thing.
ReplyDelete"A lot of people who have inflated views of how successful pugs are tend to be used to pugs run by 5+ skilled players"
ReplyDeleteI'm used to pugs that clear 7-10 hardmodes in icc25, that's not 5 skilled players, that's a well made pug with a majority of at least decent players and with a good raid leader. There's 6 pugs of this standard on my server (ally+horde) that go weekly and clear the content (Icc25 12/12,7-10 hm + RS25) in one evening. A new pug has started this week that's aiming to do 11/12 icc25 hm. At least 6 people have acquired Shadowmourne here solely through pugs.
Just because bad pugs are bad dosn't mean that a well organised pug can't clear almost everything in WOTLK. I guess the hard part of it is to get into the run and to get an invite the next week. But that's down to personal performance.
Gratz on the kill Gevlon, same day we got LK25 hm down finally. Good luck with the hardmodes next week!
@Duskstorm
ReplyDeleteA group with full 277 and 30% buff could probably kill the valkyr without slowing or stunning it at all on normal mode ten man. The 30% buff allows you to do so much more dps on the boss. we killed him yesterday for the achievement, we had him at 10% just as the second harvest soul went out and didn't need bloodlust to get all 4 raging spirits down in the second transition. The fight really is no accomplishment anymore, just like muru and kil'jaeden got stomped by every guild that was at least 3/6 SWP prior to the 3.0 patch.
A raider on 25mHC lich king would make an alt to get the thrill of killing bosses for the first time again. That is one of the reasons you make an alt: to get the feeling of progression again and that rush when the boss finally capitulates after causing you so much grief.
@Anonymous
ReplyDelete"Just because bad pugs are bad dosn't mean that a well organised pug can't clear almost everything in WOTLK."
I must remind you then, that The PuG is in fact a well organised PuG. ;)
"@Squishalot: it might be true for Undergeared. But why would a hard mode raider roll a new alt to get a "lousy" normal mode kill when he is in 25HM?
ReplyDeleteThe only explanation would be that he is scaling back from HC attendance to a more casual - but still competitive - raiding, but this case he can hardly be called an alt as he is leaving the HC environment."
Two problems with this.
One is that just because someone swaps mains, it doesn't change the underlying argument that you're merely riding on the coattails of players who were similarly successful in other guilds. That knowledge and practice is still transferable either way.
Two, you're doing the same thing you've railed against in posts about Undergeared and elsewhere when people assume anyone more progressed than them must have done it by playing some crazy number of hours every week. I didn't start raiding consistently until long after plagueworks was put in but my little social guild still downed LK10 to unlock hard modes a little over two months ago on a regular 2 night a week schedule. You might have a third or fourth night to raid in a given week, but it's excessive to do that every single week. Having an alt in a zero commitment raid guild isn't a bad option to have, especially given that your main is unlikely to benefit from pugging normal modes anymore.
Also keep in mind that for all your previous complaints about the summer lull, you started recruiting in early summer so you were actually affected by it less than those that recruited during the school year. I said it during your initial post, but the timing put you in the ideal position to scoop up raiders that were riding out the summer lull while their home guilds were having trouble raiding consistently or as frequently as they do during the rest of the year. Your complaints about summer time slowdown roughly overlapped with my guild's recovery from it. A month or two is about the time it takes to fill newly vacant slots with recruits and if people are watching soccer, a social MMO guild gives easy access for people to talk about soccer with.
Congratulations on the kill, though I don't know why you keep presenting the achievements as evidence when it's obviously so flimsy. Just an informal poll would work so much better for establishing the type of people in the guild and giving a comparative baseline for their previous guilds/experience. Wowprogress isn't really a good baseline since you don't know how many guids are misrepresented as raid guilds due to members pugging, that they're all actively raiding under the current buff, or that they're progression oriented rather than having it as a secondary or tertiary goal.
@Fetzie, anonymous
ReplyDeleteFor sure, parts of the encounter have been made trivial.
However, my point is that there are mechanics in the fight that cannot be outgeared, and thus will always be beyond the reach of random pugs.
I agree with anon that the reason pugs don't do it is that they're there for loot and will not go through wipes to work out the strategy. A fairly guild that is persistent will eventually get him down, and he's certainly easier than he was.
PUGs can do hardmodes when they're filled with raiders who've seen the content on hardmode already and are just bringing an alt.
When I look at trade chat, and I see "LFM ICC10, doing hardmodes" they always ask for heaps of experience and do not bring people that haven't done the fights already (at least on their main).
Congrats to you and The PuG Gevlon. Regardless of what others say it's a job well done!
ReplyDeleteIn response to your link to the old 'irrelevant content' post I'd like to point out that according to WoWProgress currently 25562 guilds, or 41% of the registered guilds, have downed the Lich King on 10 man. Are you honestly suggesting that currently 41% of guilds count as top tier or above the socials? Honestly I can't fathom how you can call this an achievement at all, let alone bragging about how it puts you above the social players. You should know very well that the overwhelming majority of WoW players are social and only about 15-20% of players can ever be described as 'hardcore' raiders, at most.
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to point out that according to WoWProgress over 65% of guilds have done 10 man heroic Gunship Battle, which logically means that they must have individuals who have either killed the Lich King in another guild or done it in a PuG. Assuming your guild has not yet done that fight, and you're using WoWProgress to track your success, then you are in the bottom 35% of guilds in the game.
I really have no desire to be rude here, but this is just getting silly. It's fine if you just post these things as an update on the progess of your projects but if you're going to gloat about it then at least do the research first and find out where you stand.
@Anon-
ReplyDelete"Are you honestly suggesting that currently 41% of guilds count as top tier or above the socials?"
Yes, that is exactly what he is suggesting. His argument is that, since most people who play WoW don't raid ICC, his guild should be considered elite because some its members do. Makes about as much sense to me as claiming that everyone who works in a building which includes a dentist's office should be considered to be an elite dentist, since most people on the planet aren't dentists. But Gevlon's guild strategy is highly dependent on a steady stream of new recruits who want to be close to what they see as greatness, so he needs to blow his own horn as often and as loudly as possible.
@Wilson: close, but still not getting the main point of the guild, despite asking for it already. In a "normal" guild, some members are raiding, the rest just tag along and shine in the glory. They have the guildtag but only get into raids with the alts of the raiders.
ReplyDeleteHere EVERYONE has the chance to raid. The people switch a lot between raid nights so while obviously just 10 people killed LK, it doesn't mean that next week the same 10 will kill it. We almost killed him on Thursday with 4 same, 6 different people.
It's not that I don't get it, it's that I'm not one of your sycophants who gives you credit for accomplishing something that you haven't come close to accomplishing yet. Eighty raiders (no friends, no alts, no socials, just raiders) and growing, you keep telling us, and yet as far as I can tell you muster one ten-man raid a week. Why not three different ICC runs a week? Why not some 25-man raids? My casual guild is a quarter the size, yet we have a far higher level of involvement. It looks like most of your "raiders" are just running five mans. What the hell is magical about that?
ReplyDeleteMaybe the number of people actually raiding each week will rise at some point to a significant percentage. That would be interesting to see. But you're a fool if you think I should be slapping you on the back and saying "well done, old chap!" beforehand. Especially after the rapid demise of your pvp guild...
@Wilson: now you are demanding something as "success criteria" that I never offered: Involvement.
ReplyDeleteI've never said that the non-social environment will make people motivated. If they don't want to raid, it's their right. I promised success, defined as "people who want can". I never said "people who don't want can".
@Gevlon - Now that, right there, is 100% valid and clearly in that regard your guild is a complete, unmitigated success. If that is, as you stated, all you want, to provide an asocial guild environment for people to raid or do other guild activities at their pleasure then there's no argument, you have succeeded.
ReplyDeleteHowever that's not what myself and Wilson (I think, I can't completely speak for Wilson) are arguing about. We're arguing that it doesn't put you above the social players. Many, many social players and raiders have much greater accomplishments than your guild, as measured by in-game statistics and WoWProgress, with a much smaller investment of total time (though the investment of time spent raiding may well be another story). That is all, there's nothing more in-depth than that.
It's fair to have a low participation % due to the nature of the guild. The primary reason people are willing to commit to a given raid night is that it's mutual and therefor more efficient in terms of player numbers or time spent organizing.
ReplyDeleteThough it also isn't proof that the method is particularly effective. A ton of guilds would absolutely love being able to cherrypick from a 100+ pool of level 80 players, but with a smaller player pool they may be forced to compromise and accept worse players unless they get really lucky with recruitment. This is one of the reasons recruiting through the blog contaminated it was an experiment even if nobody would begrudge recruiting that way as a guild simply made for fun. A lot of guilds can't attract those kind of numbers without either a very solid reputation or already being established as a top progression guild.
To me this achievement sounds exactly like a social guild's achievement. social guilds (due to their low level of dedication) take a lot longer to clear normal content serious guilds have cleared ages ago. they dont have attendance rules, proper recruitment or other regulations (such as gear reqs or no-pugs rules) in place and thats why they're generally much slower. they also need the help of big buffs to clear endgame content and thats why blizzard introduces those at a point where it doesn't matter anymore.
ReplyDeleteso while you try to differ from social guilds you actually work exactly like them and benefit from the same features they do. how exactly is your late LK kill an achievement different from theirs? you work on a less friendly base maybe, have some stricter policy on DPS and don't use vent - so you're a pug that digs meters basically. PUGs clear LK and have for a long time.
how that puts you 'above' more friendly guilds I don't know - on my server even the slowest guilds (read: friendly) have downed the LK before you. maybe you should consider copying a thing or two from them or even, the real top guilds that actually know how to balance hardcore&social aspects.
to me you sound like the blind man that takes twice as long to read a book and then claims 'hey, but i did it with no glasses on!'. that doesn't make you smart, that only makes your defeat even sillier.
p.s. I realize you pick&chose the comments you want to be published on your page. as I am nowhere near of trolling, I will assume that my remark hits the mark too close for your taste should it not be published.
I am amazed at the reactions to many of Gevlon's posts. I'm not trying to defend him here, but at least when he makes a statement about being above social guilds he backs it up with numbers, which can then be debated.
ReplyDeleteEverytime he writes about Undergeared or The PuG I read these posts about how so many pugs have and are currently downing the LK. Since those are subjective statements with no way to prove or disprove, I thought I'd share my experience.
I consider myself to be a good raider, but I currently reside on a server thats ranked relatively low on progression. I know many of the top raiders on my server and there are several raiding guilds that routinely down the LK. However, I do not know a single person that has truely pugged the LK. As I walk around town I see Kingslayer titles and everytime it's on a person from one of the serious raiding guilds.
I'm not saying it can't or doesn't happen, but it has not been my experience. I have not even heard of a pug making it to the LK on my server. Perhaps people that down the LK routinely and consider it to be an "easy" fight have trouble understanding why others would find it hard and assume that there are more people doing it than there really are.
Anyway, thats my subjective comment. I offer no proof or statistics to back it up. Thanks.
P.S. Hopefully Gevlon will post this comment in the hope that someday I will actually contribute something worthwhile.
@Vesoom
ReplyDeleteThat's a totally fair statement. Not all pugs on my server (Windrunner, US) manage it either, or even close to it and we're pretty high on progression. Our top raid guild is ranked world 20th I believe (Mine is below 5000th, sadly). In the end it does require at least a few people with the skill and experience to do it. Even when it does happen, it's mostly only 10 man, though I've seen a handful of 25 man pugs do it.
The point is that those people with the skill and experience have been around for 4+ months now, and with the 30% buff making the 10 man encounter virtually trivial that's more than enough. So, on some servers at least it does happen, on mine it's rather common.
In he end the reason some of us are basically calling Gevlon out is that on our servers at least his accomplishments don't even remotely place him above the social guilds. They place him at most in the middle of the pack, and often near the bottom. Seeing him more or less gloating about how much better he is than those he sees as intellectually inferior when he's doing no better than them, and in many cases worse than them, is pretty silly to us. That's pretty much all.
@last Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI don't disagre with anything you said. My main point is refering to pug groups downing the LK (which I know is not the criteria that Gevlon set for himself). I am only questioning the people that routinely answer with, lots of pugs do that.
Again, I don't disagree that it happens on your server, or that it might be far more common on your server than on mine. However, what is "rather common"? I'm assuming that rather common is a relative term as even on the best server the vast majority of pug raids do not (again, I'm assuming and have no numbers to back it up) down the LK.
So, until I see some numbers that we can debate (not sure if such statistics even exist), I'm going to take "haha, tons of pugs do it" with a grain of salt and continue to think that Gevlons experiement is kind of cool.
@ Vesoom again
ReplyDeleteThat's reasonable. However the point I'm trying to make is not about the pugs themselves, inherently. I'm just using the example of pugs being able to down the Lich King as a reason for it not to put Gevlon's guild above the 'social guilds' he is competing with.
The whole point of The PuG is more or less to provide a pressure free 'pug-like' atmosphere without any of the social aspects many guilds, and indeed many pugs, have. His idea is to prove that a group acting in an asocial manner but with all the other aspects of a pug will be more successful than traditional 'social' guilds and trade pugs.
My contention is that just downing the Lich King doesn't prove that. I used as proof that currently over 40% of registered guilds have downed the Lich King and that on my server even trade pugs are able to do so. I'm not arguing that it's common for pugs to down the Lich King or indeed that The PuG is wrong, or failed. I'm simply saying that they haven't really proved anything other than that they can perform as well as a social guild at this point.