Blogsite of Frequently Reported

As per our Guild Message of the Day, we'll be raiding jointly with The Flaming Gaze on a semi-regular basis (hopefully). Until I can finish this term of school (and find a job), most of the raid organization will fall in-house on Glenn. He will be working jointly with Syloh.

Some of us are relatively well geared and capable of stepping into Ulduar now, but there are others still in need of pre-3.1 gear. We will actively be hitting as much of the Naxx, VoA, EoE and OS as schedules allow, but if you have an opportunity to PUG any of the "old" WotLK content, do not hesitate to do so! A word of warning: if you PUG into content already partially completed, you will be saved regardless of whether or not any other bosses are killed.

Please check the calendar regularly for posted events, as well as this blog site. I promise to do a better job of updating.

For shits 'n' giggles, there is a Burning Crusade raid night scheduled for this Thursday. Already, we have a few people signed up. Anyone level 70+ is encouraged to come along and bask in the drunken splendor of lowbie raiding.

Quite a few things are deposited in the bank as we speak. Feel free to withdraw as you need. The items contained in the last tab are subject to a GM approval as well as a possible (but minimal) fee.

With that said, there is a lot of gold going out for repairs and very, very little coming in. Please find the resources to at least cover 10% of what you are taking out. Also, if you have an outstanding Guild Bank loan, please start repaying it promptly.

It has been some time since there was an update to our blog, and with good reason. In short: we lost a key person so we couldn't raid as planned. Although there were a few merger offers from other guilds, nothing constructive panned out and Frequently Reported was mired—again—as a shiftless group of PvP slackers.

As with all things, though, we have had a resurgence. Brad is now playing full-time, again, and we picked up a few bodies that help us fill spots with joint raids with Ielle and Syloh's new guild, The Flaming Gaze.

Ranks will remain the same, for the time being, with me still at the helm. Jeff and Liz will continue to run the day-to-day as needed. Brad and Frank can substitute as GM as situations dictate. Glenn will run most of the raids, as well as coordinate their structure.

Ranks won't determine raid eligibility at this time; we're simply to small to really use an eligibility format other than "be on if you want to raid". As things progress, ranks will be addressed as necessary.

When Frequently Reported was created, the focus was having fun (typically at the expense of others, but that's another story). When I came back in November, there was some discussion about beginning to raid. Then, with the influx of Jason, Eric, Beol and Glenn, people really wanted to raid (myself included)...now we are raiding. This made necessary a restructuring of ranks.

GM: me - The final decisions on raids, loot, who goes and who doesn't, etc., rest with me.
Co-GM: Jeff and Liz - Jeff will provide consult to me in these decisions. In the case I am away, Liz will be my voice since I'm in constant contact with her outside of WoW.
Raider - Players are level 80 and have attended at least one raid. They have access to bank tabs, as well as a limited amount of gold for bank repairs.
Member - All non-raiders who have made the necessary contribution to the guild bank. Level 80 Members are alternates for raiding if a Raider is unable to make the scheduled happy-epic-time.
Alt - All alternate 'toons, regardless of main's rank, are here.
Recruit - Recruits must pay 200G into the guild bank in order to reach Member status.
STFU Noob! - Self explanatory.

I realize we have gone from casual to raiding in short order, and the relative inexperience of some of our members is excusable to an extent. However, if we are going to progress a few things need to change.

1. Be on time to raids
2. Be prepared with reagents, repaired, potions, bandages, etc.
3. Don't idle chatter during boss fights
4. Don't idle chatter during fight explanations
5. Don't AFK to excess

Five simple steps that anyone should be able to stick to.


If you are late without notice:

• You will be replaced by a Member or a PUG
• You will not be able to finish the saved raid(s) for that week
• You will be demoted to Member
• You will not be invited to raid the following week
  

If you are unable to come to the raid on time, contact Chris, Jeff or Liz. You will not be penalized with an "excused absence". In-game mail, e-mail, and a phone call are all acceptable methods of contacting us. DO NOT PASS A MESSAGE THROUGH THE GUILD GRAPEVINE.

If you come ill-prepared:

• You will have 5 minutes to get your inventory in order
• You will not receive a summon
• If you cannot get in the instance within the 5 minute window, you will be replaced
• If you cannot get in the instance within the 5 minute window, you will be demoted to Member
• You will not be allowed to finish the saved raid(s) for that week
  
• You will not be invited to raid the following week
  

If you chatter during a fight or explanation:

• You will be asked to be quiet
• If the chatter continues, you will be globally muted if I can contact Ielle, the vent owner
• If I cannot contact Ielle, you will be kicked from the raid
• You will be demoted to STFU Noob! for the remainder of the night
• You will not be allowed to finish the saved raid(s) for that week
  
• You will not be invited to raid the following week

If you're constantly Away From Keyboard without notice:

• You will be asked to not AFK again
• If you do wander off again, you will be kicked from the raid
• You will be demoted to Member
  
• You will not be allowed to finish the saved raid(s) for that week
• You will not be invited to raid the following week

This may seem a bit tough, but as Ryan has pointed out countless time in conversations

The success of any WoW player is directly attributed to the time invested in playing

In other words, whatever time you spend playing will reflect in your gear, gold, status, etc. This is compounded when you are a raiding player. If you are constantly late or ill-prepared, you are impacting the success of at least nine other people. Please, don't be that person.

Let's kick some ass, ladies and gentlemen. Our first official week of Naxx is coming to a close and we have done incredibly well. Just tighten a few loose bolts, and we're set for further pwnage.

With the introduction of WotLK, agility-based classes have been thrown into fierce competition for weapons—both one and two-handers. With some dedicated research on thottbot I saw a big drood vs. huntard discussion emerging. Let's examine something a bit closer before the HuntardEmo overwhelms everyone.

Agility. A primary attribute of both classes, but arguably the primary for hunters. As of right now, there are only three one-handed weapons with an agility of 43 or better:

• Widow's Fury
• Webbed Death
• Split Greathammer

All of which are raid-content drops, and only two of which a hunter can wield. That sets the baseline for the top-end, agility-based, two-handers at (anyone?...) +86 agility. There are a grand total of seven two-handers out there to potentially benefit hunters that fit this criteria:

• Origin of Nightmares
• Wraith Spear
• The Undeath Carrier
• Black Ice
• Journey's End
• Staff of the Plague Beast
• Staff of Trickery

Of these seven, two are polearms (which, with the advent of druids now being able to use polearms, has further blurred the lines between class-specific weapons). Of those seven, all provide both agility and stamina bonuses. Staff of the Plague Beast and Origin of Nightmares are the only two which provide armor stats.

What does this mean?

It means, kiddies, that you're going to see a lot of hunters running around with staffs - in particular, the Staff of Trickery, since Violet Hold is a ridiculously easy instance that doesn't require 10 or more people to run.

Instead of bitching and whining at the hunters that do roll on staves, take it up with the developers. They are the ones to blame for the latest new weapon competition.

When this blogsite was first created, it was to document the exploits—and (let's be honest here) abuses—of Frequently Reported. For anyone with some weird, deeper interest in my day-to-day (which, lately has only been WotLK), feel free to point your browsers to my other blog: An Exercise in Futility.

We'll try to get some people attuned to Molten Core over the weekend. It may prove to be a bit difficult with members' schedules conflicting, so we'll play it by ear. The guild calendar has both attunement runs and a ZG mount run (Tiger and Bloodlord) penciled-in, but don't be too disappointed if it doesn't work out "on time" Saturday.

There is always Sunday, right?

Reaching level 80 is only the beginning of the real adventure, I think. Wednesday was spent mostly grinding the materials to fabricate The Swiftarrow Armor items and Jormungar Leg Reinforcements, as well as spending a paltry 300 gold to acquire two Savage Cobalt Slicers.

Thursday I hope to secure the high-end enchants on my new lewt, pick up the reputation tabards and help Liz level her "reborn" warlock, Sairendipiti. We all need to pull together and continue to take care of one another with armor, patches, enchants, etc., as we all begin to take out fist steps into Heroics and level 80 content.

Over the weekend, we smoked both Onyxia's Lair (twice!) and Zul'Gurub, with everyone having a ball and receiving achievements. As an accomplished pre-BC raider back on Akama, I've taken for granted the fullness of the storytelling that World of Warcraft used to be.

There was some confusion on my part of what toons belong to what people, and as soon as maintenance is complete I'll get things straightened out.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year... belated.