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Special thanks to our sponsor Mike.

Back again is the Epic Dolls Guild Update podcast for the month of July 2008. Special guest host guildie of the month is Kittybits aka Aaron. This time we talk about the guild bank rules and our preparations for Kara. We welcome our new members this month and give grats to our new officers and members who have dinged 70, 60 and 40! Keep an eye out for more info about the Sleeper Cartel Server-wide Summer Party coming on July 26. You can read the announcement on the Perenolde forums or check out the Sleeper’s website.

Check out this exclusive guild only podcast at our forums.

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Special thanks to our sponsor this week Laura and her hubby Barry.

Music by Theory Anesthetic.

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Special thanks to our sponsor Kadem from the <Fidelis Amicus> guild on Staghelm US.

Music by Theory Anesthetic.

Secondly, while only one person in your party will have to have some of these keys we will be going over, I personally do not want to be that player, you know…the one you had to run all the way back to the instance entrance to let in because they don’t have their own key? Healers may get a free pass here, but the rest of us are more disposable *smile*

While Blizzard seems to be making things simple for “the rest of us” by removing attunements and allowing even the lowliest and most unraiderish young 70’s into the lobby of such vaunted locales as the Black Temple and Mount Hyjal, the fact remains that if you are able to do it, there remain reasons to key up. So here for your perusal is a guide to notable Outlands keys and attunements, some of which most casual players may never complete before they hit level 80 in Wrath of the Lich King! For this first installment, I will go over the keys you’ll need in order to let yourself into five man instances.

The first key you come across (if you are doing dungeons more or less in the proper order) will be the Shadow Labyrinth Key, which can be found in the upper 60’s 5 man instance, Sethekk Halls. Please note…it does not drop off a mob or the final boss! It is found in The Talon King’s Coffer, a chest which is in located the back of Talon King Ikiss’ room. You do not need to have a quest or have completed anything else to pick this key up…just open the chest and loot. Everyone in the party who doesn’t have it already will be able to loot it.

Unfortunately, it gets worse from there.

You won’t really need to worry about keys again until you hit level 70, and at that point, the fun begins. Of the level 70 5 man instances, three require keys. You’ve now hopefully already picked up the key to Shadow Labs, you just have to get the ones for Shattered Halls and The Arcatraz. You will do well on some of these quests to be the owner of a flying mount. Highly recommended!

Shattered Halls: Head out to Shadowmoon Valley, and once there fly over to the Black Temple. Reconnoiter the area until you find Smith Gorlunk. You should be able to land your flying mount near him without aggroing anything else, and he should be fairly easy to solo. (Author’s note, I have not done this on my hunter and there were six of us in need of the mold when I did it on my druid, so if you die trying this, all I can say is…”Maybe my sources were wrong.”) Once his body hits the ground, retrieve from it the Primed Key Mold, an item that will start your quest. After accepting the quest, you will get to do a little running around in your factional Hellfire home city. You will eventually be asked to turn in some reagents, namely 4 Fel Iron Bars, 2 Arcane Dusts, and 4 Motes of Fire - it might even be a good idea to ask your crafter friends if they can make/sell you the Fel Iron Bars (miners can make these) and the Dusts (These are the common result of disenchanting a green outlands item). The motes of fire should be easily farmed off the AH or any Outlands fire elemental skinned creatures. Once you hand those in, the smith will send you off on a Fel Reaver hunt. Yes, those three story tall mechanical versions of the Devilsaurs. It’s supposed to be possible to kite it to your factional city and let the guards kill it, again, I haven’t tried this so YMMV. Once the Reaver is down, stand inside it’s shell and use the mold. Then take it back for your final turn in. Voila, you can now be the one running back to the front of the instance to let in that replacement DPSer.

The Arcatraz: I’ve read several things about where this quest and its’ prerequisites actually pick up, but having *done* this line just this week for my hunter, I can at least speak with some authority. I went to Area 52 and spoke directly to Nether-Stalker Khay’ji, who hangs out to the right of the inn’s entrance. He sent me off on a series of fedex type quests, culminating in the first turn-in of a repeatable reputation quest, “A Heap of Ethereals“. That ends the line of prerequisite quests and he will now start off on the main lead-up quests. All are easily soloable until you get to the one entitled “Full Triangle,” in which you are sent off to kill an elite demon. This seems like it would be easily doable with two players. I “soloed” him with the help of a Blood Elf Paladin who dropped out of the sky and nearly gave me heart failure until I realized he was attacking the demon and not my pet! Once that portion is turned in, a scripted event will occur, after which you will be shipped off to Shattrath to speak with A’Dal. A’Dal will give you the final part of the quest, which consists of retrieving the two key halves off their respective current holders, Pathaleon the Calculator, final boss of Mechanar, and Warp Splinter, the final boss of Botanica. Once the two key halves are in your possession, turn them in to A’Dal for your Arcatraz key and the final step of this quest line, defeating the last boss of Arcatraz. That step is of course optional since we now have our key!

As a followup to keys related to 5 mans, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention your heroic keys. You now only have to get to Honored with the following factions to pick up the keys: Honor Hold/Thrallmar, Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, Sha’tar, and Keepers of Time. This is both good and bad, but that’s a whole different post! Just doing quests in the appropriate areas should be enough to get you to honored with most of these by the time you hit 70. The exceptions are Keepers and Sha’Tar - you’ll have to run Old Hillsbrad a LOT to get honored, and why would you do that when completing the main Black Morass quest gives you 8000 KoT rep? (Yes, eight THOUSAND) Sha’Tar comes pretty much from two places: Running TK instances (Mechanar, Botanica, Arcatraz) and as a side benefit of doing the repeatable Scryer/Aldor faction turnins. This was the one it took me the longest to get. And while it’s not rep based, the last heroic key to attain is the one for Magister’s Terrace, which isn’t really a key. You simply pick up the questline from Exarch Larethor at the Shattered Sun Staging area. He sends you into Magister’s Terrace, where you follow the quest line and should pick up a nice epic gem and the ability to enter Magister’s Terrace Heroic mode upon completion of the quest “Hard to Kill,” which, as you might guess, refers to Kael’Thas.

So now you should be good to get into all the instances in both normal and heroic modes. The next installment will pick up with raid keys and more exotic attunements.

So, what’s the best name to choose for your toon? Blizzard has a few hard-and-fast guidelines that players are expected to follow when naming a game character, which include rules restricting names which may be offensive, reference real-world people or places, are full or partial sentences, or which may be pure gibberish. If Blizzard finds that you’ve created a toon with a name like this, you will be asked to change the name.

With all these restrictions, how does one name a character in a unique manner? I’ve assembled a few tips that may be helpful in choosing the perfect name for your next character.

Baby Names Websites

If I am at a loss for what to name a character, the first place I turn is to one of the many baby naming websites available on the web. They often have names from many countries along with their meanings so that you can choose not only a name that you like, but one that means something that’s appropriate to your toon. For example, if that new mage you just created is destined to be fire-specced, you might name him Aodhan, which means “fire” in the old Celtic. The possibilities are endless, and offer options for both males and females, and using baby naming sites help you to solve the problem of naming toons according to what they do. Aodhan has a much better ring to it than Iburnyoo.

Modified Novel Characters

If your favorite novel is, let’s say, Terry Pratchett’s The Color of Magic and you’d really like to name that fire mage you just created Rincewind, but because of the Blizzard naming guidelines you can’t, you can always modify the name and still pay homage to your favorite character. Change Rincewind to Rillwind or perhaps Ryncegust; the spirit of the name remains present, but it isn’t THE actual name, and thus not against Blizzard’s guidelines.

Modified Real Names

As tempting as it may be, naming a toon Cynthia because that’s your name is just, well, to be honest, not very interesting. That doesn’t mean that you can’t modify your real name into a name that would be acceptable, creative and will fit into the atmosphere of World of Warcraft. A name like Cynthia could be modified to Syhnthaea and not only does it look fantastical and fit into the game atmosphere, but it still retains the spirit of the original name.

Using the Random Name Generator

If all else fails, there is always the in-game Random Name Generator to fall back upon. The names it provides don’t always follow the game’s own guidelines, and sometimes some tweaking is necessary to get them to fit into the guidelines (or even to make sense), but the World of Warcraft Random Name Generator is provided by Blizzard to help make naming your toon easier and with a little effort it can be a valuable tool for choosing the perfect name.

The point of the Blizzard naming guidelines isn’t to make naming your toon more difficult, but to help steer you in the right direction for making the world we play in more believable and immersive. A world filled with nonsense-named toons takes away from the experience and makes the world seem less “real”; no mother in their right mind would name their child Ikikurbutt, so why would you name your toon that?

This week I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Peter for the Addicted Gamer podcast. It was a great time and I got to share a lot about my gaming history and what WoW means to me. I hope you’ll check it out if you want to hear me babble even more than normal. =) Also please forgive the audio issues, darn Skype!

Check it out at VirginWorlds.com.

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This episode generously sponsored by Lisa aka BoBeese from Muradin Alliance side. Thanks Lisa!

Music provided by Mandy at Theory Anesthetic.

UPDATE: The old forums were unable to be saved unfortunately but the new ones are working and looking great. So you will need to sign up again on our new forums located at http://epicdolls.com/forums

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Applications & Guilds – A Tool for Finding the “Perfect Fit”

People create guilds for a variety of reasons; for personal bank space, for a place to play with family and friends, or a way to set an ideal gaming environment for a larger group of players. Regardless of the reason your form your guild, one of the first things you must consider is the method of recruitment you wish to use.

Many new guilds utilize Blizzard’s World of Warcraft Recruitment Forums to get the word out that their guild is actively seeking members. Once that word is out, however, the next question is whether or not your guild will accept every person who requests membership. One way some guilds decide on whether a potential member will be a good fit is through a website-based application.

There is no one, set “universal” application that can be used for all guilds; a good application for one guild may not be ideal for another guild. In this article, I will try to explain some of the different types of applications, and try to explain the purpose behind each application type.

Social Guild Applications. Social guilds generally look for “quality” over “quantity”; in other words, a social guild might not be overly-impressed by your uber gear or your raid experience. They would rather learn about you outside the game (your likes and dislikes), what you like to do (aside from raid) when in-game (like, “I like to explore, and so far my favorite area of the game is Nagrand”). Many social guilds try to maintain a family-friendly atmosphere, and often have special events within the game. These types of guilds are eager to know that you are able to adhere to that family-friendly atmosphere and that you’re interested in the types of special events that they are often known to host or take part in.

These applications tend to be less “question-oriented” and more open. They will often have only a few questions that are open for interpretation where the applicant is allowed free-reign to answer as they see fit. This serves to give the guild a good feel for the applicant’s personality, how well they can express themselves and speak about themselves, and might serve to give the guild an idea as to whether or not the applicant will be a good fit socially within the guild.

Raid Guild Applications. Raid guilds generally look for a player’s experience with game content, character equipment and a player’s availability for raid scheduling. Raid guilds may state on their application a minimum equipment requirement and/or minimum instance experience requirement before a prospective member can even fill out an application to join. These applications are often more focused and have a series of short-answer questions in order to reveal the prospective member’s ability to work within a team setting, week-to-week schedule availability, personal game goals, and prior experience in a raid setting. Some raid guild applications may require links to the applicant’s Armory page, an in-game interview, a “test run”, or even a referral from a prior guild leader.

The “Somewhere In Between” Application. Some guilds may find that they are not completely socially-oriented, but they also don’t consider themselves raid guilds, either. They consider themselves social organizations that happen to raid, thus falling somewhere between the “Raid Guild” designation and the “Social Guild” designation. Applications to these guilds also often fall in between the two previous application types. They may ask a few focused questions designed to gauge raid-worthiness, but at the same time ask the sort of open-ended questions designed to gauge whether or not the applicant will be a good fit within the guild socially. These “hybrid” guilds survive on the camaraderie of their members, often sacrificing speed of progression for the sheer enjoyment of progressing with their fellow guild mates.

For many players, applying to a guild is a big decision. They are choosing a group of people to spend all of their in-game time with, and many players research to find what they think will be the “perfect match”. A guild administrator (and his or her officers) is just as obligated to make an open, honest decision on applications submitted to their guild, insuring that the guild gets a new member that will be a good fit within the guild, and insuring that the prospective member can find a guild home where they can make the most of their gaming experience.

Make sure to enter our contest to win a Tabard of Frost by telling us what you think is the most fashionable outfit in WoW, and why!

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This week’s episode sponsored by Mike aka Aleihs in the Epic Dolls guild. Thanks!

Check out out exclusively at our guild forums.

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This episode sponsored by Murderface of the Shattered Sun, Queen of the Ogres.

Song of the Show: Wolftron - Sugar Skulls

Edit to info: Right after we finished recording SK Gaming got the world first Kil’jaeden kill. Grats to them!

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This week’s show is sponsored by Breana at http://gunlovingdwarfchick.com/. Check out her blog for lots of good hunter info. Thanks Breana!!

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Question of the show: How many podcasters does it take to figure out a time zone?

Check out our first episode for the month of May HERE on our forums. Enjoy!

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Song of the Show: Sir, Your Fashion Has The Heart of a Killer by the The Beautiful Girls

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At first thought, I’m going to have to come down heavily on the fence on this. Since I was not max level in the days of the AQ event, I appreciated that I could still contribute to the server’s progress via the gathering quests. I’d make the rounds in Ironforge daily, hoping to get a couple more turnins of whatever it was that I was gathering before that requested item was fully stocked, so I could earn some rep with the big factions. Now since I was not 60 nor was I in a raiding guild at the time, I didn’t contribute materially to the final stages in which the Sceptre of the Sands was gathered - that part of it was beyond me. With the content opened via the server war effort being only for raiders, it was of no benefit to me personally, but I was still happy to have helped, and I did get rewarded with some rep. To this day, I have yet to step inside one of the AQ raiding zones.

Now as far as the reclamation of the Isle of Quel’Danas goes, if you aren’t already level 70, you need not apply. For one, many of the dailies require a flying mount. And pre-70, you probably wouldn’t want to anyway, it’s bothersome enough on some days for my mostly S3 geared self to make it through the quests without taking a couple of involuntary trips to the local graveyard, courtesy of the opposing factions’ gank squad…anyone below level 70 would be cannon fodder for these kinds of people who prey on their fellow players. Now if you *are* level 70, these quests can be quite a lot of fun, not to mention profitable. I do rather wish they’d included a few dailies for the non-70 set so that those who wanted to could also make their small mark, but as with AQ, the content being opened is for people at max level, so perhaps it is right and fitting to make the effort required to see it rest squarely on the shoulders of those who will utilize it.

Ok, at second glance, it seems that I am not as on the fence as I first thought. Overall, I do like the Quel’Danas style event more. Because I can fully participate. Because even if one side totally boycotted the events, the other side could still forge on and eventually go to the next stage, unlike AQ, where progress got held up indefinately on some servers because one of the factions refused to gather. Because I get occasional free BoJ’s. Because there are non agressive murlocs available for wreaking long overdue revenge. Because I want my coffers well stocked before WoTLK comes out - no telling *what* the cost of things will be, and if BC has been any indication, my instintcs tell me: Expensive. But mostly…because more bombing quests is always a good thing!

I wanted to write a quick note and let everyone who has enjoyed the “Dear Calli” column in the past couple of months know that this week, I will be taking a week off. The real-life person behind Callistana recently got a job (after nearly four years of being a stay-at-home mom), and I’m treating this week as an “adjustment period”.

Have no fear, however. I will return next Wednesday with a new “Dear Calli” column or a “Social Side” column. Thank you for your continued support, and thank you for giving me a week to adjust to this new role in my real life.

Take care, everyone!

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Song of the Show: Window Bird by Stars

I am a female player who really enjoys raiding. I am also an under-officer in a large non-raiding guild. As you know, this game is dominated by guys. I’m finding it hard to maintain my “serious raider” and “officer” role with my “fun, friendly, chipper guildie” role. I find that I get unwanted comments that are of a flirtatious nature and I don’t know how to “combat” them without losing something in the process. Any advice?

Signed,
An Officer and a Lady

Dear “Officer and a Lady”,

I have seen your problem before, and it’s a painful one. How do you balance a friendly, caring attitude toward your guild-mates while appearing as an assertive, competent woman? It can be maddening at times, and I’ve been there. I hope some of my advice can help you out a little.

First, try and be a compassionate leader when dealing with the guild-at-large. Show that you do care about what is going on with them, and that you are there to help them with their problems as they relate to the guild and the game. This will establish you as a caring leader. By the same token, however, make sure that you are fair and firm in your enforcement of guild policy, and make sure that you keep up-to-date on all of your guild’s policies and procedures. This will establish your reputation among your guild mates as someone to be respected, and as an authority within the guild. To recap, your “guild reputation” is now one of concern for your guild mates, but a firm and fair authoritarian among your fellow officers.

Secondly, there will be times when you have to deal with guild members on a one-on-one basis. This is your chance to reinforce the reputation you’ve established with the guild as a whole. Think of it like this; you have established yourself in a certain manner, and this guild member is coming to you because you have a reputation as being gentle, yet knowledgeable and fair. Treat the one-on-one interaction in the same fashion. Listen to the guild member’s problem, weigh the issue, and give your thought-out answer. If you don’t have the answer, be informed about who does have the answer, and try to point them in the right direction. Don’t be afraid to delegate or hand off a problem to your fellow officers; that, too, shows a level of confidence and assertiveness. You have the confidence to hand off the problem to someone who understands it better than you do, or has more information than you do, and you don’t feel any “less” about yourself because you had to do it. Basically, you’ve got to have the self-confidence to admit when and where your knowledge fails you.

So, now that you’ve asserted your authority to the guild as a whole and to a single guild-mate, what happens when the “unwanted comments” and the “flirtatious comments” that are unwanted happens to come along? Fall back on your assertiveness that you’ve developed in other, more mundane situations. Treat it as a problem from another guild mate. What would you tell a fellow female guild mate who came to you with this sort of problem? How would you handle the “offending guild member”? Treat this situation, where you are the offended guild member, in the same fashion. Don’t allow the fact that this member is saying these things to you color your reaction to the situation. Retain your caring, fair and firm attitude (even though it may be hard to do). Your reputation will only grow by handling the situation in this manner.

As far as maintaining all of these in a raiding situation, well, I don’t have much advice for you there (as I haven’t raided much). All I can suggest is that you maintain the attitude that you’ve developed in your role as a guild officer, and that you assert yourself as a viable member of the raid; try and keep them from thinking of you as “that girl” and get them to think of you as “our healer” or “our tank”. Be knowledgeable about your role, strategies, raid rules, and all aspects that affect the success of the raid. Make yourself an asset because of your abilities rather than their assumed liability because you’re a girl.

I hope this answer has helped, Officer and a Lady. This is how I’ve dealt with these issues in the past, and I’ve had (if I can say so) quite a bit of success. To some extent, you have to sort of set aside your sexuality and gender in order to become the reliable, informed officer your guild may need to help lead its members. Don’t sacrifice yourself on behalf of the guild, but rather make it a non-issue. However, don’t be confrontational about it, either. Your success is completely dependent on your how well you can manage your emotions and reactions, how you present yourself, and the image you put forth. Here’s hoping that you find success as well!

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Song of the Show: Shut Your Eyes by Noise Project

When I joined the Doll’s guild, one of the questions put to me was why I waited so long to join, since I was a long time listener. My reply was that I had been focusing on “my Main” on another server….This leads to my question.

How does an admitted Alt-aholic maintain good relations with multiple guilds across multiple servers? My main is a 70 with responsibilities, and I have other Alliance alts in that guild as well, but I want to keep a good relationship Perenolde/Horde side with the Dolls. Personally I am a member of only two guilds, the Epic Dolls/Horde and Clan of Tara/Alliance, but I have heard of people who are members of several guilds…I don’t know how they can do it. Thanks *Faith, Trust, and Arcane Dust* Velanna

Hi Velanna!

To answer your question, since I’ve never spent time on any server other than Perenolde, I solicited the advice of another member of the Sleeper Cartel, Marwyn. For over a year she split her time between the Sleeper Cartel on Perenolde and the Bloodhoof Server. Her answer to your question is:

“I suppose the question to ask is if you are having fun on both servers. Is it enhancing your game play and letting you experience what you want? Or are you feeling stretched or like you are having to make hard choices between the two and do those choices conflict in such a way as to cause problems?

There are some people who have no trouble at all leading a dual server life. They have a large circle of friends on both and can keep up with demands of both guilds. They pop in and out of guild chat and don’t seem the worse for wear. They share their accomplishments and ideas between the guilds. They thrive on the excitement and the challenge of it all. And then there are other people who prefer a slower pace and smaller circle of friends so the demands of keeping up with two guilds, two schedules, is overwhelming and ends up taking too big a toll.

I’m one of the later. Dual server life was not something I could maintain and keep my sanity. As a working adult with two children, a husband and a household to maintain, my play time is limited. I led a dual server life for just over a year. I have enough stress in my life so I didn’t want to complicate my game life with the demands of keeping up with two guilds. I was an officer and class leader in a large guild on server A, and just had an alt in a casual guild on server B. I eventually had to make a choice and I chose to leave server A where I had been for two years, and move my main to server B, where I was enjoying the game more. And I don’t regret my decision one bit. I made the right choice and I love it.

Not everyone will have to make that decision. Having the experience of two guilds can be a benefit since you can see different sides of things, especially if one guild is progressing further along in the game than the other one. It can give you an outlet to relax in one place where you can’t do that so much on the other. It can give you a place to hide out and recharge your batteries, so to speak. Only you can decide if you are enjoying the game more because you are maintaining relationships with two different guilds. You have to weigh the pros and cons of both and see where it leaves you.”

Special thanks to my “Dear Calli” guest speaker for this week’s column, Marwyn. I think she’s answered Velanna’s question much better than I could have. Since I strive to give the best possible information in response to the questions that are asked, I turned to her because I have no experience at all with dual-server or dual-guild life. I hope Marwyn’s answer to your question, Velanna, is what you were looking for!

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It came to pass Tuesday that the much anticipated content patch dropped on the live servers, and there was much rejoicing. I had mixed feelings about it myself, because as a raider with only just enough time to raid and not so much time to do heroics and badge runs, I logged in yesterday with only 57 of the 250 badges I need in order to purchase the two new items I want most, namely the Staff of the Forest Lord (Never gonna get 1850 rating in Arenas *sniff*) and the Embrace of Everlasting Prowess (because Mags hates me and we haven’t killed TK Kael yet).

So while I was a touch disappointed that I didn’t have another week or two in which to struggle and scrape together a few more badges…Come on, 2.4 dropped, how can I not be excited?!? Oh sure, I know due our lovely hostesses that I can’t get my gem recipes until the right section of the island is cleared, but I can be working on ingratiating myself to the Shattered Sun in the meantime!

I’d already gotten a PM from one of the guild’s resto druids wanting to know if I’d like to go explore, and had responded with an enthusiastic “Yes!” We determined that we, along with 95% of the other 70’s on the server, were going to go to Quel’Danas. I have to say, that was an interesting flight. Apparently the griffon I took out of Ironforge flew so high and fast that poor Briara blacked out, cause in literally no time, she was arriving at the Staging Area. And having wisely picked up the two quests from Shattrath, there were people waiting to be talked to. I could see the ?’s marked on the map, but was having a problem pushing my way through the seething masses of fellow adventure seekers to get to them.

Sunwell Isle is not big. My server is low pop. My server is PvP. It was still wall to wall people. It was bloody chaos - literally. Our team assembled, avoided venturing past the guards because to do so was inviting death by PvP. We charged up the path to the Magister’s Terrace instance and were greeted by a wall of Horde being putzes. They were attacking Allied players trying to get into the instance - we lost our healer and she had to rez run in. Come on people, this is the first new content we have had in a long time, can we all get along for a few days until people have had a chance to see it? Thanks!

Once safely (hah!) in the instance, we looked around. Kael’Thas was maintaining his penchant for vanity and the boudoir look, as evidenced by the abundant statues of himself melded with brothel decor. He also brought along his insanely hard trash pulls. Caster heavy groups, a CC nightmare for our hunter heavy group. We soldiered bravely on (to the tune of an eventual 40G repair bill for myself at least) and pushed through the building, out onto the terrace - where we were treated to a marvelous vision of what was going on in the castle across the way - and then into the depths of the zone to face a much grimmer and less hale looking Kael’Thas. Unlike his incarnation in Tempest Keep, he was actually much easier than the boss and the caster groups right before him. So I can now say in all truthfullness…I’ve finally downed Kael’Thas! Defeating him the first time allows completion of a quest that gives you a choice of epic gems and unlocks the heroic mode of the instance. Our team killed everything that moved and gained about 2000 rep with the Shattered Sun.

Afterwards, we stayed together to do the quests and dailies offered by the denizens of the island, and then warped through a portal in search of The Missing Magistrix, which brought us to Hellfire Plateau right by Doom Lord Kazzak’s hangout. He wasn’t home, so we merrily ran about doing tasks for the Magistrix. Some of our group drifted off at that point, so I, having purchased the recipe for Brilliant Glass, decided to go try it out. I had to go to Ironforge to pick up my green gems, and my very first forging netted me a Living Ruby. I happily chop-chopped it and put it up on the AH. Yay, that should cover repairs for the night *grin* I then remembered the other daily I REALLY wanted to try…the fishing one. I was now stuck in Ironforge with my hearth down, so I took the tram to Stormwind with the intent of using the Poor Man’s Portal. And there my night ended, for when I zoned, I was disconnected and attempts to log back in resulted in immediate disconnects. Hubby was still logged in, and if General chat in Shattrath was an indication, I was by no means alone in my plight.

It was already quite late, so it’s probably just as well. I might still be out there, feverishly doing daily quests for the Shattered Sun!

In a future blog, do you have suggestions or information on how to organize a guild bank or how can we organize it better? Our bank at ER is mess. What sorts of things should be in it? Do we put tradeskill items other members can use for their trades?

Thank you in advance.

Stardancer
“Off the Beaten Path” Audio Segments for Epic Dolls
70 Druidof Earthenring (Alliance) “the House of Stormrage” 25+ Paladinof Perenolde (Horde) “Epic Dolls”

Hi Stardancer!

Thanks for your question about guild banks. I’ve got a little bit of advice about guild banks, and hopefully it will be useful to you. The answer to your question is not an easy one, however; one answer cannot be applied universally across the board for all guilds.

If you are a small guild (less than, say, 50 accounts), and consider yourself a “social” or “leveling” guild, I think the most prudent way to set up the guild vault is to have no more than three tabs, arranged in the following manner: General Tab, Material & Pattern Tab, Quest and Services Tab. In your General Tab, provide a place for guild members to deposit and withdraw equipment such as armor and weapons and class-specific books. In the Materials & Pattern Tab, allow members to deposit and withdraw items that are used in any of the tradeskills; things like tailoring patterns and material, enchants and enchanting mats, schematics – all things tradeskill-related. In the third tab, the Quest and Services Tab, allow members to deposit and withdraw non-soulbound items related to collection quests, potions, bandages, and other things that help in the leveling process.

For a larger guild (50-150 accounts), I suggest that you utilize the above-three tabs as outlined for a small guild. However, rather than combining Patterns and Materials into one tab, break them into two separate tabs so that you have a “Materials” tab and a “Patterns” tab.

For a larger guild that is raid-focused, I suggest that you set up a “Raid” tab in which you store potions, flasks and other items that are needed on a regular basis for a regular-occurring raid group (or two, or three). Make sure that all members of the raid team are made aware of the tab; you may also choose to make deposits into the tab a requirement for withdrawals from the tab. Remember, though, I am not a member of a “raid guild” nor am I a raider, so my knowledge about bank etiquette within a raid guild is limited.

Also, for larger guilds, you may wish to assign the job of “Bank Administrator” to a trusted guild officer. The Bank Administrator is responsible for keeping tabs on deposits, withdrawals, and for keeping the bank vault sorted, stacked and free of “junk” (white items that can be bought from vendors or gray “vendor trash” items).

As for the monetary management of the guild vault, that is completely up to each individual guild. Depending upon the direction of the guild and the agreement of its members, funds may be saved for a special occasion or freely distributed to its members daily.

This answer to Stardancer’s question about guild banks may be brief, but believe me, I could have written pages and pages on how to properly run a guild bank. With that being said, I chose the “brief route” because different guilds are managed extremely differently. If my answer above doesn’t fit a specific problem you might be having with your guild bank, write me at epicdolls@yahoo.com and I’ll give your problem a look.

Thanks for your question!

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Song of the show: Say by Girl in a Coma

The warrior had 309 defense. No wonder! They struggled on a bit more after getting the lock replaced, and then the warrior had to go…so they started looking for another tank. I’m sure you know how this goes…they were waiting for a while. Hubby was actually a bit relieved, and hoped for a properly geared tank. They finally got a new warrior, and hubby inspected him as soon as he zoned in. This alleged tank had….(insert drum roll here)…29 defense. But he was wearing a lot of PvP epics, so hubby asked (with a sinking heart, to be sure, but ever the optimist) if that was his DPS gear or his tank gear. Warrior basically said “Lol yeah, the easy epics are my tank gear.” He was a guildmate of two of the other PuGs, who basically were like “Oh, he’ll be fine! He has epics!” Hubby wisely dropped the group at that point, letting them know that it wasn’t worth his time or theirs to be running with a tank with basically 0 defense.

We may remember back from the bear tank guide that a druid needs 415 defense to be uncrittable. A warrior or paladin tank needs 490. I realize there is a gearing up period once you hit 70, but I’ll be frank here…if you are a tank, you are making life hard for yourself and especially your healer if you are not uncrittable. Gear up in normal instances before tanking heroics. PvP epics are a Elune-sent gift for DPS classes and healers, but as a tank myself, I can tell you that they are not a substitute for PvE gear for us. Why is defense and being uncrittable so important? Well for one, your healers can actually heal you better. If you need more reasons than that, respec DPS

Here’s where the theorycraft comes in. Lore from Maintankadin graciously gave me permission to attempt to redux the wonderfully detailed Attack Table post - you can find the full article here.

An even con NPC has a 5% chance of either missing you totally or hitting you with a critical strike (aka, lots of extra damage) and when we are speaking of a raid boss, which is usually level 73+, they have an increased chance of a critical strike and gain an additional type of attack, the crushing blow (aka, lots of extra damage). Tank warriors, paladins and druids can negate all but the slimmest chance of a critical strike through defense. Additionally warrior and paladin tanks have abilities that will allow them to get rid of crushing blows (at least for short periods of time) via talents and sufficiently high numbers in the defensive skills (dodge, parry, block). So how do my numbers make a difference?

In order to calculate what kind of a hit (or miss) you take…and if it was a crit…and if it was crushing…Blizzard made it a simple calculation, probably to keep their number crunching servers from turning into smoking charred heaps with all that combat going on in all the worlds. There is this thing called the Attack Table, and it consists of the numbers 0-100 to the second decimal (aka, 0.00-100). Against a normal level 70 creature, the table is partitioned up into the various kinds of outcomes for each attack. Today we are a prot paladin, and for simplicity’s sake, we have 10% dodge, parry, and block - but we are a newbie with 0% defense. So our attack table looks like this:

Miss: 0-5 (5% chance of missing)
Dodge: 5.01-15 (10% dodge rating)
Parry: 15.01-25 (10% parry rating)
Block: 25.01-35 (10% block rating)
Crit: 35.01-40 (because I am naughty and have no defense)
Normal Hit: 40.01-100

The number crunching machines do a /roll 1-100 and see where it lands on the table to decide what kind of damage I took. If they get a 1.05…the creature misses…a 17.96…I parry….a 38.25…I get critted….a 72…I take normal white damage.

I hope you are starting to see why your defensive abilities are important. As your dodge, parry, and block percentages increase, they take up more of the attack table. And if you have talented properly and have the proper defense, the possibility of being critted is reduced to irrelevance. But it’s even better than that…every point of defense increases your dodge, parry and block minutely, and also gives a minuscule increase to your chance of being missed completely. (Also note, this is why resilience is not a good substitute for defense to a tank, it merely reduces the crit chance but does not affect anything else) In our simplistic example, merely getting to the defense cap means that the the Miss range would now be ~0.01-10.0 and the “Normal Hit” range would now be from 40.01-100, the critical strike option having succumbed to better gear. Your other defensive abilities also improve a bit, but we’ll just keep it to whole numbers for our sample. Now if I up my Dodge, Parry and Block to say…15% each *and* maintain my proper defense number, the “Normal Hit” range is now 55.01-100. As you raise your defensive ability percentages, the corresponding range for the “Normal Hit” outcomes shrinks, because it’s the default, taking up whatever part of the 0-100 is left over after all other abilities apply.

For raid boss NPCs of 73+, the Crushing Blow gets added to the table with a 15% flat rate of occurring. I’ve geared up my paladin now, so I’m at 490 defense and 20% to dodge, parry and block for this example.

Miss: 0.01-10
Dodge: 10.01-30
Parry: 30.01-50
Block: 50.01-70
Crit: 0%, not relevant here
Crush: 70.01-85
Normal Hit: 85.01-100

Notice how our chance of a normal hit has shrunk with the addition of the Crushing Blow. Now here’s the fun part, with sufficiently high avoidance and adroit use of skills (Holy Shield for our Prot Paladin here) you can temporarily increase your positive modifiers enough to drop the Crushing Blow and Normal Hit off the table. The magic number to achieve this zen state is for all your avoidance percentages to add up to 102.4 with all your talents and trinkets popped. But a sad note for all of us tanking druids, since our Dodge is our only avoidance and we don’t have any magical abilities to up it even temporarily (other than trinkets), we will always be crushable.

So I hope this has given you a little insight into why your tanks need these defensive stats, and I also hope I haven’t made your brain go asplodey! And a word to the wise: Run don’t walk for the hills if your tank has only 29 defense!

How can I get my guild mates to be more active on our web site? I’ve put a lot of work into it and added social features, such as a blog, articles, and a forum, but I’m still the only person using the site. I’ve ask from time to time if they go on the site. Some do, some don’t, but none of them contributes. Thanks.

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Mar