Hmmm. I have to join in and disagree. I really like the idea behind these guides though. And maybe I've just so rarely had such a bad FL PUG that I'm just not the target audience.

The strat has changed a lot...particularly with gear scaling on the vehicles. I just can't help but argue that the most efficient way to get this guy dead is to keep all your Demolishers stacking Pyrite to 10, your Demo gunners picking it up constantly, and Siege gunners shooting more down. It's indecently quick and easy. And the beauty of this strat is that 2-5 solid people can easily carry it (on ten man).

I'm convinced you can do this with a PuG. But the key here is assigning the roles. In almost every group I've been in the tanks like driving the Demos. Why? It's hands down the most critical role - make sure someone experienced gets it. Next make sure they have good gunners to get more Pyrite. I've seriously been in groups where a pair of people in these two roles were what killed the boss. I can't stress how important it is to get two competent people doing this. Better yet - two pairs. Next, get a good guy to to the Siege driver interrupts. And even newer players should be able to shoot Pyrite as a Siege gunner or drop oil as a Cyclist. After that, give geared players driver roles and undergeared players gunning roles to max the scaling bonus.

I'd just never do a PuG where I couldn't count on at least a few people.

Also it's important to note that as a Demo driver, the speed burst takes up 50% of your energy. There's no harm at all stacking Pyrite until then. Also, I'd note that if I couldn't trust my gunner to pick up Pyrite, how could I trust them to pop the Save Me cooldwon? I'd rather just zerg it dead.

I'm not sure that's exactly how you came off...

I've personally found that after dealing with a bad situation, sometimes we start stat thinking about preventing bad things from happening again, instead of taking a more balanced view or encouraging more positive interaction. For instance, you can write a post about "preventing negative cliques and drama in vent" or a post about "how to create a fun, social vent that encourages teamwork" - both of which are valid topics, but with very different emphasis. I know I've found myself doing that more than once.

Yeah, "that guy" was a problem. It wasn't everyone though, it was mostly a personal issue with me. I did ask the GM to moderate some of our issues, and after that he didn't say anything publicly negative about me. (He had been fairly abrasive in raids to me over loot and a variety of things, which was making me miserable and tense.) Sure, that didn't "fix" it and make everything happy go lucky, but it was what I wanted and requested as a solution. He could dislike me all he wanted, and say what he wanted to his friends, but I didn't want to be confronted with it constantly, particularly during raids. It wasn't ideal of course, but he was a key member who showed up on three or four alts for every single raid to fill vital spots - in fact leveled characters to fill them. I respected that a lot, even if I didn't like him. He did eventually fade out and leave the guild though....thankfully.

I agree that it's a *very* unspoken point. Many GMs really don't understand how they set up channels and permissions has a huge impact on how people socialize (or not). I wish people thought about it more.

Also, I really hate making an "I disagree with you post" the first time I comment on someone's blog for fear I'll come off wrong or someone will take it wrong. Thanks for listening and thinking about it. I really love debate and conversation.
My recent post Encounters- 25H Lord Marrowgar

I understand that your experiences have led you to the conclusions you reached, but I'm not sure I agree with all of them. I've had some very different experiences, so if you don't mind me playing Devil's advocate for a minute...

- Binds. Yup, these can be used for snarky nasty reasons, but there are good reasons to use them as well. In one guild I had a set of binds with my Power Infusion target, so he could call out the best moment in his rotation to apply it, and I could confirm it was applied. There was no reason we should have clogged up vent with that information, and binds were the most efficient way to maximize that buff. I've also used them when I was new to a guild and being mentored as to my role and that guild's strategy in a particular fight - again no one else needed to hear that and it let us get strategy out of the way quietly while pulling trash to keep the raid moving forwards.

- Encouraging cliques versus encouraging socialization. In a social guild I like to spend at least some time daily hanging out in an open vent channel. The casual conversation can be fun. But what happens when that one guy who just rubs me the wrong way drops in? Or a couple people want to talk forever about Starcraft 2? Or a new healer wants to pick my brain about gearing and it would interrupt the flow of everyone else's conversation? Or maybe (and this is so true for me and a lot of more reclusive geeky people) it's just not relaxing to spend long periods of time in a big group of people. Sure, I could be completely antisocial and drop out of vent completely...but I could also spend my three hours farming/auctioning talking to a friend or two. None of those sound divisive to me, in fact they are building a better team by avoiding unneeded tension and drama, getting to know people you raid with in another context, helping another player, and being social with other team members in a way that doesn't drain me and burn me out respectively.

Oh, I totally see where these things can go wrong. And I'm the first person to admit that how you arrange your vent determines how people use it. And every guild is different. I think tons of passworded channels can be divisive as well - even an officer's channel probably just needs to be noted as such for your guild to respect that. Phantoms are a terrible thing, as they can cause a lot of drama with eavesdropping. So we agree on quite a bit. I just think you have to consider the ways you are limiting the possibilities of cliques and drama and balance it against the legitimate socialization options you are taking away.

Anyways, interesting post.

P.S. I really like your commenting system...*cough* except that the post below that was autolinked is definitely not mine. Not really sure how that happened... I am not correcting it on edit so you can see what happened.
My recent post Why you feel guilty afterwards

/cheer

My advice, for what it is worth, is to take a another week or two (or whatever you need) to get the rest of the bosses fairly reasonably down if not truly on farm. Repeating your successes now can reinforce what's working for you, and keep that momentum going. If you wait a few weeks? Longer? ...working on the Lich King before revisiting them, you might easily find yourself taking steps back.

I'd wait until you're standing at the Lich King's feet to really consider extending your lock. A nice way to do this is to extend the lock and put some effort into him early in the week, and take your last raid night in the week to cancel the extension (for all but one player who can hold the lock) and farm up goodies for everyone else. Rinse and repeat. It's a good compromise between the "Lets kill the LK" and "Lets get gear from the final wings" parties.

Congrats!

Thank you for the love!

(And FYI, I posted this from Firefox)

I adore London, and have spent a bit of time exploring it. Feel free to email me for specific recommendations as you plan your trip. There are also several countries in Europe *very* easy to get around in for English speakers. The Netherlands and Scandinavia are great examples of places you can talk to just about *anyone* in English, order food in English etc. Everyone there is conversationally fluent and happy to speak it.

Also, I highly recommend a couple days in Bath. It's a beautiful town with quite a bit of history. And, of course, quite a bit of connection to Jane Austen. The Museum of Costume there is beyond compare.