Before we get into Amber’s clique, I need to explain a bit where my mind was at at the time.

After having my leadership doubted and receiving very little support, I pulled the guild together and did well simply by keeping my head down and working day and night. Though others might disparage me and the guild, I ignored them and focused on what the team needed. At the same time, in the US, the 2016 presidential campaign was in full swing, and I obsessively followed, and strongly related to, the situation. In that election, I saw two very different types of people: one who was focused on what she believed the country needed, on hard work and perseverance, and on ‘going high when others go low’; the other was focused on his own image and feelings, would bluster and not bother to understand policy details, and spent much of his time going low by attacking people right and left.

I did not relate so strongly because of any policy agreements with liberals or conservatives, but because of what the two very different personalities came to represent to me: one, having the traits I aspired to; the other, having the traits displayed by those who caused us trouble. I was trying my best to embody leadership qualities such as going high when others go low, staying positive, pushing forward for the good of those I lead, and always acting for the good of the guild instead of for my own gratification. Those who were sabotaging my guild by making snarky or demeaning comments about us were the antithesis of that: willing to go on the attack and denigrate others without ever trying to help or understand us, all in order to feel good about themselves. I cannot count the number of times I felt unreasonably attacked or belittled, then told myself not to stoop to their level and join the mudslinging or the undermining, to instead rise above that and just focus on what was good for Syzygy. At the time, I took comfort in the example set by the presidential candidate who responded to mud-slinging by ignoring it and focusing on policy and what the US needed. No matter what sorts of undermining or demeaning behavior I saw in others in the guild, I never responded in kind. With what I saw in the presidential campaign, I, at the time, felt supported in my continued decision to behave maturely, positively, and always with the guild’s best interests at heart. I thought people would see the difference between my and the mudslingers’ behaviors and come to see that I was worth supporting. This difference would play out in a stark manner this week, during the beginning of the implosion of Amber’s clique.

Now, it’s time to talk a bit in-depth about parts of Amber’s clique. Continue reading →

Though I had considered skipping heroic farm to push harder on mythic bosses, our failure on Ursoc the week before (on 10/03) showed me we needed gear too badly. Without having done splits we were behind. However, frenzied recruitment had landed us with 30+ good people, so my strategy was to go into heroic our first raid day (10/04) with 30 people, and funnel gear into the 20 I planned to bring in for Ursoc. Not too long before our raid, Abc texted Amber about a personal emergency that would keep him away from the game for a week. Looking back I feel very lucky this happened when it did. The failure on Ursoc the last day of week 1 could very easily have been magnified and used to lower morale. But thankfully, Abc was not there to make everyone feel bad. Not that guild drama and problems did not occur, but none of it carried the same weight drama from Amber’s clique did, and it was a great week. Continue reading →

The first day of week 1, when mythic opened for Emerald Nightmare, we went into heroic instead, to farm the bosses and get more gear. That first day, we killed all the farm bosses, which was pretty decent. We wiped 2 times on one boss, 1 time on two bosses, and all the other bosses we one shot. We now had 22 raiders, despite losing a couple of strong players the week before, and all our raiders could learn from their mistakes quickly. Most of the players we had were doing strong numbers, and we only had a handful left, if that, who did weaker numbers. We also now had new raid officers, and everything was just looking up in general. It was a welcome relief from the stress of the week before, and I was finally being able to eat and sleep again. This did not mean I actually had much time to rest though: after raid, I spent a few hours studying how top guilds did mythic that first day, and thinking through what strategies our guild could use. I then wrote down guides for a couple bosses, and asked Amber to make an announcement for guildies to read them.

The illusion of the straight sailing ended after these few hours of study. Apparently the smoothness of the raid did not mean the complaints and criticisms, particularly from Amber’s clique, would stop. Continue reading →

In the first week, there was quite a difference in the performance between people. The first day there were a few people who were very obviously slow learners, who would simply not react to things quickly. By the second or third day we had already been able to replace them, and by the fourth and last raid day, we we were able to ensure that everyone in the group was a decently fast learner. However, performance in WoW isn’t just based on whether or not one can learn to react to raid mechanics quickly, it is often also based on numbers. Each spell you cast will do a certain amount of healing, damage, or defense. The defense is rarely tracked (so it is not easy to measure how well a tank performs), but healing and damage are usually tracked by every single raider. Each spell you cast can take a certain amount of time and do a certain number of damage or healing. The damage takes away boss health, while healing increases the health of the raiders. Each of these things have numerical values, so there is always competition between dps, or between healers.

Continue reading →

I was really nervous before our first raid day. As I had mentioned in my Doubt and Fears post, most of the strategies I had used in the past came from ones developed by other guilds who had already done the fights. This felt like the first time I had to raid lead a group while myself being completely unfamiliar with the fights (I had done it with the first boss of HFC, but that was 4 hours of wiping the first night, then 4 hours of study after it, before I could come back and make it easy. There is no way in hell my guild would have allowed us to go through that, as will be shown by the aftermath of this first raid night). To help myself prepare for it more, since we were starting on heroic difficulty, I stayed up the whole night before raid (I live in Asia, so Syzygy raids happen during my mornings, but the raid itself opens up maybe 10 hours earlier, during my nighttime), and PUGged the new raid, Emerald Nightmare, on normal difficulty. Just so I had a basic understanding of the bosses and mechanics.

After much PUGging, morning came, and our first raid as Syzygy started. Continue reading →