I'm back!

A Personal Note
Hey everyone, I want to start out this post with a few apologies, the first is for the length of this post, this post is going to be long and contain a lot of very important information, please read it in it's entirety. As you all know myself and my wife hit a busy patch when school started up, I started working 50-60 hour work weeks on what basically was an intern position that I needed to finish up my 2 year degree, I also started on my 4 year degree online, so I had very little free time. I want to apologize to the guild as I feel I dropped the ball in a way, not because I got busy and could not play, but I failed at having a logical command structure in place in case such an event happened. While I cannot say for certainty that I will never have to take an extended leave again, I can say that I will do my best to ensure that if I ever do fall off the face of the planet again, the guild will be able to function more or less as intended. I feel that the majority of the problems that arose when I got busy was that I was overly ambitious with my leading of the guild. For a long time I led every raid and dealt with almost all problems on my own. WoW ended up taking up many many hours of my day and for awhile that was okay. However, that pace could not continue on forever. I made a few half-hearted attempts at delegating more raid leaders and more control with mixed results. In the middle of sitting down to seriously consider new options for officers and raid leaders I had to take my leave. While I was gone a few of you stepped up and basically completed my job for me. So, I'd like to thank both Kastle (Karl) and GryphonRose (Liz), for taking on some of that burden. This also leads me into my next apology. I feel that I owe an apology, and a public one at that, to Whippet (Andy). I felt that as I was gone enough of you in the guild had my phone number or alternate ways of contacting me that you wouldn't assume I was dead. Obviously I did not take into account that the majority of you did not and that new players entering the guild would be unsure of the state the guild was in when they saw the GM only logged in every 2-3 weeks and for 5-10 minutes at a time. Andy, the only active officer, without much warning had to assume the roles that I once filled. He also had to continually reassure everyone that I had not quit the game and eventually I'd be returning. So, to Andy, I'm sorry that I put that much responsibility on you with very little notice and I thank you for handling it with such grace. Whippet has now obtained the rank of Warlord in the guild, for all intents and purposes he is a co-GM. I also owe a huge thank you to Ressengan, I hear from several people that he really got the raids going again.

State of the Guild
Though I've only been back a few days I can see the guild is doing very well thanks to the efforts of all of you! The 10-man raids are progressing well through ToC and the guild is getting quite geared (leaving myself and my wife in the dust). I want to thank all of the members that have stuck with the guild while I was gone, you guys are what makes this guild what it is. To the new members, thanks for joining up and I'm excited about getting to meet you all.

State of Raids
This is the section that I'm sure everyone will be the most interested in. The state of the raids. Currently, we have two ten mans going, both have now cleared 10-man ToC. I do not wish to interrupt the way these are going, I feel that this is the best way to continue on with Icecrown. This guild has historically had better success in the 10s versus the 25s, this is due to lack of consistent raiders showing up for the 25 and obviously the difference in administrative burden between managing 10 people over 25. I feel that all progression, for the time being, should happen in the 10s. This is not to say that we will not do 25-man raids. The two tens will continue on, with the addition of a 25-man raid, led by your fearless leader, me. This is where I need some feedback from the guild as a whole. I need to know what days you feel you could devote to a 25. Currently I'm looking at a Saturday or Sunday launch point, but as always, I'm very flexible. As for my involvement in the 10s, expect to see switching which I run with from time to time. I want to make sure they are both being run consistently and smoothly. I will not be leading them, but I will make sure they are being ran in the best interest of the guild.

State of Raiding Members
This section is to briefly discuss what I'm going to start looking for in raiders. We are a casual raiding guild and I have no plans on changing that. That said, we are going to start looking for our members to be able to display a certain level of skill in the difficult raids. I'm not going to start telling certain people they can't raid with us, that has never been a way I've felt guilds should be ran. However, I am going to start requiring people to take constructive criticism, to go READ about your class, to ASK QUESTIONS of others that are doing a better job. Once we start progressing through harder content, you will have to be capable of pulling your own weight or else you are hindering the other 9 or 24 players from being able to complete a raid. Also, especially in 10s, raids will have to be logically set up on classes and players to best give each raid an opportunity of finishing. Both 10 man raids should have equal footing in completing the raid successfully. Another thing I wish to discuss is the GearScore addon. While it is useful in determining at a glance how well a player will do, it is not to be used in this guild as a measure of a players worth. I was still pulling plenty of DPS with a low gear score. Just as certain people with high gear scores are capable of doing exceptionally bad, people with low gear scores are capable of doing exceptionally well, keep that in mind.

Loot
This section will be small. Expect the return of SKG, in some form, for the 25 man raids. A guild that gears evenly has a much better chance of progressing than those that do not. Keep this in mind in 10 man raids as well. Loot whoring is not allowed. One DPS should not walk out of a raid with 3 upgrades and the others walk out with none. I believe that you guys, for the most part, do this on your own. If it becomes a problem, as awlays, I will have to change it. For you new players, I have a nice write-up of SKG somewhere on this site, go find it.

Website
I realize that most of you hate the website, I apologize that some people have a rough time with it. However, (always a however) the website is not going away. I will continue to require players to sign up for it. If you are new and have not, you need to. The reason I make people sign up for this site is it shows a certain level of dedication to the guild. If you can not take a few minutes to sign up for a website, I can not take a few minutes to give you loot in a raid, it's as simple as that. Also, as you can see, it's a great tool to use to help your other guild members, or write out extremely long posts that would not fit in a WoW mail.

Happy questing everyone and I'll see you in the raids!

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Bosses, Guides, and more!

Hey everyone (again),

I've spent some time tonight gathering various guide and making them easily available to you. Most of these guides are from the Elitist Jerks website and I encourage everyone to go to their forums and read more. The people there spend a lot of time and effort to make these guides so people can benefit from them, they are an invaluable resource that should be utilized.

I'm making this REQUIRED reading. I know, you've played for a long time, you know your class, but still, go read anyway. No one ever knows everything and everyone has something to learn! This is meant to help our raids as a whole, the more we know about the classes we play the better we are with them. So remember, I'm making this REQUIRED, if you don't read these you're not just hurting yourself, but your other raid members as well!

EJ Forums

Death Knights:
General PvE DPS (READ FIRST)

Unholy DPS (Specs, Rotations, Discussions)

Frost DPS (Outdated but still of use)

Blood DPS Discussion

Tanking DK Discussion

Dual Weild Tanking

Druids:
Moonkin DPS Guide 1
Moonkin DPS Guide 2

Feral DPS Rotation Discussion

Resto 4 Life!

Mages:
PvE DPS in WotLK

WotLK Complete mage Compendium

Hunters:
PvE DPS Guide

Paladins:
Holy Guide

Ret Guide 1
Ret Guide 2

Prot Guide

Priests:
WotLK Healing Compendium

Shadow Basics

Rogues:
PvE DPS

Shamans:
Elemental

Enhancement

Restoration

Warlocks:
PvE Raiding Compendium

Warriors:
Sorry guys, no simple guids for you, but here's a ton of good information:
Forum
Arms Warrior DPS

After you get done reading all of that watch these videos. These are for the specific fights that I plan for us to hit on Friday. These are also REQUIRED.

Ignis
Razorscale
Deconstructor

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New Sign-Ups

Hey guys, if you decide to sign up with a username that's different from your character's name in WoW, please add your characters to the roster so we can tell who you are. Actually, everyone add your characters to the roster so we can have a full roster!

Here's a link to the How-To on how to add your characters to the roster:
http://www.gamerdna.com/GuildThread.php?t=106407

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Welcome!

Welcome to Blood and Honor!

Blood and Honor is a raiding guild that expects you to play WoW, not WoW to play you.

We welcome both the hardcore players and casual ones alike! While progression is our main goal, we do not alienate players that cannot dedicate large amounts of time to the game and hope to have enough raids going that even those with limited play time can see all the game has to offer.

Please be sure to read the Rules and the FAQ thread stickies in the General forum.

-Rylus

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