So, over a week ago I was on my 69 Priest and am just short of my monetary goals for hitting 70 with, so since I had a full level to go through yet and that’ll take a few dungeon runs, I opened up /lfm and poked through the three instances I’d like to go into:

Auchindoun - Shadow Labyrinths
Hellfire Citadel - Shattered Halls
Coilfang Reserve - Steam Vaults

There’s no partial-groups listed, unfortunately… just a handful of DPS and at least one other healer listed.

So, I go to the Looking for Group tab at the bottom, and fill in my 3 dungeon choices as above, then put in a comment: “healer, whisper first, please have a tank already :)”

Yes, this is optimistic, but as Momma said, and someone said to her… “If it ain’t worth askin’ for it ain’t worth gettin’!”… so, continuing on…

This, of course, subscribes me to the LookingForGroup channel, which is readily active this evening as people are looking to fill out final spots in their Karazhan raids and daily Heroic parties and RFK runs… but nothing really in my range.

Until someone advertises that they’re looking for healers for a raid on Blackwing Lair.

Hmm.

Never been there. And beyond “somewhere near Lower Blackrock Spire”, I don’t even know where it is!

So, I whisper the guy, and after a bit of a confusing conversation about whether or not there was an Attunement process required for entering the instance (there isn’t), I’m extended an invite and I make my way through to Undercity, and then hop on the Bat to fly to Kargath in the Badlands.

There are a few others of us who are added around the same time, and we all start to make our way to the instance. There are no Warlocks in the group to leech off of, and the Summoning Stone doesn’t summon people so close to, or at, level 70, so nobody said a boo, just made their way there.

I arrived at the door to Lower Blackrock Spire, and was told to go in and wait for an escort who would be coming through. A Rogue soon joins me and we await the escort.

I started recording video just outside the portal to Lower Blackrock Spire, and was pleased that the recording process didn’t cut out as it sometimes chooses to do… and I actually was able to record the entire route through the dungeon and to the portal for entering Blackwing Lair.

There was some chaos in the video, of course… this raid had been formed 2 hours earlier and we had to deal with respawns as our escort brought us through to the primary group… but I think if I needed to, I could use the footage to find the instance door again.

I might also publish it for the heck of it… bored people want anything for entertainment, right? ;)

Unfortunately, as is regular in PUGs attempting old-world content, there weren’t enough people to make an actual attempt by the time we got there - the 2 hours of the raid already existing before I got there, and attempts done when the new-joiners (including 2 healers) weren’t yet around to raid heal… wore enough people out that folks dropped out before I got there.

Darnit, I was kind of looking forward to seeing more than the first room, but I now at least know the route through Lower Blackrock Spire to get to the instance portal for Blackwing Lair…

More near-useless knowledge on the level of knowing all the words to the story of “Little Bunny Foo-Foo”.

And speaking of which, in that Rhyme where you came from, did Bunny Foo Foo “bop” the field mice on the head, or was it something different for you?

And, was it little RABBIT Foo Foo where you came from?

Tags: blackrock spire, blackwing lair, blackwing lair attunement, finding blackwing lair, how to find blackwing lair, LFG tool, LFM Tool, little bunny foo foo, little rabbit foo foo, lower blackrock spire, old world raids, pugging old world raids

I didn’t really mention it before, but I figured I’d go ahead and outline some guild-related changes that my characters have undergone in the past few months.

Mage, Hunter, Priest Make A Move

I’ve been raiding with a decent group since the beginning of January, and finally decided to make the official guild change-over on my raiding toon, the 70 Frost Mage, on February 21.

As for the rest, I moved my 70 Hunter over shortly afterwards and a few days later, brought the 51 Priest/Jewelcrafter over, but have left my “parked” 61 Warrior in my social/levelling guild along with my 58 Rogue, 30 Druid and a bank toon.

Why The Switch?

There’s many reasons why I made the switch with my best-geared toon… the new guild is larger, more active, and since they are raiding regularly at the 25-man level (currently working on Al’ar), there are more players who are geared for heroics. The first day I was guilded, we went through 4 Heroics!

So, my badge count has gone through the roof, and my need to turn to the LFG line has toned way down. Most of the time I don’t even have to look around for a party, because the limited times I’m available to run something, there’s a guild group forming, and they love my Magely skills! It’s awesome.

And as a bonus, because I had been raiding with these guys for nearly 2 months already, I only stayed as an “initiate” in the guild a couple of days - until I could get to the next 25-man raid at which point, at the end of another great raiding night, I was promoted to Member by the GM/RL and received many nice comments and welcomes from everyone present.

Oh, and I moved the Hunter across because our guild is actually LOW on quality Hunters - recruits with attitudes as big as their DPS (and we all know some Hunters can dish out the major DPS) have come and gone, and a lot of our members are on casual raiding schedules, only making 1 or 2 on a week that they can actually make it to any. So, I brought my keyed-but-not-really-geared-for-Karazhan Hunter across and have been on 4 or so Karazhan runs so far, after the Mage is already locked out with a different group.

And the Priest, I moved mainly because she’s now a 375 Jewelcrafter with a mess of rare gem cuts, and I felt the raiding guild environment could make better use of that Professional skill than a social/levelling guild with less than a handful of people who pay enough attention to their characters to even gem up.

What About The Old Guild?

One of my old guildmates applied to the same raiding guild I’m in, and was accepted, and he occasionally attends raids when his schedule permits, but I haven’t had a real chance to talk to him lately since my gaming schedule has been strained for time.

As for the rest of the folks, I still have some of my characters in that guild, and since I log into my bank toon every day, I tend to still chat with the folks and see how they’re doing. I’ve also continued to trade favors with friends from the old guild, running through their lowbies in exchange for BRD run-throughs for my 50s Priest and the occasional rest-bonus-burnoff run for my 30 Druid.

And of course, some of us hung out on Ventrilo while we played, and I still do that regularly.

Was The Move A Good One?

In short, yes it was definitely a good one. I was getting frustrated with having to turn to strangers in the LFG line all the time, and doing a /who [guildname] to find folks from that guild I had been raiding with for two months. My levelling guild was indeed just a social/levelling guild and had no aspirations towards organized recruitment or coordinated efforts except on rare occasions (ie: 1-3 guildie dungeon runs a week, most below Outland level), and I really did want to do more, experience more, challenge myself more.

Of course, I wouldn’t have made the switch if this new guild didn’t also show some very good qualities in terms of behavior during raids, dealing with mouthy players, having equipment requirements, encouraging each individual to do their best to help the team, scheduling raids on a website with sign-ups… all sorts of great things. Sure, there’s some crap that goes on too, and it’s clear the GM/RL is a key part to holding the guild together cohesively, but all in all, I’ve really enjoyed the environment and lucky been able to remain distant from any potential drama.

I am quite surprised I was able to find a cool raiding guild like this so soon… Before Christmas I went on a couple of Karazhan raids with an ex-guildie’s raiding guild only to find that the ranged DPS tended to attack from up-close (and subsequently die a lot), that the Raid Leader swore in all-caps on the Raid line (I don’t recall him freaking on Vent tho) when yet another wipe occurred, and that I was the top damage of all three mages despite only being at +450 frost damage and them being better-geared. When I wasn’t re-invited to their raid groups, I wasn’t disappointed. I kind of expected to run into more of those before I hit the guild I’m now raiding with!

Tags: casual raiding guild, good raid leaders, heroics dungeons, heroics pugs, how to find a raid guild, jewelcrafting, joining a raiding guild, karazhan, level 70 hunter gear, level 70 mage gear, LFG tool, LFM Tool, pick up group, pugging, pugging strategy, raiding as a mage, raiding frost mage, raiding hunter, should i leave my guild, warcraft raiding, world of warcraft, wowgrrl