Intro (Cata & Isi)
Another xpack is upon us. This will mark the 5th xpack for Alliance (10 Years) and the 2nd for the Horde (3.5 Years). But this will be the first for the WoW Cross Faction community. We are very happy that Blizzard after all these years can slowly start bridging the gap to where the Alliance and Horde can come together as one. Although it’s not there yet, we are able to do a variety of non-queue-able activities where we can pool from a larger player base.
We hope that this xpack will create new friendships and keep people engaged with the number of events we do throughout the week. So don’t be shy and be sociable. If you see conversations or a group of people in voice jump on in. We want everyone to feel at home.
We do ask if you have any problems whatsoever that you ASK the questions. As well as if something or someone is bothering you that you chat it out and seek out an officer or above for assistance. Please make sure if it is through text that you provide screenshots of the whole conversation.
If you want to do it anomalously then in our Feedback and FAQ section at the top of discord, we do have a form (not forums) that you can fill out where we don’t see who wrote it.
We want everyone to have a wonderful experience while they are here in our Evolved community.
Cross Faction Information (How invites and Groups Start) - (Helzer)
We strive to bring our community closer together. With cross-faction integration, Blizzard has finally enabled our Horde and Alliance players to play together. To join our in-game cross-faction community called ‘Evolved Cross Faction’, use the tool in game and put your forum/Discord name as the FIRST comment in the app or we won’t accept. (Instructions are pinned in #wow-a chat on Discord)
We use the CFC to chat and group up across the divide, so be sure to join once you’re in one of the guilds.
All our invites to guild raids and activities will be posted only to the CFC - so join it and don’t miss out.
Reading The Information (Checking Pins) - (Medd)
Just a reminder we have the #wow-information channel in discord with links to the most common information members are looking for. We also try to keep discord pins clean and pertinent to current events.
As we get closer to the opening of DF’s first raid, Vault of the Incarnates, I’ll put together my usual raid resource post in discord. It will be pinned in #wow-raid-chat to make it easier for everyone to find. It’s a work in progress type post and I regularly add more info as I find goodies. Typically, it will include links to everything you need to participate in the new raid.
- I try to include a variety of boss guides, like YouTube, written guides, 1-page PDFs, and MAYBE the pineapple game).
- Any helpful WeakAuras I run across, including the WA packs from some past creators.
- General raiding info links, including links to team rosters, rules, and minimum requirements.
If anyone finds helpful raid info, feel free to DM me and I’ll add it to the list.
Recruitment
Bumping Recruitment Posts - (Star)
I just want to say welcome once again to all our new and returning members! And thanks to all our members who stuck around throughout this past expansion. I know we are all super excited to see what Dragonflight will bring us next for WoW.
Part of mine and Trixie’s job as recruitment officers is to help bring new members into our community. It’s always fun seeing new people join us and for us to have more friends to make. One way that you, as members, can help us is to occasionally try to help bump our recruitment threads on the WoW forums. The links for both the Horde and Alliance threads can be found on Discord under the #wow-information section for Recruitment.
If you can take a few minutes and write up some little things like what you like about being part of Evolved, fun raid/M+ experiences, or just something short and simple that makes a big difference. The more people from Evolved posting in our threads really helps us to stand out from the other million guilds recruiting every day. And as always, make sure to recommend us to family/friends that might play WoW or even just a pug you ran with.
And keep an eye out on Discord for when Trixie or I post our Reddit recruitment posts and help upvote them when you can. We actually get quite a few new members from Reddit so the upvotes really do help.
Welcoming New Members - (Trixie)
We have had a lot of new and returning faces joining us recently - and to all of you I’d just like to extend another “welcome!” If there’s any questions or aspects of the guild and its activities that you’d like clarification on, please double check the pins - and don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re awesome, but we’re not psychic - we can’t answer questions we aren’t asked!
If you’re in this meeting you’ve most likely got your discord configured but take the time to double-check the #role-assignment channel and make sure you’ve selected the roles for the activities you’re interested in - everyone should at least have a faction tag (WOW-A and/or WOW-H), with many other possible roles to select. Also make sure you’re in the cross-faction community - add it to your chat window and use it in place of guild chat, that way you’re reaching both halves of the guild. If you aren’t in the CFC yet, check the pins in #wow-chat - it’s really easy to set up.
Mythic Mingle - (Mavis)
Mythic 0 available at launch.
Mythic 0 end of dungeon level 372
Mythic 0 mingle on the 14th + 21
Required item level for Mythic 0 mingle is 359
Season 1 m+ starts Dec 12.
Mythic mingle start date Jan 4
The changes coming to Dragonflight’s first Mythic dungeon season are a direct continuation of the format seen in Shadowlands Season 4
Half of the featured dungeons will come from the new expansion, and half will be returning from past expansions.
- Ruby Life Pools (Dragonflight dungeon);
- The Nokhud Offensive (Dragonflight dungeon);
- The Azure Vault (Dragonflight dungeon);
- Algeth’ar Academy (Dragonflight dungeon);
- Halls of Valor (Legion dungeon);
- Court of Stars (Legion dungeon);
- Shadowmoon Burial Grounds (Warlords of Draenor dungeon);
- Temple of the Jade Serpent (Mists of Pandaria dungeon).
A new affix called thundering is being added in Season 1. While in combat, players are periodically caught in Raszageth’s storm and discharge excess energy that damages and stuns allies. It is very similar to quaking.
Every 90 seconds, Raszageth summons a storm (lightning strike). Players who get caught in thundering orbs will be stunned for 1 second and take Nature damage. Furthermore, four players will be affected with marks during each storm. This always prioritizes the 3 DPS in your group and the Healer or Tank. MARK OF LIGHTNING and MARK OF WIND increase damage and healing by 15% for 15 seconds. However, you must clear the mark shortly before the 15 seconds expire by coming into contact with a player with the opposite mark. Otherwise, they will cause Primal overload which stuns players for 8 seconds and deals Nature damage.
Thundering will be active by default as the third affix starting at Mythic Keystone Level 10.
The Necrotic and Inspiring affixes will be removed in Season 1 from the affix rotation. As a result, the affix rotation is reduced from 12 weeks to 10.
Mythic Plus rewards won’t be item level-capped in the first week.
The second half of Dragonflight’s dungeons will be released with season 2, which will be accompanied by another set of returning dungeons.
End of dungeon and Vault rewards scale to +20
Raiding
Tue-Fri-Sat Raiding - (Drinky)
Remind members to read and become familiar with the raid rules along with the new loot rules. The first tier in a new expansion is always the most difficult as we’re going to be going in under geared for the fights. We will be strict as always about Ilvl, and being prepared with proper enchants, pots etc. With it being a new tier there’s also going to be a lot of backseat RL’ing… Please please please don’t do this. PM an officer if you have an idea or see something we don’t. We’ll always be happy to talk it out but doing this in the middle of a raid or progression doesn’t help and could confuse people.
Being prepared:
Get the gear. Doing a full round of M0s and some M+ will be super helpful for covering the gear gap. Of course we can’t force raiders to do so, but we will be strict on ilvl etc so this is a great place to gear up. It’s also a great place to practice your specs AND OFF SPECS. Part of our rules for tanks and healers is a DPS off spec. This isn’t just a oh I can push a button and go to that spec. We need you to have a base understanding of how to play said spec as well.
A QUIZ?!?!?!?!?!
Something new this expansion for our raiders will be a google quiz. This will not be something that’s super long or super in depth. Blizz has been creating mechanics with extreme personal responsibility more and more throughout the last few expansions and tiers. This makes knowledge of the mechanics, especially those that can wipe the raid, even more important. Basically this quiz will have 1-2 questions per boss covering these mechanics. Each raider will have to take the quiz and “pass” before being added to a raid team. Some questions may be multiple choice. Others, some fill in the blank. This way if there’s any confusion we can touch base with raiders before the fight and we’ll have a bit better of an idea of mechanics to go over as well. Again, we aren’t expecting you to come in knowing what OUR strat will be, because even as RL we don’t know for sure. We know what the mechanics are, and some good places to start from guides, but there’s always tweaks etc that we do on the fly.
Performance:
We never require parses etc. for our raiders, but we do expect a level of competency to where you are contributing to the raid team. This means, you are capable of using your utility when assigned or called out by the RL/RA’s, staying alive through mechanics, using offensive and defensive cooldowns appropriately or at all, and are able to be flexible with raid call outs.
We totally understand people having off nights. We all have them. But if it becomes a noticeable trend, please know that we will be reaching out to talk to you about things, or you may be asked to leave a for a fight or the night. This does not mean you are off the team. You are welcome back, but we will be looking for improvement etc. Please try to remember that this isn’t us attacking you. We are trying to help you improve to further improve our raid teams. It’s a team effort.
Raider Behavior:
The biggest rule we have and will enforce is raiders must use push to talk in Discord. It is extremely distracting if during a fight you hot/open mic. Keep your private convos private!
Also, while we are in a fight please keep Discord clear from all chatter so that RL/RA’s can clearly make calls etc. If this becomes an issue, we’ll reach out, or just mute for the night.
With a new raid tier we also won’t have the advantage of grossly out gearing the content, and we’ll be back to progression raiding. Please bring your A game. If you are struggling on a boss or for the night, again, we may sit you but this doesn’t mean you are removed from the team, but we want to keep the raids as professional as possible.
Use the tools at our disposal:
We post many different ways to review how we did after a fight. We “live log” on Warcraft Logs so you can immediately go look at dps/how much dmg you too/hps etc etc. If you ever want to look over logs please don’t hesitate to ask.
Another useful site we use is WoWAnalyzer. This is linked to logs and will go over things like rotation, cooldowns, and ways to improve.
The last thing we use is Wipefest. This is also linked to logs and will be more of a mechanics based breakdown. Did I get hit by something I could have avoided? (AKA Did I stand in the fire?) Why did I die? If you died early.
All of this is extremely useful information, especially when we’re progging or you are learning a new spec/class. Shoot even if you think you’re solid, it’s a great place to look just to see if you can squeeze a bit more performance out of your character.
Mutual respect.
We’re all adults here. Being respectful of each other and of the time we’re all dedicating to this game is KEY. Please be patient with us (the officers) as well. We’re learning the fights as well. Even though we put in hours of prep, there’s still learning from doing it, and tweaking our strats to our raid.
Have some fun, kill some bosses, get some lewts.
Wed-Thu Raiding - (Raille)
The only real difference in our Wed/Thurs team will be the days and times we raid. Rules are essentially the same and individual raid leaders may have slight variances in strategies. The big brains will often discuss approaches and share new tricks as we learn them so very often our strats only differences are marker locations and directional moves occasionally.
That being said, we are operating on a much shorter timetable than the Tues/Fri?Sat crowd so efficiency will matter. Take your AFK’s during trash, come prepared, don’t slow the raid with loot/strat drama, wear your raid diapers, etc…
Show up 15 minutes early prepared to clear trash as we form up (I’ll need to confirm but believe we can individually drive our dragons to weaken the trash to the first boss) Expect to pull at 6PST, obviously not first night as some strat discussion will be had.
Sunday Open Raid - (Stale)
Sunday Open Raid
Are you looking to raid but have no experience at raiding? Are you coming back into WoW but don’t have the gear to raid? Looking to experience raiding with less stress than our normal raid teams?
We have the solution for you – Sunday Open Raid. It is open to all members of our guild. All you have to do is show up with open raid requirements and whisper the organizer with the word “invite”. Then sit back, learn how the raid works or get more experience on the bosses or get gear to meet requirements for our other raids. Just know that pants are optional and “water” is the preferred beverage – shaken not stirred.
Bettering Ones Performance & Asking For Help - (Allieya)
With a new raid tier, and new expansion, comes the age-old question of how do I better my performance. A lot of things are changing for dragonflight, talents, builds, itemization, consumables, fight mechanics etc. we have a lot of returning players that have taken a break and a lot of new faces to the community.
I wanted to clarify to everyone and set expectations properly at the start, that Evolved is not a carry community. We are a community of raiders that work towards getting AOTC (ahead of the curve achievement) in a timely manner, with that comes the expectation that everyone should be pulling their own weight. We are not elitists we don’t expect everyone to be big pumpers, but we do have a baseline expectation that everyone knows how to play their class, understands the mechanics of the boss fights we are doing and can execute a plan correctly in a timely manner, we understand that no one is perfect.
Feel free to reach out to myself or any other officer if you have questions about fight or class mechanics, if they don’t have an answer for you they can point you in the right direction.
Performance metrics in WoW can be very vague so I want to outline some of the things we do use to measure data. We use a combination of Warcraft logs, we log every raid night. Wow analyzer, assuming it is updated for DF in a timely manner. Wipefest, a tool that covers various raid data points. We use these to get an accurate picture of our group’s performance.
How we address underperformance, we look at mechanical knowledge. Are you dying in the fire, are you missing personal responsibility mechanics. We look at parse numbers, are you underperforming in relation to your class. We don’t look at parse numbers from one person to one person, we compare averages across fights narrowed down to individual classes, some fights are better than others for a given class. We look at days and weeks of data and track these metrics.
We don’t want to sit people. One of hardest things a raid leader must do is ask people to sit, this is our last resort. We are all adults, and we expect everyone to respect each other as adults, that means valuing others time as we value our own, if you are struggling you may be asked to sit, this does not mean you are off the raid team, or that your raid leader hates you. It means you need more time to learn and refine your strategy on the fight we are working on.
What happens if members continue to underperform. This is where I come in, if there is a history of underperformance that a raid leader deems a detriment to the raid, they will ask me to reach out. I will send out a discord message outlining some issues that I have looked at and your raid leader has highlighted, and I will make a good faith effort to help, I will go over the mechanics or issue. Or if it’s a class thing we will talk about class mechanics, or it might be a hotkey set up, or some other fundamental issue that might need to be covered. I will give suggestions on how to fix the issue and work through it. I will then monitor your performance for the next couple of weeks and see if there is an improvement. Hopefully it’s a small issue and everything can get back on track to where it needs to be.
When underperformance continues, after a few weeks if there is no visible performance improvement, we will have another conversation and see what the issue might be, it might need more time, it might be a misunderstanding or miscommunication on my part and well need to re-evaluate and try again. But if it continues, you will be asked to sit, removed from the raid roster and asked to come to open raid to practice until your performance is up to par. This is not something I enjoy doing I hate having to sit people but sometimes it is needed because the raid is being held back. I do my best to approach this with respect, but unfortunately hard decisions need to be made.
With all that, I hope I never have to sit anyone ever again, and that I don’t hold anyone to standards that I don’t hold myself and we should all value each other’s time equally by doing our best. I look forward to raiding with you all in dragonflight.
If you have any questions specifically about how we work out our performance metrics don’t hesitate to send me a message on discord.
Officer Positions - (Cata / Isi)
The WoW Community is looking to fill some officer positions for Dragonflight. Some positions are server specific to either Proudmoore (Alliance) or Area52 (Horde). Please contact any of the WoW Leadership or Officer to ask questions.
• Mythic Mingle Manager - For 2nd Night - Alliance or Horde
• Raid Leader - For Tue-Fri-Sat - Alliance
• Raid Assist - For Wed-Thu - Horde / Alliance
• Recruitment Assist - Horde
Tri/Board Msg - (Glimmer / Star)
We want to remind all of you to check out the various channels with have throughout Discord, beyond just our WoW section! There are a variety of different text channels so make sure to check them out and feel free to join in the conversations. While we do have our big guilded games like our WoW Community, we also have many different smaller games that people play from time to time in our Casual Gaming section of Discord.
If you find yourself playing some side games, check out the gaming chat on Discord to see if anyone else plays it as well. You can also scroll down the member list on right hand side of Discord and see who’s playing what and maybe create new friendships.
If you are looking to potentially start a new game within our community, please seek out a Tri/Board member and we can walk you through the steps on how to get you started.