The past several days have been extremely productive ones for United Defense. Last Thursday we cleared all of Trial of the Crusader, ending with our first guild kill of Anub’arak-25.

After finishing up in ToC, we moved on to Icecrown Citadel, where we defeated Lady Deathwhisper and won the Gunship Battle, both for the first time. This victory was especially sweet because it came at the hands of the first all-UD 25-man raid we’ve fielded in many months. Yes, that’s right, 25 UD-ers, ON A BOAT.

Last week also saw significant success for one of our 10-man groups: they fine tuned our Festergut strategy and were able to down that boss for the first time.

This week is of to a great start. Our Tuesday 25-man cleared the entire first wing of Icecrown Citadel, finishing with our first kill of Deathbringer Saurfang. This is not a trivial achievement for any guild, let alone one that has only been raiding 25-man content for a little over two weeks. We’re building a strong raiding team, and it’s beginning to show. Special thanks to Alphalaxer, Lannister, Resjudicator, Riley, and Farmerdan for the work you’ve put into leading raids and developing the strategies that work well for our guild. Even more importantly, thanks to all of you UD Members who have taken the time to run heroics, farm badgers, attend ToC gear grinds (I know the place grinds many of our gears), work with target dummies, pour over spreadsheets, fine-tune your UI’s, read technical forum posts, and invest all the hard work it takes to develop your characters and your skills as individual players. Without all that effort, there’s no way we could have accomplished what we have.

Here’s looking forward to the coming weeks—to Professor Putricide and beyond; to further reaping the fruits of our labors; and to having fun along the way!

-Hieronymous

The opening of the second gate of ICC coincided with a tremendous transition for our guild. We were able to successfully down guild first kills in ICC and TOC 25 man. So, the unofficial is now official. We are once again going to be scheduling 25 man raid nights for Tuesdays and Thursdays. For now - we will run ICC on Tuesday and TOC or TOGC on Thursday.

We've been able to reach this point through the efforts of our officers, members and new recruits, but the hard work is far from over. We need to continue to recruit applicants with solid potential to fit into the United Defense culture. We need to continue to work on our boss knowledge, gear levels, wonky internet connections and faulty computer parts.

It is each member's responsibility to gear themselves up and prepare themselves fully for each raid. To know the boss strategy. To know their class and spec completely. To be online, on-time, and consistently ready to go.

ICC 25 man is tuned for guilds in ilvl 245 gear. For this purpose we will continue to run TOC and TOGC as we can to improve our hopes of progress in ICC. Further, In order to ensure continued progress in ICC we are going to institute a moving minimum gearscore* requirement for our Tuesday raids. This requirement will start out fairly low - easily accessible through heroics and badge gear. As we continue to progress we will raise the requirement. The purpose is not to leave members on the sidelines in favor of well geared pugs - the purpose is to ensure that each guild member is putting in the time and effort to improve their character and aid in the progress of the guild. To paraphrase, ask not what your guild can do for you, ask what you can do for your guild. Help us all out.

Additionally we will be instituting the UD Loot Policy (link in top nav) once we reach 90% United Defense participation in the 25 man raid. So - be prepared for the pirate loot master Resj's triumphant return.

What does this mean for our 10 man raids? We often progresses more rapidly and enjoy ourselves tremendously in 10 mans. The ilvl 251 gear is also excellent. We will continue to run and schedule 10's. We cleared the first four bosses in ICC 4 times last week and 3 times this week. As new content opens we want to be certain that we put our best feet forward in 10 man - meaning our best geared and most skilled players will attempt to clear first. After we have bosses on farm status we will split up into farming groups. If you have interest in running 10 man ICC - there will be groups forming regularly -sign up and jump in. Non-ICC 10-mans will not be officially scheduled.

*We realize that gearscore is only one measure of a character's capability - we reserve the right to disregard it completely in some cases.

It seems nothing ever changes in Azeroth--not even the seasons. United Defense, however, is once again facing our own personal spring, a time for new beginnings, the start of a new year, new content patches, new expansions. This summer was a time for weddings, and softball, new jobs, new girlfriends, new children, new schools. The many varied and diverse members of UD spent some quality time leveling up in the real world. But as the sun starts setting earlier, the leaves start falling from the trees, and the rain pours from those ever more present clouds, more and more of our members are seeking solace in the comforting climes of Daggerspine. As such, it’s time for new challenges.

Soon, Arthas, the Lich King, will be ready to do battle. Are you ready to face him?

United Defense is a raiding guild. We band together to constantly improve ourselves as players and to excel as a guild. It is why we choose to set goals and outlandish objectives. While making bosses dead may not be the end goal, it is a means to the end, a method by which we find this game to be the most fulfilling and enjoyable.

It is to this end that we now once again present ourselves with another new challenge. A new old challenge. After much deliberation the officer core has unanimously agreed that United Defense should endeavor to raid 25 man content once again.

*dramatic pause*

Hickory what?

Yes, United Defense, 25 man raiding guild.

Harken back to your favorite moments as a member of United Defense. Was it downing Ragnaros and storming through Stormwind and Iron Forge as Furbolgs? 2-shotting our first ever attempt at Onyxia? Reconvening for Gruuls and Magtheridon? Blasting through Naxxramas sending millions of tells - all having nothing to do with loot - but rather what music should be playing over vent? Owning Phase 3 of Malygos? Seeing your fellow members, United Defense members, at the top of the server gear lists? Storming into Ulduar and facing Flame Leviathan while singing along to Fett’s Vette? All epic moments, all made better because we did them together.

10 man content doesn’t present the same challenges, the same commitment level, the same culture of inclusion. With 10 man content more people have to sit on the sidelines and get left out. It takes ALL of us to raid 25 man content. It makes the challenges and the moments bigger.

So we’ve made a decision. We, the officers, feel that the vision we need to set for this guild’s success is that of 25 man raiding. Now the hard part. Now we need your help.

In the past the efforts of a dedicated few have propelled this guild to great heights. Hieronymous and Sarpedon pulling us into ZG by sheer force of will. Lexloci playing a one man raid-leading band. Officers who spent countless hours and effort to make the raid program a success, but who in turn where burnt out by the sheer demands of the job.

If we make this transition again, this time we’ll have to do it differently. We’ve got to distribute the leadership more broadly and rely on a greater number of individuals. We can’t rely on one or two nut-jobs leading the way, we’ve got to do it as a team. In other words, we won’t be able to make this transition without your help.

We need people to volunteer. To step up into leadership rolls. To help people educate themselves and their fellow members on class mechanics and boss fight strategies. To take personal responsibility and make the commitment to be on time and attend the raids one signs up for. To pick a main, gear it out, and top the charts. To run those heroics, get those badges, find those upgrades and fill those empty slots. To volunteer to farm fish feasts and flask mats. To commit and focus, turn on that concentration aura, do the things we know how to do so well. And most importantly, to bring a positive attitude that will ensure we have a damn fun time!

Can we do this? Are we willing to face these new challenges together?

If yes, we need officers, raid leaders, loot administrators, class leaders, entertainment specialists, tanks, healers and dps. Applications now being accepted.

WAAAAAGH!!!

This past Tuesday was a patch day and with it came all the usual zany patch day tomfoolery. Disconnects were running rampant while lag brought most activities to a halt. The boat to Theramore decided to dump a few of our raiders in the drink and summons weren't working. When things started to calm down and we got a few summons off, this guy shows up...

The Invincible Pally! Every time we got him below a certain threshhold of health...viola he had 10k.

We then proceeded into Onyxia's Layer. After many deep breaths and what seemed like millions of little whelplings we finally got her down even with only two ranged dps in phase 2.

It's a normal raid. We're in Ulduar, we've got Thorim and Freya, and we take a quick break before moving on to Mimiron. I go to the bathroom, grab some water, and I come back to this:

What isn't shown is all the spring rabbits that were soon thrown down, and all the babies it produced.

What does a UD raid do once they are bunified? Do they click off the debuff and proceed with the trash pulls? Or do they spend 10 minutes coordinating on vent to get a bunny wave set up? The answer is clear. We do the wave (or something that is kinda like a wave)

This is why I love you guys so much.