United Defense of Daggerspine

Roads of Rage

Rahnir — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:21:40 -0000

Posted 09/07/2010 12:21 PM by Rahnir.

Allow me to start off by saying that from an aesthetic standpoint, Seattle is a beautiful city. It reminds me very much of Vancouver, the city that I guess I can call home. In fact, if I were to be blindfolded, driven to Seattle and told I was in Vancouver, I might believe you, except for one very glaring difference. Now, I’m not an easy person to aggravate, but I have a new and very strong hatred for one-way streets. Seattle is made of them. I’ve never really liked one-way streets, but I could never place the reasoning. Not only did I fully realize this dislike, I embraced it. One-way streets can burn.

A few friends and I attended PAX 2010 this past weekend. It was great. But before any of the fun was to begin, our hotel had to be located. Perhaps it was an error in judgement to use Google maps to begin with, as it had led us astray in the past, but returned to it we did like fed cats. It made out our journey to be a simple one. Fourteen steps. Eleven of which were all before the boarder. What a cakewalk. And so it was, until step fourteen. You see, what Google had failed to mention, was that it had our end destination set behind the hotel. Perfect. An easy fix really, “Lets just make left turn here…”. Nope. One-way street. “Ok, lets go down one more block and then we’ll make the turn and head back up”. So make the left we did, only to find another one-way street going in the opposite direction of where we wanted. This pattern continued for some time. At one point we managed to find our way back onto the I-5 back towards the boarded. I felt like we were in one of those bloody icy-floor puzzles. You know the ones. Sliding back and forth, bumping into rocks until you find that perfect path to the other side. In the end though, we made it. Life achievement unlocked. All was well. We had a weekend of video games ahead.

One such video game was Gran Turismo 5. I have never been especially great at the whole racing simulation genre of games. It might be something as simple as my love for arcade style racers that doesn’t mesh well with actual physics. Maybe it’s the good little driver in me that has this ridiculous compulsion to stay in the lines while doing 200kph in Tokyo City. Or maybe I’m just bad? That’s probably most likely. I did however get to play it in a nifty little racing booth thing. Yeah. Those cool chairs that have a wheel with pedals and a gearshift. Not one of those dinky little things you can pick up at Best Buy as the next best thing. Too bad the upholstery smelled of Mountain Dew. Ah, conventions.

-R.A.D

Lich King... on a Boat!

Hieronymous — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 05:48:50 -0000

Posted 06/10/2010 10:48 PM by Hieronymous.

Well, we finally got there.

The Lich King is no more.

Huge thanks to Resjudicator for leading our raid program up to ICC, to Alpha, Farmerdan, Lannister, and Meekrob for leading us through most of ICC, and to Lorathon for leading the final charge that brought down the King. We tend to take this work for granted, but it's very deserving of our appreciation.

Above all, thanks to all of you who have stuck with our raid program and invested countless hours over the past months learning fights and teaching them to others. This has been one giant team effort, and I, for one, had a lot of fun along the along the way!

Now, it's on to the Ruby Sanctum, to ICC hard-modes, and to our Reins of the Rusted Proto-Drakes!

WAAAAAGH!!!

-Hiero

Ironically, it Has Nether

Rahnir — Thu, 27 May 2010 22:52:06 -0000

Posted 05/27/2010 03:52 PM by Rahnir.

Stormwind. Probably one of the nicest places to look at in World of Warcraft gets a visual boost in Cataclysm. Perhaps most importantly, is that it will actually be there if you look at it top down. The layout remains entirely the same; of course, there are some details worth mentioning.

Stormwind Castle looks like a castle! And of course, what castle is complete without a gigantor statue of yourself in front of it? That’s right, Varian Wrynn’s narcissism as reached new heights. But hey, if I had a castle, I would probably do it too. The park is gone. If you take a good look at the towers overlooking the “Valley of Heroes”, you’ll see some nasty looking claw marks. This leads me to believe that it was Deathwing’s doing. Apparently he doesn’t like trees…or Moonwells…or anything to do with Night Elves. There is a nice little lake behind Stormwind now, which can be overlooked from the new graveyard. SI:7 has a new building, which resembles the Ravenholdt hideout in Hillsbrad Foothills.

Overall, Stormwind looks quite impressive. A capital the Alliance is proud to call their own. There are many other changes I could have mentioned, but why ruin all the fun? Besides, I’m sure that a good few of you got to see all of the screens that MMO-Champion posted a short while ago like I did.

This is one picture I did manage to grab from MMO-Champion before it locked up the vaults. Behold!

“Who said names had to make sense?”

-Rahnir

What’s this? An update?

Rahnir — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:13:46 -0000

Posted 05/18/2010 11:13 AM by Rahnir.

We get it already. Anub’arak is dead.

So what gives? Does United Defense DO anything anymore? Why do we have the same boring, old front page? We certainly aren’t some boring, old guild.

Things happen here, and it’s about time that the world knows it. That’s where I come in. While I can’t promise daily updates, I can promise that we wont be staring at the same thing for six months. That said, my initial plans have been de-railed slightly. I was going to give you guys lots of awesome screenshots of things to come in Cataclysm. Unfortunately, because Blizzard controls the Internet these days, reliable sources of good quality shots like MMO-Champion have up and removed them from under my nose. I did ONE good picture that ill share with you on my next news post.

Until then, you all get to look at everyones favourite raid boss.....Mr.X-T!

“It don’t bend that way, fool!”

-Rahnir

25-man Raiding: Two Weeks of Success

Hieronymous — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:41:50 -0000

Posted 01/22/2010 12:41 PM by Hieronymous.

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

United Defense is (once again) a 25 Man Raiding Guild.

Resjudicator — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:36:31 -0000

Posted 01/12/2010 02:36 AM by Resjudicator.

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.

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

Raid Program : A New Challenge

Resjudicator — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:33:48 -0000

Posted 11/02/2009 05:33 PM by Resjudicator.

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!!!

Onyxia and the Invincible Paladin

Camaron — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:59:41 -0000

Posted 09/24/2009 05:59 PM by Camaron.

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.
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!starG UD

WAAAAAGH!!!

Ulduar invaded by a Warlock and Nine Bunnies

FarmerDan — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:30:07 -0000

Posted 08/28/2009 07:30 AM by FarmerDan.

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.

If you're on the shore, then you're shore not me-o!

Resjudicator — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:37:21 -0000

Posted 07/13/2009 11:37 PM by Resjudicator.

Who's sailing on a boat?
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 POSEIDON, LOOK AT ME NOW!