Introducing Roflstomp (version 1).

We are Team Roflstomp (TRS), we like killing pixels with other pixels and we like to positively reinforce warlocks to prevent them from feeding on the hate and tears of others. Our team has some of the oldest EBS members and some new acquisitions.

Tanks:
Delekii. Unforgiving bear, he shows no mercy to the bosses, even less to the people that cause wipes.
Midi. Always looking for new healers to put up with him.

Healers:
Celestiné. Healadin, his hobbies are healing and dying prematurely. AKA The Floor Tank.
Gulaga. The only tree still jumping and healing.
Kreamy. Making a drinking game out of raiding: wiped a gain? Have a Scotch! Boss down? Get a beer!

Damage:
Blaser. Wearing the same gear since 2009. Now includes a legendary!
Curds. Making sure the boss has all the debuffs so he can keep getting ranks, but never applying one himself.
Diseasêd. He claims to be an orc, but everyone knows he’s just a big soft troll on the inside.
Mensan. Formerly known as locktard #1. Former GM that managed to stay out of the fire over 50% of the time, even though he plays with 20 ms latency.
Nivram. Token mage, invited only because he provides time warp.

While we don’t claim to be the best at our class, we are pretty damn good and also proud of our characters and even more so of our team.

Meet Team Roflstomp a very fine group of people.

ebs at the bar

I’ve talked before about change. It’s the only constant in this game. After long months of debating, while making slow progress we finally decided to take the challenge of making a new version of EBS. This new form, might not feel so new for some of our members.

We’ve decided to stop doing 25 man raids. I could make a very long post explaining the reasons why this happened but at this point the details are irrelevant. So I’ll focus on the now and what comes next.

The transition went relatively smooth. We were sad to see some of our members leave looking for something else. We were extremely happy to see how the members that stayed adapted and now we are very pleased to say the transition is over and we’ve stablished three… THREE 10 man groups.

The organization in the guild has changed, to accommodate this new model. We have 3 team leaders: Nivram (Team Roflstomp), Mablung (Team HKMS) and Kzzt (Team FTW). The teams share the same philosophy, the EBS way of doing things: people matter! All teams have internal rules and we all follow the same principles. It’s very exciting to have 30 people online in Firelands at the same time. We are now learning the challenges that involves running 10 man raids and adjusting to whatever comes our way.

I wouldn’t say EBS is now a 10 man guild and be done with it. I think we’ve become a community, we’ve decided to stay together, evolve and look out for each other. We won’t be raiding 25m content regularly in the foreseeable future, but if we go back to it one day, I’m happy to report that the heart of the group is still here, beating strong!

It’s been a while since we reported anything. Keeping 25 man raids going and achieving progression has been interesting. We’ve had to see some of our raiders quit the game, we’ve recruited new (amazing) people and we’re still fighting our way through Azeroth.

We had to take a step back and run 10 man raids for a week. Without major difficulties we cleared 6 bosses in one night with 2 groups. Some of the new fights required not more than one attempt. When we went back to 25 mode last week, the fights were not as simple, but we managed to kill 3 new bosses this week. 25 man raids have never been so demanding and we’re very pleased with our accomplishments. We look forward to the new challenges and the new people that are joining our ranks.

We are still recruiting (hello healers!) but we are also progressing and enjoying every night we get to team up and share our time through these pixels… speaking of pixels, here’s an amateur screenshot collection of our first 5 kills from the 25 man group. See you around!

Congratulations to our own High Priestess Mokele for hitting the 1 Million gold mark in the game! Way to play that AH, girl!

Million

Change. We are all used to it, we live in it. Cataclysm changed Azeroth and now we find ourselves adapting to the new world, fighting new battles, setting new objectives and looking out at the horizon. Extra Bag Space has experienced some changes first hand now. After an amazing era of leadership and progression under Mensan’s baton, it is  now my turn to step up as the conductor of this orchestra…

Not an easy task. Guilds are complex creatures and at first it was all excitement but it soon turned into what I can only describe as chaotic fear: things falling apart around you, lack of order and fear of failure. That stage is behind me now and I find myself ready to share with you some of my thoughts.

EBS is full of smart, vocal and dedicated players. One would think that leading a raid group with these sorts of players would be an easy task. One would also be wrong. I found out early that EBS is not a one headed dragon, it’s a chimera and much like our friend Chimaron in Blackwing Descent, feuds happen all the time. When things get difficult and people engage in never ending debates all that I need to do is tell them all to stack in the same place (that is be quiet) and make sure you use your bandages. We’re all sharing the same objectives, everybody is doing the best they can and we are all experienced in progression content. Finally people need to be reminded, I am in charge and what I want is smart people that can listen, offer suggestions in proper ways and that never forget that raiding is a team effort and there’s only one person calling the shots.

Blizzard’s decision to share the loot between 10 and 25 man modes has made it incredibly difficult to run a 25 man raiding guild on a low population server. Losing core raiders has never been more crippling and as I took over we lost several members due to a number of circumstances. After an eternity of posting on every available channel that our doors are open and having little success, some of our members came to the rescue and re rolled to help us complete the group. It was very nice to learn that others care about the guild enough to undertake such a task. We are still struggling to recruit people, but for now I am running with a successful group that never stops to surprise me.

The dragon has been tamed and I wanted to make  it official now that we’ve killed our first progression boss with the new managers in place. I am still learning every day and hopefully I will teach a little bit to others in the process. It is time for me to take this dragon new places. I will do everything in my power to make sure EBS remains loyal to its values, loyal to its players and provides a great environment to raid in for everybody in the guild.

Big thank you to the officers and the raiders for their infinite patience during the Nefarian progression.

It was a long time in the making, but the dragon is finally down…again. Blizzard permitting he will STAY down this time, and his sister too! GG EBS and a big shout-out to those who helped! Just in time for tomorrows massive patch too.

Cho’Gall has three phases, the first two alternating back and forth. In phase one your raid will stack up and dispel. Phase two will see you spreading out, interrupting and dispelling, killing adds, and killing boss. The third phase is all about focusing and burning down. With practice this fight is easily downed.

This boss will give you an insanity meter, which each member of the raid will need to keep an eye on individually. In all honesty, this can be used as a good measure to see how much raid awareness each person has. With each thing that hits you/you stand in, your meter will rise. Every stack you get of insanity, you increase the damage you take by 3% in phase three. Every 25% you will see new penalties for these infringements.

25% Corruption – Accelerated: This accelerates your stacks, you will want to focus on dispelling this. Unfortunately it will not clear the insane stacks themselves.

50% Corruption – Sickness: Causes you to vomit on players in front of you, increasing their insanity stacks as well. You need to stand just outside of the stack and face away from the raid.

75% Corruption – Malformation: Will spawn a hostile tentacle out of you.

100% Corruption – Absolute: Increases the damage done by you by 100%, and spells are also instant. Reduces healing against you by 100%

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Ascendant is one of those fights that basically should just get easier with time and practice. There is a lot going on, with a lot of mechanics, just like most of the new Cataclysm raids, but overall there isn’t that much that any one group should feel overwhelmed by. That said, it is none the less a fight where people WILL need to be on their feet and paying very close attention to their toons buffs and debuffs. Its also one of those cursed fights where you need to make sure everyone is alive for the last phase, but that a quarter of your raid will probably get disconnected as it starts. So prior to pulling, make sure your team does what they need to insofar as their video settings are concerned.

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