Battle for Daz’azalazalor proof guild can succeed without best player – 9/9H 1/9M

March 22, 2019 Roak

Friends,

I’ve been carrying this guild since 2010. In Wrath, it was the likes of Cil and Trammy, names that only a handful of players will remember, that I carried to victory over Arthas and the Scourge. I kept those useless bastards alive so that we could achieve our goal and clear the tier before the end of the expansion. You see, these were the early days. Back then the jokes about how shit Onineko was, weren’t jokes, but self deprecating humour intended to minimise the pain of being so terrible.

Cataclysm only served to increase the level of carry I had to do. Not only did I have to pick up the slack left from players such as Shacarius, but now I was running the whole raiding show. Strategy, recruitment and anything else you can think of, was handled by yours truly. This was compounded exponentially when I took over the reigns as GM at the back half of the expansion. Still, I was the one leading from the front as we took on Deathwing and put him the rest once and for all.

The story didn’t change much for Mists, only some of the names. A new player had stepped up, Groffrey, but despite having some skill, I still had to carry him while he was tanking, and even a few times when he switched to his Hunter for dps (Vengeance best mechanic!). The guild was beginning to change around this time, but the core raiding team was still supported entirely by me, my amazing tanking talent led to solo finishes of Galakras and Thok to name just a few.

We don’t normally like to talk about Warlords of Draenor, but suffice to say this was the expansion that changed everything (not the carrying part). I was still right in the middle making sure all the gears turned and that the Onineko war machine wouldn’t stumble at this crucial juncture. Unfortunately, between my job of carrying Peggy through tanking, carrying the guild through Mythic transition, and carrying a bunch of crybabies through their regular feeding, I faltered and Onineko’s WoD dreams burned up and died.

Then came Legion, probably the best expansion Blizzard had put out in some time. I’d switched back to healing and immediately began to carry Shacarius, who, six years later, still hasn’t been able to get it right. Fortunately for Onineko, a few talented players had managed to sneak into my terrible guild and had begun turning things around. Suddenly killing bosses wasn’t as difficult as first thought and we finished Legion with some of the highest progress the guild had ever made.

Finally, we come to Battle for Azeroth. This tier, is the first tier since WotLK that I haven’t been present for 90%+ of the raiding content. Even after coming back from holiday, I’ve taken a night off here and there, which hasn’t stopped the power house Onineko team from claiming new scalps and progressing deeper into the tier. So here we are, the day after claiming Jaina’s AOTC achievement and the thought most prominent in my mind is – I’m no longer the single point of failure for this guild – and that’s genuinely an amazing feeling for me.

I’ve seen a lot in the last few weeks, for one, Bhodi completely wrecks me in healing every time (Shacarius is still a disappointment). On the tanking side, Malli and Punch, two guys I didn’t even know a couple of months ago, are ripping through it (except Malli when he positions Jaina badly and upsets Yog). From the DPS side… all of you are nothing but health bars to me (except Sandy who is represented by a dead cat).

In closing and before this starts sounding too much like Roak’s retirement party, it’s been an awesome tier (the parts of it I’ve experienced) and we have a really enjoyable raiding team at the moment and even though this tier might be about over, I’m already looking forward to kicking into the next one with all of you!

Here’s a screenshot from every boss I was around for!