Today's raid was looking iffy for a while! Between the Superbowl and Carnaval vying with Gruul the Dragonkiller for our members' attention, we ended up having to PuG a over a fourth of our raid group. Nonetheless, we somehow managed to pull it together at the eleventh hour (well, technically, 25th) and downed Gruul in one not-so-clean shot.
This was in spite of:
1) Firstade pulling a ... well, Firstade ;) and aggro'ing Gruul;
2) Keaton's untimely demise (Somehow, he managed to climb back up the aggro table after a battle rezz and resume tanking! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the bear is a threat machine.); and
3) Multiple deaths, which caused hatefuls to ping-pong between Soandso, Smileyxxi, Daiko, Gimpooe and others.
Did I mention that, in the end, only our healers were left standing? Not a single tank or DPS class survived the battle unscathed.
Congratulations to Heartgrinder, Khanni, Kogen and Verisai on the spoils of war, and our sincerest thanks to all of the PuG's who came with us. The dice weren't as kind as they could have been, but we couldn't have done it without you.
Speaking of loot ...
As promised, we started awarding Effort Points (EP) with this weekend's Gruul's run. Everyone who attended the raid earned 575 EP, with the exception of those wgi signed up earlier in the week using either Group Calendar or the website. These individuals recieve my sincerest thanks for making it easy(er?), as well an additional 25 bonus points for a total of 600 EP. GP was also awarded to those who recieved loot, to seed the priority list for next week.
You can check your EP and GP in your officer note, where it is listed the following format: 0|EP|0|GP. (The 0's are placeholders, reserved by the mod's developers for future use.) These values will decay by 10% at the start of the next raid, and an additional 10% every week thereafter, so new members will be able to catch up to their more seasoned counterparts in just a few raids. Remember, your priority on future drops is is equal to the ratio of your EP to GP (PR=EP/GP). To see where you stand on the priority list, you can download and install the EPGP mod, or simply track me down in-game or on the forums and ask (Sarielle). Eventually, I'll export EPGP to the website and publish the standings here.
In the meantime, if you have any questions about the system, please don't hesitate to ask. I don't bite. (Unless you're a gnome mage, of course. A zombie does have to eat. ;)
