Now what?

Okay n00bs, stop filling Guild Chat with your feeble ideas of how awesome Chuck Norris is and listen up.

You might think it sounds fun to team up with twenty-four other like-minded people to  kill Gruul the Dragonslayer. You'd be wrong, n00b.

This is serious. All twenty-five of us have to have our head on straight, know the strategy, and execute that strategy flawlessly or this is going to be an evening of nothing but long and lonely corpse runs and high equipment repair bills.

This is not The Sims Online. This is not Barbie Dreamhouse Online Fashion Adventure. This isn't even Windows Solitaire, though I know that shuffle sound better than I know the sound of Rick Astley's dreamy voice and if I hear that shuffle noise again over the headset while there is a raid going on someone is getting freaking kicked out of the guild.

This is World of Warcraft, n00bs. See that last word? It indicates that this game is about war and specifically the crafting of that war. And we can all agree that war is serious, right? Right.

Alright, let's take a look at the attached diagram, shall we? That big black dot in the middle of the cave is Gruul himself. Everyone should be hitting him a lot until he dies, except the Healers.

The Healers need to concentrate all healing energy on or around the place on the map designated "K". That's where I, Webinara, will be hanging out as long as I can until Gruul starts throwing us all around like 25 ice cubes in a rented margarita machine. 

Okay, so here is how it will go down:

Everyone steps just inside the door. We all need to argue for a few minutes (maybe 20) until everyone has the right spell effects in place. Then we hang out while someone goes to pee. And then we wait while someone else goes to pee because they missed the first person going to pee when it wasn't a Guild-Sanctioned Raid Pee-Break. Bring a bottle, n00bz.

Finally, the raid leader issues half a dozen ready checks and we find out who has gone Away From Keyboard. We spend another five or ten minutes giggling about what they may be doing AFK until they come back and ask what they missed.

"Nothing."

We renew the preparatory spells which were wearing off.

Then, someone rushes in and starts this thing.

Webinara will dash across the floor, taking an ineffective swipe at Gruul on her way (She's not Specialized to hit in melee, no giggling because she hits like a second grade girl) to take up her position at the back of the room.

Now, you'll probably get raid warnings about cave-ins overhead and standing too close to other raid members for the shatter phase which will multiply your damage and holy-crap-kill-us-all. A lot of guilds will tell you to "Flee" or "Run Away" or "Move calmly away from the other group members until the warnings stop". A lot of other guilds are made up of cowards and losers and ultra-n00bz. What happens if you move right while the guy with a warning with your name on it moves left? I'll tell you what happens: More damage to us and we all die and Gruul laughs his horrible digital laugh while we head back to fetch our corpses.

Do what I do: Just stand there taking the damage. This is why we let Healers in the guild even though their damage is so pathetic. You don't want to put those poor pacifists out of a job, do you? Sometimes healing gear drops and de-enchanting it all is fun but ultimately useless.

Anyway, back to the fight. So Gruul gets more and more angry the longer we survive and there are fewer and fewer of us left standing to do anything about it. Things get chaotic and it gets harder and harder for the Healers to find us to save our lives. This is why it is vital that we stand exactly wherever Gruul chooses to throw us. And keep hitting that guy.

Eventually, he falls down and drops gear someone may want.

So, let's get in there, pull together, work as a team to keep Webinara alive and . . . What?

The Raid is canceled? There aren't enough Healers online?

Now what am I supposed to do?

/pout