Whole guild · Meet the team

The stone is up before anybody asks, every single week, and he calls it putting the wardrobe up. Then the cookies come out. This is the fifth time tonight the cookies have come out and the fifth time nobody has touched one, and he has told the channel so, and he will do it all again on Sunday. Nobody in this guild has walked to a raid in four tiers because of him.

For the record, and he would very much like this on the record: three thousand two hundred and fifty-five Mythic+ rating this season, filed in response to certain remarks about whether he does keys at all. He has kept this raid breathing for five tiers, largely by putting a totem where nobody is standing and moving it before anyone notices. Runs on sarcasm and spite, neither of which has shown any sign of running out.

They gave him the officer rank and then, with no supervision whatsoever, the loot council. Frost death knight, never misses a raid, colder than the spec. If your name is on the item you will get a fair hearing and you will probably get the item. If you are a balance druid you will get a fair hearing. He has never explained the grudge and nobody has ever been brave enough to ask him to.

Whatever the class discords got excited about this fortnight, he is already playing it, already geared and already three and a half thousand rating, and he will mention all three. Arms warrior today. Was not last tier. Will not be next. The guild has stopped asking what he plays and started just checking the meter, where he is near the top of it in a spec he has owned for nine days.

Top of the meter, five tiers, and it has never once been a conversation. She dies most weeks to something she has personally explained to two other people, which she would like recorded as unrelated. Then she is straight back up and needed for the next pull before anyone can get a joke out. In lieu of flowers the family asks that you stop standing in her poison and stop asking how she does it.

The healers went down one after another and Ázteco held the entire raid up on her own for ninety seconds, shields going out faster than the boss could take them off. Then she typed 'was that ok' and logged onto the alt before anybody could answer her. There is one word beside her name in the officer notes and in four tiers nobody has needed a second one. It is 'solid'.

She has watched the same warrior stand in the same acid for four tiers, said nothing about it, and quietly undone it every single time. That is the entire job and she is superb at it. The one thing she ever asks for is an innervate, and Findruid has it on her before she has finished typing the word. Put her in balance and she does lovely damage right up until something looks directly at her.

Four tiers in and this guild still calls him the new mage, which he stopped correcting years ago, which is the funniest part of the whole thing. He is an S tier frost mage. He is a D tier arcane one. He has played arcane all season without one complaint, because arcane is the meta and somebody had to fall on it. Say the word frost to him and watch a man remember who he used to be.

Beast mastery hunter who stands in melee. The pet waits at range where the hunter should be, the hunter is in the middle of the pack where the pet should be, and after six tiers this is simply how it is done here. Six tiers ago she pulled a boss early by accident and the raid killed it anyway. She has been chasing that feeling from two yards ever since and she is not stopping.

Twice a night he picks up a balance druid who is standing somewhere completely safe and sets them down somewhere with no floor, and it is funny every time, including to the druid, eventually. Then about once a tier he catches somebody already off the edge who had no business surviving, and says nothing about it afterwards. Same button, same face. Nobody has worked out how to get one without the other.

He came here to blast. They made him an officer, so now he takes the raid whenever nobody else will, and he is good at it, and he has forgiven nobody. Shadow priest. An eighty on Nek'zali one week and single figures on the Explorers the next, and four tiers later nobody can account for the gap. He also does not like the robot writing this, and has made that abundantly clear.

Eight tiers, never missed an invite, never once fed the pet, and there is no version of this raid that works without him in it. Welsh, and treats every England result as a personal event, in the channel, at length, with receipts. Throws a punch the moment you leave one open and does not hold back on the follow-through. A committed baiter and, by unanimous agreement of everyone here, the master of it.

Alfie takes the job nobody else wants and leads the raid on the nights Norman is on bedtime duty, and he is good at it, which is the one part he will never accept. Arcane mage, nine invites out of nine. The second he stands in something orange the channel gets 'Alfie. Alfie, you' and then a word we are not printing, out loud, in the third person. He has never once aimed it at anybody else.

Stryke. Flint. Whichever one you shout, the answer is the best tank west of anywhere this guild has ever been, and every person here would put money on it. Stands between twenty people and a golem four times her height for three hours a week and has never once asked for a thank you, a mention, or any credit at all. The only way anybody knows she has had a rough night is that she says absolutely nothing about it.

Tanking from South Africa on five hundred milliseconds of ping, which means he is holding a boss the rest of us finished watching half a second ago, and he still has it. Drags everything within ten yards into one pile and reports that he is fine. He has been right about that every single time. Nobody has ever been able to check fast enough to disagree with him.

Arrived this tier, said almost nothing, and started healing like she had been here for years. Eyes on eight health bars, does not move for four minutes at a stretch, and dies about once a night to something she never saw, because she was watching everybody else. Still on trial, technically. The write-up is going to be one line and the officers already know what it says.

Nobody can find a record of recruiting her. The trial invite went out and she was somehow already inside, imp out, standing on the mark, waiting. Two weeks in and no one has seen her sign up late, or early, or at all, and the damage has been immaculate throughout. The officers have her down as new. Not one of them looks confident saying it out loud.

In her second week here she held both golems for an entire pull and afterwards could not tell anybody how she had done it. 'There was a lot of green' is the complete account and she is sticking to it. She has twice asked the raid politely to stop standing behind the one that bleeds red. Still on trial, which is the only reason it was asked politely. Nobody expects that to hold.

Nicest man in this Discord and there is no second place. Windwalker monk, polearm considerably taller than he is, straight through the middle of everything. On Dimensius he sat the entire fight out on the bench and spent it finding something genuinely kind to say to every single person who did get the invite. He has not mentioned it once since. Everybody else has.

S tier, and the best player in this guild by a distance that is frankly rude, four tiers running. When a pull has completely fallen apart and one person is still upright with the boss at four percent, everybody knows who it is before they look. Phonchick does not get to the end of the word innervate before it lands on her. Ask Findruid about any of this and she will start talking about your cooldowns, which she has also noticed.

Twenty people, eight tiers, one voice holding the whole thing together through the worst connection in Europe. A child gets out of bed two rooms away, he walks them back, and picks the sentence up exactly where he dropped it. When the channel talks over him he says 'right, that's it, you're muted', and twenty grown adults go quiet like it's assembly. Then he dies to the mechanic he was explaining, and every one of them follows him in anyway.

First month with us. Assigned to the left side on his second pull, went right, and the boss died anyway. Nobody asked him to explain it and he did not volunteer. The officers have quietly decided to keep putting him on the left on the grounds that it appears to work, which is more trust than any new starter here has been handed. Nobody is certain who invited him either.

Marksmanship hunter, quietly excellent, and nobody can remember formally inviting them at any point in five tiers. They simply appear, at range, on time, already near the top of their bracket. Five tiers in that channel and not one unkind word about a single person. What they do instead is tell Phonchick she is doing a lovely job, roughly once a night, whether or not anybody asked.

Reports of the frost mage's death were filed early again. He stands further back than anybody has ever thought necessary, on the entirely reasonable grounds that nothing can reach him there, and is therefore killed roughly once a tier by the one thing that can. He is survived by an ice block he did not press in time, by several people who told him so at some length, and by himself, on the very next pull, standing further back.

Word is the nightborne turned up two tiers ago already knowing every fight, and has never once admitted it. Word is his bow is genuinely, on the tooltip, in writing, called P.O.W. x3, and that he has declined to explain this to officers, to friends, or to anyone who has ever worked up the nerve to ask. The prevailing theory in the channel is that he is a great deal better than he lets on and finds the whole thing funnier this way.

Scattered appearances across seven tiers, tending towards brief but heavy. Twenty-eight nights recorded. When present, expect sustained storm activity and a shield in the wrong hand. Absence should not be read as a front moving out; she has a habit of arriving precisely when the forecast is worst.

Mousaios once held the raid together through an entire phase with a mace, a lantern and what he later described as 'a strong feeling'. Four tiers on, the troll still opens every night the same way: he checks everyone's health, decides it is fine, and then quietly moves three feet to the left where he can see them all.

On one of her first nights with us Billadin bubbled at eight percent, ran the sword back in and finished the boss on her own while the entire rest of the raid watched from the floor. There was a respectful silence. Then somebody asked how long she had been playing paladin. She said she wasn't completely sure, and that she had mostly been reading the tooltips as she went along.

Put him on the monk and he is exactly what you want in a raid: inside the green spinning circle, fists genuinely furious, doing the assignment and the damage at the same time and mentioning neither. Then once a tier he brings the demon hunter out to see how it feels. It feels bad. Everybody agrees it feels bad. Somebody always walks over and quietly asks him to go and fetch the monk back.

BEAST MASTERY HUNTER (Orc). Range: everywhere, for years, without interruption. Habitat: the same spot on every fight, very slightly to the left. Diet: whatever the pet does not want. Distinguishing feature: quietly outranks most of the people who assume he is just some bloke with a bow. Behaviour when threatened: sends the pet. Behaviour when the guild is threatened: also sends the pet, then fixes whatever went wrong without mentioning it. Migration: none recorded, and none expected.

They still tell the one about the demon hunter who leapt blindfolded into a pack without checking what was in it, cleared the lot, and landed facing entirely the wrong way. They tell it because he did it again the following week, and the week after that, and is fully expected to do it again this Sunday. The healers no longer flinch. They have simply built the evening around him. He has never seen it coming, and has never yet been wrong.

ELEMENTAL SHAMAN (Orc). Range: six tiers, a hundred and thirty-six nights, always the same three feet of floor. Feeding: lightning, mostly. Notable behaviour: does not chase keys, does not chase parses, does not chase anything — the boss comes to him, or it does not, and either way he is signed up for Wednesday.

One nightborne warlock. Steep in fel until the colour is wrong. Add a demon, unsupervised. Leave to reduce over six raid nights, stirring only to reapply. Do not open the lid to check on it — she will have moved the pot and it will be fine. Serves the whole raid, unless you were standing near her, in which case it does not.

AVAILABLE: one haranir druid. Will bring starlight to your raid and a lantern to your problem, whatever the problem is, without being asked twice. Happy on either team, happy on any boss, visibly happier when somebody else gets the loot. Does not roll on things, which the loot has noticed and taken personally. Enquiries after nine in the evening server time; before that she is asleep and will not be moved.

The dwarf has fallen, shield first, exactly as he would have wanted. Twenty-eight nights across three tiers, every one of them spent between the raid and something considerably larger. Mourners are asked not to loot him, as he is only briefly dead and will want his hammer back.

Holy Priest — seven tiers, one hundred and seventy-eight nights, four guild rosters, no gaps. Duties: healing; also remembering what happened in Aberrus, which nobody else can. Key achievement: outlasted every raid leader she has ever had. Reason for leaving previous tier: it ended.

WANTED, A BOSS: large, ideally stationary. Highmountain warrior, thirty-one nights, one axe, no questions. Will hit it until the situation resolves. Does not require the fight explained, though he will sit through the explanation out of politeness. Antlers included at no extra cost. Cannot be reasoned with once committed.

Bronze light over the whole raid, rising steadily. Six nights recorded, all of them measurably better for everyone else than they would otherwise have been. The dracthyr himself reports no change in personal conditions and cannot say why anyone is thanking him. Outlook: everyone's numbers go up and nobody knows whose fault it is.

In the age of the world-tree there stood a tauren who drank deeply before every pull, and the elders said this was unwise, and the tauren said it was a brewmaster thing. Three tiers he has held the line this way. The elders have stopped commenting. The keg is now considered part of the strategy.

Take one dark iron warlock. Apply curses liberally and walk away; they keep working without supervision, which is rather the point of him. Add green smoke until the tank can no longer be seen. Should the mixture separate he will reappear as a pandaren monk called Viamisosalty and punch things instead, and the guild has agreed not to ask which of the two is the real recipe. Serve either. Both work.

The tauren tanked five tiers under one name, then quietly rerolled, and half the guild spent a month asking who the new bloke was. He never corrected anyone. He just kept holding the boss where it needed holding, until somebody eventually noticed that the pulls had been going fine the whole time.

Subtlety Rogue. Duties: appearing behind the boss. Appearing behind the raid leader. Appearing in Discord ten seconds after the pull has already gone out to ask whether there is an invite going. Notable achievement: nobody in this guild has ever seen him walk anywhere, arrive at anything on foot, or still be standing where he was a moment ago. References available, though none of them are entirely sure where he went.

FROST DEATH KNIGHT (Blood elf). Habitat: melee, four tiers, thirty-four recorded nights. Plumage: two runeblades, permanently frosted. Behaviour: appears without warning at the boss's feet; will occasionally vanish and be replaced by a near-identical specimen answering to Nancometa, which the colony treats as the same animal. Call: silence, then a very cold noise.

Take one dark iron monk, aged eight tiers. Add mist, generously and continuously. Do not stir; he will circulate on his own. Season with a hundred and sixty-one nights of knowing exactly when the damage lands. Rest briefly between pulls. The dish improves the longer it has been in the guild, which is the whole trick of it.

SHAMAN, AVAILABLE. Five nights in and already on the sign-up sheet for the sixth. No armory, no Raider.IO page, no profile of any kind — the guild is fairly sure he exists because he keeps turning up and things keep dying. Enquiries in game only. He will not be answering the whisper; he will simply appear at the summon stone.

HOLY PALADIN SEEKS PLACEMENT. Eight tiers, eighty-nine nights, one beacon, permanently on the wrong person for the first four seconds and the right one thereafter. Comes with a second character called Mickevoker, sold as seen. Will heal your raid. Will not heal the warrior who keeps doing that.

New this tier. On his first night the paladin popped every cooldown he had on the opening pull, ran out of everything by thirty percent, and asked, in complete sincerity, whether that was 'about right'. Five nights later he is doing it again, and the boss is dying faster, so nobody has had the heart to answer.

The young paladin, new to the herd, five nights old. Watch how he waits for the more experienced healers to commit before he moves — this is not timidity, it is learning. In a few tiers he will be the one they wait for. For now he holds the flank, quietly, and nothing on his side of the room has died yet.

INCIDENT: Sunday, pull six. 1. Subject arrived four minutes after the invite went out. 2. Subject apologised, at length, unprompted, twice. 3. Subject was then the last one standing for eleven seconds of a fight nobody had expected to survive at all, surrounded by his own ghouls, doing his level best. FINDING: the lateness and the eleven seconds appear to be unrelated. RECOMMENDATION: keep inviting him. Send the invite earlier.

Interviewer: There is a paladin on the roster with your name on it. — Pawnstaar: There is. — Interviewer: People say that is where all your good gear went. — Pawnstaar: People are being generous. He is wearing what I found in a bin two expansions ago and he has never been invited to anything. — Interviewer: So the mage is the main. — Pawnstaar: The mage is the one who owns trousers.

The vulpera priest died as she lived: about four feet from where she was supposed to be, healing somebody who did not deserve it. Three tiers, eight nights, and a tail that has never once been still. Arrangements are informal. She has already respawned and is asking whether we are pulling again.

They say the orc monk and the vulpera priest are the same person and have simply never been seen together. They say the staff is identical, which it is. Officers have looked into it, found that both were in the raid on the same night, and quietly closed the investigation without telling anyone what they concluded.

Popqa's paladin, and everybody knows it. She appears for two nights at the end of a tier, when the roster is thin and the officers are working the phones, brings a sword taller than she is, puts the boss on the floor and goes again. The guild still talks about her in the past tense out of respect, while she is stood directly in front of them.

Two nights, and the Discord is already convinced. They say the dark iron mage set fire to the tank on purpose. They say he has been playing since the beginning and only just decided to bother us. Neither has been confirmed. What is confirmed is that both nights went well and he said almost nothing on either.

Main tank last season, then vanished into a game with worse graphics and better fishing, and everybody quietly assumed that was the end of it. He is back at the front of the raid, tanking on pure instinct, having never in his life watched a recording of anything he has done. He is also Popmama, Popka and Poppka, all of whom kept his spot warm for him.

Green numbers, grey hair. The two are related.

Peaked at 52 on Nek'zali the Soulcoiler, a screenshot that still exists somewhere.

Sitting at 8/8 H this tier and counting, loudly.

Career best is still Soulbinder Naazindhri at 60 percentile (Manaforge Omega, Mythic). Every tier since has been a rebuilding year.

Every guild has one boss they cannot parse on. Theirs is Sszorak, at a stately 0.

87 parses deep on 18 bosses, which is either dedication or a lack of alternatives.

Has been turning up since Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible: 7 tiers and 61 raid nights of accumulated grievance.

Would do more damage if they didn't keep having to move, as they will explain at length.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

The logs hold 7 of their kills on 7 bosses. There is nowhere to hide.

Turns up for 1 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

Averages a 99 percentile across 7 kills and would like everyone to know that.

Career highlight: 99 percentile on Vashnik the Malignant, brought up at every opportunity.

Exists to make a number go up, and to make sure everybody hears about the number.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

A 99 average parse. Mentions it roughly once per pull, entirely unprompted.

Peaked at 99 on Nymrissa Wavecaller, a screenshot that still exists somewhere.

Turns up for 1 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

Holds the boss still. Gets thanked for it roughly once a tier, usually by accident.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Turns up for 1 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

A 99 average parse. Mentions it roughly once per pull, entirely unprompted.

Once put up a 99 on Nymrissa Wavecaller. The guild has heard about it. Twice.

Turns up, hits the boss, dies to something avoidable, links the meter anyway.

A 98 average parse. Mentions it roughly once per pull, entirely unprompted.

Has an ongoing disagreement with Ula'tek, who is winning.

A 9% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Owns exactly one 99 parse, on The Twin Fangs, and has built a personality around it.

The logs hold 9 of their kills on 9 bosses. There is nowhere to hide.

Exists to make a number go up, and to make sure everybody hears about the number.

Turns up for 1 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

9 parses deep on 9 bosses, which is either dedication or a lack of alternatives.

Every guild has one boss they cannot parse on. Theirs is The Twin Fangs, at a stately 95.

Vashnik the Malignant is where it clicks: 99 percentile, achieved once, referenced forever.

A 98 average parse. Mentions it roughly once per pull, entirely unprompted.

Spends the fight watching twenty health bars and one very specific person who stands in things.

Turns up for 1 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

Averages a 98 percentile across 3 kills and would like everyone to know that.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Vashnik the Malignant is where it clicks: 99 percentile, achieved once, referenced forever.

Entombed Sentinels is the reason they do not link their own logs unprompted.

Exists to make a number go up, and to make sure everybody hears about the number.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Owns exactly one 97 parse, on Nymrissa Wavecaller, and has built a personality around it.

Turns up for 1 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

A 97 average parse. Mentions it roughly once per pull, entirely unprompted.

Exists to make a number go up, and to make sure everybody hears about the number.

The Coiled Altar is where it clicks: 97 percentile, achieved once, referenced forever.

Ula'tek remains the nemesis, and the logs are not kind about it.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

A 9% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

Averages a 96 percentile across 2 kills and would like everyone to know that.

Fully committed to the damage meter, and only loosely committed to the mechanics around it.

A 96 average parse. Mentions it roughly once per pull, entirely unprompted.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Career highlight: 99 percentile on Vashnik the Malignant, brought up at every opportunity.

The logs hold 9 of their kills on 9 bosses. There is nowhere to hide.

Has an ongoing disagreement with Ula'tek, who is winning.

Turns up for 1 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

Turns up, hits the boss, dies to something avoidable, links the meter anyway.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Owns exactly one 99 parse, on The Twin Fangs, and has built a personality around it.

Every guild has one boss they cannot parse on. Theirs is Ula'tek, at a stately 86.

9 logged kills across 9 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

Averages a 96 percentile across 9 kills and would like everyone to know that.

A 9% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

Contributes damage, opinions about damage, and a running commentary on everyone else's damage.

A 96 average parse. Mentions it roughly once per pull, entirely unprompted.

A 9% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

Nek'zali the Soulcoiler is where it clicks: 96 percentile, achieved once, referenced forever.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Exists to make a number go up, and to make sure everybody hears about the number.

Their best night is Vashnik the Malignant at 99, and they can tell you exactly what they pressed.

The logs hold 9 of their kills on 9 bosses. There is nowhere to hide.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Averages a 96 percentile across 9 kills and would like everyone to know that.

Turns up for 1 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

Fully committed to the damage meter, and only loosely committed to the mechanics around it.

A 9% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

A 95 average parse. Mentions it roughly once per pull, entirely unprompted.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

9 logged kills across 9 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

Owns exactly one 99 parse, on The Twin Fangs, and has built a personality around it.

Contributes damage, opinions about damage, and a running commentary on everyone else's damage.

2738 Mythic+ score and a +13 Murder Row best, achieved with only mild shouting.

Personal raid record for this tier reads 1/8 M, which they will happily talk you through.

Averages a 95 percentile across 3 kills and would like everyone to know that.

The Twin Fangs remains the nemesis, and the logs are not kind about it.

The armory carries 1/8 Mythic in The Venomous Abyss, across 3 raids of history.

Turns up for 1 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

Turns up, hits the boss, dies to something avoidable, links the meter anyway.

Averages a 94 percentile across 2 kills and would like everyone to know that.

2/8 M on the armory, every boss of it earned on a Wednesday night.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Their best night is The Coiled Altar at 97, and they can tell you exactly what they pressed.

Mythic+ score of 2471, topping out at a +12 Murder Row that is still discussed.

Politely requests we skip Ula'tek, where the logs read 91 and the memories read worse.

Exists to make a number go up, and to make sure everybody hears about the number.

A 9% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

A 94 average parse. Mentions it roughly once per pull, entirely unprompted.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Their best night is Nymrissa Wavecaller at 94, and they can tell you exactly what they pressed.

Contributes damage, opinions about damage, and a running commentary on everyone else's damage.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

A 9% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

Averages a 93 percentile across 3 kills and would like everyone to know that.

Vashnik the Malignant is where it clicks: 99 percentile, achieved once, referenced forever.

Presses buttons, produces numbers, blames the healers. The circle of raiding.

Turns up for 1 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

Whatever The Lost Explorers does, it does it to them first: 59 percentile and a lot of excuses.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.

Career highlight: 99 percentile on Vashnik the Malignant, brought up at every opportunity.

Averages a 93 percentile across 9 kills and would like everyone to know that.

The logs hold 9 of their kills on 9 bosses. There is nowhere to hide.

Believes deeply that most deaths are preventable, and can name exactly whose fault each one was.

Peaked at 99 on The Lost Explorers, a screenshot that still exists somewhere.

9 logged kills across 9 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

A 9% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

A 93 average parse. Mentions it roughly once per pull, entirely unprompted.

Politely requests we skip Sszorak, where the logs read 82 and the memories read worse.

Freshly arrived, and has not yet learned what we are like on a Wednesday.