Whole guild · Meet the team

Conditions around the death knight remain settled and unusually cold. Winds light, runeblades at full capacity, no absences recorded in the period. Newly promoted to the officer channel, where he has been handed the loot council and some very firm views about it. Outlook for the coming week: continued frost, with a persistent low pressure over any balance druid within forty yards. Boomkin in the area should expect no shelter and no loot.

2021 to present — Restoration Shaman, Killing Time. Kept a raid alive across five tiers and a hundred and forty-five nights, chiefly by placing a totem somewhere nobody was standing and then moving it. This season — three thousand two hundred and fifty-five Mythic+ rating, a figure he would like formally entered into the record following certain remarks. Skills: sarcasm, load-bearing. Motivation: spite, renewable. References: reads the log before the wipe explanation, which management finds unnerving.

Here, in the half-light of the crypt, the night elf works alone. Watch her now. She has spotted the warrior standing in the acid again — she does not rebuke him, she simply extends a slow green hand and undoes it, as she has for fifty-four nights. Note the call, the only one she makes all evening, going out into a completely silent channel: innervate. Nobody has answered it in four tiers. She has been seen in balance form, where she is roughly as durable as a candle.

There was a pull where the healers went down one by one and Ázteco carried it alone for ninety seconds, shields going out faster than anyone could break them, and the whole raid was shouting her name in Discord. She said nothing at all. Then she typed 'was that ok' and logged onto the alt. The officers keep one word in the notes beside her name, and have never needed a second one. It is 'solid'.

It is with regret that we mark the passing of Weeklynoleav, taken from us on Nek'zali while standing exactly where he had been told not to. He leaves behind an imp, a summoning stone he put up before anyone asked, and a plate of cookies laid out for the fifth time tonight, which is the fifth time nobody has taken one. He was, at the time of death, on full attendance. He got back up eleven seconds later and did it again.

They tell of a night at four percent, every healer's mana the colour of a bad idea, when the dracthyr spread his wings and eight people who should have died did not. They tell of other nights. Of a balance druid standing quite safely on a platform, gently lifted, and set down somewhere with no platform under it whatsoever. Both legends are true. The guild has agreed to stop asking which of them was on purpose.

Alysaar of Killing Time, eighty-eight nights, five tiers, top of the meter more or less permanently, dead again — this time to something she has personally explained to other people twice. The funeral was brief, as she was needed for the next pull and the damage does not do itself. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you stop standing in her poison, and that you stop asking her how she does it.

Taken from us mid-fight, the dwarf leaves behind eight tiers, a hundred and sixty-seven nights and a pet who has still not been told. Colleagues recall a man who never missed an invite, never once fed the beast, and never let an England result pass without a full and considered response in the channel. A committed baiter, dedicated to the craft, and by common consent the master of it. He was found later at the repair vendor, alive, still going.

A front of shadow moving in fast from the west. Expect an eighty on Nek'zali, exceptional for the season, followed without warning by a collapse to single figures on the Explorers. He came here to blast. He is now on the council and takes the raid whenever nobody else will, which he has forgiven nobody for. Additional warning in force: he does not care for the robot that wrote this. Void elves in the area should carry a coat.

Six tiers ago Katukas pulled a boss early by accident and the raid killed it. She has been chasing that moment ever since across a hundred and thirty-eight nights, from a range of roughly two yards, because that is where she prefers to stand. The pet waits out in front, where the hunter should be. The hunter is in the melee, where the pet should be. Nobody has raised it in some time.

Take one warrior of enormous confidence, noting that he was something else entirely last tier and will be something else again next one. Marinate in a Mythic+ score of three and a half thousand, which he will mention. Consult the class discords, discard, reroll to whatever they are excited about this fortnight. Place into the front of the raid without checking the temperature. Serve with 'that's a tuning problem'. Does not keep, by design.

The mage is dead. The mage was dead earlier as well. Seventy-four nights, four tiers, not one missed invite this expansion, and still logged every week as the guild's idea of a new mage, which he has stopped correcting. He is, by common agreement, an outstanding frost mage. He is currently arcane, because arcane is the meta and somebody has to be. He will be remembered briefly, before the next pull.

One paladin, unblemished, known to the kitchen as Frosty. Coat thoroughly in plate. Interpose between the raid and a stone golem roughly four times her height. Do not season. Hold at a steady seventy for nine consecutive nights without once asking for credit. Remove from the fire only when everyone else is out. Yields: the whole raid's evening, and the best tank west of anywhere this guild has ever been.

Blood pressure high, visibility poor, everything within ten yards being dragged towards a single point. Signal arriving from the far end of the planet roughly half a second after it left, which means he is tanking a fight the rest of us have already finished watching. Conditions expected to remain hostile for the duration. The orc reports that he is 'fine' and 'has it', which historically has been true, and which nobody has ever managed to verify in time.

Arcane Mage, The Venomous Abyss. Also known as Alfie. Also, on the nights the actual raid leader is settling children, the one holding the raid together. Responsible for damage, for the assignment nobody else wanted, and for the running commentary — 'Alfie. Alfie, you' — which he delivers about himself, in the third person, in full, every time he stands in something orange. Nine nights, nine invites accepted. References available from anyone on Discord, which is everyone.

And here, at the very back of the crypt, a holy paladin nobody has met. She arrived this tier, said almost nothing, and started healing. Note the posture: entirely still, eyes on eight health bars at once. She has not moved in four minutes and will not until the last of them is safe. The officers are still writing up her trial. On this evidence it will not be a long document.

Interviewer: You held both golems for that entire pull, in your second week here. How? — Lymana: I don't really remember it. There was a lot of green. — Interviewer: The raid says you saved the night. — Lymana: The raid should stop standing behind the one that bleeds red. I've asked twice. I'm on trial, so I asked nicely both times.

They say nobody actually recruited her. They say the trial invite went out and she was somehow already inside, imp out, standing on the mark, waiting. Two weeks in and nobody can find a record of her signing up late, or early, or at all. The officers have her down as new. Nobody has the heart to tell her, and nobody is entirely certain she does not already know.

Combine one monk with a polearm considerably taller than he is. Add chi. Whisk violently through the middle of the pack until nothing is standing. Note: for Dimensius, do not add. Leave on the bench for the whole fight, where he will find something genuinely kind to say to every single person who did get the invite, because that is simply what he is like. Rest eleven nights. Serve again, hot.

FOR HIRE: one troll druid. Will provide moonfire, cooldowns used correctly the first time, and the soak nobody else remembered. Fifty-two nights of references across four tiers. Highest recorded parse in the guild by some distance, though she will not tell you that and will change the subject if you do. Rates negotiable. Availability: whenever you have wiped enough to ask.

Observe the raid leader in his natural habitat: the middle of a marked circle he drew himself. Eight tiers, a hundred and sixty-four nights. Note the pause mid-sentence — a child has appeared somewhere off-camera and must be walked back to bed. Note also the connection, the worst in Europe, dropping a word in three. When the herd talks over him he says 'right, that's it, you're muted', and the crypt goes quiet. Then he dies to the mechanic he was explaining.

The story goes that they wandered in five tiers ago with a bow and nobody has formally invited them since; they simply appear, at range, on time, marksmanship. Officers long ago stopped asking which team they are on. What the guild has noticed is the channel: five tiers, not one unkind word about anybody, and an unbroken record of telling Phonchick she is doing a lovely job, whether or not anyone asked.

INCIDENT: Wednesday, second pull, subject's first month with us. 1. Subject was assigned to the left side. 2. Subject went right. 3. Boss died anyway. 4. Subject offered no explanation and has not been asked for one. FINDING: no action required. RECOMMENDATION: continue assigning him to the left side, as it appears to work. Note for the file: nobody can say who invited him.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There is a pull on Nek'zali the guild has not stopped bringing up since, and it belongs to this monk. Put him on the windwalker and he is exactly what you want: a reliable man in a green spinning circle, fists genuinely furious, doing the assignment while doing the damage. Put him on the demon hunter and everyone is reminded, at length, why he is a monk. He has tried it twice. Nobody wants a third.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

She came for two nights only, at the end of a tier, when the roster was thin and the officers were making phone calls. She brought a sword taller than she was, put the boss down, and left. The guild speaks of her in the past tense out of respect, though she is right there, and though everybody knows perfectly well she is also Popqa. The bit is maintained regardless.

Here lies the blood death knight, main tank of last season, who vanished into a game with worse graphics and better fishing and was presumed gone for good. He is survived by Popmama, Popka and Poppka, who are all also him, and who have been holding his spot. Reports now place him back at the front of the raid, tanking entirely on instinct, having never in his life watched a recording of anything he has done.