Heroic: Ultraxion falls to A-TEAM!

by Krenshar, 2 days ago



Congratulations to A-TEAM on the successful defeat of Heroic: Ultraxion. Their victory brings us to 2/8H in Dragon Soul!

Changes To Our Raid Philosophy & Teams

by Krenshar, 18 days ago

Throughout the course of "Cataclysm", we have tried to streamline FTA's raid experience. We've done this in many different ways: We've built on the concept of "raid teams" from Wrath of the Lich King; we have tried to be less catering towards non-competitive players without entirely closing the door on them; refined our policies; tried to build a stronger, more skillful officer team, and more. Like always, we had the best intentions in mind. Some of those changes saw a tremendous amount of success and others have left considerable room for improvement. Nevertheless, we have pressed on through this expansion, slaying the likes of Cho`gall, Ragnaros and Deathwing and enjoyed a considerably higher realm rank for our great accomplishments.

Unfortunately, we have found very little success in our efforts to progress through the heroic challenges of Cataclysm's raid tiers. Some of these failures were self-imposed, such as when we dissolved our raid team concept during the Firelands tier in favor of forming a 25M team. One could certainly argue that, had Rock Lobsters remained unaffected, they could of certainly pressed the heroic boundaries of the Firelord's domain. Now deeply entrenched in the learning curves of Dragon Soul's heroic modes, A-TEAM has found itself struggling for several weeks on the likes of Yor`sahj and questioning their ability to overcome a boss which has only been cleared by roughly 5% of the guilds that attempt it.

As a guild, we have for a long time struggled with our "raid identity". Are we hardcore? Semi-hardcore? Casual? And if we are casual, why are we so eager to attack these heroic challenges head-on and frustrated by our failures? I posed these same questions to my officers last week. Of course, each of them had their own unique take on the situation but I believe the answer to be this: we are not casual. Perhaps we are casual "gamers", but we are by no means casual "players"; the difference in the two being the amount of time we're willing to put in versus our drive to succeed and achieve when we do play. In short, we are a semi-hardcore raiding guild and have been for quite some time.

Any guild that is pressing the boundaries of heroic mode content has, in my opinion, the right to call itself "hardcore". You are, after all, pressing the absolute final tier of content presented by Blizzard. We're doing everything any other hardcore raiding guild is doing; we're analyzing data; expecting the absolute best from our players; altering talents and strategies; staying over alocated raid times, and more. The only thing we are not doing is raiding countless hours everyday of every week.

Without wanting to discredit or undermine our accomplishments and with all due respect to every player in our guild, I believe we can achieve more than our mediocre successes of the past. We have within this guild the talent to be the absolute best guild on this server. I have essentially challenged our officers to embrace their competitive spirit, accept change, and help take FTA to the next level and I believe they are prepared to do just that. What this means is that there will be changes, effective immediately, to our current raid team lineups. We have identified what we believe to be our best of the best and they will essentially raid under one banner. Current raiders displaced by these changes will come together under the leadership of other officers, such as Hexakaan and Zalajin, to fill out the two remaining raid teams.

We have spent a lot of time debating and reworking the potential lineups of all of our teams in the hopes of creating balance; through group makeup as well as token distribution. We feel strongly that the changes to each team will allow most of our current raiders to continue raiding without interruption. The weight each team carries, however, will not remain as it has. In the past, we have regarded each team as equal--their success or failure determined entirely by the talent within each team. The result was talent that was split between the teams which essentially held these respective teams back from realizing their full potential. Now there will be one "progression focused" team and two "supporting teams". For the most part, all three teams will function as they always have except for the new faces you will see. However, both supporting teams as well as any benched players will serve as a "pool" for the progression team, which it will use as needed. When this does occur, we will try our very best to not interrupt anyone's raiding experience.

In the coming hours and days, you will hear more from me and your respective raid leaders on these changes, including what the new team lineups will look like. If you have questions, ask them. But I hope all of you understand what we are trying to accomplish and will support us in our efforts to bring our guild more success.

Gangstas Arrive

by Zalajin_Etc, 19 days ago

Last night FTA's third raid team, the Gangsta Gerbils, defeated Madness of Deathwing for the first time, bringing them to 8/8N.

HUGE thanks to everyone involved. Your effort and patience is greatly appreciated.


Thanks for the logo Krenshar!!!

About time Lobsters

by Yitbos, 26 days ago


We're back BABY!!
A full clear in less than 3 hours. Thanks for sticking it out and staying positive.