Industrial Peons TBC Raid Format

Welcome to the Peons! We’re the queer-friendly commie underdogs of Grobbulus, dedicated to proving that you can be a successful raid team without enabling the most toxic elements in gaming.

We’re a democratically run guild, with votes on loot system and item priorities before every major content phase, and we elect our own guild leader. Our leadership core is 100% volunteer-based, with no benefits for being an officer other than a grisly view of how the sausage is made.

Raid Expectations

In general, we have the following list of expectations for each raider:

First and foremost, attitude. We take our nontoxic atmosphere seriously, so we have a very strict “no gamer words” policy. We also might ask members to sit out if they start using personal attacks against other raiders, or otherwise take out frustration in unhealthy ways. We’re here because we love coming together as a community and playing games together, not because we’re trying to be the fastest on the server to kill Kil’jaeden.
In raid and voice 30 minutes before first pull. Invites start at 45 minutes before first pull, and we start pulling members off the bench and searching for pugs at 15 minutes before first pull.
Each raider is required to bring a full set of consumables and stay consumed: elixirs/flask, food buff, weapon enchants (if applicable).
Our raids run from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. During times of difficult progression we appreciate people who can stay late, but we don’t expect it.
We expect raiders’ gear to be gemmed and enchanted, with blue quality gems for DPS, and high green quality gems for healers (although blue quality gems are a big plus!). If you’re struggling with the gold costs, feel free to give a shout to any @Jewelcrafters or @Enchanters in our professions channel in Discord, or hit up our official guild enchanter, Shaday, to see what mats she has on hand.
We expect raiders to watch at least one video on each new raid before we begin it, so that they have a general idea of what to do for boss fights. Raiders don’t need to have everything memorized and there’s no quiz, but we do them to, for example, come into Gruul knowing that staying away from other raiders is important.

Raid schedule

We raid current content every Tuesday and Thursday at 6:00 PM server time, with prior content runs spread throughout the week.

EP/GP rules

Starting values

Each new raider starts with an EP value equal to 50% of the highest EP among all raiders, and a GP value equal to 75% of the highest GP among all raiders. This avoids issues where new raider PR is wildly swingy over the course of their first few raids, while also making sure that their PR is in line with other raiders.

How EP is awarded

EP is awarded per boss kill in current content 25-player raids. We use the default values set by CEPGP, which start at 15 EP for High King Maulgar and go up to 24 EP for Kil’jaeden. No EP is awarded for prior content, 10-player raids, or anything in vanilla.

Unlike in Classic, we will no longer be awarding an on-time bonus. We expect all raiders to either be in the raid on time, or to have communicated with their respective point-of-contact before the raid. If you are not in the raid 15 minutes before first pull (and you haven’t already discussed this with an officer and gotten the go-ahead to be late), your spot risks being given to someone else. A repeated pattern of absences might jeopardize your spot in the main rotation.

During progression, each player in the raid and on the bench is also awarded an amount of “hazard pay” EP equal to the EP value of the first boss in the raid, once per full hour of failed boss attempts as raid leaders see fit. Once the final boss of that raid has been killed at least once, no further hazard pay is awarded for that raid.

All EP and GP values are shared between mains and alts, although major and minor upgrade bids from alts are prioritized below minor bids from mains. If you want to permanently switch mains, you’ll need to message an officer to make sure that that doesn’t negatively affect raid comp.

Bench EP

Sometimes we end up with more than 25 Peons signed up for a raid, and someone will have to sit on the bench. Sitting on the bench rewards 100% EP. While sitting the bench you must remain available over either in-game chat or Discord DMs. If we ask you to come in off the bench and you decline or give no response within 5 minutes, you will be removed from the bench. Any EP earned before that moment will be kept, but no further EP will be earned for that night’s raid.

How GP is accrued

GP is accrued (“spent”) to buy items from raid bosses that give EP. We will determine custom GP values at the beginning of the phase based on actual use of items. For phase 1, we are using default GP values for each item except Dragonspine Trophy, which we’ve increased from 101 to 202 GP.

There are three levels of bids that can be placed on items: major upgrade, minor upgrade, and off-spec. Major upgrade bids cost 100% of the item’s base GP, and take priority over all other types of bids. Minor upgrade bids cost 50% of the item’s base GP, and take priority over off-spec bids. Off-spec bids cost 10% of the item’s base GP, and are the lowest priority bid.

Flex

Flex is a special priority level for people who are asked by raid leaders to respec. To make a flex bid, you must be in your non-standard spec (for instance, prot when you usually raid as arms). If an item drops that would be an upgrade your flex set, any off-spec bid you make will gain priority over other off-spec bids, and if you win the item you will be awarded it for free.

Unwanted items

Non-tier items that receive no bids will be disenchanted by guild enchanters, and their materials will be put into the guild bank. Since tier gear is more difficult to disenchant than other forms of gear, any tier gear that gets no bids will be rolled out among people who want it for off-spec, at no cost. Flex (see above) takes priority over these rolls.

Weekly decay

Every Tuesday, after the reset but before the raid, EP decays by 20% and GP decays by 25%. This means that new raiders will come up to speed with current raiders in a little over ten weeks, and that gear purchases become negligible (less than 10% of originally paid cost) after eight weeks.

20% weekly EP decay may seem high to raiders who were with us during Classic, when we used DKP, but EP isn’t cash in the same way DKP is. It’s not spent at any time, so the decay is the only way that it can go down. A 20% weekly decay means it will take 10 lockouts to get close enough to the EP soft cap for government work, at which point GP is really the only thing that matters.

Graph of how EP accrues over time

(We won’t actually be giving out exactly 100 EP per week, but it makes graphing easier)

Graph of how GP decays over time

Item priority

Some items that are especially good for certain classes or necessary for raid-wide progression will have an associated priority. When an item with a listed priority drops, any major bids made by raiders who match that prio will take precedence over bids from raiders who don’t.

Legendary items are all handled by loot council, and any recipes and mats are considered guild property.

Item priorities are decided before each major content phase drops by a guild-wide meeting. The officers will prepare an initial list of suggested loot prios, based off which classes and item is most useful to, from both a BIS standpoint and an overall raid health standpoint. Once this list of suggested loot prios is generated, guild members are able to discuss specific suggested priorities in it, and vote on ones where there’s no clear consensus.

Automatic priority loosening

If an item with a prio drops and receives no major upgrade bids, it goes down one level of priority. For instance, if an item with a priority of “rogues, then warriors” receives no major upgrade bids from rogues, warriors would then be able to bid on it equally with rogues. If it drops again and still receives no major upgrade bids, it would lose all prios.

Appendix

Script used to generate graphs

graphs.fsx >
#r "nuget: XPlot.GoogleCharts"

open XPlot.GoogleCharts

// EP value decay
[1 .. 12]
|> List.scan (fun weekStart _ -> (weekStart + 100.0) * 0.8) 0.0
|> Chart.Line
|> Chart.WithOptions(Options(curveType = "function"))
|> Chart.WithHeight 300
|> Chart.WithWidth 500
|> Chart.WithTitle "EP value over time (20% weekly decay)"
|> Chart.WithXTitle "Weeks raiding"
|> Chart.WithYTitle "Total EP\n(100 EP gained per week)"
|> Chart.Show

// GP value decay
[ for x in 0. .. 12. -> x, 0.75 ** x ]
|> Chart.Line
|> Chart.WithOptions(Options(curveType = "function", vAxis = Axis(format = "percent")))
|> Chart.WithHeight 300
|> Chart.WithWidth 500
|> Chart.WithTitle "GP value of a purchase (25% weekly decay)"
|> Chart.WithXTitle "Weeks since purchase"
|> Chart.WithYTitle "Item GP value\n(relative to original purchase price)"
|> Chart.Show