This is a more recent story, and for perspective I am a player who participated in a recent hit US World First guild Invective ,and had played with the players from their previous MMO(which may or may not have been Wildstar) Our tale begins in an analysis of the guilds Mission Statement. Those who are familiar with the guilds mission statement claimed to be the original raid leader of a top 3 US Guild in Wildstar(Subterfuge) This however, was false. The original Raid/Guild leader of said guild was an excellent raid leader named Tainted707, who had no part in the Warcraft Guild (Invective)

The guild master of Invective was a raider who joined on the tail-end of Subterfuge's 40 man experience and was not present for many kills at all. He was not a member of Enigma until the final race of Wildstar, in which his guild failed spectacularly compared to the actual World First guild, Codex. The officers in the guild all claimed to be players whom had been core within the original guild, however only 3 of the original 6 had actually played with the guild on original 40 man progression at all.

Now, onto the meat of the story. I was recruited as a melee DPS early on in Invective's plight within Warcraft. The discussions over item level were false. Invective was never at any point in the tier undergeared and always maintained an average 3-4 item level over the first few guilds that cleared the tier. One of my first nights within the guild I learned of an officer who rage-quit a week prior due to wiping on Heroic Spellblade Aluriel and Krosus for hours on end along with a warlock in the guild who abandoned the guild mid-raid for a hook-up. Thankfully, most of our early progression through the first three bosses was fairly smooth, however we soon became raked with drama, a Death Knight who was a fairly above average player was recruited, and subsequently left the guild after being demanded to deposit his BoE Belt into the guild bank, for example. The first real road block was on High Botanist Tel'arn, coming off of a high of clearing Krosus with a simple 30 wipes. Tel'arn however, proved taxing, railroading us with over two hundred wipes on a mid-tier boss. We were at a loss. We finally opted to have one of our Melee DPS reroll into a healer(Who later swapped back to his Melee main, due to conflicts with one of the officers over which aura to bring to fights). Four core raiders left during this period however we finally plucked the Botanist from the Nighthold. Tichondrius brought with him a multitude of new challenges for Invective. Countless wipes to failed brands, tanks dying during soaks, a whole new nightmare washed over the raid. Fortunately, we finally felled the Dreadlord after 120 pulls. Spellblade went as expected, with Marks of Frost wreaking havoc on our raid. Thankfully, the Blade of the Magstrix fell quickly in under forty pulls, leaving us with the daunting Star Auger Etraeus in our path.

Our worries about Star Auger Etraeus manifested into reality. Every night of progression we were raked with disconnects, players stuck with 500 ping for a multitude of pulls, deaths to the tank debuff, Fel Flame, the laser, Conjunctions. We saw for ourselves the cruel frozen void that lied beyond the margins of Wildstar's skies. However, after one hundred and fifty wipes we fell the Auger just in time for Elisande and Gul'dan nerfs. We were energized, excited and ready for Elisande. Further, the guild had received two former Wildstar raiders whom were said to be some of the better raiders from Wildstar, a warlock and a mage named. However, the first raid night they participated in was full of drama, with our current warlock who had been with us for the majority of progression abandoning the guild due to issuing the entirety of the nights loot to the Wildstar Warlock & Mage.

Elisande came, and with our recently damaged roster, was a catastrophe. The new Wildstar players simply didn't perform to the level the guild needed and under performed on both the meters and mechanics, and left huge holes in our roster compared to where we stood the week before. The Guild Master grew desperate after hundreds upon hundreds of Elisande pulls, and spent a whopping $200 on transferring three players from a friend's guild, Finite, in order to finish out the tier in a relatively timely manner, bringing in a Shadow Priest, a Holy Priest and a Fury Warrior whom had all cleared the boss in the past, and intended to leave following the tier's successful completion. By now, the Warlock and Mage had received ample gear and began to perform mechanics relatively successfully and began to do some actual DPS, and alongside the new Finite players, we downed Elisande in short order and looked to Gul'Dan.

Gul'dan was one of the worst raiding experiences I personally have been a part of in my raiding history. Our first night we managed to push the boss to Phase 2 and beat the Fel Guard spawn, which left us excited for more pulls and for a short night, we believed we were finally coming into our own. However, for some reason on future nights the Wildstar Warlock began to play his Holy Paladin for progression to shore up the lack of healers in the guild, and began to butt heads with one of the officers over whether or not to use Aura of Sacrifice or Mercy, and thus the argument the previous Holy Paladin reroll had reignited. The officer then rage quit the raid for a few hours as the Paladin refused to budge off of Sacrifice, and when the officer finally returned, one of the Finite healers left for the next two raid nights, leaving Gul'Dan progression in shambles and ruining the progress we made. When the healer core finally stabilized, it was clear DPS was lacking with the added healer and the loss of the Warlock, thus leading to hundreds of Phase 1 wipes due to a lack of DPS, alongside people failing Bonds, dying to the Hand of Guldan(???) and dying to the meteor. All in all, Gul'Dan was a mess.

Finally, after a hundred or so pulls of this the Wildstar paladin went back to his Warlock, and we brought in a new Holy Paladin, and we began to reach the Phase 1 DPS push, finally getting real progression into phase two, bringing with it deaths to fires, Eyes and the like. Fortunately, Phase 2 wasn't that horrific for us, and in a short order of fifty-sixty pulls, we mastered the phase and began to push into Phase 3. The Demon Within however, truly revealed the demons lurking within Invective's core. There were massive issues with one of the officers tanking ability, a lack of active mitigation caused a myriad of deaths in Phase 2, resulting in never having battle rezzees in Phase 3, and when reaching phase 3, the same tank's lack of active mitigation caused deaths once more, with no resurrection's remaining to cover the error. The warlock and the Finite warrior finally confronted the tank however, and solved this issue after wasting roughly ten hours of phase 3 pulls. Somehow, through sheer luck we seemed to finally down Gul'Dan, paving the way for us to finally push into the Tomb of Sargeras. Without the Finite players however, Gul'Dan was unfortunately never re-killed the week prior to the opening of the Tomb of Sargeras, and we were left at somewhat of a loss heading into the tier.

The Tomb of Sargeras had an interesting start, the Mage from Wildstar ended up quitting, and his account was given to another Wildstar player who simply was not up to par and had some serious attitude issues. He was however, very close personal friends with the GM and thus was issued one of the first soaks for Split Loot, alongside another one of the Guild Masters close personal friends, a Hunter whom had been benched on Gul'Dan progression due to performance. The Warlock and Death Knight from Wildstar seemed to try to make suggestions on handling splits as well as the approach to the tier, however their suggestions seemed to have fallen on deaf ears, Week one splits ended with a few major raiders not having 4P, myself included. Our first week ended with no successful splits, having to combine our two splits into a full mains group for Maiden of Vigilance, the Fallen Avatar, and Kil'jaeden, and concluded with a staggering 50 wipes on Heroic Kil'Jaeden. Coming into the second week, the Wildstar players seemed to have collected most of the gear from our week two splits, of which we completed two successful splits killing 8/9 in both but opting not to attempt KJ due to our troubles in the week prior. Finally, we rushed into Mythic, and were instantly road blocked by Goroth, suffering thirty wipes to the supposed Loot Pinata. Conflicts and frustration became obvious, with the Warlock and the Guild Master arguing over utilizing five healers on Goroth, however upon swapping in a fifth healer, the boss finally fell, however, Goroth truly utilized the chinks we had in our armor that we had all begun to fear from NIghthold. Harjatan fell over relatively simply, in 12 pulls we managed to kill the boss with no real issues, however the Demonic Inquisition provided the most significant challenge our guild had ever faced. We spent 70 pulls in the end downing the Inquistion, and through it, the Warlock swapped to his Paladin once more to heal, and adopted a Riggnaros-esque attitude, calling out raiders in an aggressive fashion, with the apparent support of the Guild Master. Finally however, after coordinating healing cooldowns and changing around half of the DPS group on the boss, we finally felled the Demonic Inquisition. Sisters of the Moon was the most trying, taxing, and irritating experience to date. For perspective, on Mythic Launch day we as a guild began raiding at 9 AM Sharp, clearing our splits by around 5 PM EST, followed by a two hour break before Mythic. We began mythic Goroth at 7 PM EST, and by 1 AM EST had finally killed Harjatan and put in fifteen or so pulls on the Inquisition. Wednesday we began raid at Noon EST, raided until around 4 PM, when we finally downed the Inquisition, and moved onto the Sisters of the Moon, which from Wednesday the 28th at 5 PM lived until Saturday the 1st at around 6 PM EST. Sisters of the Moon took 112 pulls, and numerous changes to our healing core. The Warlock swapped from his Holy Paladin to his Lock quite frequently, depending on what healers we had available. Our guild raided early in the day as well as in the evening, and thus healers from other guilds offered to aid us. At one point, we had a Paladin Healer from Raiding Rainbows aid us on his alt, and at another a Resto Shaman aided us on his alt from Limit. Finally, we found a winning composition, and had around 12 people surviving into phase 3, finally downing the boss in a stunning 12 minute kill after 112 pulls.

The Desolate Host was the guild-breaker for Invective. What was a simple 10-15 pulls to a kill boss for most guilds was a 154 pull hell for Invective. Healers were still swapped out constantly, based on when the Limit Shaman or the RR Holy Paladin were available, we had pugged a Protection Paladin tank for the adds until he too had to leave. About fifty or so pulls in the Warlock ended up playing Prot Paladin for another fifty pulls, before he swapped back to his Warlock and a new tank was pugged, all the while healers swapping in and out like flies attracted to the shit that was our progression. We introduced two new healers on top of the Limit & RR healers, some Restoration Shaman and a Holy Priest that had been recruited via trade chat. Fortunately, we began to push into Phase 3, and began to encounter constant tank deaths due to attempts to solo soak and this or that. After two days of 12 hours of pulls on The Desolate Host, a few guild members began to discuss the state of the guild in Mumble. The discussion centered around how splits were handled and about the refusal to bring in new trials. For reference, The guild had recently recruited(Prior to ToS) a multitude of raiders from previous top-end guilds with numerous Cutting Edges ranging from Top 50 to Top 10 US, however were neglected trial spots and neglected an opportunity to soak loot as Wildstar Members took priority.(regardless of skill) There was a point when one of the Wildstar members in this discussion made a speech about how the GM(Drunkbath) and him would have attained a raiding spot in Method had they opted not to create this guild, and how by all accounts they were wasting their time here. The two also complained about how certain raiders (The players who, coincidentally, left for Easy) had not a shred of gratitude towards them and were some of the worst players recruited, as well as provided a lecture as to why them doing high DPS is not important compared to the work the officers put in or the mechanics they perform(evidently, soaking with Ice Block is something that should cause a player to suffer ~200-300k DPS)

Following the drama explosion in Mumble, the next day was full of frustration and anger, with players arguing, rage quitting the raid, and infighting stifling progression. Somehow, through sheer luck and number of pulls, we finally killed The Desolate Host. Following the boss kill, three players, the two warlocks and one of the rogues told the officers they would be departing for a top guild the following raid week, and wished us the best. The Guild Master came into our General channel later in the night extremely intoxicated and began ranting about how worthless they were to our progression, how he would ruin their WoW careers and that they would never raid again, and blabbed about sensitive personal information regarding each player. Following, he entered the other guilds Mumble and ranted at their Guild Master for “poaching his players” before returning to our Mumble, and then raged about how the other guild’s guild master is “an autist with a lisp who is as retarded as he sounds.” Obviously, this was the beginning of the end.

The following raid week