Save the Date!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to announce that the next guide in my Kick-Ass series of guides, Kurn’s Guide to Being a Kick-Ass Raider, is scheduled to come out on Tuesday, February 18! Hooray!

I spent a ridiculous amount of time writing up a truly (IMHO) comprehensive Kick-Ass Guild Master guide last summer and launched that in August.  (Seriously, that sucker comes in at 358 pages.) It was a pretty successful project for me, so I elected to follow it up with a whole series of kick-ass guides. Since November, I’ve been pecking away at a (much shorter!) Kick-Ass Raider guide. I’m actually not quite finished yet, but I’ve always worked better with a deadline. ;)

The Raider guide covers a lot of things that are common across all raiders. I don’t focus on a particular class or spec rotation or abilities — the game is way too dynamic and constantly changing for that to be remotely useful for longer than a single patch cycle. Instead, I focus on the fundamentals that go towards distinguishing a truly kick-ass raider from an okay raider. We’re talking about specific sections about class knowledge (and how to improve it!), avoiding mistakes (and what you can do to get better at avoiding mistakes!) and even a section about how to be a better team player. There’s more, too, obviously, so do check out my sneak peeks.

I’m also planning on a Raid Leader guide (which will be next up) and probably a role officer guide, too (you know, people in charge of melee or ranged DPS, the healing lead, etc), all of which should be coming out this year. It’s a lot of writing, but honestly, what else is a retired GM/RL/healing lead supposed to do? ;) No, seriously, I’m looking forward to it.

So what should you do while waiting with baited breath for the Kick-Ass Raider guide to come out? Glad you asked!

  1. Follow me on Twitter (@kurnmogh) and keep an eye out for a daily tip (#KickAssRaider). Every day from now until launch, I’ll be tweeting a single, helpful tip in 140 characters or less, to help you become a better raider!
  2. On Sunday, February 16th at 3pm Eastern (noon Pacific), I’ll be hosting another #AskKurn session on Twitter for an hour! Hop on and ask me your questions about how to be a better raider, a better teammate or anything to do with raiding. (Note that I have very little experience on specific MoP fights, so I can’t really help you out there, but just about anything that isn’t fight-specific goes!)
  3. Keep up to date with my sneak peeks! I aim to release one every Tuesday, so we’ve got a couple of weeks’ worth of sneak peeks left before the launch.
  4. Sign up for my announcement newsletter, either over at Kurn’s Guides or over here on the blog (there should be a box that shows up on the right-hand side). Subscribers get advanced notice on a variety of things, plus special subscriber-only discounts! It’s a very low-traffic list and you can obviously unsubscribe at any time.
  5. If you want to help support my efforts, check out the affiliate program I’ve got going on. If you’re responsible for sending someone to my site and they purchase something, you get 50% of that purchase!
  6. Finally, guild masters and guild officers out there, be aware that we’re entering the period of time in which you should seriously start looking at stuff for Warlords of Draenor according to my Expansion Planning module from my GM guide! Start planning now!

So there you go, lots of stuff to do while you wait for February 18th! Guys, I’m super-excited. :D

In other news, I know I have a lot of blogging to get down to. I’ve been (happily) swamped with freelance work and I’m obviously working on finishing up my Raider guide, but I do hope to get a decent blog post out there soon, talking more about the LFRs that I experienced while I had my free week of WoW back over the holidays.

I’ll leave you with this amazing tweet from the one and only @AngryOrc1, which seems rather appropriate:

WHEN YOU THINK YOU ARE HAVING A CRAPPY MONDAY REMEMBER, SOMEWHERE, RIGHT NOW, SOMEONE IS A LVL 17 GNOME HOPELESSLY LOST IN WAILING CAVERNS.

— ANGRYORC (@AngryOrc1) January 27, 2014