Monday, October 5, 2009

Trial of the Crusader

I have not posted in a while. So many things have changed.

My guild has cleared 5/5 in ToC 10 man and 4/5 in ToC 25. I think we can eventually start Heroic Mode in 10 man when we have a rise in signups.

Raid attendance has been low lately. From talking to players it just seems that people are bored/busy.

It feels strange to be so far advanced in content for a casual guild. In TBC this guild was many raid instances behind but Blizzard has changed their philosophy. The issue now is that this may be too easy and we're running out of things to do! Our 25 mans are not strong enough to take on challenging Hard Modes in Ulduar. The 10 man Late Shift raids have been reasonably successful.

I can't wait to see what we can do in ToC Heroic Mode once we get a strong group together to try it.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Descent Into Madness

has been progressing steadily through Ulduar, we have killed everything up to Freya in Heroic Ulduar and we reached Vezax in Normal Mode last weekend after finally taking out Mimiron! The recent drive for signups has been working.

We got the last member of Iron Council to 0.3% - that's not a typo, 0.3% hit points left.

I expect that in the coming weeks we will see a Heroic Council and Freya and/or Thorim kill and a Normal Vezax kill as long as the signups keep coming!

Vezax - The new Malygos?

Vezax is a balance fight and we're learning the dance. Our best attempt was getting Vezax to 55%, not bad for a raid whose attentiveness seemed to slowly slip away after the demanding Mimiron first kill.

We had a free for all approach to who was allowed to go into the Saronite Vapors. Based on some more detailed strategy posts, I think the best approach would be to split into two groups like this:
Group 1 - MT, Healer, Healer, Melee DPS, Caster DPS
Group 2 - Strongest Healer, Melee, Caster DPS, Caster DPS, DPS
These groups will alternate Vapor usage so at most 3-4 people are in the green puddle at once.

If I am the MT for this night then I will try to make the kite paths as predictable as possible relative to the Vapor. For example - I could immeditely face him in the kit path direction and make sure I am ~25yds away from the Saronite Vapor at the beginning of the kite and the end so that the healers are not out of range of me at any time.

This encounter seems to be easy to learn compared to learning the keepers. Hopefully we can clear the last part of the instance quicker so that fatigue is less of a factor on Vezax and get some more serious attempts in.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Holy Paladin 101

Benevolent Thuggery has killed 6/14 bosses in Heroic Ulduar and 9/14 bosses in Normal Ulduar. With the massive signup drive, there should be more progress this month!

We occasionally run Class/Role clinics to discuss the basics of the class mechanics and some tips or tricks to maximize output. Here is the summary of the Holy Paladin Clinic that was done this week. Thanks to Chalol and Ginevra for helping out!

Key points:

UI is important. You need to see all decursing, health, inc heals etc. on your raid frames without it taking up too much space. There are many addons which will also tell you when your CDs are coming up and need to be reapplied (both audio and visual queues).

All Holy specs include Judgements of the Pure and Enlightened Judgements, so you can keep a constant 15% bonus speed buff up most of the time. This is the key to maximizing Paladin healing. Some players only judge when needed, some keep this buff up 100% of the time. An addon to tell you when your buff is expiring helps.

For quick healing -> Divine Favor + Holy Shock -> force Infusion of Light -> Flash of Light or Holy Light

Large Casts -> Holy Light with Light's Grace and primary mana returns from Illumination

Sacred Shield should be up on your main healing target as much as possible.

Clear communication between Paladins helps a lot. HL Paladins are usually combined with healing class with more HoTs so there are small short heals and large long cooldown heals at the same time. One Paladin focusing on Holy Light and another on Flash of Light is a great combination!

Beacon of Light is one of the most interesting Paladin spells. Examples of good use of Beacon of Light are: Casting it on yourself so you don't die, if you are MT healing, but the beacon on the OT (or vice versa) or if you are Raid Healing, put the beacon on the MT.

Utility Spells:

Hand of Salvation is a powerful utility spell. It will allow the highest DPS to open up even more, especially early in an encounter. Some Paladins make an agreement with one person to use this spell on them so they can use their high threat spells immediately without worrying about aggro.

You UI should also display movement impairing effects. Another keybind can be used to cast Hand of Freedom on the target or on self. This is very useful on Hodir.

Hand of Protection is usually used on someone who pulled aggro.

In preparation for a raid, if two Holy Paladins are attending, one can agree to get Aura Mastery and Improved Concentration Aura, and the other can get Improved Blessing of Wisdom. Buff coverage discussion is encouraged for all classes.

Always have a frame which shows the Enemy's Target. You can see him momentarily switch targets when casting a debuff or spell on another player (Razuvious or the Runes in Ulduar for example).

Glyphs: Glyph of Seal of Wisdom or Glyph of Seal of Light (if you have no mana issues), Glyph of Holy Light, Glyph of Flash of Light, Glyph of Lay on Hands (Minor Glyph)

3.2 Major Changes

Beacon of Light will be effective for all heals (not just Effective heals)
Returns from Illumination will be but in half
Reduction of the Intellect Multiplier

These changes will encourage Paladins to go with more +SP and +Mp5 gear.

Macros

#showtooltip Beacon of Light
/cast [target=mouseover,help,exists] [help] [target=targettarget, help,exists][target=player] Beacon of Light

You can even add in trinket uses easily:

#showtooltip flash of light
/use 13
/use 14
/cast [target=mouseover,help,exists] [help] [target=targettarget, help,exists][target=player] Flash of Light


And, you can bind trinket uses as well as instant casts to really add bang for your holy light buck:

#showtooltip Holy Light
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Divine Favor
/cast Divine Illumination
/cast [target=mouseover,help,exists] [help] [target=targettarget, help,exists][target=player] Holy Light

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Up to the Challenge

Benevolent Thuggery has seen some great success in Ulduar during the past few weeks! Four Heroic bosses are down (three of which are quite challenging!), we have killed seven bosses in Normal Ulduar and this is just the beginning of long term progress in this instance.

Heroic Raids

The first boss which the Thugs focused on in Ulduar was XT. This raid boss took a lot of discussion, fine tuning and learning to complete. This opened most players' eyes to the fact that we have been coasting through easy content without thinking about detailed raid theory, rotations and role assignments. In tackling this boss first, we got back into the right mindset for raiding as a functional team! Razorscale and Ignis kills followed the XT defeat rather quickly.

As one of the Raid Leaders who worked on the Ulduar progression kills, this is a challenge from various points of view. The leaders have to keep morale up, assign appropriate roles (for leaders and players), devise alternate strategies without confusing the members and maximize raid potential. This puzzle is continuously evolving before our eyes as new challenges are presented every time we go into this place.

The next step for the Heroic Raids is to clear those first four bosses on the first raid night so we have time to work on tackling the next section of the instance. I am planning on making the best effort to do this on the only scheduled Ulduar raid by minimizing Leviathan event time, assigning ALL roles before the run, moving us forward at a good pace (easy to do as a tank) and using concise explanations for bosses.

Rollback

With three nights of Ulduar scheduled per week we managed to get as far as I would expect for a casual guild with our population and skill. Many raiders were left disappointed and frustrated with the difficulty and requirements of the new instance. Some players who returned to raiding and new recruits had sub-par gear. Despite the fact that our guild has been farming Naxx for months, the decision was made to put Ulduar as one night a week then slowly bring it back to a 3 night a week event.

I see why this had to be done for gear and morale however I am discouraged by some of the attitudes that provoked the decision to re-introduce old raids on the calendar. Naxx has spoiled raiders and now many have fallen into an expectation of easy loot without effort. As soon as there is a struggle, they give up and leave their friends to fight for themselves in a challenging environment.

At some point, I hope that Heroic Naxx can be reserved for off-nights and become a distant memory. Players will always need gear, and there are other means to get Ulduar ready. I am running a 10 man Naxx on Sunday and Monday which has a good mix of experienced players, new players and alts who need gear. This is what the Karazhan runs used to be. Frankly, 10 man Naxx bores the hell out of me but I can just turn on the music, grab some tea and curb the boredom to make that place bearable. After all, these runs need to be in place as a stepping stone for new players and alts to have a means to make it into Ulduar. If another Raid Leader wants to take this run, I will gladly pass it to them.

Normal Ulduar

There are now two Ulduar 10 runs scheduled on weekends - a 2pm session and the Late Shift run at 9pm. I tend to run with Late Shift because my schedule can be unpredictable during the day on weekends. Late Shift has been very successful as we have killed 7 bosses including Hodir, one of the final four Guardians.

We worked on killing Thorim last week, he was much more challenging than expected. Maybe we can try Freya or just work on Thorim until he's down. The last four guardians are all difficult and present unique challenges to the raiders, it's a lot of fun!

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Ulduar Update

I have been so busy with work Real Life and WoW that I have not posted here in a while. Here it goes!

Oh My! Patch 3.1

Patch 3.1 was released about a week earlier than anyone had anticipated. There were the usual server crashes and technical issues that come along with such a massive content update. My guild partially funded its members Dual Spec investment. Hopefully this new game feature will encourage players to tune their specs for current raiding content since we don't enforce raid oriented skills.

Flame Leviathan

Once the server lag settled down, we jumped immediately into Ulduar 25.
Flame Leviathan is a free loot vehicle encounter. Since it is so easy, I wouldn't mind trying to complete the easiest of its various Hard Modes which involves destroying towers to remove buffs on the boss.

Some players in this guild are vehicle haters due to frustration experienced in Occulus, Malygos and also the principle of not using one's own abilities. These players seemed to tolerate or even enjoy the Flame Leaviathan encounter!

After Flame Leviathan, we had to decide where to go next. During the first week of Uduar, there was a bug on Ignis where players would take an inordinate amount of damage if they were hit my Melee while they were in his stomach. There was a Blue post which also indicated that the Enrage timer on Razorscale was too short. These bugs were later fixed, however at the time the most logical boss to go kill next was XT002-Deconstructor.

"I guess it doesn't bend that way!"

XT was probably inspired by a Blizzard encounter designer's 2 year old. This encounter accurately immerses one in the life of a parent of a 2 year old because this fight can be aggravating.

The first time we tried this boss, everyone was just getting used to the strategy for the boss. The next week we struggled a bit but the healers did a great job during the Tantrum Phase, the DPS on the heart was solid and add management was good for the most part. Since some players did not move at all when they had the Gravity and Light debuffs, position adjustments were made so that the healers were separate from the ranged DPS group.

After much discussion in the guild's IRC channel and discussion among the Raid Leaders, the strategy for this fight has been refined for this guild. I am confident that we can complete this encounter this week. One issue is that since we banged our heads on this encounter for a week, some strong players have not been signing up (likely due to frustration). A kill this week would certainly increase morale and encourage the faint hearted players to push forward in this difficult instance.

I'll make a post about the success that we have had in the 10 man version soon (work calls)!



Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Onward!

With Ulduar on the horizon, my guild has been steadily clearing Naxx 25, Malygos and is working on Sarth+2D. I ask myself - Are we ready for the challenges of the near future?

Naxx 25, Carefully

Naxx 25 is on farm, however group balance and dynamics must still be considered when heading in to kill Kel'Thuzad. We have struggled a bit on this last boss so the Naxx 25 clears are still not easy or done very gracefully. This is a concern for the complex fights in Ulduar because if the mobs hit harder, and the raid takes even more damage then we may run into a roadblock. Even so, many people are acquiring the finishing touches on their gear and getting some much needed practice to improve their game.

Malygos

I have decided to discontinue running 10 man Malygos runs mostly because Malygos 25 is now on farm. Malygos 25 seems much easier than Kel'Thuzad on Naxx 25 now, I think it's because Kel is unpredictable whereas Malygos is a fight of memorization and pattern recognition.

This is the most fun fight for me to tank by far, and I get a real rush every time we defeat this boss!

For tactics, we're using a strategy loosely based on Ciderhelm's 6 min Malygos video. Tankspot has been a phenomenal resource for me as a Raid Leader to view tactics, get ideas for 10 man strategy and step up advanced tactics. On Phase 3, we use a 6 healer rotation like they use in this video, which was the missing component from our previous Malygos attempts.

Sarth

We took a hiatus from official Sarth runs to focus on Malygos but now that Malygos is on farm, Sarth and Malygos are done in the same night. Last night, we had some solid attempts on Sarth+2D. We wiped a lot for various reasons, but we got better at the encounter each time. Fatigue started to set in and we just did Sarth+1D, but I won't be surprised to see a Sarth+2D kill very soon considering our rate of improvement.

Ulduar, Here we come

Ulduar is soon, and I wonder if we are ready. A large part of the guild has mostly Best In Slot gear (including myself), and a lot of people have been raiding consistently even though they don't need the gear. Others have been signing up less for raids and taking a break. Hopefully they will be motivated to participate when Ulduar raids are up on the guild calendar. I have mixed feelings about our preparedness for the upcoming challenges, but as always, the Thugs will stand strong and give it our best shot!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Malygos is Dead!

Last night was the time to complete 10 man EoE. The guild has progressed far enough from a gear and skill perspective. We have all learned how to play together and maximize each player's strengths in a raid. This was proven last night as we took raiding to a higher level on Malygos.

Originally the group was going to have an additional caster. However, an Unholy Death Knight was substituted in which would allow the raid to have all three major Death Knight cooldowns and auras. One of the problems that had held groups back from maximum DPS and survival capacity in the past was too many players with the same buffs/gains that would overwrite each other.

Tank: Paladin (w/ Kings)
Healers: Druid, Shaman, Priest (w/ Light Well)
DPS: Warrior , Mage (Frostfire), Warlock (Affliction), Death Knight (Blood), Death Knight (Frost), Death Knight (Unholy)

This was a very balanced group since there would be no overwriting of major buffs. The group was also very durable, which is very important for this run. Any more cloth casters may have presented issues during phase 2. The group was slightly melee heavy, but we were able to kill the scions fast enough in Phase 2 to get the Death Knights more platforms.

Our first attempt was very solid, we missed a few cooldowns & sparks, and still managed to get to Phase 3 with over 2 minutes left. Each attempt, the group communicated more, synchronized their cooldowns a bit better and got on track. By the Fourth try, we got to phase 3 with a couple of dead at the with 3min40sec left. This is perfect. It was tight near the end. Who ever thought I would be screaming at the remaining players on the drakes to put "More DOTs! More DOTs! More DOTs!" well I got a little excited and did say that... Malygos was killed at the enrage.

Congratulations to all the participants! Thanks to those who have attended regularly and put up with multiple wipe fests! For the people who had never seen this fight before, no one would have guessed since you had had watched the videos and came prepared. Great Effort!
Where do we go from here with this run? It's certainly a difficult fight. After leading many unsuccessful (successful for learning though) runs and now completing a successful Malygos kill, I have a good idea of the minimum requirements to complete this instance. I think it can easily be farmed every week as long as group composition is watched closely. Hopefully as many people as possible get the chance to kill Malygos, it is truly an epic event.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Naxxramas: Status Report

Last night (Thursday) we completed another full clear of Naxxramas 25. The guild is making constant progress and we are almost making a comfortable two night clear. There are a few roadblocks in the way of this goal and I'll address some of them later in this post.

First off, I'll summarize the most recent run. This run felt a little awkward. Many little things crept up throughout the entire run such as disconnects, addon issues, communication problems etc. The leadership team handled all of this very well and the players were patient when we were working out problems.

The goal of the run was to complete the instance, all that remained was the last two bosses in the Arachnid Quarter, the entire Construct Quarter and Frostwyrm Lair.

When we killed Faerlina, some of the addon trouble began. We're using an addon called EPGPlootmaster which makes loot very very fast when it works properly. It appeared that the loot addon would act up if someone disconnected during the run. We had a couple of participants in the run who had connectivity issues on bosses which resulted in loot problems. The Raid Leader assigned to loot handled this frustrating dilemma very well, and we tried to move on as quickly as possible. Once the addon problems are sorted out, this will save a significant amount of time.

Other than loot delays and waiting for some disconnects, it was smooth sailing through Naxx until Thaddius. This boss has been a stumbling point for our raids in the past. The same problems arise just about every time. Players miss jumps from Feugen and Stalagg's platforms which excludes both their DPS and their raid DPS charge buff for too long. They also miss the Polarity Shifts and end up on the wrong polarity side which will sometimes kill a couple of squishies.

In addition to the usual problems, we try to Battle Rez players in this fight. For a successful Battle Rez, the Druid must go out of the action and resurrect the player away from the charge buff area; also the player being resurrected must accept the resurrection right when Thaddius is casting the Polarity Shift. This is rarely successful, and will remove a Druid doing DPS and their DPS charge buff for a long time.

Eventually I had to tell the raid "if you die, you will NOT get rezzed so don't count on it". Maybe saying this has nothing to do with the actual outcome of the battle but we killed Thaddius the next try with very few deaths. I think the "no rez" approach is probably a good policy to keep in this encounter, as every time someone has to rez it's too costly to the raid.

On a positive note (oops bad pun) - the majority of players including those that often have trouble with fine movement have significantly improved their performance on this fight. It's great to see personal improvement among the raid participants, good job!

After the minor debacle on Thaddius, we proceeded to kill Sapphiron without too many issues. One thing to mention is how much the healing squad has improved on this fight. Often after a Frost Block I would have no incoming heals and get dangerously low on health throughout the encounter (and die sometimes). The healers kept a nice steady stream of incoming heals on me and the entire raid. Great job!

On to the final boss - The leader of The Cult of the Damned, Kel'Thuzad.

Knowing in advance that I was leading this fight, I worked out all assignments ahead of time and kept a list of who will be doing what for each phase and also a list of reminders for the raid as this fight is so busy. The overall explanation and assignments from me took 7 minutes. To me this is extraordinarily long to explain a fight but he is Kel'Thuzad, the final boss in Naxxramas. I would rather spend more time preparing instead of wiping then working out the assignments which should have been done anyway. We're all set to go in - Melee groups set to go, interrupts arranged, healer positioning and assignments set etc.

Chaaaarrrge! First Phase - cake, here comes Kel'Thuzad... I picked him up, pulled him to his spot and tanked. All looked good, we lost a couple of people to Frost Blocks, one or two to Shadows, still moving strong. When Kel'Thuzad was at about 60%, everyone on my screen stopped, they were running in place... *BOOM* Disconnect. I panicked a bit and yelled into vent "I'm disconnecting!!". One of the OTs taunted immediately and took my place. I managed to get back into the game about 30 seconds later, the adds were incoming in a few moments, and a couple of people had died. There was still hope for this fight. I was on adds duty, the other OT and I picked them up, it was a little tricky to get the right positioning for them. With the combination of confusion from being our first attempt, disconnects and having some people die for various reasons, our raid ran out of steam and Kel'Thuzad had ~250K health left (2%) when we died. Dammit!

That was a great first attempt though, we went back in immediately with plenty of momentum. By this time, we had hit the official raid end time, no one is ever obligated to raid beyond this time and it's also pretty late for East Coast players. Everyone wanted to continue, great! We got buffs up, worked out a few kinks and rushed in there again. There were again issues with ice blocks, Mind controls and such. There were two designated melee groups who have to stay far enough apart so that only one group gets blocked at a time. A couple of people were in between both groups and formed a bridge for the ice block. Almost the entirety of the melee force got ice blocked at once. This was terrible... but it was also impressive! (in a cruel kind of way). This initiated the slow killing of the raid.

Something similar happened on the next attempt too. I was ice blocked as well, this was very frustrating. Also, some healers would die in blocks too, this made us fall behind. Even with all these issues, we had very good DPS, steady healing and good recovery. This was certainly within our reach. We just had to concentrate, pull it together and get this boss!

A few players had to depart because it was late. No problem - they have no obligation to stay and their contribution for the raid was appreciated. We replaced a few raid slots and went in for the kill - DONE! Another full clear of Naxx! Great Job.

Considering all the little things that happened, I tried to keep the run moving. I have been implementing methods of minimizing downtime and it has been pretty effective. I must admit that after getting disconnected, then being ice blocked twice, I was pretty frustrated. I just let out some of that frustration in discussion after and then let it go. Honestly, I had a ton of fun! It was still an odd run, but everyone learned a lot. I'll try to take a lot of experience from this as a leader regarding communication and how to deal with unexpected situations. I'm also happy that any frustration from this run didn't continue for long after; in the past things like this would bother me but I do realize this is a game and it's nothing to really get worked up about, I just get passionate sometimes.

Great Run! We'll have an easy 2 night clear in no time.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Raiding Toolbox

Here is a quick overview of the tools that I use for leading raids.

Is your raid forgetful? Do people come unprepared? No worries, use BigBrother to watch your raid's every move. Buffs, food, elixirs, flasks and more!

Have you ever joined a PUG where the tank takes 2 patrol routes of a mob to mark up the kill order? No more slow marking with MagicMarker! You set a target order, and hold down a button to do mouse over marking. You can also save target configurations for each mob in a database and share it with others so that you just hit a button and the next large group auto marks. It's so fast that your healers are guaranteed to never be out of combat to recover mana!

EPGPLootmaster is a fresh addon that we have been experimenting with in the guild. It makes loot so easy! Doing loot in raid chat would take forever. Now everyone in the raid can select need/offspec/pass and be done with it. Loot for a 25 man raid boss took ~2 minutes (instead of 5+minutes). Less loot time = more killing time = uber.

Big Wigs is the most reliable source for boss timers and warnings in raids.

ORA2 - This is must have. Tank Lists, Assist Frames, Cooldowns (including Battle Rez cooldowns), Durability, Resistances etc. Any information that you need on the fly can be accessed with this addon.

For aggro management, Omen is the best. It provides a neat display of each player's threat in a customizable window.

Addons that I want but are not being used effectively:
- Good Raid frames that do not use up too much memory and are not ugly
- Something that tells the raid when I cast certain spells
- A button that I can press which will play a recording of myself explaining fights

For detailed info, Quaiche is the addon guru - check out Q's WoW Setup

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

All the Small things Cont'd

I will share my thoughts about the remaining points that come up while I lead casual raids.

Enable a social and friendly atmosphere, but not let this hinder raid performance

This topic is where casual raiding and hardcore raiding diverges the most. In hardcore guilds, raids are very serious business and socializing is to be done outside of raid time.

Some players attend our guild's raids to socialize. The best approach for this is to emphasize clearing vent and chat on progression or difficult content. Otherwise let the raid chatter away, we're there to have fun after all. Sometimes the raid's social atmosphere will feel strange when it's too quiet; I'll end up cracking stupid jokes and sounding like an ass. Good times.

Social atmosphere is where the 25 man raids and the 10 man raids are different. Thee 25 mans have more assignments, buffs and more to pay attention to (even though I find 25 mans easier to play and lead). Basically I try to leave the floor open for discussion and when things go awry during a time where we need concentration, a good stern "Clear vent now" takes care of business.

Make appropriate assignments based on class/spec strengths & Consider assignments based on player gear and skill

Knowledge is key to being a strong leader. One can have all the charisma in the world but if you can't divide and conquer then you're just another player. While farming in-game and during downtime at work, I have spent hours of time watching videos, reading/watching alternate strategies, reading about how to do encounters with non-ideal groups etc. Everybody has their place in an encounter, and it's up to the leaders to put them in a position that favors their personal success and the raid's success. Sometimes raid progression and player progression will be separate, and one must choose the best path. I'll use an example:

We're about to try Four Horsemen. The Raid Leader needs to assign two people for staying on Lady Blameaux and Sir Zeliek. Two members in the raid have done this numerous times without a problem. One player is newer and has not done it. Their gear also isn't as good as the other two condidates.

Do I assign the newer person to the back to make them learn this encounter (and perhaps expect a wipe) or do I put the two experienced players back there?

For me, the answer isn't the ideal one. It depends. Will this person need to do it again in the near future? How strong is rest of the raid? Do we have enough time?

This part of using one's knowledge of the mechanics of an encounter and knowing a player's strengths/weaknesses to make a decision. Eventually everyone who plays certain classes and specs should play the difficult role in Horsemen, and I'll try to put them there when the time is right.

Another thought that I would like to add is that it's great to give interested people those difficult tasks to complete. As long as they are actively trying to improve then they should be given a chance. I recall co-leading a run a long time ago where a player was having difficulty kiting adds on Gluth. I asked in the RL channel "should I replace him? He's having trouble back there." The other leader replied with "No, give him a chance, he's improving." After a few wipes, this player learned the kite. I was surprised, this was so amazing to see. Since then I have tried not to jump into switching all positions immediately if there is trouble, give people a chance to work things out and it will be a personal victory for them and advancement in the raid's skill level.

Be able to concisely describe and summarize all encounters in a short period of time

From the long winded posts here, it seems that I may have an issue with being concise. The amount of time that I spend explaining fights varies. I keep a notebook and text file with summaries of all the encounters; it contains all assignments, fight progression and boss abilities. I admit that lately I have been winging all the 10 mans. I do a degree of prep for the 25 mans, especially for fights that require a divide (like Horsemen).

I used to have long drawn out explanations and discussion for fights when most of the group was doing these fights for the first time. Part of this is because we are a casual guild, many people don't watch videos of encounters. We explain assuming that they don't prepare for the encounters (however I expect that people do prepare). I'm now leaning more towards the "throw them into the heat of battle" approach. Perhaps a hybrid approach is best.

Things evolve. I started off in progression doing the drawn out explanations of the mechanics behind Horsemen. Now I just say "who has not done this fight?" then give a quick explanation to the new folks, often cutting corners "Just follow this target, stick together". There are strengths and weaknesses in this approach, the last thing that I want is to put a 25 man raid in a coma while explaining fights. Our raids are all about energy and momentum, and I'll occasionally sacrifice a "perfect" fight for enthusiasm.

Delegate the right tasks to other Raid Leaders

Delegation is another key to being a leader. If there are other leaders in the raid, use them. I know sometimes we like to do everything ourselves, but there is nothing wrong with asking for another's expertise to complete a fight (other Raid Leaders, or experienced players).

For example: When I tank Loatheb, I can't always see where the spores are coming from. I usually assign a Ranged DPS to call out which group should be getting the spores and the locations.

Conversely, I strongly believe that a Raid Leader should be able to lead a 25 man progression raid solo. Why? We're leaders, we should be good at what we do even if we're thrown into the fire.

If someone else is leading, assist without getting in the way

This is the opposite of the point above. If someone is leading, let them do their job. Be there for leadership support, offer help but when the tasks are set, don't get in the way, try not to interrupt.

Sometimes I wonder how to deal with certain cases. I have seen a leader make a bad assignment for a fight or explain something awkwardly. Sometimes I say something, sometimes I don't. I guess it depends on the magnitude of what is going on. I also listen to the other leaders and learn from their style. We all have a different style and approach to leading. I'll sometimes integrate qualities of the other leaders' style if it fits better for the task at hand. Smart people listen to all those around them and absorb knowledge and others' strengths.

Develop a consistent predictable system for kill order, groups, etc.

This is straightforward. For new people, just review your guild's system. I often forget to set groups based on group buffs ans group benefits. Having a good consistent system will be very helpful when we get to progression content.

Listen to suggestions, be able to modify strategy on the fly

Sometimes we struggle on certain fights, especially if we have non-ideal groups for certain fights. Then the alternate strategies will be brought up by the members of the raid (especially from the leaders). It's great to get suggestions when we're struggling, and to have good places to discuss it. Sometimes you just have to say "my strategy sucked, let's go with yours". I listen to all the incoming suggestions, and modify our approach. This is a combination of knowing the mechanics of a fight and acknowledging that there are so many ways to do it. It seems that the "ideal" way never works for our group, that's fine, we never get bored that way. It's important to listen and also be able to decline certain strategies (no matter who they come from). Decisions Decisions Decisions.

Have fun and keep up morale!

Everyone can get so caught up in trying to succeed, keep things under control and guild drama that you lose sight of why everybody is playing Warcraft - to have FUN! This is an amazing game full of exciting tasks to complete. There are struggles and many facets of the game and leadership that are not fun, but in the end it's worth it.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Late Shift

Late Shift is awesome! The raid starts at 9:00pm server time (midnight my time). I was waitlisted but asked to attend at the last minute since some people could not make it.

I had a blast! We mowed through Naxx 10 easily. To me there is nothing better than casually hopping into an instance with a group of friends, blasting the music, having a couple of drinks and having a few good laughs.

Despite all the RL and in-game drama that swirls about, nights like that remind me of why I play this damn game so much. When good people come together to realize a common goal (and have fun at the same time), it's truly marvelous.

Blah Blah sappy stuff, I'm not good at it.

The last rantings about being a good raid leader are in progress. I'll save it for conference call Tuesdays (how else do I not get bored out of my skull?)

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

All the Small Things - How to Improve as a Raid Leader

Tuesdays are great - server reset and a scheduled Naxx 25!

We got 7 bosses down without too many problems. The purpose of this post is to organize my thoughts regarding leadership.

I was one of the primary leaders for that raid and afterward, I thought about how to improve my leadership skills. Here is a long list of my goals as a Raid Leader in a casual raid setting:

  • Minimize downtime, keep up a good pace
  • Make good quick decisions during encounters under pressure while still playing my role to the best of my ability
  • Enable a social and friendly atmosphere, but not let this hinder raid performance
  • Make appropriate assignments based on class/spec strengths
  • Consider assignments based on player gear and skill
  • Be able to concisely describe and summarize all encounters in a short period of time
  • Delegate the right tasks to other Raid Leaders
  • Develop a consistent predictable system for kill order, groups, etc.
  • Listen to suggestions, be able to modify strategy on the fly
  • If someone else is leading, assist without getting in the way
  • Have fun and keep up morale!


Starting a Raid

I keep a notebook and a large collection of spreadsheets and text documents that track performance, strategy and remind me of certain tasks. For starting a raid, I have the following reminders: Promote Assistants, Assign ML and ML threshold, Set Instance Difficulty, Set MT List, Start EPGP (our DKP system) addon, Remind Players about Resistance Gear and Consumables.

Minimizing Downtime

Since I usually lead as a tank, I can set the pace for pulling trash and bosses. My goal is to chain pull a whole instance, this will shave off many minutes of downtime for each raid and prevent people from getting bored. Where I think there is a lot of downtime in my guild's raids is when I am discussing strategy in tells and in the Raid Leader channels. Most of the raid can not see these discussions. From my perspective, there is an active conversation and productive decision making, meanwhile the raid is quickly losing their enthusiasm.

There are a few approaches to this problem. One is to anticipate downtime and let the raid know that there will be a 3-5 min break. I don't mind doing this before a boss, but I no not like doing it between boss attempts. Another way is to contemplate alternate strategies and plans before the discussion starts so that decisions and alternate strategies can be made quicker. A good way to keep up enthusiasm is to simply let the raid know that the Raid Leaders are having a quick discussion so that they know something is being done and it's not wasted dead time.

Quick Decisions

I'll use an example from the raid last night to address this topic. There were seven Druids in the raid. During encounters like Heigan and Razuvious where many players died, I had to call out battle resurrections. What I felt like saying was "Dear Druids, I am currently getting smacked a 20 ft tall Undead while running across a lethal exploding poison floor. Rez whoever the @#$% you want." Of course, there is usually a world of difference between what one wants to say and what one should say. I made a bad call telling a Druid to rez a DPS instead of a healer (I hadn't noticed that the healer had died). On Razuvious, there appeared to be an infinite cycle of Druid resurrections.

Since I was paranoid about from Heigan about getting all the healers alive, I would say "Druid A, Rez Healer B", then Druid A would say "Druid C is down, I'll rez him and then he can rez Healer B". When Duid C is battle rezed, then conveniently Druid D would die. "Hey, how about Druid C will rez Druid D who will rez Healer B". Meanwhile Healer B is probably wondering why he didn't get a rez 2 minutes ago. You see where this is going.

To improve these quick calls in a raid, I can adjust my UI to see cooldowns more easily and adjust raid frames so I can see more information in a glance. Heigan isn't really that bad, but maybe if I am tanking dance fights in Ulduar, I can delegate those calls to a Druid (who would have thought?). One thing to keep in mind is awareness. Near the end of a raid, I tend to be less aware of what is going on and have tunnel vision on my tasks at hand. I need to think about all the calls I may need to make before the encounter begins. I also need to be aware of my wavy attention span as the raid approaches its third hour (and this is usually when good calls are needed the most).

Anyway, I am just putting these thoughts in a more organized manner. All this crazy raid stuff is what makes leading fun and interesting to me. I'll discuss the other points in future posts. If anyone reads this, feel free to make suggestions!

Monday, February 9, 2009

EoE Again

On a boring Sunday night with no raids scheduled, what's better than kicking Malygos?

I want as many people to see this fight as possible and keep some of the EoE regulars sharp so we can knock him down someday.

There were as few players in the 10 man group who were less experienced or who were not properly geared for this instance. It's no big deal, they will get that point eventually and everyone should see this fight at least for fun.

We quickly managed to get to the third phase. We did not have enough sustained DPS to kill Malygos before the enrage, however the encounter was the smoothest I have seen to date! Very few people died, we survived the vortices etc.

This was a positive raid! We had tons of fun and learned so much!

Strangely, I found this to be the easiest attempts yet. The healers were great, the movement between magic bubbles was almost perfect. I am used to Malygos' movement patterns for tanking.

Considering how easy and stress-free this encounter was for just some casual Sunday night raiding, I am 100% convinced that if we attempted Malygos with more Raid Level approved characters then we will kill him.

Since the last time we attempted Malygos, we have completed numerous 10 man Naxx runs and have distributed a lot of loot from the 25 mans. Most of the regular raiding core's HP has increased by 3K, and their DPS rocks!

The raid only lasted ~1 hour; we had maximized our productivity for that run. We have the potential to kill Malygos easily with an organized group.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Fall of Naxxramas

During the course of the past week, my Guild cleared four wings of 25 man Naxxramas. This was motivated by many players' desire to push forward in this instance. The floodgates were opened and we swept into the Ziggurat with great enthusiasm.

There were only two nights of Naxxramas 25 scheduled for this week. Due to difficulty with signups on a Friday Malygos run, we managed to buy more time to conquer the remaining bosses in the first four wings of the Heroic instance. This left the portal open to see Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad on Heroic difficulty on our first real push into Naxxramas. Getting this far was not seriously expected by anyone. Maybe it was meant to happen.

Always Bring a Parka to a Sapphiron Fight

The Raid Leading team has been spamming Guild Chat and the Guild site non-stop during the 48 hours before the Sapphiron encounter. One of our biggest concerns was getting stuck on Sapphiron due to too much Frost damage on the raid.

Raid invites went out, the attendance for this raid was the best to date for a 25 man. It looked like the raid will be starting early. These are already good signs. We all gathered in Sapphiron's room and the 25 man Raid Coordinator asked everyone to put their Frost Resistance gear on - *drum roll* Bam! Check ORA2: Everyone in the raid was over 350 except for the MT (me, ~300FR) and most of the Raid was Frost Resistance capped. This level of preparedness was a good omen.

The leader decided to put the majority of the raid on one side of Sapphiron. This worked well with the amount of resistance that the raid had. The fight mechanics are the same on the Heroic and Normal versions. Everybody had no problem hiding behind the ice blocks. Sometimes certain raid members would get dangerously low on health when Sapphiron's Blizzard was on top of half the raid who were stuck hiding behind an Ice Block with no room to escape. Perhaps an unfortunate series of events like the Blizzard+Ice Block, range issues and low mana led to my death when Sapphiron had less than 10% health. No worries, the Druid off-tank picked up the dragon and we managed to kill Sapphiron on the first try. The raid's preparation for this fight really made this fight easy. Congratulations to all who helped out in this endeavour!

Kel'Thuzad's Destruction

The efforts of the raiders in this guild have accumulated to bring us to this point - the final boss in Heroic Naxxramas. We discussed all the strategy in detail before we engaged Kel'Thuzad. There was not a lot of melee in this raid (perhaps a guild first); the melee groups were split and will fight on each side of Kel'Thuzad. I would be tanking Kel in the vacant spot of the triangle. The healers and casters will spread out around Kel'Thuzad to have full coverage of the entire room. We were all set and headed in - let's kill him! Well he killed us. What happened?

This fight has many components and everyone must focus on their job. The raid did well, however some casters were too close to eachother and got a double ice block (while being out of range of a couple of healers). The healers also had to get into the habit of sharp fast heals especially when the melee group got ice blocked. When the Melee group would die from ice blocks then there were no interrupts, and the frost bolts got out of control. I got killed by a 22K frost bolt (immediately after I was blocked due to someone being to close to me grr). This is a fight of discipline and practice. No one seriously expected to get Kel'Thuzad on the first attempt anyway.

We make preparations and tried again. Some of the same things happened again, but the raid positioning and spike healing was getting much better. During the fight, someone would occasionally exclaim "uh oh" (or some variation) into vent; no one has to ask what it is, we know they weren't paying attention and annihilated by a Shadow Fissure.

Controlling the players who were mind controlled was very challenging. They were often accidentally killed. It was unfortunate when the off-tanks for the other MC'd players and add were killed (oops). We also learned to control positioning and find safe spots for mind controlled players.

Eventually all the components of this busy fight fell into place and we killed Kel'Thuzad. This is such a huge morale and confidence boost for this guild.

Upcoming events: More Naxx, maybe a Malygos in the next couple of weeks and maybe even a Sarth+1 Drake attempt.


On a side note, I picked up [Last Laugh] off of Kel'Thuzad. It's the best tanking weapon in the game for Warriors and Paladins. Thanks all, Woot!

Monday, February 2, 2009

Rocking the Military Quarter

There were two 10 man Malygos runs scheduled last Friday. The group makeup and class balance for the approved raiders was a bit shaky since a successful Malygos kill requires fine tuning of the raid. Last minute retractions made the outlook for that run look grim. The Raid Leader for the other run proposed that we go back into 25 man Naxx and give the Military Quarter a try (the last quarter before we would gain access to Frostwyrm Lair). The combined groups formed a nice backbone for a Heroic Raid group. We would just have to pick up 5 more people. Excellent, let's give it a try!

Forming the 25 man raid last minute caught a few people by surprise, however most of the Malygos raiders were happier to go back into Naxx anyway. There were a few no-shows from the Malygos raid list which further confirmed that this wasn't the night to kill Malygos. We did a call in Guild Chat to fill in the empty raid slots. We managed to get a decent 24 man group (with potentially one or two incoming to fill in spots later).

Welcome to another episode of Good Idea, Bad Idea. Subject - Priest Tanking

The raid started a few minutes late and we immediately made our way to Razuvious. The only challenge that we anticipated was coordination of the Priests Mind Controlling the Understudies. There are many issues with this fight, and all the weight is solely put on the Priests' shoulders.
  • All three Priests in the raid were healing
  • Healing Priests have almost no hit gear (resulting in misses and early breaking of MC)
  • Learning to tank takes time. Priests have the opposite role, and a complete change of mindset is difficult
We assigned two of the priests to Mind Control Duty and let the third continue to heal (and assigned some hybrid classes to off-healing). Some strategies indicate that a Mind Control pull + taunt Razuvious is acceptable, other strategies suggest that a tank head in first in case the adds go after the Priest who just Mind Controlled. The first method was not working which resulted in a few people getting killed right away by the time the Understudies could get control of Razuvious, however the encounter appeared to be easy enough to heal and DPS when Razuvious was being held away from the raid. We tried the other method of pulling which worked nicely for immediate control. The Priests were shaky in calling out when the Bone Shield and Taunt was going to expire, but they improved significantly every time.

The last challenge to iron out was that sometimes both Priests would have their Mind Control Broken at the same time (or near the same time) and Razuvious would kill a few raid members before he was once again taunted. We decided to get the third Priest to control on Understudy and taunt when the other two Mind Controls broke at the same time. The amount of concentration and control that the Priests projected in their voices over ventrilo was phenomenal. After some shaky starts, they managed to get into a great pattern of communication and we then killed Razuvious. This was a close kill, all possible resources were exhausted during the fight; less than 10 people survived the encounter which made for a photo finish. It was an exciting and well deserved victory, and the Priests overcame a great challenge and performed an impressive feat.

Division of Doom

We took a short break and filled up the raid to kill Gothik. I divided the groups for the encounter, however I was probably too focused on the "right" class/role division (for an ideal group) and not on common sense divisions based on survivability, burst/slow DPS and Ranged/Melee. This resulted in an odd combination on the Live side which lacked some burst healing and was light on DPS compared to the Dead Side. I'm always hesitant to put too much DPS on the Live side because they can overwhelm the Dead side if they kill too many enemies at once. However, with two Ret Paladins and a Paladin tank on the Dead side, I had some misplaced paranoia. The poor group balance resulted in the Live Side getting overwhelmed. My mistake. I rearranged the groups for the second attempt and we killed Gothik easily. Woot.

Precision Encounter

Even though it was getting a little late, we decided to press on to the Four Horsemen. Many people loathe this fight however this is my favourite encounter to date; simply put: it's beautiful. It embodies all the aspects of a challenging, yet satisfying encounter. All the pieces of the puzzle are needed for success - Sharp Movement, Talented Healers, Solid Tanking, Communication and a degree of Uncertainty. There are many interesting ways to complete this fight, but I assigned groups based on the standard strategy: Tanks and DPS in the front (split evenly) and a couple of people who can heal themselves/each other in each back corner. The first time wasn't bad, the front was solid, the back just got a tiny bit behind on healing. The more successful back corner had a healer and a bear tank. It was suggested to me that the other bear tank who was cat for this run slap on his Stamina set and take the other corner. So the back had one healer and one bear on each side. This worked well on the second attempt! During the second attempt, the front killed Baron and Kor'Thazz very quickly, however there were a few deaths every transition. The biggest difference between the 10 man and 25 man versions it that the marks hurt a lot on the 25 man. Slowly the raid withered away to less than 10 people who were almost all healers and tanks, but we were successful! Toward the end of this encounter, almost everyone was in a mad panic as the melee DPS switched out when stacks got too high and the healers adjusted their range to stay out of the marks. This fight was a huge adrenaline rush and I wish I can do it again!

In conclusion, a potentially gloomy run was converted into a fun run that advanced guild progression and sharpened the skills, knowledge and gear of many players. Some of these battles were probably won by the force of will of the participants, and this proved that we can overcome some of the game's biggest challenges.

Motivation

We had decided to call the raid after the Four Horsemen as it was a bit past the designated raid stop time. This was a long and grueling run and the raid made a great effort and advanced our progression ahead. Another victory for the Thugs!

We didn't have time to see Frostwyrm Lair, so we posted a run for tonight to try to kill Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad before the instance reset. Hopefully the participants don't underestimate the difficulty of these encounters, and make the proper preparations for this raid. We have suggested three pieces of Frost Resistance for this fight to increase raid survivability. Hopefully we can pull off a guild first full clear of 25 man Naxxramas tonight.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Naxxramas 25: Construct Quarter

Last night we decided to combat the entire Construct Quarter (and hopefully complete the Military Quarter) for the first time as a guild. We ventured into the Nerubian Ziggurat with high expectations due to the velocity which we gained from clearing the Arachnid and Plague wings a couple of days ago. Some challenging scenarios were cleared easily and faster than expected, other feats required a large amount of concentration and effort.

We got going a little late due to some last minute retractions and wait listed people not being present to fill some gaps. Once some smart improvisations were implemented, we had a solid group and we went on to the first boss.

Patchwerk is a familiar encounter. We immediately assigned two healers for each tank, and we killed the boss easily in one try. It's great to see how implementing strategy that we learned from previous encounters with this boss worked perfectly. This was purely a textbook kill.

The Safe Zone Ends Here

We proceeded through the Frogger trap (aka the 16th boss in Naxxramas) which razed more Gladiators than Patchwerk consumed. After completing Naxxramas many times, one wonders what sadistic scamp contrived this trap.

In the 10 man version of Naxxramas, Grobbulus has always been a moderate challenge, but has never been a major stumbling block. This fight was far easier than we had expected. The raid did very well with positioning the poison clouds in the appropriate spot. The fight progression was very smooth until near the end where many clouds were stacked in one spot near the corner of the room and the slimes began to overwhelm some casters. This was still unexpectedly easy overall, and the raid recovered quickly after any signs of trouble.

I was MT for this fight, I may have allowed two clouds to be dropped in the same place by missing one. This would explain the unsettled state of Ventrilo comments at the end of the encounter - "look at all the clouds!". In the 1o man, it was easy to see the cloudd being dropped by Grobbulus and one can just move on the visual queue. In the 25 man version, the haphazard collection of every Spell Effect, AoE and Melee player squeezed within a 10 yard radius makes visual queues impossible (hell, it may burn a hole in my monitor). The addon Big Wigs gets the credit for the boss kiting decisions in that fight!

With our victory in stride, we marched on to tackle Gluth. This encounter appears to be unchanged from a strategy standpoint except that there are more zombies and they will spawn from all three grates instead of one grate. We started with two kites and one healer in the back section on the adds. It was apparent immediately during the first attempt that there were not enough resources to tactfully manage the zombies. Even with the occasional death (and subsequent battle resurrections), Gluth's health bottomed at 15% before the raid wiped.

For the second attempt, two healers (a Shaman and Druid), two Hunters and a Retribution Paladin were assigned to kite duty. They had some very minor issues but pulled through and Gluth died very quickly. Wonderful Job!

Only Thaddius Left Right?

For visual types, here is a graph representation of the Thaddius attempts:

Since Gluth has been the largest stumbling point in the 10 man version of this instance, the raid members thought that Thaddius would be a breeze. This was certainly not the case!

The encounter strategy is identical to the 10 man version. Kill Feugen and Stalagg at the same time. Jump to Thaddius' platform. Watch for polarity shift. Go to the left of him if you have a Negative(-) debuff, to the right if you have a Positive(+) debuff.

We had a brief discussion about how to move to the appropriate sides of Thaddius. It was loosely decided that the movement would always be clockwise, meaning that if you wanted to go from the Negative Side to the Positive side then you would go between Thaddius and the wall.

Round 1 - Feugen and Stalagg were killed at the same time easily, onward to Thaddius! Some people missed the jump to Thaddius and landed in the poison water. This caused confusion and chaos in Ventrilo, but the remainder of the raid scattered around Thaddius awaiting his awakening. Polarity Shift incoming - Zap! Many people died during the first shift. We deconstructed what had happened; we need to react to the shift very very quickly and immediately reposition ourselves. Since the raid had consisted of somewhat lazy movement until now, this is easier said than done.

One major issue was determining and clearly communicating which side of Thaddius players had to run past when they needed to shift polarities. It was decided that instead of rotating clockwise, the direction of choice will instead be counterclockwise. So when you shift polarities, you move to your right instead of left (analogous to driving). Players with a Positive debuff move to his right when facing him. Negative to the left. During more attempts, players would frequently say things in ventrilo which crossed the wires in the heads of some of the raid participants (understandably).

"Am I on the right side?" - "You're negative, go to the left" - "You mean go along the left side of Thad?" - "No, the left side" - "Okay, that's the right side then" etc.

The voice chat chaos was cleared up eventually ("Only RLs and Officers can talk!"). Most people got used to the jump (or a mage put slow fall on them). The incoming polarity shifts were being called out to remind players to check their buffs. (This should not need to be done for this fight. It became clear who didn't have boss mods installed.) Everyone's movement became immediate and refined. The last aspect of this fight to overcome after a lot of attempts and practice on this was hitting the enrage timer. Two or three people died every time, and we were always about 2 or 3 people worth of damage short before Thaddius smacked us down. The designated raid end time approached and a couple of people stepped out. We went on to replace them as we were so close to victory.

By the last attempt, the progress of the players in this raid was incredible. Many players improved from sluggish movement and lackluster positioning to top notch awareness and reaction time. The second attempt after calling on the reserves, we killed Thaddius and this victory was well deserved by all the participants.

Despite the difficulties in this raid (especially on Thaddius) with movement, position, getting players to watch buffs etc., this raid was very fun and enjoyable. There were a lot of laughs and a comfortable group dynamic. We all worked well together and helped each other out throughout the encounters.

Next week, there are three nights of Naxx 25 scheduled. I predict that we will come very close to clearing the instance or even clear the whole thing. Every raid we improve, learn and teach others. Hopefully we can carry this type of atmosphere into next week's raids and at very least have a fun time.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Taste of Twenty Five

My guild finally decided to venture into 25 man Naxx. I have been looking forward to this moment for a long time!

We had a well balanced group. The tanks were a Death Knight, a Warrior tank and a Paladin tank (myself). We had three Priests, two Shamans and a Paladin healing (where did the Druids go?).

We clobbered six bosses in about three hours and eventually killed Patchwerk.

Details? Well, we started off with the Arachnid Wing. I got to MT Anub and he was pretty easy. I would kite him around the outside ring every time he started casting Locust Swarm. I think there was some confusion because some people's timers were off for when to expect the incoming swarm. Mine were dead on (latest version of Big Wigs) which made the fight easy. There was a window near the end of the kite where I would be in Locust Swarm. Since the healers were still adjusting their positioning, I ended up getting dangerously low an health and there was nothing I could do other than pop a potion, hit a trinket etc. I did die right near the end w/ Anub at about 100k health but we killed him without a problem. The death was a combination of the already existing range problems, I was impaled right at the end of the last kite (then the healers exclaimed "red range!"). Talk about bad timing. Well we killed him, time to note what can be done better next time and move on.

Faerlina was unexpectedly easy. I was the adds tank for that one (QQ). We had a little mishap where Faerlina was enraged for a good 25 seconds. The healers and MT for the fight did a phenomenal job! I think we could do the [Heroic: Momma Said Knock You Out] achievement next time to kill her in the 25 man. We did do [Momma Said Knock You Out] without a problem before.

Onward to Maexxna! Cake! Sort of. Most of the players had done this fight numerous times so they knew what to expect. I was MT for that fight. I took quite a bit of damage during the immobilization phase. I anticipated as much as possible and hit some damage mitigation abilities immediately before the freeze. One stupid thing that I did was not trust the healers midway through the fight and hit Divine Protection with the hopes that the DPS would burn her down before the immobilize during the enrage part. Well I was wrong. Near the end of the fight, Heroism was hit and the DPS burned hard. We still got immobilized with about 200k left on Maexxna. The HoTs stacked were not enough and I hit the floor again. We still killed her though. There was certainly something to be learned from a tanking perspective during that fight.

Because of the group composition, the Plague Wing appeared to be the next best place to go for our first Naxxramas-25 adventure.

Noth was 1-shotted. Not much to discuss there. The MT had no problem on Noth, the DK and I picked up the adds fairly quickly. Easy.

Then onto our favourite boss in the instance - Heigan. Aside: one of the biggest differences that I have noted between hardcore raiding and casual raiding is the ability for players to move. This fight is 95% movement based which can get a bit hairy with a casual group. End Aside.
I was MT for this. This is one of my favourite fights to tank; it's very different from most encounters so it presents some variety in encounter types. I have been trying to increase avoidance values on this fight, so I have been strafing in such a way that Heigan is still facing my block radius. This is easier said than done, but it's a good exercise for a tank. Most of the usual suspects in the raid died. Some of the players who most often die didn't die which was very good, it shows a definite improvement in movement skill for those players from when we first started doing this encounter. Great job!

Next we decimated the healers' adversary Loatheb (an anagram for "healbot"). Our raid had exceptional DPS so this fight was a breeze. I was the MT for this affair. This is one of the easiest encounters to tank as a Paladin because I can heal myself during the 3 second healing window (usually with LoH near the end). I have seen the healers in this raid do an exceptional job in the 10 man raids that I have done with them, and the 25 man was no different. Kudos!

Since we cleared all that without a problem, where to next? We could have easily done the Military Wing. I suggested that we do Patchwerk in the Raid Leader channel, with the justification that he is a good gauge of how strong our raid is as a whole and will reveal weaknesses that we may have for eventual completion of the instance. Off we went to Patchwerk!

So the first question for this was 'who will MT and OT due to the mechanics?' The Warrior and myself were hovering at ~35K HP raid buffed and the DK had about 33K HP raid buffed. The DK was a newer face in the raids and we figured he should have a shot at MTing something, and he certainly had enough gear and skill to do it. This is the first time I was a Hateful Strike tank. Every time I for whacked with a hateful, my heart skipped a beat. It's certainly a different experience. Now I know what all the Druid Hateful Strike tanks had to go through.

After the first pull, the DK picked Patchwerk up but accidentally touched the poison puddle cutting his HP in half and then he died immediately. Well perhaps that can be is "initiation" to MTing for this guild. We laughed about it, he shook it off and did another attempt. The second time, we got a little further into the fight. The healers would sometimes get behind in healing the Hateful Strike tanks and the Warrior died. In the gaps between when I was healed to full, Patchwerk subsequently went on to one-shot the melee DPS. It was a wipe but we made progress. It was suggested that the majority of the non mana melee DPS stand in the sludge to have their HP cut in half so they never get a Hateful. This was met with some resistance, even though that's the way it's supposed to be done... well if the melee wants to die, that's their choice I guess. Normally we don't assign healers but it seemed to be necessary in this case. Healers were assigned, fine positioning was discussed and with that in place, we killed Patchwerk. The new DK did a great job Main Tanking Parchwerk, the healers got into the right mindset for healing the Hateful Strike tanks and the DPS did their job with ease!

This proved to be a useful benchmark for how raids this week will go. I think that our accomplishments prove that Naxx 25 can be cleared with this group or a comparable one.

Obsidian Sanctum with Tenebron

The guild's other pursuit for new 25 man content was 25 man OS with Tenebron up. I was initially waitlisted for this raid and I did not expect to be called upon to go. There were four no-shows! Ouch. So I was asked to attend. I was assigned to tanking Tenebron. He's a slippery dragon for sure. I missed Tenebron's first landing which resulted in him killing a couple of healers (oops). So I asked the hunter for a MD and such. He's a difficult mob to pick up for me, I'm trying to figure out what the problem is. Firstly, he becomes untargetable for a while while he's flying above our heads, so I need to target him as he is landing. When he lands, it appears that there is a 3 second window in which you can shoot him not it does nothing to his aggro table.

Position & Confusion

I tried tanking Tenebron facing the same direction that Tenebron's Tail was facing, near the middle of the platform (like some videos of the fight had showed). This was too intrusive and some people got it by Tenebron's breath. So then we decided that I would tank him parallel to Sartharion. This was not necessarily a good idea as both tanks were getting hit by Sartharion's fire breath. After the first couple of bad pickups, I managed to get him into a safer spot on the corner of the square island (closer to the portal side) as was suggested by a member in the raid. Meanwhile this is occurring when a lava wave is incoming and the whole place is lagging to hell.

We killed Tenebron a few times during the encounter but just couldn't hold on to kill Sartharion. Despite some bad starts, learning positioning and everything, what the real killer was was the Fissures that appear on the ground throughout the encounter. This was frustrating to watch as a fissure appears beneath five or six people and they are toast within five seconds. This is again where movement problems are staring us in the face. No gear improvement can prevent people from being killed in that situation.

Despite some ongoing issues with people getting killed in the Fissures, we killed Tenebron numerous times and just couldn't hold on with all he whelps and fire adds pouring in. Each attempt got cleaner and we were working well as a group. However, it was decided that the raid would be called early. Personally I would have liked to see a few more tries because each attempt was more productive and we really were not in OS for that long. Perhaps more time can be allotted to this cause during a weekday when the attendees can concentrate a little more.

Upcoming Raids

This week looks like it will be a great time for guild raid progression. There are a ton of signups for all raids. We will have two full nights in 25 man Naxx and get to return to the Eye of Eternity to take another shot at Malygos. It appears that the Malygos groups will be about the same as last times, however we have better gear and more practice so this week looks promising for a Malygos-10 kill. Malygos will die!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Until next time, Malygos

Until now, all raid content that the brave adventurers of have undertaken in Northrend has been a breeze. Well now we've met our nemesis - Malygos! (10 man)

We ventured into the Eye of Eternity with high expectations and with an aura of success from our other raids. The Thugs now have a challenge. We spent three hours in EoE but it was not a waste; much was learned and this knowledge will lead us (eventually) to victory.

Let's Go Already

The other Raid Leaders and I decided to get all the participants to practice the Aces High quest before encountering Malygos. We've had many difficulties with anything involving vehicles and flying, so it's a perfect place to practice!

We all went up and flew in formation. Most people learned how to do effective DPS with their mounts and stick with the healer. You can cast while moving which eliminates a lot of complications when you strafe away from Malygos' Static Field.

The raid quickly became impatient after about ten minutes and we decided to proceed with the run. This may not have been the best idea.

We had a Paladin MT (me), Two Priests and Shaman healing, two mages, two DKs and a Hunter.

Phase 1

We had a few quick wipes on this phase for many reasons. The raid needed time to get used to synchronizing their cooldowns for CC on the sparks. I needed to brush up on getting nice positioning on Malygos.

We immediately noticed how stressed the healers were during Malygos' Vortex. Some players had used more survival gear and consumables as is stated in the strategies, others didn't and it showed. The healers were OOM part way through Phase 1. Part of it was everyone taking too much damage and the healers were getting used to a strict mana management regime.

A combination of solutions led to completing Phase 1 very quickly and with ease. Both of the Death Knights in the raid were Unholy specced to do pure damage, however their buffs and auras don't stack nicely (or at all) so one of the Death Knights volunteered to respec to Blood.

Especially when multiple Sparks were stacked, the Death Knight's Blood Aura helped the whole raid and that help persisted when people were doing all instant cast damage in the Vortex. The benefits of Blood Aura were buffed in Patch 3.0.8 so it makes this incredible aura even more powerful!

Another key to the healing during Malygos was that one of the Priests specced into Lightwell. Lightwell was always a running joke because it sucked before. Now my mind has been changed! The Priest dropped the Light Well in the middle of where the spark buffs were stacked. Everybody clicked it before we got launched into the air. Tada! A free HoT for the whole raid!

The healers also saved their +mana cooldowns and pots for the transition between Phase 1 and 2. Phase 2 is high intensity damage so they can not blow everything in the first phase.

We practiced a lot and managed to slow and CC the sparks enough to have three stacking damage buffs at once. With the appropriate classes, it may even be possible to have a four stack. The DPS fell into a nice rotation of not sacrificing too much DPS by constantly paying attention to the spark placement (we have struggled with this in the past). How the spark are stacked is very class dependent. I like to let the DPS work it out. They basically declare all their slows and effective CC abilities, the ability cooldowns and the range. Then they worked out a rotation for Spark CC that was effective.

Phase 2

Again we wiped a few times on Phase 2 because we simply needed practice. Once the healers went in with full mana then it was easy. Surprisingly a couple of the stronger players still stood out of the bubble a couple of times during the Deep Breath.

It's hard to emphasize constant aggressive DPS but then forcing people to hold on for one moment during a time of survival. It's as difficult as telling a tank to stop gaining aggro. The concept "If I die, I do ZERO DPS" must be hammered into everyone's brain.

If your raid has to blow the lid off on this one... pop EVERYTHING that has not been exhausted by now. Every second counts and you must get to Phase 3 with more than 3 minutes left.

Phase 3

Your raid falls hopelessly into the darkness only to be rescued by a pack of Drakes. One would imagine that such majestic creatures would harbor an trace of intelligence, however they must rely on the commands of the worn out, tired, stressed and drunk soldiers who land atop their backs.

Don't misinterpret this, this fight is buckets of FUN! It's hard to lose control of the character you tweak and control for a simplified version of whack-a-mole. However, the worst part is the embarrassment of failing to comfortably do a sequence of casts with a vehicle that has six buttons.

The practice ahead of time paid off. We were flying in sync, learning to cast and move etc. Many players had difficulty knowing when to hit their shield. Deadly Boss mods places a skull target above your head if you're the boss' target. Unfortunately Malygos has a severe case of TAB-Targeting syndrome and couldn't make up his mind. Many players burned their shields and energy for no reason. We all got used to anticipating when he will single target damage. It wasn't enough though, we got so close but by the time we perfected all that was stated above, the raid end time drew near and it was time to call it a night.

The Best Leaders Know When to Quit

This was a three hour scheduled run. We avoid going too far past stop times. It seems that we hit the apogee of performance at about two hours into the raid. The Raid Leaders and myself observed a decline in aggressive DPS and a steady increase in absent minded mistakes as the raid went on. We saw this coming. Pur instincts were to quit shortly ofter our best attempt but we kept trying until the very last minute. As a leader, one must always ask themselfes "is this really worth it, are we learning anything, are we having fun?". I still don't know if we should have called it ealier. Maybe I will someday have insight to make that call.

The Best Leaders Know When to Keep Fighting!


So the night ended a little flat on the enthusiasm. To summarize - we got to the third phase multiple times with more than three minutes left. This is within our grasp! Malygos will die... eventually. There are some upcoming scheduled runs and the signups look great, I don't know if the others are but I'm looking forward to it.