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.

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.

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

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.

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?)

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!

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.

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!

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.