Well, I am a week late with this post because we had a bunch of regular raiders out last week which caused us to cancel a raid and wipe on Faction Champions with some friend ranks. Last night we went in with our regular group and cleared them in a few attempts to get to Twin Val'kyr. Our server was still undergoing maint as hour into raid time and even when it came up lag was terrible which set us way back for the night, so I did not get to see Anub yet. I assume we will kill him on Thursday and I will have a post about that as well.
So Twin Val'kyr is a fight where you have to worry about your "polarity". There is a dark boss and a light boss. There are also 4 portals in the room that give your character a polarity when touched. To DPS a boss you must have the opposite polarity of them. For example, the group on the right side of the room is the dark group and is tanking and DPSing the light boss. The tanks want to position them near the portal in the front of their side that is the opposite color they are assigned, so they can switch easily for vortex.
I assigned 2 healers on each tank and they stick with their group. We then had the 3 raid healers just choose a color to be and stand in the middle of the arena. From there, I could reach the entire raid. I mostly stuck with chain heals.
This fight is not very difficult, and I believe we 3 or 4 shot it. It is just getting people used to switching colors when they need to. A couple of our wipes were due to terminology used on vent when communicating what people needed to do. Here is how to deal with their abilities.
Balls of Light/Dark - These balls spawn and randomly move about the room. If one touches you that is your same color, you start to stack a buff on yourself. When the stack reaches 100 you get powered up and do double damage for a short time. It is nice, but it is a big DPS loss to ever go out of your way to collect them. Only bother if it is literally right next to you. Balls of the opposite color explode and do 12k damage to anyone within 8 yards. You have to keep an eye out, as several hitting you together can gib a non-tank.
Twins Pact - One of the 2 bosses will start to cast a heal called Twins Pact. This will heal for 20% and you cannot let this go off. The issue is they will put up a shield around themselves to prevent interruptions. You must do 250k damage to the shield before the 15 sec cast of Twins Pact happens and get off an interrupt. This is similar to the KT shield from Tempest Keep. You want all DPS to switch over to whichever twin is casting the shield. Ideally, the other color group will have time to switch colors and contribute, but even if they don't they can do toss in some DPS to help. We settled on yelling "DPS BLACK" or "DPS WHITE" over vent to keep this clear. We wiped twice because we would confuse people by saying "Switch to black" which can mean either DPS or switch your color. Ooops.
Vortex - One of the 2 bosses will start to cast vortex. This will either be Light Vortex or Dark Vortex. This will do a pulsing AOE that will easily kill someone if they are not the same color as the vortex. So when the Dark Vortex happens, everyone (including the tank) must click on the dark portal if the are not already dark. At that point the tank would then run to their original color portal in the front of the room and wait for the cast to finish, they would then switch back to their original color and resume tanking, dragging the boss back to the original tank position. The rest of their group needs to also switch back. We went to using the term "ATTUNE BLACK" or "ATTUNE WHITE" to make it clear what people needed to do.
Overall, not that difficult once you have seen it once or twice to grasp the color switching mechanic. It probably sounds more complicated than it is.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Faction Champions - You got your PVP in my PVE!
Another raid week, another new boss. This time it is a brand new type of raid boss, a PVP zerg. If you ever ran Magister's Terrace in BC, you should be familiar with this style of fight. However, this is the first time anything like this has appeared in a raid instance.
It appears this fight relies somewhat on luck of the draw. Some of the NPCs you have to fight are just downright nasty, while others are merely annoying. You will face a group of the opposing faction. It will be a random combination of classes and they will use all of their PVP abilities. This includes everything, like CCs, interrupts, totems, etc. They also are way faster than any humans in reacting to things. For example, if you totem stomp the shaman just instantly throws down another one. PVP rules all apply for CCs and diminishing returns, so it is very difficult to keep them under control for any length of time. Also, they will even dispel each other. Similar to real PVP, the plate DPS classes are disgusting. The warrior and ret pally both deal insane damage and if those two decide to kill a clothie, there is almost nothing you can do about it.
The general strategy is going to be to CC the healers and kill the DPS, or to CC the DPS and kill the healers. We tried both ways for a while and seemed to have more success killing the healers. We decided the best course of action was to kill the resto druid first, as he kept getting off his instant HoTs before we could apply CC. We then burned him down while trying to keep the other healers under control. I was purging him when I could, especially when the resto shaman gave him an earth shield. We worked our way through the healers and then started on DPS.
To help control the DPS we assigned a few teams to certain ones. We actually found our prot warrior MT could control one pretty well by himself. Taunt works, but as soon as the debuff wears off they will lose aggro. We had him and another of our warriors spec prot and put vigilance on each other. They then would taunt one of the dangerous melee DPS and get it away from everyone. They would then rotate between taunts and stuns on their target to keep them as under control as possible. So taunt a few times until they went immune, then shockwave, concussion blow, charge, and then back to taunts. This controlled 2 of the melee DPS and was a huge help. On one of the other dangerous DPS we had a tag team of a DK and a resto druid. They would rotate between death grip/chains of ice/taunts and cyclones to control another.
The overall key to this fight is control. It is not easy and required alot of coordination amoung a couple of people. I think the more we do it, the better we will get at working together in this more Arena style. It was a very satisfying kill and frankly I had a lot of fun doing it. Was nice that it was not just a faceroll too. How you handle the fight will depend on what combination you draw and what your raid makeup is. This fight required me to use all of my tools, rather than just standing still and chain healing. I was constantly watching my aggro indicator to know if I needed to ES myself and run. I was using Wind Shear whenever I saw the Warlock start to Hellfire to stop him. I was hexing, purging, and even throwing out frost shocks or an earth bind when I saw something chasing a clothie. You need to be on your toes and able to react to a dynamic situation to succeed.
It appears this fight relies somewhat on luck of the draw. Some of the NPCs you have to fight are just downright nasty, while others are merely annoying. You will face a group of the opposing faction. It will be a random combination of classes and they will use all of their PVP abilities. This includes everything, like CCs, interrupts, totems, etc. They also are way faster than any humans in reacting to things. For example, if you totem stomp the shaman just instantly throws down another one. PVP rules all apply for CCs and diminishing returns, so it is very difficult to keep them under control for any length of time. Also, they will even dispel each other. Similar to real PVP, the plate DPS classes are disgusting. The warrior and ret pally both deal insane damage and if those two decide to kill a clothie, there is almost nothing you can do about it.
The general strategy is going to be to CC the healers and kill the DPS, or to CC the DPS and kill the healers. We tried both ways for a while and seemed to have more success killing the healers. We decided the best course of action was to kill the resto druid first, as he kept getting off his instant HoTs before we could apply CC. We then burned him down while trying to keep the other healers under control. I was purging him when I could, especially when the resto shaman gave him an earth shield. We worked our way through the healers and then started on DPS.
To help control the DPS we assigned a few teams to certain ones. We actually found our prot warrior MT could control one pretty well by himself. Taunt works, but as soon as the debuff wears off they will lose aggro. We had him and another of our warriors spec prot and put vigilance on each other. They then would taunt one of the dangerous melee DPS and get it away from everyone. They would then rotate between taunts and stuns on their target to keep them as under control as possible. So taunt a few times until they went immune, then shockwave, concussion blow, charge, and then back to taunts. This controlled 2 of the melee DPS and was a huge help. On one of the other dangerous DPS we had a tag team of a DK and a resto druid. They would rotate between death grip/chains of ice/taunts and cyclones to control another.
The overall key to this fight is control. It is not easy and required alot of coordination amoung a couple of people. I think the more we do it, the better we will get at working together in this more Arena style. It was a very satisfying kill and frankly I had a lot of fun doing it. Was nice that it was not just a faceroll too. How you handle the fight will depend on what combination you draw and what your raid makeup is. This fight required me to use all of my tools, rather than just standing still and chain healing. I was constantly watching my aggro indicator to know if I needed to ES myself and run. I was using Wind Shear whenever I saw the Warlock start to Hellfire to stop him. I was hexing, purging, and even throwing out frost shocks or an earth bind when I saw something chasing a clothie. You need to be on your toes and able to react to a dynamic situation to succeed.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Back to the healing side of the fence I go...
Yes, I believe I am once again throwing my hat into the ring as more of a full-time resto. I leveled this shaman when my old raid guild was starting in TK back in Burning Crusade. All of those trash pulls were just a metric ton of raid-wide AOE damage, and back in those days resto shamans were the solution. Unfortunatly, on the alliance side on my server you would find a Unicorn before a Resto Shaman. So I decided to slowly phase out my Warlock and take on the role of the lone bringer of the pewpewlazorheals. I joined Symbiosis after Critical Mass fell apart and stayed resto all through TK, SSC, Hyjal, and BT. I always felt I was making a huge impact on our raids with the raw healing I brought to the table.
Then along comes WotLK. Looking through all the new talents and spells, I was worried. Where are the Chain Heal toys? We get nothing?! I soldiered on and healed through our first clears in Naxx, but I was never satisfied. CH was in a sorry state and had fallen behind all the other pretty instant smart targeting AOE heals that priests and druids were tossing around. Meanwhile I am standing still, slowly ramping up a cast only to have it be sniped by someone else. Eventually, I all but abandoned CH in favor of Riptides and LHW to snipe what I could. Once it became clear how easy Naxx was and how I felt my healing was no longer making an impact to the raid, I volunteered to swap to Elemental. I quickly climbed to the top of our damage charts and felt like I was making more of a difference again. But that was not to last.
Going into Ulduar I immediatly felt behind. I kept getting gear upgrades, but my DPS was not really climbing like everyone else. Yes, I still was pulling over 5k, which in Naxx was top of the charts, but now everyone else was as well. In fact, as Ulduar was farmed and more people geared up, they continued to pass me. I pride myself on keeping my tight rotation and using all of my cooldowns and movement time as efficiently as possible...so what was wrong? It mainly comes down to the fact that Blizzard decided we would be the only DPS spec without a talent that gear scales. What I mean is, we have nothing that converts one stat (Int, Spi, etc..) into DPS unlike everyone else. So as we get gear upgrades, we are only getting a very minor spellpower boost. Everyone else gets the spellpower boost, AND the stat conversion boost. Also, our self-buffs (Flametongue weapon, ToW) do not scale at all either. So in the end this means we hit our peak very early in Naxx gear, and pretty much stagnate. Everyone else continues to improve.
So now I am back where I no longer feel like I am making a huge impact on the raid. I am just another of the "good DPS" that we have. I feel I am about as good of an ele shaman as possible, but that is not enough to make me stand out from the crowd. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say I must top the meters at all times. But my unique buff is no longer unique and is passed by the Warlock version. So in the end, I just contribute nothing more than solid DPS to the group. I want to do more.
This brings me all the way back around to resto. I had healed the new 10-man and some heroics, but had yet to really spend a full night healing again to get a good handle on my performance. Well this week I got the opportunity to heal all of Ulduar so far, and I once again felt the thrill of making a difference. Chain Heal is back to being an amazing spell, and I felt I was making a large impact with the amount of healing throughput I could deliver. I spoke to the other officers and indicated that I would be declaring resto as my main spec once again. I look forward to seeing some of the ToC hard modes and hopefully helping us get through. I will still of course build my ele set when I can, but I think gear will be much slower to get with the unified tokens. In the past it was easy once my token group all had main spec of a certain item, I could nab it cheap. Now, everyone will have to get every slot filled before I will have a shot at an offset item.
Then along comes WotLK. Looking through all the new talents and spells, I was worried. Where are the Chain Heal toys? We get nothing?! I soldiered on and healed through our first clears in Naxx, but I was never satisfied. CH was in a sorry state and had fallen behind all the other pretty instant smart targeting AOE heals that priests and druids were tossing around. Meanwhile I am standing still, slowly ramping up a cast only to have it be sniped by someone else. Eventually, I all but abandoned CH in favor of Riptides and LHW to snipe what I could. Once it became clear how easy Naxx was and how I felt my healing was no longer making an impact to the raid, I volunteered to swap to Elemental. I quickly climbed to the top of our damage charts and felt like I was making more of a difference again. But that was not to last.
Going into Ulduar I immediatly felt behind. I kept getting gear upgrades, but my DPS was not really climbing like everyone else. Yes, I still was pulling over 5k, which in Naxx was top of the charts, but now everyone else was as well. In fact, as Ulduar was farmed and more people geared up, they continued to pass me. I pride myself on keeping my tight rotation and using all of my cooldowns and movement time as efficiently as possible...so what was wrong? It mainly comes down to the fact that Blizzard decided we would be the only DPS spec without a talent that gear scales. What I mean is, we have nothing that converts one stat (Int, Spi, etc..) into DPS unlike everyone else. So as we get gear upgrades, we are only getting a very minor spellpower boost. Everyone else gets the spellpower boost, AND the stat conversion boost. Also, our self-buffs (Flametongue weapon, ToW) do not scale at all either. So in the end this means we hit our peak very early in Naxx gear, and pretty much stagnate. Everyone else continues to improve.
So now I am back where I no longer feel like I am making a huge impact on the raid. I am just another of the "good DPS" that we have. I feel I am about as good of an ele shaman as possible, but that is not enough to make me stand out from the crowd. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say I must top the meters at all times. But my unique buff is no longer unique and is passed by the Warlock version. So in the end, I just contribute nothing more than solid DPS to the group. I want to do more.
This brings me all the way back around to resto. I had healed the new 10-man and some heroics, but had yet to really spend a full night healing again to get a good handle on my performance. Well this week I got the opportunity to heal all of Ulduar so far, and I once again felt the thrill of making a difference. Chain Heal is back to being an amazing spell, and I felt I was making a large impact with the amount of healing throughput I could deliver. I spoke to the other officers and indicated that I would be declaring resto as my main spec once again. I look forward to seeing some of the ToC hard modes and hopefully helping us get through. I will still of course build my ele set when I can, but I think gear will be much slower to get with the unified tokens. In the past it was easy once my token group all had main spec of a certain item, I could nab it cheap. Now, everyone will have to get every slot filled before I will have a shot at an offset item.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
3.2 - First impressions
So 3.2 hit the servers last night, and I eagerly logged in to check out the situation. I immediatly was assulted by LUA errors all over the screen. Ah, how I love mods on patch day. After updating a few, disabling some, and using weird work arounds I had a mostly functional interface. Rather than just list the patch notes, I'm going to just provide an overall impression. I was able to run 2 heroics as a healer, the new 10 man as a healer, and the 25 man as a DPS.
Totem Bar:
I still have not seen the default version, as I use dominos for my action bars. I had 3 bars that I could place a set of 4 totems in. I configured my "default" totems to assume I had my normal raid buffs. I then made my second set the same but with a tremor in it for fights with fears. My final set I assumed I would be providing missing buffs in a 5-man situation. It is very easy to adjust these on the fly just by dragging a new totem to the slot, so I will be switching as needed depending on the group. It is very nice to be able to plop down a group of 4 in one GCD, and dropping my totems no longer felt like a chore.
Healing Changes:
Healing felt a bit different. First, the mp5 buffs seemed to make our mana go further. During the 10-man I kept thinking I should mana-tide soon but when I would look at my mana it was far higher that I thought it would be. I think the improved water shield no longer consuming charges probably helped as well, because in the past if healing got intense my sheild would fall off and I would not notice or have time to renew it on occasion.
I did not like the new LHW proc from Tidal Waves. I have gotten so used to perma-hasted LHW casts that it felt like I would healing in mud or something. Those casts feel LONG to me now. I was still using my old style of Riptide with LHW, but I was unsure now if that is the best way to go for tank healing. I imagine on raid heals where people are spread out you would still do that, but on a tank HW might now be back on top since it is only .2 slower because it still gets the haste proc. I will have to look into it a bit and do some more testing.
The new CH is awesome! Just the jump distance alone was a huge buff. I was far less hesitant to cast it. I even would throw it at the tank if I saw melee needed any healing as well. No longer was I constantly getting single heals, and it was reliably jumping to anyone else in the general area. I would really like to see Mimiron P2 as a healer now just to see the raw throughput I could generate with it.
New raid:
Only the first boss is available this week. I have to say.....disappointing. We went into 10-man an hour before our real raid so our GM and myself could get a look at it so we would be able to formulate our startegy. We did not expect to kill it, but just to start figuring it out. Needless to say, when all of them were dead at our feet on our second attempt, I was a little shocked. It was almost Naxx level difficulty. Hell, we probably could have 1 shot it if I had explained how to posion cleanse with the fire debuff before it was too late. I hope the second boss is a bit of a step up in difficulty. Of course we went in with the full 25-man and easily killed it as well.
Totem Bar:
I still have not seen the default version, as I use dominos for my action bars. I had 3 bars that I could place a set of 4 totems in. I configured my "default" totems to assume I had my normal raid buffs. I then made my second set the same but with a tremor in it for fights with fears. My final set I assumed I would be providing missing buffs in a 5-man situation. It is very easy to adjust these on the fly just by dragging a new totem to the slot, so I will be switching as needed depending on the group. It is very nice to be able to plop down a group of 4 in one GCD, and dropping my totems no longer felt like a chore.
Healing Changes:
Healing felt a bit different. First, the mp5 buffs seemed to make our mana go further. During the 10-man I kept thinking I should mana-tide soon but when I would look at my mana it was far higher that I thought it would be. I think the improved water shield no longer consuming charges probably helped as well, because in the past if healing got intense my sheild would fall off and I would not notice or have time to renew it on occasion.
I did not like the new LHW proc from Tidal Waves. I have gotten so used to perma-hasted LHW casts that it felt like I would healing in mud or something. Those casts feel LONG to me now. I was still using my old style of Riptide with LHW, but I was unsure now if that is the best way to go for tank healing. I imagine on raid heals where people are spread out you would still do that, but on a tank HW might now be back on top since it is only .2 slower because it still gets the haste proc. I will have to look into it a bit and do some more testing.
The new CH is awesome! Just the jump distance alone was a huge buff. I was far less hesitant to cast it. I even would throw it at the tank if I saw melee needed any healing as well. No longer was I constantly getting single heals, and it was reliably jumping to anyone else in the general area. I would really like to see Mimiron P2 as a healer now just to see the raw throughput I could generate with it.
New raid:
Only the first boss is available this week. I have to say.....disappointing. We went into 10-man an hour before our real raid so our GM and myself could get a look at it so we would be able to formulate our startegy. We did not expect to kill it, but just to start figuring it out. Needless to say, when all of them were dead at our feet on our second attempt, I was a little shocked. It was almost Naxx level difficulty. Hell, we probably could have 1 shot it if I had explained how to posion cleanse with the fire debuff before it was too late. I hope the second boss is a bit of a step up in difficulty. Of course we went in with the full 25-man and easily killed it as well.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Totem of Wrath, how I hate you
Today I want to briefly talk about the bane of all elemental shamans, Totem of Wrath. This totem is the core caster buff totem that ele shamans bring to a raid. It gives a better spell power buff than the flametongue totem, and it also provides additional crit on any enemies within it's range. So in theory, it sounds like a great thing doesn't it? The problem comes into the sacrifice a shaman must make to provide the buff. Ele shaman DPS appears to be balanced around the thought that we will be using searing/magma totem as an additonal DPS source. However, those totem share the fire totem used by ToW. So the only way to maximize our personal DPS is either to screw over the rest of the raid, or have an additonal person supplying the buff. That is just poor design. I can't think of a single other class that is forced to sacrifice DPS to provide a buff like this.
I ran a Patchwerk 25 last week just for fun, and was shocked to see we had another ele dropping ToW. I gleefully plunked down my searing totem and went to town. It sucks to see the extra DPS boost we SHOULD be able to use at all times. I ended the fight around 6.5k.
So how would I address this if I was Blizzard? The best solution would be something like this:
Totems of Wrath: All of your fire totems now also provide a 280 spell power buff to all raid members for 5 minutes when they are dropped. In additon, as long as a fire totem is active, increases critical strike chance against any enemies within 40 yards.
Or even better:
Brothers of the Flame: As long as the shaman has Flamtongue applied to his weapon he also gains an aura providing 280 spell power to all raid members within 40 yards. In addition, this aura provides additonal critical strike chance against all enemies within the raidius.
Either of these options would provide the same functionality as the current Totem of Wrath, and allow the shaman to actually USE his DPS totems.
I ran a Patchwerk 25 last week just for fun, and was shocked to see we had another ele dropping ToW. I gleefully plunked down my searing totem and went to town. It sucks to see the extra DPS boost we SHOULD be able to use at all times. I ended the fight around 6.5k.
So how would I address this if I was Blizzard? The best solution would be something like this:
Totems of Wrath: All of your fire totems now also provide a 280 spell power buff to all raid members for 5 minutes when they are dropped. In additon, as long as a fire totem is active, increases critical strike chance against any enemies within 40 yards.
Or even better:
Brothers of the Flame: As long as the shaman has Flamtongue applied to his weapon he also gains an aura providing 280 spell power to all raid members within 40 yards. In addition, this aura provides additonal critical strike chance against all enemies within the raidius.
Either of these options would provide the same functionality as the current Totem of Wrath, and allow the shaman to actually USE his DPS totems.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
What a difference a week makes...
As briefly outlined in my last post, my guild has been down in the dumps lately. Last week was terrible, as we struggled to fill our raids. Come the end of our 2nd night of raiding we still had 2 keepers up. It was very demoralizing to take such a huge step backwards. We had a bunch of emo convulsions from some less patient people and had a couple of people lay down an ultimatim to the leadership. Fix it, or we are gone.
To be fair, these people had a point. I think we had gotten far too lax about dealing with the problem as it was developing. When people started not showing, we kind of shrugged our shoulders and figured they would be back soon. This was a mistake. We should have aggressively recruited replacements. Well, after the disaster that was last week we did just that. We managed to pull 5 new recruits in to fill the gaps in our roster. We got some of them in for the final night of raiding last week and cleared the rest of the instance up to Yogg. Things were starting to look up a bit. But even that did not prepare me for last night.
Walking into a fresh raid week we immediatly filled up and had 2 people on standby. Already that is a great sign. For the last month we were usually starting FL with 20 people or so, and scrambling to find some friends or trusted PUG people to plug in. I also did not have to heal and was finally able to spend an entire raid night as elemental. Not that I mind healing, I just get tired of gearing one spec as my main, but constantly having to do another job. As we begin clearing the instance, you can just feel the difference a reinvigorated raid and leadership can make. Suddenly, we are one shotting every boss without issues, and chain pulling trash to the next boss while loot is being handled.
When we got to Kologarn and had 6 people doing over 6k DPS and the entire rest of the DPS around 5K or above, everyone started noticing that tonight was finally different. We cleared out all 4 keepers easily, and it was about 20 minutes until our normal stop time. So our initial discussion was if we should just call it there, or head back and clean out an optional like Razorscale since we had a bit of leftover time. We had never gotten all 4 keepers down on night 1, so we were already ahead of our normal pace. Our MT threw down the gauntlet and insisted we go for general. Some people were a bit nervous, as his trash sucks, and by the time we were going to be pulling him we would need to get him down in the first 2 or 3 attempts. Finally we decided if we were ever going to push Yogg seriously, this was the week to make it happen. General went down easily.
The point of this story is that if you have a solid core of people dedicated to the guild, you can turn it around very quickly as long as leadership makes an effort to fix the issues. I was seriously afraid this week might break our guild, but instead now we are looking at a full 2 nights to finally get Yogg down, rather than our regular hour or so. This guild has done great things on a short raid schedule in the past, such as downed Archimonde and went deep into BT before the nerfs. Last night I felt like we were back and having a great time again.
To be fair, these people had a point. I think we had gotten far too lax about dealing with the problem as it was developing. When people started not showing, we kind of shrugged our shoulders and figured they would be back soon. This was a mistake. We should have aggressively recruited replacements. Well, after the disaster that was last week we did just that. We managed to pull 5 new recruits in to fill the gaps in our roster. We got some of them in for the final night of raiding last week and cleared the rest of the instance up to Yogg. Things were starting to look up a bit. But even that did not prepare me for last night.
Walking into a fresh raid week we immediatly filled up and had 2 people on standby. Already that is a great sign. For the last month we were usually starting FL with 20 people or so, and scrambling to find some friends or trusted PUG people to plug in. I also did not have to heal and was finally able to spend an entire raid night as elemental. Not that I mind healing, I just get tired of gearing one spec as my main, but constantly having to do another job. As we begin clearing the instance, you can just feel the difference a reinvigorated raid and leadership can make. Suddenly, we are one shotting every boss without issues, and chain pulling trash to the next boss while loot is being handled.
When we got to Kologarn and had 6 people doing over 6k DPS and the entire rest of the DPS around 5K or above, everyone started noticing that tonight was finally different. We cleared out all 4 keepers easily, and it was about 20 minutes until our normal stop time. So our initial discussion was if we should just call it there, or head back and clean out an optional like Razorscale since we had a bit of leftover time. We had never gotten all 4 keepers down on night 1, so we were already ahead of our normal pace. Our MT threw down the gauntlet and insisted we go for general. Some people were a bit nervous, as his trash sucks, and by the time we were going to be pulling him we would need to get him down in the first 2 or 3 attempts. Finally we decided if we were ever going to push Yogg seriously, this was the week to make it happen. General went down easily.
The point of this story is that if you have a solid core of people dedicated to the guild, you can turn it around very quickly as long as leadership makes an effort to fix the issues. I was seriously afraid this week might break our guild, but instead now we are looking at a full 2 nights to finally get Yogg down, rather than our regular hour or so. This guild has done great things on a short raid schedule in the past, such as downed Archimonde and went deep into BT before the nerfs. Last night I felt like we were back and having a great time again.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Summertime blues
Raid Update
The elusive Yogg kill still taunts me. Is it because we are scrubs and cannot figure out his mechanics? Is it because our DPS sucks? Are our tanks reatrded?
No my friends, it is the dreaded summertime. Filling raids has become difficult, as once 100% attendance college students head home or get summer jobs. Other people get busy with this thing call "Real Life". I hear it has good graphics. This basically means we always end up with about 20 people that are regular raiders ready to go, and then try and peice together the last 5 spots with friends that have no idea what they are doing. This is the unfortunate drawback of being in a non-hardcore style of raiding guild. We do not have strict attendance requirements, and we do not raid more than about 9 hours a week. This means we end up wasting a ton of time each week training people or making people play an offspec to fill a role. We wipe to stupid things like killing one of the 3 Freya adds, or not moving away from everyone when you have the General's life drain. We still clear everything up to Yogg, but we just run out of time for serious attempts. It is frustrating to take steps backwards when raiders disappear on you.
This last week was our first night with more than an hour of work on him. We ended up getting into Phase 2 several times, but we were still in the learning mode, so several people did not understand what they were supposed to be doing. It was still good practice, as I believe everyone now has a good understanding on how to deal with Phase 1. The fight does not seem overly tough, and I am sure we could have it cleared if we could just get all of our raiders to show on the same night.
3.2 opinions
I am sure by now everyone has been reading the 3.2 details that have been all over the place. I am not sure what to think. The shaman specific things are great. I love all totems on one global cooldown. It's about time! I also like the resto buffs, but am a little doubtful they went far enough with fixing Chain Heal. They needed to bump the bounce up to 15 yards or so IMO. I don't feel a few more yards will cut it. I have not seen any raw throughput numbers to know how good the 40% reduction per jump is compared to the current 50% Obviously it is an improvement either way, I am just unsure how much. Now if they could only make elemental provide the ToW buff and still let us use our DPS totems I would be happy.
As for the other big changes, I am torn. It just seems we keep sliding further and further into the "casual" side of the game. While our guild straddles the line between casual and hardcore, I personally dislike the constant dumbing down of everything. Having one token for your entire gear set? Letting everyone buy Tier 8.5 just from heroics? It is a bit much. When do we get a menu to choose whatever we want from the boss loot table? However, I applaud the move of splitting hard-modes into a seperate raid lockout with a pull-limit in place. Great idea to let everyone clear it the normal way for the week and then have a fresh instance just to work the hard modes.
DK project
In non-shaman related WoW news, my DK tank project has now hit the wall where I can only get anything by raiding after only 2 weeks at 80. I ended up tanking a Naxx 25 and got about 5 peices. While I am happy she is getting geared, I am not happy I have nothing to do once again but raid, or go level another alt. I guess with the badge changes coming, I can gear her up through heroics again and just hit the raids when I can on the weekends.
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