Netherspite Apparently Has Been Working Out

Fooling around on my alt, I saw in trade chat “LF OT Kara.”  Having been bored of tanking for quite a while now, I figured this would be a nice easy way to score some badges.  Unless of course I get magically promoted to being the main tank because my gear is so good.  Fortunately, the other warrior was almost as geared as me, so they kept him the MT.  Let the Badge of Justice train begin.

It was great.  7 people from another guild were running this, the MT was from another guild, and I randomly ended up with an alt of someone from my own guild.  The heals were good, the DPS was better than average, and things were going smoothly.  The better part was that the MT took it on himself to tank multiple targets, whereas I was only ever assigned one mob at a time.  I was really digging the Effort per Badge ratio going on.

Then the MT needed to leave after Curator…  ugh.

We summoned in a druid OT and I put things into “Let’s get out of here” mode.  Illhoof was cake beyond the priest dying to chains because he had < 6k hp unbuffed…  Topped the DPS charts on Shade of Aran much to the chagrin of the rest of the raid. MWAHAHA.  But then this group continued a very disconcerning trend I’ve noticed in the PuG kara runs I like to do.  We skipped Netherspite to do him last.  And I quote one of the raid members talking about him, “That’s why he’s the last boss in here, he’s the hardest.”  WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN!?!?  Prince and Nightbane have ALWAYS shared that crown. 

It’s sad and disheartening to see the disparity in a real raiding guild (one working in HY and BT) and a Kara guild.  Talking to one of their officers, he said that they had been wanting to try Gruul’s Lair.  Sorry bud, but you might as well just take 50g and throw it away.  If these guilds are incapable of coordinating 10 people to move to just 1 of 3 locations, how in the hell are you going to get 25 people organized for Maulgar (a fight which can easily wipe a seasoned raiding guild if not done properly).

There will always be an ever widening gap between the raiding guilds and the kara guilds.  At this point in the game, it will be extremely rare to see a guild start fresh in kara and evolve into a BT guild.  I believe that PvP gear is largely to blame for this.  Players now are getting geared to Kara and even SSC/TK levels through PvP (read as: AFKing in Alterac Valley).  New players are learning absolutely nothing about how to play their classes and it shows, hard.  The overwhelming majority of these players will be forever doomed to experiencing the hallways of Karazhan.

But I guess the good thing about this is that there will always be openings to get your alt a slightly painful kara clear, and more importantly 22 … 20 badges.

Raid Leading 5: Slow and Steady

Well, our raid leader had to take another night off, so it was on me again to down Teron Gorefiend (a boss we only killed once prior) and to begin progression on Gurtogg.  I was pretty excited to get another opportunity to lead a progression raid.  I’d spent a lot of time already researching the Gurtogg fight, so I was pretty familiar with every aspect of it.  Did some researching on the trash mobs leading to him as well.  All set to go.

Then about 30 minutes before the raid, I realized something… I never really paid close attention to the trash mobs before TERON.  After giving myself a quick refresher on how to handle them all, it was time to get rolling.

On more than a few occassions I ended up alt-tabbing to check to make sure I was getting the right mobs CC’d.  It was a little slower than usual (okay maybe a lot slower) but they were impeccably clean pulls.  Hardly anyone died on trash the entire night.  Teron went down pretty smoothly on the third attempt after a few people got their first wipes…err…tries at the ghost game.

Now for the fun stuff.  Progression!  Having never done the trash leading to Gurtogg before, it was awesome to get through it with only like 1-2 people dying.  Time to explain the strategy of a pretty complicated boss.  *Deep Breath*

About halfway through the explanation, two of our main healers lost power.  Which would seem like a bad thing right?  In actuality, this gave me a lot of extra time to explain things more in depth.  We even decided to do practice runs of our Bloodboil rotations.  We looked good in practice, but how would it translate in the actual encounter when all hell is breaking loose?

The bloodboil rotations were flawless.  Absolutely flawless.  To do them perfectly on the very first attempt is unbelievably encouraging.  Maybe this guy won’t be quite the road block we perceived him to be.  Okay, so maybe every single person to get fel enrage died.  Details.  >.>

Gurtogg to nearly 50% on the second attempt ever.  Now thats progression

So what’d I learn from the night?  Well, I pretty much rehashed an old saying: “Practice does NOT make perfect.  Perfect practice makes perfect.”  I knew what my role was.  I wasn’t there to kill Gurtogg.  I was there to get the raid prepared for him.  I explained every trash mob on the way to him.  And every single aspect of Gurtogg’s fight as well.  We learned everything the right way, even though it may have slowed us down a bit.  Now when we come back in here next week, we won’t have to be worrying about dealing with scary trash mobs, but instead worrying about finding a good place to stand for the screenshot

Raid Leading 4: A Focus Lost

Our raid leader needed to take another leave of absence, and so once again I was given the reigns.  We were going back into Hyjal.  One of the officers decided to step out in place of another healer, leaving me pretty much by myself to lead the raid.  Now was my chance to really establish myself as a respected raid leader, to instill trust and confidence in my fellow raiders, to forge ahead in our progression on Archimonde.

…or it was a chance to establish myself as the “cool” raid leader .  (Hint: that’s the route I chose)  Our usual rule about swearing in vent was levied.  The atmosphere of the raid was light and we had a great time.  That is…until we wiped on Azgalor.  Chalk it up to our MT being out of LoS for the misdirect pull and start over.  One of our tanks had to go, so I switched to my warrior for my first attempts at tanking the trash.  After hearing such horrid recollections of it from other tanks, I was a little worried as to how I would do.  But anyways, I needed to get the raid refocused and ready to kill Azgalor.

1 problem.  This is pretty hard to do when I don’t even have time to talk as I frantically try to tank the overlapping myriad of monsters on my screen.  The focus of the raid was lost well before we even started pulling Rage Winterchill trash.  Trying to win it back would prove to be impossible.  Last wave before Azgalor and about a half dozen people die.  We scrap our way through the wave, but Azgalor aggro’s before we can rez hardly anyone.  We start the fight with 4 people still dead.  We executed the fight perfectly, but we just ran out of bodies and eventually wiped. 

It was at this point where I realized I pretty much doomed that raid from the start.  Gave the raid some cliché lines about how it was just bad luck, and we’ll get him next time, blah blah.  Yet another lesson learned from failure: Save the fun for AFTER the raid.

Raid Leading 3: Hyjal with a Vengeance

With our usual raid leader taking another leave, it was up to me to take the reigns again.  This time it was Mount Hyjal.  This would be our 3rd attempt on Azgalor.  I would later find out that some of the other officers were very worried about even getting to Azgalor this time around due to a few raiders missing this time around.  But I had one thing on my mind: Archimonde attempts.  Thankfully this time around I had a few days notice that I’d be leading the raid so I could prepare, and boy did I prepare.

In my previous post about raid leading, I stressed that it’s all about preparation.  So this time around, I really did my homework.  In our previous 2 Azgalor attempts, I noticed that things were just really hectic, so I looked into the fight and what strats were being used.  I read up on a strat that was somewhat different than what we had been doing but would really simplify things, so I figured I’d try to implement it come raid night.  Then with the rest of my time, I began researching Archimonde.  Videos, strats, you name it and I was reading/watching it.  I wanted the raid to actually be able to learn something from what would likely be only 1 attempt on Archi.

Come raid night, I was excited.  I was in charge, and had the opportunity to lead the raid to downing a new boss.  First 2 bosses go down without any resemblance of difficulty.  But on the first wave of Kazrogal trash our pally tank dies.  AND one of our off tanks..  Honestly, my first thought was to just call it a wipe right there.  A few people just hit exalted with Scale of the Sands that night and it might’ve been a good time to go get our upgraded rings.  But my raiders had other plans   We scrapped our way through the rest of that wave and our fallen tanks began running back.  With the next wave being mostly gargoyles, we could afford being down 2 tanks as we tried to buy some time as they ran back.  Mid-wave they zoned in, rebuffed, and joined the ranks.  Needless to say, our healers were much more on the ball from that point forward   Kazrogal downed, and in record time nonetheless.

Azgalor time.  And time for me to explain my new strat to the raid.  Time for numerous interruptions and questions while I talked right?  Wrong.  I mounted up and began showing the raid the various tanking locations.  As I got to each location, I turned around to see 24 guildies facing directly at me, silent and still.  Perhaps some of my excitement carried over, because I could really feel the anticipation for downing a new boss.  The trash went relatively smoothly, and in no time it was time to see if we really could implement a new strat, with a different tank, and a different raid leader.  Perfection.  Everyone knew their roles.  Everyone communicated.  And everyone enjoyed taking part in yet another celebratory killshot.  The raid cheered, and I waited patiently for loot to be handed out.  The real test was still waiting for us.

Archimonde.  One person failing to do their job will wipe the entire raid almost instantaneously.  So I need to be completely thorough in explaining this fight.  And I need to say it so that everyone understands.  (This is where the extensive research comes in handy…)  Once again, as I’m explaining the fight to the raid, I can easily tell I have everyone’s attention.  They’re all bristling to start progression on the boss that will ultimately begin handing over our T6 helms.  We’re only going to have time for 1 attempt, so we NEED to make this count so we can start to learn the fight.  I’ve described the strategy perfectly, and it shows.  Most raids wipe within 10 seconds of the first time they attempt him.  But not us, we’re 2 minutes in on our first attempt and everything is going perfectly.  Then I find out very quickly that there was one tiiiiiny little detail of the fight that I missed: the tank can be feared…  Woops   Queue the ruthless slaughter of 25 innocent raiders.

Amazing night of raiding.  My first opportunity to lead the raid into progression content goes nearly flawlessly.  And again, it’s all about preparation.  When you’re completely prepared for what’s in store for you, the positive effects extend to other areas as well.  My preparedness put me in a great mood, which rubbed off on everyone else.  It gave me a ton of confidence.  Considering our raid was without our usual main tank, there was plenty of opportunity for doubt as to whether we’d progress anywhere that night.  But I had no doubts, and wasn’t about to let anyone else have them either. 

Raid Leading 101

In the last post, I left you with the question of “What did I learn?  And what makes a good raid leader?”  Let’s start with what I believe to be qualities of a good raid leader.

I think it takes a lot of preparation.  One of the most difficult things I ran into was the actual marking of targets.  You need to understand basically what every mob is capable of doing, and how you can deal with them.  And of course, this all changes according to your raid make-up.  Thankfully, I had enough experience with the place that I could mark most of the targets from memory.  But when you’re going into progression content, you need to do your homework.  Something that I didn’t do with the Black Temple raid I failed at.  One thing that I wish I would have done better while leading the last raid was just being more authoritative.  I kind of asked people what assignments they wanted rather than just giving them out.

But a topic of recent debate has been over what class is the best raid leader.  Veneretio, our guild’s raid leader, claims that tanks make the better raid leaders in his article here.  While many of his readers have claimed that people other than tanks are more suited for raid leading because they can get a broader perspective on the fight at hand.  Well, I’ve been fortunate enough to lead 25 man raids as both a tank and as a ranged DPSer.  And honestly, I felt much more comfortable doing it…as a tank.

I feel that actual tanking requires less attention than DPS’ing does.  As a warlock, I am constantly watching dot timers, threat meters, if I need to move, and then trying to watch the rest of the raid on top of that.  As a tank, there aren’t too many fights where I need to be incredibly aware of my surroundings in case I need to move or do anything special.  You don’t worry about threat, that’s the job of your DPSers.  And with only a little bit of experience tanking, you can keep all shouts, debuffs, and abilities going without even looking at cooldowns.  So basically, the only thing you have to do sometimes is just watch what the rest of the raid is doing.

So it may seem like it’d be easier leading a raid while standing 40 yards from any danger, but I’d much rather do it while helplessly slashing at the ankles of some out of proportion monster

Leading the Raid – Take 2

My first real shot at leading the guild’s Black Temple raid didn’t go very well.  Okay, so maybe it was a complete disaster.  A lot of very unfortunate events led to us not downing a single boss, in a place in which we’ve killed 3 thus far.  First off, a bunch of our regular healers didn’t show up, and I was forced to hop on my priest and respec to a raid build, and heal.  Something I have only done ONCE before with this guild.  And I was asked to go Circle of Healing, a spec I have never raided with.  And on top of all of that, this was a last minute decision.  I was literally choosing my new talent points about 5 minutes before we were scheduled to begin pulling.  Did I mention this was my first real shot at leading an important 25 man raid?  Needless to say, I was more focused on remembering how to actually heal, than trying to lead the raid.  We meandered our way to Najentus and then proceeded to wipe horribly 3-4 times before calling it a night.  Fun times.

But our usual raid leader needed to miss another 25 man raid this last week, and since I was deemed the back-up raid leader for some unfortunate reason, it was my chance to restore some faith in my fellow guildies.  This time it was Tempest Keep, a place I knew inside and out.  And I was bringing my warlock, a toon I could play with my eyes closed.  Barring the one unexpected wipe on Alar, it was smooth sailing.  Plenty of good drops, and lesser geared guildies getting the loot they needed led to a very fulfilling night of raiding.  But in addition, it also restored a lot of the confidence I had lost from the 2 hour repair bill of a raid I had tried to lead a few weeks earlier.

So what did I learn?  And what makes a good raid leader?  Stay tuned