Raid/Party Organization

One topic I would like to discuss is "organization"!

Lets face it, with a raid not being organized, it will be a guaranteed wipe. If no one knows what they are supposed to be doing then its a giant jumble of mess and aggravation.
If people don't know their role and they have to be told every time before the fight, then something is seriously wrong.

So what's the game plan you ask? Well I am glad you asked and if you didn't ask then, well, read anyway. /stick tongue out

Rules to organizing a raid/party:

1.) The person that is running the raid should know every ones role ahead of time, so if you plan on leading the run, take a minute and study each class and what they can bring to the table.
2.) After everyone signs up for the run, start setting up an organizational tree that shows everyone who's grouped with who. Please put some thought into this and not just throw people int a group. ( For instance, put a shadow priest or a shaman with mana totem into a group with mana driven DPS, so they can replenish some mana during a fight. We all know that if your mana driven DPS runs out of mana you will get pew pew instead of BANG! BANG!.)
3.) Know who can do what buffs. ( when signing up to a raid, please post what your buffs are so the leader can determine who buffs who.)
4.) Assign the buffers to group buffies. ( mage A will buff groups 1 and 2 with AB, mage B will do groups 3 and 4. Pally A will give might to the raid, Pally B will give kings, Pally C will give Wisdom, Pally A will also give Salv to those requesting it, please /w pally A for salv. Priest A will do fort to groups 1 and 2, Priest B to 3 and 4. and so on...... I think you get my point. /point)
5.) Create a Battle rez list for your Druids on which Druid goes first and in the event that druid 1 dies , druid 2 will step up to spot 1. The battle rez list should be who in order of raid importance to be battle rez'd first; i.e.- priest B or Tank A,. And don't get mad if your importance on the list is towards the bottom that just means there is enough of that raid spec ( ranged DPS) that a battle rez won't be needed.
6.) Make sure your whole raid is mana'd up after every fight before pulling the next wave, again refer to rule 2.
7.) In the event you die be happy with 30 minute buffs, no need to waste time and mana getting your 1 hour buffs set off for 1 to 2 people, use your judgement on this one.
8.) Know the boss fights ahead of time, Its a pain to repeat a long fight over and over again, when the tank or raid leader refers to a part of the fight and if you read up on this fight you will know exactly what he or she is talking about and not having to ask them to repeat this over and over again, you may end up confusing the Leader on this. Most groups will use TeamSpeak or some form of to talk out the strategy, if need be, have dedicated raid leaders such as tank, ranged, melee, and healer leaders. Go to a different channel of TS and have that specific leader go over the raid role and where to position your self for which phase and what to do and what not to do, less confusion as to your role of the raid.
9.) Designate standard break times. ( once we clear the first 10 sets of trash we will take a 5 min bio or smoke break or what ever, before the boss fight take a 5 min break again and do a ready check after and then explain the fight ( I don't know how many times people will AFK to do something and miss the whole strategy to the boss fight and then either screw up or ask for the whole thing to be explained again.) Its understandable that you may need to AFK for a min to do something, just make sure you announce it and make sure the raid leader responds to you needing to AFK.
10.) Please have enough pots and bandages for the fight. ( Hunters have enough pet food- yes I was guilty of this one before./shame) Priests and healers are mana driven and the more they can save on mana by you bandaging the longer the Tank will live......... that's right I went there.. bandage yourself you lazy bum.
11.) This is a good rule or lazy rule to have too: I like to call this "The Lazy Card". Everyone gets one card to use in a run, when they die they can call out in raid chat or TS their Lazy Card and will be rez'd and not have to run back. This can be used for quick AFK's or if you really don't want to run back to your corpse, but remember only One per run per person.


Using these rules as guidelines may just make your runs even smoother and faster, and faster means more baddies downed in one night, which also means more purple shiny goodness...

/bow
/ty

I will be here all night and remember to repeat this saying " I am someone special" sorry couldn't resist....lol

Lurker is sleeping with the fishes..??!!

So my guild, including me, finally made lurker fish stick over this past weekend.
/cheer
We went in to SSC on the intent of Lurker practice and low and behold we downed him with almost everyone being alive at the end.
We cleared all trash through SSC to Lurker, yes we skipped hydross, we get to lurker and fished him out of the water. That over grown cat fish bugged out half way through the first attempt, I bet he realizes we came on the intent of seafood dinner and was not prepared.lol. So we started again to fish him out, this time there was no escape from us. We timed everything perfectly, we had enough on the DPS side, tank side, and healer side. We had 1 healer per isle, one healer for tanks on the guardians, and 2 dedicated healers on the MT for Lurker. We also had 1 CC per isle with 1 backup CC (hunters), 3 dps'rs per isle.
We would start lurker with full DPS, when he spouted 1 person would call it out to "dive" and all would jump in to the water that were ranged DPS and continue to DPS from under water while getting heals from our assigned healers. The melee DPS'rs would run from the spout in a circle while still hitting lurker.
Now spawns the adds. Our mages would sheep the ambusher on the right and the hunters would mark the left one for attack, DPS one then DPS the sheep, all while the tanks would pick up the guardians. Once the ambushers were down we all focused on the guardians. This worked out well.
We enjoyed fish that night.
/eat
/cheers to guild
/drink and be merry.


What we found in Lurkers stomach during the fillet:
[Mallet of the Tides]
[Velvet Boots of the Guardian]
[Ancestral Ring of Conquest]

and of course badges.

ZA equals serious gear check!!!!!

So last night my guild decides to take a stab at ZA on the PTR. Wow this is gonna be one hard fight. the trash mobs hit very hard. We went in with 2 CC's 2 tanks 2 rogues 3 healers 1 shaman. We wiped enough times to be clean for a month. The opening trash mobs we a surprise with how many came after us and took us back for a minute and then we destroyed them. Then we get to "meat" those new armored bears, Wow, they hurt, but they can be CC'd. I'd say half the trash is immune to CC'n. The good news is the grave yard is right to the right of the instance so no long runs back. Once you get to the boss he has 4 waves of trash mobs that seperate him from you, but good news I just saved a bunch of gold on my mount insurance by switching to gnomico, really the news is you can eat drink and be merry between each set. Then after a few wipes we get to the boss(Gear Check time).
we may need slightly better gear. We managed to get the bear boss down to mid 40%. This boss also does a swipe that damages a total of anywhere between 10000-15000 damage but it does midicate so if you have 2 tanks they can split the damage from that. Keep that in mind. You will need minimum of 2 tanks better if you had 1 or 2 off tanks as well for the trash mobs.
There is a village right below that has quests and a hidden repair npc so look for that if you need to repair. Also since this instance is an outdoor one you can mount inside which is nice to quickly return to battle if you die and may save your team.

Hot like Fire

I got some new pants after we downed the big bad wolf.. Ha more like pup..

To Raid or not to Raid

Lets chat about raiding for a minute. What to do in a raid? What is most important in a raid? How do you handle certain situations? What is your goal in a raid? These are all viable questions that can help determine the outcome of any "run".
Everyone has a role in a raid, whether it's DPS, Tanking, Healing, or something in between. Now to figure out what you are going to do is simple and it's determined by class. Lets face it we all know a priest can't tank. Lets talk about roles real quick. Warriors are tanks by design, Mages-Hunters-Rogues-Warlocks are pure dps and CC, Priests are healers, and then there is the hybrid classes, which are Druid's-Pally's-shamans. A druid can do any of the 3 main categories just by switching their form, a pally can tank-OT-heal, and Shamans can do DPS and Heal. So now that you know your class roll there are a few small things to consider as far as spec goes. Talent points can determine what type of Subclass you are, such as protection tank or arms/fury tank or druids can go either feral, resto, or balanced which would mean feral-dps/tank, resto-healer, and balanced-caster. I would suggest maybe trying each spec out at 70,which may cost some gold, but you will achieve a better sense of understanding for your class roll and may make the game a little more fun.
So now you know your class roll in a raid. /cheer
The best thing before entering the instance is to do a check as far as your roll in the run, ie a pally can heal but be OT at certain situations, and it is very important to know ahead of time and not finding out after a wipe.
*Que a black and white 1950's film strip for school
DPS-"what happened? Why did we wipe?"
Tank-"well the pally was supposed to pick up OT when we got one to many mobs."
Pally-"I thought I was healing... you never said anything about OT'ing....."
Tank-"Golly gee-wiz I just assumed you knew that"

See now if they had talked about rolls in the beginning everyone would have been on the same page. Now that doesn't mean every group or raid does this, but it has happened once in a while. Also make sure everyone int he group knows which target symbol is theirs, this could cause a wipe if people get confused on which one is for them.

Also before a run, make sure you are repaired and have empty bag slots available (everyone is guilty of that one), but it does help the party out alot. Perhaps the lead in group can flash a message across the screen that said repair and restock before you make it here.
Determine the loot rules ahead of time so there is no downtime in trying to figure out who gets what. Always have pots and bandages in stock.

So now the rest is up to skill and luck and you should down the run in no time at all.

Another big thing I noticed and am guilty of is the damage meter. As a DPS'r I strive to be number 1 on that list and would stop at nothing to get there including pulling from the tank, which could cause a wipe as well. This is not good. Now I turn of damage meter and just play by skill and need for the run, which I tend now to live a little longer. People that want to top the DM list tend to lose sight or focus on the group itself and may cause a wipe or not, but is that a risk you want to take?? personally I would rather play my roll to the fullest and focus on the boss/mob at hand and get the purple at the end instead of balls to the wall DPS and someone die early.
These pointers may help in future situations or they may not, that is up to you. By no means am I telling anyone how to play, you play the way you want to and strive for what you want and don't let anyone stop you, it's your game that you pay/play. Just have fun.

Did Kara Saturday night and what was our prize?

My guild went to Kara Saturday night and I tagged along with Maisson. We did well on the trash mobs had a death here and there. Our healers did a fabulous job with the heals, Our tanks did marvelous in holding agrro, and our DPS'ers did a fantastic job (myself included) in opening a can O'Whoop-arse.

The chess event went with us dominating the game. It went well and fast(Checkmate). That's right Bobby Fischer I am calling you out!!!! That should make a boring pay-per-view event. I think I would rather watch synchronized gum chewing then that. Some purples did dropped *crossing fingers*(even though a gnome only has 3 fingers and a thumb so that was tough) and *please please* nothing for the mage. Grats go to the purple receivers on that one. Very nice stuff dropped for ya.

Next was Aran.*shudders* this guy was a small pain. We wiped the first 2 times to get our strategy down. Actually we did the first for strategy, second was just bad luck. On the second attempt we make it to the elements and Aran decides to give it to us like no tomorrow, he dropped his flame and blizzard at the the same time so it was an onslaught. Well Aran payback is a biatch, and we threw everything we had at him and BOOM! he went down like a ton of bricks. When those elementals popped we had our lock banish one and then the hunter would mark one and myself and the hunter would burn them down. Easy as pie ( although I'm trying to figure out how pie is easy..oh yeah that pie in American pie was a little easy and gave it up right away, no date or nothing...). Now its time to loot, and...and...and... Grats to our healers good healing gear dropped there..

Now it was Maidens turn. We dumped her like a sac'0 potato's( Sorry Maiden it's just not working out.. no please don't cry... really it's not you it's us.) that's right one and done on her.

and no mage gear again, but Grats to the others who got the purples..

Grats go out to our raid group. You ALL DID GREAT. Grats to all the looters as well.

Next time hopefully a mage item will drop. I'm sending Blizz a bribe and see if that works..

/cheer

/cheer

/cheer

3 Cheers to Amicus and our raiding groups for a job well done.