Proper equipment

This is kind of an extenion from a previous post. A recap of the previous post.

1.) Be on time and ready to go. Don't be Wintergrasp at raid time, don't be on an alt running an instance etc.

2.) Be prepared with knowledge of fights. If you have a suggestion, don't hold back if it is a valid suggestion.

3.) Have appropriate addon downloaded and updated.

4.) Come to the fight with needed items as needed.

5.) Listen, absorb, and evolve. Be ready for changes.

6.) Raid with an open mind - be prepared for wipes.

7.) Know your limits - if you are not feeling it, take a night off.

8.) If you sign up show up!!! If you are not sure...mark tentative, please.

9.) If you cannot make it, please advise.

10.) Be spec'd appropriately, gemmed correctly, rotation worked out, glyphed correctly, and enchanted appropriately.

11.) No ninja afking.

Going to focus on points #3 and #10.

Have appropriate addons downloaded and updated.

This is a very important things raiders need to have. Although, I guess you do not really need them. Addon will however, enhance your play and make it easier on you and your raid. (Unless you are fail like me and cannot read.....Liyhe is being targeted by an enchanced fireball!)

Keeping your addon up to date also may help to prevent issues with the program from going "screw you" and crashing/freesing etc.

Another point to this is to understand how your addons work, take for example Dozzer pointed out we may want to tone done on the number of things DMB announces to use. To announce only the big I am going to kill you and your raid abilities (Enhanced shock vortex, enhanced fireball).

Be spec'd appropriately, gemmed correctly, rotation worked out, glyphed correctly, and enchanted appropriately.

This is also important....you get new loot...why the hell wouldnt you want to "pimp" it out. Making sure you have properly "pimped" out your epic lootz will ehance your game and make things easier. Also if you don't it makes you looks like a scrub. Scrubs get no love in WoW, unless its from other scrubs.

0/0/71 specs ARE NOT acceptable. Just say no!!!

Or an crusader enchant on your Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter is not cool...

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50709

whining and winning.

Ok. Last night...Blood Princes kicked are asses. I played horribly. Freakin got hit by an empowered fireball. Dozzer even called it out...I dont know what happened..just froze up...choice between healing Kagan and running....guess what happened....

Anyways, we did get better at avoid a lot of the empowered vortex, target swaps can be an issue. Beach ball hit the ground a few times. Shadow lances ripped thru Sorak. And at times I got out of range of Kagan. Overall a very chaotic fight.

And that is the brilliance of this fight lies. My experience so far with WoW, many of the encounters is the raid vs the boss. Every know and then an add with annoying abilities may spawn, but nothing at the level of the Blood Princes. In essence you have 3 bosses chucking all sorts of nasty at you. Stuff that can wipe your raid fast.

Personally speaking I am not a fan of chaos. It throws me off rhythm. Other fights prior to this have a flow and ebb after a few tries I can feel and go with the flow. This fight is WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM. Deadly Boss Mods is like a kid on too much sugar or a speed head - FIREBALL, SHOCK VORTEX ZOMGGGGG OVERLOAD.

Thank goodness Dozzer made a very good sugeestion of turning shit off you dont need to be warned avout turned off. And he is right. The stuff that does not raid wipe you the damage is quite minimal and easily healed thru.

Because I am new to the group. I do not like making suggestions or etc. But I think we definitely could have benefitted from maybe just taking a 5 min breather after a few wipes to clear heads and get away from staring at the pixels. Would have given more of a chance to step back and think, what the hell can I/raid improve on??

Other then that back to watching the blood princes video again and trolling the forums for any hints and gems of knowledge hidden in there.

Battle plans, and cheeseburgers.

Ok the picture and the title have nothng to do with the actual "meat" of the entry. By the way, I am dying for a good cheeseburger, have not had a decent one for months. Five Guys burger is ok....Graffitti Burger is awesome, but kinda small. I am so sad Cheeburger cheeburger closed down, 1 pound hamburgers for the win! Thurman's cafe is not worth waiting 3 hrs for a table. All the Fuddruckers in Columbus have closed i think. *SIGH*

Anyways back on track.

What makes up a successful raid? Concise battle plans? Composition? Raid Awareness? Mods/Addons? Cheezburgers?

A successful raid encompasses 4 out of the 5. Cow + cheez + bacon is optional.

Battle Plan aka strategy

There is something to be said about running head long into something and figuring out how things work, but meh who has time in this day and age to do so. So I am glad there are others out there figuring out intial strats and ideas. (Tankspot etc)

Now this may sound like a elitist notion (am i turning into Soth??) or me being an ass. But if you are not willing to listen, read, and watch....you probably shouldn't be raiding. It is not up to the GM or the RL to explain down to the last detail on what one needs to do. Dozzer and Arioch give a great over view of the fight, hints and nuggets of win.

But in general...everyone should also research on their own time as well. Going over a strat right before a fight does not mean everyone will know the fight....in one ear out the other! Also if you go over the strategy you may find things you can add and also the RL or the GM may gloss over things that may not be important to your role. They are giving an overview of the fight, it is up to you to know what tricks are out there for your specific role.

For example, throwing a Pain Suppression on a tank after a slime explodes in Rotface - people tend to get scattered and you may need to spread heals a bit. Pain Suppression on tank will help a lot. Also in Festergut...saving Pain Suppression for the 3rd or 4 inhale, when hits on 2nd tank are getting crazy!!! Throwing shields on people during Festergut right before he exhales.

Composition

What was that one quote people like to throw around "Bring the player, not the class."

No offense to those that think it is true or wish it to be true, but I really think that the comment is rubbish. As long as they design raids in such a way, that forces specific combinations, the above comment is rubbish.

Take for example, everyones friend, Festergut. Now he has a lovely ability where he causes people to vomit and cause everyone close by to vomit and take a metric crap ton of damage. Also while puking you cannot do anything. Now lets say Raid A takes in 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 melee DPS.....I doubt they will get past the 1 min mark. Raid B takes 2 tanks, 3 healrs, and 2 melee and 3 ranged DPS - as long as they can work together...they should be able to take down Festergut.

Further examples of having a butt load of melee DPS will make your raid night hell - Deathbringer Saurfang (sure it can be done...but prepare for a lot of marks and dead melee), Blood Princes - Beach ball, empowered fireball, empowered shock vortex, Lady D - the adds - without a decent mix of DPS - the adds can mess your raid up yo.

Raid Awareness

Now I will fully admit..i need work in this area. As playing a healer i get tunnel visioned a lot. Especially as the nights goes on and nothing is dying, except for us of course. I get focused on watching the tanks only and forget about others, and that is a bad thing. Unless you are tank healing, but helping out your fellow healers is not a bad thing.

Raid awareness can also be watching where you are standing and avoiding the various boss mechanics. (if you want chaos - look no farther then the blood princes). different raid call for different mechanics to avoid, some easier then others. Festergut for healers is easy...stand under his arse, heal, heal, heal, pop cooldowns so tanks dont die...collect loot. For the ranged DPS they have to watch for the spore and run accordingly. They have the tougher job for that fight.

Addons

Addons.....I have to say...don't raid without them. And when I mean "them" some of the bare minimums - Omen, DBM. Please don't raid without them....a kitten dies everytime a person without these causes a wipe.

Other add-ons will only make things easier for your associated job. Grid, clique, scroll text, buff watchers, etc etc. These things will only make your job easier and less of a pain to handle.

Make your life easier...get the addons! Don't raid without them. Gotta get catch em all!

P.S. Also make sure you don't have fishing macroed to your DPS buttons, have the wrong stance/presence on, or even a WHACK spec on before raiding. Your fellow raidmate will thank you for it.

No I am not going to make a lame reference to the prof's lines.

But on Sat 2/6/2010 Shadow Rising has taken down the Professor....4 tries with each try getting better...BAM! 5th try he goes down like a (dirty reference here) from Bangkok.

I admit 1st try was awesome....got him down a decent amount. Only real issue with the fight is the adds that spawn, the damage they cause from getting to their target is massive. His other mechanics are quite easy to avoid. 3rd phase is annoying...as tanks will be getting stacks of debuff which causes raid wide dmgs. 6 stacks and its a wipe. Prof is definitely easier then Rotface....

Per WoWProgress Shadow rising is #11 for ICC content!!! Woot! Hmm but guildProgress puts us at 16....looks like some other Horde and Alliance guilds just got some new kills.

GuildOx places Shadow Rising at 26th for all 10 man content

Sorry for the shorter then usual post. Work is busy...freakin snow...

We got the plague!!! And how it burns!!!

Oh plague quarter how I hate thee.

This wing still plagues us...yeah i know bad play on words.

The trash is being handled easily. Festergut also is being downed (although with the 3 ranged setup) quite easily...one shotted last night.

Festergut kill (my thought process)

1.) Pop shields to help cut down on raid dmg when there is a lot of gas.

2.) PoM on MT and laugh while it bounces around the raid. Rince and repeat.

3.) If hit with the spore make sure to move in a little to make sure tanks and hit, never hurts to make sure. :)

4.) Keep tanks shielded whenever possible - and the boss.

5.) Keep other members shielded when possible. When I can spare a GCD

6.) As damage gets heavy on the 1st tank...heal heal heal. shield shield shield. Pop trinkets and other abilities as needed to keep 1st tank alive and keep mana up.

7.) Once the 2nd tank gets to dance with Festergut. 3rd inhale. Pop Pain Suppression. And Spam heals...shield on others as needed, since raid dmg should be minimal. Keep 2nd tank alive.

8.) Once Festergut is about to cast Pungent Blight...shield the raid. Keep tanks up and top off raid.

9.) Loot!!!

Rotface on the otherhand...still kicks are arse all over the place. I might be incorrect in thinking this...i think the healing is ok. The problem occurs when the slimes become unmanagable. Slime management is the key to this fight.

At least for me...this fight throws my rhythem off. For other fights...other fight mechanics for the most part does not phase me too much. However, when I am hit by the infection...have to stop and run out and find the other slime. That means...its me time...keep myself alive and try to keep kiter alive etc, not run in the puddle and avoid Rotfaces slime spray. And when the slimes come out hot and heavy....argh!

Rotface (my thought train)

1.) Doz runs in - PoM, Del has the hots. Once Rotface and Doz are dancing cheek to cheek. Shield.

2.) Watch out for Slime Spray - watch for the infection.

3.) Once infection hit....hope its not me....shield the victim. Watch them and heal them.

4.) Once a big slime is out....watch the OT...chase them when they get out of range....shield shield, heal heal.

5.) If I am infected....crap.....run out and find the other slime...dont stand in slime.

6.) Crap a fellow healer is infected.....

7.) Slime explodes.......doh....where is everyone.....Doz...where are you!!!!

8. ) SLIMES.........crap....ahhh.....shield....flash heal....wtf is going on.

There was improvement in the Rotface fights last night though. Getting very good at not getting hit with his slime spray. That cuts down on the oh shit healing. Things also seemed smoother till the 1st slime explosion and the faster slime spawns.

One point the healing team does need to work on (again i might be wrong) is better awareness on the MT after the slime explodes. Need to not get to far from MT and always be ready to pop heals on them.

Once we get the slime management down, he will go down...and at least then I can internalize a game plan and fight will become like clockwork. :)

Not related to post - sorry to me guildmates if i seem quiet during raid time....that's just me...when time to raid...i shut up. Time to listen and think what i can do better....cause i do feel I need to improve :P