Rebel's Logic Post 9

[Rebelogic]

Listen my children and you shall hear another Rebel's Logic post, for all to revere!

Good Morning ladies and gentlemen, or whatever time it may be while you read this. It has been a really eventful raid week to say the least. Tuesday started out a little slow with us taking a little while on Marrowgar, but he went down with relative ease. After doing Deathwhisper on normal and then Heroic Gunship, we decided to get some good attempts down on Saurfang. We spent nearly an hour and a half on Saurfang hardmode before we did it on normal to move on. Now, doing Saurfang on heroic mode was an attempt to try and get our first piece of T10 Heroic and to see if we are ready for a heroic boss that is ranked 5th hardest in the entire instance. Our attempts on him we very good and we learned a few important details. For one, lusting 10 seconds in puts our DPS in a good position to easily time all their CD's to burn him off the start. Usually, we would lust at 30% when the enrage happens, but in this way, we can almost ensure that our CD's are up for around that part of the fight. Not having to worry about adds for the beginning will make us take maximum advantage of the BL. The second thing we learned was the Stun rotation we should use for the adds. We began with Kwicked using shadowfury which hit all the adds. After that, a couple shaman and Boomkin knockbacks and we basically had enough time to burn all adds. We clearly have the DPS for that fight, a couple random deaths from add damage and a mark death or two prompted us to just move on. Following our Saurfang attempts on Tuesday, we had some ill-fated attempts on Rotface Heroic. Oozes were forming under the boss and people were taking too long to run to the kiters. The result was wiping to too many oozes until we decided to call it on Tuesday. When Wednesday rolled around however, we quickly fixed our Rotface mistakes and got him down. The rest of the night was spent on Heroic Festergut. Initially, the people in the melee had trouble getting out of the malleable goo and people kept dying because the healers were all affected. To adjust the strat, we did two things. First we took our holy pallies out into the ranged so they wouldn't get affected by too much movement, and second, we had the melee move for every malleable goo just in case. After getting used to those two changes, all it took was proper spore reactions and on our last attempt of the night, we downed him! This was our first progression boss since Halion, which means up until the end of Wednesday, we had downed progression bosses on 3/4 consecutive raid days. When Thursday rolled around, the raid seemed to have a good atmosphere about it. Being stagnant for so long on LK, we had a renewed enthusiasm about the raids. We did Blood Princes on Normal, which was a good thing because we got our mandatory ATR ugly attempt out of the way. We went to BQ knowing that we were going to try it on Hardmode but despite reading up on the fight, we didn't know what to expect for damage. That would be the damage the boss would to do us and whether we could do enough coordinated damage to the boss with the possibility of needing more healers. Our healers and DPS both cranked and everyone did a great job because we downed her relatively quickly with only a few attempts, which means this was ATR's first kill of a Heroic Tier Boss! First of many I should say! After BQ, we went on to Dreamwalker who we only spent a few attempts on Hardmode. We discovered that the DPS and interrupts on adds was more than enough to down that boss. We had a few issues of stacks falling off in the portals and some random deaths, but for the most part, they were all really good attempts. When we switched it to normal, we one shotted it, and despite some new people not knowing the fight, we one-shotted Sindragosa Normal as well to end the night. For those of you keeping track, Our ICC raiding experience for the week ended with us downing progression bosses on 4/5 consecutive raid days! The following day, we got people to do a couple attempts on Halion hardmode which were disastrous but we downed it on Normal getting some people good loot and achievements. All in all, we had a really good raid week which according to Wowprogress has moved us 3 spots on our wowprogress rankings. On the Skullcrusher forums, we rank even better!

On the weekend, we had a relatively smooth Second run of ICC 25. We downed 7 bosses and could have downed more but we started a little late and it was getting late for some people. After a couple 23-manned attempts of Putricide, we decided to call it. After the Second run was over, I took what new things I learned from this entire week of raiding and wanted to relate them to you guys so that we can all improve for next time in both runs. One aspect of the raids which is really important is the matter of negativity and intent of words. A lot of times, I encounter a situation where a raider will complain about some aspect of the raid or another raider. Everyone feels the need to do this every once in a while and it can be harmful to the flow of the raid. Bring enough people down and we don't progress due to negativity. Don't get me wrong, if someone does something wrong, they should be notified and in worst case replaced, however it should be done in a completely objective manner. If you stand in malleable goo and we say, "Please don't get hit by malleable goo ________." It is completely objective. I don't need 5 people whispering me or saying in raid chat that the person who got hit sucks. It is clutter that just brings the raid down as a whole. If an objective suggestion is presented to a raider in a calm manner, he or she should take it upon themselves to act on it without complaining themselves. Btw, one thing that I consider complaining is dieing to a mechanic and then regaling a long story about why you died and how it wasn't your fault. You died, just say "_____ down." The raid leader can quickly decide to B-Rez you or tell you to ankh or whatever. After the attempt, you can quickly say what went wrong and we can discuss it. Speaking of brevity, try to cut down vent chatter when we are doing a boss. Cut down doesn't mean be completely silent, it means say something you are doing but just more concise. "Malleable goo coming now, switch to the other leg." which Geedub originally started with saying eventually turned into, "Goo move." and that is all we needed. Geedub did a really good job calling out the Malleable Goo on Festergut Hardmode btw, and that leads me into my next idea of coordinating raids. Before a raid, I want to assign 5 people, usually officers to pay attention to specific aspects of what is happening during fights. Two of those people will be assigned to call out things. In the case of Festergut, Wili handled spores and Geedub handled the Malleable Goo calls. The 3rd person is assigned to the melee group to make sure that everyone in the melee and the 4th person is assigned to the ranged. These two have the job of making sure that the melee and ranged are doing what they are supposed to be doing. This means effectively listening to the raid leader, not lagging/dc'ing, doing what is necessary to maximize their damage, not failing on mechanics, etc. The 5th person is assigned to the healers to make sure their efforts are being optimized just like the people assigned to the melee and ranged. This mentality of delegating responsibility among different raid members keeps everyone focussed on their tasks because a problem that has arisen many times before is 5-6 raid members giving me conflicting feedback on 10 different things. I then have to figure out who had the best view/opinion and act accordingly. Also, those people who got in the habit of watching everything, sometimes mess up themselves, it is a reverse-tunnel-vision effect. In this way, not only is the data the raid leader gets more accurate and clear, he is free to call out tertiary things in raids such as battle-rezzes, ankh's, phase changes, Lust, mechanics adjustments, etc.

Reasonable expectations of raiders is an important thing for raids. This applies to both runs and should be dealt with in a completely objective manner. Afk's, not getting into a raid, being asked to sit, suggestions on how you can improve your class, etc. happen all the time and how people present and react to these things is very important to building solid raids and interactions between raiders. If you have to go afk for an emergency or some non-dire but immediate reason, whisper the raid leader and let him know. Chances are, if you type, "brb bio", in raid chat, the raid leader will miss it. We take a break 1-2 times a raid so if you can wait, please do so. If you cannot wait, inform us and take your break at a non-important time. If it is after a wipe, at least get to the boss and buff up before you go afk. Dealing with afk's is a matter of common courtesy to your fellow raiders. Aside from afk's. often I hear of people giving suggestions to other raiders in a bad way or some players taking it really badly when a suggestion is presented nicely. This is a two-way street and can be helped if you talk to your healers about things before or after raid. Don't present an idea from the attitude of, "You are bad, do this." That just turns them off to any suggestions you make. Instead, approach them from a manner of trying to understand how they are doing things. Give them a chance to explain. Then, you can adjust your suggestion to their play-style. Everyone wants to improve, but not everyone needs to be broken down before they can be built up. The other side of this street is the person receiving the suggestions. First, you have to realize that someone is trying to make a fellow raider better so that together you can down bosses better. No one needs to be retorted with the, "I am the best, who are you to tell me I can be better." mentality. I fully support all classes talking with each other before and after a raid. If done respectfully from both sides, better raid unity and the increased comradery will yield smoother boss downings.

Being prepared to raid by most raiders has gotten a little better but we are still having some issues with it. When 7pm rolls around, I have gotten into the habit now of going into the officer vent channel and calmly start putting the raid together. On the surface, it sounds easy but I have to deal with people talking about random stuff and whispering me pointless crap. During this time, I am trying to deal with people who will be on that night, why some people aren't there, group comp, telling people that they have to sit and why, boss strategies/the overall plan for that night, etc. I give it till 8 to make any final decisions on raid comp. Before you get invited to a raid, please have your necessary items (symbols, flasks, food buffs, etc.). Being ready for raid means logging on time and flying to the raid being ready to pull. Please don't go afk between 7 and 8 as best as you can. I am aware that people need to eat dinner, but 90% of the time, people are just minimized doing something random. At the very least, inform me that you will be going afk and for how long. If you have to leave a raid early for whatever reason or cannot make it altogether, please let an officer know as early as possible. You can also send me an in game message or throw a shout on the website. It isn't hard to reach an officer. If you get sat for someone else because you have to leave early or for whatever other reason, don't take it harshly. It is an objective decision. This does not mean you will be sat forever. This also works in reverse, if you have been invited for weeks and weeks, you could still be sat for someone to give them a shot if they are deemed deserving of it. For example, we have cycled through a couple healers in the last few weeks. A few raiders had to sit in order to build the confidence of newer raiders. All in all it is for the benefit of the raid as a whole. The better the raid does, the better all individuals involved will do. By all means, if you are well prepared before we pull, feel free to joke around as much as you want.

I want to make it clear that all the basic rules that apply to group one in the realm of respect, apply to the second run as well. We have a lot of mains in this group as well as alts. If your alt is not deemed worthy of being in the run despite being in it before, we will not bring you. I am setting the bar at 5.4K GS for the second run (that doesn't include skill level, which has a higher requirement). Geedub for example has 3 toons with above a 6K GS all with 5.8K off-specs. That is an extreme, but it goes to show that everyone is able to bring their alt to Second run standards. Now, sometimes, we have raiders who despite their alt gear score are just not good on their alts. Again, take criticism well and you will benefit everyone. The most important people in this run are mains first, trials second, and alts third. If your alt is not doing good, we down less bosses. Downing fewer bosses means mains get less loot and trials have less chance to prove themselves. Basically, if you do not live up to a decent standard, I would rather take a good pug. You never know, a good pug could turn into a good recruit.

Well, that is enough for now fellas. Here is to a great raid week and the prospect of more HM progression in the coming week! Lastly, I know this isn't a video post, but I will do one soon, I promise, lol. See you on Tuesday.

[Unholy]

Damnit Rebel, it was supposed to be a video post!

[Rebelogic]

Damnit, I know. I forgot to do it early Sunday like I planned and today I got into work and thought I would just write one up. I will try and film a video tonight. Prydain is hanging above the door in my room, so I will make sure he is in it.

[Unholy]

Prydain is hanging above the door in my room, so I will make sure he is in it.

So just to be clear, you're saying Prydain is hung?

[Mythosaur]

*rimshot* *cymbal crash*

also, well said rebel as always, now when are you releasing the spark notes for your rants>?

[Kieta]

Soooo

many

woooords

I'm with Ghost on the notes thing

[Boredman]

rebel im gona teach you how to type like boredman: for example this whole post would read....we did good this week in group 1. got BQ down fuck yes. deathbringer is stilla bitch. group 2 was full of ass holes fuck you guys. start being good raiders before i open a can of woop-ass. im tired of repeating myself learn the rules or GTFO. im done have a horrible day since its still the beginning of the week.............there your done instead of wrting a book do that =)

Edited September 1, 2010 by Boredman

[Varibash]

lol, ok boredman, for the first time, something you purposely tried to make funny was funny, lol

[Pwnzi]

Boom!

[Berms]

After this long post, the next one should be "Rebel's Logic Post 14".