Rebel's Logic Post 11

[Rebelogic]

Yeah, I know it has been a long time coming, but finally I got another post up. I haven't posted in a while, so we have a decent amount to catch up on...

First of all, I would like to congratulate everyone in the 25M for putting in the effort to work together as well as we are doing. We have had a lot of different people come in and out of our raids as we have tried to figure out which is the best fit. Currently, we are working with a very solid group and that is mainly thanks to the entire raid's cooperation and patience.

That said, we have to go over some details about how we can improve our raids. We have a lot of downtime in our raids due to AFK's all of a sudden. Yesterday, according to WoL's, we had less than 50% active time during the raid. Now, a lot of the AFK's were either due to emergency's or some specific pre-planned things people had to take care of. Now, we cannot prevent emergencies and we can't help things like having to put kids to bed at a specific time. However, the raid itself should not have to wait. Part of the problem yesterday was the officers took too long to replace people who were AFK. Basically, if you have to go afk on trash for less than a minute or two, it is fine. However, if we get to a boss and you are afk for the ready check, we will immediately begin looking for a replacement for you so we can down that boss. Whether you get to come back for future bosses, is upto the raid leaders, depending on the fights, we will do what's best for the raid as a whole. If we are on a farm boss and 1-2 people are afk, we will just 23 man it to save the time of asking and porting someone in. That said, lets take a moment to talk about the break we always take. We want to take the 10 minute break before a farm boss. Yesterday, we took it right before Council in BoT after we killed all of the trash. Despite the fact that we have a 10 minute break, we always end up waiting 15 minutes for that one guy who decided to fit too may things into his break time. Please try and get back by the post-break ready check or we will immediately begin finding a replacement for you so the entire raid doesn't have to wait.

Now, let's talk about our progression a bit. We are now 2/13 HM and are moving at a decent pace considering we took a while to solidify our 25M roster. We had an initial hurdle of having some really good players only being able to play on two days, but with our quality additions, we have been able to compensate. At the moment, we have downed H-Halfus and H-Chimaeron, which are both necessary bosses for us to progress further. The next two bosses I want to focus on would be Al'Akir, H-Atremedes, and H-Maloriak, in that order. Now, I know that Al'Akir isn't technically a progression boss, but in a way it is. First of all, we haven't downed it in 25M so it is direct progression for the 25M. In addition, it provides a title which many of our raiders do not have and are clamoring for. Thirdly, it is a different type of boss fight which holds new challenges and frames of reference for us as we continue on to new content. Currently, our plan is to work on Al'Akir basically all of Monday which by then, all other bosses will be down. Heroic Atremedes is the next heroic encounter we would like to focus on for progression. This week, the plan is to work on Heroic Chimaeron and spend up until around 10:30 trying Heroic Atremedes (which will give us 30 minutes for Nef). If attempts go really good, we can stick on Heroic Atremedes the rest of the night leaving Nef and Al'Akir for Monday. Now, let's switch gears for a second and talk about our one-shot farm bosses in BoT. It is safe to say that the last 3 bosses in BoT are basically on farm status right now. As such, we DE most of the gear off those bosses except maybe a shoulder token or two off of Cho'Gall. Next week, I really want to do Heroic Halfus and then immediately get into BWD so we have more time to work on Heroic Atramedes and Heroic Maloriak. Gump made a good point yesterday that we have to begin skipping some of our farm bosses and focus on being a little more aggressive on progresion. Those of you who still need shoulder tokens of Cho'Gall in case we don't get a chance to go back to BoT Next week, can try to form a Thursday/weekend raid to just finish off BoT to get your last few pieces, I can help with that.

Firelands is closing in on us and we all have to individually prepare for the new raid now itself. First of all, everyone should be up to date with the latest patch notes. Second, with every new patch/raid there comes several predictable scenarios which we can plan for. First would be crafting patterns. Level all your professions to max please! We need as many people as possible with the ability to learn all the newest crafting patterns as soon as possible. The sooner we get these patterns, the bigger advantage we will have. Also, all the new crafting patterns have mats which are currently available and listed on the latest patch notes. In addition, new raids = new loot, new loot needs enchanting mats, we will need a lot of enchanting mats. These two big areas of planning brings me to my next point:

What to do when you are not raiding: I see people all the time just online but simply chilling in Org or playing on their alt a bit. Now, I don't want to discourage people from taking a break from their mains or taking a few minutes to talk to their freinds. All I am trying to say is, use your time wisely in a way that we can all benefit. The first and foremost thing you can do is get as much gold as possible while you are not raiding. This could mean gathering mats to sell, selling valor boots, doing dailies, etc. Whatever you do to make money in the game, please do it. Gold allows us to buy new patterns, recipies, mats, etc. In the past, a new crafting piece has come out and we would always wait for the price to go down in the AH, let's have enough money so that we won't have to anymore. In addition to collecting gold, get a DE'er and do a ZA/ZG run or two so you can get some Maelstrom crystals. I did a run with Wili the other day and we got 15 of them. If not ZA/ZG runs, do some heroics for Chaos orbs which will be needed for crafting items. With our current gear, we can blow through heroics so fast. I know that overall, all this could be annoying for some people, but if we begin chipping away at it little by little well ahead of time, it won't be that bad. Even use your alts if you want to, so you get a change of pace. I know I will be trying to get any new tailoring patterns on my priest in addition to Blacksmithing patterns on my pally.

Unholy has been running WoL parses for our raids. Please take a look at them and other materials so you can improve yourselves. If you are constantly looking to improve yourselves, it prevents something which I like to call a "Mental Carry". A "Mental Carry" is when someone who performs poorly on a boss he has downed before simply because it is on farm. That leads to mental mistakes like puling aggro, standing in shit, killing others, etc. A good example of which is 1 person being alive on Heroic Halfus yesterday.

Lastly, I would like to end by calling attention to the fact that we downed 7/12 yesterday with a heroic mode sprinkled in there. It was a great effort and I can't wait to see what we can do when we clean up some of our bad habits and go full throttle!

I look forward to Geedub's wedding and doing a first ever video Rebel's Logic post on location!

[Unholy]

I look forward to Geedub's wedding and doing a first ever video Rebel's Logic post on location!

Oh man! Yacoub best get on film!

[Viledead]

What the - 4 aff locks now?? That's pretty wild. Thinking of changing to mage main - been thinking about it for awhile. Not that I'm raiding much atm anyways, but sounds like everything is going well!!

[Guest Memer]

What the - 4 aff locks now?? That's pretty wild. Thinking of changing to mage main - been thinking about it for awhile. Not that I'm raiding much atm anyways, but sounds like everything is going well!!

I misses you Viledead :,( , you never raid with me