Weekly Raid Roundup: June 13 – 19

Wednesday: Refining Strategies

Wednesday was rough. We usually treat it as a farm day, but we struggled as a group with basic mechanics on account of a number of new faces to heroic and a number of silly mistakes. We can usually get by basic mistakes on account of sheer ilvl and brute force of will, but it became apparent that we needed more tact to down the bosses.

On Imonar, phase 1 now has a more organized strat for ranged and healers for sleep canister. We will continue to use this strategy in the future. In essence, range and healers will bunch into 2 groups. When you have sleep canister, run to the middle. When you don’t, you run away from the middle – you only need to strafe a little bit for this to be effective. 2-3 seconds is NOT a long period of time to run out of the group, so it’s equally important for the group to run away at the same time. This is especially true when we have 20+ man groups!

In between phases 2 and 3, people continually blow one another up on bridge crossings by not being careful when walking around. You really need to be careful, as this is a primary reason for our wipes.

Kin’Garoth was a struggle as well, mostly because people are screwing up the rolling purple orb mechanics. DPS all need to be standing on the proper side of the adds in the add phase. Healers will need to pay attention as well (unless you are the healer in charge of ball soaking).

When it comes to the add phase, make sure that you are past the add, and facing your camera towards where the balls are coming from (stand at “Blue” side, or the upper-left side of this photo). This will make it much easier to see and dodge mechanics! You can either achieve this by running past the add on your way from “Yellow” (right-hand) side, or run the long way around, passing Blue and then coming around to Skull (where the add is in the above photo). This is to prevent DPS and Heals from getting slammed in the back with rolling balls. The only people who should be towards Yellow side should be the tanks and the ball-soaking healer. Any DPS or non-ball-soaking healers on the red-cicled portion of the above image are standing in the wrong spot and could potentially cause a wipe. This will also help the healers, as people will be more closely grouped together, with nobody spread all the way back at yellow while DPSing adds.

Raid Leader Commentary: We’re going to become more hard-assy about people making mistakes that are basic and causing raid wipes. With 20+ people we need to start coming down hard on time wasters. You still get 3 chances before you’re sat, but we’re keeping a much closer eye on those 3 chances now.

Wednesday Logs

Saturday: It’s not Digiorno, it’s Destruggle

More Kin’Garoth struggles. Some of the struggles of the week were due to an up-and-coming tank who is still getting solid gear (but you’re doing a great job and learning fast, so don’t feel bad!). We swapped tanks and had an easier – albeit not easy – time on Kin’Garoth, again because people are failing basic mechanics like balls avoidance.

After a one-shot on Varimathras, we decided to bang against Coven some more. We’re seeing better mastery of many basic mechanics from some, while others are continuing to get hit by daggers or fire blades.

Saturday Logs

Monday: Back to Basics and Heroic Lower Bosses

On account of our colossal screw-ups, we opted to dive into Coven before doing Aggramar. It was disheartening even to see seasoned raiders continually getting hit by daggers and blades in even normal Coven. It’s one thing to get caught out when there’s a Storm on heroic, but there’s no excuse for heroic Raiders to be caught out in normal. Sadly I don’t have logs for Coven as I got a later start before joining the raid than I intended.

Aggramar had a minor “oopsie” moment with tank swaps again, and then was downed easily. Argus was one-shot, too! We then took a quick break and decided to down heroic Garothi and look at some of the other lower heroic bosses as practice and loot chance. Unfortunately, we only took down Garothi due to some gear-checks on heroic Hounds, but that’s ok. Alt Night is all about learning, and we’ve definitely seen progress!

Monday also saw the promotion of Symderella to Raider rank, as well as Treeson fast-tracked to Raider rank (Treeson was formerly on Bloodscalp, but transferred to join the cool kids on Aerie Peak). You can check them out on the Raid Team page! I’ve also added Symderella, Treeson, and Qwaylas to the Wow Audit Spreadsheet to help them track their gear and progress.

Monday Logs

Other Thoughts

In order to make things easier for Zextol, the raid leaders are going to be splitting up more of the chores and tasks that he has been handling previously. Quetzie will be the primary point of contact for Raid invitations and pre-raid questions (think qualifications, rules, confirmations, etc). Telanlan will be the Loot Master in all senses, dealing with not only Master Loot distribution but also personal loot trade rolls – you’ll be whispering him, not Zex, when you have a piece of gear you don’t need. Foxxie will be your general point man for more targeted questions about fight mechanics, class rotation, talent choice, and more.

Of course, none of the raid leads are locked into a particular role. Sometimes Telan may take over invites, Foxxie might have a better grasp on loot needs, and Quetzie is known for routine fight analysis. Overall, this is done to help Zex be able to focus more thoroughly on calling timers and explaining mechanics while also giving him more down-time before raid and in between fights to catch up on Real Life business.

Finally, always remember that if you have a question or a concern, you can contact any of the Raid Leads or officers within the guild to help you resolve the situation.

Also since I didn’t have a relevant meme for raiding this week, please enjoy this gentle reminder from our priests:

Raid Schedule for Next Week

“Saturday night progression we will be SKIPPING Coven and attempting Aggramar. Aka watch the posted videos in discussion and PM a raid leader if you have any questions.” – Zextol

Can I get a hell yeah?

And congrats to Symderella for making Raider this week! You get to be part of the Raid Team page, have more money to spend on repairs, and access to Raider tabs. There are a number of other potential raiders “on deck” for promotions soon, so be sure to keep your attendance up and you’ll get to be part of the team, too!

Weekly Raid Roundup: June 6 - 12

Wednesday: Heroic Farming

Wednesday was a generally successful run. We downed 5 bosses in relatively quick succession with one another before banging our heads against Kin’Garoth. We almost 1-shot High Command due to sheer numbers, but we do still need to manage our bombs better. It gets hectic on the second loop through.

Kin’Garoth, of course, gave us some trouble. DPS need to be smarter about moving sooner. Those assigned to purple add also need to remember to switch to red in the second add phase.

Regarding the Master Loot changes, you can see updates to the Rules & Regulations page with a clarification on Master Loot for tier bosses. We’ve also made a few other changes that retain the heart of the rules, while paring down excess verbiage.

Wednesday Logs

Saturday: Heroic Progression

Kin’Garoth was a big struggle for us again. It’s important for tanks to use proper mitigation  and save cooldowns for those big hits of Forging Strike. Thanks to Grim for taking over as the healer on ball-duty!

Varimathras was a struggle as well. Tank swapping became an issue. Remember, DBM timers are likely to be off – you can’t trust them entirely. Communication with the other tank is crucial.

We ended the night slamming our heads into Coven again. This boss is becoming a combination DPS and RNG check. Please practive Heroic Coven in your downtime!

Raid Lead Comments: Please keep the comms clear. We’ve had 20+ raids multiple times now, so commentary during fights is absolutely problematic. We’re going to start coming down on people who keep talking even when told to be quiet. Tanks need us to be quiet unless it is a Raid Lead making calls! If you are not a Raid Lead, do not make calls or talk over the raid leads unless directed to do so.

Props to Wyte for coming to lend us a hand on heals and for killin’ it in spite of being “undergeared” and not having joined us previously. Thank you to the PUG who put up with our many wipes for so long as well.

We welcomed Tiv as a new Raid Leader and Lunzzul as a new Raider. Congrats to you both!

Saturday Logs

Monday: Alt Night, Lots of New Faces!

Monday was a big raid for us – 23 people! Lots of new or returning faces, which was great to see.

Garothi Normal has Decimation issues, but was otherwise an easy kill. Aggramar and Argus we each wiped once. Agg had an initial “whoopsie” for tanks, but after understanding the mechanic, we took him down easily. Argus wiped us once and we took him down the second time. Raid Lead Comments: please be paying attention to the markers on your head. Match them to the marker on the ground in Phase 2. Please move the buffs in phase 1 to the right, and move blight to the back.

Next we tackled heroic Garothi. Raid Lead Comments: Please move Decimation out of the group. DBM is a great tool, but only if you bother to use it!

We actually had three legendaries drop on Monday. Most notably, Zextol got the Amanthul’s Vision trinket.

Monday Logs

More Info for Raiders

We’ve got a number of new things posted this week on the site to help our raiders!

First, we have a new Raid Attendance management system. Take some time to read about what it means and how we track your attendance for Raider status.

I wrote up an in-depth look into Warcraft Logs for DPS (though I suggest tanks and healers reading it, too!). This will help you determine the proper talents, trinkets, and rotation to increase your output.

We’ve updated the Raiding Rules and Regulations so please take a look.

Finally, we have a few Website Changes that include a new Raiding sub-menu to make the raid-related pages easier to navigate, and added a Roster to show off our illustrious Raiding Team. I will be tweaking these two features for the next several days to improve their use.

Website Changes

Made 2 changes to the website today – one functional, one fashionable.

First, I’ve added a new submenu to all Raid-related pages. The raiding homepage, NEW Raid Team page, Raiding Rules & Regulations page, and the Raid Attendance page are all easily accessed from one-another. When you’re on a non-raid page, the submenu disappears to conserve space.

Second, and more exciting, I’ve added a Roster page. This page has a small badge for each Raid Lead, Raider, and their Alts. Raid Leads have red backgrounds (just like in Discord), Raiders have orange background (like in-game and in Discord), and alts have grey backgrounds.

Different classes have matching color names, avatar border, and ilvl text. Clicking on a character’s image will bring up a full view of their transmog in their class hall. Clicking their name will bring you to their WoW Armory page. Hovering over the items will show you their name, stats, etc.

Now, our Raiders have an extra incentive to maintain their status – and up-and-comers have an extra incentive to keep coming.

(Note: This page may load slowly from time to time as a result of API calls to Blizzard servers. This is normal.)

Over the weekend I updated Uro’s transmog on the About the Ministry of Defense page, and added Telanlan and Foxxiê. They now have access to the site to post content of their own.

I continue to try to push out quality of life changes and add new, useful, and fun features to the website for the guild. If you have an idea or a suggestion, fill out the Feedback form and let me know! Is something broken? Submit a Bug Report!

Warcraft Logs for DPS

Most of the time when we raid, someone ends up running a Warcraft Log (WCL) for us. We’ll paste the link in the #raiding-logs channel and discord, people will glance at their parse number, and move on. But WCL is an amazing tool that can help boost your damage and survivability, if you spend the time to dig around in it. Today I’ll dig into how read the charts to improve your DPS. For Healers and Tanks, you’ll want to pay attention to Method 1 to see how your talents and trinkets stack up with others. Otherwise, feel free to take a nap during today’s class.

Continue reading

New Raid Attendance Management System

(Author note: This post and the page this post discusses are best viewed on desktop rather than mobile due to the size of the content)

In light of some recent changes and to keep our Raiders better informed, I’ve taken all of the attendance information from May and June and added it to a Raid Attendance page. You can access this right from the Raiding homepage, under the basic rules and to the right of the raid times. This new system has a few bells and whistles, so let’s dive in and see what you can do!

Continue reading

Weekly Raid Roundup: May 29 – June 4

Wednesday: Single-Target Boss Runs

Whether by plan or by accident, Wednesday was spent working on single-target bosses we haven’t gotten many kills on.

Imonar the Soulhunter had a late wipe on account of too many dying during the bridge crossings; 3 died before the first one was complete, and too many died on the second crossing. Some people also criss-crossed lasers. By contrast, the second run (and subsequent kill!) had nobody die from either bridge crossing or lasers, so there was much improvement.

Kin’Garoth was more of a struggle. Too many people are not moving fast enough – maybe to Ruiner, maybe away from purple balls, maybe moving their mechanics to the outside edge. Eventually, we had to cull a few people just to get a kill on the boss. Raid Leader Tips: Look around! Be alert! You need to be incredibly cognizant of the location of other raid/party members. Much like Coven, running into one of your allies can lead to both of your deaths from botched mechanics.

Remember, there’s a set timer for when he can and cannot take damage:

0:00: Kin’Garoth Damage
0:30: first add phase
1:10 : Kingaroth open to dmg
2:30: 2nd add phase
3:10: Kin’garoth open to dmg
4:30: 3rd add phase
5:10: Kin’Garoth open to dmg

This means you should use 30 second cooldowns at the start of the boss fight; 1 minute CDs when he opens up to damage after the first adds; 2 minute cooldowns on the first add phase; and 3 minute cooldowns at the second add phase. Alternatively, you could use your 3 minute cooldowns on the first add phase, to have it up for the 3rd add phase. RLs may be revisiting strategies on this boss.

Wednesday’s Warcraft Logs

Saturday: More Coven Practice and Easy Kills

Unfortunately, our planned “hand picked” group had too many absent members, so we ran with a group that included several people we did not anticipate running with and who were not as well prepared for the boss fight (I was also on an unfamiliar computer. RIP my timers and addons). We never progressed past 50% health on the boss. We still have a lot of people dying to avoidable damage. But, there was much better organization on add kills (assuming the RNG wasn’t poor in combination with Storm). We also had 2 people go from being the most killed last week to being some of the least killed, so it shows great improvement and that practice does work. With luck this week we will down the boss.

After it became apparent that there wasn’t going to be any real progress on Coven beyond 50%, we brought our spirits up a bit by doing some quick kills on Eonar and High Command. Eonar was about the cleanest and fastest we’ve ever done it – most mobs didn’t even make it to the tree. High Command was likewise very clean – only one (late) death throughout the whole fight from too much bomb damage.

Raid Lead Comments: if you intend to ever do Heroic Coven with us, you should be practicing Heroic Coven in other groups during the week. Also, we will start running Normal Coven on Mondays so people practice the Normal mechanics.

Saturday’s Warcraft Logs

Monday: Alt Night and Cheevo-Chasing

Monday was a good night all around. There was one wipe the whole night, on Aggramar, from a “whoopsie” tank moment where adds did not get repositioned. Otherwise, clean throughout. This says good things about some of the up-and-comers, as well about the patience and skill from our seasoned raiders. On a side note, alt-night Argus often takes us over 10 minutes. For  a fast kill, we should consider lusting at the beginning of the fight, just to get his HP pool down.

Most interesting, we got the present members a few achievements towards Glory of the Argus Raider. Specifically, we did Worm-Monger, Hounds Good to Me, and Spheres of Influence.

Monday Warcraft Logs (not useful on Garothi or Felhounds)

Wow Audit Spreadsheet

Do you feel like you can’t keep track of your gear, or what your next goal should be? Maybe the Wow Audit Spreadsheet can help. Take a look at this post on another useful tool for Raiders.

Wow Audit Spreadsheet

(Author note: This post and the attached link are best viewed on desktop rather than mobile due to the size of the content)

A few weeks ago, I added a link to the Raid Announcements channel on discord: a Ministry of Defense WoW Audit.

https://wowaudit.com/us/aerie-peak/ministry-of-defense/raiders

This is a useful tool for Raiders and Raid Leads alike. I’ll walk through the basics of each sheet.

Continue reading

New Discord bot: Raidbots!

Those of you active on the Discord may have noticed a new channel and feature: a Raidbots bot.

For those unfamiliar, Raidbots is a dps simulation website that runs off of SimulationCraft / SimC. (Sorry, tanks and heals, you’re unsupported at this time.) You can download the SimC addon and run your information in game, then paste the result into the site, for the best results.  You can also compare gear in your bags or compare talents to find out what will output the most DPS on a per-fight basis.

We’ve added this functionality to our Discord server to make simming your dps even easier for you!

Continue reading

Weekly Raid Roundup: May 22 - 28

Time for the third installment of our weekly roundup!

Wednesday: Heroic Farming

Notably, this was the first week we 1-shot Varimathras. We went from bashing our faces in with a dozen wipes to a 1-shot in a matter of weeks. Great job, everyone!

Kin’garoth gave us some trouble because people are not paying attention to the positioning of the giant purple orbs, or the location of their explosive circles. Remember, run explosives to the outer edge! Save movement cooldowns for Ruiner+explosives, so that you don’t kill the raid trying to escape.

We gave Coven a few shots, just to get a taste for it, and it went about as well as could be expected.

Wednesday Heroic Logs

Saturday: Coven Practice

Hoo boy. We knew going into this it was gonna be rough. Guys, make sure you’re watching the videos. The Raid Leads can’t stress it enough. It became painfully obvious that some people either have not watched the videos on Coven, or have not watched them in a long time.

Over time, it was clear that our patience and practice was working. We were getting further into the fights, and Storm was causing fewer problems than at the start. In the end, our farthest push was to 42% health.

However, there are quite a few issues. People are not paying attention to themselves or their neighbors when they have Fulminating Pulse around them. This is especially deadly when combined with Storm of Darkness. Please be careful. Storm is also deadly combined with Fury of Golganeth. Don’t just hone in on rushing the adds once the Storm clears!

A trick for Storm: get to a corner. There are usually at least 1-2 circles within quick running range of one of the tanks. Ranged DPS or high mobility classes might want to aim to get to a corner opposite the tanks, so that those Storms don’t get too crowded for other mechanics.

Melee DPS, there is never a reason to be attacking Noura. Attack one of the other two bosses instead. They share a healthpool, and being on top of Noura is too risky.

Tanks had trouble swapping the bosses, causing undue work for not only the other tank, but also healers.

It’s almost a guarantee that you will have to re-talent on this fight compared to other fights, just to get the proper CC. Druids must take Mass Entangle, for example.

If you’re curious how you stack up, here is a graphic showing the time you died on a boss VS the total time spent on the boss:

Pink/low numbers died sooner than yellow/high numbers. Your average is on the left; individual fights are on the right. If you are consistently in the pink zone, you are dying too soon (one or two times may just mean that you got unlucky, or someone else killed you with a bad mechanics. It happens.). You are putting undue stress on healers, wasting battle resses, or simply outputting 0 dps/hps for the duration. Figure out how you need to adapt. Are you not getting to storm quick enough? Are you taking tons of fire damage? Examine the logs. I (Quetzie) would be more than happy to sit down and work with individuals to analyze their combat logs and figure out what is killing them and when.

This is very important:

The Raid Leads have reached a consensus that we will be assigning specific people to specific roles. This is to ensure that we have the best chance of downing this boss. We will also be hand-picking people to sit in or sit out. If you are assigned to a role that you don’t enjoy, or are asked to sit, please take the time to reflect on why it is that you were or were not chosen for a specific role. This is not us “playing favorites”, this is us ensuring the majority of the raid gets AOTC before the deadline. Low DPS, constant early deaths, or other fuckups will cause you to be sat. This is one of the few bosses where fewer people = greater chance of survival, as mechanics get more difficult in a bigger crowd. We may also be prioritizing ranged DPS slots over melee. Practice the fight on your own throughout the week. We can tell who has done a lot of work and who has not!

We are likely to start employing a more strict policy over who is and is not able to come to heroic raiding from here on out. While there are 4-5 bosses we have on farm, the rest we are pushing true progression on, and cannot carry those who simply mess up too many mechanics. 940 is not enough anymore to secure your slot. You must also pull your weight.

Coven Wipefest Logs

Potions and YOU!

I’m going to repost this here, because it’s “part one” of my planned “buff breakdown” analysis to help people improve. We’re starting with one of the easy ones – potions of prolonged power. Check out my writeup and stay tuned for future writeups on how to best manage your buffs and steroids.

Monday: Alt Night

OK guys, I get it. “It’s alt night, who cares!” Well, we care. Please ensure you have Discord, DBM/Big Wigs, etc. And that you not only have DBM, but that you fucking pay attention to it, holy shit you guys. Things like DBM / Big Wigs are great tools, but they’re only great if you actually use their potential. That being said, our only wipe was on Argus at above 95%, so even our lowbies did well. We got lots of tier for lots of people (including some new 2 set bonuses), and even a legendary for kitty Lvana!

Alt Night Logs