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!

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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

"Weekly" Raid Roundup: April 24 – May 21

(I know, I know. I missed a few weeks – I’ve been absent a few Saturdays due to IRL business. I don’t remember a lot from previous weeks, but I’ll try to fill in important notes where I can)

Time for our second Raid Roundup!

April 24-30

I don’t remember much, except for Portal Keeper being a struggle. Positioning was a big issue for everybody that stayed with the boss. Lots of people being hit by lasers.

Logs: April 25, April 28, April 30.

May 1 – 7

Portal Keeper continued to be a struggle / DPS check. Eonar and Felhounds are on farm. I was absent for Saturday’s raid, so no commentary from me.

Logs: May 2, May 7 (alt night)

May 8-14

Raid Lead Comments: We still need to really nail down the mines on High Command. Lots of people are not watching their feet. We also seriously lack the DPS to take this down efficiently – partially because people are dying so early. This is also the first week where we proceeded to wipe a dozen times against Varimathras. Tanks – PLEASE be aware of your positioning. This fight is 95% you. We also had a few wipes due to DPS not understanding the rot-spread mechanic.

(On a side note, May 9th we had a bomb-ass demon hunter for a while named Kath. Tank DHs, check out the logs if you’re curious to improve!)

This is the first week where I started to analyze Potion of Prolonged Power usage. You can see usage for all fights on May 12th here.

That being said, we got our first Varimathras kill this week on May 12! Congrats everyone!

Logs: May 9, May 12,

May 15 – 21:

High Command was a struggle again. Too many dying too early, too many people stepping in bombs. Imonar was an issue as well…DPS are not running their Sleep Canisters away from others fast enough.

Logs: May 16, May 21 (alt night)

Tanks and Heals: We'll boost you!

Are you a tank or a healer looking to get better gear and join us for raids? Good news! We’re in desperate need of regular guild healers and tanks for heroic progression, and we’re looking to fast-track the gear levels of those who are interested in filling those spots. So if you’re already leveling a non-DPS, or are thinking of starting one, now is the best time to do it! Let one of the Guild Leaders know that that’s your intent, and we’ll do our best to blast you through mythics, LFRs, and more.

 

Weekly Raid Roundup: April 17 - 23

In a new, hopefully weekly content update, I’ll go over some of the successes, failures, and exciting moments from the previous week’s raids. It also includes some thoughts from the Raid Leads, so be sure to look for strategy comments!

Wednesday: Heroic Farming

New to this week, we’ve started running Heroic progression on Wednesdays. We also recently extended raid times by an hour (3 hour raids rather than 2). While my computer crashed for the first hour, I was present for the last two kills. Raid Lead consensus: is important on Eonar to focus down the Fel Lords and Obfuscator’s ASAP – we had a wipe as a result of an ignored mob! Portal Keeper went well also. Great job on the interrupt rotation and placement of fire! As a result of teamwork and dedication, we downed 4 bosses in Antorus. This was awesome news – it meant that we’d be facing all-new content for the Guild come Saturday, our traditional progression time.

Saturday: Heroic Progression

Antoran High Command

Antoran High Command went down in two pulls (with some outsider help, admittedly. We’ll have a better gauge of our DPS success this week). We still need to be cognizant of the mines, but rotations between bosses and our Pod People all did a great job. Raid Leads agree that we need to focus adds much faster and remain vigilant of where we put out feet. Much like facing the Coven, being careful is more important than DPSing – rotate your camera, stare at your feet, and make sure to dodge what’s on the ground! Also, don’t be afraid to snuggle up to the other DPS and heals. We need to be stacked tight.

Imonar

Imonar was almost a relaxing break after the hectic fight of High Command. DPS did a bunch better job spreading out to avoid sleep-canistering the raid, and our bridge transitions were about as smooth as they can be. Continue to spread in phase 1 as much as possible, and we’ll have smoother transitions into phase 2!

Kin’garoth

Kin’garoth, as expected, gave us a lot of trouble. In the end, we elected a new strategy, keeping the DPS more split between teams than we had previously. This meant DPS reached adds faster, which meant downing them faster. We need to focus adds harder, and may end up being more picky about DPS minimums for this fight in the future. Otherwise, everyone did a good job dodging Ruiner, and tanks were excellent at clearing the purple boulders.

Varimathras

We ended Saturday on Varimathras, and we never got him lower than 50% (4 pulls we didn’t get him under 75%). Mostly, this is a boss positioning issue. Tanks homework this week is to watch tank PoV videos to make sure he’s being placed properly. DPS did a good job at their mechanics – no complaints this week!

Monday: Alt Night

On a lighter note, we had our Alt Night on Monday. We welcomed 3 new characters into the ranks – Thelovefool, Razarnlok (Furrybuddy’s alt), and Dotsmoredots. We give credit to the true newbies for having a minimal difficulty adjusting to Normal mode mechanics and not making the same mistakes twice. Each walked away with several new pieces of gear, including a legendary drop for Lovefool. With any luck they’ll continue to be assets to our Normal runs until they can join us for Heroic. We downed 5 bosses, including Argus (though he gave us a few problems as a result of so many being on alts!). In fact, we downed Argus with only 1 or 2 people left standing. Now that’s cutting it close! Raid Lead reminders: stack right on the boss’s butt. Cuddle up to your raid buddies, and make sure to pop defensives when you have bursts.

Congrats to everyone for another successful raid week!

Calling all MoD Streamers!

Are you a Twitch (or YouTube, or Facebook…) streamer that showcases Ministry of Defense raids, dungeons, and other guild content?

We’re looking to showcase our creatives and link them on the website! Send Quetzie a message in Discord so she knows your URL, in game name, and streaming alias to be featured!

Throwback Thursday: Legion Raids Interest

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been itching to get achievements and transmogs from Legion raids before the content gets old – especially The Chosen, which will vanish when BFA launches!

For those who don’t know me, I was the primary (only) Raid Lead for Ministry of Defense in the first half of Legion, back before I took a year off to regain my sanity from yelling at fuckers not to stand in fire concentrate on finishing other games. You might hear people call me “Raid Mom”. I’m familiar with all the fights up through Nighthold, which netted me an Ahead of the Curve: Xavius and Ahead of the Curve: Helya (I quit before we finished Nighthold Heroic. RIP my cheevos.).

I’m itching to Raid Lead again, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to scratch that itch AND benefit all the guild members who lack Mythic kills, transmogs, and experience in general with Legion’s earliest raids.

My goal is to get all of our normal raiders The Chosen, so we’ll likely spend every Thursday starting on mythic ToV before moving on to one of the other three early legion raids.

If the idea of a Throwback Thursday Legion Raid strikes your fancy, react to this post in the MoD Website Feed Discord Channel with the MoD banner! If I net enough interest, I’ll start organizing a time and start date!

Glory of the Legion Hero Accomplishments

Gotta love it when guildies work together!

Over the past few weeks, some of our more prominent guild members – Ganelon, Pewpewbeast, Quetzie, Telanlan, and Lineda – have been hard at work to get the achievements necessary for Glory of the Legion Hero. Three of the group finished it on the 16th with I Made a Food! – an annoyance to get, as it requires the correct Violet Hold boss to spawn. The other two got it the next day with an RNG-blessed completion of Dropping some Eaves.

The most fun was probably Poor Unfortunate Souls – a long, complex, timed achievement that spans multiple dungeons and rewards a minipet in addition to the achievement. Most frustrating? Probably You Used to Scrawl Me in Your Fel Tome because of its RNG nature, though A Spectre, Illuminated was also frustrating since it kept bugging out. Stay Salty required the most coordination, whereas I Got What You Mead had to be the simplest of all.

In addition to the Leyfeather Hippogryph, completing this achievement unlocks the 4th tint of your Valorous Artifact Weapon Appearance.

Want your own achievement, mount, and pretty weapon color? You can always ask for tips in the Discord!

 

3 more Heroic Antorus Guild kills!

Thanks to everyone who showed up and kicked butt tonight! We got 3 more guild credit boss kills on Eonar, Felhounds, and Portal Keeper.

Remember, if you want to come with us next week, read over the rules & requirements in Discord and follow the instructions in the Announcements channel!