Raid

These posts are especially relevant to our Raiders!

Over the past week we made some changes to the officer core for Ministry of Defense. Please help me welcome the following people who will be helping in the following areas:
Tiraffe has joined us as a Warlord (Raid Lead)
Gary (names you can’t pronounce) has joined the MoD officer core and will be helping with crafting and guild bank maintenance
Rip has joined the officer core and is organizer of the Sunday afternoon mythic keystone event
Also, a special thank you to @Vellitha who was also promoted to the Praetor rank.

I (Quetzie) will be streaming our first guild attempts at Ny’alotha tonight and tomorrow night (and generally speaking, every thursday / friday raid slot). Raids start at 8pm EST.

If you want to see the raid, or see how we’re working out the fights, tune in!

 

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The Warlords met and discussed some of the questions that came up during the raid meeting that we didn’t have an answer to, as well as nailed down clarifications on others.

Revisited Q&A:

Q: If a Mythic person has a permanent character on the Heroic team, is that character considered an “alt” or a “main” for the purposes of loot rolling?
A: If a Mythic-roster player has a character on the weekend roster that attends at least 66% of the weekend raid days, that character is considered a “main” for the purpose of loot rolling. If the character doesn’t attend at least 2/3 of the weekend raids, they will be considered an alt, and will fall into line on the loot rolls as such. If you want to keep a permanent weekend-roster character, you must let Lineda know that your character is considered a “main” weekend character. Otherwise, mythic players on the weekend team will be considered visitors (alts) and will not have attendance logged and will not be assumed to be main roster for rolling loot.

Q: Can we donate gold instead of raw materials for Vanguard donations?
A: Yes. If you do not want to spend the time farming materials, you can send 5k gold directly to Urostek. This will be used to purchase more expensive items like vantus runes, pricey herbs, etc.

Mythic Clarifications:

Main swapping:

Any character who intends to swap needs to provide performance logs (either from the weekend team or a pug). A character who is ‘visiting’ the weekend team only for the purpose of getting logs is required to pass on loot rolls during this time (it would not be fair to join the weekend group, take BiS loot, and then leave them forever). The weekend team does not exist to feed the mythic team.

There is still a 2-week notice in effect. You must provide performance logs at the time you tell us you want to swap. You can not tell us you want to swap, raid for 2 weeks on the weekend team, hand us logs on Monday, and expect to come to Mythic raid on Thursday. We will need time to look at the logs and analyze that you are performing to a similar standard.

Time / Schedule:

The new raid times are 8-10pm EST Thursday, 8-11pm EST Friday. We realize that not everyone is going to be able to make the 11pm night on Friday, however there will not be a penalty for dipping early. Normal and Heroic are flex, and anyone who needs to leave early during Mythic gives a chance for weekend raiders to get Mythic experience.

Raid Pre-Planning Meeting Agenda:

  • Introduction from the Warlords
  • Rules and Regulations changes
    • DPS Requirements
    • Raid Confirmation
    • Feasts VS Personal Food
    • Requirements for Ny’alotha
    • Sign-up Sheet
    • Moving from Heroic to Mythic
  • Old Rule Reminders
    • Coming on Time
    • Confirming and Coming to Raids
    • Discord / Communication
    • Discord Bots
    • Vanguard status
    • Loot
    • Respect
  • Pre-Ny’alotha reading & videos (WIP)
  • Q&A

Continue reading →

8.3 releases on January 14th, and with it comes a bunch of game-changing mechanics, zones, and scenarios. Although 8.3 took a while to get here, it brings a huge amount of content. It can be a bit much to process all at once, so this guide will give a TL;DR of all the new stuff coming in Visions of N’zoth, along with general tips along the way for raiders who want to maximize their efficiency when the new raid becomes available.

Patch/Raid Release Schedule

January 14 – Visions of N’zoth Goes Live
January 21 – Normal and Heroic Difficulties
January 28 – Mythic Ny’alotha, Raid Finder Wing 1 (Vision of Destiny)
February 11 – Raid Finder Wing 2 (Halls of Devotion)
February 25 – Raid Finder Wing 3 (Gift of Flesh)
March 10 – Raid Finder Wing 4 (The Waking Dream)

New Legendary Cloak – Ashjra’kamas

When you’re going through the 8.3 questline, you will eventually get a 470 ilvl legendary cloak, Ashjra’kamas. This cloak will most definitely be an upgrade of whatever you have on, and it gives two major bonuses; corruption resistance and reduced sanity drain. The corruption resistance helps you negate the negative effects on corruption gear (more on that later), and the sanity drain reduction helps in Horrific and Lesser Visions of N’zoth. To upgrade the cloak, you have to complete certain sections in Horrific Visions based on how much your cloak has leveled up. When you start off with your cloak, you’ll want to always make sure you kill the “major” boss in the Horrific Vision in every run. If you don’t kill the major boss, even if you defeated bosses in side zones, you will NOT get the items to upgrade your cloak. When your cloak reaches rank 6, it gains an active effect that allows you to remove all corruption debuffs on you currently and for the next 6 seconds. Rank 12 gives a mainstat proc.

More information on the legendary cloak can be found in Wowhead’s legendary cloak guide.

Continue reading →

This evening, Tiraffe and I peeled through the various defensive azerite traits available for the Mythic raiders for Sivarra. Many (most) of these are great across the board for the raid – many of these are also amazing in M+. Some of the poorly ranked ones may be better for other fights, or for M+, or for PvP. It’s important to be familiar with your spec when making these decisions.

It’s also important to note that many of these abilities require you to actively use specific spells – for example, Ursoc’s Endurance is useless if you’re not using Barkskin! Therefore, if you’re not using some of these abilities either on cooldown or as when is most effective, you may want to stick with the more passive traits listed, even if they’re in a lower tier.

Azerite Traits

A+ Tier:

Resounding Protection (stack when possible – this should be the default trait you look for)
Impassive Visage (excellent for constant damage fights like this one)
Death Knight – Runic Barrier
Demon Hunter – Thrive in Chaos (tank spec)
Paladin – Gallant Steed

A Tier:

Gemhide (tanks)
Death Knight – Cold Hearted
Demon Hunter – Soulmonger (Tank)
Druid – Ursoc’s Endurance, Switch Hitter (resto aff. only)
Hunter – Duck and Cover, Nature’s Salve (IF TALENTED)
Mage – Eldritch Warding
Priest – Sanctum
Warlock – Desperate Power
Warrior – Moment of Glory
Engineering – Personal Absorb-o-tron

B Tier:

Self Reliance (ranged)
Death Knight – March of the Damned
Mage – Quick Thinking (fire)
Rogue – Shrouded Mantle
Warlock – Lifeblood (you can prepot these!)

C Tier:

Longstrider
Hunter – Shellshock, Nature’s Salve (not talented)
Mage – Quick Thinking (frost), Cauterizing Blink
Monk – Strength of Spirit
Shaman – Serene Spirit, Ancient Ankh Talisman?
Engineering – Auto-Self-Cauterizer

F Tier:

Gemhide (everyone else)
Vampiric Speed
Self Reliance (melee)
Bulwark of the Masses
Demon Hunter – Thrive in Chaos (dps), Soulmonger (dps), Burning Soul
Druid – Reawakening, Switch Hitter (any except resto aff.)
Mage – Quick Thinking (arcane)
Monk – Exit Strategy, Sweep the Leg
Paladin – Stalwart Protector, Empyreal Ward
Priest – Death Denied, Twist Magic
Rogue – Footpad, Lying in Wait
Shaman – Pack Spirit
Warlock – Terror of the Mind
Warrior – Intimidating Presence, Bury the Hatchet

Defensive Talents

If you’re not sure what defensive talents to use, you should check Warcraft Logs and see what the top talents for your spec are. While the mythic raiders should already know what offensive talents are the best overall on a per-fight basis, a mythic progression boss might have different defensive requirements than you’re used to. This is also useful for the non-mythic raiders who may be unfamiliar with how to check their class’s top talent builds

Warcraft Logs Mythic Abyssal Commander Sivarra Reports

From that page, select your class and spec from the dropdown. At the top of the list, you’ll see “Top Talents”. You can look on a ‘row by row’ basis to see what most people take. Then, you can look on the right-hand side of the long list to see any variants. Perhaps some people are taking a slightly different talent. You can investigate further as to why. Maybe their group comp requires it, or maybe it’s personal preference.

You can also look at the top azerite essences (which follow the azerite powers, though are on the same row).

For non-mythic raiders, you can also change ‘mythic’ to a different difficulty. You can also change it to another boss (not marked on the image, but should be pretty obvious).