Thank you everyone who came out and asked questions! I’m going to be dividing the meeting / Q&A up into two sections – the ‘mythic’ team and the ‘casual’ team.

Raid Pre-Planning Meeting Agenda:

• Raid Times
• Raid Teams
• Mythic / hardcore
• Heroic / easygoing
• General Q&A

Mythic / Progression Team

Raid Times:

Thursday & Friday
7pm – 10pm (est) / 4pm – 7pm (pst)

Membership

Currently the main progression / mythic group is remaining the same. We want to keep the momentum going. Everyone who was a main or an active sub during Battle of Dazar’alor is on the Progression team. You are all considered mains until we hit mythic. When we hit mythic and need to limit to 20 people we will determine who will be considered a sub at that time. This means that performance is important – just because you were mythic in BoD doesn’t mean you can slack off in EP!

The mythic team’s membership and roles are not ‘locked’ – there is potential for both upward and downward mobility. If a person on the mythic team underperforms, we will be scouting the heroic team for a replacement. That said, we will be offering leeway as people adjust to new characters, roles, and mechanics. Don’t fret because you made a mistake on the first day – but we need to see improvement over time if you want to be on the Mythic team.

Anyone who isn’t on the mythic team but wants in on it should let us know so we can more closely evaluate their performance in the heroic group.

Mythic Q&A:

When will we know our roles?

We are asking for people to lock in between 2-3 characters by July 2nd, and their final role by July 9th. Roles are somewhat first come first served, and priority is given to those who are already playing those roles. (For example, we currently have 3 Demon Hunters; if none of them wants to swap, we will not be accepting more Demon Hunters) If you wait too long you may not get your choice at all.

Is there a chance of week 1 heroic?

Maybe. This depends on everyone reaching 415, for example. We are not accepting those who are not carrying their own weight or who waited too long to choose a new main. In addition to showing a strong understanding of mechanics. We are not going to smash against heroic bosses for several hours with no progress. We may opt to pop in to normal, see how it goes, and if it’s breezy and clean, go into heroic. Warlords will figure that out.

Can we pug Mythic BoD without penalty now?

Absolutely

Are we running loot council?

Not exactly. However, send your BiS itemization from bosses to Tiv. This has the effect of both you knowing and planning more about the class and the raid, and us being able to more easily spread loot for the group if something gets called into question.

What if someone has to eventually leave because of school in the fall?

We would love to keep you until then! If you eventually have to phase out because of classes or something else, please give us ample notice to train up a replacement, and let us know if you want to move to the weekend group, act as a sub, or anything else.

Are we giving up Mythic BoEs?

Depending on how farmable EP is, we may wind up requiring all or some of the funds from mythic BoE sales to fund guild bank repairs.

Can tanks pug ahead?

That depends entirely on what the group is doing and how it progresses. If we’re doing heroic week 1, feel free to go ahead on normal. Same with vice versa. We’ll keep you posted.

Can I sign up as DPS on the weekend team?

If the other raid group needs DPS, yes. However, we will be prioritizing roles they need.

Heroic / Easygoing Team

Raid Times

Saturday 5pm – 8pm (est) / 2pm – 5pm (pst)
Monday 7pm – 10pm (est) / 4pm – 7pm (pst)

Membership

Those not interested in main progression will be on the ‘weekend’ team. The weekend team will be more casual than the progression one – more lighthearted / easygoing / forgiving of mistakes. If we as RLs don’t live up to that standard and people think we’re being too harsh, then please communicate with us or with Urostek ASAP. It can be tough tough to swap between ‘mean progression raid lead’ and ‘casual funtime raid lead’ sometimes!

We’ll still want to progress on the weekends so serious underperformance of mechanics or play will be penalized in the forms of benches from certain bosses, but only after repeated or chronic offenses.

Anyone who isn’t on the mythic team but wants in on it should let us know so we can more closely evaluate their performance in the heroic group.

Because the weekend group will likely be missing some key roles (heals/tanks), people from the main progression group may bring one alt to the weekend group if the weekend group needs filling. Mythic mains bringing alts will only be allowed to bring the one alt until a determined time (this is so we don’t get people coming in on multiple alts every few weeks to try to get gear, thus hurting the other players gear efforts). Mythic members bringing alts to the weekend group will be held to a higher standard of performance and attitude – coming to weekend group is a privilege and should be treated as such. You are there to help fill in gaps that the other group needs, not be handed a carry.

Q&A

How do I tell you my role intention for Eternal Palace?

Fill out the spreadsheet here.

What are the addon requirements?

In addition to DBM or Bigwigs, we will be requiring all new raiders to use Weakauras and install specific packs that we link them.

What’s the ilvl requirement for Eternal Palace?

ilvl requirement is 400 for normal and 415 for heroic

What are some resources I can read about to prepare?

Check out the #palace-raid-planning channel in discord. Eventually we’ll move those pins to Raiding Discussion.

What if we have a problem with the Warlords or other raid members?

If you don’t feel comfortable talking to the Warlords or the other member about it, please reach out to Urostek. This is especially imperative if you think you maybe treated unfairly or not taken seriously.

Are we picking team names?

Maybe? It wasn’t planned but we could? SHRUGS!

Are we doing more AOTC runs?

We might! It wholly depends on who needs them and how much begging happens

Will you be updating the audit sheets?

Yup! We have an audit sheet for Mythic Raiders and one for Heroic Raiders. I will be clearing out / adding people to that in addition to…

What about the attendance?

I will be cleaning out the attendance page and adding new folks as well before the new raid starts. I will also be paying very close attention to mythic attendees lateness.

What if I don’t want to raid for a few weeks?

Attendance is on a freeze right now. You can earn vanguard, but not lose it!

What do I need to do to join in?

Read the Rules and Regulations! Are you already a raider? Re-read and re-confirm!

Raid interest meeting for Eternal Palace on Thursday at normal raid time (4pm server / 7pm est)! This will be for both new and returning raiders. I encourage folks to look over these past posts to answer common questions:

https://www.ministryofdefense.net/uldir-raid-pre-planning-meeting-minutes/
https://www.ministryofdefense.net/bfd-raid-planning-minutes/

We’ll be talking about ilvl minimums, expectations, and the two raid groups (yes, we’re keeping two).

If you can’t make the meeting please let a Warlord know so that we can fill you in. I will also write up another Q&A / meeting minutes like I did for Uldir and BoD.

In the meantime please check the spreadsheet below so we can get a sense of what everyone is playing.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YlSI5h2w3rlITTajV0wp7OYFhRs7h_AipuvY-d4dTp0/edit#gid=0

Hopefully this is self explanatory.

Slap your name on the left, select checkmark if that’s what you’re gonna play for sure, select question mark if you might play that class, leave blank otherwise. Don’t include alts, just your main intention.

There’s also a ton of good information in the #palace-raid-planning channel of discord!

Mythic Night 1

Champions of the Light

Most people on the Mythic team have already seen and/or killed Grong as a result of Jibbles’s Gob Squad runs on Sundays. That said, a number of new people were with us for the kill, and there were only 3 deaths. No Angelic Renewal casts got off, and Divine Mallet damage was comfortably low. That said, Atesies and Coldryder were (I believe) the ones with new Champion kills. We forgot to take a picture. Whoops!

Grong

Grong was fun, but challenging. Everyone we spoke to suggested it was a 5-healer minimum. But since we hate listening to directions and hate the easy route we stuck with 4. (This also means we either hate or love our healers. Use your own discretion.)

We had a few problems. Initially, our second orb holder kept dying because he wasn’t receiving enough direct heals. We assigned a specific healer to watch him during tough spots, which solved that issue wonderfully. Another problem was syncing when to use the item to cancel Throw while also draining his tantrum as low as possible. A third was part of the common Heroic issue: people not running out far enough with Throw, while also remaining stationary long enough for the tank to land and not be horrified. We improved communication as the fight continued. Myself and Kamahl (orb holders) got better about recognizing when we would need externals (without memeing BIG HEALZ); tanks got better at recognizing when they would be in trouble during Throw; the group coordinated interrupts smooth like butter.

In the end, we only needed 13 pulls for the kill.

Jadefire Masters

After Grong, Jadefire felt…easy, really. The hardest part of Jadefire is staying alive during multi-sided strike. However, once it was pointed out that the pattern of colors always remained the same (BLUE GREEN RED GREEN BLUE) and I threw together a quick Weakaura to show the color order, most people were able to survive the transition. There were still problems, of course – it’s mythic! We initially killed one explosive orb to start, baited magma traps, then moved on to the second explosive orb. Unfortunately, there was simply too much damage and bad timing with the third explosive, multi-sided strike, and the transitional phase. We eventually evened out timing, but still only managed to just down Mestrah twice – once with Manceroy around 30%, and later, with 19 total people, Manceroy around 18%.

Thursday Logs

Mythic Night 2

We had a rough start to Jadefire as new people joined us for the night and had to re/learn how to do multi-sided strike. However, we overall had better damage to orbs and got a new strat: we burn both the first two explosives, THEN bait magma traps, then kill the third explosive. By that time the third explosive was either dead or close to it before the transition happens.

We had 14 pulls total between both nights for the kill.

Opulence

Opulence will be our first real problem and the first boss we spend a lot of time tinkering and restrategizing on. It’s likely that we will swap healers around going into this week, as certain specs are better at dealing specific types of damage / situations. We’ll also be reinforcing a useful graphic that we pulled from <Am I Muted>’s discord, which will help with the lightning orb drop points significantly.

We also don’t want anyone running 3 stacks of Treacherous Covenant on Opulence or onwards until we have them downed a few times. The extra damage taken and loss of DPS, especially in poison room / dot situations, is enormous.

Downing Jadefire put us at #7 on the server. In order to gain ranks, we have to defeat Opulence, Conclave, AND Rastakhan.

Friday Logs

Heroic and Normal

I was not present for the Saturday Heroic run, but it looks like everything went well and the run was slightly over 2 hours. In the future, we may decide to do either 2 or 3 hour runs, depending on what people feel like. We may also save lockouts from the previous weeks to try to push AOTC for those that need it. We will try to announce this ahead of time.

Monday we originally planned to concurrently run heroic and normal. In the end we opted to run only normal, as a number of people who were originally going to do heroic either could not make it or didn’t feel well enough. In true alt-night fashion, we 1-shot every boss including Jaina, and came in at just over 2 hours. This is an excellent return to form and we know it boosted some spirits. It was nice to see people able to gear alts and run characters they haven’t been able to during progression runs.

Saturday logs
Monday logs: 1, 2, 3

Loot Rules

In the face of a Mythic team and the return of alt nights, we’ve tweaked the loot roll rules for alt nights and clarified what to do with loot we don’t need.

Check out the updates to Loot rolls.

Mythic Team

After much deliberation amongst one another and a vote on time slots, the Warlords chose Thursday and Friday for Mythic progression, replacing Black Team raid times.

The following individuals are part of the Mythic roster:

TANK:
Telann
Rip

HEALERS:
Corignis
Phallamore
Liv
Ubernuts

DPS:
Zextol
Lillithh
Quetzie
Kamahl
Foxxie
Harmesi
Fokolamagexd
Lineda
Niraffe
Donkay
Demonestra (transitioning to Houndmaster)
Grimmbrew
Jibbles
Cameltotem

BACKUP/FLEX:
Coldryder
Urostek
Atesies
Bulborbish
Bellelina
Shaynanigans

These individuals were chosen based not only on the numbers performance of their main spec, but also on mechanics, listening to directions, flexibility to other roles / classes, communication, availability for times, and most importantly, attitude.

This is NOT a permanent roster. If you think you were unfairly excluded (example: maybe you can make the times and we didn’t think you were able), please feel free to reach out to us. If you are on the roster but wind up benched because of underperformance or attendance issues, please don’t take it personally. We’ll work with you to show where you can improve as best we can.

If you’d like to try out for the Mythic roster but haven’t raided with us before, please get ahold of a Warlord. We’ll run you through Heroic and M+ to evaluate your performance and where you might best fit on the team. Assuming you’re approved, you’d start as a fill / bench before being placed on the main roster.

We’re looking to have fun but also be successful. If you think you can provide a class / role / functionality we’re missing, please reach out. We’re going to work hard in the coming weeks to gear people’s alts / off specs in M+ and heroic / normal raids, practice rotation, provide WAs, etc.

That said, we’re still a casual guild. Nobody expects Cutting Edge, and we’re not looking to recruit hardcore mythic raiders to replace the friends we’ve been playing with for months or years. When we reach a point where the best of our best can no longer proceed, we’ll likely halt progression to simply farm lower bosses or do other fun activities as a group, catch up AOTCs, etc.

If the stress of Mythic becomes too much and you stop having fun, there is no shame in sitting out. We chose the above individuals because we think they can take the stress of Mythic raiding, but this is a game and everyone should enjoy themselves. If you find it’s not what you expected, don’t feel that you have to keep coming for our benefit. We’d rather everyone have fun, and we can find someone to fill your slot in the future.

Current Teams / Names / Designations

At some point I need to update the Raid Team Roster page. I can separate the Mythic group out from the rest of the Vanguards; move the Mythic team to Black team and move everyone else to Red; keep Red and Black roster the same but add a separate Mythic roster; combine our (incredibly large) roster into 1 listing; give the Mythic team a brand-new designation; or any other number of things. If anyone has suggestions, please get ahold of me. Otherwise I will use my best judgement, and then nobody is allowed to bitch about what I choose :^)

As some of the raiders move into Mythic, the Warlords decided to adjust the rules regarding loot rolls. We also added some rules we’d mentioned in Discord that never made it to the online sheet, some from way back in Uldir!

Old Loot Roll Rules:

Once loot has been received, players who wish to offer up an item for roll will whisper the item to Telann. All loot rolls will be posted and closed by him (highest roll from 1-100 wins). Main spec rolls will be offered first, followed by off spec, and lastly character alts. Transmog and Disenchants are allowed after those priorities. BoE items belong to whoever receives them and may also be offered to others for roll at that players discretion. You are not required to offer an item up for trade.

New Loot Roll Rules:

Once loot has been received, players who wish to offer up an item for roll will whisper the item to Telann. You are not required to offer any item up for trade. Telann will then call for rolls in order of roll priority (below). If you win the roll and find you don’t need/want the loot, it then goes to the next runner up.

Roll Priority:
Main spec upgrade, Azerite or Trinket side grade *
Side grade for main spec
Off-spec
Transmog
Disenchants

* If a raid night is an “alt night”, alts / newbies are given main-spec priority rolls over those characters who are in main progression runs, as higher-geared characters have more opportunities to get the pieces they need. During alt nights, progression characters are considered “off spec” in the loot priority listing.

Note: BoE items belong to whoever receives them, but may also be offered to others for roll at that players discretion.

Reasons Why

Azerite and Trinkets may be ilvl side-grades for many classes, but the difference between a BiS trinket or trait is phenomenal (as an example, my BiS azerite trait does more damage than my spam / builder spell).

Characters who are not in the core progression groups (whether we’re on Mythic or Heroic for a given tier) have fewer opportunities for upgrades; it’s important that we give everyone opportunities to get gear. Progression characters going to alt runs are generally there to supply loot to alts / newbies who need it. We may make an exception for incredible titanforges above Mythic-level loot drops.

If you win an item and find you no longer need it (maybe it wasn’t a good upgrade via sim), please return it to the original owner or pass it off to the next-highest roll, rather than a friend or someone you “think” should get the item. You are also more than welcome to cancel your roll and say “No, I don’t really need it, give it to [person who rolled next highest]”. (As a one-trick, I do this all the time if I see the next-highest roll would be getting a massive upgrade, or if someone is gearing a new progression toon.)

If you’re going to roll on a piece for transmog / disenchant, hold off until you’re sure there are no upgrade rolls. Telann will call for “need” first, and then for “transmogs and DE” if nobody rolls on upgrades/sidegrades.

This is going to be a slight change for everyone, so it’ll take some time to get used to. If someone rolls out of turn, don’t get mad at them.

Take a refresher on all the Rules and Regulations, but you don’t need to re-confirm them with us.