Raiding

Weekend Warriors (Heroic):

EST:
Saturday 5pm – 8pm (4:30pm – 4:50pm invites)

PST:
Saturday 2pm – 5pm (1:30pm – 1:50pm invites)

Mythic:

EST:
Thursday & Friday 7pm – 10pm (6:30pm – 6:50pm invites)

PST:
Thursday & Friday 4pm – 7pm (3:30pm – 3:50pm invites)

 

All raiding events will be posted on the in-game calendar as PST / Server time; all events on the websites will be EST.

Quetzie

Castle Nathria Raid Roundup 12/8/20 - 12/14/20

Welcome back, and it’s been a while!

Some of you may remember the Weekly Raid Roundups from Uldir and Battle for Dazar’alor back in the day. Once we got heavy into having 2 separate teams, it became a struggle to keep up, so I stopped doing them. It acted as a place to keep notes of changing strategies and “what worked, what didn’t” so everyone was on the same page moving forward.

With the return of the Roundup there will be a few changes.

  • I don’t intend to do these weekly, but during key points in progression, it is a helpful place to keep track of what everyone has been up to. So you are likely to see these for the next few weeks, winding down as progression ends up slowing over time.
  • I’ll sort them by team, so relevant information is easily accessible (though I encourage you to check out the review for the other team as well – you never know what might be useful).
  • Quetzie diagrams are making a return.
  • The Roundups are likely to be much more list-y than previously.

Continue reading →

Quetzie

Castle Nathria Boss Guides

Almost every group handles bosses slightly differently. As we progress through the tier we may change strategies. But we expect everyone to start out on the same page.

In the past we’ve recommended popular content creators like FatBossTV or Hazelnutty for our raiders to get a good understanding of mechanics. That said, we’ve really noticed that two new faces in the game have created resources will be excellent strategy builders and introductions for raiders both new and experienced.

Mythic Trap 

Mythic Trap has mechanic-by-mechanic breakdowns for each boss fight. The dev has filters what’s important to specific roles, and highlights the differences between normal, heroic, and mythic. It uses small, repeating video loops of each mechanic, rather than the whole fight. Clips have been provided by Ready. Check? Pull! and each fight also has a complete kill-vid at the end if that’s your sort of thing instead.

Shriekwing
Huntsman Altimor
Hungering Destroyer
Artificer Xy’mox
Sun King’s Salvation
Lady Inerva Darkvein
The Council of Blood
Sludgefist
Stone Legion Generals
Sire Denathrius

Side note: Mythic Trap has similar breakdowns for dungeons. Check them out for M+ tips!

Tactical Air Horse / Castle Pineapplia

Tactical Air Horse built a minigame, Castle Pineapplia, that you can play in your browser that teaches the basic mechanics. It gets you playing the game before you play the game, and drills repetition of important mechanics – dodge donuts! Don’t stand between allies! Drop puddles against the walls! Combine with Mythic Trap’s guides and you should have a good memory and understanding of the basics for each fight!

You can download the game from the web

Or, play it directly in the browser

Quetzie

Shadowlands Heroic Raid Planning Meeting Minutes

We had an amazing turnout as always for the Heroic raid planning meeting for Shadowlands & Castle Nathria!

We encourage everyone to review this, even if you attended the meeting. It’s an excellent reference and also includes a few notes we may have forgotten during the meeting

Note: Heroic raid, weekend raid, etc all refers to the same group – basically, “not the mythic team”. You will hear us use these somewhat interchangeably. Even if the group is on normal we may call them the “heroic raid”.

Agenda:

Introduction
Rule Changes
– Loot
Rule Reminders
– Confirming the Rules
– Arriving on Time
– Discord
– Discord Bots
– Respect
– Benching / Sitting
– Raiding Ahead
Vanguard
Getting Good
Raid Prep
Recap
Gearing Event
Q&A

Continue reading →

Quetzie

Getting the jump on Shadowlands

If you want to min-max, want a deep-dive, or are just completely lost, here are some guides that can help:

More will be added as they are deemed useful or relevant.

Quetzie

Shadowlands Mythic Raid Planning Meeting Minutes

Thank you to everyone who came to the mythic raid planning meeting! We know not all of you could make it, and some of you want notes to review, so this is a compiled list of topics covered – and one not! – from the meeting.

We highly encourage everyone to review this sheet, even if you already attended the meeting. For one thing, there’s a note of something we forgot to mention (about performance reviews), and for another, it’s an easy reference for what was a moderately compacted meeting.

Agenda

Introduction
Time Adjustment
Expectations
Finalizing Mains
Rule Updates
Raid Mats
Shadowlands (no spoilers)
Q&A
Oops, we forgot
Shadowlands (spoilers)

Continue reading →

Quetzie

Shadowlands Pre-Patch Guides Directory

Tiraffe and Quetzie spent a good amount of time putting together a number of guides for new and returning raiders in Shadowlands, with input from other officers and outside sources.

To make these easier to find, we’ve compiled them in a simple directory post for your convenience.

Ministry of Defense Pre-Patch Directory:

Intro to Raiding
Quickguide to Simming
Improving your DPS: Revisited
Mythic Expectations
Cool Tricks to Show Your Friends

Additional Pre-Patch Resources:

Official Blizzard Pre-Patch Notes
Biggest Gameplay Changes for All Classes in Shadowlands Pre-Patch
Class Abilities Unavailable in Shadowlands Pre-Patch

Tiraffe

Mythic Expectations

 

Updated for The War Within pre-patch – 8/17/24. Mythic Loot section to be updated soon.

You know who it is: Tiraffe and Quetzie, back at it with another raid guide, this time for those looking to join the Mythic team.

Raid Rules

This guide is meant to be an overview of what it’s like to step into Mythic raiding for the first time, or those who are moving from PUG raids into organized mythic raids for the first time.

If you are interested in seeing concrete rules for the raid team, such as loot breakdown, the trial process, or performance expectations, please read the raiding rules and regulations page

So What Does It Mean to be a Mythic Raider/ do Mythic Raiding / do Mythic Progression?

In a general sense, a Mythic raider does all of the things that heroic raiders do, but better. We strive to be the best of the best! We are the best prepared, we are the best communicators, we are the best at mechanics, we are the best reactors, we are the best at our classes, we are the most versatile within our class or role, and – perhaps most importantly – we are the most selfless. We are the most willing to compromise our personal goals to get the job done for the rest of our team and our friends. These aren’t exactly difficult things individually, but taken together it can be difficult and exhausting, especially if you aren’t used to this kind of repeated focus – and failure.

Continue reading →

Quetzie

Cool Tricks to Show Your Friends

Here’s all the stuff that doesn’t really fit into the other guides. A lot of this will be techniques and addons to optimize your gameplay to its upper limit. Currently, this post is just a list. Feel free to either google unfamiliar terms, or ping us in Discord for an explanation of what these terms mean. We may come back here eventually and expand upon these ideas over time.

Stuff includes:

  • Maximizing Cooldowns/Minimizing Downtime
    • Optimizing ABC’s
      • Proper Positioning
        • Under ideal circumstances, every player can maximize their dps to their fullest potential when they don’t have to move. Unfortunately, mechanics often get in the way. Proper positioning is a matter of minimizing or eliminating the amount of distance you need to move to safely react to an individual mechanic. Keep in mind that not every mechanic needs to be brought super far out. Refer to the ‘Rotation while moving’ bullet for dancing around the boss or keeping your damage up while dodging.
      • Keybinds
        • Using keybinds will always provide a higher damage output over directly clicking your spells and abilities. You don’t have to aim your mouse and your eyes will spend less time looking at your action bars instead of the fight. Keep in mind for certain specs that it will be necessary to use more than just the 1-6 or even shift + 1-6 keys for all of your rotational spells.
      • Stutterstepping
        • Stutterstepping is an advanced technique used to optimize uptime while moving. To perform a stutterstep, you’ll need to move as soon as the global cooldown starts from you casting an instant cast spell and then start casting as soon as that global cooldown ends. Rinse and repeat until you get to where you need to be. When performed correctly, you are able to split your movement into chunks based on your rotation. The overall movement will, of course, take longer, but it’ll help prevent large gaps in your rotation due to large periods of movement. It won’t be ideal for every fight, but it’ll help you maintain your rotation regardless.
      • DoT Uptime
        • With select classes, maintaining as close to 100% uptime as possible on your DoTs is paramount to your success. If you’re struggling to maintain high uptime, something in the rotation is getting goobered somewhere and no amount of gear will be able to fix it on its own. If you’re having trouble tracking when your DoTs are falling off, there are likely several Weak Auras or addons that can help, especially for fights where your targets are spread apart.
      • Pooling
        • Similarly to DoT Uptime, Pooling affects certain classes in a different way. This mainly applies to specs that naturally generate their resources at a steady rate. To pool means to hold off on pressing buttons so that when you pop your cooldowns, you are able to maximize your output during the entire duration of the cooldown. A major example of this is Feral Druid, you’ll want to be pooling every time your energy every time you use your Ferocious Bite finisher since it’ll deal 100% increased damage if cast at 50 energy or higher.
      • Mouseover Interact
        • Mouseover Interact is an option available in the keybinds that would allow you to interact with whatever your mouse is hovering over, instead of having to click it. Doing this with an @focus macro would allow you to use something like a Warlock’s Demonic Gateway using a keybind, provided that you had the Gateway set as your focus and you used the interact keybind while hovering over your focus, for example.
      • Click to Move (featured on Mythic Carapace)
        • In tandem with the Mouseover interact, the Click to Move option located in the interface settings would make it so that right-clicking would move the character to the location clicked or even interact with an object from a distance (if an object was clicked). This would also have an interesting interaction with Mouseover Interact and something set with your focus. From the previous example, using the Mouseover Interact on your Focus would cause you to walk over to the Gateway and use it, regardless of the number of people standing on it. Click to Move + Mouseover Interact is also handy for open-world movement as well, since it can walk you to lootable bodies.
      • Rotation while moving
        • Stop Backpedaling (very few scenarios where it’s good to do)
          • Backpedaling is best used as a tank where you need to slowly kite something backwards while precisely moving whatever you’re tanking, or any other situation where that precise movement shines.
          • Backpedaling should not be used if you really gotta be somewhere that isn’t your current position. Mechanics attached to players should not be backpedaled slowly out of the group.
        • Be comfortable using your movement keys in the middle of your rotation (remember that clicking both the left and right mouse buttons will run you forward)
          • This mainly involves being comfortable strafing left-to-right and vice versa for melee.
          • For ranged, this involves making sure you’re still able to cast your spells while moving (if your spells require facing the target) or if you need to pool resources so you can fire off instant casts for every global you need to move.
    • Target swapping
      • Tab Targeting
        • Tab Targeting is the quick and easy way to switch between different targets. It’s keybound to your Tab key by default, and it will cycle through targets in a set order. Shift + Tab can be used to cycle in reverse. Do know that some targets may be too high vertically to be caught by Tab Targetting and may need to be manually targeted via clicking them.
      • Focus Macros
        • These are macros that affect your focus target. You can use the [@focus] parameter in macros to enable this. These are best used for when you know for sure a certain target is going to take big damage or for when you need to hit a different target without actually targeting it. Example: /cast [@focus] Blessing of Protection.
      • Mouseover Macros
        • Mouseover macros are often seen on healers and function similarly to Focus macros. These are more suited for hitting multiple targets one at a time instead of just a single target. Example: /cast [@mouseover,exists] Rejuvenation; Wild Growth. This macro will cast Rejuvenation on a single target your mouse is over, or if there is no target, it’ll instead cast Wild Growth on whichever character you currently have targeted.
  • Useful Raid Info (under Interface -> Raid Profiles)
    • Enable Raid-Style Party Frames
    • Group your raid frames (enable Keep Groups Together)
    • Display Main Tank and Assist
    • Make your frames be able to show people in 5-8
    • Show Debuffs
    • Show Health Remaining (in one way or another)
  • See more mechanics
    • Adjust your brightness so everything isn’t dark in Revendreth or blinding on Bastion
    • Go to System -> Graphics -> Projected Textures -> Enabled
      • Adjust the UI scaling so you see more
    • Unclutter your User Interface so you can see what’s going on
  • Unlock Flying
  •  Pre-pull
    • Cooldown Timing
      • Opener (More pve focused)
      • Set-Ups (More pvp focused)
  • Look both ways before taking the brez
    • Check for the small, white circle on the ground; this is where the brez was cast and shows where you’ll be brought back
  • Don’t outrange your healers
  • Update your graphics drivers
  • Important Racial abilities to remember in m+
    • Arcane Torrent (aoe magic dispel)
    • Shadowmeld (personal stealth regardless of class)
  • Don’t cover the lock gateway with your body
  • Traversing sites (know what you’re looking for)
    • Herodamage/Bloodmallet (ideal gear from a bis list, remember to sim)
    • Murlok.io/Lootdistrict (grain of salt, need context of why someone has a certain build, don’t follow to a T)
      • Arena Meta Comp Lists (Can be found on Wowhead and/or Icyveins, check if it’s up-to-date)
  • Addons
Tiraffe

Intro to Raiding

How To Become a Raider in Less Than 20 Minutes:
Being a Better Player and Notes on Raiding

To everyone old and new: Welcome! This is Tiraffe, Mythic Raid Lead and person-with-all-hidden-artifact-appearances. It’s also Quetzie, Mythic Raid Lead Raid Mom who “is not mad, just disappointed”.

This is a revamp of Tiraffe’s mythic guide from 8.2. Given the new expansion looming on the horizon, we have rewritten and refreshed it to be a general raiding guide. This is for those who are looking to get their feet wet in Shadowlands, or for those who dove into Ny’alotha mid-tier and want to get a better foundation of understanding and best practices.

For those looking for a mythic-specific guide, check out the Mythic Expectations post.

(Links to mentioned websites/addons and sources listed at the bottom)

Continue reading →