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.

Ministry of Defense Ny'alotha on Twitch Tonight!

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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Stepping Into The Arena: Advanced Concepts for Rated PVP

Hey guys, Tiraffe here with part 2 of my rated PVP guide. If you haven’t read intro guide to rated pvp, it’s recommended, but not necessary. This will cover more of the advanced concepts for higher rated PVP matches. (Think 1600-1800+cr). They’re still useful for all kinds of rated PVP, so feel free to keep reading.

List of WoW PVP terms:

https://www.wowhead.com/glossary-to-wow-pvp-terms

General PVP goals/requirements:

  • Combatant: Requires reaching 1400 in a rated bracket (2’s, 3’s or RBGs)
    • This is also the minimum rating needed to start progress towards the season’s PVP mount, which shows as a progress bar on the rated PVP tab in group finder
    • Hitting 1400 also means you start getting the option to pick rated PVP pieces from the Great Vault that around the same ilvl as gear from normal raid, in addition to any other parts of the Great Vault you’ve unlocked for the week. Increasing your rating beyond that will increase the ilvl when you hit the next bracket of rated pvp.
    • There is no separate Weekly PVP chest to worry about. Each Rated PVP section of the Great Vault requires earning an increasing amount of honor from rated PVP, which doubles as currency to purchase gear from the new PVP vendors.
  • In addition, those seeking the Elite PVP tmogs can get specific parts of the tmog at different rating brackets.

Table of Contents

  1. The Opener and Momentum
  2. The Line-of-Sight and Connecting to Your Target
  3. Going for a Drink
  4. The Arena Itself (Which Arenas Favor What)
  5. Pugging and Communication
  6. Arena Addons/Macros
  7. The Meta

Advanced Concepts:
This will cover most of the actual action within a single match, rather than most of the set-up seen earlier.

Continue reading

Follow up Q&A from 8.3 Raid Meeting

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.

Stepping Into The Arena: Intro to Rated PVP

Hey guys, Tiraffe here with another guide. This guide was originally written back in September/October during patch 8.2, but school got in the way and was eventually posted near the start of 8.3. For credentials, I hit 2400+ once in BFA season 2 and got the gladiator mount/title for that season, for those that care about that sort of thing.

In BFA, the goal of this guide was to help folks get Combatant or get the rank 2/3 of the Conflict and Strife Essence, with this being a ‘short’ guide to go over some basics. In Shadowlands, the goal of this guide is largely the same, introduce and familiarize those new to PVP to make their way to Combatant and beyond. Rated PVP in Shadowlands is less mandatory for those focused on PvE, as essences don’t work in the Shadowlands, but can still provide an alternative method to gearing and acquiring certain conduits and legendary recipes.

Arenas can be hard to get into, since pugs are usually looking for specific team comps, even if they’re looking to just get the conquest cap; pugs are are usually looking for someone that has similar or greater experience, similar to Raider.io scores for mythic+ dungeons. In addition, arenas have much smaller team comps consisting of either 2 or 3 players per team, so individual performance is just as important as knowing class matchups. This guide can help give some names to things you may have already seen in rated PVP.

Disclaimer: Reading a single guide won’t instantly guarantee success. Once you think you’ve got a handle on the concepts, go out and give them a try in a match.

If you’re new to rated pvp, make sure to get familiar with some of the pvp terms beforehand: https://www.wowhead.com/glossary-to-wow-pvp-terms

The requirements for the goals above are listed as follows:

  • Combatant: Requires reaching 1400 in a rated bracket (2’s, 3’s or RBGs)
    • This is also the minimum rating needed to start progress towards the season’s PVP mount, which shows as a progress bar on the rated PVP tab in group finder
    • Hitting 1400 also means you start getting the option to pick rated PVP pieces from the Great Vault that around the same ilvl as gear from normal raid, in addition to any other parts of the Great Vault you’ve unlocked for the week. Increasing your rating beyond that will increase the ilvl when you hit the next bracket of rated pvp.
    • There is no separate Weekly PVP chest to worry about. Each Rated PVP section of the Great Vault requires earning an increasing amount of honor from rated PVP, which doubles as currency to purchase gear from the new PVP vendors.
  • In addition, those seeking the Elite PVP tmogs can get specific parts of the tmog at different rating brackets.

Continue reading

8.3 Raid Planning Minutes

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 Visions of N’zoth TL;DR Guide

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

Defensives for Mythic Sivarra

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).

Weekly Raid Roundup (5/29 - 8/12)

Finally beating the past couple of weeks of procrastination, Tiraffe and Fokola put together a weekly raid roundup for both teams to review. The roundup contains 3 sections; 2 for each raid team and a section for improving an individual’s dps and some other small things to note.

Thursday/Friday Raid Roundup

Sivara (H/M)

Good: Comfortably meeting dps/hps requirement on Heroic.

Bad: Folks still dying to Overflow mechanic. This is happening for 2 reasons:

  1. Not enough people stacking on the Overflow target. 3 or more is recommended for heroic. We should have enough healers/ranged to cover this without having to have the rest of the melee move.
  2. Heavy Defensives/Immunities not being used when there’s mechanic overlap and/or 2 or less people are soaking. This is a direct result of not enough people stacking, since the teams lack a lot of immunity classes.

For Mythic, people need to dodge the overwhelming barrage to avoid getting unnecessary stacks and need to make sure they pop Unstable Mixture at 3 or 4 stacks. Overall damage could be higher. Azerite defensive traits should also be used instead of mobility to increase survivability.

Note: Outside of the start of the fight and whenever Inversion occurs, people should be better on stacking with their respective marks instead of being a continent away. Since Overflow happens more often than Inversion, it should be better to stack until it’s time to spread instead of the other way around. There’s also something about having more than 4-5 stacks at once, but it probably won’t kill by itself on heroic. Everyone that died last week was either soaking by themselves without a heavy defensive or stacked with just 1 other person and still died due to not using a defensive. Continue reading