[09:28] LotpMyze: So I ran HOK the other day with both a Resto Druid and a Discpline Priest.
[09:28] LotpMyze: Needless to say, we had a problem on the last boss.
[09:28] StoppableForce1: oof. got pummeled by phantom teammates eh?
[09:29] LotpMyze: So, I said to the Resto Druid "Strip down and go kill yourself, we'll four man it."
[09:29] LotpMyze: Thing is he didn't have any space in his bags.
[09:29] StoppableForce1: /facepalm
[09:29] LotpMyze: So he starts swapping out gear.
[09:29] LotpMyze: By the time he's done, he's wearing all winter clothes and the shoulders form the fire festival.
[09:30] LotpMyze: Runs in there, moonfires the boss. Dies pretty quick.
[09:30] LotpMyze: We go in and have no problem on the boss.
[09:30] TheRatshag: heh
[09:30] LotpMyze: I get requests to tank him such that he doesn't land on the druid when he dies.
[09:31] LotpMyze: Screens for posterity and the like.
[09:31] LotpMyze: I took a couple myself, but I don't know if I'm gonna use them on the blog.
[09:31] LotpMyze: Just imagine a male night elf in a santa outfit with torches on his shoulders.
[09:32] StoppableForce1: snrk
[09:32] StoppableForce1: awesome
[09:32] StoppableForce1: go go holiday elf
Showing posts with label Instances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Instances. Show all posts
Monday, February 9, 2009
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
@Kralnor: My staff is a good one, too
So the other night we go into Naxx, ready to tear up. Oddly enough, the trash on the Military Quarter respawned even though we downed Razuvious. Oh well, we were headed to the Plague Quarter anyway to get to Noth. But those gargoyles were tough! We could do the other pulls fine, but the gargoyles were crazy! Somewhere in the middle of it, Ousted Bead Necklace dropped, which went to our priest healer. We decided to give up on the gargoyles after several attempts so we went to the Abomination Quarter to try our hand at Patchwerk. The first pull seemed a little off... we wiped on it once, then downed it and pulled some slime. About this point, our Druid healer says "It's on heroic!" Clearing heroic Naxx trash isn't too bad for our first week in Naxx. Ah well. Out we go and into normal Naxx.
The trash became a breeze. We got to Noth and one-shot him on our first time seeing him, and then Heigan... was a little different. We got him down, just a little after our normal stop time. He dropped Staff of the Plague Beast for me, so I was pretty pleased. It's actually the first bit of tank gear that dropped for our guild out of Naxx.
I've been picking up on tanking in 5 mans. You can't just go in tanking like you did in BC, not as a Druid anyway. You have to pretty much spam Maul and Swipe. That's really all you need, but you need to pick up aggro on all the mobs pretty quickly. Bosses are pretty much the same as before.
Oh, and I finally got enough emblems for my T7 chestpiece, which is the first thing I saved up for. I might get the tanking necklace next. I'm not sure. I'll figure it out later, I guess...
The trash became a breeze. We got to Noth and one-shot him on our first time seeing him, and then Heigan... was a little different. We got him down, just a little after our normal stop time. He dropped Staff of the Plague Beast for me, so I was pretty pleased. It's actually the first bit of tank gear that dropped for our guild out of Naxx.
I've been picking up on tanking in 5 mans. You can't just go in tanking like you did in BC, not as a Druid anyway. You have to pretty much spam Maul and Swipe. That's really all you need, but you need to pick up aggro on all the mobs pretty quickly. Bosses are pretty much the same as before.
Oh, and I finally got enough emblems for my T7 chestpiece, which is the first thing I saved up for. I might get the tanking necklace next. I'm not sure. I'll figure it out later, I guess...
Friday, November 21, 2008
Drinking for Two
Last night I went through the two Dragonblight instances, AZ-Nub, and Old Kingdom for the first time. This is the third time tanking in Wrath, and I think I've learned something very important.
Starting with Rage is a huge boon. My current spec drops 2 points of Furor for Improved Mark of the Wild. This is good for soloing. This is fine for Cat DPS, where lag renders some of Furor's full bonus useless. For bears, this is damn near unacceptable.
Now, sure it may be fine for some people. But the groups that I lead are firecrackers. They go for the throat straight out of the gate, and if I'm to feel like a real tank (that is, actually have aggro) I need rage. And I need it NOW. I miss the 10 points at the start of Enrage. When I can't get that, and Furor doesn't pop, I'm screwed for rage. Sure I could sit there and keep shifting until it procs, and I've done that before, but I've had situations where I've shifted six times without a proc (supposedly a 0.4% chance of happening, but statistics is a poor model for randomness in a short term, particularly pseudorandomness,) all while the rest of the group is waiting for the pull.
That said, I'm going back to 5/5 Furor and also dropping Infected Wounds for Intensity. At least at the stage I'm in, threat generation is much more important than the mitigation provided by Infected Wounds, and in raids, it should be even less important as I have a Warrior there to Thunderclap. Also, I'm moving away from Shredding Attacks (which has seen little to no play at this point, oh how I'll miss thee...) and filling out the rest of Rend and Tear. The resultant spec should be satisfactory soloing, and much better in tanking.
The Big Bear Butt was right. My initial gut instinct was right (though I don't think I ever gave it words.) Intensity is huge. Very important for those first few seconds, especially if you have DPS who are above the curve (my Ret Pally is simply amazing, even for a Ret Pally.) Maybe I wouldn't need it so much if I weren't four levels below the hunter. Maybe I wouldn't need it so much if my Ret Pally, who's six levels below the hunter easily out-DPSes him. I'm okay with that though. I just want my Intensity back.
Starting with Rage is a huge boon. My current spec drops 2 points of Furor for Improved Mark of the Wild. This is good for soloing. This is fine for Cat DPS, where lag renders some of Furor's full bonus useless. For bears, this is damn near unacceptable.
Now, sure it may be fine for some people. But the groups that I lead are firecrackers. They go for the throat straight out of the gate, and if I'm to feel like a real tank (that is, actually have aggro) I need rage. And I need it NOW. I miss the 10 points at the start of Enrage. When I can't get that, and Furor doesn't pop, I'm screwed for rage. Sure I could sit there and keep shifting until it procs, and I've done that before, but I've had situations where I've shifted six times without a proc (supposedly a 0.4% chance of happening, but statistics is a poor model for randomness in a short term, particularly pseudorandomness,) all while the rest of the group is waiting for the pull.
That said, I'm going back to 5/5 Furor and also dropping Infected Wounds for Intensity. At least at the stage I'm in, threat generation is much more important than the mitigation provided by Infected Wounds, and in raids, it should be even less important as I have a Warrior there to Thunderclap. Also, I'm moving away from Shredding Attacks (which has seen little to no play at this point, oh how I'll miss thee...) and filling out the rest of Rend and Tear. The resultant spec should be satisfactory soloing, and much better in tanking.
The Big Bear Butt was right. My initial gut instinct was right (though I don't think I ever gave it words.) Intensity is huge. Very important for those first few seconds, especially if you have DPS who are above the curve (my Ret Pally is simply amazing, even for a Ret Pally.) Maybe I wouldn't need it so much if I weren't four levels below the hunter. Maybe I wouldn't need it so much if my Ret Pally, who's six levels below the hunter easily out-DPSes him. I'm okay with that though. I just want my Intensity back.
Monday, September 29, 2008
10 minute blog post
Short post, so let's get to it.
My paladin, Eia, has hit 70. She leveled pretty much all of level 69 in about 3 hours in Netherstorm, first doing Area 52, then doing Kirin'Var. She did this as Ret, with the help of a Rogue guildie who remained out of party to let me get the whole amount of experience.
Within moments of hitting 70, she was respecced Prot and made uncrittable via a combination of Defense and Resilience. I'm trying to take her into Kara this week, so that of course wasn't enough. After a few instances, she now has ~495 defense and the Continuum Blade, which will have to do until I can get the S2 mace. I'm starting to hate AV. Even so, she probably won't be good enough to tank for a little bit, until I can get her avoidance up higher, but golly, I'm gonna try!
Another thing of note is that my horde hunter, Miyra, has made enough gold (with a little help from the other side) to buy her epic flying. This is a character with no professions, and aside from a lucky epic gun drop on the other side (so I lost 15% of the money from it to the neutral AH) she earned her epic flight in ~3 days /played time. No raid gear or anything like that, either. If it weren't for the drop, it would probably be more like 4 days, but still, that's not bad considering there was still instance running time and all that.
Well, that's really all I wanted to say for now.
My paladin, Eia, has hit 70. She leveled pretty much all of level 69 in about 3 hours in Netherstorm, first doing Area 52, then doing Kirin'Var. She did this as Ret, with the help of a Rogue guildie who remained out of party to let me get the whole amount of experience.
Within moments of hitting 70, she was respecced Prot and made uncrittable via a combination of Defense and Resilience. I'm trying to take her into Kara this week, so that of course wasn't enough. After a few instances, she now has ~495 defense and the Continuum Blade, which will have to do until I can get the S2 mace. I'm starting to hate AV. Even so, she probably won't be good enough to tank for a little bit, until I can get her avoidance up higher, but golly, I'm gonna try!
Another thing of note is that my horde hunter, Miyra, has made enough gold (with a little help from the other side) to buy her epic flying. This is a character with no professions, and aside from a lucky epic gun drop on the other side (so I lost 15% of the money from it to the neutral AH) she earned her epic flight in ~3 days /played time. No raid gear or anything like that, either. If it weren't for the drop, it would probably be more like 4 days, but still, that's not bad considering there was still instance running time and all that.
Well, that's really all I wanted to say for now.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Druid DPS in Karazhan
Another Karazhan report, this time powered by WoWWebStats.
WWS Parse
WWS is a wonderful tool, and pretty easy to use. If you haven't tried it yet, I suggest you do.
Now looking at this report, I think I should make it clear that Savant could care less about trash. That is to say, performance can only truly be measured in boss fights. Why is this? Because trash mobs are too easy. Once you get it down, it's just a matter of clearing it to get to the boss. It doesn't matter if you're first in DPS when you're fifth when everyone else starts trying.
Now, this may be the reason why we only got to Curator, but I feel it is necessary to allow for AFKs when it doesn't hurt the raid. Not to mention I require them myself. As a side note, a player abusing this policy is hurting the raid, so that's not allowed.
This time I did not tank. I was going to have Anberlin and Besideme tank, since Besideme showed up as Protection spec from a run the night before. However, when we came to look for a pug, I picked up a good tank by the name of Pinchy and made Besideme respec to Retribution. So our tanks this time were known, trusted individuals, unlike when I pugged the Warrior and Pally last week.
I pride myself on being the best Druid I can be. That's why when I look at the report for "all bosses" I can't help but feel bad I'm in second on DPS. I know the reason why: I died on Attumen. Without that death, or at least if it weren't so early, I would have surpassed my peers. Not that that is my goal, but I figure if I'm beating everyone else, I'm doing all right.
Though to be honest, I think we all put together a nice shiny run, and I have the WWS to prove it.
We started out as a seven man run, with Andreya joining in the middle of Attumen trash. We actually did wipe on the trash, so we took the opportunity to summon him from a flight to Duskwood. For some reason it takes us a little bit to get warmed up. However we clear through the trash and get to Midnight. Anberlin makes the pull and Pinchy is supposed to pick up Attumen. But, when Attumen comes out, he heads over to Nodin, and kills him. I try to pick him up but I forget that I'm still in cat form and thus die a swift death. I think he took out Smidgie shortly thereafter. So that left us with 1 healer, 2 tanks, 2 DPS, and the longest Attumen fight I've ever witnessed. Made worse by the fact that I was watching from the floor.
By the time we got to Moroes, our other Retribution Paladin has come in and started kicking ass. now to be honest, Argeryth is a bit below the rest of the DPS, but that's because the rest of the DPS are above the curve, in my opinion. He just represents the average Karazhan raider.
Moroes presents us with Women and Warriors. The trash dies pretty quick and we clean up Moroes with no problems. As always, I lead in damage and not in DPS. I always wonder to myself (and sometimes out loud) if our mages just can't start DPS earlier. But they do pretty well as is and they are still better than most DPS on their gear level.
On to Maiden. We actually wiped with about 5000 health left on Maiden the first time because there were not enough HoT's on the tank during Repentance. I ask our Druid what was going on with the healing, and he pretty quickly admitted things were not as they should be, and he didn't keep enough HoTs up. I am astonished to find out later that he only used Lifebloom for both fights.
On the second fight, we finish without a hitch, a full minute faster than we spent on the fight before. I somehow pump out more than 1000 DPS. I rejoice. Andreya swapped out for Tencice, his Warlock main, which was very useful when we added our tenth member, a healer named Cae.
When we did opera we were dismayed to find out that it was the Wizard of Oz. Now Wizard of Oz is probably the easiest fight for Opera, but we've faced it every time we've done Opera so far, except twice when it was Big Bad Wolf. So every time we go in, we hope for Romulo and Julianne, just for something we haven't done before.
Nightbane is always fun. There's usually a healer dying or something like that when the adds appear. This time, however, everything went smoothly. Pinchy had a couple of issues with positioning Nightbane, as the report indicates, with pulled off a flawless victory.
Curator is truly where Warlocks shine. Typically, when I'm tanking Curator, I bolt tank in cat form and in DPS gear, with Salv up (trust me, I need it.) Last week, when I did that, I probably did about 1200 DPS for the whole fight. This week, I'm chasing flares and "only" doing 988 DPS. Meanwhile, our resident Warlock goes "Curse of Doom" for 26664 and shoots 1000 DPS above everyone else. Cheater.
Last night went smooth, and I encourage every raid that is missing members to just plug on and see how far you can get. Not everyone is as well geared for what we are doing as Savant is, but still, it's better to try and fail than not to try at all. Unless you already failed to the point of frustration. Then you could probably use a break.
WWS Parse
WWS is a wonderful tool, and pretty easy to use. If you haven't tried it yet, I suggest you do.
Now looking at this report, I think I should make it clear that Savant could care less about trash. That is to say, performance can only truly be measured in boss fights. Why is this? Because trash mobs are too easy. Once you get it down, it's just a matter of clearing it to get to the boss. It doesn't matter if you're first in DPS when you're fifth when everyone else starts trying.
Now, this may be the reason why we only got to Curator, but I feel it is necessary to allow for AFKs when it doesn't hurt the raid. Not to mention I require them myself. As a side note, a player abusing this policy is hurting the raid, so that's not allowed.
This time I did not tank. I was going to have Anberlin and Besideme tank, since Besideme showed up as Protection spec from a run the night before. However, when we came to look for a pug, I picked up a good tank by the name of Pinchy and made Besideme respec to Retribution. So our tanks this time were known, trusted individuals, unlike when I pugged the Warrior and Pally last week.
I pride myself on being the best Druid I can be. That's why when I look at the report for "all bosses" I can't help but feel bad I'm in second on DPS. I know the reason why: I died on Attumen. Without that death, or at least if it weren't so early, I would have surpassed my peers. Not that that is my goal, but I figure if I'm beating everyone else, I'm doing all right.
Though to be honest, I think we all put together a nice shiny run, and I have the WWS to prove it.
We started out as a seven man run, with Andreya joining in the middle of Attumen trash. We actually did wipe on the trash, so we took the opportunity to summon him from a flight to Duskwood. For some reason it takes us a little bit to get warmed up. However we clear through the trash and get to Midnight. Anberlin makes the pull and Pinchy is supposed to pick up Attumen. But, when Attumen comes out, he heads over to Nodin, and kills him. I try to pick him up but I forget that I'm still in cat form and thus die a swift death. I think he took out Smidgie shortly thereafter. So that left us with 1 healer, 2 tanks, 2 DPS, and the longest Attumen fight I've ever witnessed. Made worse by the fact that I was watching from the floor.
By the time we got to Moroes, our other Retribution Paladin has come in and started kicking ass. now to be honest, Argeryth is a bit below the rest of the DPS, but that's because the rest of the DPS are above the curve, in my opinion. He just represents the average Karazhan raider.
Moroes presents us with Women and Warriors. The trash dies pretty quick and we clean up Moroes with no problems. As always, I lead in damage and not in DPS. I always wonder to myself (and sometimes out loud) if our mages just can't start DPS earlier. But they do pretty well as is and they are still better than most DPS on their gear level.
On to Maiden. We actually wiped with about 5000 health left on Maiden the first time because there were not enough HoT's on the tank during Repentance. I ask our Druid what was going on with the healing, and he pretty quickly admitted things were not as they should be, and he didn't keep enough HoTs up. I am astonished to find out later that he only used Lifebloom for both fights.
On the second fight, we finish without a hitch, a full minute faster than we spent on the fight before. I somehow pump out more than 1000 DPS. I rejoice. Andreya swapped out for Tencice, his Warlock main, which was very useful when we added our tenth member, a healer named Cae.
When we did opera we were dismayed to find out that it was the Wizard of Oz. Now Wizard of Oz is probably the easiest fight for Opera, but we've faced it every time we've done Opera so far, except twice when it was Big Bad Wolf. So every time we go in, we hope for Romulo and Julianne, just for something we haven't done before.
Nightbane is always fun. There's usually a healer dying or something like that when the adds appear. This time, however, everything went smoothly. Pinchy had a couple of issues with positioning Nightbane, as the report indicates, with pulled off a flawless victory.
Curator is truly where Warlocks shine. Typically, when I'm tanking Curator, I bolt tank in cat form and in DPS gear, with Salv up (trust me, I need it.) Last week, when I did that, I probably did about 1200 DPS for the whole fight. This week, I'm chasing flares and "only" doing 988 DPS. Meanwhile, our resident Warlock goes "Curse of Doom" for 26664 and shoots 1000 DPS above everyone else. Cheater.
Last night went smooth, and I encourage every raid that is missing members to just plug on and see how far you can get. Not everyone is as well geared for what we are doing as Savant is, but still, it's better to try and fail than not to try at all. Unless you already failed to the point of frustration. Then you could probably use a break.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Leveling Made Easy
Yesterday, I came home after a busy day of work and grocery shopping and settled down to play with the baby. I watched an episode of NewsRadio on Hulu, and ate a nice dinner. Then I hopped on WoW. I did Arenas with my wife. Second week of doing so, and we went 4-6, not too bad. I helped a friend with a group quest. Then I hopped on my Pally and leveled from 56 to 60.
Wait, what?
No, you aren't misreading that. I had a busy day and still managed to squeeze in four levels. I even managed to get to bed at a decent time. And I will explain how.
You may have heard of a fellow called Athene. Athene is most notable in this discussion as the guy who pushed leveling to a refined art. He had originally posted a 1-70 of 1 day and 19 hours. Then, when an enterprising Druid with a whole guild to support him took 15 hours off the record, Athene went and best that record, very shortly afterward, with only his two friends to help him. Athene has a whole host of videos, but not one says how he did it. He does mention mobtagging, where you attack a mob that is green to a 70, and they kill it for you. And you get the full experience. This requires a mob of level 62 or higher. Bonus points for elites.
If you look around Athene's forums, you may eventually come across this post which details a plan for leveling from 1 to 70 in under 24 hours. Most of it requires a Paladin and a mage, but once you can get to Slave Pens (or a little later for classes without Avenger's Shield) you should head there and level to 70. Here's what I did:
First, I created a macro as follows:
/script LeaveParty()
/cast Avenger's Shield
I would use this macro to pull mobs. I had another Paladin Taunt the mobs off me, and use a macro probably like the following:
/i Eia
/cast Judgement
(/i is the short command for /invite.) I would wait until all the mobs were killed before accepting the invite. Additionally, I would wait for the "teleport box" to disappear before doing another pull. Four pulls were handled with Consecration or Judgement of Righteousness. All in all it was very smooth. We pulled everything up to the bridge and then went out and reset. To watch the idea in action this video shows the process, though not quite how we did it (I think we went a little faster.) It has a couple of superfluous elements that don't matter if you're leveling a Protection Paladin, like Frost Trap. Our setup was me, other Pally, Enhancement Shaman, Feral Druid, and Holy Priest. You gotta have a healer, and you have to have enough DPS to take down a pull in under 40 seconds. That's the only real requirement. The results?
When I started this endeavor last night, I had already spent about half an hour in level 56 doing nothing. I had about 1000 experience in, so I couldn't get a good time for level 56, but I did keep track of the times I dinged 57-60. I don't have the exact figures, but this table illustrates the amount of time taken per level to the minute:
What happened on level 59? We took a break as our Pally was putting his wife to bed. All told, I spent about an hour and a half leveling. Additionally, I got three Spellfire Longswords, one of which will come in handy should I decide to level legitimately at any point past level 62.
The good thing about this method is that it's very efficient. I don't think anyone like finishing in Azeroth, knowing that Outland is right there, and the gear is so much better. And 4 levels in an hour and a half is nothing to sneeze at.
The bad thing about this is that you don't get much other than experience points. If you don't look into your class and research it, you will be at the same disadvantage as an eBayer when you get to 70. Additionally, your friends may resent you for dragging them through the boring task of doing the same thing over and over for hours. Which does bring me to another point.
Leveling like this is pretty damn selfish, as you are asking four other people to basically carry you through 55-70 (or however long you choose to milk it,) without a single tangible benefit to themselves, so you either better be calling in favors owed to you, or you owe your group some heavy favors in return. If you don't have four people who really like to spend time with you, you probably won't be able to pull this off.
If you can, though, I would recommend it on the sole condition that you already have a 70 or two. Additionally, it will probably help if you are leveling a class for which you already know how to perform the role. As for me, I'll probably spend a few levels getting used to BC Pally tanking, and then at least one friend has offered to blitz me to 70 over the weekend. I'll let you know how that goes.
Wait, what?
No, you aren't misreading that. I had a busy day and still managed to squeeze in four levels. I even managed to get to bed at a decent time. And I will explain how.
You may have heard of a fellow called Athene. Athene is most notable in this discussion as the guy who pushed leveling to a refined art. He had originally posted a 1-70 of 1 day and 19 hours. Then, when an enterprising Druid with a whole guild to support him took 15 hours off the record, Athene went and best that record, very shortly afterward, with only his two friends to help him. Athene has a whole host of videos, but not one says how he did it. He does mention mobtagging, where you attack a mob that is green to a 70, and they kill it for you. And you get the full experience. This requires a mob of level 62 or higher. Bonus points for elites.
If you look around Athene's forums, you may eventually come across this post which details a plan for leveling from 1 to 70 in under 24 hours. Most of it requires a Paladin and a mage, but once you can get to Slave Pens (or a little later for classes without Avenger's Shield) you should head there and level to 70. Here's what I did:
First, I created a macro as follows:
/script LeaveParty()
/cast Avenger's Shield
I would use this macro to pull mobs. I had another Paladin Taunt the mobs off me, and use a macro probably like the following:
/i Eia
/cast Judgement
(/i is the short command for /invite.) I would wait until all the mobs were killed before accepting the invite. Additionally, I would wait for the "teleport box" to disappear before doing another pull. Four pulls were handled with Consecration or Judgement of Righteousness. All in all it was very smooth. We pulled everything up to the bridge and then went out and reset. To watch the idea in action this video shows the process, though not quite how we did it (I think we went a little faster.) It has a couple of superfluous elements that don't matter if you're leveling a Protection Paladin, like Frost Trap. Our setup was me, other Pally, Enhancement Shaman, Feral Druid, and Holy Priest. You gotta have a healer, and you have to have enough DPS to take down a pull in under 40 seconds. That's the only real requirement. The results?
When I started this endeavor last night, I had already spent about half an hour in level 56 doing nothing. I had about 1000 experience in, so I couldn't get a good time for level 56, but I did keep track of the times I dinged 57-60. I don't have the exact figures, but this table illustrates the amount of time taken per level to the minute:
| Level | Time |
| 57 | 20 minutes |
| 58 | 16 minutes |
| 59 | 30 minutes |
What happened on level 59? We took a break as our Pally was putting his wife to bed. All told, I spent about an hour and a half leveling. Additionally, I got three Spellfire Longswords, one of which will come in handy should I decide to level legitimately at any point past level 62.
The good thing about this method is that it's very efficient. I don't think anyone like finishing in Azeroth, knowing that Outland is right there, and the gear is so much better. And 4 levels in an hour and a half is nothing to sneeze at.
The bad thing about this is that you don't get much other than experience points. If you don't look into your class and research it, you will be at the same disadvantage as an eBayer when you get to 70. Additionally, your friends may resent you for dragging them through the boring task of doing the same thing over and over for hours. Which does bring me to another point.
Leveling like this is pretty damn selfish, as you are asking four other people to basically carry you through 55-70 (or however long you choose to milk it,) without a single tangible benefit to themselves, so you either better be calling in favors owed to you, or you owe your group some heavy favors in return. If you don't have four people who really like to spend time with you, you probably won't be able to pull this off.
If you can, though, I would recommend it on the sole condition that you already have a 70 or two. Additionally, it will probably help if you are leveling a class for which you already know how to perform the role. As for me, I'll probably spend a few levels getting used to BC Pally tanking, and then at least one friend has offered to blitz me to 70 over the weekend. I'll let you know how that goes.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Slowly but Surely
Last night I had Andreya lead. It went pretty well, a couple of trash wipes and a Maiden wipe. But pretty well overall. The only thing that I have issue with was that we moved kind of slowly, which was because we had a high number of AFKs. We went with a 2 healer setup, so the bosses were dying very quick, but when one of the healers goes AFK for a bit, we can't just go on to a boss. Not that that stopped us from trying.
I'm pretty sure that was the main issue, though Andreya is a bit long-winded at times and also not especially firm when it comes to charging into battle. I think if we cut down the amount of time we were hanging out in front of each boss, we would've been able to get to Shade, but we stopped at Curator with 10 minutes left on the clock (we do 6:30 to 10:00, with a 30 minute cushion at the end if we are close to a boss.)
My original intent was to let him do the first night and take over the second night. I think he's under the impression that he'll still be leading tonight, and I guess I don't have a problem with that. So I'll probably just let him finish it out and hope we have enough time to attempt something in ZA.
I'm pretty sure that was the main issue, though Andreya is a bit long-winded at times and also not especially firm when it comes to charging into battle. I think if we cut down the amount of time we were hanging out in front of each boss, we would've been able to get to Shade, but we stopped at Curator with 10 minutes left on the clock (we do 6:30 to 10:00, with a 30 minute cushion at the end if we are close to a boss.)
My original intent was to let him do the first night and take over the second night. I think he's under the impression that he'll still be leading tonight, and I guess I don't have a problem with that. So I'll probably just let him finish it out and hope we have enough time to attempt something in ZA.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Delegation
Tonight begins Savant's regular 2-day stretch of running. It's usually just Karazhan, with ZA at the end of Friday if there's spare time. I run the raid, which is usually starting late because of having to pug. This is actually the first week we will not have to pug. This is also the first week I will not be running the show.
I believe that delegation is a very important part of running... well, anything. I came from a guild where the guild leader had delegation issues. There was only one officer for the longest time. And it was all right, and eventually it expanded to three officers. But recently, there has been a falling out of sorts with the officers. They were not agreeing with the guild leader, or with each other, and eventually they were all stripped of officer status. Now it's a 40 person or so guild being run by one person. And when you talk to her, or participate in one of her runs, it shows.
Running a guild all by yourself can wear you thin. Even with a guild as small as Savant, I have an officer, Andreya. He hasn't been broken in yet. That's what tonight will be about. I expect he will do quite well, as he was one of the officers in the aforementioned guild.
I think watching a guild run from a different perspective can be a good learning experience. I'm sure Andreya will have a different take on how our group works together. He will have different strategies and different opinions on the important parts of the run. He may wipe us a few times. He may run it better than I do. All of these are good things.
However, delegation is not something to be done lightly. The guild needs to be in a certain rhythm. There needs to be a nice stability to the group. This is where I think I'm treading a delicate line, as this is actually the first week that we will have an entirely regular crew. But that pretty much guarantees a stable run, so Andreya won't have to worry about picking up a pug unless someone has something come up.
Of essential importance to tonight, is that if I see that Andreya is leading us down what I think is the wrong path, I keep that to myself. I do not speak and reassert control of the raid unless suggestions are requested. In which case, all I can do is suggest, where the final decision is left to Andreya. It is very important that Andreya knows I have trust in his leadership. It is also important that the guild has trust in his leadership, and that they know that there is not conflict with the higher ups.
If you've never lead a raid, it's a good experience. It's not as hard as you might think, after all, you're dealing with intelligent people who can adapt and learn what works best. If you've never done it, ask your guild leader if you can lead one someday. Leading isn't for everyone, but I think it's something everyone should try. As for guild leaders, if someone else wants to lead a raid (or if you can talk someone into it,) let them try for one night. As long as you have a foundation of stability, there's not too much they can screw up. And you might find a new officer to hand the reins to when you need to take a night off.
I believe that delegation is a very important part of running... well, anything. I came from a guild where the guild leader had delegation issues. There was only one officer for the longest time. And it was all right, and eventually it expanded to three officers. But recently, there has been a falling out of sorts with the officers. They were not agreeing with the guild leader, or with each other, and eventually they were all stripped of officer status. Now it's a 40 person or so guild being run by one person. And when you talk to her, or participate in one of her runs, it shows.
Running a guild all by yourself can wear you thin. Even with a guild as small as Savant, I have an officer, Andreya. He hasn't been broken in yet. That's what tonight will be about. I expect he will do quite well, as he was one of the officers in the aforementioned guild.
I think watching a guild run from a different perspective can be a good learning experience. I'm sure Andreya will have a different take on how our group works together. He will have different strategies and different opinions on the important parts of the run. He may wipe us a few times. He may run it better than I do. All of these are good things.
However, delegation is not something to be done lightly. The guild needs to be in a certain rhythm. There needs to be a nice stability to the group. This is where I think I'm treading a delicate line, as this is actually the first week that we will have an entirely regular crew. But that pretty much guarantees a stable run, so Andreya won't have to worry about picking up a pug unless someone has something come up.
Of essential importance to tonight, is that if I see that Andreya is leading us down what I think is the wrong path, I keep that to myself. I do not speak and reassert control of the raid unless suggestions are requested. In which case, all I can do is suggest, where the final decision is left to Andreya. It is very important that Andreya knows I have trust in his leadership. It is also important that the guild has trust in his leadership, and that they know that there is not conflict with the higher ups.
If you've never lead a raid, it's a good experience. It's not as hard as you might think, after all, you're dealing with intelligent people who can adapt and learn what works best. If you've never done it, ask your guild leader if you can lead one someday. Leading isn't for everyone, but I think it's something everyone should try. As for guild leaders, if someone else wants to lead a raid (or if you can talk someone into it,) let them try for one night. As long as you have a foundation of stability, there's not too much they can screw up. And you might find a new officer to hand the reins to when you need to take a night off.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Little Annoyances
I came home from work yesterday to find some of my Magic cards scattered on the floor, thanks to my 11-month old daughter. Some are bent, and one is completely chewed off. As I bend over to pick up the card, my cell phone case catches against the table and snaps. Hmm...
My wife had been complaining about one of the quests in the Druid Flight Form quest. The Aquatic Form quest, to be precise. She had been using QuestHelper, which does not indicate that you have to actually get the moonstone, just that you have to complete it somewhere along the river.
Anyway, while she was off in bed napping, I took the liberty of doing the quest for her. This was actually the only good thing that happened. She was quite thankful, and we got the heroic Sethekk run going a little later.
Our only healer that was on was busy with a Botanica run, and we had our Warrior tank, so I stepped up to heal. I didn't respec, but it still went pretty smoothly until just before Anzu's room. And we wiped. And we kept wiping. Mind you this was on a pull that occurs 2 other times in the instance (2 Ravenguards,) so we had no idea why we couldn't make it past. I was pretty tired from having 1 hour of sleep the night before, and by this point our healer was done with Botanica, so we swapped him for me, and I went to bed.
They finished the instance, and now my wife has Swift Flight Form!
My wife had been complaining about one of the quests in the Druid Flight Form quest. The Aquatic Form quest, to be precise. She had been using QuestHelper, which does not indicate that you have to actually get the moonstone, just that you have to complete it somewhere along the river.
Anyway, while she was off in bed napping, I took the liberty of doing the quest for her. This was actually the only good thing that happened. She was quite thankful, and we got the heroic Sethekk run going a little later.
Our only healer that was on was busy with a Botanica run, and we had our Warrior tank, so I stepped up to heal. I didn't respec, but it still went pretty smoothly until just before Anzu's room. And we wiped. And we kept wiping. Mind you this was on a pull that occurs 2 other times in the instance (2 Ravenguards,) so we had no idea why we couldn't make it past. I was pretty tired from having 1 hour of sleep the night before, and by this point our healer was done with Botanica, so we swapped him for me, and I went to bed.
They finished the instance, and now my wife has Swift Flight Form!
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