Finnicky ol' Heroic Rag...

[PHsname]

I'm the RL and GM of a modestly progressed 10m raiding guild. We're on the bottom end of the upper crust of our server. We killed Heroic Rag three weeks or so ago. Unfortunately, we haven't killed him since.

As soon as we killed him, our OT ninja /gquit, name changed, and server transferred. He was awfully mediocre, and was a loot whore with a bad attitude, so we honestly don't miss the guy so much. Unfortunately though, he also took something else very important with him: weeks of experience. We've been struggling to find a tank since, and as a result, we haven't been able to clear Heroic Rag since our first kill. This is frustrating beyond belief.

I just may not be looking in the right places, but there seem to be NO decent tanks that are floating around looking to join a US300 guild. We're far, far, far from the best, but we're certainly not the worst. The only players I hear back from are at best, post-nerf 6/7 HM and haven't so much as seen p4 Rag. It's really frustrating.

It's starting to take a toll on the morale of the raid group. Shuffling around off-specs and relying on mediocre fill-in DPS is tiresome and frustrating. Fortunately, we're a "friends who raid together" kind of guild, so we're not at any particular risk of falling apart or losing more members, but we've only ever run a strictly ten-person roster. We don't recruit bench or alternating spots.

I hated this fight before I'd even had a chance to work on him and felt a huge wave of, "oh thank god we can finally just farm this asshole" when we killed him. It took us more than 200 attempts to do so, after all. Now we're kind of back to square one...

Thank god 4.3 is right around the corner, but it really sucks that we're not going to get to see much more of the gear off of H Rag to get that little bit more of a head start next tier.

[TyrianFC]

Was this all meant to be rhetorical?

[Deleted]

You can 1 tank it, while not as easy as with 2 tanks it's still doable. Also I fail to see how not having exp in p4 is super relevant. You are by no means back to square one, half the challenge is to get everyone aboard, while it is a step back in terms of finding a replacement it's no way a giant leap backwards. We brought 2 trials into our raid grp this week and 2-shot rag without them having ever gone past p1 before.

[destia]

You can 1 tank it, while not as easy as with 2 tanks it's still doable. Also I fail to see how not having exp in p4 is super relevant. We brought 2 trials into our raid grp this week and 2-shot rag without them having ever gone past p1 before.

Talking about normal? Because there's no way you 1 tank HC Raggy

[Valius]

You can have OT sit in frost patches and taunt when the root tank (MT) is on 3 stacks, so you only need one tank with half a braincell :3~

[destia]

You can have OT sit in frost patches and taunt when the root tank (MT) is on 3 stacks, so you only need one tank with half a braincell :3~

Oh yeah, for phase 4.. I was thinking the whole fight

[Deleted]

Talking about normal? Because there's no way you 1 tank HC Raggy

Yes, you can. You just do so much dps that the stacks don't get out of control, doing the transtitions the stack will reset and in P4 the stack will reset on some roots aswell.

[RandomGamer]

200 attempts is not so much, just tryout some of those post-nerf 6/7HC tanks and work with the one with most potential.
A GOOD tank should be able to understand p4 in 2-3 tries.

[PHsname]

Was this all meant to be rhetorical?

By and large...yes.

[Valius]

Oh yeah, for phase 4.. I was thinking the whole fight

If they are having problems getting to p4 I think there's more to do with it than just tanking.

[Deleted]

get the advertising machine running (wow progress, trade chat messages, forums...). give good long-time players who are making a comeback from a pause a chance. some of them are really decent, just look at their overall experience, not only FL. being 6/7 heroic post nerf doesn't say much about the skill, only that they're upper level. but you need top players for rag. killing sinestra pre nerf or LK25HC is worth much more.

[Aleysia]

I wouldn't call it being back to square one necessarily. Yes there's some phase 4 experience missing there, but by and large the difficult part of learning an encounter is getting all 10 people to understand what to do and be coordinated enough in doing it.

For example, we had quite a few wipes just figuring out how to get into the frost patch properly. When 10 people are all not sure where everyone else is going to stand, it inevitably means someone is going geyser because no one has a clue what they're doing. But I'm sure that if we ever brought in a new person, it wouldn't take too long for him to figure out what's going on when the other 9 people can seamlessly fall into place (not to mention use of raid markers). Maybe not the greatest example in the world, but you get the idea.

1 person learning the fight + 9 people who know the fight >>> 10 people learning the fight

Try and find a tank who has good raid awareness, get him to read strats and watch some videos on p4, and coach him through it. You said your original tank was mediocre so... I mean, it should be doable. =p Barring that, try the 1 tank strategy if you're able to grab a good dps from somewhere, I've also heard of people doing that. May be a learning experience for your healers, but it's possible. As for p4, you might need a dps/healer to taunt him through the trap unless you have say, a warrior tank.

[caa]

In times like this, op, you really can't be picky. Good or bad, amazing or terrible, you need to take the time to teach the new tank and learn to trust him. An outstanding player can turn another player into outstanding. It comes with being a raid leader, as long as that player is willing to listen. Anyone applying to a 7/7 heroic guild should know the seriousness of this. Good luck.

[Nuckels]

Solo tank it, its doable as any tank class really (id suggest a warrior for obvious reasons tho), just use body and soul for trapping/leap or whatever.

[Twilight Cultist]

Talking about normal? Because there's no way you 1 tank HC Raggy

Quite possible actually http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THjhjnK_Oz0

[PHsname]

get the advertising machine running (wow progress, trade chat messages, forums...). give good long-time players who are making a comeback from a pause a chance. some of them are really decent, just look at their overall experience, not only FL. being 6/7 heroic post nerf doesn't say much about the skill, only that they're upper level. but you need top players for rag. killing sinestra pre nerf or LK25HC is worth much more.

Players with experience, we're fine with. We've actually brought a few of them on board. That's actually bitten us in the ass several times. We have a couple very underwhelming players we've been trying to gear up. Eating Engulfings and hitting Tornadoes just isn't acceptable when you're being carried for the third week through.

I wouldn't call it being back to square one necessarily. Yes there's some phase 4 experience missing there, but by and large the difficult part of learning an encounter is getting all 10 people to understand what to do and be coordinated enough in doing it.

For example, we had quite a few wipes just figuring out how to get into the frost patch properly. When 10 people are all not sure where everyone else is going to stand, it inevitably means someone is going geyser because no one has a clue what they're doing. But I'm sure that if we ever brought in a new person, it wouldn't take too long for him to figure out what's going on when the other 9 people can seamlessly fall into place (not to mention use of raid markers). Maybe not the greatest example in the world, but you get the idea.

1 person learning the fight + 9 people who know the fight >>> 10 people learning the fight

Try and find a tank who has good raid awareness, get him to read strats and watch some videos on p4, and coach him through it. You said your original tank was mediocre so... I mean, it should be doable. =p Barring that, try the 1 tank strategy if you're able to grab a good dps from somewhere, I've also heard of people doing that. May be a learning experience for your healers, but it's possible. As for p4, you might need a dps/healer to taunt him through the trap unless you have say, a warrior tank.

Certainly, it should be doable. The issue is that spending multiple nights a week on a fight we already killed before is extraordinarily frustrating, and is really affecting my main raiders. It's a vicious cycle, really. We start off decently, then a few stupid mistakes later, everyone is losing focus and bitching to me, and we start getting worse and worse. It's extremely annoying.

We're not amazing players. We're extremely mediocre.

In times like this, op, you really can't be picky. Good or bad, amazing or terrible, you need to take the time to teach the new tank and learn to trust him. An outstanding player can turn another player into outstanding. It comes with being a raid leader, as long as that player is willing to listen. Anyone applying to a 7/7 heroic guild should know the seriousness of this. Good luck.

That's probably true, but honestly, that's a huuuge risk to take. We ran with a mediocre tank for nearly six months that we invested so much time and gear into that we really couldn't replace him at any point.

Beyond that, look at it on the other hand. We have an opportunity now to really find a good player going into 4.3. With that in mind, it really becomes about finding a player with real potential.

[Shazzia]

Talking about normal? Because there's no way you 1 tank HC Raggy

We 1 tank Heroic Ragnaros 10 man every week for 3 weeks now, extremely easy

[Deleted]

Nobody is forcing you to keep trying to kill him. If you choose to down him as a guild you should stick with it or had the balls earlier to say you didn't wanna do it.

[Frozendekay]

We killed him 3 times and then both tanks up and quit. Recruited a GF of one of our raiders who was an extremely good resto druid and has adapted really well to paladin tanking. Then we recruited this warrior......failed to taunt swap rag like 10 times in 1 week (when roots spawned under him, he couldn't taunt out of roots either). Spent 3.5 full nights on rag, no kill. Recruited a new warrior who was already 7/7H and 3 shot it, back to normal 2 hour farms for us now.

Stick with it and find the right tank.