KIN Raiders interview after Madness of Deathwing (Translated)

[Utsusemi]

Posting an interview with KIN Raiders after they have achieved World First Madness of Deathwing Heroic.

It's my first time posting, so I can't link the source. But it's the same source from one of the threads below regarding the interview.

For time's sake, I'll only translate questions that are relevant and interesting.

Q: How did you farm and prepare to clear DS?
A: As many people know, US & EU had some troubles involving LFR. As for us, we brought 3 mains that did not overlap with each others' tier drops and 23 alts that have already done LFR, which facilitated the gearing of our mains. All in all, each member has gone through LFR about 26 times.

(Personal note: I think he meant to say 22 alts)

During the first week of the patch, in normal mode DS, we formed 6 teams - each consisting of 8-9 mains + alt fill-ins. We also had 1 team farming 10 man mode. When hard mode became available, we focused on gearing up the guild as a whole rather than prioritizing loot based on ranks. We formed 3 teams mixing mains and alts - and consistently farmed for progression. This has helped a lot in the latter half of DS.

Q: What did you feel the 'best' DPS class was for this raid?
A: In all circumstances, a class with good survivability and DPS can be considered the best. In this dungeon, a class that can survive well while providing great burst was the best DPS class. And we think Mage and Rogue were the two classes that best fit that criteria.

For Rogues, subtlety tree was buffed (great survivability and burst) so they were very viable. And for Mages, arcane provided better burst than any other class while fire gave better survivability. However, it's impossible to defeat the latter half the encounters with just these two classes. It is critical that other classes provide support/utility for them.

Q: Can you provide the raid comp for Spine and Madness of Deathwing encounters? Also, the number of attempts for them as well?
A: Regarding the raid composition, you can check that through armory. According to our DBM log, we gave about 300 attempts for the Spine. And for the last encounter, we downed it on our 108th attempt.

(Personal note: In one of the screenshots, in /say, a member said "We were going to delete our characters if we were to not clear it this week")

Q: A lot of people are speculating about the 4 shamans involved in the Spine encounter. Can you clear things up for us?
A: For the Spine, we had 3 restoration shamans and 1 elemental shaman. Two of the resto shamans were alts. Also one of those two alts' main spec was elemental.

As a side joke, one of our elemental shamans (Detonator is the name) had to be benched for 3 hrs because he could not pull the DPS needed. He had to practice DPS on dummy before getting pulled back in lol.

Q: In US & EU, many people are claiming that you used an exploit using SLT, which allegedly negates a debuff that lowers your health.
A: Regarding that, we have received personal apologies from MMO-Champion and Paragon website (From the people that made such claims). At that time, I wasn't too concerned about it because I was focused on the next encounter. But when we finally release the video of our kill, all of the suspicions will go away.

Q: The time you spent on Madness, compared to Spine, was rather short. How would you compare the difficulty between the two?
A: Spine was harder. It was as if a huge wall was blocking your way. Every time you first encounter a difficult boss, you can naturally feel that way. For Madness, it was like "hey, this isn't so bad". As for the Spine, it was more like "we don't wanna repeat this next week..." But no matter what, the members that had to be on stand-by had to go through the most stress by far.

Q: When will you be releasing a kill video of the last two encounters?
A: Once another guild has achieved a kill, we'll be releasing the video.

Q: It seems like more alts were part of the raid than mains for this dungeon. Is this correct?
A: Yes, it is. For the Spine, 3 of the Mages were alts and 2 of the resto Shamans were alts. We wanted to prepare for the unexpected. So since FL, we consistently farmed for alts.

Q: Is there a reason why you did that?
A: Every patch, we as a guild, had problems with limited roster. However, we feel that composition is far more important than the number of raiders. Say we have 25 people online. If those 25 people have access to most of the classes, creating a fitting raid composition becomes very easy.

For DS, each member had 2-4 classes ready for progression.

Q: For this raid, class specs seemed very critical. Can you give us a word on that?
A: For tanks, Paladins were far inferior to DKs and Druids. Thus, prot Paladins were benched. Also, enhancement Shamans and Hunters had to be benched for Madness encounter as the pets weren't attacking tendons. For healers, holy Paladins and resto Shamans were good. Other healing classes had to be on stand-by. And for caster DPS, boomkins had to be benched most of the time. I want to thank all of them for sticking around for the entire duration of the fights.

Q: Would you like to say a word to other guilds that are attempting to clear DS?
A: Never give up! It is imperative to stick together and have faith that you can do it. Every guild wants to give up at one point or another. But nothing can be achieved with one big shot. If you take it one step at a time, you will be rewarded for your effort.

Q: Any shout outs to the fans?
A: Thank you for your supports. We want to be remembered as raiders that always enjoy raiding. Thank you.

[Akinaria]

Interesting what he had to say about totally benching some specs for Madness.

[Deleted]

Good read, thanks for putting this up

[Cactrot]

Interesting what he had to say about totally benching some specs for Madness.

Eh, when you have people with 4 chars they can be playing, there's no reason to have them on anything but the BEST spec. I'm sure people will blow it way out of proportion, as usual.

[Madruga]

Thank you for posting this! I was looking forward for their pronouncement.

Interesting the number of tries in each phase of Deathwing... 300 in Spine, 100 in Madness... Looks like Spine is the real challenge this tier...

Also, Paragon said that it took them 500 tries do down Ragnaros in Firelands. I find it odd that the final boss of the expansion is not the "hardest" encounter. But that´s just me.

Also, Mages on top en meters, uhul!

[KaziOfTheSkies]

Also, Paragon said that it took them 500 tries do down Ragnaros in Firelands. I find it odd that the final boss of the expansion is not the "hardest" encounter. But that´s just me.

Think the word "hard" is hard to define sometimes From what i understand Spine is hard for it needing far more numbers. Madness in that case maybe needing less numbers but having harder mechanics makes a sudden "omg everything went perfect!"-kill possible, since they went from a more focus demanding boss to a more "nothing killed us!?"-boss. Wasnt Paragons RaggyHC kill their last attempt for the evening for example? Such sudden downings of bosses can happen, luck is a bigger factor than people seem to understand heh.

[atl4ntis]

this should be posted on homepage, like every other interviews after an end boss world first

[Sneek]

"As a side joke, one of our elemental shamans (Detonator is the name) had to be benched for 3 hrs because he could not pull the DPS needed. He had to practice DPS on dummy before getting pulled back in lol."

thats so nice xD

[Deleted]

this should be posted on homepage, like every other interviews after an end boss world first

Hey, don't ask for too much, they're not Paragon or any other professionnal-super-communicative guild.
We'll probably see even more attention when Paragon etc. will get the kill, quite the hypocrisy.

OT: Thanks for the translation, it was an interesting read!

[Deleted]

Thanks for the non garbled translation.

[Zdrasti]

Very enjoyable read. Congrats

[Kraai]

They actually seem pretty nice and didn't come across as cocky at all.

The bit about the benched shaman made me giggle.

[Sayrah]

You should come for a visit to S. Korea or Japan, the culture is amazing and a breath of fresh air with their youth compared to the trouble makers around in London -.-

[Litoru]

Interesting read and I like their attitude.

[Count Zero]

Gained a ton of respect for them based on this interview, particularly from the responses to the last two questions.

Extremely classy guild. Hard working, respectful, and honorable. Highlighting the best of Korean values.

[Deleted]

Very interesting to read i find that they are really sympathic and i hope these trolls will stop with the slt exploid but grats to the kill from your brothers in Turkey its good to see Asians on the top Asians rule!!!!!!!!!!

[Acquiesce of Telara]

Big props to KIN Raiders. It takes a certain amount of ego suppression to be in a top raiding guild where you can be benched in a heartbeat, it's another thing entirely to be able to define yourself as one of X number of alts, instead of that instant recognition associated with your main.

These guys make it sound like a job, but one that really feels rewarding afterward.

[balatro]

You should come for a visit to S. Korea or Japan, the culture is amazing and a breath of fresh air with their youth compared to the trouble makers around in London -.-

Reminds me of when I was in South Korea for vacation with some friends, we were in a park in Seoul and playing frisbee (yea, I know). Some people around joined us and we had a group of about 8 just tossing it back and forth - I tossed it to the guy across from me and some wind caught it and it went wide and he missed it. He immediately began apologizing and bowing (drinking with them later I learned he was 'semi-culturally' Japanese (his parents were) but had been born and raised in Seoul).

I felt bad, here I was apologizing even though it wasn't really the fault of either of us -- yet here he was bowing and apologizing, essentially asking me to forgive him. I was shocked and besides the obvious language barrier (even though most S. Koreans I met spoke English (to varying degrees) and a lot of signs were also in English), it was the first real occurrence of culture shock for me.

[Snixs]

I like these guys, they seem quite calm and i'm actually growing fan of them.

I thought back in time that top 50 guild almost had unlimited amounts of people that were all say top 50 at their class, this however seem not to be the case! :-)


Yeap, i'm a KIN-fan boy yo, love their attitude, GO KIN RAIDERS!

[Gilian]

Nice, hope we get to see some videos soon! Really interested in what tactics they used and what Blood Legion and Paragon were doing.