Progression Race - Serious Question.

[Gondlem]

Curious as to why you think this. Is it because you all had an extra week's worth of gear? Given that Lei Shen IS a huge gear check, I can understand where you're coming from if this is your argument. I do think it is remarkable that you all killed it in much less attempts, but you seem to want to downplay your accomplishments. Any particular reason why?

We spent three weeks on Lei Shen in total. One was a fairly light raid week (third week of heroic progression) where we killed Iron Qon and Council and then put in some Lei Shen attempts. We knew we weren't killing it that week, so we took it easy, learned what we could, overhealed it to get to the transition cleanly as much as possible, worked out positioning and theorycrafted outside of raid and basically worked out our strat. The DPS checks were extremely tight and while we could definitely beat them it required a lot more precision, and a better strat, than in later weeks.

Second week we took it much more seriously, raided six days in the week as serious progression, practiced positioning and everything on normal mode, really aimed for a kill, wiped at 8% on Monday night. And then the next reset we raced through farm and killed it in 17 pulls on Wednesday night.

Method killed it before we even got to the boss, Blood Legion killed it the end of that first week we were on it, and the kill video came out after Exorsus killed it, during that second week. I can't stress enough how much pull count isn't relevant on such a hard fight. We could have raided a lot more in the first week and wiped an extra 100 times, given we were pulling 40 times a night or something at that point and having quick wipes. Would that have made us a worse guild, since our pull count would have been higher? We could also have held our pulls in week one and waited for week two and put the time in then when the dps check was easier, and probably killed it in less pulls. Again, no real relevance to our skill.

A fight one week is not the same as the next week with another reset of gear, and that is true this tier more than any other in the game given how steep gear scaling is. Our week 1 Durumu kill was 10:00 and our week 2 Durumu kill was 9:41. That's a 3% decrease in time, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's the difference between killing it right on berserk after half a dozen sub-5% berserk wipes, and killing it the first time you get to the end of the fight with everyone alive. The first week on Lei Shen the DPS check in p1 was really tight and required perfect positioning, tanks maximising DPS, healers all DPSing during heroism etc. The second week we could do it every time as long as we didn't get any extra adds, and by the week after we killed it guilds were getting through p1 without even using hero, so they could use it with CDs at the start of p3. On our kill our tank died in p1 and the week before that would have been a wipe because of the lost vengeance. As it was, it didn't matter.

When it comes to comparing us with Method or Blood Legion, the difference between carefully planning around your raid time and potential video releases and so on vs just going for it and working out your own strat to kill it as fast as possible is too big to ignore. And the fights they do are just harder than they are later.

[gynshon]

A fight one week is not the same as the next week with another reset of gear, and that is true this tier more than any other in the game given how steep gear scaling is. Our week 1 Durumu kill was 10:00 and our week 2 Durumu kill was 9:41. That's a 3% decrease in time, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's the difference between killing it right on berserk after half a dozen sub-5% berserk wipes, and killing it the first time you get to the end of the fight with everyone alive. The first week on Lei Shen the DPS check in p1 was really tight and required perfect positioning, tanks maximising DPS, healers all DPSing during heroism etc. The second week we could do it every time as long as we didn't get any extra adds, and by the week after we killed it guilds were getting through p1 without even using hero, so they could use it with CDs at the start of p3. On our kill our tank died in p1 and the week before that would have been a wipe because of the lost vengeance. As it was, it didn't matter.

When it comes to comparing us with Method or Blood Legion, the difference between carefully planning around your raid time and potential video releases and so on vs just going for it and working out your own strat to kill it as fast as possible is too big to ignore. And the fights they do are just harder than they are later.

Several fights this tier are like that, not just Durumu. Raid comps have to be included in this as well I think, as not every guild has multiple classes to stack for an encounter, especially the 10m ones. Usually it is a very tight roster of 10-13 people, and no one really class stacks. I see 10m guilds kill Lei Shen after us using what I describe as "easy mode" due to their raid comp and which platforms they use. Huge difference in being able to put Thunderstruck miles away on the platform next to you versus having it on the edge of the same quadrant you are in.

[Deleted]

To the question of "who really is world first" like everyone, the anwer is on wowprogress. Who gets the first kill is first, end of question of course. Anyone after them will always be depreciated (more meta gems, more lockouts, more time, more attempts etc...).

Then for me, differencing guilds to others will always be a matter of skills + time spent in a different proportion. You will always have guilds with a better progress than you because maybe they raid more, or maybe they just have better players, better raid leaders, people a little more implicated than you because they analyse their logs a bit better of just wtach more vid interact more with a community such as mmo-champion, asking for tips from other top guilds etc...

Though, in a certain point, you will end up racing against 2 or 3 guilds in your mind because you excluded the ones I talked about. For me, the race will in fact end up being a race against yourself. In my example, I raid in a 25 man french guild. We aren't a top guild at all, standing on an honorable 3/13 heroic progression. I do watch the progress. I look at our French ranking, our 25 west and french ranking etc. But in fact, I do not really compete against the other 13 french 25man guilds who have a better progress. I do not compete against the other guilds in my realm because I know the differences with them I listed above. Of course I like the fact that we did better than another 25 man guild that used to be quite at the same ranking than us. But I also know that a lot of people left them for better guilds, and I also know that some of their roster have wome very bad elements etc...

No, in fact, I believe the race doesn't exist for anyone. The real deal is about ebing better. For me, I'm gonna telle myself, well, we're top 15 FR, which is better than our top 20 last tier. The real competition is against yourself and always trying to make it better. Then, you might have better people apply for a place in the roster, maybe you're gonna just get better in a matter of skills, but really, will you aim to be better than the other top 13 guilds ? We'll try but we know it's'not about that. It's'about being proud of what you did, and trying to complete the whole heroic progression. Then, what does it really matter that you finished before this guild or whatsoever. Who cares ? Just play the game, do your best.

[Keoren]

To the question of "who really is world first" like everyone, the anwer is on wowprogress. Who gets the first kill is first, end of question of course. Anyone after them will always be depreciated (more meta gems, more lockouts, more time, more attempts etc...).

While I agree with the spirit of this statement, I think in this tier the real race is/was to Lei Shen. WoWProgress is basing everything on Ra-den while a better ranking system would probably be Lei Shen+Ra-den with decay included for both of the bosses, or Lei Shen alone being the determining factor.

[Deleted]

Well of course, but there will always be the same issue. I remember people saying that Apex just killed it because of more metas etc.. And that guild just did method's'strat and that one had 2 more lockouts blablabla. Basically, when Method and Paragon killed Lei Shen a lockout before the others, thos were forced to be aknowledged as "not as good as method and Paragon". First is first, and like I say, second and etc will not be recognized as good as the 1st guild (even if to my feeling, I feel like all the top 20 guilds and so are just all really really good)

[gynshon]

While I agree with the spirit of this statement, I think in this tier the real race is/was to Lei Shen. WoWProgress is basing everything on Ra-den while a better ranking system would probably be Lei Shen+Ra-den with decay included for both of the bosses, or Lei Shen alone being the determining factor.

I agree with this 100%. Lei Shen should be the higher ranked kill, followed by Ra-den with decay. I know several guilds that ended up killing Ra-den the next lockout after they used up their attempts.