Rugrat and Remembering Raids.

[Coxeter]

Hello there!

I have been playing World of Warcraft on-and-off for about 10 years, and I have never-ever raided. I've always been an explorer and a lore-geek; so doing the reputation grinds, the Loremaster achievements and heroic/mythic(+) dungeons have been my go-to thing.

Something about the Suramar storyline made me want to experience Nighthold, though. Tonight - this very night - I went into Trial of Valor for the first time to try raiding. Choosing Trial of Valor of course due to the iLvl requirement of Nighthold. I read up on Sunnier's guides and I watched the FatBoss Bitesized-series on YouTube. The pug cleared, everyone was happy. Then I wanted to try out Emerald Nightmare. Problem is; there's so many bosses. I have no idea how to remember all of the mechanics when going in. I thought remembering three fights was hard enough, but seven(!)?

My question is this; do you guys - in the raiding community - have tips for how to remember the fights? Do you guys alt-tab while between bosses to check up on the fights? Do you guys use other sources than YouTube channels like FatBossTV?

I really want to give this a try, and make it my own thing. Make it so I can progress with the rest of the community and not pug Trial of Valor normal a week after a whole other raid has hit live.

Share your wisdom!

Best regards,

iAardvark.

[Deja Thoris]

Theres 7 bosses, not 8. And you remember the bosses by progressing on them. Not by rofl stomping all 7 in 45 min while overgeared :P

[Coxeter]

Theres 7 bosses, not 8. And you remember the bosses by progressing on them. Not by rofl stomping all 7 in 45 min while overgeared :P

Wops. I did mention that I didn't raid, though! Corrected that. Thank you, kind Sir.

Anyway; it seems hard to progress on raids whilst not having a raiding spot. It should be possible to do so with pugs, shouldn't it?

[God Save The King]

Generally speaking, players don't really memorize or remember specific mechanics, it's more of an experience thing. Just progressing on bosses allows players to remember mechanics and how to deal with them. Also, mechanics are repeated over the years, so when you see a similar mechanic you naturally know how to handle it.

I will read the boss guides and take notes specific to my role, then watch a video guide once. This is all done before we begin progression on the boss. Then, as we make progress and eventually kill the boss, I have the boss's mechanics ingrained in my memory.

LFR is the same idea, just a lot easier. There's much more room for error, and you can always run LFR as much as you want (granted you only get gear for the first kill each week).


My roommate tried doing the same thing, he spent dozens of hours memorizing all 10 bosses in EN/ToV, and all their mechanics. When it finally came time to raid, he panicked and forgot most everything. Having some baseline is definitely helpful, but like many things in life, experience trumps.

As you raid over the years, you'll get comfy with the various mechanics bosses tend to have, and then you're looking at maybe 1-2 unique mechanics per raid.


So, go ahead and read the guides, look at the abilities, and make a note of anything that seems tricky to handle. Watch a video guide if you want, and then just go do it. If you die or something happens that confuses you, look it up and you'll remember it in the future.



Finally, the most important thing to remember, is LFR/Normal is not a progression environment. Generally you'll one shot every boss. I pugged normal nighthold on my warlock and shaman first week, and we one shot every boss, except Gul'Dan on my lock, which took two attempts. Kills will get cleaner/faster for sure, but generally after a week or two, you won't have any issue pugging full clears in a few hours.

[Rampant Rabbit]

I would watch all the boss videos to get an idea of what kind of raid this will be, and then alt tab to read up on tactics if you want to refresh your memory.

Or, you know, you can ask the raid leader and hope you do whatever they tell you to do right, which is what I do.

Also, about what GothamCity said, I like to go on knowing nothing about the encounter. It makes it more interesting, and makes the gameplay experience a lot more fun if you can figure out how to respond to whatever is happening.

[Deleted]

7 bosses is quite short for a raid. Raids usually have 10-12, Naxx had 16.

There are a few techniques you can use. I usually look at the fights beforehand and take notes. If you only look at your classes role (tank, DPS, heal), then most often the fights only have very few key mechanics you need to watch out for. if you write those key mechanics down, everything else should come back to memory once the fight starts.

Nythendra:

- Place rot at the wall
- don't stand in breath
- stand sideways to avoid tail swipe
- during phase switch, avoid standing in void zones

Thats the whole fight. You don't need to remember more.

Ursoc:

- Stay at the boss (less then 20 yeard) at all times
- Move to intercept boss every 2nd time (raid lead will assign you to either first or second group)
- If you are targeted, moce to the center of the room

Thats the whole fight again.

Dragons:
- Stay at one side (you will be assigned)
- Kill adds (either flowers or spirits)
- Move on top of flower to avoid further spawn
- Don't stand in bad stuff

And thats the fight again...

Ilgynoth
- kill stuff in the right order (I don#t remember names, write them down if you need to, i know how the stuff looks like)
- bring blobs to eye
- kill blobs in front of eye
- go in, pop hero and kill boss

Again, easy fight

You see a pattern here? they key mechanics, the key characteristics of each fight are simple. Write those down. Watch guides, use your notes to refresh your memory.


Once you get into raiding, you won't have to learn 7 fights at once. Guilds who progress through raids lern the fights one by one. look for a guild, and learn with them. The more experience you get, the better you will become at learning fights. You will see repeating mechanics, and you will improve the way you learn stuff.


Btw, alt-tabbing during trash to read up on the next boss is something I always did as raid lead and still do. I'm not going to learn all 10 NH bosses beforehand. I will look at them, but I sure will refresh my memory while the raid does trash. theres nothing wrong with that.