1. #1

    Need help- hard modes with time constraints

    Hi Everyone,

    I’ve been a raid leader for a few years now, but have just recently gotten the drive to really push through hard modes. In the past we would do them if we had time, but didn’t really push too hard. My team only runs for 2 nights a week, 6 hours total. I know that this is nowhere near the amount of time needed for cutting edge progression, but I would still like to get through hard modes before the next tier is released.

    My question is this; given the short raid week, how would you go about maximizing progression? Should I be extending my lockout every week? Every couple of weeks? I feel like it’s a delicate balance between progression and gearing. If we extend lockouts too often or for too long, then we fall behind on gear and struggle more. If I don’t extend often enough, then by the end of normal modes we are spending too much time getting to our progression boss and not enough time actually progressing.

    This is going to become more apparent with this upcoming patch on both fronts. One the one hand, the instance is back to the old ways of 12+ bosses in one lockout, meaning it will take a whole raid night (or half of our raid week) to even get to the 9th or 10th boss, and that’s if they are on farm. That leaves little time for actual progression. On the other hand, these bosses have such inflated loot tables that if we don’t farm them some people may not even get a look at necessary gear upgrades.

    I know the simple answer is to raid more, but honestly that really isn’t an option. Given the time constraints, my plan is going to be to lock out on our progression boss every other week. That is, we are going to farm week 1 till we get to big baddie #xx, then lock it out for the next week. If big baddie #xx doesn’t die week 2 we will do a full clear week 3 and lockout for week 4, repeat till place is cleared.

    If you were faced with similar time constraints, how would you maximize your progression?

    Any and all constructive help would be greatly appreciated =)

  2. #2
    Well I'd research the ideal HM order for my guild if I only had 6 hours available. Extending is only a good idea if you've been fairly lucky with drops on normal and HM bosses since some of them are pretty tight on the damage and healing required.
    STRESS
    The confusion caused when one's mind
    overrides the body's basic
    desire to choke the living shit out of
    some jerk who desperately needs it

  3. #3
    It depends a lot on your ability to kill bosses you already downed.

    No need to extend the lockout of the preceeding bosses will be downed in 1 hour.
    If the preceeding bosses have one that gives you trouble and could cost you a whole evening (half of your time), then extending lockout is a good thing.

    i want to add one thing that is very important tho.
    Train your raidgroup! There will be wipes, LOTS of wipes. Since you cant extend raiding time you need to optimize effectiveness of raiding time. This means, people going to the toilet BEFORE raid start (3 hours without should be doable), people walking in and rebuffing after a wipe as fast as possible, discussing tactics and problems AFTER the raid unless its gamechanging.
    In the end you need to maximize the number of trys per raid, without doing that just by wiping fast.

    Flasks even for trash. Trash goes down faster -> more time with the boss. No slacking or AFKing while trash is beeing done..
    Enchants, sockets and stuff for new gear either AFTER the raid, or have the stuff with you. Dont let people teleport away just to get this new pair of trousers working.
    If possible try to not change the setup or the players until a boss is downed. Having one or two new raiders with you every second raid doesnt make things easier.

    Choose a tactic that your team feels comfortable with, e.G. dont go for a 2 healer strat on a healheavy fight if your healers are not top notch and so.

  4. #4
    Keep farming stuff till people has the gear they need in order to not be hindered by gear.
    A tool like guildox' http://www.guildox.com/go/g.aspx?a=6 can be very usefull - for example, you can see that the average item level of a 10 man guild killing Garalon heroic, is 496.5 - thus you know when all of your raiders are at 496 Ilvl (or the average of the raid is), you can attempt to kill Garalon and not be hindered by a "gear issue".
    It should update for next tier.

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Theres really not a reason to extend your lockout into next week as next week is 5.2 release.
    What you wanna do is push as many hardmodes that you can/farm the normal up and then jump into Throne when it's available.
    Later on offdays you can go back into T14 hc and have fun in there.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Whatt View Post
    Theres really not a reason to extend your lockout into next week as next week is 5.2 release.
    What you wanna do is push as many hardmodes that you can/farm the normal up and then jump into Throne when it's available.
    Later on offdays you can go back into T14 hc and have fun in there.
    Sorry for not being specific. I've already resigned this tier, and am trying to plan ahead for next tier.

  7. #7
    If you have a raider or two who alt raids other nights of the week, consider abusing other people's lockouts to shorten your farm night. We have two raid teams and we've done this a couple of times with good success. We had nothing that we wanted from any of the bosses up to Spirit Kings but there were still drops we needed from Elegon and Will, so we just invited a friend from a group that had killed the first 4.

    A note of caution, we did suffer because of this when it came time to do the early encounters on heroic because we had forgotten a few of the basic mechanics and dulled our reactions. However that can happen when you're farming, too (why should I get out of that puddle of goo, we'll just heal through it).

    I don't know which nights your raid is scheduled for, but if you're not on the first night of the week you might look into getting some of your raiders with fewer time constraints to help a less-progressed guild through the first few encounters on a regular basis, and in exchange you get longer to work on progression and on farm bosses you actually need.

    If you don't have that option then your plan looks good, but plan for flexibility. If you run into a block that's a clear gear issue (repeatedly hitting enrage, perhaps) then consider doing two weeks of farm.

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