What to do with a masochist guild?

[Lavathing]

Not talking about Aim - Multishot hitting people for 400k because his buffs are so high. Plus leaving Xaril and Kaz'tik alive for ages -- basically killing all the easy bosses right away, and letting the more dangerous ones stack up damage buffs.

First, multishot should not be one shotting anyone, even if you leave Hisek around for ages. Like I said, even on heroic (where the damage is significantly higher), most strategies call for leaving Hisek up for awhile. Also, I'm not sure your statement of "400k" = your other statement of "one shotting people" unless your raid group is wearing green gear. Additionally, I'm not sure how you would leave "Kaz'tik alive for ages" and "killing all the easy bosses right away" when Kaz'tik spawns second to last. Depending on your definition of ages, which must be a short time frame, I don't think that's possible.

Why? You have the option of making yourselves stronger or more effective just for right-clicking something, but refuse to do it? That's not really any different than not bothering to enchant your gear.

The problem is that many of the buffs on normal result in a loss of throughput and/or do nothing useful. Also, being that you said you're 6/14H, I'm not sure why you are getting hung up and angry at your team on not optimizing normal mode paragons which has been on farm "for ages." My raid team killed paragons week one of normals and sure, we tried to use all the buffs at first. However, past the second week of doing that fight on normal I'm pretty sure its just been an FFA of "pick it up if you want it" because the buffs almost do nothing.

It's spamming damage on things that will die whether you do it or not, when you could be attacking the boss instead. You seriously believe that AOE'ing the boss does as much damage to him as single-target? It's a waste of time.

Like I said, for many classes/specs AoE'ing/Cleaving off the boss results in the same, if not more, damage than just doing a single target rotation. I gave you the example of destruction warlock and elemental shaman, and there are many more that do not lose any DPS by cleaving. It just seems like you're getting angry at people AoE'ing things, which subsequently results in high numbers, because you think that is somehow "scumbagging" or something.

No. I'm talking about pushing him into phase 2 when a wave of Warbringers has just spawned, and pushing him into phase 3 when there's a bunch of Sha adds up and at high HP. And I mean ignoring Desecrated Weapons in phase 1 and 2, sometimes we have three axes up in the middle of the room, covering our stack positions.

Well, didn't you say earlier that you didn't want people AoE'ing the adds that spawn in phase 1? Now you're complaining the adds stay up for too long? You need to choose one or the other. Also, about the whirling adds going into P3 transition, like I said, pushing him into transition actually gives you MORE time to clean them up while he is RPing and not doing other mechanics. Whereas if you stop DPS on him to deal with adds, he will start doing the next mechanic in his sequence.

we do not use that strategy - the Tank/leader doesn't believe in kiting the adds, and half the dps just nuke them wherever they are.

Notice I didn't say "kiting", I said "kiting/hold them away." I'm sure your raid leader believes in holding them away. If not, you have a point here because cloak and other passive cleaves will kill the adds and buff the other ones.

Because there's no reason to put unnecessary prisons and tombs on people just to put big numbers on the screen.

Here is another example of you just disapproving of AoE'ing because it does "big numbers." Big numbers =/= scumbagging or bad. As said above by another poster, with the amount of passive cleave and AoE in the game right now, you would literally need to pull the bosses across the room, away from the wolves, to kill the wolves before the Iron Totem spawns. Instead, you can just deal with the first round of prisons/tombs (like you will have to do eventually anyways, 95% is inevitable eventually!) and get good opening burst onto the boss while killing the wolves. What you're asking is for people to not optimize their opening burst and put ZERO damage into the bosses. Now that just makes no sense.

That is my point - they don't listen and do not position themselves. They drop tombs loosely around the areas we need to be clear.

Well then they need to position themselves better. That is the issue, not people DPS'ing properly and doing damage to the boss.

The Fire phase gives the whole raid a damage buff, combined with hero/bloodlust you can kill Thok much faster and avoid further phases. Fire patches are a joke and there's no need to slather us in dots that the healers struggle to dispel properly.

You're arguing that dealing with the fire patches (meaning a lot of movement, meaning a lot of DPS loss) is more damage and easier than simply stacking up and DPSing standing still with the occasional mass dispel needed? I think you'll be hard pressed to find another decently progressed raid group that would actually recommend going into fire phase BEFORE the other two, much easier, phases. Fire should be avoided and used as a last resort. With current gear, you should be able to avoid seeing fire phase ever...which is good.

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Again, honestly not trying to be mean or hostile, but you seem to have the fallacious belief that AoE'ing or doing "big DPS" automatically means someone is scumbagging or achieving that DPS by doing something that is not helpful to the raid. While sometimes this might be the case, the examples you gave are clearly NOT the case. And again, whatever opinions you still hold about the strategies and examples you posted, it is ultimately up to the raid leader. So just as friendly advice, regardless of what I think about the legitimacy of your concerns, if you do not like the raid group/team, why raid there?

[Kraineth]

Make yourself heard, I can think of countless times where I or another raider made a small suggestion to position/strat changes that made things much easier. If you're just saying these things and getting no response then ask for one, pose it as a question or make it obvious that it was the exact reason that you just wiped.

For a small example, when working on H Horridon people complained that moving for the charge+aoe thing that he does was getting them killed by their pink dino spirits and tank were struggling to get him re-positioned, so I made the suggestion that the person targeted should run to the face of the boss that he never moves or turns at all by saying to the tank "you know, if we had the person targeted by the charge run to the boss then not only would you not have to re-position him, but the raid wouldn't have to worry so much about accidentally getting hit by their add".

If you make a specific person feel like it makes their job easier or more consistent then you are more likely to garner support for the suggested change in strategy.

Like I said, for many classes/specs AoE'ing/Cleaving off the boss results in the same, if not more, damage than just doing a single target rotation. I gave you the example of destruction warlock and elemental shaman, and there are many more that do not lose any DPS by cleaving. It just seems like you're getting angry at people AoE'ing things, which subsequently results in high numbers, because you think that is somehow "scumbagging" or something.

You had me until you said destro warlocks and ele shammies, two classes which in fact lose dps to aoe/cleaving, Fire and Brimstone reduces damage of the ability to make it cleave, so you do miss single target damage. Lightning bolt also does more damage than chain lightning. In fact their are very few classes which don't lose single target damage to aoe/cleave and even then the aoe damage is fairly minimal.

[Lavathing]

You had me until you said destro warlocks and ele shammies, two classes which in fact lose dps to aoe/cleaving, Fire and Brimstone reduces damage of the ability to make it cleave, so you do miss single target damage. Lightning bolt also does more damage than chain lightning. In fact their are very few classes which don't lose single target damage to aoe/cleave and even then the aoe damage is fairly minimal.

You're just looking at the damage from Incinerate with Fire and Brimstone up. You're not looking at the entire picture. The main damage you are doing as a destro warlock in an AoE situation with frequently dying/spawning adds is NOT incinerate. You should be using FnB Incinerate as filler and havoc+shadowburnx3 onto the boss every 25 seconds. So, doing your FnB+Incinerate filler with 3 shadowburns on Garrosh every 25 seconds is far more damage to Garrosh than just building up embers with Incinerate/Immolate and Chaos Bolting the boss. By telling the DPS to just ignore the adds and let the Iron Stars kill the adds, you would likely not have the same frequency of sub-20% adds to SB off of.

The point about elemental shamans is true, lightning bolt spam will do more damage single target than chain lightning spam. However, it still seems absurd to tell the DPS not AoE the adds on Garrosh and just wait for iron stars to finish them off, when you can easily still do high boss damage AND AoE at the same time. I guess I should have said you can still do high boss damage while AoE'ing, and the choice between killing the adds and killing Garrosh is not a zero sum game.

[Deleted]

What that's showing is the guild isn't willing to improve, if you leave it's not rudeness; it's them being rude for not constructively picking apart your strats. Your energies are best spent elsewhere in my opinion because to be honest - you don't sound happy; so what the heck is the point in you raiding?

Having the raid focus on extra adds when Nazgrim is under 10% HP (ends up like 3 more waves when we could just kill the boss instead).

This one is just ridiculous though, the waves are ENDLESS at the end, it is futile to keep trying to clear them. This is actually usually around the time we'll use hero.

[Kalmah]

This one is just ridiculous though, the waves are ENDLESS at the end, it is futile to keep trying to clear them.

This is wrong.

[Gaidax]

[*]Having half the DPS spam AOE on Garrosh P1 adds that would just die to Iron Stars (total waste of dps).

It is a clear Single Target damage increase for Destruction Warlocks - AoEing adds feeds you with embers, which you dump into Shadowburn cleaving boss off the near dead adds.

With heroic levels of gear you deal nearly full damage on AoE as Destruction, anyway and you get a crit chance boost nearly always with 2 and 4 piece bonuses.

Besides that, much of your points are either nitpicking or flat out wrong. I am sure you think you are some kind of genius and everyone around you is a window-licker, but I think you are not as good as you think you are.

[Deleted]

Why do you feel it's your job to improve the guild?

If it's a casual guild and they have 6/14 HC then you should be pretty content.

You need to ask yourself a couple of questions.

1: Are bosses dying?
2: Are you enjoying your time raiding?
3: Are the other raiders enjoying their time raiding?
4: would you enjoy yourself more in a more hardcore setting where fight execution and time efficiency is more important?

At the end of the day if you feel like your knowledge or talent is being wasted go find somewhere it won't be.

Also there are many guilds out there with more than 6/14hc that raid on a 3 day schedule.

We do 3 days a week 4 hours a day and have 11/14 hc (and tbh we killed thok early december it's been "attendance boss" that's stopped our progress not the time we have)

There are a couple of guilds on my realm that have had 14/14hc for a few weeks now that raid a 3 day schedule.

- - - Updated - - -

You're just looking at the damage from Incinerate with Fire and Brimstone up. You're not looking at the entire picture. The main damage you are doing as a destro warlock in an AoE situation with frequently dying/spawning adds is NOT incinerate. You should be using FnB Incinerate as filler and havoc+shadowburnx3 onto the boss every 25 seconds. So, doing your FnB+Incinerate filler with 3 shadowburns on Garrosh every 25 seconds is far more damage to Garrosh than just building up embers with Incinerate/Immolate and Chaos Bolting the boss. By telling the DPS to just ignore the adds and let the Iron Stars kill the adds, you would likely not have the same frequency of sub-20% adds to SB off of.

The point about elemental shamans is true, lightning bolt spam will do more damage single target than chain lightning spam. However, it still seems absurd to tell the DPS not AoE the adds on Garrosh and just wait for iron stars to finish them off, when you can easily still do high boss damage AND AoE at the same time. I guess I should have said you can still do high boss damage while AoE'ing, and the choice between killing the adds and killing Garrosh is not a zero sum game.

The whole "don't aoe the adds" arguement is something that should've died after 2 weeks of SoO being out.

It's something I still run into as a shammy (on my alt) or on the occasions I pug garrosh for heirlooms. People don't seem to understand that if we can kill the adds before the iron star even goes out than that's still more up time on the boss.

Unless your whole raid is like 550 ilvl boss damage in the first phase is really a non issue. Unfortunately it's in the public psyche now much the same as "don't dps nazgrim during defensive" in LFR.

[Lavathing]

Unfortunately it's in the public psyche now much the same as "don't dps nazgrim during defensive" in LFR.

Even worse than that, I've been kicked from LFR/Flex on nazgrim because they saw the boss taking damage from me during defensive......from nature's vigil......as a resto druid. Similar case is when people think that DoT applications (as long as they aren't tied to a nuke, like Haunt or something) do NOT give nazgrim rage during defensive.

This actually speaks to how I feel about this thread honestly. It seems like most of the complaints/aggravations were spawned from misconceptions or just bad information making the OP think people are doing something wrong when they aren't.

[nightfalls]

Basically Lavathing summed it up in Post #41 (if you are going to dismiss that post, don't, and read it again) but here goes:

1. If you're asking your raid which is 6/14H to continue doing Klaxxi and Garrosh normal like it's a progression boss, you're not going to find a right guild ever. At this point most likely your raid simply outgears (significantly) the bosses and will have no issue killing them while people can just relax and let loose a little. Typically when our alt raid (similar progress) gets to the last few bosses on normal after grueling heroic tries, we just screw around even if it means occasionally killing bosses in the wrong order or doing Garrosh wrong.

2. Green Thok is always preferable to Red Thok. Seriously, always. You obviously haven't played a healer at all, so I don't see why leaders should listen to your opinion on the matter. If you told my raid to push Red Thok on purpose, I'd stop listening to anything you said as well.

3. If your raid can't handle the early tombs and iron prisons, you don't deserve an H-Dark Shamans kill. You cannot and will not keep the Shamans above 95% when the wolves are dead. The reason that mechanic (heroic) triggers at 95% instead of like 60% is because you are supposed to deal with it more or less instantly.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Even worse than that, I've been kicked from LFR/Flex on nazgrim because they saw the boss taking damage from me during defensive......from nature's vigil......as a resto druid. Similar case is when people think that DoT applications (as long as they aren't tied to a nuke, like Haunt or something) do NOT give nazgrim rage during defensive.

This actually speaks to how I feel about this thread honestly. It seems like most of the complains/aggrevations were spawned from misconceptions or just bad information making the OP think people are doing something wrong when they aren't.

I like that the community decides nobody should attack nazgrim AFTER blizzard nerfs him in LFR to the point where the only difference between attacking him in battle and defensive is that he takes slightly less damage.

[nightfalls]

I like that the community decides nobody should attack nazgrim AFTER blizzard nerfs him in LFR to the point where the only difference between attacking him in battle and defensive is that he takes slightly less damage.

I could write a whole letter to Blizzard (ironically) about this, but yes, it's ironic. No brains at all. In LFR Nazgrim, one thing and one thing only will wipe the group, that is his ability known as - not Ravager, but - Berserk. Using some brains (which the community seems devoid of) you conclude... of course, the best course is to keep pounding away during Defensive.

Instead of nerfing his HP and leaving his actual abilities around (you know, consequences for DPS during "no DPS time"), Blizzard leaves his HP and berserk timer intact, but then nerfs abilities that you'd have to deal with for hitting him during Defensive. In essence, they are telling you that you are supposed to do the fight "wrong" - logical?

[Deleted]

Apply for a new guild BEFORE you leave. always make sure you have a new home before you leave your current.

[nightfalls]

Apply for a new guild BEFORE you leave. always make sure you have a new home before you leave your current.

For most people, that is obvious :P

[Nebs]

Not trying to turn this into a Dark Shaman discussion, but I don't agree that single targeting the wolves on pull is such an absurd strategy. Obviously, even with single target, 95% and prisons is unavoidable. However, the point is to not bring them to 85% before the groups split up and Toxic Mist starts coming out. We do an 8/2 split, and if the bosses are brought to 85% before the split due to AoE, the healer on the bottom can get Toxic Mist along with an Iron Prison, making it very likely that he will essentially be one-shot if the end of Toxic Mist aligns with Prison. We've had this happen a handful of times, so I don't think single targeting dogs is such a ludicrous strategy.

[nightfalls]

We do an 8/2 split, and if the bosses are brought to 85% before the split due to AoE, the healer on the bottom can get Toxic Mist along with an Iron Prison, making it very likely that he will essentially be one-shot if the end of Toxic Mist aligns with Prison. We've had this happen a handful of times, so I don't think single targeting dogs is such a ludicrous strategy.

All healer classes have a way to survive that. If they can't, they are doing it wrong.

[Nebs]

All healer classes have a way to survive that. If they can't, they are doing it wrong.

That's probably true, but if the following sequence of second-to-last tick of Mist, prison, then last tick of Mist occurs, it requires pretty flawless CD timing that can't be fully expected when people are still learning the fight, which is when this was occurring for our group.

With this tactic, we have the bosses at about 87% when the split occurs, how much more are people getting that use unrestricted AoE? 85%, 80%? I doubt it is a substantial difference. Regardless, I'm not proposing that this is the best way of starting the fight, just offering a counterargument to the people claiming that single targeting has no reason or logic behind it.

[nightfalls]

That's probably true, but if the following sequence of second-to-last tick of Mist, prison, then last tick of Mist occurs, it requires pretty flawless CD timing that can't be fully expected when people are still learning the fight, which is when this was occurring for our group.

Not really. It requires that your healer knows he can push a button, or perhaps two. As another aside an average healer would also realize that the raid damage for Kardris doesn't truly begin until 50% and then 25% so you could use a 3 minute raid cooldown for that as well. A good healer would realize that the tank damage doesn't begin until 65% (and again, really only at 25%) so you could use a tank cooldown for that too.

A better argument would be for the healer up top getting killed, but even up top, a good healer would be able to survive.

Regardless, I'm not proposing that this is the best way of starting the fight, just offering a counterargument to the people claiming that single targeting has no reason or logic behind it.

Regardless, on the topic of the thread, the author is insinuating that there's no reason or logic behind AoE, but it's actually the other way around.

[Xl House lX]

I've been in this guild for about 5-6 months now, and there's a recurring problem that won't go away: They seem to always do everything in the hardest possible way and won't listen when I try to show them a better and easier way to kill bosses.

At first when I joined I was a little more experienced in the current content so I gave advice, explained tactics and they were happy to follow that. They even made me an officer right away, but as we've moved into SoO the strategies they've been implementing are often badly flawed and executed pooly. People ignore some tactics and otherwise make the fights harder just to pad the dps meters. We stack in stupid positions, waste cooldown uptime, waste time on unnecessary movement and generally never take advantage of anything that would help us.

Generally, the raid leader either doesn't understand alot of the tactics, or just insists that we follow some useless plan that makes it harder. It's not that the players are bad, they just do things in this stupid way,

Some examples of the kind of thing they do all the time:

• Killing Klaxxi Paragons in the hardest possible combination (Hisek left alive so long he starts 1-shotting people for example).
• Nobody picks up buffs from Klaxxi bosses.
• Having half the DPS spam AOE on Garrosh P1 adds that would just die to Iron Stars (total waste of dps).
• Pushing Garrosh phase transitions when there are loads of adds up and Ignoring Desecrated Weapons.
• Nuking P2/P3 adds on top of eachother - and tank AOE'ng and healing himself as they spawn so all the adds agro and stack on him.
• Nuking heroic Dark Shaman at the pull so they put Iron Totems down while the wolves are still alive (tombs everywhere, extra prisons).
• Pushing Thok into green/poison phase when his HP was low enough to go straight to red/fire and kill it (unnecessary dots, takes longer to kill, extra chase phase).
• Having the raid focus on extra adds when Nazgrim is under 10% HP (ends up like 3 more waves when we could just kill the boss instead).
• Generally ignoring anything that would make our lives easier and just doing the opposite instead.

I've always been vocal in trying to explain how to make things easier (never shouted or been condescending, just saying "hey we should do x for y reason") and while they used to listen, now I can tell they've gotten pissed off and started ignoring me (literally acting like I never said anything).... so now we're in the position where they are just making every boss harder for no reason.

We've (somehow) managed to kill 6/14 heroic bosses now, and I think this is the source of them ignoring me, believing they don't need my advice, but these were nearly all harsh and messy kills that barely made it, some we only killed once. Most weeks we end up abandoning some heroics and spend 2 hours+ wiping on normal Garrosh...


I don't really want to leave the guild (seems rude), how can I make them listen without sounding like an arrogant prick? Or am I just expecting too much? I spent most of my time in Wow raiding under the leadership of a highly skilled and knowledgable leader, so I've never had any issues like this before.

Leave the guild, if they are ignoring you then its obvious that in their eyes you aren't a vital enough resource to contribute to the guild. Also, rudeness was forfeited when they started ignoring you for giving them helpful advice.

You seem to be a very intelligent raider... why not start your own guild? Or join a guild that is better than the one you are in now... you certainly have the ability to do so it seems, so it shouldn't be too hard to get into one.

[nightfalls]

You seem to be a very intelligent raider... why not start your own guild? Or join a guild that is better than the one you are in now... you certainly have the ability to do so it seems, so it shouldn't be too hard to get into one.

That was my initial thought but as others (Lavathing did a good job) pointed out and after reading his "bullet points" more closely rather than just skimming them you realize he really isn't that intelligent of a raider at all, and definitely not as much as he thinks he is.

The irony...

[Nebs]

Eliminating or reducing the chance that something will go wrong seems like a plausible argument to me. Unlike you apparently, not all of us are fortunate enough with play with raiders that can execute everything flawlessly on the first pull of a heroic boss, so reducing the amount of things people need to be worried about when learning a new fight is enough of an incentive to me.