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  1. #1

    Sub-par Raid homework

    Hi again, long time reader, new poster here

    I've always had this question i was curious about. I feel that I'm a casual raider. I always try and push myself in terms of class and overall raid knowledge but I don't think i'd ever be able to keep up with a serious guild in terms of learning as fast as they do, also coupled with their schedule I think i'd burn out.

    Anyway the point of this thread is what do you guys consider enough research on a fight?

    personally I think it's sub-par to think looking "fat-boss" or icy-veins is enough. Do you feel any guild that considers themselves to be a heroic mode guilds(25m) should expect their raiders to put in work beyond general mechanics of "moving out of this", "stacking up here" and basically over-simplfying the fight. The guild I'm in now, i'm pretty sure a good 60-70% of the roster doesn't go beyond icy-veins and fat boss. That large majority I'm almost positive doesn't go over a class mechanic breakdown. For example, like a ret pally knowing he can spec into clemency and double BOP through Force and Verve on Vizier. Small things like that I feel will always make the difference.

    A couple of pet-peeves I know I have are when ppl say mid-raid, "I dont understand why people are dying it's so easy" and yes I get it, moving out of the bad stuff is easy but i don't see that as being helpful or constructive especially when it's not beinig followed up by some sort of positive advice.

    Another pet-peeve i have is blaming RNG. I feel that RNG is a little bit of a cop-out because RNG is only detrimental when you aren't prepared for it. I think the best way to combat that variable is to anticipate it. For example, unseen strike on blade lord, and people not getting their fast enough b/c of the RNG to it. If they anticipate the fact that it's always going to be them and start inching inward they might be in a better position for it.

    I'm sorry if this turned into a quasi-rant but to circle back to my original point, what expectations do you have of your raiders? People always say, hey do your homework, but how much is enough? Am i being too OCD about this? Maybe I have too much time on my hands? I understand the RL application of fitting in research but i dont think you need to be there for hours, when i do my research i spend maybe a half hour a day,sometimes a little bit more b/c i am a super nerd but nonetheless i don't think you need all day to thoroughly research a fight.

    To further extend on this as well, I look at logs, not every night but during slow points during my work day i do pull them up. I look at my dmg taken, my uptimes (as a tank) my dmg done etc etc.. How much homework do you feel your avg heroic mode raider should be doing on their logs?

  2. #2
    Anyway the point of this thread is what do you guys consider enough research on a fight?
    Enough so that if you keep wiping you know why
    Let's turn the Night into Tomorrow

  3. #3
    Deleted
    I expect people to have read the tactics in regards to their roll, and watched a video or 2
    That is all you can realistically ask of them unless your some super hard-core progress guild looking to push for world rankings.

    for example I do not expect DPS and Healers to know what the tank is meant to be doing, unless at some point they are going to fill that roll.
    I also dont expect people to know or care that a specific boss ability does 250k damage per second, it is enough to know that ability X will hurt like a motherfucker and should be mitigated with cool downs.

  4. #4
    Immortal TEHPALLYTANK's Avatar
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    I generally take a minute or two to read fight mechanics, try to work out exactly how they work through attempting the boss then if we aren't making any progress after 5 wipes or so I start looking further for information. I expect people to listen to the explanation and follow directions. Our RL is quite good at making short explanations that give enough general information about the fight and I go over it after he finishes answering specific questions. We're certainly not hardcore but we do put in effort. Only time I start going though logs is when we're failing to meet enrage timers, then I go through everyone's dps to see who is slacking then help them with it.
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  5. #5
    High Overlord
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    How else are you supposed to research the fight if you're discrediting FatBoss (video guides) and Icy Veins (textual guides)? Fighting the boss is how you learn the fights.
    Would you rather your raiders each turn up with 10 or 25 different strategies that they've come up with to deal with mechanics on their own?

  6. #6
    The Undying Wildtree's Avatar
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    Reading up can be a chore, hard to bear. Too much wall of text..
    However I found reading forums from Paragon, Ensida etc gives you the best help.
    Screw videos, they are mostly of poor quality and you don't learn a lot from them at all.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by BennyZee View Post
    How else are you supposed to research the fight if you're discrediting FatBoss (video guides) and Icy Veins (textual guides)? Fighting the boss is how you learn the fights.
    Would you rather your raiders each turn up with 10 or 25 different strategies that they've come up with to deal with mechanics on their own?

    I'm sorry let me rephrase that. I think icy-veins and fatboss are okay guides but there are class-specific mechanics that aren't included there that I was asking whether or not you guys felt would be necessary to know.

    For example, last night the rogues didn't know that if they shadow step garalon they'd kind of wipe us. Icy-veins isn't going to tell you how to rogue or how to warrior on a fight by fight basis.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Armwack View Post
    For example, last night the rogues didn't know that if they shadow step garalon they'd kind of wipe us. Icy-veins isn't going to tell you how to rogue or how to warrior on a fight by fight basis.
    no what your rogues didnt know is that being under the bottom of the boss will wipe you.
    They should know that Shadowstep will put them at the back of the target and that shadowstepping the legs run the risk of putting you under the boss's body.

    Had they been bothered to read up on tactics, they would know this and not use shadowstep.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Siggma View Post
    no what your rogues didnt know is that being under the bottom of the boss will wipe you.
    They should know that Shadowstep will put them at the back of the target and that shadowstepping the legs run the risk of putting you under the boss's body.

    Had they been bothered to read up on tactics, they would know this and not use shadowstep.
    I agree with that statement,, which makes me wonder if people are even thinking about that and putting 2 and 2 together.

    I suppose the primary reason as to why i made this thread was lately i feel people aren't coming to a progression fight prepared and i was wondering what is the avg amount of research other people do.

  10. #10
    I'll watch a few videos, have a look through the dungeon journal and Check the forums for common issues. I learn by doing so getting into the fight with a basic understanding of mechanics is enough for me. All in all it depends on the group and how people learn. I'm happy as long as people know what the actual tactics are for the fight and don't wipe us by doing something retarded.


  11. #11
    Deleted
    I wish 60-70% of my raid bothered to read up with icy-veins.

    Personally all I do myself is read icy-veins/dungeon journal or watch a tank pov video for the fight (being the MT/Co-RL of my guild).

    Seems like in my guild (and the people I talk to in other guilds on the realm) most raiders just show up expecting the leadership to tell them what to do etc.

  12. #12
    We have a mix. Some people don't read up on anything, except maybe the dungeon journal. Some, like me, read obsessively on the forums, icy-veins, class forums, etc. I post long rambling discussions of the minutiae of the next two encounters I expect we'll be facing, which I update after each raid night with Lessons Learned. I think maybe 3 people on the raid team read my threads, plus one or two folks from our other raid team when they're about to face the same encounter.

    I think it's OK. Some people learn by reading, others learn by doing. We're not world first or server first. Everyone in our raid is mostly on time, sober, and has flasks and pots. That's more important to me than having a full team of obsessive theory monkeys.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Ninotchka View Post

    I think it's OK. Some people learn by reading, others learn by doing. We're not world first or server first. Everyone in our raid is mostly on time, sober, and has flasks and pots. That's more important to me than having a full team of obsessive theory monkeys.
    I agree with that statement because sometimes having too many chiefs and not enough indians can be problematic. That being said, sometimes hearing a question like, "whats the reasoning behind kiting phermones" with 30 minutes left to our raid night can be frustrating.

  14. #14
    Videos, dungeon journal, and class-specific tactics. It only takes ~20m to become familiar with a fight. You can spend hours getting super familiar with a fight, but serious diminishing returns begin to kick in.

    Wiping because YOU didn't read up on the fight feels bad, man.

    A good way to make people start researching fights (once adequate information is actually available for the fights; it's different for high-end guilds) is to just give assignments and pull. No strat rundown. To facilitate this, someone should post videos and links in a strategy thread for each boss on your guild forums. It will take people time to adjust, but you'll save a lot of time once people do.

  15. #15
    Watch a video, skim through the dungeon journal, look at a thread on guild forums for particular Heroics.

  16. #16
    All I do before a new fight is watch a video for a brief overview of what to expect. After that, with a few pulls I know exactly what I'm doing wrong and am already trying out different strategies to make it better.

    I don't think it's all that beneficial to study up for a fight extensively ahead of time. If you are a good raider, you know how to spot tricky mechanics on the fly, and you can quickly come up with various strategies that can work for your group. The strategies were invented by good raiders, and there's no guarantee you can't come up with something better.


    As for class mechanics, there's no excuse for not knowing your class inside and out if you want to raid seriously.

  17. #17
    Pit Lord Odina's Avatar
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    For myself I do a fast read on Icy Veins just to gen an idea of what abilities are going to really stand out as "o shit" moments. Then I go watch a high Quality vid from my spec/class pov... i try and find one or two people with good quality vids, same size raid, and extra bonus if there raid makeup is similar to ours. The I try and see what they did and pay special atention to important parts (rewind look at warnings, there UI anything that seems to help).

    Takes at most 20 mins to get a really good understanding if you put the effort in the right place.... going just to IV skimming over it reading every 5th word is a great way to piss peoepl off by knowing half the fight and messing up on that "raid wipe ability"

  18. #18
    i find that the majority of the raiders in my raid know a lot less about the fight than I do. We have 3-4 raiders in a 10 man that go above and beyond fatboss/icyveins. I can either leave and join a better guild or deal with it, I tend to deal with it since we're not hardcore. Still 4/6 MSV

  19. #19
    The Unstoppable Force Granyala's Avatar
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    Depends. Back in the day I read everything I could to prepare. Nowadays I don't read tactics at all. I know my guild will wipe 20-50 times minimum before getting close to a kill. Thats more than enough time for me to see how the boss works.

    If a boss survives long enough to really bother us, like Elegon or Garalon, I start to compare my WoL parses with other shadow priests and head over to h2p.com to find out if I'm doing the right thing or if i'm missing something. Though 95% of the cases I don't and we're just wiping because our peeps have a hard time putting theory into practice.

    Guess WoW is easy if you play your class for 6 years and 99.999% of the time I know when and where I fucked up.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Siggma View Post
    I expect people to have read the tactics in regards to their roll, and watched a video or 2
    That is all you can realistically ask of them unless your some super hard-core progress guild looking to push for world rankings.

    for example I do not expect DPS and Healers to know what the tank is meant to be doing, unless at some point they are going to fill that roll.
    I also dont expect people to know or care that a specific boss ability does 250k damage per second, it is enough to know that ability X will hurt like a motherfucker and should be mitigated with cool downs.
    this pretty much sums up my thoughts exactly

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