Hardcore Raiders, how do you learn heroic fights before guides come out on youtube?

[Elpalmo]

Pretty much what title says

[Deleted]

public test realm and normal modes

/thread

[Tibeus]

public test realm

Also the Dungeon Journal and trial/error

[KaziOfTheSkies]

All fight mechanics are avaible on dungeon finder. From there its just to come up with a tactic. Dont forget how much xp high ranked guilds have with it as well

[even]

PTR, normal modes, combat log, general mindfulness and attention to boss mechanics during the tries

[vizzle]

Critical thinking.

[Aceshigh]

The trash leading up to Ji Kun has snail mobs who will fixate on a target and they have a buff on them that says something along the lines "Will kill anything in its path". After the offtank died for the 3rd time he was like "WHAT! How the hell does the snail keep killing me!!!!!" Now this is an extremely simple mechanic, but this is the kind of thing that a heroic raider would notice instantly. It wouldn't have to be explained, talked about, etc etc. Heroic raiders notice buffs and debuffs like that BEFORE they die, or at the very worst after 1 death to the mechanic. They just understand what's going on around them. Combine that with combatlogs, PTR, normal modes, etc etc. and they've got something to look at and they can practice strats they come up with. All of that said though, they're generally just more aware of everything around them and can come up with a solution quickly. They don't need to be told "this is bad, deal with it this way" and if they fail to a mechanic (like the snail one which is an extremely easy example) they don't fail to it a second time, they fix it. It's all about awareness and critical thinking.

[Deleted]

The trash leading up to Ji Kun has snail mobs who will fixate on a target and they have a buff on them that says something along the lines "Will kill anything in its path". After the offtank died for the 3rd time he was like "WHAT! How the hell does the snail keep killing me!!!!!" Now this is an extremely simple mechanic, but this is the kind of thing that a heroic raider would notice instantly. It wouldn't have to be explained, talked about, etc etc. Heroic raiders notice buffs and debuffs like that BEFORE they die, or at the very worst after 1 death to the mechanic. They just understand what's going on around them. Combine that with combatlogs, PTR, normal modes, etc etc. and they've got something to look at and they can practice strats they come up with. All of that said though, they're generally just more aware of everything around them and can come up with a solution quickly. They don't need to be told "this is bad, deal with it this way" and if they fail to a mechanic (like the snail one which is an extremely easy example) they don't fail to it a second time, they fix it. It's all about awareness and critical thinking.

When I first did it I didn't die from Snails and I was main tank!
That means I'm awesome \o/ XD

On topic: As many others have said, it's about normal modes, dungeon journal abilities, PTR and also putting a good amount of time at making tactics themselves.

[Tibeus]

The trash leading up to Ji Kun has snail mobs who will fixate on a target and they have a buff on them that says something along the lines "Will kill anything in its path". After the offtank died for the 3rd time he was like "WHAT! How the hell does the snail keep killing me!!!!!" Now this is an extremely simple mechanic, but this is the kind of thing that a heroic raider would notice instantly. It wouldn't have to be explained, talked about, etc etc. Heroic raiders notice buffs and debuffs like that BEFORE they die, or at the very worst after 1 death to the mechanic. They just understand what's going on around them. Combine that with combatlogs, PTR, normal modes, etc etc. and they've got something to look at and they can practice strats they come up with. All of that said though, they're generally just more aware of everything around them and can come up with a solution quickly. They don't need to be told "this is bad, deal with it this way" and if they fail to a mechanic (like the snail one which is an extremely easy example) they don't fail to it a second time, they fix it. It's all about awareness and critical thinking.

And yet Heroic Spirit Kings was a problem :P

[Deleted]

ptr testing, filming your testing and watching it back to see what went right/wrong

critical thinking and using forums to discuss tactics before raid time

using normal modes to test heroic tactics when possible (for example on ji-kun sending a tank down on the nests which would have a guardian if it was HC). This is the reason most top guilds have like world 1000 normal kills....as we wipe on purpose so you get more pulls to make the overall boss fight feel like second nature....so when heroic week comes all you have 2 do is add in 1/2 more ability's. Also running alt runs to learn the fight from all 3 roles helps

when someone dies and the raid wipes....instead of QQ-ing at each other, take the time to assess what went wrong, why it went wrong and what methods you can you take to ensure it doesn't happen again

[Recke]

The trash leading up to Ji Kun has snail mobs who will fixate on a target and they have a buff on them that says something along the lines "Will kill anything in its path". After the offtank died for the 3rd time he was like "WHAT! How the hell does the snail keep killing me!!!!!" Now this is an extremely simple mechanic, but this is the kind of thing that a heroic raider would notice instantly. It wouldn't have to be explained, talked about, etc etc. Heroic raiders notice buffs and debuffs like that BEFORE they die, or at the very worst after 1 death to the mechanic. They just understand what's going on around them. Combine that with combatlogs, PTR, normal modes, etc etc. and they've got something to look at and they can practice strats they come up with. All of that said though, they're generally just more aware of everything around them and can come up with a solution quickly. They don't need to be told "this is bad, deal with it this way" and if they fail to a mechanic (like the snail one which is an extremely easy example) they don't fail to it a second time, they fix it. It's all about awareness and critical thinking.

During this past week's mirror clear, I battle rezzed a guildy (was on my dk alt) underneath where the snail was about to be after he died to it because he wasn't aware of the trash mechanics. Now he knows better.

[Gondlem]

The biggest thing is experimentation, combined with group discussion, and raid experience helps too. You develop a basic understanding of the way a fight works from reviewing the dungeon journal before you pull, you have a basic structure of a strat before you start and collectively you review after each pull, discuss what wiped you each time you wipe and gradually improve your strat while you practice execution. A big thing that "good" guilds do that average guilds don't is welcome opinions from a range of sources, there's generally not just one person running everything and coming up with every idea.

If you have a lot of raid experience that also helps since you can use things that worked for you in the past to solve new problems.

[Deleted]

The ingame stopwatch is a fantastic tool.

[Deleted]

Top guilds have extremely experienced players in, who, between them, have probably seen every mechanic ever put in the game. This means that, aside from truly new mechanics, most boss abilities can be likened approximately to things seen before. An example of this would be the mini boss in Ruby Sanctum which did the conflagrate effect - requiring the target to get out of the raid group or cause the effect to chain to the entire raid, which would probably have been a wipe. This mechanic was seen on the Eredar Twins encounter in SWP. Lord Marrowgar was an interesting mix of Battleguard Sartura (his bonestorm whirlwind thing) and Mother Sharaz (the split damage cleave effect) with random fire and add killing (the bone spikes) thrown in.

What I am trying to illustrate here is that there are very few real "new" mechanics in the game now, so most players in the top gulds will have seen rough appromixations of most abilities in some form or another before, just perhaps in slightly different forms or combinations.

Top guilds will often in their first attempts have people using stopwatches to time abilities, they will have people focusing on debuffs going out so they know exactly what boss ability does what (though the dungeon journal has made this less relevant).

Oh and on the PTR alot of top guilds will almost kill a boss, (say <5% HP) then deliberately wipe in order to either change the raid around so their whole team knows it, or just do it again to better perfect their execution.

[Shiira]

Strategies for bosses don't exist yet so you come up with something that seems okay and try it out. It probably doesn't work. You figure out what went wrong and either improve your strategy or throw it out and come up with something else.

This is the important part. Knowing how to analyse what went wrong with in game tools such as skada and external tools such as world of logs is a skill that many guilds not raiding at a high level will lack. Is dps low because someone died early on that last attempt, or is the strategy requiring them to act in a way that reduces dps more than necessary? A high end guild can answer this question because they know exactly what everyone is capable of. A middle level guild probably gets stuck when they have problems, because they don't understand why. They have never needed to develop these skills because working strategies for bosses will already be known by the time they get there.

Knowing how to criticise your own performance is another important skill. Was my death preventable? Do we need to change the strategy to reduce the damage we take, or do I just need to come up with a new plan for how I use my cooldowns? Should I have specced into that other talent or changed glyphs? Did I take avoidable damage? Understanding when something was your own fault and being able to admit to it is important. Everyone makes mistakes, high end raiders understand the nature of their mistakes and stop making them quickly.

You observe what happens, consider what you have seen, and make adjustments. Heroic progress is a process of gradual improvement, but everyone needs to be able to commit to it.

Oh and on the PTR alot of top guilds will almost kill a boss, (say <5% HP) then deliberately wipe in order to either change the raid around so their whole team knows it, or just do it again to better perfect their execution.

In addition to this, everyone who isn't in for progress on a boss is watching someone else stream it. You don't want to progress for two hours then change your comp and have to rely on someone with no experience. They will make mistakes that everyone else stopped making an hour and a half ago, and it will wipe you. That time doesn't have to be wasted.

[xtramuscle]

Alot of guilds underestimate the importance of an active discussion section on the guild forum. You can save ALOT of raid time by discussing things in advance, or after raid time. Also putting it on a non real time thread in a forum, is far more effective than talking over vent or in guild chat, because it means everyone who has access to the forum (if they choose to) can take time to see it, rather than people logging off after raid and missing out on discoveries that will effect the next raid for instance.

[dd614]

It's not hard to learn when you're fine with wiping hundreds of times on bosses while maintaining and understanding logs.

[Arhippa]

You get a very good idea of what to expect on heroic from doing normal modes/PTR and reading the dungeon journal. It's usually just 1-2 new things to watch out for, and after a few pulls you should already know what to do with them unless the new things are towards the end of the fight (think ragnaros phase 4 for example).

After that it's all about practising your execution and waiting for the perfect pull where no one fails, or at least don't wipe the raid while failing.

It's not hard to learn when you're fine with wiping hundreds of times on bosses while maintaining and understanding logs.

Unless the boss is truly a wall, do guilds wipe for literally hundreds of times. While a hundred isn't common, it's not too uncommon either. Hundreds on the other hand is quite rare. I can quickly only think of 2 bosses in all 3 cataclysm tiers that I wiped significantly over a 100 times on; spine and ragnaros. That's 2 out of 28 bosses.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

It also helps that there are only a certain amount of mechanics in the game. The complexity of fights basically comes down to a combination of:

Move there individually
move there as a raid/unit
dodge missile
don't stand in the bad stuff
big raid damage
tank swap
kite

It gets hard when you need to (1) move there while (2) dodging stuff and (3) not moving through the bad stuff and (4) managing raid damage and keeping the tanks alive.

[DarkSavior]

Pull the boss as many times as you can, but make every attempt mean something.
Learn and adapt fast, it should not take more than 3 pulls at the most to completely understand any given mechanic.
Look over WoL, do not be afraid to make comp changes if you feel like it might be an improvement.
Use your guild forum to discuss/develop strategies on your non-raid days. Make sure everyone on your raid team is actually reading them if they intend to keep their raid spot.
Finally spy on other guilds. Look over their logs, watch their streams, and ask them questions.