What is wrong with my guilds raids?

[OrcsRLame]

It just seems like your raiders aren't paying attention. It's not like I haven't seen it before. Some people are just extremely lazy, and can't be bothered to put in any effort to raiding. Was doing Valion/Theralion last night, and in the Theralion ground phase I saw something so stupid I nearly fell down laughing...

We had people in the ranged group, that would run out of the group when they were targeted by the fireball. Inb4 one shot. It's like, no matter how many times we explained engulfing magic = get out of the group, purple arrow on your face = stay in group, people would still screw this up.

If there's one thing I've learned it's that you can't fix stupid. The truth is, when you break down these bosses to their most basic mechanics, they are ridiculously simple. You should never need a raid leader on bosses to begin with, because that's how simple this is. Most fights have all of 5-8 mechanics, and you rarely have to pay attention to more than one at a time.

I just don't understand how people can screw up the same mechanic multiple times in a row. It seriously boggles my mind. The only thing I can think of is that people have interface issues due to being a clicker/keyboard turner. I've been thinking about this for a long time, and that's the only reason I can think of. People can't be THAT stupid, right?

[Shamslam]

We wiped like 15 times on Magmaw before we realized our Prot Warrior could just tank the parasites and be fine. We spent another 10 or so working out kinks before we got the kill. Funny really, the fight becomes stupid easy once you just stack everyone up in melee range and have only the OT out doing flame pillar (10 man).

The way I look at wipes is...if you're doing the same thing over and over and getting nowhere, it's you knocking your head against the wall and just wasting time. If there is progression being made every couple attempts and the "bad" players are learning and adapting, then it's improvement. I fully expect 25+ wipes for every new boss we try, and wouldn't be surprised to hit something like 40 or 50 on some.

We don't really know everything about your players. I know we had a lot of problems because we brought in undergeared people, but they weren't bad, just undergeared. Some just have a harder time learning fights than others. I'm not gonna publicly degrade my fellow guildies because we're having progression problems, it's something we get together and just work on.

[Deleted]

(Off topic - For Maloriak, the add tank has to kite the adds if there's 9+, right? Cuz our's is taking insane damage with 9 of em on him if he doesn't kite)

I kite them all the time. We usually have 2 or more hunters with us, I just have them put down a ice trap to slow the adds and run circles around the trap, saves a lot of mana for the healers too.

---------- Post added 2011-01-17 at 12:41 PM ----------

We wiped like 15 times on Magmaw before we realized our Prot Warrior could just tank the parasites and be fine. We spent another 10 or so working out kinks before we got the kill. Funny really, the fight becomes stupid easy once you just stack everyone up in melee range and have only the OT out doing flame pillar (10 man).

Just have everyone stay in melee range, if you have a hunter have him stand outside it with an ice trap at his feet, so the adds get slowed instantly. If you don't have a hunter, use a other ranged dps. You don't need a tank to pick up the parasites.

[Shamslam]

Just have everyone stay in melee range, if you have a hunter have him stand outside it with an ice trap at his feet, so the adds get slowed instantly. If you don't have a hunter, use a other ranged dps. You don't need a tank to pick up the parasites.

Oh we know this. We just found it was much easier since the warrior could VR and basically keep himself alive. I'm sure we'll take a stab at doing it the "right" way next week, but really no reason to stop doing something that works so well.

[Deleted]

Halfus is an interesting boss. First time we tried him we just had like 5 wipes and called it since it was late already. Second time we got him down really easily after a couple of wipes. It really seemed hard, but knowing it is one of the easiest bosses, we went back next reset and really, it's just that you need to be able to survive the first minute or minute and a half and after that it's a really easy fight.

[Deleted]

Specifically on Magmaw the 3 or so times we've killed him we've had 3 ranged, me(SV Hunter), a mage or another hunter, and a boomy. Now, I'm not sure how well boomy dps is right now but I have a feeling it is insanely low as he pulls more or less 11k dps consistently. He's usually lowest on the aoe dmg on the adds and other wipes on that boss where probably caused by fail ranged dps. (Hunter disengaged out of Pillar back towards the door every time instead of towards a side of the room . . .) Not to mention consistant people getting hit by Pillar . . .

Guess I'm going to have to start telling people they fail . . . guild majority wants to be a top 5 raiding guild on my server (7th right now - I know, pathetic) while I want to be #1. The healers are all competent healers, the holy pally is also the best geared in the server (Top guild has done 12/12 already and we, 4/12, have some higher geared people than them with bought/archy gear . . . )

But are most of these really fail player wipes? I just really don't want to admit some of my Wrath buddies are as fail as they might be . . . .
Btw, healing assignments - assigning groups to healers not just tanks - is that a big thing to skip over that shouldn't be?

And Maloriak - 9 adds rape the kite tank so is something wrong here?

Our boomkin uses the glyph/talent(not sure which) that adds a slow to their mushrooms, combined with a hunter and a mage you shouldn't really have a problem. We don't always put our deathknights on adds as we tend to not need to. It sounds like you are describing some serious awareness issues with your raid members though.

My gear(prot pala) is fairly good now, item level 352 IIRC. I always tank the adds and we generally only run into issues when a 4th set of adds enters the mix, totalling 12. However I do spam Word of Glory once I have picked up the adds and try to use at least one cooldown once I have reached 6 or 9 adds depending on how early I get to 9. Just like the chain phase on Magmaw both your tank and your healers need to be aware that the tank can take monstrous damage and the applicable cooldowns to deal with it.

Also if you are repeatedly wiping on bosses that everyone in the raid knows and has killed previously it strongly suggests that people are not reacting correctly to the encounters. We have 1 or 2 shotted bosses when taking one or two DPS that have never done the fight before.

Ascendant Council will really highlight if people are not on the ball, although the fight can be horribly random in phase 2. We took someone along last week that hasn't raided in a while and every time he died it was basically a wipe. He repeatedly died not getting the correct buff which made the rest of the raid very angry lol.

It is one thing for someone not to fully get a fight after one or two attempts but after 8 wipes it starts to become clear they are not pulling their weight.

[mateo45]

It sounds like you have people who started raiding in Wrath and are used to the Loot Pinata so i would recommend that you make it mandatory for everyone of your raid members to watch a specific strat video and read up on the abilities before your raids start. There are enough resources from youtube, mmo-champ, and tankspot just to name a few so as the raid leader its your responsability guide people to these and to make sure they are informed before walking in wanting free epicz.

A FEW FIGHT NOTES FROM MY EXPERIENCES SO FAR IN DOING 10M NORMAL STARTING 2 WEEKS AGO AND currently 12/12 AFTER THIS PAST WEEKEND. BTW i raid as a holy pally and i'm the raid leader and it sounds like your having some healer/mana issues so i hope something below might help.

MAGMAW - If you have a hunter, why wyouldn't you, use him as the only ranged person with everyone else standing in the melee group. This makes it incredibly easy as there is only one person who needs to remember to move for the pillar while the rest of your range can dps from the melee group... and i hope i didn't see you using a tank for these adds as this is a 1 tank fight. Second point to make this strat easy is that you only have one pillar spawn point which shoudl be about 25 to 30 yards away from teh boss in the middle of the room.... and the hunter needs to be back there before every pillar spawns.

Omintron - The oozes seem to make or break this fight so make sure you have some kind of addon like BIgWigs calling out each oozes target so everyone swtiches to the first one immedietly and so on... This should allow you to DPS each ooze befor the next spawns. One extra tip is for melee to make sure they are dpsing oozes from the back and not the sides since if the oozes target shifts it can run right over a side dpsing melee and kill him.

Maloriak - It sounds like you are struggling with an enrage timer so your dps might not be high enough. You should have 5 dps who can all do around 12k+ in preraiding gear so check logs to make sure they aren't slacking.
Step 1 - Assign the Tank to be the only person to interupt the release adds.... simple enough
Step 2 - Assign one melee dps to interupt Arcane storm even in the green phase.
Step 3 - Make sure you get 2 green phases with 9 adds each and try to g into the 2nd green phase with the boss at 29% to 30% hp

Halfus - This is a 2 tank fight and you need to make sure you are popping the drakes/adds and kiling them in the right order. This is easily found on wowiki or wowhead. This fight is really easy if you have the offtank pulling the first add/drake that you are killing while the maintank pulls halfus and the 2nd drake. Each of these tanks keeps their repsective drakes until dead swapping Halfus back and forth when they get 8 stacks of the healing debuff. As soon as the first drake is down the tank without drake needs to be activating and tanking the 3rd drake/add while everyone focuses the 2nd on the kill order. We usually pop hero early to burn down the adds/drakes as its the most healing intensive fight and after 3 are down the 150% dmg buff against Halfus makes it really easy to beat the dps race and healing is a joke once adds are down.

[Barberq]

I am GM of a fairly casual Raiding and PvP guild. We do not progress the fastest, but through the game we get things done. This often means that players will rotate in and out of our 2 to 3 raid groups to get there.

The poster who said (at least at this point) 1 bad player will not get carried is right.

Here are a few things that I do to make sure that my raiders are ready to go:

Insist that everyone have flasks and food relevant to their class prior to a raid.
Insist that everyone come with their gear 100% gemmed and enchanted prior to even considering joining a raid group.
Insist that everyone has watched a video of the fight in advance.
Insist that everyone be on time and is able to dedicate a minimum of 3 hours to the group barring an emergency.
Insist that everyone has sufficient gold to cover their cost of repairs.
Insist that Raiders do not take random "brbs"

For the Raid Leader:

Assemble a well balanced group. (personalities also)
Have looting set to Master Loot and know gear specs for all classes and make no mistakes. (It is always good to have raiders, who will forgive your occasional mistakes and correct them for you if needed)
STAY POSITIVE.
Know the fight mechanics and be prepared to discuss in vent.
Make use of combat logs or other add ons to know how each person died, especially the first few.
TEACH DPS that skada/recount numbers are meaningless if they have faceplanted 2 minutes into a fight, call them out if they cannot manage their threat.
Call Bloodlust
Have healers call out toons in fight taking excessive damage for standing in the poo poo.
Keep up a fast pace after wipes and manage TIME.
Settle disputes, your word is final.
Refuse to ever use a PUG unless you know them and have previously seen them in action, if they are that good recruit them to your guild.
Ignore whisperers.
Have a few light-hearted macros set up, we have a very skilled mage that sometimes dies, when that happens /rw MAGE DOWN!
Know when to make a change of scenery, and don't be afraid to use lower level raids to evaluate players...we like to use Ulduar, if you have crap raid mechanics and/or do not know fights an 85 can die in there....such a badge of shame ;p

[Zefeh]

Well, good news is that we've finally downed the boss after 12 or so wipes. 6 or so wipes were caused by too many adds. The fight is really dependent on interrupters so that was most of our wipes. Our 2nd attempt was a 48k hp wipe, followed by interrupt wipes and tank dieing(Switched to having the 'kite' tank tanking the adds a bit more heavily with the mage freezin em and flame breath em. The kill attempt was good - bear tank noticed the little "I raised my hand!" sign in P2 for the fire lines and got out of the moves for that. Killed em without a death finally.

Now, off to the other fights . . . . dam interrupt boss fights -.-