Month: May 2009

Sometimes you just have those nights when the stars are aligned against you.  Last night was one of these nights, that for a whole series of events that could not be avoided lead to a very painful experience.  All of the members in attendance performed to the best of their abilities, paid attention on all encounters, worked amazingly well as a team…  the problem is there simply were not enough of them available.  We had to PUG in 6 players who were massively under geared for the encounters we were doing, and as a result performed much like extremely under geared players.

With the onset of summer this seems to be coming to be more and more of an issue.  Duranub is made up of mostly “30 something’s” with honest to god lives outside of the game.  As a result things come up that make them unavailable at times.  Lately these have been happening in clusters, where we either have a feast of great players available, or we are having to scrape hard to be able to pull together any raid at all.  Nothing is more frustrating than desperately working your friends list and social channels trying to make those last few players magically appear.

Bridge Over Troubled Waters

So here we stand at a very difficult decision point.  We need to somehow bridge this gap in our membership, so that we can continue to keep moving forward.  We have never really recruited members openly.  Our raid has been one that has grown organically through our network of friends and family, growing as players came available and fit well with our mixture of personalities.  However there has been a rash of players needing to hang up their hat temporarily, encountering everything from spousal aggro to complete and total system meltdowns.  With each absence from the group our pool of alternate players has been stretched thinner forcing us to take players who are either underperforming or not quite on the gear level of the encounters we face.

The biggest question standing before us is, where do you find good players?  It’s often hard to find dedicated and skilled players who are at the same time not mercenaries or elitist jerks.  We have carefully fit players for our overall group dynamic as a whole, often times taking players who mean well and are hard workers over players who are genius players but know it.  I’ve always been a cautious warden of the mixture of personalities our raid has, and the thought of moving to open cattle call recruiting really concerns me.

A Few Good Men… Women… Peoples?

No matter how distasteful recruitment is to me, we have to do something, and do it quickly.  We have all worked and fought too hard to make this raid work, to let it start to flicker out through lapses in attendance.  We have a lot of positives on our side.  Our loot system is very open to new players allowing them to often times win gear on their first outing.  The fact that we raid separate from guilds, and later in the evening appeals to many older social gamers, who are like me unwilling to leave their guild just to raid.  All this paired, with the fact that we are fairly successful considering we only raid 5 hours per week should put us in the positive column for many of the players that would fit our group dynamic.

Right now we are trying to furiously work all our contacts and reel in any players who have been waiting in the wings for something to open up.  On top of this, we posted on WoW Headhunter, a nifty tool for fielding incoming applications.  It allows players to apply directly through there and offers some cool tools for promoting your recruitment drive, which I am embedding below.

In addition to WoW headhunter, I re-upped my recruitment post on WoWRaid.  Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on who you are looking at it, their UI appears to be broken and even though I only clicked the four bosses we had downed in Ulduar, it is giving us credit for clearing the zone.  We had actually already received one player through this tool, but unfortunately he was quite a bit under geared for Ulduar.  This is one of the weaknesses we have.  Since we only have 5 hours of official raiding time, there is no time to farm old content for the purpose of gearing up new members.  I fear we are going to have to do some kind of official “un-official” 25 man Naxxramas weekly as we try and gear up a new crop of players.

 

If you are on the Argent Dawn server and looking for a good place to hang your hat, please consider applying.

There is not a single player who can honestly state that they enjoy a night filled with wipes.  However a good failure can often times do more for your raid than an easy win.  When you steamroll content, much like players did in Naxxramas, there were little to no lessons learned.  However in the face of a hard fought battle, it presents the opportunity for players to truly evaluate their own role in the raid, and how best they can modify their actions to provide that elusive win.  Most raid groups see failure as a bad thing, but in the light of new content, I see how we fail as being far more important than how we succeed.

I present to you the concept of how to “fail” successfully.  My goal in this post is to outline some of the basic processes that a good raid should go through as they present content that is obviously kicking their butts.  Like anything in this game, or life in general, failure gives you the opportunity to fully understand why things are going wrong and as a result give you insight in how to fix the issues at hand. 

There is a concept called “deep practice”, quickly gaining popularity in the sporting world.  It revolves around the concept of understanding your mistakes, diagnosing them, and then adjusting them in small batches until the whole activity becomes easier.  This same basic approach can quickly turn a fight that your raid cannot seem to grasp into a farmed encounter.

Diagnose the Problem

The first step in fixing and issue is understanding what caused it in the first place.  You need to quickly deconstruct the issue at hand.  View the situation quickly from all angles.  Did the tank take an unexpected burst of damage?  Did adds not get handled correctly?  Did players die to environmental damage or were not in the right place at the right time?  You need to take a critical eye at the previous attempt, outline what mistakes were made, and address them openly.

So many times this can break down a read into a flurry of accusations, where each player is certain they did nothing wrong.  It is important for everyone to be willing to evaluate their own performance as it pertains to that of the whole.  If for some reason, a player is getting overwhelmed in their role there is no shame in asking for some assistance.  Last week on XT, our mages were being overwhelmed by adds and unable to pour out enough damage to keep them cleared.  As soon as this key fault was identified we adjusted and came back the next attempt and pulled out a victory.

A willingness to view your own actions with an introspective eye is crucial.  You must be willing to accept faults as you make them, and at the same time be willing to adjust accordingly.  There have been many fights where the issue sat on my shoulders.  I don’t believe anyone thinks I am a lesser player for having screwed up.  But instead respected me, for admitting it freely and in turn trying to decide how to effect a change.

Brainstorm the Solution

Once the problem is understood, comes the hard phase of deciding how best to fix it.  One of the mistakes we made early in the process of Duranub, is to try and take all strategy discussion offline.  We have traditionally done this in channel separate from the raid, letting the strategists brainstorm a solution.  We are slowly trying to change this.  I believe now that it is key to involve as much of the raid as possible in the process.

The druid that rarely speaks up, might just have noticed something that the rest of the group has not.  Sometimes these little revelations provide the evidence that adds up to the answer.  Critical thinking is key in the process of crafting an alternate change.  Discuss the tanking, the dps, the add management, the healing, and the placement.  You can quickly determine which components were working well, and which need adjustments.

Be Flexible and Willing to Change

It’s hard to think for yourself sometimes.  In a game like WoW we get to draw on the experience of the players who have come before us, but at the same time these experiences can often times pollute our own thought processes.  If a strategy is not working for you, then its important that you are willing to adjust to take into account the strengths and weaknesses of your group.  One of the biggest lessons I have learned is there is no one right way. Reading Tankspot, WoWWiki, and StratFu can give you a basic understanding of the working parts, but ultimate you need tailor your strategy to fit your own group.

In a previous raid group, we struggled with a certain fight for over a month, in part because of the inflexibility of our strategy.  With bullheaded certainty we kept attacking the encounter with fervent certainty that we were “doing it right”.  Benjamin Franklin said that "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”.  The week our leadership finally accepted the concept that there might be an easier way, and adjusted to handling the adds in a different manner we got our first kill.  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking there is only one means to an end.

Never Give Up

It’s easy to, as my father says, “Get your dobber in the dirt”, and stop trying as hard as you should be when things seem hopeless.  This is the natural response when presented with a task, that seems insurmountable.  Much like working a rubic’s cube, if you diagnose the problems, make adjustments and try again, sooner or later the pieces will slide together.  Many times when you fix one issue, it will lead to uncovering a problem that was somehow hidden.  The important part is your resolve to keep at the task at hand until all the issues are resolved.

As a programmer, I have never written a single piece of software that ran flawlessly the first time.  There are always little tweaks, changes, fixes, that come out through the process of debugging.  As a leader and member of your raid, you have to be willing to “debug” everything around you.  Start with yourself, and move outward, fixing each problem you see as you go. 

Often times you can spot an issue that you have already solved in the players around you.  As you give advice to your fellow players, its important that you do so in a gracious and non-judgmental fashion.  Many times players are “screwing up”, in the first place because they either do not understand the situation or their role in it.  Aggressively going after another player only causes them to close down to suggestions, and in the end leads to a disgruntled member who won’t be giving their all to the group.  As I have said before, raiding is a team sport, and its important that we all arrive together at the same place.

Always Remember

This is probably the most important part of the equation.  While things get a new coat of paint from time to time, there are very few truly new things.  Each encounter you see from this point on will have some connection to activates you have done in your past.  How many times have you heard a seasoned raider describe a current fight to working like an old world encounter with only a minor twist.  If you can reach a point where you can easily identify this connective tissue ahead of time, you will be able to adjust and more accurately build solutions.  Your experience counts, so its important for you to remember the problem as well as the solution.

When the 3.1 patch landed, most warrior tanks like myself were excited about the prospect of finally being able to pick up a solid dps spec without having to sacrifice our tanking ability.  This was a fun notion for awhile, and through the course of running a good deal of 10 and 25 man content, I had amassed a decent fury and arms gear set.  I have been able to shift to my present fury offspec and deal a good amount of damage when needed.

However the grand idea about having two specs was that in some way it would make grinding quests and farming materials more enjoyable.  Alas this really wasn’t the case, as all the sudden I started having to carry non-stat food and more bandages for the purpose of…  healing.  Gone was the ability to roll from pack to pack with no downtime and no need for any healing.  No longer could I easily solo over world elites that seem to pop up from time to time in Icecrown when you least expect them.

So what do I end up doing?  I end up carrying around a set of dps gear that never gets used as I continue to grind happily in full protection gear and tanking spec.  Of late the fact that I have this unused second slot has begun to bother me.  I have a level 80 Boomkin that is getting to be pretty well geared, and a 80 Retribution paladin who is more than ready for Ulduar dps.  Trying to maintain the notion of Belghast as any form of DPSer already seems pretty defeatist compared to my other options.

Cookie Specs are fail

I’ve never been a huge proponent of the cookie cutter spec.  While I generally suggest a newer player “pick” one of the general spec designs I view these like riding a bicycle with training wheels on.  You use the tried and tested design until you get a feel for your own particular play style, and then after that you choose a spec that is tailored towards your own style.  If you look at most of the higher end players, they make little deviations here and there from the “accepted best spec”.

In a raid I have been expected to fill two very distinct roles.  I am our main tank, meaning that I need really solid single target threat generation.  This role also requires that I have as many tricks up my sleeve for being able to survive those big boss hits.  There are many talents available on the fringes of the trees that offer some added survival.  In addition the deep wounds ability allows you to general really great single target threat.

The second role I play in a raid is tanking trash, and even though blizzard denoted that Ulduar was the crowd control instance… we still end up pulling everything and AOE tanking it down. In this role you need to general a lot of threat on as many targets as possible.  The bread and butter of this process has been the glyph of cleaving.  This allows me to hit 3 targets with the equivalent of a Heroic Strike, which is really great for pissing off many of targets at the same time.  Combining this with Thunder Clap and Shockwave allows the warrior to have much of the same AOE tanking utility of a paladin, even if we have to work much harder to get it.

As a result of these two very different roles I have been forced to shoot down the middle and build a hybrid design that attempts to be the best of both worlds.  Going with a hybrid design means that I am losing some of my survival ability, but also not maximizing my potential for AOE threat generation.  I have been kicking around the idea for awhile of scrapping my unused DPS spec, for the purpose of designating two very distinct and unique builds for the purpose of being the best I can be at both roles.

Making Lots of People Angry… at once

Okay so the first design I have been kicking around is a build to attempt to maximize the warrior talents for the purpose of generating AOE threat.  Several weeks back I experimented with a build that used Unbridled Wrath, and Improved Cleave in order to give me massive AOE spamming damage.  This turned out to be a great build for tanking heroics and trash, but a fairly horrible build for boss tanking, as I had more rage than I could ever actually spend, and as a result had to give up some of my defensive ability.  However for the purpose of building my new AOE tanking spec, this served as a great building block.

5 / 15 / 51

The build is much the same as my previous design with one small tweak.  Since the entire purpose of my spec is to the best job at holding multiple targets I added Piercing Howl, which should do well at both adding cheap threat to a large number of targets, and dazing targets for the purpose of kiting them.  I only go 5 pts into the arms tree since talents like Improved Heroic Strike are defeatist for this design.  I will be using Cleave as my aggro dump, and for the most part will only ever touch Heroic Strike if I find myself taking enough damage to peg my rage.

Primary Abilities

    

Glyph of Shockwave – Glyph of Cleaving – Glyph of Vigilance

Other major usage abilities will apply like Revenge if its available, but the above are the primary attacks.  If sword and board procs we will be hitting the primary target with a free Shield Slam, but much like the revenge procs since single target aggro is not our focus I did not directly list them in the mix.  The goal of the build is to be able to charge into a pack and hit as many targets hard and fast so that your AOE does not have to hold back for long.  We are using the Glyph of Vigilance for the purpose of placing this on your primary AOE damage dealer.  This spec design is untested at this point, but I plan on giving it a thorough  workout tonight in 10 Man Ulduar.

How not to get hurt… srsly

The second spec is built around the concept of dropping some of the AOE friendly warrior talents in order to buff up some of the survivability.  Since we wont be needing to AOE tank things, it allows us to drop some of the talents like Improved Thunder Clap and Shockwave, and pick up some talents like Improved Disciplines that give you more survivability.  In addition to these we move down far enough into the arms tree to pick up Deep Wounds, which will give me a great threat return on rage spent.

16 / 3 / 52

Primary Abilities

 

Glyph of Blocking – Glyph of Last Stand – Glyph of Shield Wall

Like most single target builds this is designed to use Shield Slam and Revenge if they are up, then I throw in the usage of Concussion Blow because it is a high threat ability with a long recycle.  Last priority is to stack Devastate and use Heroic Strike as your rage dump.  We are relying on Glyph of Blocking to be proccing often from the shield slams and giving us a constant flow of Revenge ability procs.  Glyph of Last Stand and Glyph of Shield Wall are in the mix to give us faster recycle on our primary oh shit buttons for maximum survivability.  This will play a more critical role on longer fights, where I will be able to use these more frequently to give healing a break.  Again this build has not been tested fully, but I plan on giving it a work out in 10 man Ulduar tonight as well.

Bulletproof

Well… not really, but my idea is to be able to be the best of both worlds.  Sure I lose my ability to “lolfury dps” in instances, but I also add more utility to the raid as a whole.  Hopefully allowing me to shift from being the best single target tank, to being one of the best AOE tanks at the push of a button.  I created Belghast solely for the purpose of tanking, so its fitting that as we gain more flexibility with our classes, I turn around and use it to become a better tank.  Besides, when you have 3 fairly well geared 80s, you can afford to specialize each of them for a unique purpose.

My goal as always, is to be the best tank I can be and I think this new path is going to lead me to that goal.  I want to be able to generate as much threat as I can, but at the same time be easy for my healers to heal.  It is all about the team effort, and I think being able to switch hit between two distinct tanking roles will give me a lot of options as we move through the content.  The single target build will give me the survivability I need for progression content, and the AOE build will allow me to still tank content below my gear level easily without rage starvation.

 

Belghast – Soon to be Prot/Prot Warrior

“Herding Cats” is the term I have used many times when trying to describe the process of leading a 25 man raid.  Trying to take 24 other unique personalities, skillsets, and agendas and somehow get them to meld into one purpose is mindboggling at times.  It is quite literally like trying to get a room full of cats to all march into the bedroom at the same time.  Most of the time I can’t even get my cats stop trying to lay between me and the keyboard.

This week was a pretty solid one.  As mentioned earlier we downed Leviathan and Razorscale on Tuesday and after a few attempts managed to get our first Ignis kill.  This left us our entire Thursday raid to work on pulling together the XT-002 Deconstructor fight.  Last week the impromptu 10 man Ulduar I was part of managed to nail this fight without much issues, so the officers at least knew the basics of the fight first hand.  It came down to a matter of testing our ability to convey the basic concepts and get 24 other people to function as needed.

Nine Lives Lost

Over the course of nine attempts, we tweaked, prodded, and changed strategies trying to tighten up the fight and improve our performance.  We tried several things in the mix; having everyone clump up, having everyone spread out, mages take care of the corners.  The final magical mix for us at least turned out to be, a deathknight picking up the pummelers, and mages and hunters handling the bombs.  After each heart phase ALL dps would fan out and clear the scrapbots, then return to the boss to burn him to the phase.

While it took us many of attempts, each time we got a little bit closer to the goal.  We had players who had never really spoken up before, calling out status updates and giving suggestions.  The communication of the raid was better than it really ever has been to this point.  We had a few problem children causing several of the wipes but with time we adjusted strategies to take this into account.  One of the pieces we realized late in the game is that the scrap-bots were literally too much for our mages to handle alone.  Once we had all of our DPS fan out and clean up the adds, we were able to burn him the entire way.  We moved more quickly and efficiently.  We managed to get our first XT-002 kill and at the same time get two different achievements.

Signet of the Earthshaker – Thunderfall Totem – Twisted Visage

Heroic: Nerf Gravity Bombs – Heroic: Nerf Engineering

We got our second click moment for the week.  There were so many great performances this week, but I have to give some extra special kudos to our heal team.  This is a very heavy damage fight, and required a constant stream of heals flowing into me to keep me upright.  For most of the fight each hit I was receiving was between 20,000-25,000 damage per swing.  So if I did not have complete faith in my healers there is no way I could have tanked this fight.  After awhile you just have to keep your head down and stop watching your bar so closely.  Careful use of my oh shit buttons, and communicating it with my healers I think helped the fight overall.

No Gain Without Pain

The day after I am starting to get some rumbling about various members of our raid complaining about the large number of wipes last night.  Unfortunately…  we are now doing REAL raid content, and wiping while learning is the stark reality of progress.  I blame Karazhan and Naxxramas for bringing about a feeling that raid bosses should be pretty easily learned.  In truth I don’t feel like anything we did in Naxx was terribly hard, it was a simple matter of stopping people from doing stupid things.

In Ulduar the fights so far all have one or two aspects that are raid wiping events.  One player not doing what they should be doing can start a cascade effect leading to the ultimate death of the raid.  Sure we wiped nine times before we got the mix down, but the fight attempt, as evidenced by the fact we got two achievements, was a near flawless execution.  I personally would far rather spend one entire night working on getting a fight stable, so that when it finally clicks into place we know we have it solid, than spending dragging the learning process out over a few weeks.  Each rapid succession try allowed us to adjust quickly to see what was going to work for us and what was ultimate not.

Ulduar is quickly sifting the players into two groups;  those who are progression focused and willing to do whatever it takes to make our raid better, and those who probably would have preferred to stay farming Naxxramas.  Progression hurts, but until another raid member can beat my repair bills I will probably continue to have little sympathy.  Were we not making progress last night, we would have not kept pushing forward.  However each individual attempt got us a little bit closer to the goal, allowing us to tune the effort and push out a win.

We proved we were better than we have been