Last night we went to Icecrown on our normal Thursday night raid, and as seems my tradition, here comes my “morning after” thread.  We are not nearly as far along in the instance as I might have hoped at this point, but we continue to make constant forward motion.  Problem is apparently I have been coming off as far more negative and downtrodden than I meant to be.  Much like a parent, I have been focusing on the things that have been going wrong, and trying to figure out ways to overcome those obstacles.

However to the raid apparently I have been sounding like XT and his refrain of no No NO NO NO!   One of my good friends in the raid told me that across the board we as officers have been very negative lately.  In our serious focus on attempting to tweak and fix all that was wrong, we were not taking the time to point out all the various things that were going right.  Stopping to think about it, the member was right.  We have become so zeroed in on the obstacles in our path that we had allowed our demeanor to start bringing the raid down.

The Darkside

The danger of down, is that once you start the path, your whole raid begins to mirror your feelings.  They stop noticing the little victories that are accomplished along the way.  At its very worst, they stop believing they can do better; that they really can succeed.  Negativity is like a feedback loop, the more there is of it the more it dominated the mood of any group.  If the officers allow themselves to indulge in these feelings, it is only a matter of time before the raid as a whole is a bitter and spiteful place.

When you are in the middle of face planting on new content it is really hard to see the positive side.  There will always be rough nights in raiding; nights when it seems like the fates themselves have conspired against you.  During these times is when you as a leader need to reflect upon the little things going right in the raid.  I am not an optimist by nature, and often times the optimism I have is hard fought to keep.  However there will always be something going right during any fight.

The Cure

I’ve brought up the concept of Legos before, when it comes to raiding.  If you approach a fight you can break it down into building blocks in your mind.  Last night for example we were working on the Blood Queen encounter and as we got our feet wet I started to notice the moving parts.  Breaking down the fight you can see it mostly falls into distinct categories that need to be handled:

• Tanking – Keeping two tanks sharing the blood mirror
• General Healing – dealing with the raid wide damage from vampires
• Vampiric Bite – Making sure players are biting who they should be
• Shadows – Making sure players are running the shadow trail to edge
• Pact – making sure linked players meet at predetermined point
• Fear – making sure priests fear ward to dispel/heal
• Proximity – making sure everyone is far enough apart as not to splash damage

As you work your way through the fight, you can start to see how each of those elements is being handled and whether or not it needs tweaking.  While it is important to point out what is going wrong, it is every bit as important to point out the things that are going correctly.  While we did not down Blood Queen, we were getting very close.  Towards the end all of the elements were going extremely smoothly, except the biting.  So we as the leaders gave some positive feedback on those elements that were going well after the attempts.

I have been stuck in the rut of only looking at the bad things, so after each fight in my little synopsis of what happened, it started to sound like: “Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad”.  Where in truth, had I been more honest with myself and the raid the end result would have been a dialog that looked something like this:  “Bad Bad Good Good Good” highlighting the elements that were going well after delivering the items that were still going horribly.

As a leader last night, at the beginning of the night I had to force myself to be positive.  I fully admit it was a struggle for awhile.  We came into Icecrown and wiped on some farmed content, which only made the struggle to keep a positive spin going that much harder.  However as the night went on, the mood of the raid as a whole began to lift, and before long I myself was in a genuinely good mood.  It was almost like the curtains parting to let in the sunlight…  which is a cheesy metaphor I know.

I am not sure how much longer this new approach will last, as I am sure before long we will have an epically bad evening and my old patterns will begin to set in.  However I honestly believe that if we can manage to keep a positive outlook our “wipe” time will be all the more productive.  The cure I guess, is to change the attitude at the top of the raid.  We are the voices the members hear in their headsets, and if we are excited and positive… it certainly can’t hurt things.

I thought the transition back to blogging would be a difficult one, but after one raid down I already have plenty of "blogfodder" to keep me going for awhile.  The raid I run with is fairly casual, and I have commented on this before.  Last night we were stung by a problem that has been occurring amongst a number of the casual and pug raids out there.  One member, not knowing what they were doing, committed the "icecrown sin", and told Wrynn we didn’t need his help.  As a result the entire raid had its buff stripped from them.  Were this a normal night we probably could have struggled through, but last night we had a concordance of two events that made this new variable very hard to manage for. 

Firstly we were running a little bit light on healing.  This had been a conscious decision in order to bring in an extra dps and at the same time force some of our weaker healers to have a bit of a workout.  Secondly we have made the decision to push for progression content after killing the first four bosses on Tuesday nights.  So we have been clearing Blood Princes, and moving on to attempts on Blood Queen.  We were honestly doing great, but as soon as we lost the buff it was like we had our legs chopped out from under us.

The Veteran Handicap

One of the difficult things about being a raider who has literally been raiding since Molten Core, is trying to get into the mindset of a player who doesn’t remember when Onyxia deep breathed more in phase two.  The fact that we have so much game knowledge crammed into our heads is honestly a handicap towards attempting to lead players who are new to the game.  It’s easy for us to relate to things in terms of, it’s like *** Boss, but when a player has never experienced those fights it is hard to compress that package of learned experience into words.  I personally find it very difficult to comprehend the fact that we have members who have literally never had a max level character before Northrend.  When something goes wrong and it is one of those "classic newbie raider" mistakes, it can be difficult to dial back the annoyance enough to realize that these folks are cutting their teeth on this content with no "formal education" to rely on.  So in an attempt to jump start that formal education… 

Classic Raid Mistakes

Don’t Talk to Strangers

Since this is the one that bit us in the butt last night, I will lead off with this.  Most of us in Stalwart/Duranub learned this lesson back in Blackwing Lair with Vaelastrasz, but the same lesson has carried through most of the Blizzard Raid and Dungeon Content.  Talking to any NPC can often cause negative effects for the raid.  I realize we are curious creatures by nature, and telling you all never to talk to NPCs is like putting a shiny red button on your desk and saying not to push it.  Simply taking the time to ask whether or not a certain NPC is safe to talk to can save the aggro of your raid.

Don’t Stand in Stuff

This is without a doubt the most common raid problem.  It plagues both newbies and careless veterans alike.  In the long illustrious history of WoW, it has only been good to stand in the fire during one fight.  With those overwhelming odds, you can darn near guarantee that if you see crap on the ground, and you are in fact standing in it…  that you should get out as soon as humanly possible.  A dead player has zero dps, and if you are doing something fundamentally dumb like standing in crap on the ground, no one will fault a healer for simply letting you die.  This problem isn’t just a DPS thing however, healers are often times too busy watching the green bars to be bothered to move out of environmental effects.  Your most important trait as a raider should be situational awareness.  I know I would rather have a player who does ho-hum damage but always avoids environmental damage, that one who is leading the meters but always dead.

Don’t Precast on Pulls

We are so used to having misdirect and tricks of the trade that as a community we have forgotten the fundamentals of what used to be known as the “3 sunder rule”.  In classic raiding, the rule was let your tank get 3 sunders up on the target before you opened up.  However in the modern era, I am constantly seeing players casting on the target before the tank has even reached it.  Aggro is a quirky science, that I can go into more detail on in another topic, but the basics is this:  Don’t make your tank work harder than they have to.  If you consistently ride that line between control and chaos, you are ultimately going to hurt your raid in the long run.  Making sure your tank has acquired the target and has a few large hits in on it before you start casting does not lose you that much dps time, but the general raid stability it gains is monumental.

Don’t Run up on Targets

After playing the DPS role for awhile now, I understand that overwhelming desire to make things dead now!  However if you allow your tanks to pull targets back to the raid, you generally have much more stable results.  The biggest problem I see here is that a tank will call that they are pulling back, but as soon as the aggro starts everyone runs up on the pack of mobs.  This keeps the tank from doing what they need to do, and makes it far more likely that you will pull aggro while the tanks are trying to place things.  On the pull the only players that need to be up near the targets are the tanks, and any crowd controllers.  If you do not fit either of those roles then please stay back until the tanks are done moving.

Don’t Turn Your Back to the Next Pack

Just like the defacto tank rule of pulling is to turn the mobs away from the raid, the defacto rule for everyone should be to make sure your back is not facing the next pull.  There are many dynamics in the game that cause you to lose control of your character for a short time, be it knockback, fear, or daze.  These effects paired with your proximity to live targets add up to be a ticking timebomb for the raid.  If you make sure you always have your back facing either a wall, or the path you just cleared, you will minimize the risk of your carelessness cascading into a raid wipe.

Don’t Run From the Tank

I realize I could have simply said, “Don’t Pull Aggro”, but the aggro issue is always a multi headed thing and sometimes you can’t control how attractive you are to a mob.  One of the biggest mistakes I have seen is when a player pulls aggro, they tend to run away from combat.  I realize proximity plays a key role in aggro mechanics, but if you already have the attention of the target, it is far too late for that manner of triage.  The best course of action is to run to the tank and announce as calmly as you can that you have aggro.  The tank will beat the mob in the face, and when the “target of target” shows you no longer have aggro, it is safe to move away.  There are various reasons that can cause the tank to take a second or two to pick the target back up, so it is very important for you to keep your wits about you, and give them the time needed to reacquire.

Don’t Blow Up the Raid

There are several encounters in the game that involve the mechanic of getting away from other players.  Don’t be the guy that blows everyone up.  If you are poor at eyeballing distances, I highly suggest a proximity mod.  Both Deadly Boss Mods and Deus Vox have excellent ones, that will show you when it is safe to stop running.  Equally important to running away, is to pay attention to the placement of the other raid members.  Situational awareness is something that never goes out of style.  As you are running away it is important to make sure a flock of players is not trying to arrive at exactly the same spot.  There will be natural voids in the room, where no players happen to be at any given time.  If at all possible, it is best to aim towards one of these vacant areas to free up space in the more populated ones.

Don’t be a “Special Snowflake”

Just like the fact that there are times you need to get away from players, there are a number of times where you will need to clump tightly with other players.  These clumps usually start out fine, but as the fight goes on the casters tend to migrate to the outer orbit of the main group.  The clump of players should be tight enough that it is hard to pick out individual players.  If you are clumping in melee range with a target, your hunters should be forming a second group at minimum range tightly orbiting the main colony.  When players filter out from the main group, it becomes more difficult to find the nexus that players need to gather upon.  What starts as one player getting some breathing room, quickly escalates into an uncontrolled mess.  As the topic says, do not be that delicate and special snowflake that has to do their own thing.

When Failure Comes to Visit

The basic thread through all of the elements above is situational awareness.  It is the most important skill that a wow raider can develop, and is a trait that all great players have.  However through the course of raiding you will inevitably screw things up.  You will eventually do something clueless, which cascades into a horrific raid wipe.  When this happens the way you approach your failure makes all the difference in the world.

Admit your Failure

Own up to your own mistakes, nobody likes it when someone sits quietly when they have screwed up.  Raid loggers can tell the culprit after the fact, so it is not like you have anonymity in your favor.  Admitting your failure is the first step in smoothing the annoyance and aggression that your raid will be feeling.

Don’t Make Excuses

It is human nature to want to try and explain why you screwed up to players.  In the course of a raid this does no good, and only serves to waste the raids time while having to listen to your complicated explanation of your failure.  You screwed up, you admitted it, and for most players that is all that needs to be said.  Making uses for your performance does nothing to undo whatever just happened.  The best course is to pick up the pieces and move on.

Do Better

Accepting a momentary lapse in ability is one thing, but you need to make sure whatever just happened does not happen again.  As a player, you need to be able to diagnose the conditions that lead to the problem, and take necessary actions to keep it from happening again.  If you pulled aggro, then use your aggro dumps more proactively.  If it was a placement issue, adjust where you are standing to make sure it is no longer an issue.  Figure out what went wrong, and keep it from going wrong next time.

Be Humble and Thick Skinned

When you do screw up, you are going to take flak from the raid.  It is just human nature to get frustrated with whatever is impeding your progress, and right now in the eyes of the raid, you are that impediment.  As a player you need to stay calm, keep a humble attitude, and be willing to take a bit of ribbing for your mistake.  You screwed up, so own that mistake and handle it with a bit of humor. 

One time in Vault of Archavon I was tanking the very last trash mob before Archavon himself.  I unwittingly broke one of the above rules; I put my back towards Archavon himself.  The trash mob died, blew up, sent me hurdling into the boss, who in a few unhealed swings killed me.  The entire sequence of events was rather comical, but nonetheless entirely my doing.  I owned up to my mistake, accepted the ribbing from the raid, and we moved on and killed the boss.  It doesn’t matter how long someone has been playing the game; you are never beyond screwing up.  The great players, are the ones who learn from their mistakes, and keep moving forward towards the goal.

So Pick Yourself Up, and Keep on Raiding

It has been 265 days since my last confession.  It is somewhat staggering when I put that number on paper, but my absence from the blog has been a pretty extreme one.  The longer I went without writing something, the harder it was to put virtual pen to paper and make something worth reading.  So for the last several months, my blog has sat here collecting dust staring out from the darkness as a constant reminder of my failed experiment in blogging.

Various sundry real world events happened, but if I were to condense a timeline of in-game events it would look something like this:

• Server Unplayable
• Years Behind Fails
• Raid Struggles
• My Account Gets Hacked
• I Get Horribly Burned Out
• Shift to Deathknight trying to fix low raid dps
• Start regretting the decision to switch mains fast
• Form new 10 man so I can continue tanking
• Get burned out again raiding 4 nights a week
• Quit one night of raiding and start playing other games
• Start plotting my switch back to tanking

There are various sub events tied to each of the above, but thats the basic lay of the land.  The most traumatic of the events was probably getting my account hacked.  Blizzard did an amazing restoring everything that was taken from my various characters and the guild vault within 24 hours.  The however hacker took one of the things that really mattered to me, that can never be restored.  House Stalwart was formed on the day WoW was released and this was a point of pride.  The Hacker moved Belghast my main to another server, and in the process disbanded our guild.  Now our re-formed guild date commemorates the day I got hacked, which is not quite as enjoyable.

The shift to Belgrave my Deathknight was a pretty major event as well.  I reached a point where I flat out didn’t trust my healers anymore.  I had taken too many needless deaths in a row and had gotten gunshy.  I could only do the things I have been able to do, because of the extreme faith I have had in my healers.  I knew no matter what trouble I got myself into, what measures I had to go to to attempt to hold aggro, they would keep me standing.  When that faith waned, I started playing like a shell shocked veteran.  I became slower, more cautious, always trying to make sure I had an ace in a hole for when the heals just stopped for large blocks of time.  I got physically angry with myself, my raid, my healers when I ran out of "oh shit" buttons and nothing I could possibly do could save me.  I came to the realization that something needed to change.  I was going to have to either stop raiding as Belghast, stop raiding entirely, or just outright quit the game.

I chose to switch to raiding as my Deathknight, because at the time we were struggling in the DPS community.  My DK had been my "help friends raids" character, and for the most part was better geared that much of the active dps.  We’ve since recruited more players and solidified our DPS camp, but at the time me switching over allowed us to take down the content with more wiggle room.  But since the first raid I went as a Deathknight, I had the little pangs of remorse in the back of my head.  My identity has been wrapped up in Bel the Tank for so long, that it was difficult for me to accept the transition.  As I look towards Cataclysm I am planning on making the shift back to Protection Warrior as my primary raid focus.  If this ends up meaning I will need to leave the raid I helped form to make this happen so be it, but I know without a doubt that I am not as happy as a DPSer than I am as a Tank.

As I come back to blogging, I still very much think of myself as an aggronaut…  a tank at heart.  While now I wear the hat of a Unholy/Frost DPS Deathknight during raids, I still approach the game as though I were the tank.  I plan on still covering tanking topics, but mixing in a few DPS issues now and then.  I plan on still posting regularly about guild management and raid maintenance, and even now and then throwing in a topic like rotations.  I can’t promise to be nearly as regular as I once was, considering my life is in general more busy than before, but I promise to keep posting.

Thanks for letting me back on your screens

Above is not yet the official logo of Years Behind, the retro raiding project, but one of the ones being considered by Wargallow our fearless project leader.  I call it a project and not a guild because in essence, this is an experiment.  We don’t yet know how successful raiding the old world content will be, and each of us are very much active in the leadership of our respective classic guilds.

However all things seem to be rolling along nicely, with the guild finally getting a few bank tabs and a tabard depicting representing Hogger…  the FIRST raid boss.  Right now we are pooling resources and gathering up as many old world trappings as we can find.  I’ve donated my collection of Zul’Gurub Voodoo Dolls, as well as some various faction and quest items.  Getting ready for the retro raid has become one of my driving focuses while in game.  I’ve prepared many times for an impending patch, but never quite in this fashion.

You can’t skimp on the tank

When I was first presented with this concept, I knew that without a doubt if possible I would want to tank it.  When I raided the old world content originally it was as a hunter, and as I leveled and geared up Belghast, I tanked for anyone that would take me.  However I never actually achieved many of the goals that I wanted to.  I never completed tier 1 or tier 2, I never owned a Quel’Serrar, I never really tanked much more than the first few bosses in AQ40.  I just feel like part of my tanking Pedigree is missing, since I have experienced all the content, but as the wrong class.

My little warrior Bobbinn, had been sitting there inactive and acting as a banker for some time.  As a result her gear was in a completely horrendous state, so I knew that I would have to regear the character from the ground up.  For this reason, I almost considered shifting focus to pushing up my rogue, Gloam since he was at least fully outfitted in heirloom gear.  In fact I had started to run him through Blackrock Depths for gear, but in the process of doing so a sign from the random loot generator gods appeared.  In the middle of the quarry in BRD, Stockade Pauldrons, which in their day were the best defensive shoulders available.  Stupid as it might sound, this pretty much told me I should be working on the warrior instead.

Getting to 440

The primary goal in gearing a tank is to first get to the defense soft cap, aka the point at which you can no longer receive critical blows through normal means.  I knew that this was going to be a tall order, since in classic wow we got the benefit of “classic” Anticipation, that when fully talented was worth 20 defense.  This meant that in the “retroraid” world, I was going to need to make up for that loss of defense through other means.  Prior to Blackwing Lair it was fairly hard to stay defense capped, as both Valor and to a lesser extent Might attempted to be “Jack of All Trades” gear sets for the warrior.

Years Behind has set the goal of raiding the content as level 60 characters, however we have NOT set the goal of raiding the content in only the gear available to us back then.  What this means in practice is that there are a good number of defense enchants that are available for level 60 items, and the addition of the random “Of The Champion” type gear which on level 60 gear gives 32 Stamina, 21 Strength, and 21 Defense.

The problem with the later is that on Argent Dawn, the “champion” gear has been going for some pretty ridiculous sums ranging anywhere from 100g-200g per item.  Since I live in a habitual “broke” state in game, I knew that this was not going to be an option for me.  So instead I went after a favorite amongst twink tanks back in the day.  Many of my friends thought I was somewhat nuts, when I carefully collected the various pieces of the Advanced Armorsmithing tome, but I knew sooner or later it would come in handy.  While cost prohibitive in classic wow, with little effort I was able to craft Enchanted Thorium Breastplate, Enchanted Thorium Helm, and Enchanted Thorium Leggings which will serve as my base to build upon.

Zul’gurub used to be a hotbed for starter tanking gear, and I have a good number of friends who either enjoy ripping apart old world content or are “a-faction-ados” in need of more rep to hit exalted.  As a result it has been pretty easy for me to get a few overpowered friends to clear Zul’gurub for me for gear.  I’ve been cautious of gaining too much experience, so as a result I have kept Bobbinn safely out of XP range until it is boss time, only running her in long enough for the kill.  These Zul’Gurub runs gave me a strong number of upgrades, to start to fill out my tanking set. After two runs I had managed to accumulate: Overlord’s Embrace, Overlord’s Onyx Band, Overlord’s Crimson Band, Bloodlord’s Defender, and my first decent tanking trinket Zandalarian Hero Badge.

At the suggestion of a guild member I accepted the offer to do a run through on AQ20 as well, and the result of it were a few more pieces of gear.  The biggest of them was Buru’s Skull Fragment.  This was a shield that eluded me on Belghast in classical wow.  Each time it dropped, there was always someone along on a main, that I passed it to, or another alt with better dice.  So I have to admit, that I was borderline giddy when it dropped.  In addition this I managed to pick up Polished Obsidian Pauldrons, which in theory was a downgrade from my Stockade Pauldrons.  However if you notice, the new shoulders are a level 60 item, meaning they are eligible for Heavy Knothide Armor Kit…  which in turn makes the item a net gain overall.  Last gem from AQ20, was the Head of Ossirian the Unscarred which netted a pretty nice tanking neck: Pendant of the Shifting Sands.

Gear: The Outfitting

Now that I had managed to amass a good number of tanking items my focus shifted to looking into the various enchants that were available for me.  Like I said in a subheading above, you can’t skimp on the tank.  All the other raid members can show up to our first Molten Core outing wearing whatever the hell they could mash together, but in order for us to have a successful run you have to have a solidly geared main tank.  Looking down through the various slots, here is a list of the enchants that I compiled for a 60 retro tank.

• Head: Presence of Might – This is the default old world head enchant, obtainable with some hassle at friendly with Zandalar.
• Shoulders: Heavy Knothide Armor Kit – one of the few enchants available that actually gives us any real benefit.  The other option for elemental resistance fights is Chromatic Mantle of the Dawn from revered with Argent Dawn.
• Back: Enchant Cloak – Steelweave – your best tanking option, and its available on any item you could be wearing since its lvl 35 and above.
• Chest: Enchant Chest – Defense – considering we are at a defense debt I am pretty much stacking it on every slot available.  When I get a lvl 60 chest will upgrade to Enchant Chest – Greater Defense.
• Wrist: Enchant Bracer – Major Defense – once again defense is the winner.  This is a rareish enchant, as it was farmed out in Netherstorm.
• Hands: Scroll of Enchant Gloves – Threat – This is my current goal, but Scroll of Enchant Gloves – Major Strength and Scroll of Enchant Gloves – Superior Agility both seem like solid options as well.
• Legs: Clefthide Leg Armor – Currently the best enchant available to me, but when I get lvl 60 legs will upgrade to Nethercleft Leg Armor.
• Feet: Enchant Boots – Fortitude – Can never have too much stamina, another good option is Enchant Boots – Boar’s Speed but its a rarer enchant.
• Shield: Enchant Shield – Major Stamina – again going with the stamina route.  If you are concerned about threat Thorium Shield Spike is a viable option as well.
• Weapon: Enchant Weapon – Mongoose – expensive but well worth it, king of tanking enchants.  Another very solid option would be Enchant Weapon – Crusader as it will heal and buff your strength.

With a Roadmap in place this gave me a shopping list of what to obtain.  I managed to pick up two Primal Hakkari Idol during my ZG runs, and after some scrounging a couple of Punctured Voodoo Doll.  For most players that will be the most difficult of the enchants, the rest rely mostly on older enchanting materials and should be fairly reasonable.  For me, as an enchanter I had the majority of it ratholed away.

Another Dragonslayer

One of my big regrets as a tank is that I never actually got to tank with my Quel’Serrar when it mattered.  I managed to get my Foror’s Compendium of Dragon Slaying a few months before Wrath came out, and while I used it on a few guild Karazhan runs, I never really got to enjoy the sheer awesome power of the weapon.  So as I stared down the barrel of another 60s tank, I knew without a doubt I had to obtain another Foror’s book.  After several weeks of nightly Dire Maul runs prior to raid time, and checking both the Alliance and Horde auction houses, I gathered up the required insanity points to post on the Argent Dawn forums.

I’ve been a known entity on the forums for years, and for the most part the organization of our retro raid has been held entirely there.  So I thought maybe someone had a book collecting dust in their vault and would take pity on me.  Surprisingly, after several days and a few bumps the thread hit paydirt.  Trynd from House of Arathor, posted saying he had one that he had been holding onto for awhile, which he out of an amazing act of kindness just mailed to me free gratis.  I had never met the man before, but I have to say he is one of me heroes now.

Last night I managed to accomplish the goal of forging Quel’Serrar for the second time.  I am pretty pumped about tanking the old world dungeons with this truly epic weapon.  It does however crack me up exactly how oversized it is on a gnome female.  My friend commented last night, that they need to add a sparks animation as it drags the ground while slung to your hip.  I do remember how cool the gnome animations were with the big blade, so looking forward to bringing it down swiftly with a twirling flourish on the baddies.