A Primer on breaking into an existing raid

It is yet another Wednesday, and as is often the case with the morning after a raid I begin thinking about the various issues of the night before.  Last night was one of those rare concordance of the planets that served to get us an unusual drought of players.  It is something that happens in every raid, and this is the time that players who have been standing on the outskirts of the core are given a rare and special opportunity.  The opportunity to take a step up and get noticed, saving the day for the raid and as such improving their personal capital.

Too often however players prefer to wait for a “sure thing” before committing to showing up on a regular basis.  Being a raid leader I assure you, we notice the players who wait in the wings patiently for their turn at bat.  We also however notice the players who ask for special treatment, but are not there when the raid needs the additional support.  This is my attempt to put down on paper a good approach at how to carve out a niche for yourself in a well established raid.

Be Patient

One of the negatives of running a raid is the fact that you need a much larger pool of available players than you have spots on any given night.  As a result when a player is brought into the pool of available players it does not mean they are necessarily filling a permanent vacancy.  Each leader and raid has a different way of managing this, but as I stated in an earlier post our system basically has newer members vying for spots that we are not able to fill through more seasoned players.  This means until a player gains a foothold, and proves their abilities against existing members they will be relegated to the role of “fill ins”.

One of the best traits you can have is being patient with the raid.  Asking for repeated updates as to whether or not there will be room for you that evening only serves to frustrate and annoy raid leadership.  If it is a raid worth joining, then you have assume that the leaders will take into account all available resources and choose the team that best suits each evening.  As a junior member of the raid, you should expect that there are going to be many nights where you will not make the cut.  However with time, openings appear and if you have a proven track record you will be able to slide into one of them more easily.

Be Ethical

I think it’s human nature to try and work whatever advantages you have available to you in order to achieve your own goals.  When it comes to getting into a raid this is a slipper slope.  If you truly want to become a lasting fixture in the raid structure, it is important for you to get in on your own merits.  Having another player acting as your arbitrator shows the leadership that you either lack the self confidence to stand on your own, or that you don’t respect the process.  When a player consistently tries to “pull the strings” it gets noticed quickly.

When you do finally get into a raid regularly its important for you to remember this as well.  The players who flit from officer to officer until they get the answer they were looking for are also noticed.  Players who consistently try and work the system earn a special disdain.  If you are honest and straightforward in all your dealings it gets noticed and you will develop a good reputation as a result.  It is important not to abuse your friendships, if you want them to last.

Be Available

It is important for you the prospective raider to be online, in the appropriate channels and ready for invites at the specified time.  Nothing frustrates a raid leader more than trying to chase down players when there is a shortage.  The players who show up every week regardless if they are “guaranteed” an invite stand out, and are the players who get into the raid.  Some raids have formal rules about being on “standby”, but even if the prospective raid does not, it is important to make every effort you can to be available.

Not being available when the invites for that night go out, is the surest way to get yourself skipped over.  It is a sign of disrespect for the member of the raid as a whole.  It is understandable that from time to time players will not be available, but when it is the rule not the exception you lower your value to the group effort.  Having a spotty attendance record before you have entered the raid fully, tends to almost guarantee that you will never be looked at as anything but a last minute fill-in. 

Be Humble

When entering a raid, it is important that you leave your ego at the door.  Each raid has its own rules, strategies and procedures.  It does not matter how many times you have done an encounter before, when you are applying for a raid the burden lies on you to prove yourself.  Be willing to adapt to new methods and accept the way things are being done currently.  The last thing a leader wants to do is bring in someone who will upset the existing balance.

Players with an overdeveloped sense of bravado tend to have an underlying tapestry of insecurities.  The players who are humble and prove their worth through actions instead of words are the ones who stand out in the long run.  Accept advice and criticism graciously even when you feel it is unwarranted.  It is often the player who can meld the most seamlessly into a group that gets invited back the most often.  The players however who constantly subvert the natural progression of the raid, get left out.

Be Prepared

The number one thing you can do to impress a raid leader is to be fully prepared for all encounters.  The backbone of any raid is the player that shows up knowing the fights, geared properly, with all necessary consumables for the situation at hand.  These are the players who not only get invited back every week, but are the players who become the core of the raid.  If you integrate into the existing strategy, know your role, and execute it flawlessly it is almost guaranteed that you will get invited back often.

However if you show up to the event unprepared, unable to understand the basics of the fights at hand and do a half hearted job executing your duties there is no reason why a sane and rational leader would offer you a second chance.  There are simple cardinal rules of raiding, like don’t stand in shit unless otherwise told to, that when ignored immediately flags a player as not being “up to snuff”.  The “doing stupid stuff” quotient, already occurs amongst the active raiding population, but the surest way to pull yourself from contention for a regular invite is to be the guy that is always in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A few hours of your own time spent can often mean the difference between looking like a seasoned veteran, and looking like a complete failure

Be Reliable

Every raid leader is looking for players that they can count on.  Everyone has their on days and off days, but it is important that each player provides consistent performance.  You need to make yourself the kind of player that the rest of the raid can depend on.  Often times this means showing up and doing each of the above topics, every chance you are presented.  You are the player applying to this raid, and no matter how you found yourself filling out that application, it is up to you to prove yourself to the entire group.

A player who gives an unreliable performance will find themselves passed over or even replaced by players who show up and give the same stable effort each week.  Accept the fact that you are the “low man on the totem pole”, and even embrace it.  Use it as a chance to prove yourself every single outing.  Excelling at the jobs that no one else in the raid wants, shows a willingness to work and adapt and before long you will find yourself one of those raid cornerstones.

Be Resilient

In life, sometimes things just don’t work out quite the way you want them to.  Sometimes you do everything right and simply not get into the group.  When this happens, try not to take it personally.  Often times there are issues at work behind the scenes that you are not necessarily privy to.  If you consistently follow the theory of this post, and not starting to get invites then it may very well be time for you to move on.  Every raid has its own structure, tenants and style.  Not everyone is a fit for every environment, and when this happens be gracious and move to your next opportunity.

Following this approach will in most cases pull you from being an outsider to being a valued member in no time.  When you do finally get that coveted “Perm Spot”, realize all of the reasons that lead you to it.  It is important that you continue to strive to

• Be Patient:     Not everything is going to go your way
• Be Ethical:      Don’t abuse your relationship
• Be Available:  Report on time ready to perform
• Be Prepared:  Know your encounters and how your class fits in them
• Be Reliable:    Deliver consistent performance
• Be Resilient:   Be Gracious when things don’t go as expected

Be Exceptional

Getting up at 5:30 each morning is one of those facts of life I have come to accept.  I’ve never been known as a morning person, in fact I am barely verbal before 9 am.  However I have managed to adapt to normal society with only the occasional brutal mauling.  As a result, I have had to force myself to keep a hard cut-off time of midnight in order to retain any semblance of functionality.

Most nights this is no big deal, as generally everyone is shuffling off to their own warm beds around that time period.  Last night however, was one of those nights where I wish I could have had one more hour.  As I sit there, staring down the barrel of 12:01, I am standing in Storm Peaks only 4% away from level 80.  Pulling the plug was something I had to do, but god it was annoying to not be able to just push through and finish the level off that night.

Tree Huggers Unite

I can’t really say what made me start leveling my druid, but over the last few months it has become my growing obsession.  There is a pattern in my alting habits.  When I reach a point where I can no longer progress my main, I start spending more and more time playing other characters.  After essentially maxing out my Warrior, and Paladin both of which have full epic main and off-spec sets, my attention rolled to another character.

I think my grand intention was to run my druid up to be a healer.  Considering at the time Druid healing seemed so ridiculously overpowered as a whole.  However this naive ideal was quickly destroyed by the fact that leveling Resto is as enjoyable as being repeatedly kicked in “the junk” rapid-fire, by a hyperactive 6 year old on a sugar rush.  That was the king of all run-on sentences, but it was required to relay exactly how horrid that notion was.  Having geared for spellpower already, and finding myself feeling retarded in cat and bear forms, the only option left was that of the noble chicken-man.

Decent into Madness

So over the last few months I have been grinding away at leveling my Boomkin with the grand notion of having 3 raid lockouts.  Throughout the week I get a truly silly number of raid invites from friends and former raid members, all of which I want to be able to help out as much as I can.  However most of the time I am cautiously guarding my raid lockouts to help with official and un-official Duranub content.  Having a “throw away” raid lockout like I did in Burning Crusade with my rogue Renjihara was awesome.  I could help out the “friends of stalwart” groups who just needed a warm body that was not going to screw things up.

The problem with this proposal is that I detest questing with a passion.  However in wow, “quest grinding” is still the most efficient means of leveling.  So with my trusty Carbonite in hand, I set out to start burning through quests as fast as possible.  This for the most part works, but I am a dungeon runner, it’s in my blood.  I leveled Belghast through the outland almost exclusively by tanking instances, so I feel completely out of my element when not in the murky bowels of a dungeon.  This however presents a problem.

I am known for NOT pugging.  Being a fairly well respected tank with a good network of friends on the server, I have never really HAD to.  I can pretty reliably pull together a group of “known good” players from guild, raid, friends, and any of the numerous social channels.  Prior to playing up my druid, I have honestly NEVER used the Looking For Group tool.  After hearing horror stories from members of my guild, I avoided PUGs like the plague.  I figured why subject myself to the frustration when I didn’t actually HAVE to do it.

This issue with the concept was the fact that I chose to level my druid, during a period of “alt drought”.  So without a good pool of sub-80 players I was forced to do the unthinkable.  I hit “I”, chose a few dungeons and then went about my merry way.  Around 45 minutes later the first of many group invites came in, and I was running Utgarde Keep with the unwashed masses.  The shocking thing…  it was NOT a bad group.  We had a few issues with the fact that we were all under geared, but across the board the players were not the “horribad” troglodytes that our mothers warned us about.

Changing Instances, Gear…   Attitudes

So as I sit at almost level 80, I have run more than my share of PUGs as a boomkin.  And while I have encountered a few horrible players, for the most part they all seem to be seasoned players being forced to level their alternates via pick up grouping.  I would have to say the state of pugs at least in the sub-80 range is pretty good on Argent Dawn, and 4 out of 5 groups I have been in have been a rousing success. 

Granted, when I ding 80 and can start DPSing Heroics I will probably fall back into my anti-PUG habits, but for the time being I no longer fear the reaper.  Along the way I have even managed to add a few names to my friends list, and our guild gained a good Quebecois Warrior/Priest team.  When it comes time to level my next character, I don’t think I will shy away from the LFG tool quite as much as I have in the past.  I should be able to finish off 80 before the raid tonight, and over the next few days I will start frantically gearing Loamis. 

Now I just have to learn how to Tree…

If you read my Noblegarden post, you well know the fact that I do not much enjoy holidays in the World of Warcraft, however being the loot-whore I am…  I feel compelled to do them in order to get the Violet Proto-Drake.  So when a holiday event comes up that involves a PVP component, the Argent Dawn server as a whole shudders.  While Argent Dawn has a few notable pvp organizers (tower), we are without a doubt the biggest blue stain on the Ruin battlegroup. 

During BC our players PVP’d for one reason and one reason alone…  welfare epics.  I freely admit to doing this myself in order to get my healadin a solid healing mace.  However when it comes to successful PVP, as a whole our server does every single thing that makes non-pvpers annoying.  Knowing this, we started over the last week trying to plot out best to help each other get our PVP achievements out of the way. 

We tackled things as a guild, trying to get 4-5 players in each battleground helping run cover for whoever was getting the achievements.  This for the most part was successful… however Blizzard single handedly brought every battleground to its knees this weekend, making play almost impossible for the cacophony of frustrated players actually trying to enjoy this aspect of the game.

It’s a hard-knock life

The villain of the weekend was the meta achievement, School of Hard Knocks.  While I do not oppose the notion of having PVP components to world events, I do however oppose the fact that often times Blizzard doesn’t take into account the effects of a wide reaching achievement like this will have on normal game play.  In each case the achievement led to bad habits in the battlegrounds making it hard for the game to actually progress.  I’m going to take a few minutes to go over each battleground achievement and how it leads to bad game play habits.

Capture the Flag in Eye of the Storm

As the subheading states the achievement in EoTS was to capture a flag and run it back to one of the bases your team held.  There are two major issues with this achievement.  For starters it was in fact EoTS weekend, meaning all the actual honor farmers were out and active.  The second issue is the fact that as soon as the game started every single player vying for the flag ran to the middle trying to capture it.

This behavior allowed the honor farmers to easily run around and capture at least 3 of the 4 objectives making it nearly impossible to run that precious flag anywhere capable of capturing it.  We were finally able to offset this however by running a group of us to one of the objectives in order to hold it, while a chosen member of the guild waited to pick the flag up and run it safely to us. 

I personally however did not get my achievement until Saturday morning.  The early morning crew tends to be populated with Aussies, who in general are more PVP oriented on Argent Dawn and as a result were actually playing to win.  Being a protection warrior, I was actually a good choice for running the flag and was allowed to do so rather easily.  However if you are trying to do this one during primetime, bring a group of 5 players.  Have 3 hold the objective, and one guard the player currently running the flag.  With any luck the rest of the BG will catch on and help in the process.

Assault a Flag in Arathi Basin

Of the meta-achievements this is probably the easiest, and the only one that actually somewhat reinforces successful strategy.  Traditionally in Arathi Basin you have a roving squad of players alliance side that rolls from flag to flag never guarding anything.  This is for some reason the default mode that Alliance exist in, the zerg.

While there were still plenty of players zerging flags, the majority of players did fruitful things like guarding heavy horde targets like Farm and Blacksmith.  These objectives naturally have high turnovers, so within a few minutes we were able to get the meta on our entire party.  Unlike most players when we got the meta, we tended to start “playing to win” which helped out the battleground as a whole.

So my suggestions here for alliance players is once more to bring a group in with you.  Stick to attacking high turnover targets like Farm and Blacksmith, or as a Horde player go after Lumber mill and Stables.  Designate one player to cap at each time, and the rest of the party go on defense while the player caps.

Assault a tower in Alterac Valley

For me this was another simple one to get, but it proved hard for some of our guild mates without a firm knowledge of the Alterac Valley map.  In the old world, this was THE battleground to play if you were alliance.  It was the only one we traditionally won, and as a result almost all of my raid buddies… myself included spent our time in game waiting in its queue.  As a result I know how to rush the relief hut with the best of them.

I spent a good deal of the weekend suffering from disconnects every 30 minutes (which lead to a fun time in ulduar), this however for AV was a good thing.  On one of my disconnects I ended up logging back in near Galv, with that tower untaken and no one guarding it.  I simply jaunted to the top and got my achievement in moments.  For the bulk of our guild this was not the case.

The AV game became a zerg rush to the nearest towers attempting to capture them.  For our two rogues participating this was childsplay.  Simply keep up with the pack on mounts and then when hitting the tower sprinting up to get the flag cap.  For our priest this was more than a bit difficult.  She finally got the achievement I believe by forcing her way to frost wolf and going after one of the towers there.  The first two towers were always contested all weekend long. 

As a side note, this is the first time I have ever heard players curse you for attacking and taking down Drek quickly.  Sadly this one is all about connection speed, reflexes, and luck.  I wish I could say that going in as a team would serve any kind of boon to players, but in truth it comes down to either lucking out and retaking a horde defended tower like I did, or being quick on the draw and simply beating the unwashed masses to the top.

Return a fallen flag in Warsong Gulch

WSG, oh how I hate thee.  This battleground has without fail been my least favorite since inception.  With the achievement in play, it got worse.  The end result is that all 10 players hang out near the flag in the rare hopes of a horde trying to take it.  For the poor horde attempting, it means near certain death.  Of all of the battlegrounds WSG became the LEAST playable this weekend.  Getting the achievement became a brutal game of the “quickest fingers win” loot system.

Now comes the time for glaring stereotypes children.  In the ruin battleground, as a whole the Horde are FAR more pvp oriented than the alliance.  As such if you start capturing flags you will drag out an all out assault on the alliance base, it becomes a pride issue.  From what I could see, the best strategy here was a good frontal offense.  Build a good flag capture team and start running it.  After a capture or two you will have beat the horde players into a frothing mess, causing them to blindly strike at your flag to “catch up”.

When the “waaagh” takes hold, simply return to defense and pray your nimble fingers and beat the other players to the flag.  For the horde, I pray for you.  The alliance seem all to happy to stay inside our comfy base and camp the podium.  Getting the alliance to even attempt taking your flag has to be a feat in itself.  Whereas EoTS was the alliance bottleneck, I am sure WSG becomes the Horde Bottleneck in this event.

“School”s Out Forever!

After a night of frustration I am done with yet another world event… forever.  It was however entertaining to hear, someone who is without a doubt our most calm and collected member turn into a frothing f-bomb dropping mess within the course of an evening of PVP.  In truth this title came far easier than i expected.  I am not sure if it was the fact that we organized ahead of time to knock out what we all believed to be the bottleneck or the fact that other than the PVP requirement the rest of them simply took a little time (or money for the food).

I loathed Noblegarden with a deep dark passion, but all in all Childrens Week was like a flu shot.  Slightly painful, but over quickly and easily forgotten.  I do think however when blizzard approaches PVP objectives, they need to seriously consider what type of impact their achievements have on players who simply want to get into a battleground and PVP for real.  The meta-achievements themselves lead players to play in a fashion that was not entire conducive to winning.  That tells me, that the meta-achievements themselves were poorly designed.

Suggestions for next year

If the blizzard designers took a few simple tweaks I feel it would make the achievements more successful.  I am leaving Arathi Basin out of it, since that one already works well for the way the battleground is played.

• Capture and Objective or Flag in Eye of the Storm

This tweak allows players to actually take and hold objectives to get the achievement OR run the flag.  I feel this has two benefits.  Firstly it does not adversely effect gameplay, as it reinforces both taking and holding bases and capturing the flags.  Secondly it means that players who are not in the BG to win can completely their objective quickly and leave the game up to the players who actually care.

• Assault or Defend an Objective in Alterac Valley

Opening this up to multiple objectives means that players can continue to play the map like they normally would allowing objects like graveyards, relief hut, and towers to count for the objective instead of just the towers means fewer players would zerg certain areas of the map.  Life goes on like normal for people actually trying to win the map.  You would still end up with contention over certain targets, but it would however give players a reason to actually stay on the defense trying to slow the opposing side’s progression.

• Capture or Return a Flag in Warsong Gulch

This tweak allows players to ACTUALLY play the game and still get the achievement.  You would get equal credit for a good offense as a good defense.  This keeps in the theme that the meta-achievement should not cripple a battleground.

A few tweaks like this, and this holiday event will no longer be the painful pox on your small but dedicated PVP community.

Last night Duranub had our second outing in Ulduar.  It was one of those nights with tons of things going wrong out of the officers control.  Pulling together the raid was a bit less than easy, with more than a few of our solid core members having to be gone for various valid reasons.  Next we received command performances from a few of our most heinous serial AFKers with zero options to simply replace them and be done with it.  In addition to all of this, my connection was completely unstable causing  me, the main tank, to disconnect in the middle of a couple of solid razorscale attempts. 

All of these issues aside we managed to still come in, tighten up the razorscale strategy and pull out our first kill in spite of having two tanks DC in the middle of it.  It turned out to be a very frustrating night in general but all of that aside we performed very well on the content we managed to attempt.

 

Shoulders of Misfortune – Bracers of the Broodmother – Remorse

After downing razor we moved in to Ignis putting in several attempts.  Towards the end of the night we seemed to be getting the rhythm of the fight down.  Sadly we ran out of time, but I believe that Tuesday we can tighten things up and with any bit of luck pull out our third boss kill.  I am still impressed with the difficulty, it seems to be the perfect balance.  I realize we have only been a few bosses into Ulduar, but I am greatly saddened by the news today that they appear to be nerfing by as much as half the damage taken from various effects within the zone.

I understand tuning encounters when they fall into the category of being “cheap”.  Meaning there are overpowering attacks that cannot be predicted or mitigated in any reasonable fashion other than praying for good luck.  However so far every fight I have seen in Ulduar appears to simply be a matter of learning the pattern of the fight, knowing how to adjust to each change, and then executing well. 

Dumbing down content due to player whining always disturbs me a bit.  Maybe they are looking at the numbers and seeing larger majorities of raids wiping over and over to content, but to me Ulduar seems tuned JUST fine.  What I do see however is players who have been lulled into a sense of complacency by the “lol-easy-mode” content that was Naxxramas.  Several raid groups I am friends with, each have a faction of players who just want to return to farming Naxx because Ulduar is ‘”too hard”. 

The best things in life, are the things that are earned.