Sloppy

We were doing SSC Thursday night, but our Nature Tank (Brindall - Warrior) was running late. I've been there. Real life happens.
So we clear to Lurker. Raistilan is great at putting raids together but he's not as comfortable doling out assignments. I know how he feels. I'm not always comfortable giving out healing assignments. I sort of took over, assigning tanking targets and making pulls. I originally had myself on the first target, a Coilfang Shatterer. The Shatterers put up a spell reflect shield which reflects my judgements back at me (wouldn't you LOVE something that reflected judgements in real life?) I also couldn't Consecrate because of the sheeps going on, so my threat was really low. I lost threat to our melee dps and a couple of them died. I changed myself to the 3rd mob to be killed and put Vini (Warrior) on the first mob. I still wanted a Warrior on the Honor Guard (2nd target) because sometimes he fears and I like to have a stance dancing Warrior there. This mob still seems to change targets after he fears.
We get down to Lurker and Brindall finally makes it in. We get set up and pull. After the 2nd or 3rd submerge we lose Brindall. I taunt. It get's resisted (joy!). Tankadin puts a raid warning that my taunt was resisted. That was cool (the warning, not the resist). Lan taunts and we get things back under control. When he submerges we were a tank short. I was out of range to taunt one of the other mobs, and I was concerned about losing threat on my own Guardian if I start running around. I have to trust the rest of the raid. I maintain my target. My Guardian and Island is cleared but too much damage was done to the rest of the raid. We wiped. On Lurker.
We regroup and pull again. It was a bit sloppy but we got the big fishy down. He dropped the plate healing chest. I compared to the Mail one I had gotten from either him or Hydross, and it seemed very close except for the armor. I opted not to spend any MKP on it and let it be DE'ed. I've got to save my MKP for when we get some Tier 5 tokens or if we go to Black Temple and kill Najentus.
We went back to Hydross. First transition one of our new Priest's fears the adds. We have to stay in the Phase too long because adds are all over the place, and we wipe. On Hydross.
We regroup and pull again, and get a nice kill.
We certainly had the DPS, and the tanking and the healing, but we were having a very sloppy night. We decide to take a vote on whether to do Leo or Tidewalker. I was not in favor of taking a vote. In my opinion, the Raid Leader should call the target and we should go kill it. But that's how he wanted to run the raid, no big deal.
We start clearing towards Leo, and our night went from bad to worse. We wiped on trash a couple of times. CC's were slow going off, tanks were slow picking up targets, or we'd accidentally pull a 2nd group into the fight. I don't know if it was just that we were getting tired or not paying attention or what.
We finally get up to Leo and try him. We try him two or three times, but our best attempt was about 25%.
Our problems were many, but the main ones were:
Melee not running out - I watched as the Raid Leader called for melee to get out of range for whirlwind, one of our Warriors standing there smacking away at him.
DPS dying to Demons - We made sure to assign healers to the people fighting their demons. One of our hunters explained that he couldn't kill his demon because Whirlwind had killed his pet. We have one Affliction Lock, who is a nice person, but dies every time she get's tagged for an inner demon. My Prot Warrior co-Tank had problems with his demon as well. I can sort of understand the Prot Warrior, but I've got to think that Blizzard design the fight with the idea that a Prot Warrior might have to kill his Demon. The thing about Inner Demons is no one can help you. It's just you against your demon, can you kill it in time?
Losing Threat - I don't know if I mistimed my Shield toss, or what, but a couple of times I'd nail him with my Shield and he'd run off for a healer or a DPS and kill them. I'm not sure what the dynamic is there, but I need to figure it out.
Lock Tank Dying - A couple of times, we'd lose the Lock's pet and then the Lock himself not long there after. I can't really comment on this much. I supply his Fire Resist aura, and I was usually in range of him. I don't know why he is dying.
Lock Tank not getting threat - A couple of times, people would DPS before the Lock Tank had aggro. This generally lead to the their demise.
Enrage Timer - I consider this more of a consequence of one or all of the above. We just didn't get enough DPS on him in enough time to kill him.
The Raid Leader made a comment about not being able to tell everyone what to do ('gee does THAT sound familiar'). I whispered something to that effect to him, but he didn't see the correlation, so maybe I misunderstood him.
Leo is kicking our butt. Our Raid Leaders remain upbeat and feel we can get him.
I think some of what I'm going through is post wipe angst, but it is funny to me when the Raid Leaders comment that people aren't on their 'A' game or things were sloppy.
I asked one of the Raid Leaders is this was a 'Core' group to which he responded it was except for about 5 people. That's an 80% Core group wiping to farm bosses and being sloppy. That is not what we want.
The Leader creates the atmosphere of the Raid. If things are sloppy, or people aren't on their 'A' game, LEAD. Call them out, correct them, establish the tone and get it back in line.
I know some will think : "Lol, Raids are serious business." You know what, I take them seriously. That's why I've learned all I can about my class, my role, my gear and the encounters we are doing. My time is too valuable to not take them seriously.
I'm not saying you have to run your raids with military precision to be successful, or that you can't have fun. Raiding is most fun thing I can do in the game.
I have a responsibility to the other 24 people who have chosen to invest their free time with us in our raids, to make it as fun as enjoyable as possible. I hold up my end of the bargain. I'm prepared, and I do my job.
I feel like you need to set the expectation of excellence. This is Raid Time. It's time to be serious. It's time to be focused. It's time to be on your 'A' game.
It seems like we get 1 good raid a week, and it's usually on Tuesday. Then we fumble and bumble through the rest of the week's Raids. Our Raids are wildy inconsistent. One week we one shot everything, next week we wipe all over the place.
Sometimes I feel like a HardCore Raider trapped in a Casual's schedule.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Raist says:

It was a crap night all around...I too was late getting on..and was not on my game..it was a bad night all around
Anonymous said…
I dont know why people cant kill their inner demons. I saw a holy pally kill theirs with no problem. Why would a dps class have a harder time with theirs? Holy pally dps is hardly ftw. If people really cant kill theirs, they should be blowing all their cool downs or something. Staying alive and doing less damage to the boss is better than dying and doing no damage to the boss.
DW said…
Paladins actualy have an unfair advantage when it comes to killing their Demon.

It's a demon. We do Holy damage. Inner Demons are very vulnerable to Holy damage. A Holy Paladin typically has a lot of +damage (from +healing), and can nearly three-shot the thing with Exorcism, Holy Shock, and a Judgement of Righteousness.

Melee classes like Prot Warriors have it tough, as do Warlocks, since the Demon is not vulnerable to melee and is resistant to Fire and Shadow.

Not all classes are made equal when it comes to killing their Inner Demon.
Raydz said…
As a prot warrior i'm usually cutting it somewhat "close". The key peice to me killing my demon is getting the spell reflect off. If I miss it then i probably wont kill my demon.

It seems like shadow priests have the hardest time in our raids. Hunters have to constantly wing clip from what im told or they wont be able to kill thiers fast enough, and locks can only use fire spells. So even though they are "DPS" they are hampered in alot of ways. It seems like for almost all classes there is only 1 way to get your guy dead in time, and if you goof its over.

Popular posts from this blog

Cataclysm Profession Bonuses

Raid Comp Tool

Back To Basics: The 969 Paladin Threat Rotation