World Cup WoW

With the World Cup entered into its final days of the group stages, teams are starting to show their true colors. As Wrath enters its final stage, a parallel can be drawn to guilds showing their true colors. From HC to casual, Svenn has drawn up a handy list to help figure out where your guild stands.
France: Big name stars, big egos. Some of the best players on the realm are found among the ranks of this guild’s raid team which seems destined for success. Unfortunately, while there is no “I” in team, there is a “me” and an abundance of talent all too often translates in to a strong individual sense of entitlement. Raid teams like this seem destined for greatness yet often fall far short of the mark, devolving into e-peen contests. Mutiny against the RL and rage quit often follow and the raid hearths back to Paris, I mean Dal, in disgrace.


Ivory Coast: One man show. This guild’s raid team is built around 1 or 2 key individuals. They shoulder the weight for the under-performers and can make or break the raid. If the Didier Drogba of the guild doesn’t show or has an off day, this raid is headed on a one way trip to wipesville.

United States: Scrappy and surprising. Free of huge expectations, this guild enjoys a moderate level of raiding success. They won’t be on the cutting edge of the raid scene anytime soon, but they continue to make inroads above and beyond what was anticipated. Miraculous 91st minute kills are met with joyous eruptions on vent, and no can take away the excitement or sense of accomplishment they exude on a progression kill, even if they are a month behind the server leaders.

Brazil: The machine. This guild is expected to, and often does, deliver greatness. A perennial contender for server first kills, they are methodic in their raiding. Like a machine, they grind through content, using only the optimal raid compositions and specs; Min-Max is their motto. Their habitual success can breed contempt at times, but insulated deeply in their own raiding culture, it more often results in an elitism that inspires rather than insults.

Germany: Perplexing performances. This guild has all the tools necessary to stand among the best, and the history to ensure continued access to new talent. Even still, they down Lich King with ease yet somehow managing to miss the 11 meter penalty kick on Loot Ship resulting in a troubling wipe. Ups and downs are just part of the game for this proven raid team, and no matter the outcome, they will be among the top performers again next expansion.

Canada: Please and thank you. This guild doesn’t make it to the world stage at all. Its raid team, if you can call it that, is scrapped together from whoever is online at the time. They may not go too far, but you better believe they’ll have fun getting there. Players are polite and the atmosphere enjoyable, progression is best left to the Brazils of the world.

What category does your guild fall into? I'm sure I've left out a few categories, so feel free to make up your own. Who's your team for the cup?

Vuhdo Viewings and Guild Firsts

I have been meaning to post some screenies of vuhdo ever since I first posted about making the switch from Healbot over a month ago...

Well, a lot has happened since then but I now, finally, have gotten around to uploading some. Rather than just bore you with a bunch of random shots or walls of text about what I have been up to, I figured I would let the screenies tell the story and, as a picture is worth a thousand words, do both at once :)

I love how I can separate toons out by role in Vuhdo. We don't use 7 healers for Saurfang as it shows here, but once I assign healers to that role, it doesn't always switch them when they go DPS for a specific fight. You can change the max number of toons per group- I went with 8 as that is what currently fits in my available screen real estate and still allows me to see my character. (1st wing of ICC cleared 25man woot!)

Here you can see some of the HoT icons still up. Each HoT is assigned a different part of the bar to show up on, I have my HoTs set to show up as squares (numbers inside the square indicate time remaining on the HoT), and living seed procs to show as a circle. Debuffs and such have a little fly-in type animation for quick identification for removal, and my stacking HoT (Life Bloom) shows white (1 stack), yellow, or green (2 stacks and full stacked respectively). This set up really adds to my situational knowledge and helps me make faster decisions on which heal to throw next. (Rotface, and Festergut (not pictured) down 10man style)

And I shall leave you with this... (10 man) Blood Princes down! Gratz to all involved in this guild first kill. Forget the Blood Queen, I want to heal me a big green dragon next!

Maximization through Diversification

So, Svenn has been raiding Ret for all of a week now. The learning curve has been steep though fortunately gearing up has not been a problem as tanking leads to insta-cues and great tanking gear lends itself nicely to fast runs. Over the course of the past week he has discovered some flaws in his spec- as well as some better ways to go about doing business. As he alluded to last week seals, glyphs, and librams make a big difference, so lets get started.

Seals:
There are really only 2 options Seal of Vengance and Seal of Command. Seal of Command is hands down the best bet for AoEing down trash. Its effect procs on multiple mobs after every melee strike as well as all single target abilities such as Crusader Strike and Exorcism. The fact that its proc has a chance to crit truly sets it apart from Seal of Vengance in this situation.

Seal of Vengance on the other hand, yields superior DPS in single target scenarios. The stacking dot hits hard at higher gear levels, and the extra % weapon damage once it reaches the full 5 stacks is nice as well. The glyph associated with this seal (as discussed below) seals the deal for single target Vengance (terrible pun intended:).

With those principles in mind, seal switching based on situation becomes pretty obvious. This applies to tanking as well. With Seal of Command conveniently located in the 3rd tier of the Ret tree (the tree where most of the extra points for a prot pally will be spent anyways), not picking it up is a huge oversight which result in both time and TpS loss.

Glyphs
Glyph switching was a foreign concept to Svenn until he started healing more on his tree- swapping glyphs depending on his role as either raid heals or tank heals. The benefits of re-glyphing are clear for trees, but the concept applies to Pallys as well. Milage out of the glyphs will vary based on situation- hence the concept of glyph switching.

Glyph of Exorcism is the only “Must Have” major glyph for Ret.
Glyph of Seal of Command is nice if you are chain pulling trash or short on replenishment, but overall is not worth giving up a slot for.
Glyph of Crusader Strike, much like the Seal of Command Glyph, is good if you find yourself short on mana, but not a strong overall option.
Glyph of Holy Wrath is indispensable in a place like ICC, but not a huge value in single target fights or places where no undead are present.
Glyph of Judgement is a nice boost in single target fights, but has limited application elsewhere.
Glyph of Vengeance is indispensable for single target fights. While expertise is not a stat worth gemming for, you won’t get better mileage than 10 free expertise out of any of the other options.


As with seals, glyph switching becomes pretty obvious if you are trying to maximize output over the course of a raid. Unlike seals, re-glyphing costs more than just mana- this cost is no more than that of normal raid consumables, and when looked at in that light, is not a big deal. (You can save some cash by buying in bulk, or having an inscriptionist mill your own herbs and make the glyphs for you- letting them keep any rare pigments will more than suffice as a tip for their time and effort.)


Librams:
Untill you are able to get the Frost Badge Libram (either Libram of the Eternal Tower or Libram of Three Truths), libram switching is yet another way to maximize output based on situation.


For Prot Pallies the decision to use Libram of Defiance or Libram of the Sacred Shield is going to be based on whether you want to see larger DPS returns from abilities like Shield of the Righteous and Holy Shield or, if avoidance is more important such as in the Saurfang fight, where dodges can delay the stacking of marks.


For Ret Pallies the choice is far more clear cut. Using Libram of Valiance does not make much sense if you don't have Seal of Vengeance up, in those cases (AoE with SoC up), Libram of Discord outperforms Libram of Valiance despite its lower ilvl and vice versa on single target fights.


Summary:
If you are concerned with squeezing the most performance possible out of your Pally, itemization based on content and role can be achieved cheaply through Seal, Glyph, and Libram swapping without expensive respecs and gem changes.

Not Much of an Intro

A few nights ago Svenn was asked to tank an ICC 10 run for some friends/ mutual acquaintances. Seems, people were determined to make a liar out of him (see: Monday’s Post). Anyways, it turned out that the position of tank had been overbooked by 1. The other pally tank didn’t feel comfortable with his DPS set, so Svenn was nominated to go Ret. It had been a long time since Svenn did any real Ret DPS, but he tries to keep his offset in good order with proper enchants, gems, etc. and so felt fairly comfortable with the role.

Over the next ten minutes amazing things happened. Svenn looked like a hero, 12k DPS out the gate which normalized around 7k by the time we hit Marrowgar…. which is where it all fell apart (for him, not the raid- which one shotted the boss). While overall DPS numbers still looked pretty strong (5kish), the recount for the boss fight itself showed Svenn ahead of only the 2 tanks in DPS with around a 3.4k output. It was at this point that I realized, Svenn needed to do some work on his single target damage output. In spite of his crummy single target numbers, Lady Deathwhisper also went down, as well as The Gunship Battle (I finally got to see what everyone else has been raving about- it IS fun!). We had wasted some time trying to figure out the weekly (A Rotting Giant), which only one person had done before and no one could understand on Vent when they tried to explain it, but ended on a high note with the Gunship.

All the above is by way of introduction for next week’s post on Maximization through Diversification, where Svenn will look at glyph, seal, and libram switching to maximize single target vs. AoE damage output. Sorry for subjecting you to the ramblings, but Svenn is was pretty excited to finally see past Marrowgar, and to get his own jetpack :)

(Not to be outdone by Svenn, last night the tree saw action in ICC for the first time. I am finding out raid healing is a lot of fun, and it is far easier to see the whole picture and direct the action then it is when you are tanking. They downed Marrowgar and had two very strong attempts at Lady DW before calling it a night.)

Tic-Toc, ToC!

Time certainly has been slipping by since FIST last did any raiding. Last night a few intrepid adventurers (and Svenn of course) geared up and headed in to ToC to try and pick up where they left off several months ago. While the night started out a little rough, things picked up as everyone started to get into the swing of things and another FIST First was ultimately achieved, Lord Jaraxxus was vanquished!

Gratz to all involved in this long overdue kill, and welcome back to raiding! :)

Weapons Workout

Over the course of the last week, Svenn has been working out some theories on fast and slow weapons for tanking. While this is a much developed topic for dual-wield classes, little heed has been paid to it for one-hand weapon wielding tanks. The following results were formulated using Ghoulslicer (slow 2.6 speed, ilvl 219 “DPS weapon”) and Falric’s Wrist-Chopper (fast 1.6 speed, ilvl 232 “tanking weapon”) in 2 separate settings: IF Target dummies and ICC full trash rep runs (no bosses).

IF Target Dummy (Boss) self buff only, rotation 1*, duration 5mins:
Ghoulslicer- 800 DPS
Falric’s Wrist-Chopper- 1.2k DPS

IF Target Dummies (Heroic x2) self buff only, rotation 2*, duration 3mins:
Ghoulslicer- 2.1k DPS
Falric’s Wrist-Chopper- 1.6k DPS

ICC Rep Run (Trash only) raid buffed*, rotation 2, duration variable:
Ghoulslicer- 6.2k DPS
Falric’s Wrist-Chopper- 4.1k DPS

Aside from the duration of the test run on the AoE target dummies being shorter than desired (due to mana considerations while spamming high cost AoE abilities with no replenishment from BoS/Spiritual Attunement/class abilities), the weapon is isolated as the “only” variable…understanding Svenn may not have activated every ability perfectly after each global cooldown.

As we can see, slow outperforms fast by a huge margin when dealing with groups of 2 or more. This is based on the damage range of the weapons, NOT the DPS of each weapon. Slower weapons get swung less often and so hit harder to average out the DPS of faster weapons which get swung more often, but hit for less damage. Since abilities like Seal of Command and Hammer of the Righteous do damage based on maximum weapon damage in the “damage range” rather than the DPS of the weapon, slower weapons make for better returns when tanking groups of mobs.

Additional conditions to consider:
Hit Rating. Being at hit cap is essential to slow weapon wielding. A tank cannot afford to wait 3 seconds after a miss for another weapon swing, thus the popularity of fast weapons for tanking. While hit is not a stat worth going out of your way for as a Pally tank, the higher ilvl tanking gear usually has enough +Hit on it to get you where you need to be.

Defense Rating. It should go without saying that maintaining the 450 defense cap is a must. Slower weapons normally assigned to the DPS arena don’t come with +Defense stats, again contributing to the fast weapon popularity among tanks. As with the +Hit, heaps of defense on higher ilvl tanking gear make obtaining the cap without any defense on your weapon easily attainable at higher gear levels.

For optimal performance, one of each type (fast and slow) weapon should be carried, with the slow weapon equipped for AoE pulls, and the fast weapon equipped for single target fights. While customization of this level usually will result in a defense cap overage when the traditional fast “tanking weapon” is equipped (if it has +defense on it), the resultant DPS gains will more than make up for it, appeasing even the most ardent of the MIN/MAX crowd.

Above: Screenshot with slow main hand weapon. Below: Screenshot with fast main hand weapon.

Rotations: Seal of Command, Retribution Aura, and Sanctuary are up for all test incidences.
Rotation 1: Judgment of Wisdom, Hammer of the Righteous
Rotation 2: Consecration, Judgment of Wisdom, Hammer of the Righteous, Holy Wrath, Avenger’s Shield, Shield of Righteousness

Raid Buffs: Blessing of Sanctuary, Blessing of Might, Ret/Devo Aura, 8% Kings from LW Drums, Mark of the Wild, +STA Inscription Raid Wide Fortitude Scroll, Trueshot Aura, and some Shammy Totems (no idea what they all were, but they were the same through both iterations of trash clearing. Any shammies out there that can ID them from the above screenshots?).

ICC Iced

Svenn had his first look into Icecrown Citadel this weekend. After completing a quick trash clear as DPS on Saturday, he was asked to Off-Tank another rep run on Sunday. While no bosses were downed, he had some surprising insights into Pally tanking in ICC.

The 20% dodge reduction aura makes Pally tanks an attractive option for ICC. While mitigation remains less desirable that huge amounts of total health, the hit to dodge makes Pallys’ high block chance shine all the more.

The presence of all those undead also makes Pally tanks an attractive option. No one does undead like Pallys, and ICC is chock full of them. With a fairly diverse raid composition, Svenn was able to pull over 4.5k DPS as a tank. Being able to throw decent DPS as a tank is important as many of the mobs (at least the ones that come from the traps) are taunt immune.

Svenn used a modified tanking build that takes Seal of Command and most of the improved crit talents out of the Ret Tree. Additionally, Svenn glyphed for improved Holy Wrath (lowering the cooldown by 15secs), as well as Hammer of the Righteous (hit one additional target). Aside from the increase in DPS provided by the Holy Wrath Glyph, the ability to AoE stun all undead every 15secs is huge-making Holy Wrath a must have Glyph for ICC (a must for Ret as well and even Holy Pallys should consider getting it for ICC).

All in all it was a good time, and Svenn was able to get about halfway to friendly with the Ashen Verdict.

SIDE NOTE: Svenn was able to solo the first pull in ICC. How it works: Range pull the 1st bone skeleton guy [note to self:look up name of bone dude] using a taunt or dynamite, judge wisdom (you will be burning through mana) when he comes in range (let the friendly NPCs pick up the other mob). Throw your shield to slow his movement while you begin kiting him around the front “lobby” area. Keep judging wisdom and throwing exorcisms while kiting. Rotate between Avenger’s Shield, Holy Wrath and Hammer of Justice to keep the mob at range while the friendly NPCs at the entrance help DPS it down. You can use fear too, but you need to be careful with that and be ready to stun/break fear, if it looks as if the mob may pull others. As long as you maintain aggro, and do a modicum of DPS on the mob you will get the rep when it finally dies.While not a very time effective way to earn rep, it is doable if you have the inclination to try.

EDIT: It seems Blizzard may have hot fixed some of the ICC mobs. Svenn went in last night with Smanthakitty to clear the first trash pull, and the friendly NPCs at the front did not pick up the second skeleton. While he still managed to down the first one and net the 19 rep, he also could not DI any of the NPCs and ended up eating the repair bill when the 2nd skeleton guy killed him :(

FIST Firsts: Onyxia

Alternately Titled: Thats No Way To Get A-head!

Onyxia proved to be far less of a challenge than finally getting a raid group together to kill her. With several key members of the team taking a break, it took some planning/ arm twisting to fill out the group. Once established, and some DC issues resolved, FIST made short work of the Broodmother and Whelps.

Svenn was fortunate enough to win Ony’s head, a gristly memento to be sure, but one which he was able to parley into the Purified Onyxia Blood Talisman. Gratz to all involved in yet another FIST first, and special thanks to Femtobot/Starwing for pulling the whole thing together.

Magnatuars and Jormungars and Yetis Oh My!

Over the weekend FIST downed the first encounter in 10man ToC, and with it, took another big step forward.....at the best and worst possible time. Why is that you ask?

Worst:

FIST is a Holiday crazy guild and, well, Hallow's End is upon us. The lure of the Headless Horseman, eating candy until you puke, and yet another globe spanning holiday event will surely be enough to derail raiding for a few weeks. Inevitably, once FIST gets back around to hitting up ToC as a guild, knowledge will have been lost and fights will have to be relearned.

Best:

The holiday keeps the pressure off. Svenn will have plenty of time to gather mats for flasks, etc. before the next raid start time. It also will provide some extra time for his now, not so secret, side project- Helmuth the Hunter (Lvl 72.... and yes the plan is to tank with him too:) ). Also, Grad School started back up for Svenn this week, which will inevitable take its toll on what precious little free time he has left.

Anyways, Svenn blanked on the screenie- sorry (I'll make sure to get one next time). Gratz to all involved in yet another FIST First!

Bling vs Zing

Bling: There has been a lot of talk lately about gear levels, what drops where, and wish lists a mile long. Understandably, we all want better gear, and it goes to follow that better gear will improve our respective characters. However, once the applicable caps have been met (ie. Defense, Hit, etc.) the improvements from gear are incremental at best, and met with diminishing returns at worst (ie. Over-stacking of stats above the caps).

Zing: Players have done incredible and innovative things in the face of gear challenges. Ensidia (Top European Raid Guild) was clearing Naxx 25 as soon as their first 20 players hit 80… in their lvl70 epics. A US guild cleared Ulduar 10 in all blues. A hunter pet (Bubbles the Gorilla) tanked Hodir 25. How do we reconcile apparent gearing requirements with the above mentioned feats?

True, the players involved in these exploits are not the average. They represent a slice of the top tier of players, have worked together for long periods of time, and are intimately familiar with the mechanics of raiding, and most of the particular fights they chose to tackle. Besides their access to something most of us don’t have; Time (and all the benefits that come with it, ie. Gold, rep, mats, etc.), very little separates them from the average raider. How then, are they so “good”?

Communication, and Knowledge. Svenn has beat communication to death in previous posts, so will instead focus on knowledge. There are different levels of “knowing” your game. On one level is the theory-crafting of stats, rotations, etc. There is much to be gained through critical analysis of those components of a given class’s role. Most of the work has been done for the casual raider through sites like Elitist Jerks. There are, however, pitfalls to these “cookie cutter” specs/rotations. While they are advocated by the “experts” (with the math to back it up) as the way to maximize a toon’s performance through DPS/Heal throughput, they can lead to tunnel vision.

Another level of knowledge is easier to gain, yet more difficult to apply. That is, knowing all of your class’s abilities and where they can fit into a raid. In this day of power-leveling and BG experience, of Xp bonuses through Heirloom Items and level granting, of an overall improvement in the leveling experience; players arrive at 80 with new toons and no idea of what they can really do. They slap together the approved spec/glyph combo and go on their merry way, and do fine- that is to say what is expected of them… as long as nothing unexpected happens.

The easy part of this “equation” is to open the spell book tab and reread the tool tip for every single ability. There will be many abilities that are not a part of any “min/max” rotation. There are multiple reasons why they will not find their way into any standardized rotation; they are utility abilities that don’t necessarily lend themselves to the maximization of your particular class role, and as such get discarded as a waste. This leads to the not so easy part of the “equation”, how those abilities can lend themselves to success for the raid.

To understand this interplay you must overlay these abilities with a particular encounter and determine if and where any of them can apply. This is not easy to accomplish on the fly. If the mechanics of the fight are know a lot of this work can be accomplished ahead of time. However to maximize the use of these abilities “on the fly”, or in reaction to an unforeseen situation (bad pull, positioning, etc.) there must be an in-depth knowledge of these “utility moves”. Even veteran players can benefit from going back through the old spell book every once in awhile to review some of their little used abilities, see what changes have occurred over the patches, and see if they can’t find some utility for them in the content they are currently running.

In the immortal words of G.I. Joe, “Now you know. And knowing is half the battle!”

Motivation

Defining "Mains"

For those of us altoholics with multiple lvl 80s, defining a main is a hard thing to do. Browsing through the Guild feature of WoWheros reveals the simple fact that gear score simply isn’t the answer to the question. 'X' has 3 of the top 10 toons in the guild, from a gear standpoint, all separated by a few points. All of these toons can perform multiple roles, further complicating the question (DK: Tank/DPS, Druid: Tank/Ranged DPS, Shaman: Heals/Ranged DPS).

Svenn has 4 lvl 80’s and another 2 on the way up. From a gear score/lvl of play standpoint Cromm (Destro lock) is his best toon, however, multiple attempts to raid on Cromm have met with failure. For whatever reason, Svenn brings a greater synergy to the raid than Cromm and thus has been identified as his de-facto “main” (must be those tasty Pally Buffs).

While this is, at times, frustrating, he still rather enjoys tanking on Svenn and understands that it is for the good of the raid -and this blog:). The trouble lies in Raiders who are not happy in their "main's" current role, whom have alternate 80s at their disposal. There is a feeling that these toons should be entitled to raid access as well, and THEY SHOULD - to an extent….

IF:

• An alternate player with the requisite gear/skill set is available to fill the position. (ie. 'Y' fills in on heals so 'Z' can DPS on 'A').
• The Alt meets “minimum” dungeon requirements, understanding that some minimums are more flexible than others (ie. Tank Defense Cap vs. DPS output- though DPS should be able to “keep up”).
• The swap of Main to Alt still provides the desired raid utility (this is also a squishy concept which plays into group synergy, buffs/de-buffs, class presence, etc.)

The summation of the above provisions can be looked at as: Does the switch Help, Hinder, or Harm the raid? Helping the raid is always a good thing. Hindering the raid is ok (not desirable, but understandable), minor setbacks can be worked through if the current role has led to burnout or just plain misery- the point is to have fun and see new content together. Hurting the raid should be avoided at all costs, while it may make the experience better for the individual switching, it will make the others in the raid work that much harder and decrease the collective enjoyment.

Raiding is a corporate activity and as such it is incumbent upon raiders to help each other out. If a toon switch is what is necessary to continue enjoying raiding than, it should be accommodated (within reason). That may mean ponying up some of your time to run some heroics for gear/badges to get the “alt” up to snuff- something multiple raiders can pitch in on. It also means some work on the part of the raider switching; pass on their knowledge of their current raid role to their “heir-apparent”, and to do the work of figuring out their new class’s role in the raid and how to maximize their performance in that role. This will minimize disruption to the raid as well as alleviate any hurt feelings on the part of the raid as everyone will have done their part to ensure continued success.

* This does not address the investment the guild has made into the raider's previous "main" through drops, etc. But, as the old main will still be present in the guild, the issue is not as important; the guild will still have access to that toon should the need for it be unavoidable.

Sorry for the wall of text. Thoughts? leave a comment

Do you want it?

Last Friday night, while FIST was dropping raid bosses in Ulduar, Michael Jordan was dropping names while getting inducted into the Basket Ball Hall of Fame. A true competitor in every sense of the word, Jordan gave an impassioned speech about what motivated him and drove him to become the best player he could be. Among the things he said one particular story stood out;

Jordan remembered scoring around 20 points in a row late in a game to pull out a win, which was followed by a conversation with Bulls assistant Tex Winter. "Tex reminded me that there's no 'I' in team," Jordan said. "And I looked back at Tex, I said, 'There's an 'I' in win.' So whichever way you want it."

Raiding, like basketball, is a team sport comprised of individuals. There is no 'I' in team, got it- what are you doing to put the 'I' in win?

Monday Montage: Moving Forward

After Wednesday night's raid, Svenn was a little disheartened. He figured going into Friday night's raid, they would have about as much chance as the little guy in the above photo. While FIST failed to put down "Iggy", they did down XT for their guild 1st kill (sorry no screen shot).

Saturday night saw a return to action, and 2 more guild first kills. With the Deconstructor down, we moved on to Kologarn; while this fight was disarming (get it?), it proved no real challenge and opened the way to more options...

Once Kologarn realized he had met his match in FIST, he really lost his head! BTW Svenn, there is some open space on that screen somewhere, better find some more addons to load up.
We finished up the night by downing the Crazy Cat Lady. Sure our progression kills are still coming in Ulduar when others have finished clearing Trial of the Crusader, but as we are casual guild who took the entire summer off to enjoy other pursuits, Svenn is pretty pleased none-the-less.

Gratz to all involved in yet another series of guild firsts!

Getting back to Fundamentals

Back when Svenn was younger he used to play a variety of sports. Invariably, as each season ended and he transitioned to the next sport, the coach would always have the same things to say, "We need to get back to the fundamentals. We need to regain our base and work from there." FIST's raid a few nights ago did not go well. Coming back off the Summer downtime and breaking out of our 5man Heroics mode was rough and we were all very rusty. It was very clear, we need to get back to the fundamentals.

What does that mean though? What do raid fundamentals look like? Svenn will attempt to outline them below in somewhat general terms (Paladin Centric in terms of abilities, but applies to all tanks conceptually).

1. Situational Awareness- Above aggro generation, mitigation stats, total health, or anything else, Situational Awareness is key! There is a lot going on during a fight but it is incumbent on the tank to be cognisant of all of it:

• Big Damage Spike coming up- pop a cooldown (Divine Protection, trinket, etc.)
• Healer low on mana- get a pot/healthstone/ Lay on Hands ready
• Someone is about to go down- Hand of Protection
• Raid is taking damage- Divine Sacrifice
• Someone is about to grab aggro- Hand of Salvation
• Someone grabbed aggro- taunt
• Someone else grabbed aggro- taunt again
• First someone grabbed aggro again- Hammer of Justice (stun) mob
• First someone grabbed aggro AGAIN!?!- emote /cry over his body after the battle is done

2. Communication- Coordinate with the other tank/tanks to rotate through cooldowns and taunts. Coordinate with DPS to leverage their aggro dumps, misdirects, etc. Coordinate with the healers so you don't die!

3. Position- Be in the right place at the right time. Face mobs away from the raid, don't stand in the fire, don't get out of range of your heals, blah, blah, blah. Pretty basic, but you would be surprised how, in the heat of the moment, a fundamental like positioning gets overlooked.

The fundamentals are pretty much the same across the board, as far as healers and DPS go; Situational Awareness, Communication, and Positioning. And for Pete's sake "Stay out of the Fire!"

Svenn is Lazy

Last night was not the epic return to raiding that Svenn had envisioned. Sadly, multiple wipes on Razorscale!?! necessitated a quick heroic run to end the night on at least somewhat of a better note. And so, because Svenn is to lazy to write anything of significance, he will instead sum up the night in a Sargeras style Haiku.

True, Svenn wiped the raid.

He sent Cromm to DPS,

and everyone died.

Conversing with Dragons

Svenn: Hey Razor, mind if I call you razor?

Razorscale: Rawr!!!!!!!

Svenn: No? Ok, fine. Anyways, I'm Svenn, you know the pally tank you like to NOM on.

Razor: !?!???

Svenn: The one from FIST, a small casual guild that occassionaly runs 10man content in a fun and relaxed environment and may or may not be recruiting (sorry full up on Fire Breathing Dragons at the moment).

Razor: >:0

Svenn: Yeah, THAT Svenn.
Well, as we are so chill and all, how 'bout we let bygones be bygones and you give us some of your shinnies.

Razor: lol

Svenn: /sigh
Svenn: Happy now?

Gratz to all involved in last nights Razorscale death!

Renting Epics

Cromm has a commitment issue. He is continually switching specs, changing professions, and swapping out demonic minions more often that Oprah changes dress sizes. So, it should come as no surprise that spending his hard earned badges on a particular item of gear was a significant emotional event. Not to worry, with the last patch, Blizzard changed all that. After buying an item from the badge vendor you have up to 2 hours to sell it back for a full refund of your badges.

While I'm sure the purpose of this change was not so Cromm could buy epics for Heroic Runs and then sell them back after he was done, that is exactly what he has been doing. It has been a great way to get full usage out of his badges by buying the Encircling Burnished Gold Chains while saving up for the Sundial of the Exiled trinket.

Last night after a great run in Naxx, which saw Cromm at 2.5k DPS with his hodgepodge of craftable epics and crummy blues (down to some 151 item lvl quest rewards), I finally had enough badges to get the trinket, and thus end my renting of epics..... at least until Cromm builds his badges back up on his way to the tier chest piece.

Note: Svenn can't be the first person to think of this (he got the idea from guildie Bluechicken who was doing it to test DPS output from various items) however, as he has not seen this elsewhere on the interweb, he figured he'd share it here.

Raid Requirements

Note: Svenn started writing this post a few days ago, and spread it out over several days, so it may be slighty disjointed. Also, it is somewhat controversial so if you have suggestions as to how to approach this problem, please comment.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Svenn has been in on some conversations with some of the other "Raid Leadership" as to how to proceed in Ulduar. As it stands right now, FIST is stuck on Razorscale. With several full clears of Naxx under our belts, you would think that Razorscale would be a cinch, but Ulduar is not Naxx, and the Razorscale fight has some specific requirements that need to be met.

While epic gear, whether craftable or obtained through Heroics/badges, is nice to have in Naxx and will invariably make things easier, it is not necessarily a requirement for downing most bosses. However, the same is not true of Ulduar. While having all epics or best in slot items is also not a requirement in Uld, getting the combination of stats necessary to bring you to the required thresholds for certain encounters (be it: effective health and avoidance/defense, DPS above 2k, etc.) makes it all but impossible to raid there without at least a majority of your gear being epic.

Beyond the gear issue is the issue of raid composition. In Naxx it is entirely possible to carry an extra tank or healer; even if they act as "DPS" and the DPS produced is far below the magic 2k or even lower. Again Ulduar is unforgiving in its DPS requirements and any "lost DPS" from an extra tank or healer drives the DPS requirements for everyone else even higher.

FIST has always operated under a first come first served basis for raids. While this has made some Naxx runs more difficult than others (depending on who shows) it has always worked. (The same main players are usually present in one roll or another). The concept is fine for Naxx, but having already detailed the stricter requirements for Ulduar, it has blocked progression at Razorscale in Uld.

The idea proposed last night is that select individuals are sent invites for Ulduar progression nights. This idea moves FIST into some perilous waters as far as what the guild stands for. FIST is not a raiding guild (this should be obvious by now). Right now, FIST's raid group is accessible to all lvl 80s, regardless of gear/spec/stats; if you want to go and sign up - we will find away to fit you in (more seasoned raiders have sat out before to get new raiders into runs). With Ulduar progression runs that would no longer be the case.

My 2 cents: I think that this is a necessary move, with a few caveats. There is no more progression under the old system, at least until all potential 80s have been geared through Naxx, which will take months. Even then raid composition will be at the whims of whoever signs up first, not ideal. Lastly, some players who are geared still don't seem to be able to keep up (mostly in the DPS arena) and may need to sit some Ulduar runs while they work out their rotations/ specs.

Caveats: These "semi-exclusive" progression runs should take place no more than once a week. What we should seek to avoid is forming some sort of secret handshake club within the guild filled with, as Saiff so eloquently put it, "a bunch of elitist d-bags". The other caveat is that progression raid members make a commitment to the other raiders to continue to work just as hard to get them geared, improve their DPS/TPS/Healing, whatever, and in general not just forget that it is a guild and we are all on the same team.

I think solution is fair to everyone. It allows the progression minded raiders an outlet for progression, other than leaving to go to a more serious raiding guild or painful pugs. It allows casual raiders and raiders that have very little online time, access to raids at their respective character gear lvl/ schedule, without having to pug or find another guild.

Of Uld., OS, and VH

or the night of three dragons ...a leviathan is like a dragon right?

Last night was supposed to be a quick run into Ulduar to kill Flame Leviathan with a few attempts on Razorscale if we were feeling spunky. In and out fast, that was the aim; our aim was off.

After a lengthy delay sorting out comms (game chat and two vent servers later we were finally talking), everyone was ready to load their assigned vehicles. Svenn was a siege engine driver, something he had never done before. He was a total /fail through the trash clear and the first attempt on FL, you read that right, the mighty FIST need a few shots to down FL- it was that kind of night. He had fun anyways and the decision was made to push on to Razorscale.

At this point Svenn tagged out (Corday and Horaldo were in the run, and there was no chance of downing Razorscale with 3 tanks) and Saiff brought his lock in for some extra DPS. Vent was definitely the way to go, and allowed Svenn to "stay" with the raid through their attempts at the evil dragon. When it became apparent that a kill just wasn't going to happen, everyone opted out and headed to OS.

Svenn switched over to Cromm, for his first taste of raiding since the Burning Crusade. There were a lot of alts/ off spec mains in the run, with only Shadow, Grayce, Rew, and Ginn on their mains in primary raid roles. A wipe on the first set of trash mobs prompted some griping, but after that incident the rest of the run went smoothly. In fact it was a fast run and a one shot on Sarth. I think the presence of all those alts actually helped, at least from a motivation standpoint. After having run that place so many times on Svenn, knowing that there is no possibility of any sort of upgrade to be gained, I had kind of grown tired of it. I'm sure I was not the only one who felt that way. Cromm had a blast in there and saw 2k DPS even without being hit capped due to all the raid buffage.

Instead of calling it a night and heading off to sleepy land, Cromm, ever the glutton for punishment, decided to see if he could rally a group for Heroic Violet Hold. Amazingly, half the OS run volunteered to stay and help out. With the run put together the night was extended even further, and everyone headed to VH. While not the smoothest of run (Cromm did everything he normally hates when on Svenn; targeting the wrong mob in the kill order, pulling agrro with AoE then running away from the tank, being silly- hey it was late!), we muddled through. After one wipe on Ichoron with him at 10%, we buckled down and blew through the place. Neither the trinket nor the wrists Cromm was hoping for dropped, but it was still fun and he got 3 more badges.

All in all it was a good night, and a break from the serious raiding routine. We will see how tonight's Naxx run goes with Svenn in the Main Tank position so Corday can bring her rouge alt for once.