Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Ulduar is here!

Numerous fixes, additions, new content & new gear.  Now if I can only log on...

http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_3.1.0

Loot Rules

As much as I would hate to impose rules, since we're all in here for the fun and love of the game, somethings that were not said need to be said.  We all want to have the best gear and itemization, but we also need to keep others in mind who may way want the same thing.  So, these are the rules that I and the officers have come to an agreement to.  We tried to design these rules while keeping in mind player specs, their roles, and overall the benefit for raid progression.

These are not set in stone and there can be exceptions to these rules (decided by the loot master).  These are primarily guidelines for common courtesy for your fellow raiders who may also want loot.

These rules are hierarchiacal, ie. Rule #1 will always supersede Rule #2, etc.

1. Main Spec (MS) > Off-Spec (OS)

2. Epic Weapons:  main hand, off hand, and thrown is 1 per raid instance

3. Epic BOP:  Only 3 items per raid instance (mainly Naxxramas)
a. Rolls that count:  MS uncontested roll-win, OS contested roll-win 
b. Rolls that don't count:  OS uncontested roll-win

4. Tier Token:  1 per raid instance
a. Tokens will count towards your 3 item count.
b. Rolls that count:  MS uncontesteed roll-win count, OS contested roll-win
c. Rolls that don't count:  OS uncontested roll-win

5. Epic BOE drops are MS > OS, and should be equipped immediately
a. Will not count toward your 3 epics.

6. All rolls are FINAL. If winner declines, goes to 2nd highest. No bartering.

7. 1 Boss instances
a. 1 item limit (spoils & bag don't count)
b. 1 tier item, unless you're the only class that it applies to

Raid Etiquette

This is just something that I and some of the officers have come to an agreement to in order to streamline our "raiding experience" more.  The overall message I want to portray here is just to be considerate of others who are often going above and beyond to make the raid happen.


1. Show up on time (Recommended: 10 min prior to raid start)
2. Come Ready (Gear Repaired, Foods Cooked, Potions & Scrolls bought)
3. Log on to Ventrillo prior to raid start, regardless of if you have a mic or not
4. Please don't spam in Vent or Raid chat, try to keep it clear esp. during fights
5. Be ready to commit to stay for the duration of the raid
6. Ask the raid leader if you urgently need to go AFK
7. No False or fake rolls on drops

Any Q's about these, feel free to follow up on this post, else I will assume that you're in agreement with these.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Main Spec vs. Off Spec

I'm curious to know what people are thinking about the Dual Spec ability within 3.1. I have a few different ideas for my chars and could be swayed one way vs another depending upon what the rest of the guild is doing.

If possible I think it would be cool to compile a list of what people are going to do as 3.1 hits vs what they might do later.

Bansai = DK = Frost / Unholy (both builds will be tank or dps depending upon gear)
Caharin = Druid = Feral ? / Boomkin ? [this is the char that i'm unsure what to do with]

Monday, January 26, 2009

Spider Wing

The following is the best guide that I have seen for all three of the bosses in Spider Wing. http://feardotwin.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/l2p-arachnid-quarter-naxx-10/

I'm checking with the author so once he gives me permission I will copy/paste the guide to Arachnid Quarter on here directly. (EDIT - See below)

Anub'Rekhan

Abilities:

* Impale - Targets raid member, sending ground spikes toward them in a straight line. Affected players are punted in the air. Deals upwards of 6k damage + 50% fall damage. Notice DPS spread apart on the diagram.
* Locust Swarm - Every 1 to 2 minutes he will surround himself with bugs dealing damage over time and silencing anyone effected. Lasts 16 seconds and spawns Crypt Guard. Silence effect is odd as it prevents any action at all (auto attack, shield wall, etc.).
* Summon Corpse Scarabs - Summons 10 non-elite Scarabs from the corpse of dead Crypt Guards or 5 from the corpse of dead players. No set timer. Should be AoE’d down.

There are a few different ways to do this fight but our method uses a DK as a MT. Any tank should be able to do it this way though. We have our MT position himself in the entrance and have Anub’Rekhan MD’ed to him by the Hunter. As Anub makes his way to the MT, the dps/healers move in to position in a semi-circle toward the center of the room while the OT stands near Anub’s initial location to pick up the Crypt Lord spawns.

The group needs to stay spread out to avoid Impale hitting too many people. He shoots the ground spikes in a straight line to a random player and it will knock anyone hit up in the air. Spreading out usually means only one person will be hit.

During Locust Swarm our MT just stays in and eats it while getting spam-healed. Locust Swarm spawns a Crypt Lord that is picked up by the OT and DPS’ed down hard before Locust Swarm is over and the DPS switches back to Anub.

This repeats for the duration of the encounter. The only change is the spawning of Crypt Scarabs from the corpses of the Crypt Lords or dead players. These are non elites with very little health so have someone with AoE positioned in the center of the room to pick these up.



Grand Widow Faerlina

Abilities:

* Poison Bolt Volley - Hits 3 closest players every 15 seconds for 3k nature damage plus about 3800 damage over 4 seconds.
* Rain of Fire - Every 10-15 seconds she will target a random raid member and cast this fire based AoE for 8 seconds.
* Frenzy - 60 second cooldown. Increases +150% melee damage & +50% haste. Can only be dispelled by killing a Worshipper near her.

The trash in the Grand Widow’s room is all AoE packs. Shadow Resist Aura from a Pally or Shadow Protection from a Priest helps with the mass Shadow Bolt Volleys but just have your tank(s) group them up to be AoE’d down ASAP.

Have the MT get in position as shown on my awesome MS Paint diagram and have your Hunter (you DO have a Hunter, right?) MD Faerlina to him. Have your OT run up to her platform and grab the attention of the Worshippers. The OT’s job is to take a beating while keeping aggro off the healers - not to kill the Woshippers.

The OT will be getting hit by Fireballs constantly so anything that helps mitigate the damage (i.e. Warlocks Fire Shield from their Imp or Fire Resist Aura/Totem) will put less stress on the healers. The damage really isn’t that bad.

While DPS’ing Faerlina, everyone needs to watch out for Rain of Fire which hits pretty hard and is casted fairly often. She targets a random player and it surrounds them so staying spread out is advised. The only other thing to watch out for is Poison Bolt Volley which hits 3 nearby players and adds a DoT.

When she Frenzies, the only way to dispel it is to kill a Worshipper close to her. We use a DK tank and mark the 4 Worshippers in a kill order before we start. When Frenzy starts we have him Death Grip them over to her in order, kill them to dispel it and then go back to DPSing her. Rinse and repeat.

Non-DK tank advice From Luiniel - “..what we’ve found most effective is just bringing the Widow over to the adds when it’s the right time — we’ve found it’s much easier to move her around than them.”

NOTE: This could be a little more difficult with a non-DK tank but I’ve never done it with anyone else. If you have any feedback on how you bring the Worshippers to Faerlina, let me know and I’ll add it in here.



Maexxna

Abilities:

* Poison Shock - Deals up to 4500 nature damage in a frontal cone every 10 seconds.
* Necrotic Poison - A dispellable poison that reduces healing effects by 90% for 30 seconds. Cast on anyone in front of her within melee range. Dispel ASAP.
* Web Wrap - Cast at the 20 second mark and every 40 seconds after, sending a random raid member (never the MT) flying to a random wall in the room. Wraps the player in a cocoon with 6k health and deals up to 3k nature damage every 2 seconds that the cocoon isn’t destroyed.
* Summon Spiderlings - Before the Web Spray phase she will summon 8 non-elite spiders with around 7k health at her rear.
* Web Spray - Every 40 seconds she will wrap the entire raid in cocoons, incapacitating them for 6 seconds. All HoTs on tank BEFORE this happens as they will be taking full damage. Cannot be resisted and deals around 2k nature damage.

Maexxna is the final encounter in the Arachnid Quarter of Naxx and a pretty nice jump in the challenge factor from the previous two bosses. Looking at the super cool (see; ghetto) diagram I made below, you’ll notice she is faught in a circular room and tanked close to where she stands at when you enter the room.

One of your ranged DPS will be assigned to what our guild calls “cocoon duty” for Web Wrap victims. Maexxna will send one of your raid members that isn’t your MT flying across the room and sticking to the outter wall. BE VOCAL about your position and “ping” the map so the cocoon duty player doesn’t have to guess which dot on the map is yours.

Everyone else should group up tightly near the rear of the spider for the duration of the encounter. She will summon non-elite spiders behind her that need to be AoE’d down ASAP because she’ll be casting Web Spray in about 7 or 8 seconds. Web Spray is the most crucial part of this encounter.

There are a few things to do BEFORE Web Spray. Are all of the spiders dead? Is every HoT possible on your tank? While your tank is incapacitated during Web Spray they have no way to mitigate any damage at all. They cannot block, dodge, parry, block, etc., so they NEED to have HoTs on them before the Spray phase to help with the damage. As a Priest, I’m spamming my PW: Shield button on the tank so I can shield him as soon as the phase is over and make it a little easier for the healers to bring him back up to full.

At 30% Maexxna will enrage. If it is almost time for another Web Spray phase, stop DPS until it’s over and THEN resume. You want to avoid Web Spray as much as possible during the enrage phase if your tank isn’t in mostly epics or they’ll wind up taking a dirt nap. At this point I leave Shadowform before Web Spray to put up Renew and Prayer of Mending for some extra healing and then go back in to Shadowform to DPS afterwards.

The key to this fight is communication. Keep vent clear of chatter so cocoon victims can call our their names and ping the maps. Your raid leader should call out the Spider spawn phase and Web Spray phases about 5 seconds early so your healers can get HoTs on the tank and DPS can prepare to nuke the spiders. It might take a few tries to get her pattern down but you’ll get her eventually.

**Yes, I know.. my diagrams suck.. but I wanted to give you all an idea of how we position our raid group and typing it out was becoming a hassle. These strategies are also how our raid guild does it. If you do it differently, feel free to comment and I’ll be happy to add your strategy in as well.**

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

RAID Scheduling

OK... looking at our roster looks like we finally have a decent 10 level 80s with some decent gear to start doing 10-man raids. Our line-up actually looks somewhat balanced too.

Roster check:
2 tanks: Kyron (warr), Caharin (druid)
2 healers: Stonebarr (druid), Jagannath (shaman), Sarahn (holy or ret??? paly)
6 dps: Stringfellow (druid), Leinad (hunter), Firedoog (mage), Raphi (mage), Murdinaj (rogue), Sylvandah (rogue), Kinzlayer (warlock)

backup: Haohmaru (rogue)

So below, please post avail or perferred dates. We plan to have a Northrend raid night as well as a Retro Raid night (Pre-BC or BC).


- JP
(haohmaru/jagannath)