This week, after some excellent progress in our first night in Ulduar (eight bosses down), we were in a good position to finally see the last two bosses of the instance. We only had Freya left to quickly down on Sunday night, then we were on to General Vezax.
Who went down in three tries. First attempt got him to 34%. Second attempt wasn't quite as good - a cast wasn't interrupted which took out the healer on me, and I died shortly after. At this point, our Paladin healer had realised he could solo heal me without any mana issues, so we downed General Vezax on the third try with one tank, two healers and seven DPS (four of which were melee).
We went on to Yogg-Saron, which was a disaster. We wiped twice in about ten minutes because people couldn't handle not standing in the clouds (what the fuck? It's not difficult to avoid them), then people said we should call it because people were getting unfocused. I have a different word for it, but whatever. We still had two days before the reset, which meant Yogg-Saron was (in my mind) going down this week.
Last night we went back to Ulduar, and had some more attempts on Yogg-Saron. Phase one generally went smoothly, with only the very occasional additional add spawn (which we could handle). The first few attempts on the second phase were ugly, with the group ending up spread out, DPS not knowing what they should be targetting, and people running in the opposite direction when they got brain linked.
We finally made some progress, getting Yogg-Saron to 49% before wiping. I was confident that, with a few more attempts, we could reach phase three. The next attempt was awful, with the melee DPS only getting 300k damage done on the brain in 12 minutes of the 15 minute enrage timer. Healer had to leave, we called it less than two hours after the first pull of the evening.
This is where I got annoyed. People having to go and calling a raid due to a lack of replacements I can understand. However, people seem generally unwilling to dedicate any more time to working on Yogg-Saron this week, which I don't understand and find frustrating. Apparently spending two nights wiping on a boss is enough. What the hell? We've spent less than one full night's worth of raiding wiping on the boss, it was just spread out across two evenings.
The raid content is only going to get harder - if they're unwilling to dedicate more than a few hours a week to learning difficult content, we're going to make incredibly slow progress and there's no point in me being here.
I can sort of understand wanting to do ToC for the emblems and loot, but they've already downed the Northrend Beasts this week, and Lord Jaraxxus won't (shouldn't) take an entire raid session to kill. Two attempts at most, otherwise something is wrong. Will we then go back to Ulduar and spend more time on Yogg-Saron, or just do nothing?
Showing posts with label pve. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pve. Show all posts
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Trial of the Crusader
I've downed the first two bosses from the new 10 man normal raid, Trial of the Crusader. The Northrend Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus, and neither seemed like a particularly difficult fight. We wiped some on both bosses before downing them, but that's to be expected when learning new content.
The only hard part of the Northrend Beasts is the start of the second phase, where both of the Jormungar are alive. There seemed to be some confusion as to how exactly the debuffs worked, especially as different people are affected depending on whether or not they're static or mobile. After a few attempts we managed to sort these issues, and downed the boss (the third phase is awesome amounts of fun, by the way).
We downed Lord Jaraxxus in four tries. The first attempt we had no idea what to expect - for some reason people decided to start the fight without taking a break to look up anything about the fight - and wiped fast. The second attempt went better. The third attempt should have had the boss down; we had one person up when the boss was on about 10-15k health - a Paladin tank (not me). He died when the boss was on 1k. The next attempt Jaraxxus went down, and I bought myself a new Libram (the +200 strength one).
The only hard part of the Northrend Beasts is the start of the second phase, where both of the Jormungar are alive. There seemed to be some confusion as to how exactly the debuffs worked, especially as different people are affected depending on whether or not they're static or mobile. After a few attempts we managed to sort these issues, and downed the boss (the third phase is awesome amounts of fun, by the way).
We downed Lord Jaraxxus in four tries. The first attempt we had no idea what to expect - for some reason people decided to start the fight without taking a break to look up anything about the fight - and wiped fast. The second attempt went better. The third attempt should have had the boss down; we had one person up when the boss was on about 10-15k health - a Paladin tank (not me). He died when the boss was on 1k. The next attempt Jaraxxus went down, and I bought myself a new Libram (the +200 strength one).
Downfall of the Spellweaver
Malygos went down about a week ago. Finally. It's been the only kill I've needed for the Champion of the Frozen Wastes achievement for quite a few months but I've never been particularly proactive in searching for groups to attempt it. I'd had one or two failed attempts, then the group would fall apart; typical pug mentality.
We put a group together from the guild, pugged a few DPS, and gave it a try. We wiped on the first phase due to a lack of healing, and decided to grab a third healer when one of the DPS quit a few tries later. With three healers we got to the third phase, but didn't manage to down him before the enrage.
A few tries later, I'd finally discovered the secret to DPSing on the drakes. I had always been aware that the rotation was 1... 1... 2 but had never managed to find a speed that didn't leave me out of energy pretty quickly. The secret, I found, was to wait for your Engulf in Flames debuff to tick down to ~5 seconds, then do the rotation again - no energy problems, and eventually a stack that was doing 24k damage a tick (before I died).
I still haven't figured out a way to stay alive on phase three yet (I never seem to get any healing?), but that's ok. I have the achievement and probably won't be doing Malygos again.
We put a group together from the guild, pugged a few DPS, and gave it a try. We wiped on the first phase due to a lack of healing, and decided to grab a third healer when one of the DPS quit a few tries later. With three healers we got to the third phase, but didn't manage to down him before the enrage.
A few tries later, I'd finally discovered the secret to DPSing on the drakes. I had always been aware that the rotation was 1... 1... 2 but had never managed to find a speed that didn't leave me out of energy pretty quickly. The secret, I found, was to wait for your Engulf in Flames debuff to tick down to ~5 seconds, then do the rotation again - no energy problems, and eventually a stack that was doing 24k damage a tick (before I died).
I still haven't figured out a way to stay alive on phase three yet (I never seem to get any healing?), but that's ok. I have the achievement and probably won't be doing Malygos again.
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Maybe I expect too much
I've been growing increasingly annoyed with the raid groups I've been in recently. Pugs are - in general, and as expected - frustrating. But even what has become my frequent 10 man group has begun to bother me. All highly capable players, but seemingly unable to follow simple instructions in a manner that I find acceptable. I've always been a bit of a perfectionist, I realise that. However, I don't think that the expectations I have of them are overly high.
If I tell them to stack on me (or anybody else), I expect their character to be indistinguishable from that person - not stood within 5-10 yards of them.
If I tell them to stand somewhere, I expect them not only to stand there but to continue to stand there unless they're told they can move, they ABSOLUTELY HAVE to move, or are moved by an enemy.
I expect ranged to actually STAY at range. If they can attack from 30-40 yards away, I expect them to be close to 30 or 40 yards from an enemy unless they're told otherwise.
I expect EVERYBODY (with the possible exception of the other tank) to stay behind me. Not stood with me and certainly not stood in front of me, unless I tell them otherwise.
I know what I want, and I expect to get it. I'm not asking them to be the greatest players in the world ever, just to do simple things in a professional manner.
So, you tell me. Am I asking for too much or is my annoyance justified?
If I tell them to stack on me (or anybody else), I expect their character to be indistinguishable from that person - not stood within 5-10 yards of them.
If I tell them to stand somewhere, I expect them not only to stand there but to continue to stand there unless they're told they can move, they ABSOLUTELY HAVE to move, or are moved by an enemy.
I expect ranged to actually STAY at range. If they can attack from 30-40 yards away, I expect them to be close to 30 or 40 yards from an enemy unless they're told otherwise.
I expect EVERYBODY (with the possible exception of the other tank) to stay behind me. Not stood with me and certainly not stood in front of me, unless I tell them otherwise.
I know what I want, and I expect to get it. I'm not asking them to be the greatest players in the world ever, just to do simple things in a professional manner.
So, you tell me. Am I asking for too much or is my annoyance justified?
Monday, 22 June 2009
The Nightfall
Only took four hours and 260 gold worth of wiping, but it was totally worth it. We used a melee heavy group (3 deathknights, 1 warrior, 1 paladin, 1 druid, 1 rogue and 1 hunter) for the zerg tactic - nuking Sartharion down before the second drake joins the fight and makes him immune to attacks.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
General Vezhax
See what I did there? Yeah, I'm cool.
There are about a million words I would use to describe this fight and none of them are what you might call positive. It may have something to do with the fact that Protection Paladins are basically given the finger in this entire encounter.
And, if I'm perfectly honest, I was expecting this to happen sooner. I've heard that pretty much every other tank class would be better suited than Paladins for almost every boss encounter, and was expecting to come across such a situation before the second to last boss of the raid. Yet I have succeeded on all of the bosses thus far, and will likely succeed again.
Being the only tank class that uses mana we're the only ones that are affected by the lack of mana regeneration. I don't gain enough back from Spiritual Attunement (my spec only has a single point in the talent) to cover continual full rotations, so I'm left with gaps where I have wasted GCDs. Add to that the lack of Paladin cooldowns making the encounter exponentially harder due to the absolute necessity for kiting (which, if you fuck it up, means a wipe).
I'm considering switching my Retribution offspec to a second Protection spec just to pick up 5 points in Divinity for the additional healing and the extra point in Spiritual Attunement for additional mana regeneration. Just for one boss. Fuck you Blizzard.
But I'm a pro. I work around my classes inherent disadvantages for the encounter as best I can. The major problem right now is the lack of mana efficient healing - we simply haven't been able to find a way to keep our healers from going out of mana well before the end of the fight. Not that that's anybody's fault, but it's something we're going to have to think about and work on if/when we reach the General this week.
There are about a million words I would use to describe this fight and none of them are what you might call positive. It may have something to do with the fact that Protection Paladins are basically given the finger in this entire encounter.
And, if I'm perfectly honest, I was expecting this to happen sooner. I've heard that pretty much every other tank class would be better suited than Paladins for almost every boss encounter, and was expecting to come across such a situation before the second to last boss of the raid. Yet I have succeeded on all of the bosses thus far, and will likely succeed again.
Being the only tank class that uses mana we're the only ones that are affected by the lack of mana regeneration. I don't gain enough back from Spiritual Attunement (my spec only has a single point in the talent) to cover continual full rotations, so I'm left with gaps where I have wasted GCDs. Add to that the lack of Paladin cooldowns making the encounter exponentially harder due to the absolute necessity for kiting (which, if you fuck it up, means a wipe).
I'm considering switching my Retribution offspec to a second Protection spec just to pick up 5 points in Divinity for the additional healing and the extra point in Spiritual Attunement for additional mana regeneration. Just for one boss. Fuck you Blizzard.
But I'm a pro. I work around my classes inherent disadvantages for the encounter as best I can. The major problem right now is the lack of mana efficient healing - we simply haven't been able to find a way to keep our healers from going out of mana well before the end of the fight. Not that that's anybody's fault, but it's something we're going to have to think about and work on if/when we reach the General this week.
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Some Musings on the Art of Tanking
Introduction
Inspired by this post by Latus. I even stole the title.
There are certain aspects of WoW that are required for effective tanking. Things such as general awareness, camera positioning and movement as well as, most importantly, threat management. Those who fill the DPS and healer roles - and who are good at doing so - will have a similar interest in those aspects which are relevant to them; movement is less of an issue for both, and threat mechanics aren't a huge issue for healers.
General Awareness
General Awareness is all about being knowing what's going on at all times. Tanks tend to have more to keep track of than other members of the group. Area effects such as void zones, rockets in Mimiron phases 2 and 4, etc everybody has to watch for. Other than those, healers concentrate on who needs healing, DPS concentrate on what they need to hit, and tanks concentrate on where they are, where the boss is, whether or not the boss is about to use a high-damage special attack, when and where adds are going to spawn, what abilities you have available to pick them up and whether or not other members of the group have aggro.
It's certainly a lot to keep track of, and not everybody can do it. If you can, though, life as a tank shouldn't be too difficult.
Camera Positioning
Camera positioning is important for the majority of fights. Only being able to see a boss's crotch is fine if you don't also have to pick up adds, move to specific zones or avoid things such as landmines. If you do, you need to position your camera in a way that allows you to see as much of the area of the fight as possible - this generally means zooming as far out as possible, and possibly adopting an overhead view.
Movement
Ever heard the saying "There's more than one way to skin a cat"? Well, there's also more than one way to kite a boss, and they aren't all equally effective.
If you have to move quickly and more than a few steps, walking away backwards isn't going to work - you'll get yourself killed by the void zone or shock blast or whatever else it is. If the boss hits hard, turning your back to them for any lengthy amount of time probably isn't a good idea.
As a semi-aside, my ex-girlfriend recently started playing WoW with me. I jump quite a lot when I move. To be honest, I rarely move in a direction without also hitting my spacebar. When she said that I "prance like a girl" I replied that I'm a tank, and I therefore have a jumping habit.
Jumping is good. It allows you to move quickly in one direction, but already be facing in the opposite direction when you land. If you've ever watched somebody tank Heigan, you'll probably notice that they turn away from him, run towards the next safe zone, and jump into it while turning back towards Heigan. This is fine because Heigan hits like a wimp, try doing it while taking ~20k hits kiting a boss like Ignis and you'll probably be dead in a hurry.
So if you can't do that, what can you do? Moving sideways is your best bet - it should allow you to keep facing the boss, but also move quickly out of anything that's going to greatly reduce your lifespan.
Obviously it's up to you, as a tank, to know which method of movement is appropriate to the encounter. As a DPS or healer, there's a lot less importance on how you move, only that you do it in time.
Threat Management
Healers, you aren't welcome here. Not that I don't love you guys, it's just that this really has no relevance for you. The only time healers pull aggro is when they get too close to enemies that haven't already been pulled, or cast heals when enemies haven't been hit at all by the tank.
Threat forms the basis of the tank-DPS relationship. Tanks have to know how to put out high levels of threat (while doing everything else they have to do), and DPS have to know how to put out high levels of damage without putting out too much threat. And they both have to trust that the other not only knows how to do it, but that they are doing it.
While Omen is less of a requirement with the addition of Blizzard's built-in threat meter, it's still a highly useful addon. You can work out how much threat your individual attacks are doing (potentially useful for maintaining some damage output as opposed to not attacking at all when trying to limit threat output), as well as see how much threat you're dealing per second and how far behind the tank(s) you are.
Inspired by this post by Latus. I even stole the title.
There are certain aspects of WoW that are required for effective tanking. Things such as general awareness, camera positioning and movement as well as, most importantly, threat management. Those who fill the DPS and healer roles - and who are good at doing so - will have a similar interest in those aspects which are relevant to them; movement is less of an issue for both, and threat mechanics aren't a huge issue for healers.
General Awareness
General Awareness is all about being knowing what's going on at all times. Tanks tend to have more to keep track of than other members of the group. Area effects such as void zones, rockets in Mimiron phases 2 and 4, etc everybody has to watch for. Other than those, healers concentrate on who needs healing, DPS concentrate on what they need to hit, and tanks concentrate on where they are, where the boss is, whether or not the boss is about to use a high-damage special attack, when and where adds are going to spawn, what abilities you have available to pick them up and whether or not other members of the group have aggro.
It's certainly a lot to keep track of, and not everybody can do it. If you can, though, life as a tank shouldn't be too difficult.
Camera Positioning
Camera positioning is important for the majority of fights. Only being able to see a boss's crotch is fine if you don't also have to pick up adds, move to specific zones or avoid things such as landmines. If you do, you need to position your camera in a way that allows you to see as much of the area of the fight as possible - this generally means zooming as far out as possible, and possibly adopting an overhead view.
Movement
Ever heard the saying "There's more than one way to skin a cat"? Well, there's also more than one way to kite a boss, and they aren't all equally effective.
If you have to move quickly and more than a few steps, walking away backwards isn't going to work - you'll get yourself killed by the void zone or shock blast or whatever else it is. If the boss hits hard, turning your back to them for any lengthy amount of time probably isn't a good idea.
As a semi-aside, my ex-girlfriend recently started playing WoW with me. I jump quite a lot when I move. To be honest, I rarely move in a direction without also hitting my spacebar. When she said that I "prance like a girl" I replied that I'm a tank, and I therefore have a jumping habit.
Jumping is good. It allows you to move quickly in one direction, but already be facing in the opposite direction when you land. If you've ever watched somebody tank Heigan, you'll probably notice that they turn away from him, run towards the next safe zone, and jump into it while turning back towards Heigan. This is fine because Heigan hits like a wimp, try doing it while taking ~20k hits kiting a boss like Ignis and you'll probably be dead in a hurry.
So if you can't do that, what can you do? Moving sideways is your best bet - it should allow you to keep facing the boss, but also move quickly out of anything that's going to greatly reduce your lifespan.
Obviously it's up to you, as a tank, to know which method of movement is appropriate to the encounter. As a DPS or healer, there's a lot less importance on how you move, only that you do it in time.
Threat Management
Healers, you aren't welcome here. Not that I don't love you guys, it's just that this really has no relevance for you. The only time healers pull aggro is when they get too close to enemies that haven't already been pulled, or cast heals when enemies haven't been hit at all by the tank.
Threat forms the basis of the tank-DPS relationship. Tanks have to know how to put out high levels of threat (while doing everything else they have to do), and DPS have to know how to put out high levels of damage without putting out too much threat. And they both have to trust that the other not only knows how to do it, but that they are doing it.
While Omen is less of a requirement with the addition of Blizzard's built-in threat meter, it's still a highly useful addon. You can work out how much threat your individual attacks are doing (potentially useful for maintaining some damage output as opposed to not attacking at all when trying to limit threat output), as well as see how much threat you're dealing per second and how far behind the tank(s) you are.
Mimiron: 42 Rebirth: 1
As the title suggests, we finally downed Mimiron. After 42 wipes, but who's counting? Took us about six and a half hours across three nights, but we've finally killed him. Vent and the guild channel exploded when we finally got him, as you'd expect.
Our third try of the evening last night saw us reach phase 4 for the first time, but fail because of a lack of co-ordination - we only had two ranged DPS in the group, one of which was focusing on the body rather than the head. We would only reach phase 4 twice (the second time coming several wipes after the first), and down him the second time it happened. The kill was by no means perfect - we lost the only mage in the group during the second phase (druid combat rezzed while waiting for phase three to start) and we only had seven people up when he went down - but a kill is a kill. Hopefully improvements will be made next week.
We also downed the Assembly of Iron after Mimiron. My first time killing them, bringing my personal Ulduar progress up to 10/14.
We'll be trying General Vezax in tonight's raid after (hopefully quickly) downing Hodir, Thorim and Freya. I'm not sure if we'll get to see Yogg-Saron this week, but it is a possibility - we have three days of raiding Ulduar 10 left before the reset.
Our third try of the evening last night saw us reach phase 4 for the first time, but fail because of a lack of co-ordination - we only had two ranged DPS in the group, one of which was focusing on the body rather than the head. We would only reach phase 4 twice (the second time coming several wipes after the first), and down him the second time it happened. The kill was by no means perfect - we lost the only mage in the group during the second phase (druid combat rezzed while waiting for phase three to start) and we only had seven people up when he went down - but a kill is a kill. Hopefully improvements will be made next week.
We also downed the Assembly of Iron after Mimiron. My first time killing them, bringing my personal Ulduar progress up to 10/14.
We'll be trying General Vezax in tonight's raid after (hopefully quickly) downing Hodir, Thorim and Freya. I'm not sure if we'll get to see Yogg-Saron this week, but it is a possibility - we have three days of raiding Ulduar 10 left before the reset.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
When raiding goes bad
So I learnt the hard way that raiding whilst exhausted is not a good idea. While finishing off as much of Ulduar as possible before the reset, I discovered just how much of a bitch the arena in the Thorim encounter is when you've had two hours sleep and can't focus.
We did, eventually, get him down but the majority of the attempts were one silly fuck up after another - mainly healers getting one-shotted by champions because I was too slow on picking them up. Tanking is fun when it goes well (or even mediocre) but knowing that wipe after wipe is entirely your fault definitely makes you feel like a complete idiot.
We went on to down Razorscale, and called it for the week - bringing the number of bosses I've personally downed in Ulduar to 8. Less than the 10 I was hoping for, but we lost a day because of healers being unavailable and had trouble finding replacements when people had to leave early because we'd run two groups earlier in the week. Not to mention wasting a couple of hours on Thorim because of my lack of sleep.
We did, eventually, get him down but the majority of the attempts were one silly fuck up after another - mainly healers getting one-shotted by champions because I was too slow on picking them up. Tanking is fun when it goes well (or even mediocre) but knowing that wipe after wipe is entirely your fault definitely makes you feel like a complete idiot.
We went on to down Razorscale, and called it for the week - bringing the number of bosses I've personally downed in Ulduar to 8. Less than the 10 I was hoping for, but we lost a day because of healers being unavailable and had trouble finding replacements when people had to leave early because we'd run two groups earlier in the week. Not to mention wasting a couple of hours on Thorim because of my lack of sleep.
Friday, 29 May 2009
The Observations of Ulduar
I will admit that my experience of Ulduar is not as extensive as that of others, but I've downed six bosses and attempted two of the others. By the end of this week, I should have hopefully downed ten (or more) of the Ulduar bosses.
So this post can be considered to be one or two observations of Ulduar (mainly in comparison to Naxxramas) so far.
It's considerably more intense. Learning raid content can be pretty exhausting, especially when you've been at it for awhile. Learning Naxxramas wasn't anywhere as exhausting as Ulduar is, and I suppose that's to be expected. It requires a lot more work from everybody in the group, and that's not a bad thing at all. More frustration when you wipe, but also more satisfaction when you don't.
Offtanking Naxxramas was dull. There was minimal effort required to pick up adds, and if you were slow on picking them up it wasn't a huge issue. Not to mention that a lot of Naxxramas bosses were simply pick up and stand in place. If you had a tank that wasn't that great, not a problem: just have them offtank, and it doesn't really matter.
As a tank in Ulduar you have to be on the top of your game, regardless of whether you're main or off tanking. If you're lax about anything there's a real possibility that you'll wipe your raid. More kiting to be done, more situations where you may have to taunt a boss off of the other tank, more adds to be picked up (and they have to be picked up a lot faster), pretty much more of everything that made certain bosses in Naxxramas actually interesting. Even trash is more exciting; the tank and spank tedium of Naxxramas replaced in places with the necessity for crowd control, movement, positioning or tank switching.
Tanking raid content is actually FUN. My enjoyment of previous raid content came purely from the emblem/loot rewards, I'm now enjoying Ulduar for entirely different reasons.
So this post can be considered to be one or two observations of Ulduar (mainly in comparison to Naxxramas) so far.
It's considerably more intense. Learning raid content can be pretty exhausting, especially when you've been at it for awhile. Learning Naxxramas wasn't anywhere as exhausting as Ulduar is, and I suppose that's to be expected. It requires a lot more work from everybody in the group, and that's not a bad thing at all. More frustration when you wipe, but also more satisfaction when you don't.
Offtanking Naxxramas was dull. There was minimal effort required to pick up adds, and if you were slow on picking them up it wasn't a huge issue. Not to mention that a lot of Naxxramas bosses were simply pick up and stand in place. If you had a tank that wasn't that great, not a problem: just have them offtank, and it doesn't really matter.
As a tank in Ulduar you have to be on the top of your game, regardless of whether you're main or off tanking. If you're lax about anything there's a real possibility that you'll wipe your raid. More kiting to be done, more situations where you may have to taunt a boss off of the other tank, more adds to be picked up (and they have to be picked up a lot faster), pretty much more of everything that made certain bosses in Naxxramas actually interesting. Even trash is more exciting; the tank and spank tedium of Naxxramas replaced in places with the necessity for crowd control, movement, positioning or tank switching.
Tanking raid content is actually FUN. My enjoyment of previous raid content came purely from the emblem/loot rewards, I'm now enjoying Ulduar for entirely different reasons.
Do you have the achievement?
A couple of weeks ago, while trying to put together a group for the 10-man version of Vault of Archavon, I experienced something interesting. I had a whisper from a DPS (I think it was a Paladin, but I can't remember), who we'll call Bob.
Needing extra DPS, I invite Bob to my raid group. The first thing he says isn't "Hi" or "Thanks for the invite" it's "Ask for achievement next time." Apparently he wants me to ask people whether or not they have the achievement for killing Emalon before I invite them to a raid to kill Emalon.
So I discuss this with Bob on the raid channel, and explain that I don't think having the achievement is the only indicator of being capable of killing him (I certainly didn't have the achievement BEFORE I killed Emalon for the first time, but I was capable of doing so). At this point, we get revelation number one: Bob doesn't have the achievement himself. So he wants me to apply a standard to the other members of the group that he wouldn't meet himself. Interesting.
After discussing this topic for awhile, we move onto the subject of gear. Back before joining my current guild, I ran the majority of the 10 man content with a Warlock and a Mage, plus whoever else we could get from our old guild or by pugging. Both the Warlock and Mage are good at what they do, so they can generally make up for one or two slightly undergeared people in our groups. It is at this point that I actually decide to check Bob's gear, and we get revelation number two: Bob's gear isn't fantastic. A handful of blues and a couple of level 70 PvP items along with level 80 epics.
I've done a fair bit of raiding with all kinds of people. I've played with well geared bad players and reasonably geared good players enough times to know that gear isn't everything. I've also dragged poor players through enough raids to know that having an achievement for killing a raid boss doesn't mean you were particularly productive during the fight.
Unless you're the raid leader, only worry about yourself. Your gear, your achievements, how you're playing. I'll worry about the group as a whole, and I'll kick people if they don't perform when required - I won't kick people or refuse to give them a shot simply because they don't have the best gear in the game and the achievements for killing every boss.
Needing extra DPS, I invite Bob to my raid group. The first thing he says isn't "Hi" or "Thanks for the invite" it's "Ask for achievement next time." Apparently he wants me to ask people whether or not they have the achievement for killing Emalon before I invite them to a raid to kill Emalon.
So I discuss this with Bob on the raid channel, and explain that I don't think having the achievement is the only indicator of being capable of killing him (I certainly didn't have the achievement BEFORE I killed Emalon for the first time, but I was capable of doing so). At this point, we get revelation number one: Bob doesn't have the achievement himself. So he wants me to apply a standard to the other members of the group that he wouldn't meet himself. Interesting.
After discussing this topic for awhile, we move onto the subject of gear. Back before joining my current guild, I ran the majority of the 10 man content with a Warlock and a Mage, plus whoever else we could get from our old guild or by pugging. Both the Warlock and Mage are good at what they do, so they can generally make up for one or two slightly undergeared people in our groups. It is at this point that I actually decide to check Bob's gear, and we get revelation number two: Bob's gear isn't fantastic. A handful of blues and a couple of level 70 PvP items along with level 80 epics.
I've done a fair bit of raiding with all kinds of people. I've played with well geared bad players and reasonably geared good players enough times to know that gear isn't everything. I've also dragged poor players through enough raids to know that having an achievement for killing a raid boss doesn't mean you were particularly productive during the fight.
Unless you're the raid leader, only worry about yourself. Your gear, your achievements, how you're playing. I'll worry about the group as a whole, and I'll kick people if they don't perform when required - I won't kick people or refuse to give them a shot simply because they don't have the best gear in the game and the achievements for killing every boss.
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