Announcements

Words of “wisdom” from Guild Master, Officers, or other leaders within the Ministry of Defense. ONLY posts including this category will show on the homepage!

Wednesday: Heroic Farming

Wednesday was a generally successful run. We downed 5 bosses in relatively quick succession with one another before banging our heads against Kin’Garoth. We almost 1-shot High Command due to sheer numbers, but we do still need to manage our bombs better. It gets hectic on the second loop through.

Kin’Garoth, of course, gave us some trouble. DPS need to be smarter about moving sooner. Those assigned to purple add also need to remember to switch to red in the second add phase.

Regarding the Master Loot changes, you can see updates to the Rules & Regulations page with a clarification on Master Loot for tier bosses. We’ve also made a few other changes that retain the heart of the rules, while paring down excess verbiage.

Wednesday Logs

Saturday: Heroic Progression

Kin’Garoth was a big struggle for us again. It’s important for tanks to use proper mitigation  and save cooldowns for those big hits of Forging Strike. Thanks to Grim for taking over as the healer on ball-duty!

Varimathras was a struggle as well. Tank swapping became an issue. Remember, DBM timers are likely to be off – you can’t trust them entirely. Communication with the other tank is crucial.

We ended the night slamming our heads into Coven again. This boss is becoming a combination DPS and RNG check. Please practive Heroic Coven in your downtime!

Raid Lead Comments: Please keep the comms clear. We’ve had 20+ raids multiple times now, so commentary during fights is absolutely problematic. We’re going to start coming down on people who keep talking even when told to be quiet. Tanks need us to be quiet unless it is a Raid Lead making calls! If you are not a Raid Lead, do not make calls or talk over the raid leads unless directed to do so.

Props to Wyte for coming to lend us a hand on heals and for killin’ it in spite of being “undergeared” and not having joined us previously. Thank you to the PUG who put up with our many wipes for so long as well.

We welcomed Tiv as a new Raid Leader and Lunzzul as a new Raider. Congrats to you both!

Saturday Logs

Monday: Alt Night, Lots of New Faces!

Monday was a big raid for us – 23 people! Lots of new or returning faces, which was great to see.

Garothi Normal has Decimation issues, but was otherwise an easy kill. Aggramar and Argus we each wiped once. Agg had an initial “whoopsie” for tanks, but after understanding the mechanic, we took him down easily. Argus wiped us once and we took him down the second time. Raid Lead Comments: please be paying attention to the markers on your head. Match them to the marker on the ground in Phase 2. Please move the buffs in phase 1 to the right, and move blight to the back.

Next we tackled heroic Garothi. Raid Lead Comments: Please move Decimation out of the group. DBM is a great tool, but only if you bother to use it!

We actually had three legendaries drop on Monday. Most notably, Zextol got the Amanthul’s Vision trinket.

Monday Logs

More Info for Raiders

We’ve got a number of new things posted this week on the site to help our raiders!

First, we have a new Raid Attendance management system. Take some time to read about what it means and how we track your attendance for Raider status.

I wrote up an in-depth look into Warcraft Logs for DPS (though I suggest tanks and healers reading it, too!). This will help you determine the proper talents, trinkets, and rotation to increase your output.

We’ve updated the Raiding Rules and Regulations so please take a look.

Finally, we have a few Website Changes that include a new Raiding sub-menu to make the raid-related pages easier to navigate, and added a Roster to show off our illustrious Raiding Team. I will be tweaking these two features for the next several days to improve their use.

Made 2 changes to the website today – one functional, one fashionable.

First, I’ve added a new submenu to all Raid-related pages. The raiding homepage, NEW Raid Team page, Raiding Rules & Regulations page, and the Raid Attendance page are all easily accessed from one-another. When you’re on a non-raid page, the submenu disappears to conserve space.

Second, and more exciting, I’ve added a Roster page. This page has a small badge for each Raid Lead, Raider, and their Alts. Raid Leads have red backgrounds (just like in Discord), Raiders have orange background (like in-game and in Discord), and alts have grey backgrounds.

Different classes have matching color names, avatar border, and ilvl text. Clicking on a character’s image will bring up a full view of their transmog in their class hall. Clicking their name will bring you to their WoW Armory page. Hovering over the items will show you their name, stats, etc.

Now, our Raiders have an extra incentive to maintain their status – and up-and-comers have an extra incentive to keep coming.

(Note: This page may load slowly from time to time as a result of API calls to Blizzard servers. This is normal.)

Over the weekend I updated Uro’s transmog on the About the Ministry of Defense page, and added Telanlan and Foxxiê. They now have access to the site to post content of their own.

I continue to try to push out quality of life changes and add new, useful, and fun features to the website for the guild. If you have an idea or a suggestion, fill out the Feedback form and let me know! Is something broken? Submit a Bug Report!

We took some time to tidy up, clarify, and trim down (yes, trim down) the Raiding Rules & Regulations page. We’ve also added a new section on Master Loot for Tier Bosses and made mention of new website features.

Make sure you read over the rules. The heart of the rules remains the same, but it’s always worth going back and making small changes to the verbiage over time.

Just to get everyone up to speed, Tiv was promoted to one of the Raid Leaders tonight. He joins Zextol/Ryzin, Quetzie, and Telanlan as the raid leader team. If you have any questions or concerns regarding raiding, please contact them. This includes questions about how you could perform better, questions about raid add-ons, questions about getting started with raiding… anything regarding raiding in general.

Also, congrats goes out to Lunzzul who was promoted to raider status as well this evening.

Most of the time when we raid, someone ends up running a Warcraft Log (WCL) for us. We’ll paste the link in the #raiding-logs channel and discord, people will glance at their parse number, and move on. But WCL is an amazing tool that can help boost your damage and survivability, if you spend the time to dig around in it. Today I’ll dig into how read the charts to improve your DPS. For Healers and Tanks, you’ll want to pay attention to Method 1 to see how your talents and trinkets stack up with others. Otherwise, feel free to take a nap during today’s class.

Continue reading →

Just a reminder about some upcoming events you should sign up for on the in-game WoW calendar:

Tiv’s Weekly Mythic Keys: Friday at 3pm server

Sunday Funday with Bulborbish: Sunday at 3pm server

Heroic Tomb of Sargeras Clear with Symderella: this Thursday at 5pm server

As always, Raids continue to operate on Monday/Wednesday at 4pm server and Saturday at 2pm server!

(Author note: This post and the page this post discusses are best viewed on desktop rather than mobile due to the size of the content)

In light of some recent changes and to keep our Raiders better informed, I’ve taken all of the attendance information from May and June and added it to a Raid Attendance page. You can access this right from the Raiding homepage, under the basic rules and to the right of the raid times. This new system has a few bells and whistles, so let’s dive in and see what you can do!

Continue reading →

Wednesday: Single-Target Boss Runs

Whether by plan or by accident, Wednesday was spent working on single-target bosses we haven’t gotten many kills on.

Imonar the Soulhunter had a late wipe on account of too many dying during the bridge crossings; 3 died before the first one was complete, and too many died on the second crossing. Some people also criss-crossed lasers. By contrast, the second run (and subsequent kill!) had nobody die from either bridge crossing or lasers, so there was much improvement.

Kin’Garoth was more of a struggle. Too many people are not moving fast enough – maybe to Ruiner, maybe away from purple balls, maybe moving their mechanics to the outside edge. Eventually, we had to cull a few people just to get a kill on the boss. Raid Leader Tips: Look around! Be alert! You need to be incredibly cognizant of the location of other raid/party members. Much like Coven, running into one of your allies can lead to both of your deaths from botched mechanics.

Remember, there’s a set timer for when he can and cannot take damage:

0:00: Kin’Garoth Damage
0:30: first add phase
1:10 : Kingaroth open to dmg
2:30: 2nd add phase
3:10: Kin’garoth open to dmg
4:30: 3rd add phase
5:10: Kin’Garoth open to dmg

This means you should use 30 second cooldowns at the start of the boss fight; 1 minute CDs when he opens up to damage after the first adds; 2 minute cooldowns on the first add phase; and 3 minute cooldowns at the second add phase. Alternatively, you could use your 3 minute cooldowns on the first add phase, to have it up for the 3rd add phase. RLs may be revisiting strategies on this boss.

Wednesday’s Warcraft Logs

Saturday: More Coven Practice and Easy Kills

Unfortunately, our planned “hand picked” group had too many absent members, so we ran with a group that included several people we did not anticipate running with and who were not as well prepared for the boss fight (I was also on an unfamiliar computer. RIP my timers and addons). We never progressed past 50% health on the boss. We still have a lot of people dying to avoidable damage. But, there was much better organization on add kills (assuming the RNG wasn’t poor in combination with Storm). We also had 2 people go from being the most killed last week to being some of the least killed, so it shows great improvement and that practice does work. With luck this week we will down the boss.

After it became apparent that there wasn’t going to be any real progress on Coven beyond 50%, we brought our spirits up a bit by doing some quick kills on Eonar and High Command. Eonar was about the cleanest and fastest we’ve ever done it – most mobs didn’t even make it to the tree. High Command was likewise very clean – only one (late) death throughout the whole fight from too much bomb damage.

Raid Lead Comments: if you intend to ever do Heroic Coven with us, you should be practicing Heroic Coven in other groups during the week. Also, we will start running Normal Coven on Mondays so people practice the Normal mechanics.

Saturday’s Warcraft Logs

Monday: Alt Night and Cheevo-Chasing

Monday was a good night all around. There was one wipe the whole night, on Aggramar, from a “whoopsie” tank moment where adds did not get repositioned. Otherwise, clean throughout. This says good things about some of the up-and-comers, as well about the patience and skill from our seasoned raiders. On a side note, alt-night Argus often takes us over 10 minutes. For  a fast kill, we should consider lusting at the beginning of the fight, just to get his HP pool down.

Most interesting, we got the present members a few achievements towards Glory of the Argus Raider. Specifically, we did Worm-Monger, Hounds Good to Me, and Spheres of Influence.

Monday Warcraft Logs (not useful on Garothi or Felhounds)

Wow Audit Spreadsheet

Do you feel like you can’t keep track of your gear, or what your next goal should be? Maybe the Wow Audit Spreadsheet can help. Take a look at this post on another useful tool for Raiders.

(Author note: This post and the attached link are best viewed on desktop rather than mobile due to the size of the content)

A few weeks ago, I added a link to the Raid Announcements channel on discord: a Ministry of Defense WoW Audit.

https://wowaudit.com/us/aerie-peak/ministry-of-defense/raiders

This is a useful tool for Raiders and Raid Leads alike. I’ll walk through the basics of each sheet.

Continue reading →

Those of you active on the Discord may have noticed a new channel and feature: a Raidbots bot.

For those unfamiliar, Raidbots is a dps simulation website that runs off of SimulationCraft / SimC. (Sorry, tanks and heals, you’re unsupported at this time.) You can download the SimC addon and run your information in game, then paste the result into the site, for the best results.  You can also compare gear in your bags or compare talents to find out what will output the most DPS on a per-fight basis.

We’ve added this functionality to our Discord server to make simming your dps even easier for you!

Continue reading →