Raid

These posts are especially relevant to our Raiders!

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 →

Time for the third installment of our weekly roundup!

Wednesday: Heroic Farming

Notably, this was the first week we 1-shot Varimathras. We went from bashing our faces in with a dozen wipes to a 1-shot in a matter of weeks. Great job, everyone!

Kin’garoth gave us some trouble because people are not paying attention to the positioning of the giant purple orbs, or the location of their explosive circles. Remember, run explosives to the outer edge! Save movement cooldowns for Ruiner+explosives, so that you don’t kill the raid trying to escape.

We gave Coven a few shots, just to get a taste for it, and it went about as well as could be expected.

Wednesday Heroic Logs

Saturday: Coven Practice

Hoo boy. We knew going into this it was gonna be rough. Guys, make sure you’re watching the videos. The Raid Leads can’t stress it enough. It became painfully obvious that some people either have not watched the videos on Coven, or have not watched them in a long time.

Over time, it was clear that our patience and practice was working. We were getting further into the fights, and Storm was causing fewer problems than at the start. In the end, our farthest push was to 42% health.

However, there are quite a few issues. People are not paying attention to themselves or their neighbors when they have Fulminating Pulse around them. This is especially deadly when combined with Storm of Darkness. Please be careful. Storm is also deadly combined with Fury of Golganeth. Don’t just hone in on rushing the adds once the Storm clears!

A trick for Storm: get to a corner. There are usually at least 1-2 circles within quick running range of one of the tanks. Ranged DPS or high mobility classes might want to aim to get to a corner opposite the tanks, so that those Storms don’t get too crowded for other mechanics.

Melee DPS, there is never a reason to be attacking Noura. Attack one of the other two bosses instead. They share a healthpool, and being on top of Noura is too risky.

Tanks had trouble swapping the bosses, causing undue work for not only the other tank, but also healers.

It’s almost a guarantee that you will have to re-talent on this fight compared to other fights, just to get the proper CC. Druids must take Mass Entangle, for example.

If you’re curious how you stack up, here is a graphic showing the time you died on a boss VS the total time spent on the boss:

Pink/low numbers died sooner than yellow/high numbers. Your average is on the left; individual fights are on the right. If you are consistently in the pink zone, you are dying too soon (one or two times may just mean that you got unlucky, or someone else killed you with a bad mechanics. It happens.). You are putting undue stress on healers, wasting battle resses, or simply outputting 0 dps/hps for the duration. Figure out how you need to adapt. Are you not getting to storm quick enough? Are you taking tons of fire damage? Examine the logs. I (Quetzie) would be more than happy to sit down and work with individuals to analyze their combat logs and figure out what is killing them and when.

This is very important:

The Raid Leads have reached a consensus that we will be assigning specific people to specific roles. This is to ensure that we have the best chance of downing this boss. We will also be hand-picking people to sit in or sit out. If you are assigned to a role that you don’t enjoy, or are asked to sit, please take the time to reflect on why it is that you were or were not chosen for a specific role. This is not us “playing favorites”, this is us ensuring the majority of the raid gets AOTC before the deadline. Low DPS, constant early deaths, or other fuckups will cause you to be sat. This is one of the few bosses where fewer people = greater chance of survival, as mechanics get more difficult in a bigger crowd. We may also be prioritizing ranged DPS slots over melee. Practice the fight on your own throughout the week. We can tell who has done a lot of work and who has not!

We are likely to start employing a more strict policy over who is and is not able to come to heroic raiding from here on out. While there are 4-5 bosses we have on farm, the rest we are pushing true progression on, and cannot carry those who simply mess up too many mechanics. 940 is not enough anymore to secure your slot. You must also pull your weight.

Coven Wipefest Logs

Potions and YOU!

I’m going to repost this here, because it’s “part one” of my planned “buff breakdown” analysis to help people improve. We’re starting with one of the easy ones – potions of prolonged power. Check out my writeup and stay tuned for future writeups on how to best manage your buffs and steroids.

Monday: Alt Night

OK guys, I get it. “It’s alt night, who cares!” Well, we care. Please ensure you have Discord, DBM/Big Wigs, etc. And that you not only have DBM, but that you fucking pay attention to it, holy shit you guys. Things like DBM / Big Wigs are great tools, but they’re only great if you actually use their potential. That being said, our only wipe was on Argus at above 95%, so even our lowbies did well. We got lots of tier for lots of people (including some new 2 set bonuses), and even a legendary for kitty Lvana!

Alt Night Logs

(I know, I know. I missed a few weeks – I’ve been absent a few Saturdays due to IRL business. I don’t remember a lot from previous weeks, but I’ll try to fill in important notes where I can)

Time for our second Raid Roundup!

April 24-30

I don’t remember much, except for Portal Keeper being a struggle. Positioning was a big issue for everybody that stayed with the boss. Lots of people being hit by lasers.

Logs: April 25, April 28, April 30.

May 1 – 7

Portal Keeper continued to be a struggle / DPS check. Eonar and Felhounds are on farm. I was absent for Saturday’s raid, so no commentary from me.

Logs: May 2, May 7 (alt night)

May 8-14

Raid Lead Comments: We still need to really nail down the mines on High Command. Lots of people are not watching their feet. We also seriously lack the DPS to take this down efficiently – partially because people are dying so early. This is also the first week where we proceeded to wipe a dozen times against Varimathras. Tanks – PLEASE be aware of your positioning. This fight is 95% you. We also had a few wipes due to DPS not understanding the rot-spread mechanic.

(On a side note, May 9th we had a bomb-ass demon hunter for a while named Kath. Tank DHs, check out the logs if you’re curious to improve!)

This is the first week where I started to analyze Potion of Prolonged Power usage. You can see usage for all fights on May 12th here.

That being said, we got our first Varimathras kill this week on May 12! Congrats everyone!

Logs: May 9, May 12,

May 15 – 21:

High Command was a struggle again. Too many dying too early, too many people stepping in bombs. Imonar was an issue as well…DPS are not running their Sleep Canisters away from others fast enough.

Logs: May 16, May 21 (alt night)

Are you a tank or a healer looking to get better gear and join us for raids? Good news! We’re in desperate need of regular guild healers and tanks for heroic progression, and we’re looking to fast-track the gear levels of those who are interested in filling those spots. So if you’re already leveling a non-DPS, or are thinking of starting one, now is the best time to do it! Let one of the Guild Leaders know that that’s your intent, and we’ll do our best to blast you through mythics, LFRs, and more.

 

In a new, hopefully weekly content update, I’ll go over some of the successes, failures, and exciting moments from the previous week’s raids. It also includes some thoughts from the Raid Leads, so be sure to look for strategy comments!

Wednesday: Heroic Farming

New to this week, we’ve started running Heroic progression on Wednesdays. We also recently extended raid times by an hour (3 hour raids rather than 2). While my computer crashed for the first hour, I was present for the last two kills. Raid Lead consensus: is important on Eonar to focus down the Fel Lords and Obfuscator’s ASAP – we had a wipe as a result of an ignored mob! Portal Keeper went well also. Great job on the interrupt rotation and placement of fire! As a result of teamwork and dedication, we downed 4 bosses in Antorus. This was awesome news – it meant that we’d be facing all-new content for the Guild come Saturday, our traditional progression time.

Saturday: Heroic Progression

Antoran High Command

Antoran High Command went down in two pulls (with some outsider help, admittedly. We’ll have a better gauge of our DPS success this week). We still need to be cognizant of the mines, but rotations between bosses and our Pod People all did a great job. Raid Leads agree that we need to focus adds much faster and remain vigilant of where we put out feet. Much like facing the Coven, being careful is more important than DPSing – rotate your camera, stare at your feet, and make sure to dodge what’s on the ground! Also, don’t be afraid to snuggle up to the other DPS and heals. We need to be stacked tight.

Imonar

Imonar was almost a relaxing break after the hectic fight of High Command. DPS did a bunch better job spreading out to avoid sleep-canistering the raid, and our bridge transitions were about as smooth as they can be. Continue to spread in phase 1 as much as possible, and we’ll have smoother transitions into phase 2!

Kin’garoth

Kin’garoth, as expected, gave us a lot of trouble. In the end, we elected a new strategy, keeping the DPS more split between teams than we had previously. This meant DPS reached adds faster, which meant downing them faster. We need to focus adds harder, and may end up being more picky about DPS minimums for this fight in the future. Otherwise, everyone did a good job dodging Ruiner, and tanks were excellent at clearing the purple boulders.

Varimathras

We ended Saturday on Varimathras, and we never got him lower than 50% (4 pulls we didn’t get him under 75%). Mostly, this is a boss positioning issue. Tanks homework this week is to watch tank PoV videos to make sure he’s being placed properly. DPS did a good job at their mechanics – no complaints this week!

Monday: Alt Night

On a lighter note, we had our Alt Night on Monday. We welcomed 3 new characters into the ranks – Thelovefool, Razarnlok (Furrybuddy’s alt), and Dotsmoredots. We give credit to the true newbies for having a minimal difficulty adjusting to Normal mode mechanics and not making the same mistakes twice. Each walked away with several new pieces of gear, including a legendary drop for Lovefool. With any luck they’ll continue to be assets to our Normal runs until they can join us for Heroic. We downed 5 bosses, including Argus (though he gave us a few problems as a result of so many being on alts!). In fact, we downed Argus with only 1 or 2 people left standing. Now that’s cutting it close! Raid Lead reminders: stack right on the boss’s butt. Cuddle up to your raid buddies, and make sure to pop defensives when you have bursts.

Congrats to everyone for another successful raid week!

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been itching to get achievements and transmogs from Legion raids before the content gets old – especially The Chosen, which will vanish when BFA launches!

For those who don’t know me, I was the primary (only) Raid Lead for Ministry of Defense in the first half of Legion, back before I took a year off to regain my sanity from yelling at fuckers not to stand in fire concentrate on finishing other games. You might hear people call me “Raid Mom”. I’m familiar with all the fights up through Nighthold, which netted me an Ahead of the Curve: Xavius and Ahead of the Curve: Helya (I quit before we finished Nighthold Heroic. RIP my cheevos.).

I’m itching to Raid Lead again, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to scratch that itch AND benefit all the guild members who lack Mythic kills, transmogs, and experience in general with Legion’s earliest raids.

My goal is to get all of our normal raiders The Chosen, so we’ll likely spend every Thursday starting on mythic ToV before moving on to one of the other three early legion raids.

If the idea of a Throwback Thursday Legion Raid strikes your fancy, react to this post in the MoD Website Feed Discord Channel with the MoD banner! If I net enough interest, I’ll start organizing a time and start date!

Just a reminder, we are progressing in heroic Antorus this Saturday. If you want to raid with us, you need an ilvl of 940 and make sure you have read the rules and requirements to raid (located here: https://www.ministryofdefense.net/raiding/raiding-rules-and-regulations/) AND have either messaged Zextol, Ganelon, Telanlan, or Quetzie that you agree to the rules by Saturday AM. There are no exceptions to this rule. It is to ensure the success of the guild as we progress through harder material.