We had an amazing turnout as always for the Heroic raid planning meeting for Shadowlands & Castle Nathria!

We encourage everyone to review this, even if you attended the meeting. It’s an excellent reference and also includes a few notes we may have forgotten during the meeting

Note: Heroic raid, weekend raid, etc all refers to the same group – basically, “not the mythic team”. You will hear us use these somewhat interchangeably. Even if the group is on normal we may call them the “heroic raid”.

Agenda:

Introduction
Rule Changes
– Loot
Rule Reminders
– Confirming the Rules
– Arriving on Time
– Discord
– Discord Bots
– Respect
– Benching / Sitting
– Raiding Ahead
Vanguard
Getting Good
Raid Prep
Recap
Gearing Event
Q&A

Introduction from the Warlords

Zextol: Main raid lead
Lineda (Peepo, DrLime): Weekend main lead
Quetzie: Analysis & Tech Support
Tiraffe: Analysis
Urostek: Guild Leader (above the Warlords!). Recruiter, supplier, raffle master, smoother-of-issues, rules master, final say in all things period.

Spotlight: Gary is the Mythic team healing lead, Argesh is the Mythic team main tank. If you’re in those roles and have questions they are excellent resources, but please be respectful of their time (they are experienced in these roles, but are not raid leads)

Rule changes:

Loot:

  • In order to smooth over any issues with loot, we will be changing the way we handle loot in Shadowlands.
    • There is less loot to go around, so it is vital that loot is done properly.
  • You do NOT have to offer loot up if you don’t want to. Loot is yours!
  • If you DO receive loot you want to trade:
    1. Trade unwanted loot to designated RL (usually Peepo/Lineda/Drlime)
    2. Raid Lead will put it up for roll
    3. Interested parties roll according to set loot priority
      1. Main char main spec: /roll 100
      2. Main char off spec: /roll 90
      3. Etc. For further information about tmog, alts, etc, see the raid rules page.

Rule Reminders:

Confirming Raid rules

  • Everyone, whether or not they have raided before, needs to confirm they’ve read the raid rules
  • Members confirming raid participation will need to confirm by Friday before raid.
    • If raid is at 5pm on Saturday, you cannot confirm the rules at 4pm Saturday.
    • You need to have messaged a Warlord by 11:59pm Friday.
    • If you confirm the rules after Friday, you must wait until the following week to join in the raid.
  • This gives us time to verify that you have hit any minimum requirements, and prevents problems of expected turnout / composition (too many healers / tanks, undergeared DPS, etc).

Arriving on time

  • Please show up at the half-hour pre-raid start time.
    • This means that if raid starts at 7pm, you should be ready for invites at 6:30.
    • No “let me finish doing my world quests”, no “I’m on an alt I’ll log onto my main at 6:55”, no delays.
  • This allows time for people who forgot to do things during the week – buy prepots, enchants, etc. You can change talents based on what boss we’re doing next, too.
  • Once we’re organized and ready to roll, then we can start clearing trash.
  • The more people who show up early, the sooner we can actually pull a boss on time.
  • Obviously if you can’t be online early because of work / school / etc, that’s understandable – but if you’re online, you’re expected to be in the raid.

Discord / Lines of Communication

  • Change your discord name / add your character name to your Discord name (for example “Ben (Blestis)”).
  • The Discord channels will be our primary source of notification for all of the following.
    • Raiding Announcements: General updates such as raid cancellations, time changes, current progression boss encounter videos and special events being offered to Vanguards
    • Raiding Discussion: Discussion, including any of the mentioned notes in Raiding Announcements. If you have questions, information to share, etc, post it here.
    • Raiding Attendance: If you’re going to be late or absent, please let us know.
    • Website Feed: Lots of posts that are important will get crossposted to the raiding announcements channel, but not all will.
  • If you don’t see information in the discord, don’t hesitate to reach out to us – we might have forgotten.
    • Also, if we say something verbally, feel free to tell us “Hey you should add that to a post / put it in raiding announcements”. We don’t want to forget to share important information!
  • If something is in these channels, “I didn’t know / I didn’t see it” is not an excuse.
    • We’re going to start cracking down more heavily on simply telling people “read the discord” this tier – many of us have spent the last two years repeating ourselves via in-game PMs and Discord DMs, and we’re not going to do that anymore.
  • We will be requiring people to use Push-to-talk or be extremely cognizant of background noise. We will be server muting people if they are not on push-to-talk.
  • If you need to talk with us, we 99% of the time prefer discord text communication, not in-game PMs. We may AFK and not see them, we may be in the middle of a dungeon and forget, etc. It also allows us to better organize our thoughts to formulate a better response.

Discord Bots

  • Quetzie has spent a decent amount of time setting up Discord bots for us.
  • Khadgar Bot
    • !khadgarhelp will list everything
    • !weakauras will respond with required weakauras.
    • !raid lists raid times in EST
    • !raidguides lists the 9.0 raiding information pages. Intro to Raiding is required reading.
    • !rules links to the rules pages.
  • Keystone Bot
    • Not directly related to raiding, but helps find key groups
    • @Keystone set [dungeon] [level] [modifiers]
      • Example: @Keystone set mists 9 sanguine volcanic
      • Alt example: @keystone alt Urotorg set halls 5
      • You can leave off the modifiers, example: @Keystone set spires 9

Respect

  • We pride ourselves on being nontoxic, no drama, no yelling, being kind, etc
  • We run this for you guys – 2 groups x 2 nights a week + background time = basically a part time job for multiple people. We ask that you respect us as well as each other. Also constantly PMing raid leads is a no-no.
  • No toys, warlock / mage portals, swapblasters, SHAPESHIFTER TRANSMORPHER GUY, etc.
    • Except on breaks, but it ends when break ends!

Benching / Sitting

  • We have a loose “3 strike / 2 strike” rule.
    • If you make 3 minor mistakes resulting in a wipe, you will be benched for the boss.
    • If you make 2 major mistakes, you will be benched for the boss.
    • If you continue to wipe the raid over time, you will be benched for the night until you can improve mechanically.
  • If a Warlord asks to sit you, it’s not because of a personal grudge. It’s because your DPS or mechanics are failing the team and causing the boss to be much harder than it is.
  • This doesn’t mean you’re permanently benched! We can and will work with you to bring you up to speed on mistakes you made and help you grow as a player.
  • Do not argue or talk back with the Warlord about why you were sat. Feel free to discuss it with them or with Urostek after the raid night is over.
  • If you have a problem with something mid-raid, please be constructive if you choose to bring it up.
    • Complaining about individual performance is not constructive
    • Also, it is generally the sort of thing that you should feel comfortable “sharing with the class”.
    • Linking of DPS meters mid-raid is disallowed – we’ve seen them, we know.
  • If you have something constructive – “Can you mark this add” or “do you want me to call out X mechanic”, or similar, that is immensely more helpful than mid-raid bitching.
  • That said…feel free to PM us nice things. We like nice things

Raiding Ahead

  • We know that people are excited to start the new raid.
  • Raiding on the same difficulty as your raid group before you raid with them locks out your ability to receive loot. This means you may ‘eat’ loot.
    • If there are 20 people in a raid, 3 pieces of loot could drop. If you already killed the boss, the game could decide to assign you a piece of loot. if it does that, and you are locked…nobody gets it, and the raid only gets 2 pieces.
    • However, you can raid ahead on alts.

Vanguard

  • After a guild member has attended a total of five (5) individual Raid events in one month they will be promoted to “Vanguard” in the guild.
    • This feature will grant you access to the Raiding Equipment tabs in the guild bank, a higher guild bank repair bill, and qualify you for special events such as progression boss raffles and celebrations.
  • In order to keep this status, the Vanguard is asked to make at least 66% of raids per month.
  • We may eventually require Vanguards to donate materials to help guild runs. We don’t require any donations yet, but any volunteers for cauldrons / alchemy, food / feasts, enchanting mats, etc, is welcome.
  • Vanguards are also expected to participate in BoE farms.
    • BoE farms are days that we go into mythic Castle Nathria, kill trash mobs, and hope that mythic loot level BoEs drop. Any drops during this time are given to Uro and he sells them to fund guild repairs, raid materials, etc
    • We try to do this once a week, but we won’t know a good BoE farm spot until the raid opens.
    • Any BoEs that drop during normally scheduled raids are yours to keep.

Getting Good

  • Check the player performance category on the website.
  • Don’t skip Mythic+ during the week!
    • Always check in guild chat or the keystones channel in Discord for groups.
    • The more M+ you do, the better gear you will get.
    • Don’t just come to raids and then complain if you’re not getting drops.
    • You get out what you put in!
    • If you need help or have limited playtime, let us know! We’ll try to make same-same mythic+ groups to help you out.
  • Tiraffe and Quetz can help with class resources and reading Warcraft logs if you’re having issues.
    • There are also a number of good resources in the player performance category to get you started.
  • If you get sat, you should work with T&Q to improve.

Raid prep:

  • Officially, any of the normal content creators who do boss how-tos will be fine to watch. This includes FatBossTV, Hazelnutty, etc.
  • That said, we’ve really noticed that two new faces in the game have created resources will be excellent strategy builders and introductions for raiders both new and experienced.
    • Mythic Trap has mechanic-by-mechanic breakdowns for each boss fight, highlights what’s important to specific roles, and highlights the differences between normal, heroic, and mythic. Start with Shriekwing and check out the rest.
    • Tactical Air Horse built a minigame, Castle Pineapplia, that you can play in your browser that teaches the basic mechanics. Combine with Mythic Trap’s guides and you should have a good memory and understanding of the basics!
  • We want you to have a good understanding of mechanics but we do not expect perfection on day one. There are going to be a lot of “Oh, that’s what they meant by XX!” moments as we start raiding.

Requirements and Recap:

  • 175 ilvl – to start (for normal)
    • DPS minimums eventually
  • Renown 9 – ongoing renown cap or close unless an alt
  • Dbm/bigwigs / weakauras
  • Intro to Raiding guide on the website
  • Push to talk or server muted
  • No toys, swapblasters, cheeky portals, etc.
  • Confirm the raid rules by Friday
  • Anyone interested in progressing further beyond heroic raid into mythic should reach out to a raidlead. We’ll keep an eye on those interested, aim to impress us.

Gearing

  • Dungeon event Wednesday, December 9th 7pm eastern (4pm server)
  • Heroics (and Mythics if possible).

Q&A:

Q: Do we get a TLDR of the fight at the start or are we just pulling blind?
A: We will give a 60 second tldr, but not a multi-minute explanation. This is just to jog your memory, not teach it to you. Please see aforementioned resources to get a sense of boss fights.

Q: Is there a preference for dps based on class / spec / role? Will I get sat if I don’t pick the right thing?
A: No! Play what you want and what you enjoy! We will not bench or sit anyone because we have 10 of the same class already. We will supplement with mythic raider alts if we need something specific.

Q: What is class/spec/etc needed for the raid?
A: Versatility within your class / role. We have an excess of tanks and DPS, but not as many healers at the moment. The more characters you have or roles you have, the more likely you are able to participate. We want to get as many involved as possible.

Just because you don’t get your primary role, doesn’t mean you can’t participate. Our comp fluctuates a lot! Also note that if we ask you to off-spec into something else, we won’t be benching you for underperforming in that role. It’s not fair to make a healer DPS and then sit you because your DPS isn’t very high.

Q: What if we can’t hit 175?
A: We will help if you reach out to us

Q: I’ve never raided before. What else can I do as a rookie besides reading the intro to raiding guide?
A: Check the Prepatch Guide Directory. Class guides from your class discords or wowhead will help as well (check !classinfo in discord)

Q: Is there anything the raid team needs right now for materials, even if it’s not required to donate?
A: Alchemy: Shadestones!!! Otherwise, food, flasks, battle potions are all welcome.

Q: What if I’m gonna be late, or what if I can’t make some days at all?
A: Let us know in attendance! We will work you in as we can. The more communicative we are, the more likely we are to fit you in where possible.

Q: What about healers / tanks, are we gonna be working through the rotation?
A: Ideally we’d like people to get people rotated in healing, we already have set tanks however. If we have 8 healers we will be swapping you around week to week if we can. Also, the tier is very long! We hope everyone gets a chance.

As a related note, you get out what you put in re:performance as well. If you are underperforming in your role, but you spend time with us during the week to improve your uptime/rotation/etc, we’re more willing to give you a shot than someone who is doing average and never tries to do better.

Q: What about outsiders or friends from other guilds? Can we participate?
A: We have the same expectations from outsiders as we do from our Mythic raiders – you should be giving more than taking. Higher ilvl / dps / etc requirements. You should be coming to the raid with the intent to help clear the raid, not with the intent to take loot from every boss. Message Peepo if interested in participating.

Q: Are we allowed to drink/smoke in raids?
A: Come as sober as possible. Stay hydrated! If you want to have a beer or smoke a little over the course of three hours, that’s fine. But if you come wasted or high, we will know, and you will be removed, and it is possible you will not be welcomed back. You think you’re sneaky but you’re fuckin’ not, it’s obvious to everyone, and it becomes incredibly uncomfortable.

Q: What about raiding with friends who aren’t in the guild before raid times?
A: You can raid outside the guild! Just don’t be loot locked 🙂

Q: Are loot locks individual if we get benched, or are we locked from loot on all bosses if we get benched?
A: On normal and heroic, no! If we bench you from Sun King only, you can pug Sun King with another group.