Casual Raid Leader

Now that the plague has finally cleared my house…. we can get back to work.  I swear why in the hell can’t Heigan clean up after himself?  You’d think the guy would have learned after we slapped him around on our first day in, but no… he had to leave his crap all over my house!?!?!  (Trust me 3 days of dealing with the stomach flu is enough to drag anyone down…)

But moving on, the question is how in the world do you deal with raid walls? 

What is a Raid Wall?  A raid wall is any barrier you run into in a raid instance that halts your progress.  For some in Burning Crusade it was Attumen.  For others it was Curator.  Still others were plagued by beasts such as Shade of Aran or Moroes.  Whatever your wall, there’s always a cause and there’s always a solution.  Deconstructing the wall?  Now that can be as hard or easy as you make it.

Analysis – What’s Wrong?

The hardest part about raid walls is analysis.  Its where we have to sit down, throw all options at the wall and see what sticks.  Some of the more common problems you might run into:

• Too little gear – One or many people in your raid
• Too little skill – one or many people in your raid
• Too little DPS – Could be wrong spec, could be gear, could be any number of factors
• Too little TPS – Tanks not putting out the threat required for the DPS to do their job
• Too little heals
• Inexperience
• Wrong strategy

It doesn’t matter what the problem is and its entirely possible you could have some or all of these problems.  The point is when in analysis is to break down the problem step by step.  I like to use a technique that I call “walking backwards” through the problem.

Last week is probably one of the best examples I can use from our time in Naxx.  We started off the week very strong.  We went into Naxx and one shot every boss in the Spider and Plague wings.  This includes having never fought Loatheb before.  Then we proceeded on to the Construct Quarter just for some fun and downed Patchwerks and Grobbulus pretty handily.  Then it was on to Gluth.  Though we only took one attempt the first night, our second night we tried again and again and again with no luck.  Are we close?  Yes… with some tuning we can down Gluth very handily… however for now its lots of ideas we need to work out.  Shall we walk backwards?

Issue: 
Gluth keeps healing up.  We get him down to 50% or less and he zipps back up to full.

Key Point:
Why is he healing?
For every zombie he eats he’s getting 5% of his max health back.

What’s causing him to eat zombies?
Path 1. The person assigned to kite the zombies keeps dieing
Path 2. The zombies aren’t dieing before they get to Gluth
Path 3. The zombies are too close to Gluth when he decimates

1.1 What’s causing the person assigned to kite to die?
1.1a No dedicated healer/only brought 2 healers.
1.1b May need practice kiting.
1.1c Has to keep rounding up the loose ones that go after the healers

1.1a Can we bring three healers instead of two? 
Solution 1.1a.1 Yes… our DPS is high enough we can bring a third healer

1.1b Can we do anything to help the kiting? 
Solution 1.1b.1 Possibly have hunters drop frost traps to help with the kiting.
Solution 1.1b.2 Have all ranged DPS and healers stack up 30+yards away from Gluth so the kiter has only one place to run by to pick up extra “loose adds”
Solution 1.1b.3 If using a pally tank, have them drop a concecrate periodically under the stacked healers/ranged DPS to pick up the loose ones.

1.1c Can we do anything about the loose mobs?
Solution 1.1c.1 Have all ranged DPS and healers stack up 30+yards away from Gluth so the kiter has only one place to run by to pick up extra “loose adds”
Solution 1.1c.2 If using a pally tank, have them drop a concecrate periodically under the stacked healers/ranged DPS to pick up the loose ones.

Path 2: Why aren’t the zombies dieing before Gluth can eat them?
2.1a All DPS isn’t swinging to kill zombie chow after a decimate.
2.1b We are melee heavy and don’t have a lot of AOE.
2.1c We aren’t slowing the mobs down.  We need more time to kill them.
2.1d We need gear/better specs

2.1a Why aren’t the DPS swinging to the mobs?
Solution 2.1a.1 We did a poor job explaining what they needed to do.  We need to fix our explanation.

2.1b What can we do about the lack of AOE?
Solution 2.1b.1 Potentially do a tank swap right before the decimate.  Have the extra tank swap to helP DPS down the mobs.
Solution 2.1b.2 Bring more AOE/Ranged AOE.  Basically change the raid composition.

2.1c What can we do about slowing down the zombies?
Solution 2.1c.1 Emphasize key people moving off to slow/stun/root mobs immediately after the decimate.
Solution 2.1c.2 Hunter Frost Traps.
Solution 2.1c.3 Warrior Piercing Howl.
Solution 2.1c.4 Mage Improved Blizzard.
*Etc…. etc…

2.1d What can we do about gear/specs etc.
Solution 2.1d.1 Research better specs.  Test them out on training dummies.
Solution 2.1d.2 Do more normal 80 instances to grind rep, get get gear etc.
Solution 2.1d.3 Craft more gear
Solution 2.1d.4 Run heroics for gear and badges.

Path 3: What can we do about the zombies being too close to Gluth right after a decimate?
Solution 2.1d.1 Adjust tank position.  Try to maximize distance.
Solution 2.1d.2 Change kiting path to pull mobs to the furthest distance possible right before a decimate.

Notice how that worked.  One single problem broke out into a myriad of possible problems and their solutions.  Will you be able to use them all?  No, but the point is that the analysis tells you where your problem MIGHT lie.  Now the issue is fixing it.

Fixing the Problems

Realistically, you aren’t going to take each and every problem you see and break it out on paper like this.  What I did here was for illustration purposes only.  The reality is that some of this is just what you do in your head in a raid.  From there, you make the adjustment(s) necessary.  This not only a skill for raid leaders.  This is a great skill for any raider to figure out what’s wrong with what they are doing and trying to assess ways to improve their personal performance as well as the raid.

The easiest method I’ve found to progress once you are past the initial analysis is as follows:

1. Start simplest to hardest.  Fix the quick hitters first.  If you have problems with your explanation of how the fight works, fix that first before you try to fix people’s spec and/or gear issues/macros etc…
2. Develop a list of changes you might implement and test and bring it with you if you are going back in.  Don’t be affraid to halt a raid for 5-10 minutes to work through some problem solving.  Better to give people a break and you time to think rather than wasting 2-3 hours of everyone’s time.
3. Implement a change or series of changes and then test them out for 2-3 attempts.  Review the before and the after.  See the impact.
4. Roll back changes with a negative impact on your performance.
5. Understand the changes you can make to a strategy that require specific classes/specs/talents vs. more general strategies that you can use. 

Summary

Hopefully this has given you an idea of how to examine the walls you may encounter when raiding and one possible method of analyzing it and solving your problems.  Some problems can be solved in 2 minutes.  Others may take weeks or months worth of decidation to break down and solve.  From our times in Burning Crusade we spent over a month working on the Curator.  That guy plagued our progress for a very long time.  Every mountain has a tunnel to help you through it if you’re willing to look for it.  Some mountains can be walked over…. some mountains can be gone through.  Others.. must be walked around.  No matter what, something can be done.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Raid Leading, Tools of the Trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.