Critical Thinking. Yes, I Crit. (Raid update week of 4/20/2014)

I've got a lot on my mind this week.

      Tuesday was  a hard day for me.  We went in to Flex wing 3 and got kicked around my Malkorak.  A  lot.  I was already irritated that the raid seemed to have started a bit later then intended (about 20+ minutes by my count.) and was fighting a bad case of the grumps.  It didn't help that it felt like along with skill the raid had regressed to several people calling out ideas at once and folks were calling each other out on mistakes even though it wasn't our policy.  I was a horrible raid leader that night and just let things happen as I honestly was feeling to irritable to jump in and start what would have been a tirade of frustration and yelling.  By the end of the night we did manage to down Malkorak, and Spoils of Pandaria.  Thok ultimately killed us, but we will be back.

       Wednesday was much better.  We went straight to Blackfuse, and once again pull by pull things felt like they were getting better mechanic wise.  The whole mood of the raid seemed more positive then the night before and it showed.  We ended tweaking stategies and our roles a couple of times and on the last pull of the night we got Blackfuse down for the first time.  That means next week we should be fighting Paragons.  Yay progress.

        I have been doing a lot of thinking after Tuesdays raid this week.  The mood had gotten toxic enough that my wife turned off vent part way into the raid.  She eventually came back on but later told me she feels the team has lost the laid back feeling and happiness that we used to embrace.  After taking a 9 month break, and then stepping back in she hasn't been here for all the changes in the raid team and probably has one of the best views to see this.

       Honestly Wednesday morning I sat at work thinking through different ways to address the team and the problems that may have developed over this period of time.  I had speeches in my head that involved Hellfire.  Others that were kind and guiding.  I had gone over rants, rage quitting in the middle of pulls, and logging off in a foul and swearing manner for effect.  There were debates of starting progression over, rage quitting the team, or even rage quitting WoW for a while.  I was in a tumble of dark places and irritation.

       I was going over the issues we are facing.  People calling people out in front of the raid.  (There is a difference between chastising someone after a pull and saying "Hey Lag, Step out of the fire" in the middle of a fight.)  We have two many Chiefs not enough Indians complex where several voices are stepping in and trying to lead things.  We have people who get piss poor attitudes and get ornery with everyone else when things go wrong.  We have DPS who have hit that goal of 125k and instead of progressing further have regressed down to lower numbers.  There are these things and more going on right now.

       Then, as I was realizing all the issues, going over all these speeches and rants one thing occurred to me.  There is one consistent, one issue that needed fixing above all these things.

        And that was me.

        All these issues exist because I have allowed them.  I have been very non-aggressive lately in my approach of raid leading.  I have been very bare minimum on the strategies and watching videos before a pull/fight but I haven't been thinking them through.  I have let other step in, make calls etc.. without me O.K.ing that as their roll or assigning them to that job.  I have allowed all these problems to exist because I have allowed my heart and passion to wander away from the team.

        So now it's time for some critical thinking.

        I am going to start working hard to gain that passion back.  I want to be the one who is leading the team. I want to be aggressive when needed, and gently guide when it is not.  I want to walk into each fighting already thinking about who I want for what role, and where the best use of our assets are.  I want to be the one to make the calls, good and bad when we are fighting a boss.  I am going to make mistakes, but they will be honest mistakes.  I am going to try and be the person I was a year ago who could have told you the mechanics of the vast majority of classes and specs.    I want to get things to a point where they feel right and good.

        Here is my challenge to the team.  Do some critical thinking.  Where are you as far as the raid team goes?  Are you working on improving or are you just scraping the bare minimum.  Are you watching the boss fights before the raid, or are you just hoping that the strategy will make sense when someone explains it without any context to work from.  What are you doing to build the team.  Honestly, a team is better when most of it's people are taking ownership of that little part that is theirs.  Whether that is blowing up DPS charts, healing your butt off, or successfully tanking it doesn't matter.  1/10th to 1/25 of that raid is yours depending on how many folks show.  If you own and work on that part that is yours, we are all stronger for it.

       So get some critical thinking done, and lets blow up some Paragons next week.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

Identity Crisis. (Raid update week of 4/13/2014)

It was the best of raids, it was the worst of raids.

       Let's start with Tuesday... after the troubles with Blackfuse I decided to take us back and we ran Flex wing one, and killed the first couple bosses of wing two in SoO.  It gave us a chance to go back and kill some bosses and remember what we've done so far.  A couple people hopped in and were able to get some gear for an alt or two as well.

     Then came Wednesday.  It was back to Blackfuse.  This time however, we started seeing the strategy come together and things started moving into place.  Every pull we were feeling a little more control of the fight and different mechanics were clicking together.  We did not down Blackfuse by the end of the night, but we sure made some good progress to bank on.

      As we raid I am looking more and more towards the next Expansion.  I am pondering how, if anything, I am going to change things or run things differently in Warlords of Draenor.  I love the fact that all the raids are going to essentially be flexable, and that I will be able to build a team around the fact that some people may not be able to make every night.  I also am looking at the role I will be playing next expansion.

       My pally Lag is not likely to be the first toon I level for the first time in three expansions.  In Cataclysm and Mists Lag was my solid main for leveling and starting out.  He was my main through the last half of Wrath of the Lich King.  Up until the last half of this expansion, if I was raiding it was on Lag.  Lazyeye however has edged him out as I've gone to a DPS role in the raiding scheme of things.  Now, Lazyeye was my main back in the day, end of Burning Crusaide/beginning of Wrath, and if feels good for him to have some recognition.

       The question going into the new expansion is am I going to stick with Lazyeye?  I mean, I love my hunter.  I am having fun with him.  But since I've been running DPS I have other options I can look at.  I could level Shimmer as Elemental/heals so that if we need a healer I will be available.  I could go Pyreknight my mage who was my first main even before Lazyeye.  I could go DK, Warrior, Lock, Priest, or even go straight Ret on Lag himself.  I have many options before me, however, I do prefer ranged DPS over Melee the majority of the time when it comes to damage dealing.

      My gut feeling is that I'm going to stick with Lazyeye for a while, and then Level Lag second.  I still use him a lot as a stand in tank and would like to make sure I'm available for that as needed.  Dizzty or Shimmer will probably be next as I like to have a healing option if needed as well.  Yes this means I will be leveling 3 characters back to back.  But, hey that's me.

      How about you all.  Are you sticking to your mains for the next expansion? Are you going to swap to a different toon/role etc...? What do you plan on doing in Draenor?

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

Wiping is not always bad.

No really, it isn't.

      Tuesday night we went back to wing three.  Our groove wasn't quiet grooving and it took three tries to down Malkorak.  A few on Spoils of Pandaria, and we ended the night watching a giant T-Rex walk confidently all over our bodies.  Not the worst raid night we have had, but we definitely had some kinks that were kicking us.  Despite it, I decided to start wing four on Wednesday....

      And that Brings us to Wednesday.  Once again Blackfuse laughed merrily as he blew us to bits.  After a bit, I handed the raid to Irritated/Fastlane who has run through this fight before.  We managed to get the boss down and learn some mechanics better at his lead, but alas the boss still won out the night being victorious.  We are however, closer to talking him down.

       That brings us to my topic for the week.  We have wiped a lot to Blackfuse the last couple of weeks.  This has been made more frustrating by internet issues and other problems that have walked into the raid with us as well.  However, between both nights we have made progress.  Every time we learn something from a pull, we are that much closer to killing the boss.

       We don't even have it bad.  We are high progression raiders, and we especially aren't world first raiders.  Those guys log in hundreds of wipes on a single boss very often as they figure out mechanics etc...  They walk in with no guides, no map to follow written by folks that have been to the raid before.  They spend 16 hours a day at times just trying to grind bosses down for a few weeks until the titles are claimed.  We spend four hours a week.

       More over, we want bosses to wipe us.  If everything was a march through one shot we would all get bored and would stop raiding quickly.  There has to be something to keep fighting, but it also needs to feel attainable.  Things should not be an endless wipefest of destruction, but it also can't be so far our of our reach that we get frustrated and walk away.  Blackfuse seems to be about right for this.  We are making noticeable progress without gaining a quick victory.  I appreciate that about this fight.  I felt the same way about Galakras to be fair, and I still hate that fight.

      That's about it for this week.  But tell me, how do you feel about wiping?

Lag

Comcast killed our Raid... (raid update week of 3/30/2014)

Well, they murdered an hour of our time anyway.

      Tuesday night was fantastic.  We went through and cleared the third wing of flex in the one night.  Malkorak went down in one shot, Treasures took a couple.  Then, Thok, the big mighty dinosaur went down.  There was much rejoicing.  That means we have now downed 9 of the bosses in the raid.  So now the test really begins... Wing 4.

      Wednesday we fought Comca... err.. Blackfuse.  He pretty much ate us alive.  And not gently, he ripped our limbs off and slowly slurped them down a piece at a time.  It was not a surprise, as we knew it would be a tough fight going in.  It is definitely a mechanics fight and as soon as we get those down we will be golden.  It didn't help that for the first hour of raid people got dropped by their internet provider (cough* Comcast * cough) in a pattern that moved across Utah.  And hit a bit of Texas.  It was one of those things that couldn't be avoided, and despite being cut an hour short we made some good progress on Blackfuse.  He may still take us a bit to get down, but people were making progress every pull.

     Belevina gets my cheerleader award this week.  Despite the floor tanking fun of Blackfuse he managed to keep up a positive attitude and shared it liberally with the rest of the group.  It is always a good thing to keep the happy vibes flowing.  That fight is going to be work and I imagine it might even be a couple of weeks before we down him.  I may switch that up with doing wings 1,2,3, alternatingly so we are still downing bosses and getting chances at loot.  As it is, I'm happy with this week and I am looking forward to stepping back in next week.

     That positive attitude is something that can not be spoken of well enough.  We had thirteen people in raid last night, and despite the setbacks and internet frustration there was no swearing, anger, or negativity about the issues.  We also didn't get the boss down below 65% but the vast majority of the feedback was constructive and everyone was trying to solve problems rather then tear other players down.  There was a few points where we had almost too much information coming out from several sources, but I would rather have a lot of ideas to sift through then dead silence.

     My next goal is to get the raid team on homework track.  I want to get people to look up boss fights, information on raids etc... so that more then a couple folks are seeing the fights before we get whacked by them.  Now we are looking at the last three bosses in this raid it is becoming very apparent that studying is needed.  We have/had met our dps goal... let's get this goal down too.  Most our dps are still maintaining the 125k dps average, a couple have dropped back down and I am working with them.  At this point bosses health is dropping quickly enough that I'm not too worried about a couple stragglers as long as they are improving.  And they are.  Right now we are running 12-16 raiders, and I have been running with about 4 healers.  (I figure with 10 you do 2-3 heals on a fight.  If we have 3-5 more peeps another healer works.)

     I feel we are finally making some good progress.  I feel things are coming together.  There is still some headbutting between people in the raid, but it's minor enough that I'm not to worried about it at this point.  That being said, I have a minor eye on it.  I have never been an aggressive raid leader, and people are working together in a manner where I don't have to step in often.  Normally, I listen to the ideas... we make choices and roll.  That being said starting next expansion I may look for a strategy master.  We will see.

Epicness

      Next week, we will see how Blackfuse fares.  I am looking forward to pounding that little goblin into the ground.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.