11-09-2005, 11:31 PM
Congratulations! Regarding the use of spellbinders, you have to take into account the much longer time investment it takes to buff an enitre raid party this way. As you said, it took you 30 minutes to prepare your party each time whereas if you hadn't, you could've easily made three attempts in that same amout of time. The only raid members who need a very high resistance to fire are the main tanks. In our case, our goal is to try to equip all of our non-MT players with 151 fire resistance after MOTW and no more than that. We haven't reached that point yet, but that's the goal. Have less than that, then your raid is takng extra damage, stressing the healers. Have more than that, and you'll have to sacrifice too much offensive power.
The thing is, though, is that even this is largely overkill. I've healed groups with people with only 76 fire resistances after MOTW and my Prayer of Healing spams were more than enough to keep them healed from Vael's aoe fire attack. The real issue with Vael is not the fire attack but as you mentioned, understanding aggro control and handling tank transitions. By taking the time to use spellbinders, you reduce the number of attempts your raid can make during the course of an evening and therefore you reduce the number of attempts you have to learn about aggro control and tank transition control. So basically, the use of spellbinders hampers your efforts more than it helps.
My advice is that you make every effort to equip a set of main tanks with good fire resist gear (some coming from Thorium Brotherhood craftables and others from Molten Core drops) and then abandon the use of spellbinders altogether. Or, if you really can't readily equip a set of main tanks with 316+ fire resist gear (after the use of fire resist totems), then have them and only them use the spellbinders to boost their fire resistance.
The thing is, though, is that even this is largely overkill. I've healed groups with people with only 76 fire resistances after MOTW and my Prayer of Healing spams were more than enough to keep them healed from Vael's aoe fire attack. The real issue with Vael is not the fire attack but as you mentioned, understanding aggro control and handling tank transitions. By taking the time to use spellbinders, you reduce the number of attempts your raid can make during the course of an evening and therefore you reduce the number of attempts you have to learn about aggro control and tank transition control. So basically, the use of spellbinders hampers your efforts more than it helps.
My advice is that you make every effort to equip a set of main tanks with good fire resist gear (some coming from Thorium Brotherhood craftables and others from Molten Core drops) and then abandon the use of spellbinders altogether. Or, if you really can't readily equip a set of main tanks with 316+ fire resist gear (after the use of fire resist totems), then have them and only them use the spellbinders to boost their fire resistance.