Razorgore Thoughts

[Bolty]

I'm willing to go with more kiters.  I'm the one who was putting more objection to it last night as the times I've kited if I somehow crossed paths with another kiter and wasn't careful I ended up getting hit by mobs in their pack.  Or so I thought.  Maybe I wasn't seeing what I thought I saw maybe that was a new spawn mob that wasn't focused on anyone yet that was hitting me.  I was just terrified of jumping down onto a pack that was regrouping after another warrior.[right][snapback]98581[/snapback][/right]

True - Theorycraft states that the mobs going for the other warrior shouldn't have swung at you. But it's very hard to figure out what's going on with 80+ PCs and NPCs in this small room sometimes.

One time I was trying being an OOC resser, and standing by the orb controller. A train of orcs ran by me and, for no reason I could see, put me into combat. Why? I have no idea to this day. I didn't see any cleaves, and I didn't take damage.

So next time for the first thing we do, let's try having more warriors kite and have the priests be ready to run with them too.  This might get holy nova back into play a little bit as well since that more mobile priest might have a few chances to use it as they may end up in a spot where there are no CC'd mobs but some of the people in their group are near by.  As you mentioned the horrible efficiecy of it won't matter, it will just add one more minor bit of healing for a kiter or maybe someone else.[right][snapback]98581[/snapback][/right]

Agreed and agreed. It was Genkar who popped the idea in WhackAMole yesterday - why don't we have every tank in the raid go kite? Forgive my ignorance of Druids: can they Hibernate while in bear form? If so, we could potentially have 8-10 kiting tanks, right?

It comes down to this, really: who do we want to be our sacrificial lambs? Who's going to take the hit in phase 1?

Under the current system, it's our Priests who get creamed. Note: I don't mind this at all, if it's my job to die for the cause then so be it - all I care about is winning for the raid.

If we engage a lot more kiters, then we'll have fewer Priest deaths, but likely more tank deaths (Druids and Warriors). But let's consider a ratio: say we try this and it leads to one Warrior and two Druids dying in phase 1. Wouldn't that be a good tradeoff compared to what happened last night - a whopping seven Priests on our last run, and all seven dying less than 2 minutes in?

I don't know. If kiters start dying, the mobs they were kiting are going to go to one place - the healers. So the end result may wind up being the same, unless that healer really starts booking it. I know that once I see 5+ mobs coming for me, I simply stop healing (except for myself) and start kiting. Sure, I could fade, but that means they'd just go and plaster some other Priest instead. I can help the raid more by turning into a kiter.

I like the idea of having Druids waiting around by our squishies, seeing mobs coming in to kill them, and dropping to bear form to kite them away. We had six Druids on some runs last night - that's a lot of extra protection waiting to peel mobs away, and perhaps bring them to another kiter.

The priests might even be able to stop and flash too.  If you are near a kiter what is your train may very likely become theirs as well.[right][snapback]98581[/snapback][/right]

Only one catch. I know when I get aggro, because CTRA tells me so, and it's pretty obvious when the mobs are gunning for me. So, let's say Cleoboltra runs over to Gnolack screaming "My Gnomish Hero! Save me!" Gnolack bravely stands down the evil bad guys, and as we're running along together, manages to get their attention.

How does Cleoboltra know that, though? How can I know that the mobs have switched over to you? If I stop to flash heal and "test the waters," I could be taking a nap within a second. It will be difficult for me to tell that you've peeled away everything chasing me, and so I'll have to keep running with you, limiting myself to renews and shields. Which I don't mind - perhaps that's what we'll have to do.

Bloodrage is 335 hate on each mob, dem shout is 175, Piercing Howl I can't find the number for but is 80 or so iirc.  Bloodrage will only put hate on the mobs focused on the warrior though.  But I know that if I got something in my train (with one weird exception last night) I didn't lose mobs in my train.  If a priest running by a kiter hadn't pulled a lot of aggro (just a tick or two of renew say) that mob will very likely be the warriors soon with the rate of dem shout usage.  Or at least I don't see how I could have a train of 10+ and be losing them to heal aggro when things are still spawning in.  Again maybe my observations are wrong.[right][snapback]98581[/snapback][/right]

Your observations are spot on. Once Warriors have a mob, they keep it, as I've observed as well. The problem isn't Priests "peeling" mobs off the kiters via healing, it's the *new* mobs coming into the room. The ones that slip through the cracks, missed by both kiters because you guys can't be everywhere at once. This is where the suggestions for more kiters are coming from. More kiters, in a solid rotation around the room, increases the chance that the *new* mobs coming in are picked up by a kiter, and not a Priest. Once those mobs get on the Priests, they stay there. Priest A fades, so it moves to Priest B, who fades, so it moves to Priest C, and it's hellacious for a kiter to try to pick it up because it's going all over the room. Never mind that we're Screaming to send these guys flying - two kiters just aren't enough to pick all these wandering mobs up.

So we're in agreement to try having more kiters next time. I'd like to try also having the Druids waiting around to peel mobs off Priests, if they can still Hibernate while doing so (what's the casting time on Hibernate?). Let's use our Warlocks, also, as permanent fear chainers of Dragonkin.

We also need to pay more attention of keeping a PW:S on the orb controller.  I know that I had said we weren't needing it on a previous run, but last night was a time where things were random with that again and I was getting many more stray cleaves hitting me, many more stray explosions from mages.  We need to go back to doing that as going from a full controller bar to the bar being nearly empty sucks and can make it so that I can't control at all again for some time.[right][snapback]98581[/snapback][/right]

My apologies; if you had asked for that last night, I missed it. We'll go back to an assigned shielder for next time.

Any more consideration on using the Razorgore fireball strategy? Have Razor fireball the room, immediate drop the control, and basically have every mob in the room going for that one former controller while someone else grabs the orb? Imagine that train. :) At least, that's how I understand that aggro transfer works.

-Bolty