First Mara Run last Night!

[ShadoweSpirit]

Ok...Flash and I finally got to take a step into the hallowed halls of Maraudon last night, thanks to Necrali, Vman, Urza, Yuri and Conc..We made 2 princess runs and Flash made out like a bandit with the drops..(I got a nice pair of boots from the Croc)

It was great...I was up until 2am ..I was hating myself this morning at 6, but I had a blast...Mara is awesome and has officially replaced WC as my favorite Instance so far.

It was also a learning experience for us so if anyone has any feedback on our performance in the group we would be interested in hearing it.

:)

[bonemage]

Ok...Flash and I finally got to take a step into the hallowed halls of Maraudon last night, thanks to Necrali, Vman, Urza, Yuri and Conc..We made 2 princess runs and Flash made out like a bandit with the drops..(I got a nice pair of boots from the Croc)

  It was great...I was up until 2am ..I was hating myself this morning at 6, but I had a blast...Mara is awesome and has officially replaced WC as my favorite Instance so far.

It was also a learning experience for us so if anyone has any feedback on our performance in the group we would be interested in hearing it.

  :)
[right][snapback]95057[/snapback][/right]

I wasn't there, but I am excited to see you catching up quickly. I'm also really glad you had a lot of fun.

[VoiceMan]

I was there for only the second run. Yuri and Necrali were there for both runs...and would know more how the whole evening went in general, but I thought it was great. We as a group were a bit over-powered....but you had 3 level 60's in there with you. But, that was a run for loot, and to introduce you guys to it. When you get ready to go back and do the quests, and do the whole instance, we probably won't send 3 60's with you, to help it be more of a challenge. But, I thought the play of everyone was great. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad you and Flash both got some loot. I'd call the evening a smashing success! :D We're looking forward to you getting to level 60. I wonder if I could sabotage all those "malts" you guys play for the next month. :whistling: hehehe...just teasing. Glad you had fun. We'll have more fun as a guild like that in the coming days. :)

[Concillian]

We're looking forward to you getting to level 60.  I wonder if I could sabotage all those "malts" you guys play for the next month.  :whistling:  hehehe...just teasing.  Glad you had fun.  We'll have more fun as a guild like that in the coming days.  :)
[right][snapback]95079[/snapback][/right]

First run was quick and painless. 3 level 60s make a princess run nice and quick, especially when they are tank / healer / DPS. From Landslide to leaving the instance was about 30 minutes. We skipped Gizlock, so Flash can still look forward to the Focal Sword.

I agree with getting them up quick for some high level fun. We will then have enough for a 5 man questing + small raid group for loot somewhere or even a UBRS raid.

[vor_lord]

First run was quick and painless. 3 level 60s make a princess run nice and quick, especially when they are tank / healer / DPS.  From Landslide to leaving the instance was about 30 minutes. We skipped Gizlock, so Flash can still look forward to the Focal Sword.

I agree with getting them up quick for some high level fun.  We will then have enough for a 5 man questing + small raid group for loot somewhere or even a UBRS raid.
[right][snapback]95113[/snapback][/right]

We grabbed Gorkuk and hopped in, forgetting to reset. Luckily we had skipped Gizlock and there were no repops, so we killed Gizlock.

Gizlock continues to be very very stingy with his gun.

I thought things went very smoothly.

If I look at how a group run goes and am looking at people not playing tank or healer, I look for the following:

1. Crowd control

Sometimes it takes a while to get used to using regular crowd control with people you haven't grouped with before. Pubbie experience with sheep for example might teach people bad habits. We only had one sheep popped the whole time, and that was an accidental keypress. I call that a resounding success.

2. Aggro control

Can the DPS characters shoot the right target at the right time, or are they drawing aggro? This was harder to measure for our Maraudon runs -- with a level 60 tank it'd be pretty hard to pull aggro from them. Seemed to me all the right things were being done, i.e. wait for the tank to establish aggro. Good job here too.

3. Focus fire

Do DPS characters focus their fire on a well-locked mob so as to reduce incoming damage by quickly reducing the number of mobs? We had Shadowe act as main assist for the first run and I thought she did a fine job. Everyone followed her lead correctly. I think a hunter as main assist is a bit more difficult because typically you are out of range of the visible health bars which help you pick the most appropriate next target more easily.

4. Stupid behavior

Ever seen people wander off and pull mobs on their own or other stupid behavior? Well there certainly was none of that!


If you're looking for specific feedback -- all I can say is that I thought you guys know very well what you're doing so I can't offer any tips. I'm excited to have you guys catch up and hopefully join us on Fridays regularly.

[Concillian]

1.  Crowd control

Sometimes it takes a while to get used to using regular crowd control with people you haven't grouped with before.  Pubbie experience with sheep for example might teach people bad habits.  We only had one sheep popped the whole time, and that was an accidental keypress.  I call that a resounding success.

I popped one on a thunderclap because I changed my timing. With Improved charge I can charge and T-clap right away. But I noticed I was only affecting the charged lizard, and not his friends. So I delayed the T-clap a bit and that meant Yuri's timing was off, and I popped the sheep.

2.  Aggro control

Can the DPS characters shoot the right target at the right time, or are they drawing aggro?  This was harder to measure for our Maraudon runs -- with a level 60 tank it'd be pretty hard to pull aggro from them.  Seemed to me all the right things were being done, i.e. wait for the tank to establish aggro.  Good job here too.

People were getting on the DPS pretty early. Flash was putting DOTs on the unmarked mob pretty quick. It was perfectly fine here, but a lower level tank may have had more issue with that.

3.  Focus fire

Do DPS characters focus their fire on a well-locked mob so as to reduce incoming damage by quickly reducing the number of mobs?  We had Shadowe act as main assist for the first run and I thought she did a fine job.  Everyone followed her lead correctly.  I think a hunter as main assist is a bit more difficult because typically you are out of range of the visible health bars which help you pick the most appropriate next target more easily.

There were a couple pulls where focus fire could have been better. Part of it was that I was rushing, but there was one set of giants that went down almost simultaneously.
Also, one of the times the imp died, people were piling on the giant that wasn't marked. This was the one I had less threat on, concentrating more on holding the marked one, as this is the one I thought everyone was going to be hitting first. This pulled him off me, but I taunted and got him back quick. This happened very near the top of the ramp down to the princess.

[swirly]

Also, one of the times the imp died, people were piling on the giant that wasn't marked.  This was the one I had less threat on, concentrating more on holding the marked one, as this is the one I thought everyone was going to be hitting first.
[right][snapback]95141[/snapback][/right]

I wasn't there and this isn't really about this exactly, but its semi related. One of the things that I have noticed lately is a lack of leadership. I've noticed alot of times in instances where the group will be milling around waiting for somebody to do something...to pull, to charge, to say whats being controlled, etc etc. Nobody seems to really know who should act first or who should do what.

I do have a tendency to try and start saying what should happen thats leftover from my warrior days, but I don't feel comfortable doing it with my hunter and so I tend to try and not do so as much. As my warrior I felt that I could take charge better and say "okay, sheep that one, do such and such to that one, focus on this one" or whatever and then we could do it and not just stand around looking. I'm not saying that the tank should always be the one saying such things, just that I felt most comfy doing it on mine

I've noticed alot of groups lately that have been kind of zergish and so what ends up happening is nobody knows what to do and the fights are messy, but we are over-powered so we get through it anyway. Nobody really knows which mobs are going to be tanked, which will be CCed, or which should be focused on. So I would say that this would be something we need to work on. It may only be a problem in the level range my hunter is in (around the 40's), but I thought I would throw it out here for people to comment on.

Course the opposite can be a problem as well. Instead of no leadership, sometimes there ends up being too many people trying to lead. So you end up with people being confused because they are trying to take in what several people say and make it mesh when it may not always do so. This is often a problem with letting mages, hunters, rogues, whatever say what they are going to CC instead of having one leader who specifies things. You end up getting the rogue saying he is going to sap one of them, but the mage thinking he is going to sheep that one, and so shifting plans which then makes him sheep one the hunter was going to trap (or sheeping the sapped one anyway and so there is an extra mob running around if each CC needed to be on a different mob). So you end up with confusion. In a group that plays together alot this isn't such a big deal because the people know how each other play and so there are less times where this pops up.

I guess my point is that in the level range I've been playing it feels like the instance runs have been kind of unorganized and messy. Some of this may be just me being used to different styles, different people, different pacing, etc. I know I've grown used to having alot of CCing going on from playing my 60 char on another server and so often it feels strange having mobs running around that could be controlled even if they aren't really a threat to us. Has anybody else felt some of this going around or is it just me needing to adjust to different groups/people?

[vor_lord]

I guess my point is that in the level range I've been playing it feels like the instance runs have been kind of unorganized and messy.  Some of this may be just me being used to different styles, different people, different pacing, etc.  I know I've grown used to having alot of CCing going on from playing my 60 char on another server and so often it feels strange having mobs running around that could be controlled even if they aren't really a threat to us.  Has anybody else felt some of this going around or is it just me needing to adjust to different groups/people?
[right][snapback]95148[/snapback][/right]

If it feels disorganized, and especially if there are controllable mobs that aren't being controlled, then there is a problem in my opinion. For nearly every one of the groups I've been on either Concillian or bonemage (as the warriors) have taken charge. They have the role and the personalities that make that work well. For the second Mara run, VoiceMan took charge (his pet was the MT) and it worked fine.

I don't have a problem with someone other than the MT taking charge if the tank doesn't want to do that role. Perhaps at the beginning of the run just simply agreeing on who is going to call out CC targets and so forth is worth it. I imagine in the cases where people are milling around they'd be grateful if you filled the leadership void, no matter what role you are playing.

In cases with too many leaders, I definitely think someone should specifically be agreed upon to be the voice in those matters. bonemage and I used to sometimes call out conflicting details, but I've since tried to stop doing that (everyone please tell me if I slide back into that ;) )

The level 60 crowd has played together enough now that things generally go pretty smoothly (except for Kosch whose fondness for body pulling and CC breaking with magma totem is now legendary :P ). It does help to have Concillian and bonemage taking charge.

[VoiceMan]

Yep..I agree with both Swirly and vor_lord in this. I think I've only run one instance with you, Swirly, and that was our laughable zerg through SFK last week. I'll admit our tactics were less than desirable, probably due to the fact that we as a group were almost silly in how over-powered we were in there. I can tell you that our core group of folks who now have 60's, play with a great deal of structure, as stated by vor_lord. The SFK run I was on, was so loose that it bothered me. I'm a believer that you should always play as if there is no margin for error. That way, when there really IS no margin for error, you're familiar and comfortable with the style of play that's required to survive. It's the old "practice makes perfect" thing...or as a singer....I've heard "practice the way you perform". Same concept. And I think the lack of leadership at times is a result of a grouping where everyone is wondering if they should speak up. I can vouch for that with myself. I fortunately have enough time on my hands to play some alts and a regular basis, so I have tried to be as helpful as I can to other guild members who aren't up to 60 yet. In those groupings, I try not to take an active leadership role, mostly because I'm not the one pulling or tanking. I wonder if others feel the same way. But, I do subscribe to the theory that the group should always agree on a person who will structure the pulls, whether the group is over-levelled or not. But, that's just me. :D Just my 2 cents worth...if it's worth even that.