03-22-2007, 12:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-22-2007, 12:58 PM by NuurAbSaal.)
Very well put Bolty and GG.
Having been Main Tank for my guild since we started Molten Core I can relate a lot to what you said about the progression of raid roles and the importance of DPS and coordinated effort by the DPS classes. Once we entered into the partnership with the guild which we raided together until AQ40 Skeram, we had nice progress in Molten Core, downing at least one new boss each week. Your description of the nature of MC fits perfectly with my experience. Tank'n'heal, little more. I was shocked to find my 5-man tanking abilities (which I had considered to be quite hawt) severely lacking after a couple of months of doing raid tanking only. In MC it's mostly about gear, there's little skill needed to tank and my multi-target tanking had deteriorated quite a bit. You can of course be a better tank by playing the warrior to the fullest of the classes abilities, but it really isn't needed in 90% of the fights. The AFK tanking of Garr made me chuckle:)
I felt the change of pace once we were in BWL. I pretty much controlled Razorgore for every attempt (and the following kills) and I was terrified the first time. We never got the kiting right (we are Horde, the only real faction, admit it), performance of people just wasn't what it should have been. Eventually we adopted a "Kill everything that ain't a Dragonkin" tactic that suited us better. We have always been a "nuke" raidgroup, downing bosses by sheer dmg output rather than by perfect coordination or a perfect raid balance. I always had mixed feelings about that approach, and it turned out we should have tried harder to get the most out of people later, but I'll come to that.
Vael gave us a lot of trouble, we were lacking fire resistance and gear in general, once we downed him after the summer break 2006 it was smooth sailing in BWL. The hardest part were the giant Dragonkin (whose name eludes me at the moment), the ones with the nasty de-aggro debuffs. It took some time and yelling to get people to do slow but steady dps on them to avoid pulling off a stunned or sleeped tank (Also I was the only one farming Free Action potions, grrr).
Chromaggus was the real first hurdle for us. We still took him down very fast, but you could tell who paid attention and who didn't and some harsh words were necessary. We killed Nefarian on the second day we tried, but mainly because the Battle Shout strategy still worked and phase one is a joke with it.
And yes, I certainly felt the enormous stress Bolty talks about. It's at the same time horrible and an incredible rush. W00t, I'm the key to this encounter, if I don't deliver, we are going to wipe. The horror!:D
As soon as Battle Shout aggro got tuned down, we were running into a wall at Nefarian. Everybody supposedly knew how it was supposed to happen, but we never got it right. I was tanking upwards of 8 Drakonids at my side and still some went for the healers, still we had damage on two or three Drakonids at a time. It was very frustrating to see a more or less successful raid groupturn out to be some excellent players mixed with people who could not or simply didn't try hard enough to pull off a complex strategy together.
And now The Burning Crusade:
I absolutely love it! The biggest improvement in my opinion is the reduced amount of time it takes to finish any given instance. No more endless clearing for a multitude of bosses. I also think that dungeon design and especially boss design has improved a lot, and I wholeheartedly agree with the statement that WoW has "evolved". Shadowlabs is one of my favourite instances, Ifind the second and third boss are a great test of the abilities of your group. The most fun I had in there was with a warlock, two hunters and a priest, we could crowd-control the trash to hell and back and had a blast. Hunter traps are also a very nice way to prevent you healer spending all of his mana during the mind control sequence of the second boss fight:)
We wiped three times in there, out of sheer nubness (at least once it was my fault:))
but was great to see how the group could, with decent coordination, totally take apart the instance.
I have mixed feelings about Black Morass. As Bolty said, this instance is all about damage output. Tanking is boring (apart from reflecting Pyroblasts back at the caster Rift Lords, möhöhö), and only the second and last boss are interesting for healing, I imagine. I'm pretty sure you can have a ball in there as a nuker, but some twists to make the tanks job a bit harder would be nice. In my opinon, of course:)
Well, this turned out to be rather long. To sum it all up:
/agree
:)
take care
Tarabulus
Having been Main Tank for my guild since we started Molten Core I can relate a lot to what you said about the progression of raid roles and the importance of DPS and coordinated effort by the DPS classes. Once we entered into the partnership with the guild which we raided together until AQ40 Skeram, we had nice progress in Molten Core, downing at least one new boss each week. Your description of the nature of MC fits perfectly with my experience. Tank'n'heal, little more. I was shocked to find my 5-man tanking abilities (which I had considered to be quite hawt) severely lacking after a couple of months of doing raid tanking only. In MC it's mostly about gear, there's little skill needed to tank and my multi-target tanking had deteriorated quite a bit. You can of course be a better tank by playing the warrior to the fullest of the classes abilities, but it really isn't needed in 90% of the fights. The AFK tanking of Garr made me chuckle:)
I felt the change of pace once we were in BWL. I pretty much controlled Razorgore for every attempt (and the following kills) and I was terrified the first time. We never got the kiting right (we are Horde, the only real faction, admit it), performance of people just wasn't what it should have been. Eventually we adopted a "Kill everything that ain't a Dragonkin" tactic that suited us better. We have always been a "nuke" raidgroup, downing bosses by sheer dmg output rather than by perfect coordination or a perfect raid balance. I always had mixed feelings about that approach, and it turned out we should have tried harder to get the most out of people later, but I'll come to that.
Vael gave us a lot of trouble, we were lacking fire resistance and gear in general, once we downed him after the summer break 2006 it was smooth sailing in BWL. The hardest part were the giant Dragonkin (whose name eludes me at the moment), the ones with the nasty de-aggro debuffs. It took some time and yelling to get people to do slow but steady dps on them to avoid pulling off a stunned or sleeped tank (Also I was the only one farming Free Action potions, grrr).
Chromaggus was the real first hurdle for us. We still took him down very fast, but you could tell who paid attention and who didn't and some harsh words were necessary. We killed Nefarian on the second day we tried, but mainly because the Battle Shout strategy still worked and phase one is a joke with it.
And yes, I certainly felt the enormous stress Bolty talks about. It's at the same time horrible and an incredible rush. W00t, I'm the key to this encounter, if I don't deliver, we are going to wipe. The horror!:D
As soon as Battle Shout aggro got tuned down, we were running into a wall at Nefarian. Everybody supposedly knew how it was supposed to happen, but we never got it right. I was tanking upwards of 8 Drakonids at my side and still some went for the healers, still we had damage on two or three Drakonids at a time. It was very frustrating to see a more or less successful raid groupturn out to be some excellent players mixed with people who could not or simply didn't try hard enough to pull off a complex strategy together.
And now The Burning Crusade:
I absolutely love it! The biggest improvement in my opinion is the reduced amount of time it takes to finish any given instance. No more endless clearing for a multitude of bosses. I also think that dungeon design and especially boss design has improved a lot, and I wholeheartedly agree with the statement that WoW has "evolved". Shadowlabs is one of my favourite instances, Ifind the second and third boss are a great test of the abilities of your group. The most fun I had in there was with a warlock, two hunters and a priest, we could crowd-control the trash to hell and back and had a blast. Hunter traps are also a very nice way to prevent you healer spending all of his mana during the mind control sequence of the second boss fight:)
We wiped three times in there, out of sheer nubness (at least once it was my fault:))
but was great to see how the group could, with decent coordination, totally take apart the instance.
I have mixed feelings about Black Morass. As Bolty said, this instance is all about damage output. Tanking is boring (apart from reflecting Pyroblasts back at the caster Rift Lords, möhöhö), and only the second and last boss are interesting for healing, I imagine. I'm pretty sure you can have a ball in there as a nuker, but some twists to make the tanks job a bit harder would be nice. In my opinon, of course:)
Well, this turned out to be rather long. To sum it all up:
/agree
:)
take care
Tarabulus
"I'm a cynical optimistic realist. I have hopes. I suspect they are all in vain. I find a lot of humor in that." -Pete
I'll remember you.
I'll remember you.