An Apology to the Thursday Raid Group

[kandrathe]

My understanding of FR pots is that they mitigate fire damage and they are done. So, in Onyxia I would wait to quaff until phase II, when normally two 3000 HP fireball would be lethal. The first fireball would only hurt a little, and the second would at least not be deadly. I very rarely ever get hit by more than 2-3 fireballs in phase II, and this is another way in which it helps to have more people. The little FR pots are easier to come by, and with bandages can mean the difference at times.

Resistance seems to be a some or nothing deal, so it improves your chance to take less damage. My experience is that resistance is calculated based on the level difference, so I don't think there is a good chance of resisting Ony's fire attacks. It might help more in resisting the lava vents.

[Darian]

Also...I'm surprised that hewhoshallnotbenamed didn't try blaming the first Luci wipe on me...after he stole my/Darian's target.[right][snapback]85356[/snapback][/right]

That's probably because I actually said, on TeamSpeak, "Hewhoshallnotbenamed stole Mirajj's target." ;) In fact, I think the few times we've "slipped" and called out his mistakes is why his guildmates seem to understand the final decision. We also mentioned his pull of the imps last Monday on TS. That he never seemed to catch on that we had already fingered him as a tactical problem (and thus not someone who should be arguing tactics as if he were an expert), never mind a personal one, baffles me.

...and while last night cinched it....that person should have been gone 3 raids ago.

I'll take the hit for this. I was overly -- probably too much -- concerned with not having enough people to mount a raid, and reluctant to reduce said numbers. In the end though, if the choice is "not having enough people to raid" and "having a miserable time because of someone we've brought along to make numbers," then I'd just as soon not raid.

[Kevin]

I knew that the greaters absorbed damage up to their limit.  If resistance works to mitigate rather than give a chance to ignore, the question involves a couple factors - what percent of damage does 50 points represent and at what rate do the baddies do their fire damage.  The potions have a cooldown so there is a window where another can't be used that the resistance can help cover.  I think it would be good to have them stacked then.  I don't have much whisker but I often sell stacks of purple lotus because I have filled their bank slots and need to clean house.  I can bring some next time, depending on whisker I can get my hands on, and we can see how that helps the tanks survive.
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The other weakness of the resistance pots versus the protection pots is the length of duration. This is a factor because those pots share a cooldown with your mana and health pots. I know I've drunk health pots while tanking in raids on the big bosses. The resistance pots pretty much last as long as the cooldown is, so you have resistance or your have an emergency heal for yourself. Since the protection pots last an hour, you can quaff them early and not have timer interferance.

Resistance has a chance to both mitigate and to completely avoid damage. It's an oddball sliding scale. There is an example chart on this blizzard page. As you can see you have a chance to resist all the damage, 75% of the damage, etc. So yeah a pot that gets you 50 more over the 27 that you get from MotW may put you in the range of only taking full damage about 33% of the time against a spell/attack from the Molten Core mobs. That's a guess.

So yeah they help, just have to weigh them against other things.

[lfd]

I will, however, say this - I haven't had the 2000 damage debuff removed from me once.  One night I was surviving simply because we had excess healing and Treehugger was being nice to me (thanks!).  Last night, one Renew is the assistance I got to survive.  I lasted 5 seconds longer than I should have in the last Luci fight simply because I resisted it and only took 1500 damage, so the Renew saved me.
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In our (horde) fights against Lucifron, rogues and mages have big stacks of bandages with them, and don't expect heals. Most priests are on heal-MT-and-remove-magic-doom-debuff duty. Mages and druids are on remove-mana-cost-curse duty. Rogues, when they're getting unnecessarily low on health, back off out the fight and bandage up. You should be getting impending doom debuffed, but unless you're lucky with class composition in your raid lineup you shouldn't be expecting a heal :)

Of course, that's horde-side, where we're somewhat limited with magic-debuff-removers; you should be having even less difficulty getting undebuffed alliance-side, and as long as it is you shouldn't need healing as much.

[Tal]

  I will, however, say this - I haven't had the 2000 damage debuff removed from me once.  One night I was surviving simply because we had excess healing and Treehugger was being nice to me (thanks!).  Last night, one Renew is the assistance I got to survive.  I lasted 5 seconds longer than I should have in the last Luci fight simply because I resisted it and only took 1500 damage, so the Renew saved me.  It didn't matter much, anyway, because at that point I had the double skill cost curse on me for 15 seconds and couldn't even backstab.  I realize MTs and Healers are more important, but when Arleas and I go down we are losing a lot of DPS.  When we lose DPS, the battle lasts that much longer, leading to issues of OOM and death-attrition.

Just be careful of that - at the rate we're going, there will be a time when only healers and the MT are left on Luci, and they won't outlast him.
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My apologies Quark - I was the only paladin in the even groups (of which you and Arleas were in 8) and I simply couldn't cleanse fast enough to get to you guys before they went off. If it makes you feel better I didn't remove the debuff from myself either. ;) Small consolation I know...

[Tal]

Tal, I don't think your apology was necessary, but thank you.  I am the king of bottling things up, so, when someone else expresses frustration for me, I appreciate it.  More importantly (Lochdoctor mode on), please don't put off your surgery any longer than absolutely necessary.  Last November, not knowing just how dangerous it was to do so, I sat down to watch America's Funniest Home Videos.  It was going quite well, eliciting well timed grins and giggles.  Then they brought up the big guns, videos of pets doing stupid things. :o I was laughing hard enough for tears from my eyes when it happened.  I coughed at the same time.  I felt a pinch but didn't think much of it.  Over the next few hours, the pain started, I started getting queasy and I noticed a lump.  I went to a doctor the next day that dismissed it and sent me away with a prescription for Motrin.  After another 24 hours of getting worse and not holding anything down, I went to the emergency room.  They pumped a gallon of putrid fluid out (nothing had been going through) and sent me to surgery.  I got to spend the next three days being attended to by cute nurses and aides (ok ok there was a good side to it  ;) ).  I was told by the doctor afterwards that, if not taken care of soon enough, parts of the organ squeezed out through the hole can die from lack of blood and become poison to the body.  Long winded story made short - an umbilical hernia that requires surgery can go from bad to worse very quickly and can make people very dead.  We don't want to lose you.  Please take care.[right][snapback]85342[/snapback][/right]

Yikes Loch - rest assured that my doctor is keeping a close eye on me. I've got a list of warning signs and have had checkups to make sure everything is still the way it was when he saw me. :)

The whisker can be hard to find, at least for Lochnar, but purple lotus is a weed, it seemingly grows almost everywhere.
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Oddly enough Shal finds tons of whisker - usually over in Ferelas. Perhaps we should combine our powers? :)

[Tal]

Tris is at 60, Garrin is 53 (I think), Balador is at 48.  It'll happen.  Heck Skan may just want to come along with Katrin to let Shalandrax go in there too.
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We're short paladins period. We have me, Altrius and Starkos as "regulars" with a mix of outsiders. My preference would be, if we could get them all along, would be for Katrin, Tris AND Garrin to join the rotation. If Balador was in the mix then I could consider bringing Shal. ;)

[Kevin]

We're short paladins period. We have me, Altrius and Starkos as "regulars" with a mix of outsiders. My preference would be, if we could get them all along, would be for Katrin, Tris AND Garrin to join the rotation. If Balador was in the mix then I could consider bringing Shal. ;)
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Eh 4 paladins should be enough. That leaves 2 groups for each paladin to handle. With the number of mages we normally have that should be plenty for debuffing as long as all the pallies are playing well together. :) If we had more priests and druids the need for paladins to fill the healer roles would lessened as well, though again 4 for debuff purposes seems to be the nice number in my mind.

[Quark]

In our (horde) fights against Lucifron, rogues and mages have big stacks of bandages with them, and don't expect heals.  Most priests are on heal-MT-and-remove-magic-doom-debuff duty.  Mages and druids are on remove-mana-cost-curse duty.  Rogues, when they're getting unnecessarily low on health, back off out the fight and bandage up.

I really don't expect healing in MC. Earlier on Thursday night, every time I got to the point I said "time to back off and bandage," some priest came in and healed me. I even mentioned to them to not worry about me, since they were healing as I was bandaging it was a waste of somebody's time and resources. During the wipe and victory of Luci, though, I didn't take 1 hp of damage besides the Impending Doom. I just took that every tick it went off, and bandages + heal pots can only take you so far.

Our shortage of paladins is part of the problem, but maybe they should work in the opposite direction every other debuff? Just getting half of the debuffs removed might give my bandages enough time to keep me up throughout the fight.

[LochnarITB]

Oddly enough Shal finds tons of whisker - usually over in Ferelas. Perhaps we should combine our powers? :)
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Ferelas does seem to be one of the better places, that and, IIRC, badlands. If people do want to try magic resistance potions, for Onyxia or MC, I would be glad to make them. However, at this point, I probably won't have more than my usual single stack unless someone pipes up and says we should try them. I don't think it would be worthwhile to try them for anyone other than tanks though. They seem to be the only ones that take fairly consistent fire damage. Then again, if they share a timer with heal pots, I don't know that we even want to try. Even with a good healer rotation, if some of them go down, there are going to be times that a heal pot is going to be needed.

[Zippyy]

You're sexy when you're angry.

<3

[Tal]

You're sexy when you're angry.

<3
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I'm sorry Zippyy - I've already gone down that road once. I won't let you break my heart again.

*breaks into tears and runs away*

*from a distance*

Damn you and your WAND!


:shuriken:

[Alrin]

Some random replies on some posters thoughts:

Kandrathe wrote:
"Would it be possible for Hunters and Rogues to start DPS earlier on Mobs by having them Feign Death, and Feint? Just a gut feeling that if those classes that can zero their threat started at say 95%, and the others then started at 85% we would drop those early pulls much faster. "

Hunters and rogues should -always- use their reduce threat skill as soon as it's available in MC. This should go without saying, but there are newcomers so there it is in print for those. For rogues its not so crucial because if they get aggro and cant shed it, well they die. End of story. If a hunter draws aggro due to not feigning or (quite possibly) being resisted, the mob - say molten destroyer - comes romping down through the raid and stuns alot of people with its warstomp.


Kandrathe wrote:
"We should all train and equip our own Heavy Rune Cloth bandages. In the Lucifrom fight it saved me 2-3 times by keeping my own life always above 2000. For 3-4 seconds of channeling bandage, it kept me in the fight longer until I got caught eventually waiting for my bandage timer, and got hit by the curse at a bad time. I realize that many people (tanks, healers, decursers) are too busy to spend their own time."

Oh yes. Oh yes. Yes yes yes. A good rule of thumb in MC for non-tanks is do -not- expect healing from priests / druids / paladins. This will make you use your bandages so you do not load their healing duties unnecessarily. Healers cannot devote flash heals all the time to anyone that suddenly gets hit by a randomly assigned nuke. This is not a 5man or a 10man raid. Sure, they will give you HoT's and stuff at times but if you take care of yourself -if possible- you will lighten their load immensly.
EVERYONE should have heavy runecloth bandages with them. Everyone. If you do not have first aid maxed, you need to put in the time and get it maxed.
Oh and do not bandage while DoT'ed, it ruins the bandage and you will be in a more dire situation.


Darian wrote:
"Yeah, I was getting kinda frustrated at constantly being asked when I was going to call for DPS when we'd discussed the number at which I was going to call for it already. It's all a matter of gauging the encounter and coming up with the right number, and the reality is that we're still getting things right. We've got a much better handle on the core hounds (assuming the tanks are sticking to one target and doing enough DPS). On the boss mobs... just have to get used to the right number, basically."

Agreed. I am used to people opening up after 10 seconds whenever I do MC with Militis Justica but you also have to remember that their frontline people are LOADED with purples and have little problems getting the baddies on them. We need to hold a little longer until we can open up early. We'll get there though, don't worry. Incidentally, MJ actually had a hunter draw aggro last time we were in, and guess what? She wasnt spamming feign death. Pfft. :)
Oh I guess it helps that she had a Core Marksmans Rifle too ;)


Quark wrote:
"I have been somewhat confused about the Luci encounter before, and I'm sorry for asking the wrong people for the wrong things. I will, however, say this - I haven't had the 2000 damage debuff removed from me once. One night I was surviving simply because we had excess healing and Treehugger was being nice to me (thanks!). Last night, one Renew is the assistance I got to survive. I lasted 5 seconds longer than I should have in the last Luci fight simply because I resisted it and only took 1500 damage, so the Renew saved me. It didn't matter much, anyway, because at that point I had the double skill cost curse on me for 15 seconds and couldn't even backstab. I realize MTs and Healers are more important, but when Arleas and I go down we are losing a lot of DPS. When we lose DPS, the battle lasts that much longer, leading to issues of OOM and death-attrition."

This is one of the problems with the Lucifron encounter and let me speak from the perspective of a fully decursing mage in this fight 3 times now. You need to decurse everyone. That's 40 potential targets, you should decurse yourself aswell to not go OOM at an inopportune time. Decurse is cheap, but cursed it eventually ramps up to alot of wasted mana.
Priority goes MT > MT's healers > healers > paladins > the others. Atleast that's the way Alrin has done it sofar and it has gone without complains. Problem is there are so many people to clear it from and alot of those will be out of reach. So you then have to try prioritize to make a tough call. Do I decurse these rogues? Do I keep an eye on how many mages are still alive? Do the main healers need decursing? All this has to be split-second decisions. The longer you delay in making a choice you will get more and more hesitant. You cannot be hesitant in this game.
Unfortunately, yes I have not been prioritizing the rogues in these fights with Alrin because I cannot devote the time to it. That's even with mages assigned to specific targets. Ie, mage 1 takes MT and the upfront dpsers as they must be decursed, alas I have not had this role yet.
The problem is imho not the curse, but the 2000 magic debuff. Putting all that load on cleansing one too few paladins will be extremely HARD on them. Here's why.
Lucifrons magical debuff is a ramped up Call of the Grave that does 2000 damage after 10 seconds duration. 0.5 seconds are lost instantly (and I'm being generous here) due to reaction time. Then your local paladin has to pick ONE of TEN or more people and hit cleanse. Even an instacast spell takes more than an instant to be cast. You have 1 second global cooldown on skills, remember that. That is at best 1 seconds gone before the next person is targeted for a cleanse. If we had free picks I would stick a paladin in every group, or atleast bring 6 paladins for cleansing to make that fight go smoother but that is sometimes just not possible due to a lack of paladins in Lurkers/CA sadly. Ergo, people out of range and those that cant get a cleanse in time are just going to have to rely on bandaging out of the first debuff and thats it. It sucks, yes.


This is another reason for our mages to consider getting more focus on their gear for stamina.
Molten core is not about having gazillions and zillions of mana for mages. If you die in two hits it will not matter if you have 7800 mana as your max. You're dead. This may sound harsh and bitchy but it's a fact. Lava surgers have a bunch of health, thus they will take time to kill. You cannot avoid them knocking the raid around. Each knockback WILL hit you for 1000 damage. You most likely have some sort of healing in your group but they can't heal just you as 4 more people in the group took the same kind of damage. Please, pleeease get more stamina gear.
You can stick 9 stamina on your bracers, you can get +100health enchant on your chest etc.
I once survived with Alrin a particular nasty Majordomo fight with 150health from one of the random DD shadowbolts that the Priests toss at people. I got 1 flash heal right after and then bandaged back to respectable levels of hp again. Without STA gear setup, I would have been dead and lost the ability to keep one of those priests sheeped. It matters, trust me.


Icebird wrote:
"My observations on when to make the DPS signals for the trash mobs:

Molten Giants, Ancient Core Hounds - Wait until the mob is fully sundered (and turned away from the raid in the case of Core Hounds). The Giants seem to like rampaging through the caster camp at the drop of a hat.

Core Hound Packs - I wouldn't start the DPS until the tanks have herded them together.

Against most of the other trash mobs you can start DPS almost immediately it seems without increasing the risk substantially."

Yes. And salvation -must- be on all healers and preferrably on the mages. If mages are uncertain of their aggro, (or did not take arcane subtlety talent) you can wait a couple of seconds between each cast. Don't sit down for 20 seconds though, you just need a little quick break.
Yeah core packs waits for an AOE call. That's all. We had enough aoe to destroy them last time without too much issues. Their rend (bleeding) attack though was very very nasty. It ramped up to doing 450 damage every second to my tank. And even with 6k hp with buffs that HURT.
Annihilators can be opened up on immediately, just everyone park their toon at their feet so they dont do their secondary targetting system and swoosh off to some far-away caster that will take a hit and then train the raid around as it swooshes back and forth. Pile up, kill.


Lochnar wrote:
"Sharing buffing duties - I noticed that there was a problem in the mage ranks as well last night. Mages only have one buff to apply. There is no excuse to not have AI on anyone that uses mana. I am glad to AI toons here and there in other mageless groups when I notice they don't have it. I do get frustrated when I see a group with a mage in it that does not get AI. A couple times, I had to Arcane Brilliance another mage's party because the pull was coming and it was obvious they weren't going to get it otherwise. If they don't want to buy the regent, or don't have Brilliance, putting on AI individually is essentially the same. No excuse not to."

Any buffer should bring atleast 40 of his reagent. No less. If you can bring 60 or more all the better. It's not as if you're wasting them, is it? Molten core is not cheap on your coffers, but it also gives the best loot currently available, not counting Blackwings lair.


Mirajj wrote:
"On my end...I have several things to talk to Darian, Anadrol, Porlupus, and their favored healers about moving the raid faster via pulling. Hopefully we'll have a chance to chat sometime before the next time we get into MC. I'd forum it, but it really strikes me as a more dynamic conversation thing."

Yes, we definately can go quicker between pulls. Set frost trap and have a hunter pull and train back to where its being tanked. You dont need a 5 minute break between each pull. But this comes with confidence in the core the should NOT be forced. If we notice we can pull quicker, we should do this. It's all a matter of experience and seasoned raiders.


Another thing that everyone that goes raiding can do VERY easily is go to Blasted Lands and get the Lung Juice Cocktail from a (and this is important) repeatable quest. This consumable STACKS with fortitude buffs etc and will give you 500 extra health. It's on a 1hour duration and a 1hour cooldown. Unfortunately, the item itself is unique so you cannot bring several. So use it wisely for bossfights where you know you will take stray hits.

Also everyone should look into getting themselves an Admirals Hat.
It gives a +20 stamina buff if you use it ANOTHER player. Thats another 200 extra health.
(if you use it on yourself you have to keep the hat equipped to keep the buff)
It requires the following:
3x Bolt of Mageweave
6x Long Elegant Feather
2x Heavy Silken Thread
You can get the Elegant Feathers from Hippogryphs in Azshara and Hinterlands.
You only need 6 of them. The buff is 20 minute duration and has a 20 minute cooldown.

Finally, please note that this post is in complete shambles and any grammatical and such errors are possibly tehre. ;) Please also understand I do not write this post to crack down on any particular induvidual. I am sharing of my experience and hope nobody is offended (severely).
MC is all about teamplay. You cannot - and I must emphasize this - you cannot play your usual playstyle. I would love to write up some kind of document people could read about MC or something on what is required to come on these runs.
Something that would HELP.

Temspeak. Please. Use it. Okay? We maybe need to be more strict on what is said during fights.
"I need healing!" doesnt help much. Screaming out that youre about to go down is not helpful either. Prepare. Make a macro ingame with "/raid This is <name> I need healing!" This will help more and keep the voice chat cleared for instructions from the raid LEADERS.
Again, a problem is this. Are you a raid leader? Great, you get to decide strategies.
Are you not a raid leader? Don't bark out commands in voicechat. If you have a suggestion take it to tells with the raid leader or someone in charge.
In a perfect world we would have all 40 people in Teamspeak and only raid leaders and their assistants and perhaps 1toon/class would have voice privs (exception healers, I dunno).
Not using teamspeak because "i dont like it" doesnt help because there can be situations where someone needs to call for urgent assist heals on x tank and then theres just NO TIME to sit and type that out as that person dies. You can listen in even without having a mic. If there are non-raidleaders you dont like that speak too much, you can MUTE them. Yes, you can. Infact, you could mute everyone in the channel. It doesnt stop them from talking, but atleast YOU won't hear it. Simple.

Ok, anyway I'll stop now before this turns too much into a rant.
I am only here to help. Oh and btw congratulations Anadrol on the new breastplate. Rocking!

- Without wax, Alrin.

[Zippyy]

I'm sorry Zippyy - I've already gone down that road once. I won't let you break my heart again.

*breaks into tears and runs away*

*from a distance*

Damn you and your WAND!
:shuriken:
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I have done some soul searching and I have decided that I will not put up with your abuse any longer. My Wand has a new home.



However, Dragoon and I are not good for each other, and it won't last long. It will end violently----

Edited due to inappropriate material!