4.3 Heroic Progression Raid

[Benvolo]

When patch 4.3 rolls around, I would like to start a group to run heroic difficulty 10mans. A bunch of others have also expressed this interest to me, but we need a few more people. Before we get into the nitty gritty details of the group, here are a few things to consider if you are interested.

1. This will be a competitive progression driven group.
2. The goal of this 10m raid will be to kill heroic deathwing before the next expansion comes out (or before it's nerfed to crap).
3. Most weeks will be a standard 2 nights a week. However during progression pushes (when 4.3 comes out for example) there will be a 3rd night (assuming scheduling works out) to push through the normal modes and get to the good stuff.
4. You will be expected to be ready to pull when the raid starts.
5. You will have a complete knowledge of the encounter and your role in it before we start working on the heroic version.

Here is an example of a traits that make a successful member of this group.

-extensive knowledge of their class, and all its specs, and the specific gearing requirements of each spec.
-can successfully min/max their character at all gear levels, and can adjust gemming and reforging every time a new/different piece of gear is used in order to maintain the highest possible output.
-not only can they make big numbers, but they can continue to produce high output in a variety of situations, such as flawlessly executing a number of mechanics at once.
-the ability to stop and switch dps without breaking rotations or cycles, or wasting time not doing anything.
-creative thinking about their class that will allow them to find new and better ways to do their job, without making anyone else's job more difficult.
-they do not need their hand held during boss fights.
-attitude that will improve the performance of the group
-a team player mentality
-they do not need things called out over vent that are displayed by DBM


/srs bzns

That being said, this is a still a family friendly, have fun playing the game with each other guild. So if you can't make it to the raid because of IRL stuff (kids birthdays, vacations, illness, etc) that is no problem as long as you post in the forums ahead of time so that we can fill your spot. I won't expect or want anyone to miss RL things because of a video game. I will expect that you show up when you say you will, barring any kind of emergency.


If you are interested in being part of this, please reply with the toon/spec you would bring. Please note that given the progression driven nature of this group, not everyone that wants to be in this will be. I will not rotate people through bosses just to be nice. But I would assume that we would need subs from time to time, so even if you aren't in the "main" raid group, I will remember you when it comes time to sub people in for absences.

It should also be noted that I don't want to step all over the groups that are currently running. I will try my best to make sure that everyone that wants to raid will get to continue to raid (whether its in the heroics, or normal modes). We don't want to break anyone's chances to raid by forming this group, so I and the other officers will do what we can to provide everyone with the raiding experience that they would like.

[draven]

probably in depending on my schedule when 4.3 hits as long as it wouldn't adversely affect g2.
as for character, i could bring rogue or druid and heal or could dust off pally to tank or heal if needed.

[Waterdrop]

Jeff should just make g2 into a more hardcore progression group. Almost everyone in g2, I think, would welcome it as we all are enthusiastic about downing HMs. With the exception of a few people, we're pretty much a solid group anyways in terms of raid attendance and consistency.

I'm up for participating in hardcore raiding and be one of the few top groups in raiding content. But that depends what Jeff does because I can really only dedicate time to one raiding group at this point, and if I have to decide between a new hardcore group and the regular g2, I don't know.

[draven]

i should clarify that i will not be abandoning g2 in favor of this group and if it comes to one or the other i will stick with g2, as we already an awesome group that i would very much like to keep together. i wasn't looking to change it much though, so it's one of the things that we will need to figure out.

i envision the hardcore group being similar to g2, but with more consistent raid awareness and a lot more focus on preparation and analysis. everyone would be expected to spend a fair amount of time researching encounters and going through the combat logs to figure various things out, which probably isn't something that everyone would be interested in doing. there would also probably be more consideration for group composition and swapping people out when it makes sense, and less tolerance for failing at encounter mechanics.

[Aezelkvalae]

I just wanted to point out that this was Andy's 666th post.



Also....since this is something I'd be interested in, my 2 cents:

In the past in this guild, there have been a few times when people wanted to start a more "hardcore" style group to do heroics. People pay a lot of lipservice to it, but it never ends up working out, even when an actual group gets together, and I feel this is for a few reasons.

#1.) Many people who haven't pushed hardcore progression don't REALLY understand what that means to come prepared for hardcore. It means every single person, is fully fed/flasked/and burns pots/consumables for EVERY SINGLE attempt, even if it is just a learning attempt. The definition of hardmode is to push the absolute edge of your DPS output/Mana/survivability, etc. 10 dps over the whole raid can make the difference between a wipe and kill at the last second before enrage. If you aren't willing to burn the consumables and such on every attempt, you are wasting your time. I will go so far as to say I have almost never, to never seen a Forged Alliance group be willing to operate this way. For guilds that are pushing progression it is not uncommon to see half the raid respec for practically every boss during initial progression.

#2.) People SAY they are willing to accept criticism, but in reality, they aren't. Feelings get hurt immediately, people get touchy, defensive, butthurt, etc. when their play is called into question. If you're pushing hardmodes you don't have 3 hours to waste while a healer or tank or DPS who is specced wrong for the fight figures it out on their own. You also don't have time to coddle people. You don't have to be an asshole, but people need to be willing to accept getting called out for screwing up, and if they keep doing it, being sat out. I've never seen a person in Forged Alliance ever get sat for lack of performance in a raid, again, this isn't necessarily a BAD thing(hey we treat people well), but if you want to progress hardmodes, then yeah, it's gonna have to happen, and if a temper tantrum ensues, then it is again a waste of time.

#3.) Consistency of attendance and loot priority. I myself am having a hard time attending raids each week for Group 1 atm. I however, would NEVER expect to have a group pushing hardmodes accept my current level of attendance. Also, we tend to have a rotating pool of tanks and healers pulling double duty. To push hardmodes you can't afford the time wasted in re-gearing people twice. You need 2 tanks, that are always there, and always get 100% of the tank loot, 3 healers, and 5 dps that do the same, and a couple people on the bench. Again, this isn't something I've historically ever seen happen in our 10 mans.

Look I'm not going to say this can't work, we have some good players in this guild. However, people will need to change their mindset to be successful. Also, there are probably a healthy handful of people in the guild who probably believe they should be included in this group, who really probably shouldn't be based on their current skill level which is something people will find hard to accept. If this is going to create a lot of drama in a guild that is in my opinion running fairly smoothly at the moment, I'd say skip it.

[Inori]

Many people who haven't pushed hardcore progression don't REALLY understand what that means to come prepared for hardcore. It means every single person, is fully fed/flasked/and burns pots/consumables for EVERY SINGLE attempt, even if it is just a learning attempt.

Hardcore progression is not defined by how much gold you sink on learning attempts.

What drives me up the wall is when raiders can't tell me what *they* did wrong on the previous attempt. If your DPS wasn't high enough to clear the enrage timer, is your excuse every time, "well, I didn't pre-pot"? That's dumb. The right answer is usually one of the following:

1) I didn't hit the right buttons. I messed up my rotation 5 times in that fight.
2) I wasn't paying attention and didn't move as the tank was dragging the boss and ended up out of range.
3) I was caught out of position. Instead of moving preemptively and using a opitimum 'in motion' DPS rotation, I had to move at the last minute and got no DPS in.

If you are working on a fight *and you wipe at the very end* due to the enrage timer, then go ahead and say, "from now on, we're going to pre-pot this boss". Why would you start throwing pots at the boss on the very first pull? What does that prove? What does that solve? If we wipe on a boss due to some mechanic other than the boss enraging, are you just going to point fingers and say, "well, I pre-potted, so I can't be the problem here".

Did you see the diagram that I made for how to do flame orbs on Majordomo? Pre-poting doesn't solve fundamental problems like that. Notice how in my approach to *handling* a boss ability, even though I'm a healer, I am buying a ranged DPS full time to stand still and nuke that boss. No boss strategy guide I have seen tells anyone to do flame orbs like that. That's me thinking 'hardcore' about how to solve a problem. If our answer to every wipe is, "just hurry up and pull again and pre-pot this time", we aren't going to improve.

-HP

[Aezelkvalae]

I agree with everything you say Henry. My point is, you need to do both. Perfect execution, a high level of game-play from every single person in the raid no exceptions, and go at it with everything you got.

If you watch the realm first kill video of Anubarak, at sub 1% the tank dies, Anub turns and takes a swipe at me in cat form which I dodged, and then he goes down. On the combat log, Anub was killed by a dot tick by a warlock in the raid(Naughtytouch). The dot ticked less than .5 of a second before the server recorded the tank death and thus giving Anub health back and wiping us. Every single person in that raid knew that fight backward and forward. I don't even want to think about how many attempts it took us. The point is, even with incredibly clean execution it came down to the difference of less than a half second of DPS time and one person having a sliver additional damage on a single dot tick that made the difference between a realm first kill or not

If you go after hardmodes, you stack every single card in your favor that you can. Anything else is just a waste of time. And I completely agree with what you say about knowing fights. Lhlionheart used to actually take 20 mins and quiz the raid over vent about boss tactics with theoretical situations and how to react to them before our first attempt of the night. Getting a wrong answer got you sat out.

Anyway, this isn't the point of the thread so I'll just say again, if this is gonna be drama, it would be a shame, because the guild is going well right now. I frankly really don't see how it would be possible to create a group like this without breaking up G1 and G2, and then there would be a ragtag group of people left over to try and form some sort of second raiding group.

[WarmApplePie]

What Andrew said. And I agree with HP too but if you are going to be a

1. This will be a competitive progression driven group.

then you pot everytime because every attempt, even the first one should be your kill. Competitive Progression Driven groups don't take weeks to down a boss, they take one night.

Benvolo put up a really well written post but I think what you should be aiming for, and what you are more likely to get, is a raid that is middle ground between what G1/G2 is currently and what your well written post seems to be looking for. I think that Benvolo needs to define what a Competitive Progression Driven Group is, because if you are after a Full Heroic clear server first or second then I don't think there are enough qualified people in this guild. Go look at http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/destromath and then tell me where you want to come in on that list.

[Benvolo]

I am not looking for server firsts, I am looking for a good challenge though. If we can make progress with un-nerfed heroics at a similar pace to what we generally cleared though on normals, I would be a very happy camper.

Debates on what is progression,hardcore, etc aside... Let me paraphrase what I am looking for from the members of this raid

-you have time to devote to research and learning encounters
-have played long enough/smart enough to min max your toon (not just doing what some dumb software tells you, but actually understanding wtf the game/character mechanics are doing)
- are bored with the pac-man normal modes
-want to push yourself in terms handling difficult situations and personal output
-not a negative nancy/i get bored and stop showing up/
-(if we wiped, there was something you could do better. IDC who you are or how good you think you are. assuming you did everything right is almost as bad as doing everything wrong.)

If this is just going to turn into a bunch of drama, then I will scrap it, but if you meet the above criteria, I can start putting together some trial runs on t11 heroics and whatnot to see how it all meshes. And there is still some trinkets and crap in there that are damn good.

And as far as running this group without breaking g1/g2, we are still getting a constant flow of new members, many of which have not gotten a consistent spot in one of the groups, and would very much like one. I think it is silly to assume we would not be able to have enough people for 3 group (obviously some people like to raid in more than one group) especially by the time 4.3 rolls around.


If it all comes crashing down, we would at least then have 3 groups clearing normal mode content

[Aezelkvalae]

Well okay, so what are the options for making a new group without destroying G1 and G2?

One thing that probably needs to be true is that this group runs during a time when G1 and G2 don't. That would mean either G1 starts raiding alongside G2 on Tuesday/Thursday or some other time that opens up Sunday/Monday OR G2 starts going Sunday/Monday to leave Tuesdays open.

Right now the only nights technically "open" would be Wednesday, Fri, and Sat. Friday and Saturday never work out well IMO because even the loneliest, nerdiest, WoW addicted amongst us usually end up having stuff go on on Fri/Sat nights and you see conflicts arise. Any progression group needs at least 2 solid nights so beyond Wednesday where can you pick one night up?

Not impossible but somewhere there is gonna have to be a bit of a shuffle.

[drp]

Well okay, so what are the options for making a new group without destroying G1 and G2?

One thing that probably needs to be true is that this group runs during a time when G1 and G2 don't. That would mean either G1 starts raiding alongside G2 on Tuesday/Thursday or some other time that opens up Sunday/Monday OR G2 starts going Sunday/Monday to leave Tuesdays open.

Right now the only nights technically "open" would be Wednesday, Fri, and Sat. Friday and Saturday never work out well IMO because even the loneliest, nerdiest, WoW addicted amongst us usually end up having stuff go on on Fri/Sat nights and you see conflicts arise. Any progression group needs at least 2 solid nights so beyond Wednesday where can you pick one night up?

Not impossible but somewhere there is gonna have to be a bit of a shuffle.

I have to agree with andrew, there is no way to make a hard core group with out using our main raiders, granted I dont think that will stop a 2nd group from running, G2 / G1 may not be the same sets of people if we could together a Hard core progression group, but I imaigne a 2nd group would not have any problems forming

[WarmApplePie]

Let me play Protagonist for a bit.

A) The "Progression Raid Group" should go on Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. If you want to be competitive then downing a boss on Tuesday puts you ahead of a guild that downs it on Wednesday. So the raid needs to happen as early in the raid week as possible.

B) How do we have a PRG without breaking up G1 and G2? Easy, change it to a Varsity/JV format. Jeff/Andy/WhomeverisleadingPRG sits down and puts his group comp together. Since this is hardcore try to squeeze out as much cohesion as possible. So for instance, your two Melee dps can be a Rogue and a DK because they each have buffs they can give each other to increase DPS. Once you have group comp down, send out your invites. On your list you've decided who the best two tanks in the guild are. Invite them. If one of them isnt interested or can't make the raid nights then go to tank 3. Do the same for your healers, HPally/Dpriest/Rdruid (enter Lore comment here). I whipped my Raid comp up real fast Raid Comp. I think you could get 10 people who are interested in doing this, I can even think of a few alternates. Then the JV come with me on Sunday/Mondays.

C) The problem with starting the PRG mid expansion is that you're already behind in gear. T13 hits and you go through normal in the first week or two. You've only gotten 2 weeks to collect 378 gear before you hit heroic modes. You don't have T12Heroic gear so there is a large gap in the gear you have(t12normal mode) and the encounters you are facing (t12heroic). If you are going to do this you probably want to put the group together now and start soon, maybe even in November. That way you can farm up some T12Heroic gear.



(In formulating this post I have come to realize the reason I talk in half sentences is because my mind thinks in half sentences.)

[Benvolo]

Possible raid times for 4.3 heroic group, not set in stone:

Wednesday night 8pm server
Sunday night 7 or 8pm server
Monday night 7 or 8pm server

Also with the new members we have been getting recently, it looks as though we would be able to run 3 groups without too much of a headache. This would also give them time to get their gear in order, and get a regular raider spot for 4.3.

Also, we are in need of 1 healer and 1 (maybe 2) dps. Once we get those I will begin to field a "get to know you" t11 heroic raid, so we can get used the group comp, playstyles, and heroic tactics. Assuming that t11 heroic trial goes well (if it doesn't have mercy on you all) if everyone is willing, we could do some ptr testing on the new bosses.

[Crusher]

Wtb position in the team to crush stuff with....Crusher.

[Aezelkvalae]

I'm interested but that hinges on the raid times quite largely.

[Benvolo]

Well, this isn't going to happen. Too many people have changed their minds/ not had availability that lined up with everyone else. Maybe when we are pandas...

[Waterdrop]

Don't worry, Jeff's group will be the heroic progression raid. 1/12H last tier, 4/7H at least this tier ... trend suggests improvement next tier.

[Tsuni]

Don't worry, Jeff's group will be the heroic progression raid. 1/12H last tier, 4/7H at least this tier ... trend suggests improvement next tier.

Doesn't mean much to those not in said raid. ><

[Virou]

Well, this isn't going to happen. Too many people have changed their minds/ not had availability that lined up with everyone else. Maybe when we are pandas...

Dont scrap it just yet.. Ideally have people that want to do this post the days they can or cannot and see what you can come up with. (i.e- I work wed, thurs, fri.- All other days I am game.) Realisticlly some people wont be able stay in their current raiding group and join this 3rd group. Some might. I dont see it being a big problem sense we do have new eagar people ready to raid.

[Benvolo]

Sorry, its already been scraped. It wasn't just scheduling, there were other problems as well. It might be reborn for pandas.