The Ironsong Tribe

Eruadan Wrote:I agree with most aspects of this post. All of it is important in it own regards. The underlying nature of it all that I feel is that you need to make the effort to learn your class so that you can play effectivly and efficiently, obtain reasonable (not the best) gear through regualr instances or crafting it, be on time for the raid which I find drags everyone down if your consistantly late because it doesnt show you are interested (yes I am guilty of it too), and be patient!.

An optimal spec and rotation should be added here I think as well. We all have different play styles, but certain spec's offer much more than others (this is a general comment, not directed at any one). For instance, a warlock in tier 4 is better off spec'ing affliction until certain stats are optimal to switch to the most boring, yet effective, spec: destruction. This doesn't mean that destruction won't work at all before that, it's just not quite optimal against bosses. That example is a bad one actually since destro is fairly okay as long as you are over 100 hit rating (optimal 202 hit).

Eruadan Wrote:Not everyone is going to get in the raid, the raid leaders have gone to great lengths to learn about these places and what the set up should be like. You need X number of Tanks, X number of Healers, and X number of various DPS including some CC, this is difficult when your given too many of class A and not enough of class B. Your chances of getting in a raid are a bit better if you are consistent with your raiding character and you let them know ahead of time OR you ask them to include you the following week. This is a benefit of being in Ironsong. ASK! No one is going to chew your head off.

Agreed just adding to this: "The raid leaders have gone to great lengths to learn about these places and what the set up should be like." Everyone should be doing this, not just the raid leaders. It makes the life of a raid leader sooo much easier when you help them in this way. It will mean several wipes avoided most likely.

Eruadan Wrote:As for the whole meters thing...and this is entirely my opinion all together. The only meter that should be used is a Threat meter. Any kind of DPS/Healing meters are a distraction and overkill. There is no better teacher than experience. A wipe could be because there was not enough healing (or healing wasnt paying attention *coughs*), or the enrage timer ran out and you obviously dont have enough DPS.

This is where I differ. If I were training for a marathon and had the intention of doing well in it, I would try to measure my performance and improve. If I did not measure certain things, I might think I am ready when I am not. Maybe I hadn't even been running a full length of a marathon while training! What a shock it would be to think that I had been running a marathon once a week in training for the competition, only to discover that I had been running three miles only! There needs to be some friendly competition, a happy medium.

Meters can be used for personal bests, comparisons to others of the same class/spec/gear level and, well to be honest, finding dead weight in a raid. Believe it or not, there are people that have been on autofollow during boss fights soaking up gear. We've seen one or two in the tribe, and in the days of MC it was easy to do. The meters we're talking about are pretty light. Wow Web stats on the other hand provides a huge breakdown on everything. (this link will only be working for a couple more days) An Eternity raid day stats The one I linked directly to is a Brutalus kill. You can click on any name and see their exact stats: average hit, crit %, gains (like buffs, potions, heals, procs) misses, who healed this player, etc etc.

This doesn't mean that you will be perfect, or you will be judged by it, it is a tool for personal improvement. Also, unlike threat meters, a dps/healing meter tracks everyone else, whether they have the meter or not. *Big Brother's watching* hock: :crazysmile:

Eruadan Wrote:Just a bit of personal advice and comments. I have a habit of attracting people that disagree when I talk about raiding. But I hope at least some of it is helpful.

I'd be one of those that disagrees on certain points. :crazy:

Amato Wrote:

Melikar Wrote:I wasn't invited to Kara tonight either. Hmm.

For reference, we have quite a lot of people who want to go to Kara every week. It's really rough trying to balance new people with enough experienced people to make sure we can still succeed and, at least in my opinion, it usually shows. This is entirely my fault when I put the group together since I tend to try and take people who are enthusiastic and need gear over people who are more powerful. Not everyone always gets to go and, in this case, I wasn't even aware you had wanted to come with us. I'm sorry you didn't get to come along but you aren't alone in that and it wasn't a decision based on anything that's being discussed here.

I told Kosath I would like to attend Monday night Kara's versus Wednesday night ones because I feel that to make myself better I have to take on the harder half of this raid.

Also, I would love if people who had damage meters told me how well I was doing (since I don't have one) so I can figure out how to make myself better. I would continuously stay in battle stance in raids to avoid taking the 10% damage increase (or is it 20%?) that comes with being in Berserker stance. Then I discovered that I do nearly double the damage in 'Zerker and I'm still able to keep my HP up as long as I don't throw myself in harm's way (i.e. standing in front of a mob versus being behind). Plus with my 31% crit chance, I feel that I can do a sustainable amount of damage for the raid as long as I keep it up. And Executioner on my axe never hurt either.

Thanuist Wrote:Are those "samples" from actual IST raids? If so I find it insanely funny on a sick level if I am that shadow priest who did that healing. That is my only comment here. Like Cora I will not touch this with a ten foot pole.

These are modified from "actual" IST raids, to protect the innocent, of course. There are at least two other shadow priests that go on these raids that could be the anonymous shadow priest in question, and I'm not trying to point at anyone specifically, so I won't reveal names.

As for not touching the discussion, I hate preaching to the choir. Silence is acceptance, but voice opinions as objectively as possible. Afterall, I'm no authority in IST, you should feel your opinions are worth at least as much as mine.

Eruadan Wrote:As for the whole meters thing...and this is entirely my opinion all together. The only meter that should be used is a Threat meter. Any kind of DPS/Healing meters are a distraction and overkill. There is no better teacher than experience. A wipe could be because there was not enough healing (or healing wasnt paying attention *coughs*), or the enrage timer ran out and you obviously dont have enough DPS.

There are a lot of effects meters will help identify that personal experience will not. That's why they're such a valuable tool. A real-WoW example! On Morogrim, perhaps you're assigned to healing the main tank (the royal you, not you specifically). You do exactly that, healing the tank whenever he takes a hit, to the best of your ability. Eventually, the tank's health starts plummeting. Your heal is almost finished, but he dies before it goes off. Bad luck.

After the wipe, two of the three other healers healing the tank say they ran out of mana. You weren't out of mana, and neither was the fourth healer, but you conclude that there needs to be more mana regeneration for the healers that ran out, because that was probably the reason the tank died. You and the other healer still had mana, and were still able to heal, so the raid should diagnose how to keep the other healers working.

Now let's bring in a meter. The meter says that you and the other healer that didn't run out of mana contributed a third of the healing on the tank as the other two healers that ran out. Well that's interesting, I guess that might explain why those two healers ran out of mana first. Without the meter, you could guess that maybe this was the case, but there are other explanations that fit just as well, and raiders are remarkably good at pointing at any explanation that doesn't implicate themselves.

Eruadan Wrote:Just a bit of personal advice and comments. I have a habit of attracting people that disagree when I talk about raiding. But I hope at least some of it is helpful.

There's a certain romance in standing against the tide of popular reason (especially in today's political climate). But sometimes its better to swim with it.

Quote:These are modified from "actual" IST raids, to protect the innocent, of course. There are at least two other shadow priests that go on these raids that could be the anonymous shadow priest in question, and I'm not trying to point at anyone specifically, so I won't reveal names.

Heh, I'm just wondering because compared to the other two shadowpriests I see in the raid, I'm the one who seems to be in the most badge gear/was a bit more regular. It was just a fleeting thought for my own amusement, not an actual "omgtellme!"

Quote:As for not touching the discussion, I hate preaching to the choir. Silence is acceptance, but voice opinions as objectively as possible. Afterall, I'm no authority in IST, you should feel your opinions are worth at least as much as mine

Unfortunately in order to improve as a whole we need to start at an individual level and work our way up. You need to look at each person in a raid and review them. This entails giving names/armories/spellrotation/dpsmeter position/etc. Unless that is an option that comes up I really have nothing to say in the discussion.

I would honestly love if we could have a profile (for ist members and raiding friends only) for each regular raider where we could constructively critisize in order to improve. I personally go to shadowpriest.com for my spec/gear discussion, but they really can't give any comments about my raid performance.

If we could foster a home for nice constructive criticism, I would love it. Unfortuantely I see it either not happening or quickly deteriorating into hard feelings

What a great post we have going here...I am enjoying keeping up with it.

For myself as far as the add-ons/damage meters go....I absolutely love Recount. Its uses are almost endless as it tracks all kinds of stats during the raid. It is not simply a damage or healing meter, but its so much more! Granted, I don't feel the need to use all the other features that often, but I must admit its kinda fun to click through it to see how many times Sound has died.

But for Krell, I find the Damage Output portion of it valuable. In the EndGame raid we have anywhere from 3-5 active Hunters who participate. Based on that, I am able to easily see where Krell's damage falls in relation to the other Hunters, and if I'm a bit low (imo) I will often send a private message to someone ahead of me and just ask them about the shot/trinket rotation they are using tonight. Maybe I'm forgetting something!

OMEN + Recount = the ability to ride the threat line easier. Pour on as much damage as possible, but avoid pulling agro....most of the time. Realistically though, a Hunter should rarely pull agro because of Feign Death...unless it's resisted. It's also helpful to have Vent loaded so you can hear when the tank "politely" requests that you feign because you have been so focused on shot rotation you forgot to.

I was one of those people that used to consider mods a crutch. Now, I see the value in them. Granted I only use a few of them, but I feel they are extremely valuable. OMEN(threat meter), Recount(damage meter), DBM(boss timer), and ItemRack. If you have no idea what ItemRack is, and you are one of those characters who needs to swith out armor/weapons/trinkets for certain fights, than I strongly encourage you to look into it. I'm glad I finally did.

Thanuist Wrote:I would honestly love if we could have a profile (for ist members and raiding friends only) for each regular raider where we could constructively critisize in order to improve. I personally go to shadowpriest.com for my spec/gear discussion, but they really can't give any comments about my raid performance.

WoW Web Stats is pretty much what you're asking about. Though its usually a raid leader that signs up and provides the parsed logs for WWS, any raid member is able to do it, if they're curious. Efluvious posted a WWS for an Eternity raid, earlier in this thread.

To give an idea of just how important these logs, meters, and reports are to raiding, if you ever go to a forum devoted to raiding strategies and ask "hey guys, we're wiping on X while doing Y, how do we improve?" the first question that will always be asked is "Where is you WWS report?"

So, if you're curious, go sign up for a free account and start logging your raids and see how you do! And if you want to foster discussion, post the report link in a members only area so that everyone can see how they did.

I've concsidered that, but I'm talking more about constructive support for each and every member in the tribe who raids (regularly). Kind of like an ironsongtribe weight watchers

Another thing that I've noticed is that our class and spec forums are really behind. There doesn't seem to class/spec discussion and people leading the way for improving all those who fall under a given class/spec.

I have created an account for WoW Web Stats and will generate date on our next raid.

-Jaba

Oh wow Jaba, I didn't think it necessary, I was just showing the utility in them. O.o

Wow that WWS is basicly like the mod I was talking about earlyer and it is extreamly useful imho.

I can't agree enough that a large factor is the willingness to improve and take constructive criticism (that is, the sort delivered outside the raid environment, not the "constructive criticism" shouted in Vent in mid-raid. =P I'm a big fan of rules against in-raid coaching.)

If you're underperforming in a raid environment and your first instinct is to get defensive about your spec and gear choices, you should probably ask yourself whether you're actually treating a raid as a team endeavor.

I'm not quite sure how many enhancement shamans are around IST and related guilds nowadays, but if anyone wants some tips/auditing/whatever, just poke me. I'm also reasonably knowledgeable about hunters, though there are quite a few more resource people for them.