Death to the Ugly Guy!

For a few raid nights now (probably at least 3, I think it's actually 4) we have thrown ourselves against Cho'gall and hit a solid wall. Lots of wiping.

I mean, LOTS OF WIPING.

We usually raid for about 3 hours 3 nights a week. So 3 hours full of Cho'gall smirking at us while we died lovely, horrific deaths was very frustrating to say the least.

I'm happy to say that we put together a 10 man group today, a day we don't usually raid, and wiped that smirk off his face. Also poked out his many, disgusting eyes. Ew.

Basically this is a post patting myself on the back, with a bit of bragging to boot. Even if Cho'gall decided not to drop a tier token for me.

(Jerk.)

Nefarion, you're next! I foresee many wipes in my future!

P.S. Drop my tier token, you hooker.

Problem Raiders: Should you give them an ultimatum?

Before I dive into the meat of this, I'd like to point out that I am not a guild master, merely an officer. I know different guilds handle problem raiders in a variety of ways, and this post is merely my opinions. If you disagree, I'd love to discuss it :] But flaming isn't tolerated and, as usual, will be used to toast my marshmallows.

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Problem raiders. Most guilds have them at one point or another. They come in all sorts of lovely (and by lovely I mean horrible) types. How do you deal with them? Here's a couple suggestions you can use to help alleviate your guild and raid of this phenomenon.

The Low DPS: These guys can be the hardest to deal with because a lot of the time they're genuinely nice people. Of course, sometimes you get the ones that just won't take your advice out of pride and get very nasty when you point out their mistakes, but most of the time, to me at least, the guys with consistently low DPS aren't jerks. The best way to come at them is politely. First, give them a good inspect and try to see if perhaps their spec is off, or if they're gemming wrong. Ask them if they're hit/exp capped. Find out their rotation. Their low DPS might be because they're stacking the wrong stat, or using the wrong rotation, or simply dying really early in the fight from standing in the goo. Work with them to fix it, especially if they reliably show up to raid.

Sadly, sometimes people are just bad no matter how much you work with them. At this point you have to make the hard decision to bench them or not.

The Whiner: We've probably all been this person once or twice, but a consistent whiner can bring an entire guild's morale down. Whether they bitch about loot, guild rules, raid times, or guild rank, it gets old very fast. Try to nip it in the bud early - whisper them and try to find out what's upsetting them. If the problem can be easily fixed, do it. If they continuously whine, you'll just have to tell them "This is the way things work. It's worked out pretty well for us for awhile, so unless you have a constructive suggestion to change it, please stop whining about it." Either they'll shut up or they won't, and again you'll have to make a decision to bench or guild kick them.

The Bad Attitude: This person is a lot like the whiner, but more aggressive. They might not complain about specific guild things, but more general things like "I'm so bored. I don't want to be here. I could be doing better things right now." Again, send them a whisper and try to find out what the problem is. Give them the benefit of the doubt at first - they might have had a bad day at work/school/etc. If they consistently have a terrible attitude that they're very vocal about, send them a firm message that they need to quit it or there will be consequences. Consequences can include benched for the night up to a guild kick. Decide what's best for your guild.

The Random AFK'er: This guy is really annoying. Pulling trash? AFK. Ready check on boss? AFK. They might even go so far as to mute Vent/Mumble (this has happened to me). Here I say go with the three strike message. The first random AFK let slide, maybe with a mention that they should let you know they're AFKing. The second ask them to warn you before they AFK. The third, give them a firm reprimand, especially if this is all in the same night. After that, start the consequences. A raider that's AFK most of the time is a worthless raider and a person who is always ready would be better to fill the slot.

The Unprepared One: Unprepared means they don't have flasks or buff food (if your guild doesn't provide it), they didn't repair before the raid, or they don't have the proper gear with them if you need them to switch specs. They also might be consistently late to the raid or never bother to try to learn the fights beforehand. They're usually a time sink as you wait for them to log on, or get their gear together, or go repair (if you don't have repair bots), or buy flasks/food/pots. Again, I suggest a three strike system. An unprepared raider is nearly as bad as an AFK one.

The Meter Whore: They spam the DPS or healing meters after every fight, boast about their position on the charts even for trash pulls, and constantly put down other raiders. Their ego is bigger than your entire raid put together. The problem with these guys is they love topping the meters so much, they're more likely to tunnel vision and make a mistake and get themselves killed.
Example:
Back in ICC, we were working on Rotface, we had a pally healer who was pretty damn good. He thought he was godly though. He got the debuff, ran out, stopped, healed the tank, died. We asked him why he didn't cleanse and run - his response was if he stopped healing the tanks they would die since he was carrying the heals. He really thought he was the sole reason the tanks were alive. /sigh

Meter whores are another one that's hard to deal with because they do tend to be exemplary players. However, constant meter spamming and putting down other players will also lower guild morale. If you see other players getting frustrated and fed up with the meter whore, politely but firmly tell them to stop the bragging. If they refuse, start the consequences.

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In conclusion, should you give a problem raider an ultimatum?

Eventually, yes. What the ultimatum is depends on the what type of raider they are and what works for your guild.

No Resilience? No Problem!

Last night I discovered something.

Enhancement PvP.

Oh.

My.

God.

I've never been much of a PvPer. I don't keybind enough stuff, and I use WASD to move - although I'm getting better at using my mouse to turn. I might go cold turkey and bind A and D to strafe and force myself to use my mouse to turn, but we'll see. That would open up Q and E for cooldowns. But anyway.

My shaman has one piece of PvP gear. It's Vicious resto gloves I won out of BH because I was the only shaman there. I don't even have a trinket. Pretty much all the PvP I've done has been on my druid as resto, and I'm not particularly great. I tend to live for a long time if I get focused, but I'm chalking that up to resto druids are ridiculously OP. Seriously. PvPing as melee has never worked for me because I had problems getting close enough to people.

But last night, my boyfriend wanted to do 2's on his warlock (who is decently PvP geared with over 3k resilience) and he doesn't like doing healer/dps 2's teams, as they're slow and don't have much burst (he's affliction). So I went on my shaman - full PvE gear/spec.

The first few games were about 50/50 win/loss, as I can be really easily blown up. I decided to respec my resto spec to PvP enhancement, switch out a couple glyphs, and put on my stamina Alchemist stone.

As it turns out...

I blow bitches up. I do have really decent PvE gear, which definitely helps, but I've never had so much fun PvPing. I still die really fast if I get focused, and I really need to build a PvP set, but holy crap. PvP Enhancement is SO MUCH FUN. I've been running battlegrounds today to build up enough honor to buy a trinket.

Fun Fact: I always ride my Celestial Steed in battlegrounds. Why? Well, how often do you see that mount and think "noob"? Then if said noob runs up and kills you, wearing 0 PvP gear...

Yes, I am trolling battlegrounds with my sparkle pony.

Melee on Atramedes - Turning Down the Suck

Atramedes is a blind dragon in the Blackwing Lair raid instance. I've noticed that a lot of melee seem to have some difficulty with him - there's a lot of things he does that you need to avoid. You also will have what is called a sound bar during this fight. It, obviously, tracks how much sound you're acquiring. If you get 100 sound, Atramedes will know exactly where you are and brutally eat your face off, resulting in your death. This is not the desired outcome.

For most people, anyway.

The way my guild does this fight is we have all melee stack up on the left side of the room (as you walk in), and all ranged on the right. Usually we put 1-2 healers with the melee and the rest in the ranged group. Atramedes is tanked in the middle, head facing the door you walk in from. We have a hunter mid-direct pull onto our tank, then run back into the ranged group.

The most important part of this fight is tracking your sound bar.

It looks like that. The blue center will grow or shrink depending on how much sound you have. You MUST make sure that your sound bar is visible! If certain elements of your UI are blocking it, you need to move them.

The second most important part is avoiding anything you can that give extra sound. Some things are unavoidable, such as Modulation. Modulation looks like large rings, a bit like a sonar, and fills the entire room. As for things you CAN avoid:

Sonic Breath: "Cast at the highest sound player. Does 15,000 damage per second and adds 20 sound per second. Follows the player faster the higher their sound is." This happens on the ground phase. Depending on what boss mods you're using, you'll probably get a skull or x above you're head. At this point, you need to run away from your group - my guild has them run counter-clockwise, while everyone else takes a step or two in the opposite direction.

Anyone in either the melee or ranged groups can get this, so be ready to run.

Sonar Pulse: "Sends discs of sonic energy flying around the room. If touched inflicts 5850 to 6150 Arcane damage and adds seven sound."

(Yes, I'm dead here.) These are REALLY easily avoided. The easiest way to do it is to stand at maximum range then strafe to the left or right to avoid them. And his hit box is MASSIVE.

That far away I can still hit him with all my abilities and have fair warning when discs are going to come at me.

Air Phase: This phase only lasts 40 seconds, and for that full 40 seconds you want to be constantly moving around the outer parts of the room. Atramedes will be dropping fire on the ground, and more sound discs. The difference here is these sound discs don't move but they do have a sonar bomb that falls into them, and if you're standing in it you gain a whopping 30 sound. He'll also cast Roaring Flame Breath, which is a lot like Sonic Breath. It will target a player and follow them, leaving fire on the ground and speeding up. If you get targeted, you'll want to save any speed boosting abilities for when it really closes in. This breath will target the person with the highest sound going into the air phase, but once someone hits a gong it will then target that person. You shouldn't be hitting gongs unless assigned to it.

If you want to check out the entire boss fight, take a look at this video from Tankspot:

Chimereon and You, the Enh Shaman

*dances*

"Billy Jean is not my loooover, she's just a giiirl that thinks that I am the oooone!"

Chimaeron!

And how to make your healers love you

Do not accidentally hit Chimaeron before the tank/raid leader pulls. This will lead to an immediate wipe, the wasting of food buffs and elixirs, and MUCH grumbling. Keep your back to him and do not target him if you're having issues not hitting him.

This fight is not a dps race UNTIL the last 20% - phase 2. It is mostly a healing fight. Therefore, you want to keep as many people alive for the actual burn phase. This can be really tough on the healers - they have to keep everyone above 10,000 health (except the tanks, who need to be kept as high as possible). And during Duel, which is where Chimaeron's heads fight each other, they need to try to top EVERYONE off as fast as possible and keep them up. This is a huge drain on their mana, obviously. This is where you come in and help and save the day and stuff.

Enhancement shamans have this lovely talent called Maelstrom Weapon. This talent says:

When you deal damage with a melee weapon, you have a chance (higher than rank 2) to reduce the cast time and mana cost of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Hex, or any healing spell by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.

Let's look at one part of this. It reduces the cast time AND mana cost of a damage spell, Hex OR HEALING SPELL by 20%.

Free, instant-cast healing spells. And yes, it does work on Healing Rain.

You can be a clutch component on the fight against Chimaeron by using your full 5-stack of Maelstrom Weapon on Healing Rain, Greater Healing Wave, and Chain Heal. You'll keep yourself alive, you'll keep people near you alive, and you will help alleviate some healer headaches.

The best way I've found to do this is to make sure any melee dps near you are right at the edge of 6 yards away from you. Try to position yourself in the middle. Now, watch your health. If you're below 10k and you have a full stack of maelstrom, blow a chain heal off yourself. This will get you up a stabilizing health pool and will help stabilize dps near you as well. After Chimaeron casts Massacre, drop a Healing Rain or chain heal to boost your health back up.

During Duel, drop Healing Rain on the stacked up raid and start smashing Chain Heal, bouncing it off yourself. You're going to run out mana most likely, but your heals will help bring the entire raid up, and once you spread back out again it's absurdly easy to get a full mana bar again. Before Chimaeron goes into phase 2, try to throw a few more chain heals or Healing Rain (or both) to top yourself and others near you off.

Once Chimaeron hits phase 2, all healing is negated, so go back to your normal dps rotation. Be sure to spam Wind Shear whenever it comes off cooldown if you're a pretty high dps to minimize your threat and maximize your time alive. However, if your dps leaves a bit to be desired, you can actually change your imbue to Rockbiter, and change your shocks to Frost Shock to raise your threat. Sacrificing yourself will allow other, higher dps individuals to live longer, increasing the likelihood of a boss kill. Remember, it's about the kill and the team, NOT about your numbers and ePeen.