First raids this week. We're squeaking by on healers, running with 6 when we'd like 7, and two of those are dps who offered to heal just so we could raid. Three cheers for flexible hybrids!
Adgamorix over at Divine Plea has a fine write-up on his own raiding experiences and how he'd like to improve.
Myself, my logs are here: Conclave - my damage taken over 2-1/2 hours of wipes
and here: in which Enlynn takes 58 ticks of Pillar of Flame over 19 attempts
Alright. I'm still feeling pretty clunky. I haven't keybound Radiance but I think I need to. Perhaps I need a macro for Bursty or Two +Radiance, as well. I am wasting valuable time trying to get to the button when I decide it's time.
Though I think I'm doing okay with my other spells. LoD is ridiculous in a good way. A lightwell disappeared from getting full clicks last night! Though with only 9 Healthstone uses over 19 attempts... Well. There's room for everyone to improve. We're raiding again for the first time in weeks, maybe months. Everyone is learning. New encounters, new mechanics, new spells, new talents, new rotations.
And to be fair, on 25 man it's a lot harder to see ground effects like Pillar of Flame when there are 16 players stacked over 3 healing effects. I did learn something valuable: boss encounter addons work much better if you have them enabled.
I am using DBM now simply because I can't get DXE to work. I miss DXE and if anyone has a link to one that works for the new encounters, it would be MUCH appreciated.
EDIT: I should have mentioned that there are "two" pillars of flame. The first will spawn the adds, which is the one-that-must-be-avoided, and another (larger area) which does fire damage. If you are using an addon that tracks and announces fails, it will announce it for those who take damage (even if they don't spawn the adds). So while I am shaming myself for 58 ticks of avoidable damage, I didn't necessarily spawn adds 58 times. If you're trouble-shooting for your raid, keep that in mind. I'd only call it a fail if the adds are spawned.
UPDATE: Adgamorix suggested we move more ranged to melee range and on 1-12-11 we got him down following his good advice. We put our hunters and a lock (who had specced to be an AoE monster) on the outside and this worked out a lot better than having everyone try to dodge the pillar. It also kept all our healers in range of tank at all times, and I asked the healers to each focus on one of the ranged staying out so they got the extra heals as needed (that may have been overkill, but boss kills are boss kills). So, this definitely works!
I don't know how it works on Magmaw, but one way that we trivialized the pillar was to have the entire raid stand in melee range of the boss - with just the hunter standing at range (10m). This let us put the blame of extra adds and pillar damage on one person, and the ranged could still nuke them down when they spawn.
ReplyDeleteOf course in 25m there may need to be a few extra folks at range.
I am going to suggest we plant a few more folks in melee range, Adgamorix. I think that's a great idea. Not only will fewer players need to move, but the pillar will be easier to see with less stuff going on in the back.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, I'll be volunteering to go up. *cough cough* It'll help my mana regen.
Thanks for the advice!