NizataRazthalTribunus Legate
Joined: 05 Sep 2008 Posts: 249
|
re: Naxx - First Clear: Military
by Razthal on 2009/04/22 6:49
Congratulations to everyone on the clear of Military. We handily slaughtered four horsemen on our second attempt of the evening! Now that we've all seen how it's done, we should be able to clear it every week. The Construct Quarter is all that stands in our way of Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. With the DPS and the cohesion we showed last night, I think we should be quite ready to take them down.
That being said, I would like to move on to another achievement we appear to be working toward... a faster raid. I looked at last night's DPS. I looked at last night's heals. And I looked at last night's tanks. I saw a raid group that shouldn't have had to stop moving except maybe 45 seconds before bosses, yet it took us nearly 3.5 hours to clear two wings of Naxx. I know we can do better. Therefore, I put forth the following challenge: I propose that next week, when we slaughter Plague and Military, we do so in 2.5 hours. I think this is perfectly achievable.
I ask the officers to consider adding an EP reward for quick clears. State at the beginning of the run what the target times are going to be. Perhaps additional points of EP per minute ahead of schedule? Indicate the point at which the timer is started, and stop the timer at the down of the final boss of the quarter. Repeat for each quarter. I think that working together to achieve this type of goal will make us an even more well geared (pun intended) Naxx clearing machine. I've seen us clear Spider in 50 minutes (I think even less). I've seen us clear Plague in roughly an hour. I'm CERTAIN that we can clear Military in an hour now as well. This puts us on track to have a one night clear of Naxx, or at the very least, clear the four quarters on Tuesday, leaving Kel and Sapph for Thursday.
Again, big Congrats on another progressive raid!!! Let's keep up the good work, and progress our way through Construct.
Ed
Last edited by Razthal on 2009/04/22 15:24; edited 1 time in total
|
|
CorvusCael QuinanLegatus Legio Consul
Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 816
|
re: Naxx - First Clear: Military
by Cael Quinan on 2009/04/22 9:34
As Ed has indicated, last night was our first full clear of the Military Quarter. This is one step closer to a complete clear of Naxx and our introduction into Ulduar. Not to diminish the accomplishment, I wanted to say that as a Guild Leader I am incredibly proud of this guild today. Our DPS was the best it has ever been, averaging nearly 3k on Loetheb and always above 2k on nearly every other boss. This was also done with essentially a new tank - Nahkaev- and a relatively new off-tank. Beyond a couple of missteps in the night, we did very well and all should be extremely proud.
That being said, the raid went far slower than anticipated, even allowing for learning new content. I saw a number of reasons for this and it was discussed last night between Ellesar and I.
1. Be Ready, Not Needy. Raids start at 7, but we being forming at 6:45. I cannot account for what amount of time was lost last night on pre-raid prep, but by this time and with the professed desire to progress, no one has an excuse for being tardy and off-site at this point in our raid progression. At 6:45, you should ideally be on-site. That doesn't mean waiting for a summon, it means at the stone in Dragonblight (or wherever). We should be ready to engage our first mob at 7pm Server Time. No later. Anything less is insulting to your fellow raiders.
2. Know the fights. This is becoming less and less of an issue as we progress, so I mention this just as a cautionary statement more than anything else, but it's incumbent on each member to have reviewed every fight in Naxxramas prior to entering the dungeon so we do not lose time in explaining a fight we've done before. We have had strats posted for months now, so everyone should have reviewed these by now. We're going to be doing 2 new bosses and a boss we've had no end of troubles with on Thursday, so please be ready in terms of strat knowledge prior to entering Naxx on Thursday.
3. Drink Less, Play More. We lost a substantial amount of time last night between soda breaks and the occasional bio breaks. While we can't really ask you not to bio when needed, it's possible to regulate your fluid intake so that we're not stopping for bio breaks every half hour. If you can't drink a soda without it immediately hitting your bladder, chew some gum. We want everyone to have fun and not feeling overly stressed by our pace and regimen, but having 10-15 breaks saps fun as well.
4. Pick a Spec. This was another source of downtime I identified and was commented on by multiple members to me in confidence. The Dual Spec option is really to give you flexibility in the slot you fill in a raid, but we should not rely on our members flipping from spec to spec within the raid unless absolutely necessary. Did asking our paladins to flip from Prot to DPS help? I'm sure to some degree, but we lost time. If you enter as a tank, you're staying a tank. Same for healers. Ideally, the only person who should ever be changing roles in the raid is Rohann, because his main spec is built for that. No one did anything wrong, but waiting for respecs really caused us a LOT of downtime that could have been avoided. It is something we will avoid in future raids.
I want to digress here and again say how proud I am of our progress so far. We've gone through a lot since November and had a lot of setbacks, but we are clearly on the road to victory in Naxx and stepping into Ulduar. That's due to a lot of factors, but one of the primary reasons we are succeeding now -more so than in the last few months- is because we have a solid, reliable, skilled and determine core raid group. That's you.
Therefore, all of this is aimed at improving on an already successful formula. We're good, but we can also improve and these are areas that I see where it'd be easiest and most productive for us to improve. This will become infinitely more important when we enter Ulduar and are once more challenged on every fight, from trash mob to boss. In Ulduar, we'll want to squeeze every single second out of it and this is how we'll prepare.
In closing, I will be establishing some goals for runs. At this moment, we should be doing Arachnid and Plague in 45 mines from first boss to last and military shouldn't take us more than an hour. I'll leave Construct, for now, without a set goal, since we're still working to best it. I'm reviewing EP awards right now, to better tailor them to our progression, so I won't state a reward value at this point, but it will be coming shortly.
Again, congratulations everyone in Military last night. We did wonderfully and I've exceedingly proud of all of us. Please review these comments as what they are -improvements- and do not take anything personally. The success or failure of a raid veyr rarely rests on any one person's shoulders, so these are things all of us can work on together.
Last edited by Cael Quinan on 2009/04/22 11:02; edited 1 time in total
_________________
twitter:@CaelQuinan,@AshenBro_SWTOR
|
|
NizataRazthalTribunus Legate
Joined: 05 Sep 2008 Posts: 249
|
re: Thursday
by Razthal on 2009/04/22 10:48
This brings up another question... Let's say we clear Spider in 45 mins (which we should be able to do easily), but then wind up clearing Construct in an hour and a half or two hours... that would leave an hour or so to make an attempt at Sapphiron/Kel'Thuzad. Should we have time, are we intending to make an attempt at the last two bosses?
|
|
CorvusCael QuinanLegatus Legio Consul
Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 816
|
re: Re: Thursday
by Cael Quinan on 2009/04/22 11:03
Razthal wrote: | Should we have time, are we intending to make an attempt at the last two bosses? |
always. We are also going to attempt Emalon
_________________
twitter:@CaelQuinan,@AshenBro_SWTOR
|
|
|
re: Naxx - First Clear: Military
by Surrender1 on 2009/04/22 14:43
/read
_________________
|
|
RohannRohann/LomeqLegio Prelate
Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 279
|
re: Naxx - First Clear: Military
by Rohann/Lomeq on 2009/04/22 15:13
Rawr!
Nuff said.
|
|
MagusdinCenturion Inscriptor
Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 65
|
re: Naxx - First Clear: Military
by Magusdin on 2009/04/23 10:23
I didn't notice think it was Damon or Tyler switching specs that hindered us it was that when they said they were switching 2-3 people decided it would be nice to go grab a drink or whatever. You can switch specs, use a gear mod AND get your mana back up in a mintute maybe 2. I think it did help with the dps on those solo tank fights. Then after the fight when they switched back once again it was other people that took advantage of the situation not Damon or Tyler.
That's my opinion of it. I think we can clear it faster and I take full blame for the down time when I ran too far past Damon and got mauled by the worms and bats.
|
|
NizataRazthalTribunus Legate
Joined: 05 Sep 2008 Posts: 249
|
re: Re: Thursday
by Razthal on 2009/04/23 10:44
Ravth wrote: | Razthal wrote: | Should we have time, are we intending to make an attempt at the last two bosses? |
always. We are also going to attempt Emalon |
Emalon this week? Glad I got those new gloves yesterday. PtV FTW!!!
|
|
CorvusCael QuinanLegatus Legio Consul
Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 816
|
re: Naxx - First Clear: Military
by Cael Quinan on 2009/04/23 13:13
Magusdin wrote: | I didn't notice think it was Damon or Tyler switching specs that hindered us it was that when they said they were switching 2-3 people decided it would be nice to go grab a drink or whatever. You can switch specs, use a gear mod AND get your mana back up in a mintute maybe 2. |
It was a combination of issues. The convenience and utility of having them capable of going DPS was certainly there, but we did lose time in the switch, not only in terms of the actual switch, but in adjusting roles and in rebuffing. YEs, the actual time required in doing these thing sis minimal, but it was never done on the fly and it always had downtime that was not necessary for the actual switch.
Ideally, we should be able to make spec switches within 2-3 mins tops. But until we can eliminate all the sundry time lost surrounding the switch, they will continue to sap our time in pennies and nickles.
However, the re-specs weren't our greatest issue, downtime was and will be more rigorously controlled in the future.
_________________
twitter:@CaelQuinan,@AshenBro_SWTOR
|
|
|