Raid Ready

Brizle

New Member
Hello raiders!

Those that choose to make the step from player to raider are stepping into an exciting aspect of WOW. For those of you that have raided before you already know the thrill that comes from downing end game bosses and the fun of being in a group bigger than 5 people. Healers are no longer by themselves and tanks often get a buddy to share the burden of bosses. This being said now that you will be playing WOW at a higher level you are held to a higher standard. This standard involves three main areas knowledge, gear, and skill. The following will give you a breakdown on these areas and information on simple ways to improve.

KNOWLEDGE: Arguably the most important aspect of being a raider. You have to know what you are doing and why you are doing it. The first way you can increase your knowledge is by knowing what is going on in a boss fight, knowing the mechanics and different phases involved. One site to watch boss fight explanations at is Tankspot. This website gives boss fight explanations for 25 man content but the basic mechanics are the same.
http://www.tankspot.com/ - You are required to know the fight before you sign up for raid. That doesn’t just mean watching the fight, but actually knowing what’s going on.
*Currently we are doing normal Firelands bosses all the way to Ragnaros. So if you wish to do tier 12 stuff watch all the fights and know them. If you are new to raiding also watch the videos for BWD, BOT, and TotfW in order to be ready for fights that we will sometimes do to help get you geared.

Also you should have the game addon DBM. If need help getting this setup contact an officer in game.

GEAR: This is an important thing when it comes to your role in the raid. DPS needs to have the gear to deal high dmg, Tanks need to have proper avoidance, and Healers need to be able to have the mana to last long fights and keep people alive. This can be done by making sure you do dailies at the Molten Front, running Fl trash runs, and coming along gearing raids for Tier 11 content.
*A good minimum iL for FL content is 359 but you should be able to get above that with all the gear you can get from dailies and other things. Blizzard likes to gear you up!
**Also DPS should be able to pull 15k minimum dps on target dummies, self buffed. No flask, no food. 3-5 mins.
***Tanks should meet their minimum avoidance requirements. Look them up for your class.
****Heals, be able to sustain 10k minimum hots for an average boss fight. 5-10 mins.

Along with having high enough level gear you also should have it gemmed, reforged, and enchanted properly. AskMrRobot is a great tool to follow to get your gear properly formated.
http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear - Its very simple to use, just fill out your toons name and realm along with role. Make sure its identified correct spec and your good to go! If you have any questions on how to read stuff look me up in game.

SKILL: While were not trying to say you’re unskilled, what we mean by skill is that you are up to par on current rotations, talent build, and playing abilities. A good place to read up on the most efficient way to play your class is ElitistJerks. This is a fact and numbers based play style and takes out the emotion of playing a toon. Just cause you feel like you do more dmg playing your guy that way doesn’t mean you actually do more dmg.
http://elitistjerks.com/forums.php - Knowledge will increase your DPS, Heals, and tanking ability more than a a few new pieces of gear.
Also keep up to date on the popular specs for your class and play style. This can be done on wowpopular and by selecting your class, role, and type of play.
http://wowpopular.com- Use a raid viable spec.


Through these three main areas of being a Raider you’ll get to experience all the fun of killing mechanically fun bosses, big old buggers, and the occasional boss fight that your glad just to be done with it. High level gear and excitement await you in the world of raiding. Looking forward to seeing you there!

-Briz
 
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And with that attatude you will miss out on some people that would out perform many others.

Sometimes people can excel past gear and knowledge with skill... Just FYI. I know you can't grasp that and maybe it is easier for you to just boot people that don't meet your set expectations.

I've been leading raids and playing games for a long time and I'm a bit zeolous on this issue. I'm not looking to open a can, just don't know you from Adam and in the past have not had a good experiance with you.

Is this a posting from all the officers?
 
And with that attatude you will miss out on some people that would out perform many others.

Sometimes people can excel past gear and knowledge with skill... Just FYI. I know you can't grasp that and maybe it is easier for you to just boot people that don't meet your set expectations.

I've been leading raids and playing games for a long time and I'm a bit zeolous on this issue. I'm not looking to open a can, just don't know you from Adam and in the past have not had a good experiance with you.

Is this a posting from all the officers?

Mordos I understand that some people can out perform gear requirements with skill. But you still have to have the knowledge of the fight in order to not drag the raid group down. As I stated before raid leaders hold the right to make exceptions on who they allow to come along on raids. This always for the skilled but under geared to come along based on the raid leaders choice.

You are right that there are skilled players that can break the standards. The standards are there to give something to strive for, and there will always be exceptions to these rules. But we do have these standards none the less.

I would ask you to not make blanket statements like "you can't grasp this". If you have a problem with me and past experiences please contact me in game and we can talk in vent or PM.
Making attacks like this are not helpful and do more harm then good.
Please refer to http://www.cgalliance.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16322

This Raid Ready post has been approved by Guild Leaders, Raid Leaders, and Officers.

-Briz
 
Mordos I understand that some people can out perform gear requirements with skill. But you still have to have the knowledge of the fight in order to not drag the raid group down.
Disagree... I have prooven this... I would ask you to not make blanket statements.

I would ask you to not make blanket statements like "you can't grasp this". If you have a problem with me and past experiences please contact me in game and we can talk in vent or PM.
I tried to talk to you when it happen... you wouldn't hear my reasoning and moved on, dismissing me as some newb.

I'm done ranting... You can delete all my posts if you like... This is not going to get anywhere.

Dos out.
 
Let's keep it calm in here, guys. You both have valid points to bring up, but let's keep it focused on that.

Mordos - I know that I personally appreciate your experience in things like this, and if you have advice to give I'm always happy to hear it. That said, I think you have read a little too much into this post and are taking it too seriously. You are right that Brizle probably doesn't have as much experience in this area as you do, but I believe that he means well and I think you should give him a chance in that area. If you have some specific input on how this post can be improved I think we'd appreciate it. If there are other problems you'd like to address, try to keep them private or bring in a mediator if necessary. Those don't need to be brought up here.

Brizle - One point I can see in your post above is that it talks about "minimums" and things you "need" for raiding. One thing I would suggest (and maybe this is what Mordos was getting at - let me know how close I am) would be that you define these things as helpful goals to shoot for if someone wants to raid. As Mordos said, skill is the most important, so even someone with a 353 ilevel can be a viable choice for firelands if their skill is adequate. I agree with you that a lot of times people don't put enough effort into preparing their characters for raiding, but putting down exact numbers like that can also chase away people who are capable. I know from experience that sometimes good players will not even offer to raid because they don't think that they have lived up to some standard. That's why we also need to keep it clear that the focus is on fun and that these are guidelines to help everyone enjoy raiding as much as possible.

Again, try to keep it focused on being helpful here, guys.
 
These are good guidelines to shoot for while preparing a raiding character. It appears to me that Brizzle has made it clear that people not performing to these goals can be brought along if the raid leader chooses. We are not going to leave people out solely because they don't meet the expectations in this post.

Part of being a raid leader is determining who is best able to help the raid succeed. A great player with subpar gear will do very well. An idiot in the best gear will do very badly. A good raid leader will correctly discern this.

The only requirement in the original post is:

You are required to know the fight before you sign up for raid.

And this will pretty much always be a requirement.

There are some strong suggestions on how much to be able to dps/heal/etc, but we are not holding tryouts or anything.

If anyone has any questions or concerns about the suggestions in this post, I'd encourage you to take it up with the original poster and maybe a raid leader. I think it's solid advice, and anyone would do well to heed it. But please do not take this post to mean "be able to do this, or you won't raid."
 
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Thank you so much for your imput Grim. As I have said a few times this post is just to set a standard. This standard has been the spoken standard and this post is just putting it in writing.

By all means, as I have said several times, there are exceptions to this standard. That is why Raid Leaders have the choice to bring people along. If a Raid Leader wants to give someone a chance to break the mold they are given a chance. This has been done in the past and will continue to be done in the future. We have given people chances to show what they got, and often what they got is awesome!

These numbers have been approved by Raid Leaders, Guild Leaders, and Officers as the standard we have set. This post was never intended to be an attack at anyone, or to discourage people from raiding. Its goal is to help prepare people to raid. Hence all the links to sources that can be used to improve their knowledge, gear, and skill.
-Briz
 
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The only requirement in the original post is:

You are required to know the fight before you sign up for raid.

And this will pretty much always be a requirement.

See, that's something I would actually disagree on. While it is extremely helpful if people know the fight before signing up, we often take people along who do not know the fight and explain it to them before we do it. The simple fact of the matter is that we can't assume that everyone has time outside of raiding to watch all the videos for all the raid bosses. As Mordos said, though, a skilled player can still make up for this - especially if they have DBM updated (which I would say is more necessary than most other things). I know that I and others have done boss fights successfully in the past without ever having done them before.

Thank you so much for your input Grim.

Happy to help. It sounds like we probably have a bit of a misunderstanding going here. I'd be happy to help if you guys need it or you can talk to someone else, but I know it always bothers me when people offend each other without realizing it. Sometimes you need someone to help you understand where the other person is coming from so that you don't end up mad at each other.
 
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That is part of the problem in my opinion though grim. People not knowing the fights takes away from valuable time that could be used on attempts or trash. SOO many times in the past i've literally ran in circles while the raid leader explains the fight because people don't know the fight. I understand people don't always have that much time sometimes, but then do a simple thing and ask an experienced raider or the raid leader before the raid to help and explain the mechanics or something along those lines.
 
For me personally it is difficult for me to understand a fight without first doing it. I can read about it, watch videos, and try my best not to zone out while fierce is explaining things (to no avail..)...but it honestly doesn't help much until I've done the fight.

I would change saying "you are required to know the fights ahead of time" to "Try and know the fight, but DBM is required." :p
 
That is part of the problem in my opinion though grim. People not knowing the fights takes away from valuable time that could be used on attempts or trash. SOO many times in the past i've literally ran in circles while the raid leader explains the fight because people don't know the fight. I understand people don't always have that much time sometimes, but then do a simple thing and ask an experienced raider or the raid leader before the raid to help and explain the mechanics or something along those lines.

Most people show up to raid at 6:00pm. We usually take at least 15-20 mins to get the raid makeup formed. This wait time can be used to watch 3-4 vids at least. Even though a lot of vids are 10+ mins long, the explanations usually are only 5mins long. So if you dont have the time outside of raid to watch vids use the time that you wait in raid to watch them.

Point being if you can show up to raid for 3 hours, take 10 mins to learn what you are going to be doing during those 3 hours.
 
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I totally agree ash because a lot of the time you really can't understand it till you have done it like with lich king or any of those extremely touchy fights. But i mean knowing that hey this poop is bad or this is good type of thing is always nice if that makes sense.
 
Briz and I took the time and talked over some things, I just feel like the wording was such a hard line, but the thing that took it over the edge for me was the "set in stone mentality" that seemed to be there for all of it.
Then it kept being said that it was always that way as far back as Redeem has been raiding.
So, beings as I am the one that wrote the first guidelines, I took some time and went back to the original Document, which I still have. Here is the info that is regarding Raid Readiness:


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Raid Readiness - Ways to come to raid prepared to succeed
Knowledge

All raiding members, regardless of rank, are to learn the fight as it pertains to their class before the raid night. In some cases this will mean to learn the whole fight (e.g. know what every one's role is).
Ready to Listen
As raiding members we have to be ready to listen to the Strat leader of the raid and the officers. Not just hear, but listen. There is a time for jokes and goofing off, but not during raiding ... even when it may seem like easy trash pulls.
Prepared Out-of-Game with Ventrillo and Mod Readiness
Ventrillo is required (Exceptions will be made on a case by case basis)... make sure that you have installed it and tested your mic if you plan to speak (don't try it for the first time in-raid and blow the eardrums of 9 or waste their time with a "can you hear me now" game). An up-to-date Boss Mod and Threat manager are also required. By up-to-date ... check for updates before logging on for any raid. Boss Mods means, preferably, Deadly Boss Mods (it has better tools for many fights), although Big Wigs is also acceptable if you're more comfortable with it. Your class may have other required mods, talk to your Class Leader. If you use macros, make sure they are written and tested outside of the raid.


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Now this takes us to what I and my Raid leaders expected: We expected for you to have some knowledge of the fight, but the basics… I never expected to one shot anything and I always explained fights first, why? Because I knew not everyone could, or would learn the fight… but I liked to add my own style to the fights, one that would better fit the raid makeup or our players. The thing that has to be kept in mind is, how it is done on Tank Spot is not the end all be all of raiding method and there could be many different ways to complete the same fight.
A basic understanding of the tactics needed with DBM, should be all that is needed. If you read the original doc, the only time “Required” is used is in the add-on section. All the others are strong suggestions. When that doc was written it was poured over but many people to make sure we were not going overboard. We were Rank #7 for Alliance in raiding-25 man in BC so I think something was done correctly. I think you all are doing awesome and Angry is a Great RL as well as all the others, even you Goodwone, well as long as you don't get overwhelmed... :)

I think all that is being said is the wording could be changed slightly and it would be much better. Just my 2 cents.

Dos
 
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