Moving Up? Standing Still?

Last night we had a pretty decent raid in ICC 10.

I logged on and didn’t really care about whether or not a raid happened.

I was in this bizarre, mellow sort of mood where if it happened it did, if it didn’t, oh well.

Enough people were on, I basically grabbed everyone that was not currently in an instance and barely remembered to make sure we had 2 tanks.

Somehow I have a plethora of healers, mostly all resto shaman. Where did you all come from?

We were continuing the raid from earlier in the week so Rotface and Festergut were down as well as Valithiria.

We went straight to the Blood wing.

Wiped once due to god knows what on the Prince Council, I wasn’t paying attention.

Both tanks were drinking.

I think at least one of the DPS was drinking as well.

I should have been drinking.

Creamed the princes.

Just about had a wipe on trash, autorun FTL. But I lived and so did the rogue, so it wasn’t a wipe.

One-shot Blood Queen. It was a tad sloppy in that we didn’t have a clear bite order for when it was time for 4 people to turn and bite, but I died and so did someone else that had been bitten so enough targets were found. I have yet to live through this fight, and I STILL have my macro saved up for it. /sigh

Then we trooped over to Professor Putricide, our longest-standing nemesis.

BAM.

One-shot.

Up to here made me feel really good.

People were doing what they were supposed to be doing. Funny how we get kills when we do that.

I was really proud of my raid kittens.

Called a break, we all went and re-watched the Sindragosa video.

Gave it a few shots and called it at the close of raid time.

Let me sum up the Sindragosa fight:

PAY ATTENTION TO WHERE YOU AND THE REST OF THE RAID IS STANDING, FFS.

Oh, and:

KILL THE ICE TOMBS.

It was getting late and people were getting tired, but the mechanics really aren’t that hard. It does rely on you paying a bit more attention to the space above your head instead of your recount.

If you have a little blue arrow, you need to stop what you are doing and go to the assigned place.

If you don’t have a little blue arrow, you need to make sure you GTFO of the assigned space for the little blue arrow people.

If ONE person fucks up, it can wipe the raid.

This is one of those fights that separates the bads from the goods.

Mediocre heals or DPS we can probably brute force our way through it. Mediocre movement? Forget it.

If people are paying attention, I shouldn’t have to call jack out in vent, it’s just a courtesy. (Watch videos from guilds that know what the fuck they are doing, they hardly talk at all throughout an encounter.) People with little blue arrows should already be in position by the time I’ve keyed up and delivered the information in vent.

Raid encounters are scripted.

We KNOW what is going to happen. This fight has a little RNG to it with who will be targeted for Magic Chains or whatever the fuck that is and who gets targeted for the Ice Tombs.

But we know that two people will be hit at a time.

We have two spots assigned.

We know that 4 ice bombs will hit and the Ice Tombs should stay up until the 4th lands.

We know… etc., etc., etc.

We know.

We need to DO.

She was down to 28% multiple times.

I want to be knocking on Arthas’ door soon, not playing with his pet dragon.

The mechanics in the Sindragosa fight are not complicated. I’ve heard that the mechanics in the Lich King encounter are much more difficult.

(I haven’t watched the video yet, trying to keep as much of it a surprise as possible before we get there. Yes, I’ll be up to date on the fight before we go in the first time.)

I’ll admit I’m worried about our ability to handle the LK.

Just a little frustrated by the same mistakes being made over again.

Hopefully next week we’ll be a little more aware.

I don’t want to see us end up in the same place we ended up in Ulduar.

We are STILL cleaning up in Ulduar.

And it’s the same problems.

People aren’t aware of the mechanics before stepping into the fight, even though all the research has been consolidated on the guild forums, and/or people aren’t paying attention to the mechanics that they are aware of.

Some nights we run like a well-oiled machine. We click and everything is smooth. People are paying attention. They move out of the bad without being told. They move into the good without being told. We get the kills.

How do I replicate that?

How do I make people DO what they know they need to do?