Black Raven Dragoons

[Grimblast]

Good raid last night all! Seems we can consistently bring down the same bosses. Let's keep it up! I will see about that second raid day being on Sundays. Not sure what the turnout will be like but if we can get some more tries at the bosses that are giving us a hard time, I bet we can blast right through them eventually! They seem to be more mechanics based than the others before them so we need to practice not standing in the AOE abilities.

[MaxRile]

As were doing an Awesome job on every boss we down even Rotface and Festergut.

Theres still some problems that need tobe addressed Movement is a key factor the further we get into Icc the harder and more pressing this will be Dmg isnt going to be just on the Tanks it will be in the Mechanics of the fight the ability to move in a and out or away from stuff is a must i cant stress this anof.

It was talked about over and over and i understand the need to goof off and have a good time hell that is why i Made this run is to get a group of ppl i like together and just shoot the shit... that being said its ok to do so when were on our farm bosses or trash mobs or just in Gen but when it comes down to it and were faceing new stuff ill have to ask you to get your game face on.

one other thing due to the nature of the up coming fights im going to have to ask for a set of "rules" be met i dont like it and i dont like to do it but its pretty much my call
Omen and Deadlybossmods(or some kind encounter warning system)will be needed. If you need help setting up your Omen let me know ill be happy to help you do so

And an idea is not longer acceptable you will have to go out of your way to learn the fights coming. I have no problems explaining a few things here and there but things change and they change on the fly knowing what to do and where to be is Key

[Highgrade]

yes drill sergeant! nah a little more homework cant hurt can it. OW! my face it's eating my face!!

[Zancarius]

I feel what Sunder's getting at. We're doing absolutely fantastic up until some of the later content. Though, we did have a few people whom I believe were new to the encounters we fought during that raid. I know both Sunder and Turus harped on about this, but please, if you don't understand the encounter, feel free to ask. They don't bite. Much.

From a healing perspective, here is my input:

• Boss mechanics up until Dreamwalker seem pretty easy for us. Most everyone knows what to look for and what, specifically, to avoid. This does not including the bonespikes on Marrowgar, however, as we're still pretty slow to react whenever they appear. Wild was spiked three times in a row, and DPS removed the first one fairly quickly. After that, however, the remaining two were active on Wild for about 15-20 seconds. It's imperative to understand that bonespike graveyard isn't cast merely once after he does his little spiny-OMG-fire thing. He can do it several times. (Hint: There's an achievement on that guy if we can get people out of the bonespikes in under--I believe--10 seconds. Shinies!)
• The second boss is probably our easiest encounter and we're doing a much better job avoiding the ghosts. Great job everyone!
• The third boss is probably the second easiest non-loot-ship encounter for us (ironically). Everyone's doing a great job managing the adds. Feast, my minions!
• The Rotnuts and Festerballs fights aren't too difficult for us, but we do have some rough spots. This last raid was our first ever wipe on Rotballs. (I can't ever get their names straight, so apologies for improvising.) I think there were two major problems that I saw with that encounter: 1) We had two fairly new DPS to that encounter that weren't moving after receiving the debuff and often didn't move even when the slimes were attacking them and 2) The green slime was actually killing some people. Fortunately, this is easy to deal with since it's just a matter of practice.
• Dreamwalker is still a huge problem for us, and frankly we did worse this last round than we did our previous with just Mono, Turus, and I healing. We had four healers this time and didn't get nearly as close, and I think this is due to: 1) DPS not moving quickly enough out of AOE effects (understandable--I got caught by the steamvents myself--more on that in a minute), 2) DPS not reacting quickly enough to get zombies off the healers and shifting heals away from the tank (and dragon) to the healers and party, and 3) Seak and Oz, as far as I could tell, were the only two attacking the blazing skeletons whenever they'd pop up. Seak has pretty incredible DPS, but he can't go at it alone! The skeletons are a significant hazard to all of us, and having two DPS being the only two DPS reacting quickly enough was mucking up our strategies somewhat.

Now, having said that, Dreamwalker isn't a cakewalk like the first three. Turus mentioned she has a "soft enrage" timer, which basically means that if we don't heal her up quickly enough, we're going to die a horrible death that probably consists of steam burns, frostbite, miscellaneous barbequeing, and eventually being enlisted as the Lich King's personal shoe-shiners. (I always sucked at shining shoes, so that's something I'd rather avoid.)

Here's something to keep in mind: AOE effects on that boss are bad, and as ranged, the best thing to do is look out for little white spots on the ground. Those will shoot out steam, launching you into the air (and cancelling any spell you're in the process of casting), damaging you for a non-trivial amount, and causing some falling damage. It's imperative to move out of those vents the instant they appear, because as I noticed, there are periodically mage spawns during the vents and the mages do an AOE frostbolt. Since the frostbolt slows you, you'll find it much more difficult to get out of the steamy circle of love before it fires you into orbit. Since I'm sure most of you would rather not have Old Faithful shoot up all over your backside, you have got to start moving as soon as the circles appear. Now, I'm no park ranger, but I get the idea that super-heated steam and anuses mix about as well as chocolate and animal dandruff. Basically: If you see a whitespot and you're standing in it, stop whatever you're doing and move!

Turus also mused over the idea of having the direct healers (namely Mono and I) stick to the dragon while all others remain on the party. This is something we didn't try last time, and I'm betting it'd work. The last time I was on dragon duty, I was able to get to about 15 stacks of the buff and my crit heals were landing for about 80k. I don't know if anyone has any further input to suggest a different strategy, but when we did that the last time, we got to about 10.1 out of 12 million hit points healed.

Also, it's important to know what the limitations and/or advantages of your healers are. Chain heal is great for bouncing around a party, but it's ineffective if someone is standing more than 12 yards away from another player. Our Ye Olde Tyme DPS generally hug me which is fantastic, because it gives my healing certain advantages during raid wide damage (Seak tends to stick near me like glue--if you don't know where I am, just follow Seak). Melee generally isn't a concern, because you guys are usually just inches from the business end someone's half-rotted colon.

That's my $0.02.

[Gnomegrenade]

I'll admit that I'm pretty new to ICC and am learning alot. Dreamwalker, however, is tough to work out. I'll admit that I didn't attack the skellies fast enough (or as fast as I should have) and will work on that. There's just so much happening all around and so fast, you have to really be on your "A-Game".

But I have researched this fight and have been taking notes.

This link provides a strategy worth trying http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?62615-Valithria-Dreamwalker-Encounter

http://www.wowwiki.com/Valithria_Dreamwalker

They basically broke into two groups (left and right) and took care of business. Looked easy enough.

Again, thanks for the feedback and, as always, feel free to slap me in the head if you see me screwing up.

[Seak]

Sorry i am a back yard hic from Eastern Oregon....but i take alot of what Sunder and Tal are saying here... I am...... veryguilty of not knowing the latter fights....and i am in the process off geting to know them better.... Tal I am not that good....btw.....i know my toon's well but fights...well latter fights i don't. please keep in mind my aoe effect on the dk and single target effect on my Hunter when deciding what dps u want. (sorry tanks)..... i will work harder at understanding the mechanic's of the latter fights....<---- Seak sucks at that. all in all i am here to help.....i want us to progress......my 2 penny's


Dammitt!!!!

[Zancarius]

No worries Seak.

I don't mean for anyone to get the wrong idea related to my post. Those were just my observations. The best part is that they're all just an issue of practice and learning the encounters. It's not something we can do in a single sitting!

It's also important for us to remember that we're not a raiding guild. Causal raiding guild? Maybe, but the important part is to have fun. Since the majority of us have much more fun in 10 man raids, the majority of us stick to those.

Now, having said that, I think we could all agree that it'd be nice to see some new content that we haven't been able to get at yet, but we've only been doing ICC as a guild for a fairly short while. It's going to take practice.

As Turus has pointed out on numerous occasions, we're fairly well known for not following the book. We work with what we have, and ironically we do better than those who follow pre-fabricated strategy guides. I guess there is merit to having fun, after all!

[Grimblast]

I checked out some of those videos that were linked in the wowwiki article on dream walker and came across this gem. It looks like in 10 man we don't need to split the raid.

Healers, this video is from a healer perspective going in and out of the portal. They used one tank, and 3 healers. One stayed out of the portal and the other 2 took the portal to heal the dragon. Once they had sufficient stacks, they would then use guardian spirit and heroism. Notice also that both healers took different paths in the dream to get orbs so they each got their own and didn't miss out on the buffs. I tried to watch the action that happened when they were out of the dream and it seems they would drag the abom to the suppressors for AOE blitz's and after the abom would die, they would aoe the crap out of the corpse so it would kill the worms right away. They had their hunter kiting the zombies while pulling them through a frost trap to slow them down until death.

Seems there are a few things we can trade up. I was telling Sunder that we may have to do a 2 tank approach with the 4 healer idea but this renew's my hope in fewer healers/tanks needed for it. When you watch the above video, watch how they position. They stay pretty clustered together but make sure to scatter from the AOE marks on the floor. We could incorporate that to make the AOE healing easier.

It's pretty late here so I'll try to post more tomorrow when I get a chance or you will hear it from me in raid.

[MaxRile]

Depending on the raid comp i dont see how we Cant do this. What was worring me about tho with the 4 healer 2 tank work up was the lack of dps but after looking it over thats another idea we could switch over to Blaaa guess it depends on who and what we get.... but on the bright side =D hehe if we do down her in time maybe just maybe we can put in a an attempt in the Blood Princes that is where i see this raid going next.

Yes im such an evil basterd MUHAHAHA!

[Gnomegrenade]

Curious to know what healing classes are being used on Dreamwalker. Since I'm learning names (I'm still a guild-n00b), still trying to put names with classes so I thought I'd ask.

A co-worker of mine highly suggests using a Druid/Shammy/Pally mix. Just have a Priest healing everyone else.

If we're already doing this...nevermind.

[Zancarius]

We've tried several combinations so far, and it appears that the best combination we had was a pally (Duran, better known as Thelena), a priest (Monopolize), and myself (Talvarie--shaman). We've also tried two druids, a priest, and a shaman in various permutations of healing assignments. We've also tried two priests and a shaman. The farthest we've gotten hear health up was with the pally, priest, and shaman combo. As Turus pointed out, though, if we go with 4 healers, we'll be down a significant amount of DPS and most strategies I've seen really only suggest 3.

[MaxRile]

Yay Im sure everyone is happy to hear this i will be holding my friday nights run even with the new talent changes i see no reason why to hold back givein the time to prep the toon you want to brang.

a few things to watch out for tho if you plan on coming there are a few updates that are out for 4.0.1 that i will be needed
Omen -- for threat
DBM(deadly boss mods) ((or some form of encounter warning system))--self explaining

And the ability to lisn to commands--- meaning no more balls out dps as soon as the tank engages

lol

[Killemal]

I'll be there. You can have Killem or Sin. Obviously Sin still does crazy DPS, but Killem's new specs are nothing to be trifled with!

[Tirian]

Yeah that is a great idea.

[MaxRile]

dude that was so long ago ...