Raid strategies for the ADHD Raider

It's an unfortunate fact of WOW that players will judge others by their gear. How one wears their gear sends messages to other players as to how serious or dedicated another player is to whatever it is that they do in the game.

This has little to do with gear score and everything to do with presentation and respect.

If someone's gear presentation is not up to the standard of others, it's likely the local raid leader will receive complaints and the poor presenter will be booted in favor of someone who really really wants to raid.

Some of the poor presenters are newer raiders or aren't in an environment where very basic 'common sense' ideas have not been instilled upon them. They're ignorant, often innocently so, no one has grabbed them, pulled them off to the side, and hit them with a clue-by-four.

You don't want to be that guy, especially not with the new LFG system that lets others vote you out.

If you don't have a 'common sense' guide for getting started in raiding, please read below.

Nothing says apathy like empty sockets and unenchanted gear!

When a player shows up to an instance with empty sockets and unenchanted gear, that player is sending a message of apathy and disrespect towards his or her peers. This apathetic person isn't putting forth the basic efforts to gemming and enchanting, they probably won't play to their full potential, their performance will be lower than it would be had that effort been applied.

This means slower boss kills, weaker heals, or squishier tanks. This means increased chances to wipe, repair bills, and a whole lot of wasted time.

Many players on WOW are adults with real jobs--players with limited time, and there's nothing adults hate more than wasted time. Wasting someone's time in a group is a good way for someone to brand themselves as 'bad' and not be given further chances.

DO gem and enchant your gear.

Nothing says cheap like green gems.

When a player shows up to a raid in iLevel 245 gear equipped with green quality gems in their gear, ~~god kills a kitten~~ players who are actually serious about playing cringe, and should the cheap bastard win a piece of gear over them, they will be complaining to the raid leader.

Again, this is a matter of respect and care.

There's really no reason to have anything less than rare quality gems. In most markets rare quality gems very cheap and hitting a few dailies for funds each day should make it possible to gem most gear fairly quickly.

Nothing says moron like wrong stats.

Not all that is purple is good. Some stats are not at all useful for some classes.

A high item level score (lolgearscore) does not necessarily mean that the gear is good. A DPS DK in holy paladin gear will get that DK laughed out of a raid so fast, even moreso if the gear is epic.

Don't be lazy, know which stats are the right stats for your class. Know the caps that apply to you, gem, enchant, and select gear appropriately. Someone who hasn't spent time learning this is someone who is wasting others time.

Excuses and Solutions.

Excuse: Epic gems are too expensive!

Solution 1: You can buy gems with heroic badges. Red, Yellow, and Blue gems are more expensive than other colors.

Solution 2: Buy gems with Honor. 10k honor will get you a gem. Hit Wintergrasp.

Excuse: I can't afford rare gems.

Solution 1: Do dailies.

Solution 2: Badges. (Though if you have badges, you may as well go epic.)

Solution 3: Honor. (10k honor will get you an epic gem, just go epic.)

Excuse: I don't have access to enchanting materials.

Solution 1: Save your greens. Ask an enchanter to D/E them for you.

Solution 2: Run instances, take advantage of the new D/E system.

Solution 3: Do the Saronite Shuffle! (Ore + Eternal Eearth + JC + Enchanting = Mats)

Solution 4: Do dailies and buy mats.

Solution 5: Barter.

Stop making excuses and just do it.

More on Bartering.

I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

Take advantage of your own professions and use them to your advantage.

Be outgoing and social. Advertise good deals on trades in trade and see if you get any nibbles. Some people will be happy to trade items for other items.

If you're a herbalist, trade herbs for ore, frost lotuses are very useful to raiders who flask.

If you need disenchantables or gems, ask someone to prospect your ore and process it into what you need. If you have a JCer doing the shuffle, ask them if they know someone who can DE. Mention you're trying to get mats for your gear. They may forward you to a friend (or log onto an alt to help you).

If you are looking for someone to disenchant stuff, instead seek someone to do enchants and ask if they're willing to DE greens to get the mats. Many enchanters are fine with this.

For both prospecting and enchanting, be awesome and let the person processing the goods keep some of it. This will make the person helping you feel appreciated and you can bet they'll be willing to help you again and again if you make a good first impression.

Always do these things on your main (or the character you need items for), this will positively boost your reputation. It will also give the people helping you some peace of mind, that you're trying to better your own game rather than using their professions to profit off of you.

Always offer a tip! Be generous and polite. If you have your processor keep the extra materials they'll usually turn this down, but the gesture is a sign of respect. Giving a healthy tip will assure that the person will be willing to help you again and again and point you towards others that can help as well.

(This article author tips people crafting Uld25+ level epics at a rate of 300g per craft. The crafters have been known to hop out of raids to do the crafting because the author is a good, polite, and generous customer.)

In the end:

Remember, present a good face, respect others and their time, and they will respect yours. Soon enough you'll find your way onto friends lists and get more play with others.

Onyxia: Primer

noreply@blogger.com (Zan) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:09:00 +0000

Onyxia is a recently revamped fight for 10 and 25 man raiding. If you've raided in classic you probably know most of the fight already.

The encounter has three parts, the second being the most difficult. For this primer I will explain very briefly how things will go down along with some pointers that we here at AA have discovered to be helpful.

Phase 1:

Your MT runs in, grabs the dragon, and turns her around facing her north, tanking her with his or her back against the wall.

Everyone else runs in after, running off to the side of the dragon rather than behind her. Being near the back of the dragon will get you throw around by her tail, potentially right into a pile of whelps which can wipe raids.

This is tank and spank. No one but the MT should be in front of the dragon. When you've killed her enough, she'll fly into the air. As she's running away nuke her as hard as you can, this is where heroism / bloodlust and cooldowns are blown.

Phase 2:

Onyxia flies in the air, she must be nuked until she hits 40%, when she lands.

The dragon does several things during phase 2 that are of importance.

Deep Breaths - Onyxia takes a deep breath and then flies in a straight line across the room, laying down fire that looks a lot like a Warlock's Incinerate spell. Everyone should be paying some mind to where the dragon is and be ready to move should she deep breath. (For some reason she loves to deep breath our raid as soon as the second wave of whelps spawn.) Don't stand in the stupid.
Whelps - These are little, annoying flying baby dragons that will hatch from eggs in large numbers throughout the encounter. They will agro on the first thing they see, or on the first thing that heals the first thing they see. In other words, they're going to maul your healers. It's important that the healers stick near the whelp tank, their healing agro will bring whelps right to said tank. (We've found having the tank call for AOE when he feels comfortable with his threat prevents deaths to our squishy DPS. We have ranged DPS stay on Ony and ignore the whelps. We've also found melee such as rogues doing Tricks of the Trade plus Fan of Knives helps.)
Guards - These are large elite dragonkin that do a blastwave and do a fire debuff on their target. These are tanked by the offtank and burned by the melee. Melee must make sure that they run out of the blastwave when the dragonkin start casting.

When the airborne Onyxia has reached 42%, it's ideal to stop dots and switch to direct damage. This is especially true if you have a wave of whelps incoming in a few seconds. Wait out the whelps and then ground the dragon, as having a wave of whelps while the dragon lands (and casts fear) can be catastrophic.

Phase 3:

Onyxia is moved back to her initial position and is burned down. Tank and spank.

She fears and occasionally causes lava to splash up from cracks in the ground. Try to avoid them and run back into position (out of tail-swipe range) before starting up DPS again.

Getting Ony out of Phase 2, and doing so at the right time is key to completing the encounter. Designating one to two ranged DPS to burn her full time (except for when an AOE on the whelps is called) will help speed the process along.

Tips: Raid leaders may find it ideal to stick a lucky charm on the whelp tank so others can easily find that target to collapse upon for whelps.

Below are explanations based on role:

Group Healer

Tank Healer

Onyxia: Tank Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Zan) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:08:00 +0000

If you are reading this article, you're probably about ready to tank Onyxia (or you're just bored or insane).

You will have several responsibilities for this encounter, though most of them you're probably familiar with, unless you've been thrown into tanking for the first time like a fish out of water. If the later is the case, the most important things to remember are to communicate and to not panic.

Prep:

Get a lucky charm on your head. Preferably one that does not blend in with the orange of the instance.

Turn your spell effects down. Onyxia seems to be one of the most laggy instances out there once she starts summoning tons of whelps in Phase 2.

Phase 1:

Your job in Phase 1 is to run in, hit the dragon, turn her around, then walk her to the wall and tank her.

Things to be mindful of:

You should not turn your back to her or you'll die and wipe the raid.
Start your pull with things like shield block up - Everyone is going to be moving and you might not get heals for the first few seconds.
She knocks your around. Just step right back up into where you're supposed to be and you'll be fine. (I've heard she'll teleport people if she knocks you onto the ledge and evades, so be quick about repositioning yourself.)
Call for DPS once you've got threat. This assures that she won't turn and roflpwn the raid.

Phase 2:

During phase two, you're the whelp tank.

Stand between the two whelp caves, our raid likes to stand between the two chunks of rock that resemble a lady's bust. (giggity)
Have your healers (and anyone who will be AOEing) stack up on you.
Get agro on your whelps as they come naturally to your healers agro. (Resto druids seem to be very good at getting initial threat, our holy paladin frequently HoPs the resto druids.)
Call for AOE when you feel you have threat.
We here at AA have found that Onyxia likes to deep breath when we're dealing with the second wave of whelps. You may wish to discuss with your group what to do should that happen. Having you facing the dragon and calling out the direction you're moving in (your "Left" or "Right") in relation to facing the dragon may help prevent wipes or needless loss of life.

When the dragon is at 42%, if whelps are not incoming for a while, feel free to move to the south end of the room and be ready to pick up the dragon when she lands.

Phase 3:

Walk Onyxia back to her initial position and tank her.

Get her back into position after each fear.

Get epics.

Onyxia: Offtank Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Zan) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:08:00 +0000

If you are reading this article, you're probably about ready to offtank Onyxia.

The following is a guide for you, Mr. Offtank.

Prep:

A majority of your action is going to be during Phase 2. If you do not already have an alternative raid frames addon, such as Grid, installed, you should consider getting it.

Why get Grid? You can set it to fade out the health boxes of players over a certain range from you. Setting your grid frames to fade out people who are over 40 yards away from you is a Good Idea™.

The reason for this will be explained later.

Phase 1:

For Phase 1, you are DPS. You stand off to the side of the dragon, avoiding the tail and the cleave. You may wish to get secondary threat in case anything goes wrong, but chances are pretty unlikely.

Phase 2:

Phase 2 is your time to shine. Head south and wait then pick up the Onyxia Guards when they spawn and tank them.

Onyxia Guards have a Blastwave and should be tanked away from the group.
AA's offtank tanks the adds to the left or right of the entryway, within 40 yards of the whelp team. During deep breaths, the Guards are simply moved to the opposite side of the entry tunnel if necessary.
Keep an eye on Onyxia. If she deep breaths and you're in her path, move, but try to avoid dragging the Guard onto the rest of the raid.
If you see a Guard casting Blastwave, you may find it appropriate to say so on vent. This may help absent-minded melee get out of the stupid and healers know to pre-cast a big heal on you.
Stay in range. Your healers will likely be standing with the whelp tank for part of the fight. By doing so they won't get roflstomped by whelps. If they die to whelps, you die too, if you die it's probably a wipe. It's important that you stay in range of your healers. This is where using Grid is useful, you can see if you're in range of your healers if you set it to fade out people over 40 yards away.

Phase 3:

When Phase 3 hits you'll probably still have a Guard. Don't panic! Keep tanking it.

Your melee DPS team should leave you and your range should burn the add.

Use cooldowns to stay alive right after fears while your healer gets a heal on you.

After your Guard is dead you can go back and loltank DPS the boss down.

Onyxia: Ranged DPS Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Zan) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:07:00 +0000

If you are reading this article, you're probably about ready to shoot Onyxia with fire, ice, lightning, arcane, shadow, bullets, or arrows, and that's A-OK.

Prep:

Having a potion and possibly a healthstone handy. Turn down your graphics to the lowest settings, as Onyxia becomes very laggy with all the adds spawning.

Phase 1:

You're going to start Phase 1 by getting into position to do DPS.

Positioning may vary from raid to raid, but you either want to be well behind the dragon (around the lady's bust on the ground) or on the side of the dragon. (I prefer being up close by healers.)

Once your tank has adequate threat start nuking.

When you've burned her down enough, Onyxia will turn around and start walking south. Blow cooldowns, Heroism / Bloodlust, trinkets, etc and hit her as hard as you can.

Phase 2:

Your main job in Phase 2 is to not die.

Your other job in Phase 2 is to nuke Onyxia out of the air, pushing her down to 43-42% then slowing on things like dots and waiting for your raid leader to make the final "nuke her" call.

Your third job in Phase 2 is to AOE the whelps when your tank calls for it. DPSing before your tank calls for it will usually result in failure on your first job (not dying).

If you do not already have one, you should consider a macro that allows you to zoom your camera out much farther than normal.

How to not die:

Stay aware of Onyxia's position at all times. (I like to face her.)
Stack up on your whelp tank for Whelps.
Do not AOE the whelps until your tank calls for it.
If Onyxia deep breaths, move.
If Onyxia deep breaths during a whelp phase, try to move in the same direction your tank is.
If your health is low, pop a potion, a healthstone, or a bandaid. 3
Don't stand too close to the Onyxia Guards, they'll blastwave all over you and make you dead.

Once you have gotten the dragon to 40%, she will land. You should move away from the south part of the cave so she doesn't land on you and eat your face, hanging out on the east or west side of the cave is ideal.

Phase 3:

When Onyxia lands, Phase 3 begins. Your MT is going to grab the dragon and pull her north. Stay out of her way.

She fears.

Should an Onyxia Guard still be alive at the start of Phase 3, it is your job to burn it from your max range. The reason for having range handle this instead of Melee for Phase 3 is that Melee will get feared at inconvenient times and may die to the blastwave, where you're far away and are likely not going to meet that fate.

Do avoid her tail. If for some reason you get knocked into the whelp cave, say so. By doing so everyone knows what is going on and how to react (don't panic, kill the whelps).

Should whelps still be alive, you should also take care of those. Single target, kite, whatever you've got. If the whelps roflstomp the healers, it is a wipe, don't let that happen.

Once all adds are taken down you can go back into your Phase 1 positions and kill the dragon.

Tank and spank.

Enjoy your epics.

Onyxia: Melee DPS Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Zan) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:07:00 +0000

If you are reading this article, you're probably about ready to DPS the Onyxia encounter as a melee participant.

Prep:

Having a potion and possibly a healthstone handy. Turn down your graphics to the lowest settings, as Onyxia becomes very laggy with all the adds spawning.

If you are a rogue, you may wish to set your MT as your focus for use with TOT-FOKing in Phase 2.

Phase 1:

You should know that Onyxia has a cleave. If you are too close to her front, she'll wtfpwn you.

You should know Onyxia has a tail swipe. If you're too far to her back, she'll wtfswipe you, right into the whelps.

You should also know that Onyxia has a huge hitbox and you should try to stand at maximum melee range to minimize encounters with her cleave and tail.

Other than this, you just DPS when your tank has adequate threat.

When the dragon has been burned enough, she'll turn around, walk south, and fly up into the air. Go go Phase 2.

Phase 2:

During Phase 2 you have a few jobs:

Don't die. (Don't stand in the stupid.)
Kill the Onyxia Guards.
Help with whelps.

If you do not already have one, you should consider a macro that allows you to zoom your camera out much farther than normal.

During Phase 2 you are going to be killing the Onyxia Guards. You should be attacking from behind and be watching for the Guards to cast a blastwave type ability. This has a cast timer that will give you enough time to turn around and run out of the blast.

Don't walk backwards. Turn around and run.

You also must keep some attention to where Onyxia is while she's in the air. If you see or hear a call for "deep breath", you will need to move if it's headed for you or you'll die.

Phase 3:

Onyxia will land at the end of Phase 2. Move away from the dragon and up to the north side of the cave and stand against the east and west walls well away from the cave.

Wait for the tank to get Onyxia into position.

Avoid standing on the cracks on the ground so you don't get hit by lava splashes when you can avoid it.

Kill the dragon. Get epics.

Onyxia: Tank Healer's Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Zan) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:05:00 +0000

If you're reading this article, you're probably ready to face Onyxia as a tank healer.

Chances are you're a Paladin or a Disc Priest, but you may be something else. The point is your job is going to be to keep the main tank (and possibly the offtank) alive.

Prep:

If you don't have addons like Deadly Boss Mods, Grid, and Decursive already you should go get them.

You may wish to put lucky charms on the tanks and yourself if you know where you're going. This will allow the rest of the raid to move with more coordination.

Phase 1:

The tank is going to run up, grab the dragon, turn her around, and run her back to the wall. During this movement phase the agro on the dragon is going to be a little light and your tank is going to be taking damages. By the time he or she is in place the tank will likely be in dire need of a heal. It's important you're there to deliver that heal or it's a wipe. No pressure, honest!

You start this encounter running in with the tank, you want to be just behind but almost even with them on the run in with one minor detail, the tail. To avoid getting tail swiped on the way in, run out to one side or the other, trying to stay parallel to the tank until they get into position.

When your tank has stopped running you should also stop running and top them off before moving foward anymore.

Position yourself to the side of the dragon, under her wings and heal your tank as needed.

Phase 2:

After your DPS has beat on Onyxia enough, the dragon is going to turn around and walk away then fly into the air.

Your job at this point is to go stand on your whelp tank. Why?

The whelps that Onyxia summons will hate you for healing. They're naturally going to head for you and eat your face. They may eat ranged dps along the way, so it's important you herd the ranged people onto your whelp tank for the whelp phase too.

If everyone stacks up the whelps will naturally head towards the tank and the tank will pick the whelps up. It's important to heal people during the pickup and some of the people you may heal aren't going to be your tank.

Resto Druids tend to get whelp agro with their aoe hots and may need a heal or a hand of protection to prevent face-smashing until the tank gets the adds. Likewise, overzealous DPS may aoe too early and need support.

After the whelps are dead everyone should spread out. You can spot heal, help with the add tank, take a mana break, or do whatever. It's important, though, that you keep an eye where the dragon is in case of deep breaths.

Get out of the path of the deep breath, don't die to the stupid.

Move back to your tank right before the second phase of whelps and encourage everyone else to do the same. Facing the dragon will let you see where she is. Chances are she'll hit you with a deep breath during the second whelp phase. Having someone call out a direction for everyone to move in can help keep everyone alive and assure your tank isn't out of range.

Don't panic! If you get separated from your tank move back to them. You can communicate to your raid, "Hey, can someone cover tankname for a moment, I'm out of range."

When the dragon reaches 42% it's important you get prepared to heal on the move.

Phase 3:

At 40% Onyxia will land... and fear. If you have a shaman in your group have them use a tremor totem.

Your tank is going to take Onyxia back to her default tanking position, your duty is to follow your tank, avoid the tail, and keep the tank up while the rest of the raid cleans up any adds that remain.

When all the adds have been cleaned up the dragon becomes and tank and spank. Just stay a ways away from the front of the dragon so you don't get feared into her cleave.

Enjoy your epics.

Raiding 101: The Basics

noreply@blogger.com (Zan) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:54:00 +0000

I've been raiding for a long time, so when I began teaching my ADHD Resto Druid friend how to heal, and heal raids, I assumed he grasped the most basic mechanics of the game. To my dismay, I've discovered that he, having leveled solo on a PVP server, had never developed some of the most basic PVE mechanics.

In order to explain things we must first speak the same language.

It cleaves!

Cleave is a physical attack used by a boss, it hits targets standing infront of the boss. It can, to some degree, be linked, so standing well out of the way of the front arc of cleaving bosses is a good idea.

You're the bomb!

When someone says "You're the bomb!" it does not mean you are awesome, it means you're going to explode and wipe the raid, so go run away from everyone else so you don't die.

Agro!

This is what happens when a mob is attacking you. They're pissed at you and want to kill you. Unless you're the tank or you're trying to kite (or temporarily pull to save someone's life), you don't want this.

I hate you because I saw you first!

When a mob spawns, or when a mob agros, it will attack the first thing it sees. This means that the person who pulls will have a very small amount of threat by proxy just for being the first to be seen. This usually isn't enough threat established to open up and kill things.

I hate you because you healed the person I saw first!

If a heal hits a target that has initial threat before they've had time to build sufficient threat, the agroed mobs will turn to the healer and try to pwn the healer in the face. Spawning mobs that spawn while heals are flying around will usually run towards the healers first. It's for this reason that the healers should hug the AOE tank on Onyxia when they're dealing with whelps.

Get out of the stupid!

Many boss fights in wow are all about getting out of the stupid. Stupid comes in many forms: Pokeball runes on the ground, fire, poogas, blizzards, hurricanes, death and decay, desecration, etc. These will all kill you and unless you're told otherwise (Shade of Aran) you should drop what you're doing and gtfo or you're going to die.

Do it from behind.

We all know rogues do it from behind, but why? When something is being attacked from behind, their ability to block, dodge, parry, or mitigate damage is greatly reduced. This means that everyone but the tank should generally be doing it from behind. With that in mind...

Don't turn your back on a tank target.

When a tank turns their back to a boss, the boss can wtf pwn them because the tank can't mitigate.

More later.

What's flash freeze?

noreply@blogger.com (Zan) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:14:00 +0000

Preface: I've been leading raids on and off for years, and I'll try to very throughly and concisely explain fights to my guildlings. After I'm done explaining or during the fight I get a question for which the answer was already explained. I've come to the realization that some of the raiders actually zone out as I explain things and miss something important. I, myself, have zoned out when other raid leaders are explaining things from time to time.

I realize several of my raiders, while they're good players and good at what they do, have ADHD. Some of them can watch a Tankspot video and still be absolutely lost as to what to do.

They learn and digest information a bit differently.

Luckily, I'm an altoholic, I have a firm grasp on playing most classes and what various classes do in a situation. With this in mind, I've taken to having very brief explanations for them that tells them what they have to do without flooding them with info.

A few of my players, while good players, are fairly new to raiding. They've come off PVP servers where they've done little PVE and little instance grouping, so things that are exceedingly basic to some raiders may be stuff they just don't know yet.

I figured I can't be the only raid leader out there trying to herd felines with an exceedingly short attention spans, so I'm writing this blog as a way to share with others how I've managed to successfully explain fights to assorted ADHD players.