The Wyrmfoe raid team will be hitting its first raid tonight, and I find myself filled with glee. For our very first raid with the new team we aren’t doing anything hard — heck, we’re not even doing anything challenging. Our goal for tonight is not to push progression or get phat loots, but instead to stretch our legs, get used to working together as a team, and to try to start off raiding in the right way.
As a result we’re going to Naxx, but we aren’t just zerging our way through. Oh no. We’ll be hitting any boss achievement on the way, and in addition to that we’ll be doing training exercises. That’s right, just like any team, Hrist and I think that a raid team can benefit from some practice.
During the raid tonight we’ll be focusing on communication and teamwork and all those crucial raiding skills. The raid is going to be about practicing control, execution, and discipline. And strangely it turns out that Naxx is a fantastic place to do this.
What kind of things? Well, here’s a partial list of the kind of stuff I suspect will work it’s way into the raid:
- If there’s a skull, it must be single-targeted. No aoe.
- Hrist will occasionally call out for dps to stop.
- Hrist will call out for dps to move to specific locations.
- Hrist will call for ranged to collapse into melee — or for melee to spread out to range.
- I wouldn’t be surprised to an order go out on Heigan to do zero damage at all for the first several phases of the lava dance.
- Calls for random target switching.
- Call for healers to switch roles — healer x, you’re dead! Stop healing.
- We’ll also be focusing on minimizing downtime. We want to move swiftly through the trash — but not sloppily.
- And if Hrist calls for a wipe, you’d better die as fast as you can. Or, you know, feign death
It will be interesting to see what kind of pace we can keep up despite the shennanigans, and how many achievements we end up getting (my prediction: we will not get the lava dance, shocking, or immortal). Either way, the real purpose of the raid isn’t the acheivements, but to get a feel for each other and work out the kinks — and possibly stomp out some bad habits.
This is an awesome idea to employ for a new raid team. My guild’s raiding group is not new but I may have to refer some of our RLs to this to see how they feel about it. Practice does make perfect after all.
i am looking forward to the fun:D
and as they say… Bring it:D
Interesting idea. I probably wont suggest it to my RLs because I really dont want to go through it, but we could use a coordination check.
It might be more fun that bashing my face against the keyboard after full nights of Saurfang 25 wipes, though.
Sounds like fun, wish I could join in on the group-building exercises. I’ll have to log in and knock out a few levels on my lowly 34 druid, Strid. After I watch The Hurt Locker.
“healer x, you’re dead! Stop healing.”
Misdirect would work really well for that , wouldn’t it ??
Get Hrist, the hate tank, to stop attacking forcing everyone to catch him in threat and use threat mitigation without being told.
That post made me smile, but it made me wish i had server transfered my paladin and joined Wyrmfoe to your team. GL tonight
I say you do Patchwerk blindfolded. Seriously, just get into a rotation and guesstimate some cooldowns for things.
Then stay in blindfolds for Frogger. Pics plox, kthxbai.
I recently put together a brand new raid team consisting of maybe 4 people that are already skilled and experienced raider and 6 people that haven’t raided anything before. Our first task was to 8 man Naxx. We were still 2 people shy, so I figured we could go for an achievement while giving the newer raiders some valuable experience with how a raid works together. I found that naxx perfect for this. We only raid on wednesday nights, and only for a couple hours at a time, so its not exactly a grueling schedule. We took on 1 wing per week, and cleared it all in 4 weeks. Now we’re going through Ulduar 10 man with the same concept. It’s tempting with how easy it is to get geared now to just skip ahead to ToC, but I think we’re going to be much better off this way, and we’ll save a lot of learning curve headaches later on.
Kraigus – Agreed in full. A friend of mine was lamenting those who “jumped ahead” in the gear curve, ending with an exclamation of “There’s LEARNING to be had in there!” referring to Ulduar and Naxx. His 25M group, no surprise, is not past Deathwhisper (or even close), and only barely past Marrowgar. The steady approach will save time later, so you aren’t banging your head into a metaphorical wall constantly against harder bosses. And there’s also a sense of accomplishment: I love that I’ve downed Yogg, for example, when we could’ve easily dropped Ulduar for ToC when it came out and bypassed the achievement.
Frost’s group seems like they’ve all had some experience before, though, so I doubt they need to say strictly linear.
Those drills all make so much sense. I wish I could be a part of your raiding guild, or at least apply for membership. If only I wasn’t on a different server…and more importantly, if only your guild wasn’t dirty Alliance.
Sounds like a fun, casual-yet-important night!
This post makes me sad because it reminds me that I am part of a guild that just slams it’s head against the wall until we succeed, lol.
I yearn for a raid team with so much structure that we could have a “practice session”
This sounds like an excellent night of raiding. Stress free, fun and actually might be challenging/useful for the group.
One of your best ideas yet frost.
This sounds like a brilliant idea! The amount of newly formed raiding teams that don’t succeed for exactly the type of things that you and your team will be practicing together.
Good thinking =D
Omogon
“healer x, you’re dead! Stop healing.”
Misdirect would work really well for that , wouldn’t it ??
BAHAHAH!!! That was the first thing that came to my mind when I read that. XD
/misdirect to healer
“Huh?! Why is that mob coming…oh no not again. X_X”