bin Laden Raid Boss Downed

 Miscellaneous, Raiding  3 Responses »
May 022011
 

The 25 man Heroic raid boss bin Ladin is finally down. While the instance was actually opened perhaps five years ago, no announcement was made. In fact, measures were taken to keep the opening of the raid zone a secret. After years of careful study the raid entrance was discovered.

A team of, mostly ranged, DPS from the guild “Seal Team 6” did their homework, studied the fights, learned their rotations, practiced until everything was second nature, made sure consumable were stocked and gear was repaired, and in an assault that should be used as a model for raids everywhere, downed the trash and the boss in well under an hour. The only loss was, apparently, one gyro.

Rather than the usual practice of the raid team standing around the body for screenshots, they removed the body from the scene and vendored it… er… buried it at sea.

Here’s a poor video of the post raid scene, no bodies, some blood.

Some say that the raid happened a week ago, but the live tweeting shows that it was, in fact, yesterday.

Kudos to the Seal team 6 guild, and their associates, for a job well done!

 Posted by at 8:48 am

What Makes a Raid Worth Doing?

 Raiding  1 Response »
Jul 212010
 

(I also posted this question on GotWarcraft.)

I read a comment that says the new Ruby Sanctum is too easy.

Ok, does that mean that the raid only wiped twice before completing it? Not at all?

So what makes a raid interesting and what would make it more interesting for the largest group possible?

You have the pro raiders, with the top gear, and the highly practiced skills who will have one view and then you have the casual raiders who probably have a very different point of view.

Is an instance interesting just because it’s hard? Or there’s an interesting set of loot?

So how to improve it, for the largest group of players?

Should raids require completing A, B, and C before entering D? Should one be able to skip A, B, and C if the group just want’s to do D? Should certain raids only be accessible to elite players? How does one prove that one belongs to the elite group?

What makes the raid/fight(s) interesting, in your view? What makes a raid worth doing several times? Such that you might say, “cool,” rather than, “Oh D***, not THAT old thing again…”

Comments? Or should I make up (steal from elsewhere) a few comments and post those? 😉

Raiding Rogues and Hit Rating

 Raiding  5 Responses »
Apr 172009
 

There was a comment, on the Raiding Rogues post, on the question of hit rating. I use ElitistJerks.com and ArenaJunkies.com for a lot of my info. I’ve also been using the Recount addon, which gives some interesting numbers for hits, misses, and so on.

Here’s the comment:

Hi, Just looking for sum answers to questions i have been asking myself but as yet have not found any answers. I am level 80 comat rogue with a hit of 294(need 315 apparently)but have not worn my Gloves of fast reactions, titainium chocker and titainium impact band because the blue items have all hit on them and changing them moves me away from the hit cap? Any suggestions? I guess what am asking is is it worth upgrading to items with better Agility and AP but loosing a lot of Hit?

So based on recount numbers… If you’re combat or using the above build, or something like it, then you should have the precision talent. With a PvP version I’m working with about 130 hit and, according to recount numbers, I’m not missing on any strikes fighting in the BGs or against level 80 mobs. Fighting raid bosses, and the raid boss target dummy in Org, with a 200 hit rating, the miss rate was around 15%.

How much Hit you need depends on what you’re fighting. Generally mobs require less Hit rating than players/elites which require less than raid bosses.

How much hit is needed? Here’s my qick and dirty answer, since you already have precision from the combat tree:

  • When fighitng mobs, you’re good. Upgrade your gear.
  • Same answer for PvP, though high end arenas might be different. PvP hit caps are a bit lower than for Raid Bosses.
  • Raiding is more complicated and I’m not a raider. Not yet, anyway. Part of it depends on the raid buffs you have and the debuffs on the boss.

There’s a concept called Agility Equivalence Points (AEP) which tries to measure the value of various stats. These numbers will change depending on exactly what you’re fighting. For example, a PvP calculation involves stamina and resilience, while raiding doesn’t.

So a general AEP table, for raiding, looks like this (taken from ElitistJerks info🙂

  • Expertise rating: 2.6
  • Hit rating: 2.4
  • Agility: 2.2
  • Haste: 2.1
  • Crit rating: 1.7
  • Strength: 1.1
  • Attack Power: 1

Multiply the stat for your gear by the numbers above. For example…

  1. Gloves of Fast Reactions : 66Ag, 64 Stm, 38 Crit, 49 haste, 110 AP
  2. Dropping Stam, we have: (66 x 2.2) + (38 x 1.7) + (49 x 2.1) +  (110 x 1) = 424.27
  3. Now do the same for your blue gear. The highest number gives the best DPS for raiding.

The point is that your better gear will provide enough extra DPS to more than make up for the lack of hit, so go for the upgrade.

For PvP Stamina and the Resilience stat are important, though I’ll go out on a limb and say that the importanceof Res is situational. Rogues die very quickly in PvP and Res doesn’t slow that down much.

Comments?

Wrath, Raids, and What’s a DKP?

 Raiding  Comments Off on Wrath, Raids, and What’s a DKP?
Dec 102008
 

Tobald’s MMO Blog has an interesting post on Distributing Naxx loot, with his usual 8,497 comments.

….sooner or later the raiders will find themselves confronted with the question of how to distribute the epic drops. Of course established raiding guilds have systems to do that, but they might find some new complications: Wrath of the Lich King blurred class roles and stats to some extent….

Tobald’s suggests that Guild Drama will only get more interesting.

So just to be clear, I don’t raid. I’ve never been on a raid. Closest I got to a raid was one of those World Dragons where people spent 20 minutes arguing about what level he was. Zzzzzz…

Pretty much the only times I’ve been in any of the instances has been when I was soloing it for the loots. I did make it into Steamvaults, once. Non-heroic.

And yeah, I know what DKP is: Darning, Knitting, and Purling. (Ok, ok… Dragon Kill Points, right?)

With the launch of Wrath and various stats being merged and mashed together and more classes being able to use any one particular piece of gear, how are you raiders deciding who gets what?

DKPs? Seniority? Merit? Contribution? Bribery? Execution of people higher on the list? Nepotism? Girlfriends get first (and 2nd) choice? Free for all loot?