The Weekly Raid
So, it's been awhile since I sat down to write one of these things. The past couple weeks have been loaded with several things for me. Call of Duty was released, Diablo is somewhat interesting again, and that raiding thing. Let's talk about that raiding thing. We have put in a few extra days the past two weeks to try to catch up as we lost nearly an entire week due to the hurricane smashing the faces of a few of our raiders. All in all it's been good though, getting a Spiritbinder Heroic kill as well as finally pushing through 25m Heart of Fear made the past two weeks extremely good for us. We plan on pushing onto the third raid instance with an extra night tonight, and hopefully clean that place up, as it doesn't seem it's too difficult on the normal mode.
So the topic I really sat down to hammer down today was self preparation and how this really ties into your raid progression. It seems this past week on our first normal Heart of Fear clear we ran into a ton of issues with people showing up to raid extremely unprepared. By unprepared, I mean they showed up to a progression raid with absolutely no knowledge of the encounters ahead, the mechanics that these fights bring and how they could contribute to the raid team. When trying to be the best guild you can absolutely be these small attentions to detail can really make a difference if everybody in the raid has just done research on how their class can approach a fight. Small details such as knowing you can BoP a person before entering Dissonance Fields, can save your raid a headache. Knowing how to interrupt on a fight such as Amber Shaper can, and will, save your raid a wipe or two that definitely did not need to happen. When you show up completely blind to fights you are causing your raid to spend time on something that really did not need to happen. An issue where you mess up a mechanic will happen, everybody is human. Admit you made a mistake, wipe the fight and pull again. I'm as bad as anyone at trying to figure out ways to solve an issue the raid continues to have. At the end of the day, know your job, what you need to do, and leave everyone else's job up to them. With good leadership the people who constantly mess up with slowly be fed to the sharks and you're raid will grow stronger. Play your class to the best you can do it, and know how to deal with mechanics. Most guilds will take a strong mechanical player with slightly less damage, than a more weak mechanical player with higher damage.
-Divine <LA> Stormrage
