Wednesday (23 Feb) - Been There, Done That

Wednesday (23 Feb) - Been There, Done That

[PS - Thursday is also included, see below]

The "two steps forward, one step back" process is well underway in the RG2 guild raid group. We have a pretty stable eight regulars now, and all eight were in game and ready to raid at our 6:30pm start time. Even better, we filled the raid by 6:45pm with a solid feral druid who has raided with us before, and a "new" guildie rogue, Fh, who had left the game back in the MM guild days (before the split that created the current MM2). Fh has been working to get both his mage main and his rogue alt back up to current raiding levels and, needing another melee, we gave him a chance.

We plowed through Morchok. He dropped [Vagaries of Time], an i397 caster mace that Wild desperately wanted to replace his i390 lfr mace. I'd never seen it drop before. As a caster mace I could only roll for it as off-spec. Wild rolled a 17. There was a moment when it looked like no one else was going to roll for it. Then the feral druid rolled, also for off-spec. She rolled a 42. Groan. Wild dragged his feet into the chamber of Yor'sahj the Unsleeping, still thinking about his lost mace.

Here we stumbled a bit when, for the second week in a row, we had trouble with healing assignments. When Vl took over the raid leader position (with the approval of the former raid leader, who had been lost to us for weeks with RL issues), she gave Wild the job of making healing assignments. It's not a hard task, and Wild is pretty consistent in setting them up for both trash work and bosses. The problems first started to crop up when Vl (who is also a healer) wanted to tank heal instead of her usual raid healing role. As the healing leader Wild took a good look at Vl's healing and was stunned by her choice of spells and the poor results from those choices. Wild and Vl had two separate sessions in game talking healing. Vl was very receptive, the healing improved, and Wild gave her a chance to tank heal. When Bd returned, Vl remained the raid leader and Bd became the lead tank and strategist. What then happened, which we probably should have seen coming, is that Vl, Wild, and Bd had differing thoughts about who was healing who.

On Wednesday night, Wild made assignments as usual. We were at the tentacle and eyeball trash around Yor. Last week Pl had been the tank healer for the trash, and she got that assignment again from Wild. Pl never saw that assignment because she hadn't joined the special tank/healer channel where such instructions were given. That first trash pull was very ugly - a tank without a healer is a sad thing. We got through it, and cleared the rest of the trash.

Wild set up healing assignments for the boss, but Vl had other thoughts. No sooner had we agreed than Bd weighed in, giving different directions, having not seen the assignments Wild made. He and Vl went off to talk privately. When they came back they agreed with the original assignments Wild had made. In a whisper Vl relayed that she and Bd had gotten confused about changes in assignments from week to week and wanted to stay consistent to avoid confusion. Duh. Wild wanted that, too. But it wasn't Wild who kept changing things. I consistently made assignments based on the prior week's assignments, as modified by Vl and Bd when THEY changed things. This is way too much like a real job. :P 

Anyway, we killed Yor on our third attempt and moved on to our nemesis, Warlord Zon'ozz. Vl had been the main tank healer for both Morchok and Yor, and the tank, Bd, whispered Wild letting me know that he was very pleased with the improvements that had been made. Wild had noted it, too, as her overall healing was now at the same level as Wild and Pl, plus her spell choices had gotten way, way, better.

Our problem with Warlord this week was the melee. Vl did a great job keeping the tank up, with backup from Wild. Wild handled the ranged raiders, and we got pretty good at intercepting that ball and collapsing on the boss right on queue. We were also much improved in getting dispels done quickly. Wild was popping his cooldowns on every phase to keep folks alive, and we were gaining confidence.

The melee, though. Like last week, timing when to get out of the way continued to be problematic. We had made it worse by including the new rogue in our raid. He's a good guy and worked hard to learn the ropes, but he had a long, steep learning curve to overcome, and he was getting us killed on attempt after attempt.

We were able to get in five attempts. The progress we've made was very visible, and I think we are close to really jelling on this fight.

Thursday - Wildshard Speaks

The RG2 raid got our obligatory eight raiders in game on time, but the final two who had joined us on Wednesday could not make it on Thursday. We did get a break when DK Ct joined us. He is one of the best DPSers in the guild but is usually in the G1 raid. We got him for this night. Our tenth was a rogue replacing the rogue from Wednesday. The situation was pretty much the same, though. The rogue had just joined the guild, and had no DS experience beyond the lfr.

There were no issues with the healing assignments at the beginning of the night. We stayed with the makeup from the night before - Vl tank healing, Pl melee group healing, and Wild ranged group healing.

The three attempts at the start proved that we had many parts of the fight well in hand. Ranged and melee movement was much better, dispels were getting done quickly, and overall the fights went much smoother. We were still wiping, however. By the third dark phase the healers were having a great deal of trouble keeping raiders alive. We began tinkering with our approach, trying to find some magic. We set specific orders for use of our big AoE heals: Tranquility and Tree of Life for the two druid healers, and Light Well and Divine Hymn for the priest. We even tried to work in a Tranquility from the feral druid - her cooldown was 8 minutes vs the healers 3 minutes ... but we tried it anyway.

In order to properly time the right spells at the right time in the right phases, call outs on vent became important. Silent Wild, who does not talk on vent, had a problem.

Microphones are not my favorite thing, as anyone who has ever run with Wild knows. Whether reason or excuse, talking in vent is a distraction that causes more issues than it solves. The old mike is trotted out now and again, but is never used, and soon finds it's way back into a box on a shelf. Headphones are also an issue, but that has a more rational root. I have severe tinnitus, which causes loud and often constant high pitched ringing in the ear. Covering or filling my ears with headphones or earbuds makes the tinnitus much worse, to the point I can't hear clearly. I also don't like to be tethered to a cable, which both headphones and mikes usually have.

I'll cut to the chase. On Tuesday I bought a wireless headset with an attached mike. I wanted a wireless gaming mike without the headset, but that apparently doesn't exist. I had expected that I could wrap the headset around my neck and just use the mike, but doggone it, the setup forced all sound into the headset instead of the external speakers. To use the mike, I had to be able to hear sound from the headset. Another dead end.

We made three more attempts, but seemed to be slipping backwards, not moving forward. Sensing frustration, we called for a break. Wild decided it was time to shake things up. I managed to figure a way to perch the headset above my ears, but still close enough to hear (with the volume up pretty high). It was still distracting, but it was workable. I didn't know who was still listening in on vent during the break, but I keyed the mike and said, "Can anyone hear me?"

No one from Wild's cabal was listening. The mage, who did not know Wild's mikeless history, did hear me, giving me a thumbs up that the mike was working.

Everyone came back from the break, and we started tweaking the healing again, trying to find that perfect plan. When talk turned to the call outs, Wild typed in raid chat that Wild would be doing his own call outs. I got a lot of Huh? What do you mean? kind of comments and the chat on vent threatened to drown me out when I keyed the mike. "Hey." That's all I said, but one would have thought that single word had come directly from Heaven. Vent went silent. "Who is that?" someone asked. "WILD!" Lady Hunter yelled. For the next five minutes the only thing on anyone's mind was getting Wild to say something in vent. Lady Hunter declared that she has known Wild for five years and never once heard me say a single word. Which was true.

Wild was quite the celebrity for awhile, but eventually we got back to the task at hand. Wild will not be any kind of chatterbox, I warned everyone, and I still find the headset uncomfortable. The genie can't be put back in the bottle, though. I'm still hoping to find a way to activate the external speakers so that I don't have to wear that headset.

After the break we made five more attempts. We did swap healing roles, at the request of Vl. She felt she was struggling too hard trying to keep the tank alive. Wild swapped roles with her, taking over the tank healing. I would much rather be in the ranged group instead of with the melee, but once Wild got settled it did work out better. They were solid efforts, and we were consistently getting into the third dark phase and pushing the boss down to an even 50% health. But there we stuck, unable to make further progress. 

The healing numbers were the highest we had achieved yet, and all three were pushing 16-18k hps. The DPS stepped it up as well. Ct and our hunter Gv topped 27k dps, the new rogue did 25k, and no DPSer was below 18k.

At this point we're hoping that persistence and practice will ultimately tilt the fight in our favor. We are running out of ideas.