For me being in the US means being on a completely different time zone to my family, friends and girl friend. This by itself is enough to make it tough, let alone trying the manage a guild from afar and logging on at 4am for raids…eeeeeeep

This could of course be relevant for many things; needing a break, having a child etc etc

So when is it best for the guild for you a step down, or hand the reigns to someone else?

I have asked myself some questions;

Do I feel you can still run things? How active and responsible is my leadership group? Can I randomly log in and manage the left overs without watching the guild crumble while I’m sleeping?

I go into this latest trip a little bit more confident knowing it had worked before.

What challengers have you experienced? Did you get over it and push through? Is is selfish to keep the GM position in such times?

What do you think?

Upy

You can pick from a number of Instances and Encounters (only Cataclysm ones at the moment) and then use the icons to design your strat.

Click on an icon and it will appear on the working area, from there drag-drop is around the area, resize etc.

The only feature lacking is the ability to add text notes. This would mean I wouldnt need to bring the images into another app to add comments etc to the image itself.

Buff Foods

Raid Wide Food – Seafood Magnifique Feast – This is the level 85 Fish Feast you will need 4 x Highland Guppy , 4 x Lavascale Catfish , 4 x Fathom Eel (Update: Note that this is a Guild Reward for catching shed loads of fish so get to it)

Intellect - Severed Sagefish Head – You will need your fishing up to get these babies but you can find them throughout Twighlight Highlands. You’re looking for Deepsea Sagefish here: http://www.wowhead.com/item=53072

Spirit – Delicious Sagefish Tail – You will need your fishing up to get these babies but you can find them throughout Twighlight Highlands. You’re looking for Deepsea Sagefish here: http://www.wowhead.com/item=53072

Critical Strike - Baked Rockfish – You’re looking for Algaefin Rockfish here: http://www.wowhead.com/item=53071

Haste - Basilisk Liverdog – Most Basilisk’s will drop this: http://www.wowhead.com/item=62783

Strength – Beer-Basted Crocolisk – Most Basilisk’s will drop this: http://www.wowhead.com/item=62784

Expertise – Crocolisk Au Gratin – Most Basilisk’s will drop this: http://www.wowhead.com/item=62784

Flasks

Flasks are going for 400g a pop on my server so this should help you out a bit;

Intellect – Flask of the Draconic Mind – 6 x Volatile Life , 12 x Azshara’s Veil , 12 x Twilight Jasmine

Spirit – Flask of Flowing Water – 6 x Volatile Life , 12 x Stormvine , 12 x Heartblossom

Stamina – Flask of Steelskin – 6 x Volatile Life , 12 x Cinderbloom , 12 x Twilight Jasmine

Agility – Flask of the Winds – 6 x Volatile Life , 12 x Azshara’s Veil , 12 x Whiptail

Dont forget to buy the Crystal Vial and give it to your friendly Alchemist

TRASH

Guards – Tank and Spank them
Invokers – Interrupts, Interrupts, Interrupts
Assaulters – Turned away from Raid
Commanders – Will buff adds around them so Traps/Cyclone CC on Pull

MINI BOSSES

Saviana Ragefire
Face boss from raid
10 yard /range
DPS never in front or you fail
Hunters be ready to Tranq Shot her enrage
Air phase she will cast Conflagrate on 5 raid members – make sure you move away from others

Baltharus
Mark Bal up with skull
Tanks pick up the doubles
Heal through Blast Wave
We’ll try burn down boss, ignoring the doubles

General Zarithrian
Spread Shamans for tremmor totem to help with Fear
Spawns adds that do an interruptable AoE. Will need a group with interrupts to jump off boss and onto adds quickly. (combo of melee with interupts and ranged for quick switching)

HALION

all onto stage for pull

Phase 1
He has a Cleave and Tail Swipe, face sideways to raid and healers be prepared for breath attack on tank.
Fireballs fall from the sky and do an aoe, leaving fire behind spreading like Lord Mar’s ice (in 4 directions).

Casts Mark of Combustion – when dispelled or drops off a patch will form and deals damage and knockback. Affected players must move to edge of stage for dispelling

Phase 2 @ 75%
Enters shadow realm and forms a portal which all must enter, Mark of Consumption (not Combustion) is cast and instead of knock back it sucks player in.
2 shadow orbs will be rotating stage, make sure you are not between the two, they will start a Death Beam linking the two and insta-killing those in the way

Phase 3 @ 50%
Halion now exists in both realmts, Raid splits into 2. Twilight realm should consist on mostly melee, vice-versa for physical realm.
Halian gets a buff called “Corporeality”, it is important that DPS is steady in both realms otherwise the Corp must be at 50% for both realms and he will start to heal etc.

As a raider it is imperative that you are not nieve to your own weaknesses. Lets be honest, their isnt a raider who couldn’t find a way to improve their toon and its performance on some level.

You should not rely on your class leader or officers to identify where you should be improving, identify what was working well and more importantly where can you get more out of yourself, in fact as a raid leader I enjoy raiders talking to me about their performance in an honest and upfront manor.

So here’s a couple of ideas for how you can gauge your performance.

Combat Logs

We have our raids uploaded to http://www.worldoflogs.com this is a great tool for identifying specific and also comparing yourself to others of similar roles in a raid. If your guild doesnt do this, take the initative to do so yourself.

A word of warning though be careful to make sure your comparisons are realistically, as a dps dont compare yourself to someone in a completely different role in the fight (i.e. if you were on add or cc duty, dont compare yourself to the mage who was kept on the boss the entire fight). This not only ensures you are not being too hard on yourself but also that their are points of similarity between you and the person you’re comparing yourself too.

Their is a list of things to look at in the logs;

• DPS/Heals – Well obviously this is a high level idea of how you went
• DPS/Heals(e) – Effective DPS is the most important, this is your damage done divided by the fight length
• Active Time – How long were you alive for?
• DoT/HoT Uptime – Big differences in this could mean you’re rotation is not right or you’re not focussed enough

Note When You Stuffed Up

If you stuffed up, stood in something, pulled threat, etc etc then you should make a note of the scenario in which you failed. It’s also important to clearly identify what killed you, was it an ability you didnt understand? Did you stand in something you shouldnt have? Did you stack on someone you should have?  Realistically most people learn by getting into an encounter so their is nothing wrong with stuffing up. Just make sure you dont make the same mistake again! haha

Visibility

If you are having issues with seeing things that you need to you may need to review your ui. Do you need extra addons to present information to you? Do you need to reduce the addons to make sure you can see things in game of note (green shit on the ground)?

Preparation

Be realistic about whether you were really prepared for the encounter you had issues with. If you feel you weren’t then read other strats, watch movies and study the abilities for the fight because this could be the difference between winning and losing next time round

Forums and Discussions

Their are plenty of other people raiding with your spec/class/role so ask the questions that you have of them, post on forums to throw ideas around.

My Buffs are always off the the right, and are generally pretty small as I rarely need to track a buff during a raid.

My Debuffs on the other hand are critical in many boss encounters

One of the recent examples of this is during Lord Jaraxxus, where there are two debuffs being thrown around but they require completely different responses from the raider. This is in fact what has inspired this post, we have many melee making similar mistakes but for some reason kitties used to do it a bit in our first raids (I’m looking at tourn,boom,kat & johnie ). On this fight the issue is Incinerate Flesh vs Legion Flame. Now DBM marks up peeps however we have seen marks drop off quickly for various reasons leaving nothing but your debuff frames to help you know what to do. If you have Legion Flame and you dont move, you really screw over people near you (obviously a bigger prob for melee). If you have Incinerate Flesh and move you risk going out of range of heals and either dying or even worse not dying and due to range the debuff isnt healed off causing massive raid wide damage for healers to pickup.

So enter Satrina Buff Frames, now I know their are plenty out there but this is my choice and it’s my blog so

Install the addon found here: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/satrina-buff-frame.aspx

In game type /sbf config and the following panel will open and by default you will have 2 frames. “Buffs” and “Debuffs”

Buffs

Lets start with buffs, generally these are a lot less important so I move these off the the side of the window

Current Frame: Buffs

General

• Frame Unit: player (we’ll look at how this can be useful later)
• Show buffs: ticked
• Blacklist: ticked

These should all be defaults so no big changes here

Layout

Ok we can set our scale to be something nicer on the screen realestate, I set to 0.7
This is also where you can set the direction of your frame and a number of different options.

If I set the Number of buffs to 40 for example you can see that it now has 2 columns, to avoid this drag the Buffs per collumn to one and the new max will be 30. Set it to that to create 1 long vertical buff frame.

Timers

Set your font as you like and I like to also set an outline, I also like to enable “Color debuff timer by type”

Counts

I set my font to 13, select my font and outline

Bars & Names

I dont use Buff Bars and Names, don’t really see the point.

Ok that should be our buffs done.

Debuffs

It’s important that these are central to your vision so you optimise your awareness. I put mine just above you unit frames (which are bottom of the screen).

Current Frame: Debuffs

General

• Frame Unit: player (we’ll look at how this can be useful later)
• Show debuffs: ticked
• Blacklist: ticked

These should all be defaults so no big changes here again

Layout

Scale is important you need these debuffs to be clear. I set mine to 1.5

Ok now for some smarts, click the “Rows” checkbox and your frame should now be vertical. I also set my number of buffs to 12 (cant imagine a fight where you would have more than that).

Now you can also set where the buffs will grow from. I slide the Buff Growth to the middle so my first first will land there, then progressively get wider as I get more.

Timers

Set your font as you like and I like to also set an outline, I also like to enable “Color debuff timer by type”. Because of where I am I set the timer

position to 0,16 (default is 0,-15)
I also click N/A for Auras

Counts

I set my font to 13, select my font and outline

Bars & Names

I dont use Buff Bars and Names, don’t really see the point.

Applying to a Guild

The most important thing to remember, especially when applying to a serious raiding guild is that you need to sell yourself, you’re trying to get across all of your strong points in the 5-10 questions that most guilds will ask you. Here is a list of key points for you;

1. Do Your Research - make sure the guild is a fit for you, pst an officer or guild member and chat about raid times, expectations and make sure it all fits your circumstances. Nobody likes having their time wasted and this will definately decrease your chances of getting into the guild in the future should your circumstances change.
2. Use the Template – if the guild has an application template or form use it, simply posting and officer with “I pwn and would like an invite” will get you a great mixture of flames and laughter.
3. Follow the Template – if the guilds application form has 10 questions, answer 10. If for some reason you cant answer all 10 you need to give a reason why not.
4. Be Careful with your Answers – Think about what you are writing, if they ask what kinds of buff food you eat, dont just say “I eat the fish feast that is dropped” , this sends a message that you are not willing to farm food yourself. A better response would be “I farm for my own fish feasts and am happy to drop for raid but I also use [food] because it is the best increase of DPS for my spec”.
5. Take your time and put in the Effort – it is very obvious to me when reading an application who took 2 minutes and who thought it through and spent 15minutes. If you cant afford the time to prepare a well written application then again you’re sending a message that you’re not committed.
6. References - Even if they do not ask you for references I suggest you put in a couple of people (hopefully in the guild) who can vouche for your skills.
7. Check for Updates – Quite often in applications questions will be asked and feedback given, check the application regularly and respond as required.
8. Feedback and Criticism – You are likely to get suggestions about your gear, spec, chants. Take it all on board and learn from it, nothing wrong with clearly stating your choices but make sure your right otherwise most guilds will simply decline your app lol

A couple of sites that you may find useful;

http://www.worldoflogs.com – you can upload combat logs for free to link in your apps.
http://imageshack.us/ – upload your screenshots.

Your Trial Period

So you ripped it up in the application and got a trial, make sure you understand the obligations and expectations of your trial, ask questions and get all the information you need to do your best. Ok some trial points for you;

1. Know Your Lead – if you dont already know find out who is responsible for your trial. Guilds work differently, some have Class Leaders, some have Ranged/Tank/Heal/Melee Leaders so work out who is going to be making the decision on your trial.
2. Talk to your Lead – As a leader I love when a trialist asks me questions about how you as a trialist can help the guild and raid.
3. Self Analysis & Discussion – At the end of a raid ask your lead if he’s got a few minutes to chat, outline to them how you think you went, positives and negatives and ask them for feedback. If nothing else this will provide you with something to work on but it also keeps you at the front of the minds in regards to being aware of how you’re doing and hopefully moving your trial along.
4. Role Up – It’s amazing how many trialists dont meet the raiding requirements! If you are a trialist I would expect +80% attendance, you are trying to impress remember.
5. Professionalism – dont be a dick, dont tell the other people in the guild how to suck eggs, dont be a smart arse, do your job and do it well. If you think somebody else can improve their performance talk to them subtly. Come to raids prepared with appropriate specs, food, flasks and anything needed.
6. Contribute to the Guild - get involved, a lot of a trial comes down to how well you fit into the guild, do dailies, do fun runs in Naxx, help others to gear up etc etc.
7. Work on your own Gear – if you are joining the guild undergeared you should be doing everything to gear yourself up through emblem gear, older raids that you are allowed to pug etc etc

If you follow these steps and you are not fail you should do well in your trial and be promoted quickly.

It is an Ace addon so you will need to grab it from curse;
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/deus-vox-encounters.aspx

The following is how my raiding ui looks like with DXE enabled.

As you can see DXE utilises timers/bars/alerts but it is really impressive the way they have been implemented. Some of the key features include;

• Automated: Activation, starting, and stopping of encounters is automatic
• Flexible alert system:
  • Customizable timer bars
    • Color
    • Texture
    • Font
    • Width
    • Spell icons
    • And more…!
  • Customizable full screen flashes
    • Duration
    • Transparency
    • Oscillations
    • Color
  • Customizable sounds: Packaged with 11 distinct ones
  • All alerts can be adjusted for all encounters
• Raid Icons: Marking on important events with an icon of your choosing
• 3D Arrow: Directional arrows tells you where to go on important events
  • Two types:
    • Away: Directs you to run from a player or a location
    • Toward: Directs you to run to a player or a location
  • Ability to play a sound when shown
  • Displays your distance, to a player or location, in game yards
• Encounter Pane
  • Boss health tracking gives you more awareness of fights
  • Engage timer tells you how long you’ve been fighting
  • Shortcut buttons provides easier access to common commands
  • Conditions to show the pane only when you want to
• Version Check: View addon and encounter versions of raid members
• Distribution System: Allows you to send encounters to the raid or individual players
• Profile System: Switch settings between your characters
• Modular Design: Encounters are loaded in appropriate zones

I pretty much used DXE out of the box, moved a couple of bars around and was ready to go BUT if you wanted to take the time you could configure not only the general settings like how your bars look etc but also for each encounter which notices/warning/timers are important to you. This could be especially useful if you have a specific ability/task for a fight (interupts on General for example).

A: Encounter Panel

The encounter panel provides enounter/boss timers as well as providing health of mobs. It even worked properly in Beasts (unlike DBM for me). This is also where you can quickly ‘unlock’ various anchors to move your windows around.

B: Long Timers

These are your ‘long’ timers (for lack of a better word), things that are upcoming but you dont need to know immediately.

C: Short Timers

These are your ‘short’ timers, providing information about things that you need to know about in the next few seconds.

D: Movement Arrow

I love this feature, as an example, somebody next to you has gravity bomb it will tell you the direction you should be moving away/to! Definately has a lot of potential to prevent tard moments (which we all have).

What You Cant See

Proximity Pane

which is the equivilent to /range and shows you people who are within a set distance in game yards can be seen below.

Only thing I dont like about this is that the range is set at the profile level rather than the encounter level. I will be posting a comment on the wowace forum about that

Sounds

The sounds take a little bit of getting used to but I personally found them to be more informative (not the same sound for EVERY boss ability etc.

Other Options

DXE also provides a means of blocking other boss mod warnings and also raid warnings etc etc which is a nice thing to have.

Community/Support/Development

The developer is a hardcore raider (his own words) but he seems to be very active in getting encounters sorted as well as is very open to ideas and suggestions from the community.

Summary

In summary I am impressed with the thought and effort put into this and will be sticking with this one until I am given a descent reason to not. I will also be encouraging other raiders to try it too, especially those who consistantly run the wrong direction haha

My main issues come down to the following key things;

1. Lack of Flexability – I find most addons to be restrictive, this is primarily due to the very nature of addons needing to be ‘coded’. The inability to add additional information makes them hard for me to use.
2. Addon Requirements – Some require that more than myself need the addon, even the whole raid in some circumstances.

I have tried several including; Heal Organiser, Healing Groups Sucks & Getting Things healed

In the end I have gone down the path of creating macros for all my assigns. Now some of the fight (especially in Ulduar+) have multiple phases that require complex assigns. Enter MacroBroker, this allows you to create an unlimited (i think) number of macros that are then able to be registered with a Data Broker. For my Assigns I decided to user Carousel (which I have talked about here)

So I setup my assigns in a template using a series of Place Holders for the different tanks and healers that may make up a raid.

The following is an example of my template for Yoggy where our healer channel is 5;

/5 — YOGG
/5 Phase 1
/5 – Standing with Ranged
/5 Tanks – TANKH2
/5 Raid – HOTS1
/5 – Standing with Melee
/5 Tanks – TANKH1
/5 Raid – RAID1,RAID2

/5 Phase 2
/5 RAID1 going into portals, HOT1(backup) – PORTAL (6)
/raid RAID1 going into portal, HOT1(backup) – PORTAL (6)
/5 Stand on marked range from now on!
/5 Raid (focus) – RAID2,HOT2
/5 Dispells (focus) – All Else

/5 Phase 3
/5 – Face away from boss
/5 TANK1- TANKH1
/5 TANK2 – TANKH2
/5 TANK3 – PRIEST1
/5 Raid – RAID1,RAID2,HOTS1
/5 All Should Be Dispelling As Needed!

Basically ever fight will be defined like this, then based on the raid invites I will open the MacroBroker.lua in the SavedVariables folder and do a Replace All for the placeholders.

Then when I login all my assigns are setup and ready to click before the fights

Limitations and Annoyances;

1. Complex assigns mean that the text going into the channel can be throttled by wow, this means you will get a chunk of text and then a few seconds later the rest, not a biggy.
2. Multiple Phases can be annoying in terms of having to scroll up to get Phase 1 assigns etc.

So let me know how you do it