Once upon a time, I joined a pug trash run on Firelands for the rep.
This was before I had ever raided anything as current content and I was a little nervous... so I asked the RL for the tactics.
I swear I saw his char's eyes roll as he thought... who is this moron?
He replied with a rather bemused
"Er... this is a trash run"
If there were any mechanics, I was just expected to know them.
Right... just get on with it then.
I stood at the back, with a tank-assist macro to choose my target, watched what other people were doing and concentrated on moving out of bad stuff. My dps was woeful but I stayed alive and my confidence grew as each pack of trash died, and I slowly improved.
Fast forward to the present and I had that feeling again... the feeling that I'm the only one here who doesn't know what they are doing.
And it was true.
Thanks to Fatboss, Icy Veins, Gabestah and LOS Gaming I knew what to expect in the fights but that isn't the same as actually doing them.
They tell you the right thing to attack and the important stuff to avoid but that's only half the fight. The rest you can only learn by doing.
To be honest, I was hoping for some nod to the fact there were new people in the raid (me and one other) with a brief run-down of tactics for each boss... but I was left disappointed.
If there were any mechanics, I was expected to know them.
And how to deal with them.
Right... just get on with it then.
The Raid...
I was expecting to be a long way off the pace as far as dps was concerned but my focus would be on staying alive and learning the fights.
The ranged officer is also an Elemental Shaman so I had something to compare against and aim for, even if he was way ahead in terms of ilvl and experience.
Much of Hellfire Assault was spent running around like a headless chicken trying to work out what was going on around me. I still don't know as it just seemed like a mess of trash to me with the RL occasionally calling out a priority target (which most people had already switched to anyway). 13th out of 21 dps players on the meters, CL/EQ ftw!
Iron Reaver was marginally better as there were a couple of wipes. Thank god for wipes!
It's another opportunity for me to learn a bit more about the fight, refine positioning, and work out what movement is needed to avoid the abilities. I was hit by blitz on the first attempt but fine after that. 13th/20.
Of course, the RL didn't see wipes in quite the same way. Not on a farm boss anyway. I may have been expected to know the tactics but everyone was expected to perform well enough to 1-shot these farm bosses.
On to Hellfire High Council... Still no sign of any tactics brief so I ploughed on and made my first big mistake.
All was going ok until the second set of ghosts came in.
I moved out to let one pass but moved back into position too quickly and got caught by the trail of darkness behind the ghost.
I wasn't even aware this trailing thing existed until I ran into it and it virtually 1-shot me.
Dead shaman... and it must have looked like I just failed at moving from bad. :-(
I didn't get a res and the boss died so I didn't get another shot.
Kilrogg Deadeye... Yes! A fight I have done before!
They did it slightly differently but, if anything, it made it even easier than it was on normal. What a difference it makes to have seen the fight before!
I avoided all the bad stuff, hit the right targets and positioned the bloods perfectly (even if I do say so myself). Incredibly, I even beat the other Shaman! 11th/20.
Kormrok was a different story altogether... I could never seem to find a good position, even out of range of the boss at times as I tried to work out what the hell was going on.
I also had no idea how long the fight would last and missed out on a full set of cooldowns (which I frantically popped when he was at about 1%)
At least I can say I survived and didn't get hit by any of the bad stuff, a lot of ground to make up on the dps though. 14th/20.
Gorefiend is a really fun boss but, again, my lack of experience let my dps down. We used Hero in the first Feast of Souls phase to take advantage of the 200% dps... which I wasn't prepared for... I had popped all my cooldowns on the pull so had nothing left. The mechanics were straight-forward though so I had no issues there. 11th/20
Shadow Lord Iskar... An excellent fight for the Ele Shaman but also the scene of my second major mistake. You've probably already guessed that the cause of my downfall was... the Eye of Anzu.
It's fairly simple, just pass the eye on to whoever needs it. It's not quite so easy when it's the first time you have seen it and the RL is just repeatedly shouting out names over and over again.
First time I got the Eye, I couldn't find the right person so I panicked and threw it to somebody at random in the hope they could pass it on. Far from ideal but it worked, not without him moaning about it though.
Second time, I was trying to use some Iskar addon and it wouldn't pass it on. RL just shouting at me to pass it over and over again, which was not even remotely helpful, until I gave up on the addon and used my own raid frames.
We survived and killed the boss.
That attempt was our third and after the official raid finish time so we had lost a few people. Did I mention that this was a good fight for Shaman? 2nd on dps out of 14 :-)
Behind the other Ele Shaman.
Overall, I was fairly happy with my performance on the night. I learned the fights as quickly as I could, didn't cause any wipes and competed as well as my gear allowed on most attempts.
My strengths as a player will never be based around lightning reflexes or split-second timings. Instead, I rely on awareness and preparation to always be in a good position and ready for what is coming next.
This means I am always good on the 'Damage Taken' and dealing with mechanics side of raiding... I hope that performance throughout the night outshone the couple of high-profile mistakes that I made.
The next raid nights would be progress bosses which should hopefully allow me to compete on a more even playing field. I would still be behind on gear but the experience gap should be much smaller.
This post is long enough though so I will save that for tomorrow.
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