nailbat.us

We had a lot of fun and some decent success on 10 man Ulduar last night (3 bosses downed, the 4th was close). We all basically thought that 10-mans are the way to go for now for us, unless we have 25 raid-level chars ready to go. Even with 24, it might be better to do 2 10-mans. The fights are easier to coordinate and learn this way, and can be more fun while we progress.

We may want to figure out some way of picking who goes when we have other than exactly 10 or 20 who want in. "Let the dice decide" seems a good method (adjusted of course so we have enough tanks/healers/dps).

Adam

Catchy phrase as it is, The Dice(tm) are completely unbiased, but also totally random (i.e. blind to other factors). We can make better decisions through plain communication, and past experience is that this is the best way.

The way things used to go was for a handful of people to offer up their spot, but this caused confusion and made forming raid take longer. We improved on that by forming raid first, and using that for headcount and role checking. Then if the raid is over the limit, you ask for volunteers, and between too many or too few volunteers, *then*... you let the dice decide.

Also note- even if you have 20 people online, there's still a minimum number of tanks and healers required to even start a second raid. Even with lots of people dual-spec'd, we can fall short, or just have the situation where off-spec people are undergeared. For those situations, because they *will* come up.. AGAIN.. either pick to run Naxx10 (since our familiarity makes it easier on gear requirements), or head into heroics (where the guild benefits from farming the disenchanted items, frozen orbs, etc.)

a quick note about raid composition: we have historically had 4~6 healers in 25-mans and 2 healers in 10-mans.
Most progression raids recommend having 7/3 healers.
Factor in healer burn out (healing is very stressful, arguably the most stressful raid position), and i see a healer shortage eminent in near future.

Therefore, I think we should consider dedicating a raid night to old content, like back in the day. The gearing run would be specifically for gearing offsets/alts. Ideally, we'd be bringing characters with a solid on-spec set, to burn through content, but who haven't yet completed their offspec sets. But this run also would welcome alts, and let them roll on par with offset rollers.

Suggestion:
Tues: progression raid (best we can put together for Ulduar, either 10 or 25)
Wed: off night (10-mans looking for achievements/T7 gear)
Thrs: progression raid (continuing Tuesday's raid ID)

Eventually, when we work up the numbers for 25-mans again, the Wed run would allow the hardcore to go for 10 man achievements, while the newer lvl 80s go gear up. In the mean time though, I'd like to stress that progression night is T/Th. If there are 15 people intent on raiding on such a night, we'll have to make some tough calls, and not everyone will be able to raid. However, as Tony pointed out, applying some common sense (do we have what we need?), asking for volunteers, and as a last resort, having people roll for their raid slots, should be enough. Finally, since T/Th is progression, IF there is a choice, we should favor geared raiders over alts/fresh 80s.