I just don’t get it
I raid with an incredible group of people. People that can learn from mistakes and build upon progress to score some amazing kills. And yet, we have nights like we did last night on Sindragosa. And I just don’t get why. I see attempts where no on dies to Blistering Cold, where no extra blocks happen in air phase, where everyone is alive at the Phase 3 start, and yet we then follow it up with multiple attempts of Blistering Cold deaths, extra blocks, and multiple deaths before 35%. Maybe I expect too much.
Sindragosa, from my perspective at the business end of the dragon, seems to be such an easy fight. And, god knows, I’ve made the fight even easier. Removed so much guess work.
Using AVR I put symbols on the stairs (I’ll detail how in a future post) for each raid icon and two green dots further ahead. In air phase, people get icons from DBM and need to run to park on their symbol. Usually, this goes smoothly, but then there were so many attempts where people run up the middle of the stairs to get to safety in the back and were hit by multiple frost beacons, immediately killing them. How many times did I have to shout “if not beaconed, run up the sides!” during the course of the night? Who knows.
As for the two green dots, I explained in phase 3 I want to see frost beaconed people run to either dot and everyone else, to stay 10 yards away from those dots if they are not beaconed and not using that block to drop Mystic Buffet. And what happened? Multiple people over the course
Tunnel-visioning, that’s the problem. No situational awareness. We hit phase 3 and people panic and lose sight of the most important thing: endurance. They stand in the red circles AVR puts under people to indicate that person was beaconed, they run up too many stacks of Chilled to the Bone, they don’t drop their Mystic Buffet stacks. They die in the first phase 3 Blistering Cold because they weren’t expecting it.
For kicks, here’s the dead simple way of doing Sindragosa:
- When sucked in for Blistering Cold immediately turn around and run out. (Mouse turn, not keyboard turn). Don’t die.
- In air phase stand on the symbol corresponding to your mark. If not marked run up the sides of the stairs until you reach the safe spot in the back.
- LOS the Frost Bombs. Put a block between you and the swirl out ahead.
- During phase 3 do not stand within 10 yards of those two green dots. If beaconed drop your block on the closest one. If it’s your turn to drop Mystic Buffet, do so once the block is made. If beaconed while behind the block immediately run to the next green dot.
And yet.
I don’t write this post to cast aspersions at my raid crew. They’re a fantastic group of people. I just need to find some way to make everything click. It frustrates me to no end that I am powerless to make these stupid little mistakes go away. I know we’ll kill Sindragosa eventually, once everything clicks. I’d just prefer that was sooner rather than later.
Frost Resist Sidenote: Now that I remembered to run a log, I can affirmatively say that with ~300 FR I took about 20k damage per Frost Breath and resisted on average 14k damage per. This seemed pretty healable (especially with 60k hp), so I think more than 300 FR will be unnecessary.
Moreover, my OT and I were switching regularly during Phase 3 so I never ate a Frost Breath more than around 30k, unless the OT was dead and my stacks were out of control.
I wore Belt and Boots this time. I think my buffed FR number was 301, but I know for a fact it was more than 300.
Fun fact: I cast Hand of Freedom on myself 52 times last night. I thought it’d be more than that.
Armory Feed
Actually just for fun, I wore 4 piece frost resist gear and I did NOT have to cast hand of freedom on myself. Think of that as a bonus.
@Anafielle
29 April 2010 at 4:25 pm #
I’m sure my HOF uptime rivalled yours back when we were learning and failing at Rotface (slime kiting is fun times!)
I like to wear the belt, boots, and the ony ring. I think? I have to check my gear tonight. I just have a sindragosa set I throw on.
@iamapaladin
29 April 2010 at 4:31 pm #
Aww, I hope you guys get Sindragosa! She can be annoying if the raid’s mindset is just not there.
You’ll have her down. She’s not so bad as a boss, however people do panic and tunnel vision around the execute stage. IF you’re finding yourselves way ahead of the enrage timer, try slowing EVERYONE down through phase one to try and impress upon them that the fight is about mechanics, not damage. The fight can be easily done three or four people short so long as everyone pays attention and does as they’re supposed to. It’s a point that really needs to be made to the tunnelvisioners because those are the same people that will have a very difficult time on Lich King as well, since 25-man requires much more raid-wide coordination than 10. If those people make mistakes on Lich King, your raid is going to die. Get them used to it now.
P.S. As far as Frost Resistance the fight is doable with only an aura, as my guild’s first kill proved. However, with the amount of healing that needs to be done for the fight, I’d suggest stacking as much as you can. If you get a tricks/MD threat will not be an issue and healers can ignore you more.
Basically, it’s not about whether you’re going to die. You’ll be fine. Having FR, though, may save someone else from healer stress.
@Rhidach
29 April 2010 at 6:56 pm #
Yeah that was my thinking, the less damage I take, the less healers need to stress about me and the more they can focus on keeping the raid up.
So apparently it takes 14 days of “doing something” to form enough of a habit to make it stick. That is according to parental self-help books that the wife dumps on me to read from time to time.
Relating parental self-help books to wow can be fun and very illuminating.
I think it takes as long as it takes for everyone to screw up on a fight once for each way it is possible e.g. stand in void zones once, stand next to someone with a bomb etc. This is all because we are wired to learn by doing. Otherwise why would kids touch hot things to see if they are hot when they are told not to? Of course there is always someone that takes a few lessons…
So with wow where we have no pain-feedback for mistakes it is really important for people to understand where exactly they went wrong as soon as possible.
Situational awareness is easy for gamers that have been relating to a virtual world for a while. I have been gaming since the early 80s so for me it is no problem. But for some guildies, they have gamed only with wow. I share your frustrations and I imagine most raid leaders do too.
I used to tell raiders that had problems with SA to go play some 1st person shooter in “pvp” mode to help out. Then I threatened docking EP for dumb mistakes. I quickly realised even I cannot capture all the mistakes.
Then I found something that worked overnight.
It is called Public Humiliation. Just like when you were at school and the teacher made you stand in the corner, I use EnsidiaFails (used to be called Failbot). http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/ensidiafails.aspx
Did not stop stupid mistakes, but gave a very public, raid wide slap on the wrists. After most attempts on a boss, we review the log for mistakes and talk about them.
Definately helped us.
After spending two hours just wiping on Sindragosa last weekend and being in the position of dealing with Blistering Cold, here’s a tip I picked up from our tank to help DPS/Heals get out of it faster: move in closer.
Blistering Cold’s “timer” (so to speak) starts not when people land, but when they’re first grabbed, so that extra air time for people who were standing at max range means, well, they’re going to die. No matter how quick they are at turning and getting out of there.
Once I knew to move in closer, I never died to Blistering Cold again.
Casters typically have a habit of standing at max range, because normally it’s in their best interests to do so. Not on Sindragosa! Hopefully that will help some.
Lassirra’s last blog ..Raid Rules: State Them Clearly, Early, And Stick to Them
[...] back to Sindragosa tonight. It didn’t go too well last weekb, but I’ve made some roster switches and some strategy tweaks and I think we’ll have a [...]