So very, heart-breakingly close
We’ve been working on Heroic Sindragosa since at least the beginning of August and it’s be steady progress ever since. While it sucks to only realistically have a max of three hours a week to work on the old girl, it’s been pretty obvious we’ll soon have the kill. The first week we were wiping at 60%. Then we were kissing phase 3 the next. Then wiping at the 26% mark the next. Then 13% last week. Last night we got her to 3.9% before giving up the ghost, on our best attempt.
3.9%
Mathematically it’s impossible not to drop her next week. I like our odds.
One thing I did to shake things up was to force the raid to adopt the AYCE strategy I came up with the other night. Our third phases were hectic, blocks were going in crazy places, or too far away. I figured my strategy would tighten that up a bit, make for a cleaner close to the fight. And of course I got push back.
I don’t mean reasonable pushback, with intelligent, well reasoned concerns, but just snark. Determinations that “this couldn’t work” and “why are we changing the strategy after getting it to 20% last week?” And then this person went on to rage to an audience in a separate channel that I am not party to. It was infuriating, to say the least. Give me some credit, I’m not a complete goddamn moron.
After the third try with the new strategy, we got her to 8%, our best attempt up to that point. Before that, the naysayer whispered me and said something to the effect of “You know you can’t adopt a new strategy and expect it to take off in a few attempts, right?” After that 8% try, the naysayer whispered me again and said “You’re allowed to say I told you so, you know.” I just smiled and replied, “Not my style.”
As for the 3.9% attempt, what kills me was that could have very well have been a kill attempt. It was the last attempt of the night, so it had that mythical Last Attempt Aura that we’ve benefitted from in the past. Air phases were golden, with I think only one death across all three (which was quickly remedied with a brez).
And then finally, we were at the 8% mark with just about everyone alive, and I had this heavy hope that we were going to come out victorious. I don’t think I was breathing much at that point. We’re about 40% around the rotation, at least four blocks have successful gone down, and the next person gets marked.
They don’t move. I call out the name, and “I DC’d!” is the response in vent. My heart sinks.
I see the symbol over his head, and the dps standing next to him. “Move away from X!” The dpser doesn’t listen, tunnel visions. Gets chain blocked. Some scramble to start breaking them out, but the death blow was just dealt. We’re at 5% now. The next person to be marked for a block ran way far away to drop Unchained Magic, and was caught with their pants down. No way they can make it to the proper spot in time, and the block is too far away. So we resolve to start rotating the other way and catch up to the last block to go down.
I’m almost there, and the next person marked decides to drop the new block counter clockwise, rather than to the right of Sindy’s face and thus resuming the proper rotation like I intended. At this point it’s around 4.5% and people are dropping like flies because blocks have been garbage and no one could drop their Buffet stacks.
I bite it around 4.2%, Ana tries to pick up the slack, but she’s quickly overwhelmed. We soon wiped ingloriously at 3.9%.
So close. So goddamn close.
Things we need to work on: control is getting better, but people really need to watch their debuff and do what they can to reduce damage taken. This especially includes healers not tunnel-visioning and neglecting to run out when they have Unchained Magic.
Next week.
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@Rilgon
26 August 2010 at 10:52 am #
People were casting with Unchained Magic? /headtilt
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@Rhidach
26 August 2010 at 10:57 am #
Healers. We have the worst goddamn RNG, every UM application was at least 4-5 healers.
It’s amazing how many first boss kills came out of a new strategy that our raiders said “won’t work”
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@Anafielle
26 August 2010 at 1:49 pm #
I disagree that we were that close. I hope you don’t mind if I comment with a divergent opinion on something you post (I’d expect the same from you :P)
And PS. My pushback doesn’t count as reasonable pushback? :) I really tried not to be an ass about it (unlike mr. whiner in the post).
You’ve got me half-convinced with the strat now, in that I’m convinced it’s no MORE complex than the other one. I think at best it’s equally complex with its own strengths (blocks are way easier!) and weaknesses (unchained magic is much, much harder!)
But our failures on this fight remain the same. Tank death and Unchained Magic. And neither one was a single bit better.
I actually thought both our (two) sub-10% wipes were solo-tanked for a while; I guess I’m remembering something wrong, so I’m taking advantage of my authorial priviledge and editing this comment :) I didn’t realize we actually got below 15% with two tanks alive. If we did, we did so…… once. That doesn’t really make me very optimistic about our chances of killing her next week.
I personally, in my opinion as the armchair strategist, think the real progression we made last night was on air phases.
Despite some people messing up at the end, we had a lot of flawless air phases and very few mistakes.
I know you mused at the end that there shouldn’t be any deaths on air phases. In theory, I agree, and that’s a great way to think (although handing out progression DKP for air phases where we had extra tombs shoots it in the foot).
But in a guild like ours, there will always be a varying level of “oops” associated with air phases. Like we could see with some extremely high-RA people making a mistake or two at the end, probably due to tiredness, and (unlike most) owning up to it and apologizing on vent. You can’t prevent that. At least, we can’t prevent that.
I think air phases are as clean as they will ever be, while phase 3 remains about in the same place it was last week when we stopped.
I think the real key for Sindy is to avoid having DPS tunnel-vision near the low HP area and focus on remembering to do their job right until the very last HP point vanishes.
to expand, that applies to basically every fight. its human to get excited near the end, but the urge has to be repressed until the actual end. The last 5% is the same as the first 5% (well it could be a different phase, but you know what I mean)
“I’m not a complete goddamn moron.” I don’t know Rhi…kidding, kidding. Right now I think we are at a good point on this fight. Either strat we go with is going to have a positive and neagtive outcome, there just doesn’t seem to ba a way around that. However, it is no longer up to the raid lead or strat to down this boss, it is up to individual players, and no I don’t mean that as me calling someone out. What I mean by that is, we are at the point where we have to take responsibilty and have the foresight to do what we need to do to kill her.
If this means no casting by anyone with unchained, thats fine…the person doing the casting has to own up to their decision..example I know we had was healers casting to get a heal out even with causing raid damage. Really, I think the only time we may want to heal (for those who don’t know, I am one of our healers) is if the tank is near death. A quick heal to save the tank in theory should do more to avoid a wipe than to stand there due not wanting to damage the raid. Whether we get her down next week or the one after, that strat isn’t an issue at this point. It is up to our adaption to the “oh s#!%” moments. Awareness is now key…think like in LK. We can’t rely on others to play our toons for us.
YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!!!!
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How are so many of your healers getting unchained magic? Are you running extremely caster light or are your casters dying in phase 3?
The reason that I am asking is that I have never seen unchained magic pick more than 3 healers *ever*. It should * always* pick 3 healers and 3 casters. I wasn’t aware that any other combination was possible in the RNG.
We run 7 healers specifically to counter 3 of them not being able to cast for the duration of the fight.
I have a question for you. At 8%, if someone chains an iceblock, say it is your “reset MB” iceblock and two people get chained, why not get everyone behind to reset their stacks, then move out, leaving the two iceblocks alone?
What it sounds like is people freaked and starting dpsing the iceblocks, taking valuable dps off sindy. I have seen this happen a lot in my 4 years of raiding. Let me set the scene:
It’s the last attempt of the night. Everyone is playing like they are Jesus incarnate now. The mood is right, everyone is alive and the boss is sub 10%…and then shit hits the fan. Someone gets themself and another raid member killed…and people freak. “Battle Rez Dipshit and his victim” The druid healer goes to brez but Boss X’s next mechanic nails the druid healer with his pants down and bent over like Bubba use to do to you in prison..you see the look in his eyes..you felt this way before..you know what ju…nevermind *shudders*
You get the idea. Shit hits the fan and the raid freaks. In that PARTICULAR situation, I would just let those two be and just restart your rotation. I am sure you know this, but raid leading is like triage on the battlefield when someone makes a mistake. In this particular situation, your choice was either A) Fix the problem or B) Realize the problem cannot be fixed and realize those two are dead, allowing the other 23 members survive.
In this particular encounter, a mistake does not have to mean raid death (unless someone chains all five of your healers and the off tank…but that has never happened to me honest….). You being the raid leader, you have to see those mistakes and “triage” them. Can my raid afford to fix the issue..or will it tax resources to the point of a wipe? Just some food for thought.
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@Rhidach
31 August 2010 at 2:44 pm #
That’s absolutely what happened. We have a set block-destroying team, so I told them to get a move on fixing the snafu. I announced I was moving counter clockwise to bring her face clock to the screwy block, but then others panicked and misinterpreted my meaning, and we had blocks start going the other direction as well.