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Fair warning, this is a World of Warcraft post. I will do my best to make it intelligible to all. It probably won't work. There will be a lot of writing down notes of what we did and didn't do here, for posterity.
ETA: Kiz links: "Cant PuG KZ"
Kara, or Karazhan, is an instanced dungeon in World of Warcraft-- a place where you and a certain number of players can go (in this case, 10 maximum) and all by yourselves try to defeat the opponents there. Kara is designed for the most high-level players, level 70 (the maximum level) and ones who have been 70 long enough to have extremely good armor and weapons, and to know how to play their class. Let's see how our guild does in it...
The story begins with a 7AM start. At 7, the guild leader and two shaman are in a group. Swiftly we invite and track down a total of 7 people.
The required balance of classes for this group is as follows:
2 tanks (characters to TAKE damage, and deal some out)
3 healers (to heal the tanks and others of the damage)
5 DPS (Damage Per Second, basically those who dish it out but can't take it).
We have, at 7:20, 1 tank, 2 healers, and 4 DPS.
Raid chat: "Great, all we need is a tank and 2 DPS."
MATHEMATICS m****rf****r, DO YOU SPEAK IT?
me: "Uhm, I see only 2 healers, who's the 3rd?" (and it had better not be me)
"Oh."
Within, actually, just a few minutes, we have a 10-man built up, consisting of:
Tanks:
Honorknees, warrior, not guilded (alt of a <Defiance> guildie)
Druid, guildie, brand new, and I want to call him Fox in Sox;
Healers:
Rem, non-guilded priest
Anthrak, guilded restoration shaman (well, <Defiance>)
Mel?...something, allied guild paladin. (I can't remember his whole name.) In <Grim Revenge>.
DPS:
Draculette, warlock, guilded
Frogvete, hunter, guilded (Guild leader)
Mario whatsisface, hunter, guilded
Distantpain, mage, non-guilded, <Six Sigma>
And me, Enhtiar, enhancement shaman.
We start heading over to Kara, joking all the while about how we're going to raid Hogger, Deadmines, and other low-level instances. We don't really discuss tactics except to pass leadership back and forth a few times.
Leadership note: Leading the raid gives you two things. First, you can make pretty colored shapes appear above your targets, which lets you give directions to various party members and set the order in which things are going to be done. Second, it makes your chat show up in a different color, with "Raidleader" in front of it.
So, Honor finagles around and gets leadership. He starts setting up big hairy strategies. Now remember, this is a nearly virgin group, and it's filled in with pickup people who may not be the movers, shakers, and leaders in their own guild. In other words, poor guy is herding cats here. He's laying out what to do when, blah blah long and involved, when actually he could have set it up as follows:
LEADER: Is there anyone here who is so freakin' new that they can only handle one instruction at a time? If so please get to my left.
Healer on my left, please heal me.
Healers on right, heal others as needed. Don't get aggro. Squeal when out of mana.
DPS on my left, hit what I hit.
DPS on my right, please use the markers I set to trap and otherwise control the crowd. Manage your aggro.
Tank on my left, please get on my right or go the hell home.
Thank you, everyone straight? Let's go. Order is skull, square, star; moon is sheeped, don't hit it; circle is shackled, don't hit it.
So, some time later, we moved on in, and started pulling mobs.
Next thing I knew, we wiped. Total wipe. I don't know why.
Someone: "PLEASE don't BREAK the SHACKLE."
We all run back in, pull, things are fine til the first mob is at about 70%. Suddenly, chaos, horses running around like they've been frightened by two gay men doin' it in the street*, and we wiped. I don't know why then either.
We're not even on Vent and I can still hear the raidleader having a hyperventilating moment. Finally, he says, "OK everyone, one more time, just like I said" (and the "Just DO what I SAID" is evident) and we finally get it to go off.
Six steps further in we wipe again. This time when coming back in, one of the raid members runs too far to the right and pulls a bunch more mobs, and we wipe again. Whee!
We finally got to the very first boss, and after two (three?) wipes managed to take him down.
I was extremely impressed that, at this point, rather than continue going until everyone there had ruined their armor, there was a general consensus to quit and try again another day.
*Mrs. Patrick Campbell, "I don't care what they do, so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
GOOD POINTS: Quitting while ahead, with a sense of having done something.
Learning from mistakes.
Togetherness. Or whatever we call that stuff.
POINTS FOR IMPROVEMENT:
We need at least 10 guildies who can be on at the same time, of the proper balance and gear for Kara. It's possible to get people up to the correct level and, with a little help from the better geared guildies, to get 10-12 people up and going. This is a reasonable goal.
We need to spend the waiting/prep time discussing the event unless we all know it backwards and forwards. We spent too much time talking about who wants what buffs, how to heal, etc. during the event.
We need practice working in groups, and that doesn't include being "run through." Knowing your place and how to serve your group is a very important part of playing. This means that people who want to go to Kara should be doing one or two instances a week, at minimum, or reading and learning on their own at the least.
We need people who are self-sufficient enough to make money and not complain about the 8-25g repair costs-- that means we can't have any whiners who are level 67 and "can't get" their mount money. We can't afford for half the guild to support the other half under any circumstances, or we WILL fail. We need self-sufficient people who can take correction and learn from it, and we need them to not be dragged under by the rest of the guild.
ETA: Kiz links: "Cant PuG KZ"
Kara, or Karazhan, is an instanced dungeon in World of Warcraft-- a place where you and a certain number of players can go (in this case, 10 maximum) and all by yourselves try to defeat the opponents there. Kara is designed for the most high-level players, level 70 (the maximum level) and ones who have been 70 long enough to have extremely good armor and weapons, and to know how to play their class. Let's see how our guild does in it...
The story begins with a 7AM start. At 7, the guild leader and two shaman are in a group. Swiftly we invite and track down a total of 7 people.
The required balance of classes for this group is as follows:
2 tanks (characters to TAKE damage, and deal some out)
3 healers (to heal the tanks and others of the damage)
5 DPS (Damage Per Second, basically those who dish it out but can't take it).
We have, at 7:20, 1 tank, 2 healers, and 4 DPS.
Raid chat: "Great, all we need is a tank and 2 DPS."
MATHEMATICS m****rf****r, DO YOU SPEAK IT?
me: "Uhm, I see only 2 healers, who's the 3rd?" (and it had better not be me)
"Oh."
Within, actually, just a few minutes, we have a 10-man built up, consisting of:
Tanks:
Honorknees, warrior, not guilded (alt of a <Defiance> guildie)
Druid, guildie, brand new, and I want to call him Fox in Sox;
Healers:
Rem, non-guilded priest
Anthrak, guilded restoration shaman (well, <Defiance>)
Mel?...something, allied guild paladin. (I can't remember his whole name.) In <Grim Revenge>.
DPS:
Draculette, warlock, guilded
Frogvete, hunter, guilded (Guild leader)
Mario whatsisface, hunter, guilded
Distantpain, mage, non-guilded, <Six Sigma>
And me, Enhtiar, enhancement shaman.
We start heading over to Kara, joking all the while about how we're going to raid Hogger, Deadmines, and other low-level instances. We don't really discuss tactics except to pass leadership back and forth a few times.
Leadership note: Leading the raid gives you two things. First, you can make pretty colored shapes appear above your targets, which lets you give directions to various party members and set the order in which things are going to be done. Second, it makes your chat show up in a different color, with "Raidleader" in front of it.
So, Honor finagles around and gets leadership. He starts setting up big hairy strategies. Now remember, this is a nearly virgin group, and it's filled in with pickup people who may not be the movers, shakers, and leaders in their own guild. In other words, poor guy is herding cats here. He's laying out what to do when, blah blah long and involved, when actually he could have set it up as follows:
LEADER: Is there anyone here who is so freakin' new that they can only handle one instruction at a time? If so please get to my left.
Healer on my left, please heal me.
Healers on right, heal others as needed. Don't get aggro. Squeal when out of mana.
DPS on my left, hit what I hit.
DPS on my right, please use the markers I set to trap and otherwise control the crowd. Manage your aggro.
Tank on my left, please get on my right or go the hell home.
Thank you, everyone straight? Let's go. Order is skull, square, star; moon is sheeped, don't hit it; circle is shackled, don't hit it.
So, some time later, we moved on in, and started pulling mobs.
Next thing I knew, we wiped. Total wipe. I don't know why.
Someone: "PLEASE don't BREAK the SHACKLE."
We all run back in, pull, things are fine til the first mob is at about 70%. Suddenly, chaos, horses running around like they've been frightened by two gay men doin' it in the street*, and we wiped. I don't know why then either.
We're not even on Vent and I can still hear the raidleader having a hyperventilating moment. Finally, he says, "OK everyone, one more time, just like I said" (and the "Just DO what I SAID" is evident) and we finally get it to go off.
Six steps further in we wipe again. This time when coming back in, one of the raid members runs too far to the right and pulls a bunch more mobs, and we wipe again. Whee!
We finally got to the very first boss, and after two (three?) wipes managed to take him down.
I was extremely impressed that, at this point, rather than continue going until everyone there had ruined their armor, there was a general consensus to quit and try again another day.
*Mrs. Patrick Campbell, "I don't care what they do, so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
GOOD POINTS: Quitting while ahead, with a sense of having done something.
Learning from mistakes.
Togetherness. Or whatever we call that stuff.
POINTS FOR IMPROVEMENT:
We need at least 10 guildies who can be on at the same time, of the proper balance and gear for Kara. It's possible to get people up to the correct level and, with a little help from the better geared guildies, to get 10-12 people up and going. This is a reasonable goal.
We need to spend the waiting/prep time discussing the event unless we all know it backwards and forwards. We spent too much time talking about who wants what buffs, how to heal, etc. during the event.
We need practice working in groups, and that doesn't include being "run through." Knowing your place and how to serve your group is a very important part of playing. This means that people who want to go to Kara should be doing one or two instances a week, at minimum, or reading and learning on their own at the least.
We need people who are self-sufficient enough to make money and not complain about the 8-25g repair costs-- that means we can't have any whiners who are level 67 and "can't get" their mount money. We can't afford for half the guild to support the other half under any circumstances, or we WILL fail. We need self-sufficient people who can take correction and learn from it, and we need them to not be dragged under by the rest of the guild.
