Raid Leading

Technically, I am not a raid leader. While I share the second-in-command with another officer, I deal with more physical issues than what is required to lead the 20-or-so other raiders, so I find it a bit unnerving to step up and manage everything I'm not normally handling. Yet last night I stepped up, and I think I did pretty well for once.

First off, I gotta say I was very proud of myself for remembering to grab the Fish Feasts from the guild bank. While I willingly procure the mats and make these for the guild, I'm not one that carries a stack of them all the time, so the fact that I actually made a conscious effort to consider the buff foods is a step in the right direction.

We left off Wednesday night on Thorium, having one shot every boss leading up to him. We spent a good hour wiping on the Thunder Guardian, without any root problem identified. Range in the arena kept dying, DPS in the tunnel was too slow, etc., so I felt like it was time to mix it up a bit to see if that doesn't solve the problem.

One of the issues, I find, from maintaining the same raid leader day in an day out is the rut that develops in regard to trying something new. There is a comforting in simply doing the tried-and-true methods of boss strategy, but when those fail, one has to admit that something new has to be attempted. It's scary, no doubt - after all, no one likes to waste time on a fool-hardy attempt when we know for certain that another method will work - but maybe, just maybe a new strategy will be better and easier, be damned if it requires some effort!

It doesn't help, I suppose, that the tank and provider of new strategies is rather bull-headed, opinionated, and a bit of a loot whore, so his ideas are more often than not eagerly brushed aside by the raid leader. So it falls to others to ignore the guy's annoying faults and dust off the gems of his ideas, and I am one who is very willing to try.

So I went with the "crazy" idea of putting some melee in the tunnel, despite the usual raid leader's objections about the first miniboss. Like Yogg's brain, the more instant damage in the tunnel, the faster the trash mobs will go down, so I put our new Death Knight in there, who was dying frequently in arena the day before. Along with two mages, a hunter, an elemental shaman, our usual tunnel-caller lock, a bear tank, and a sole pally healer. And lo and behold, the tunnel group lived, and nearly everyone in the arena lived, and the boss died on our second attempt.

I felt pretty good.

Off to Vezax, the bastard that had cock-blocked us for several days, two weeks in a row now. By this time, our normal raid leader had logged on, but since it was another long day at work for him, he willingly let me lead. However, as I mentioned a couple posts ago, this is not a fight one can coordinate well if you have never played each raid role. I went through the motions required before attempt (fish feast, ready check, etc.), but besides explaining the fight and assigning the interrupts, there was little else I could take charge of. I left it to the pally tank to figure out the best strat this time around, since we lacked a warrior tank that could Intervene a warlock's pet during the kite phase.

After several wipes, and in a move that surprised me, the normal raid leader conferred with the tank and the main healer, and the came to the conclusion to kite every other phase. It had been suggested before, but never tried, but obviously tonight was a night for new strategies. Lo and behold, Vezax died, and he didn't drop Sellcore Leggings! Since I took Cindershard Ring last time, I willingly passed to another hunter for the new ring.

After a couple pokes at Yogg, raid was called. We had gone further than we had in several weeks, and while I don't get to be there for Sunday and Monday's raids (where Yogg will die again, and the guild will work on Hard-Mode Iron Council), I think I did my part getting us there.