efficiency

Save 10 Minutes on Mimiron Trash by Skipping it Entirely

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I just discovered this pro tip yesterday from a Resto Druid app. He mentioned to me as we were clearing out Mimiron trash.

If you want to shave some time off in your raid, work the first trash pull and secure a Spider bot as quickly as you can. Then have that player power jump over the rest of the mobs all the way to the tram. He activates the tram, heads over to Mimiron, and then starts the encounter. That player has to die.

At that point, the teleport at the Spark of Imagination should now be active enabling the rest of your raid to enter in.

Some of you guys probably know this. But for the rest of us that didn’t, it’s a neat trick that should shave some time in your raids. We used this method in the last trash pull to gauge exactly how much space was needed. It might take you a trash pull or two to get used to the range. But it can be done.

On a side note, you’ll notice things have been slightly shaky around here. The server move has been complete. A very special thanks to our sponsors (and hosting partner) Byte Me Gaming. The contact forms are not working at the moment and I’m trying to resolve that. So I apologize in advance if you’ve sent in anything recently. Use my personal email for the time being in order to get in touch.

Fixed.

Guild Bureaucracy: 7 Ways to Cut the Crap

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bureaucracy

Does anyone here read Zen Habits? If not, you should add it to your reader. One of Leo’s (the blogger) posts focused on Steps to Take Action and Eliminate Bureaucracy. I was so taken aback by it that I set out to try to apply a few of his concepts to my guild. There are guilds that I know of that spend so much time on organizational aspects and discussion instead of the one thing that matters the most: Action. Let me share with you a few of the steps that I’ve taken to help streamline Conquest and make it lean.

Clear goals

I lay out the objectives in advance. My guys know that on Tuesday nights, Obsidian Sanctum is the first stop followed by both Spider Wing and Plague Wing. There is no discussion before hand about what we’re going to do. It is all premeditated and there is no confusion. We are going to down this boss starting at this time, end of story.

No meetings

A lot of guilds like to have guildwide meetings or officer meetings to discuss things. That’s what forums are for. I won’t hold guildwide meetings because I know some players get bored by them or just aren’t interested. The ones that want to weigh in on an issue know to do it on the forums where it can be discussed there.

No class forums or channels

Is it really necessary to have individual class forums or channels when you only have one Resto Shaman or one Feral Druid? I decided to consolidate the different forums and communications by role instead of by class. I set up tanking forums, healing forums, and DPS forums. It shortens the overall length of the forums and players don’t feel “isolated” From one another. Tanking Paladins can chat with their Warrior and Death Knight counterparts. Holy Paladins and Priests can discuss suggestions for fights like Patchwerk.

Shared bank tab

One of the bank tabs is known as the public tab. People can deposit and withdraw stuff they need from here. Stuff in the tab are generally items of little consequence like Frostweave Cloth or Chilled Meat. People can toss crap in here for other players to withdraw if they can benefit from it. Things like Enchanting mats or more expensive items get sealed in another tab and only an officer can get to them.

Prepared boss briefings

It’s one thing to read up on a strategy. It’s another thing entirely to apply the strategy with your guild. During my spare time, I’ll modify or implement a plan A ahead of time on the forums. I’ll frequently use Photoshop to draw X’s and arrows like football players. I’ll link to strategies on WoWWiki or Bosskillers. Below that, I’ll follow it up by inserting the names of players who have specific roles. I’ll note that Sydera will be healing Brio on phase 2 of this encounter. I’ll state that Kimbo will be taking care of certain ads. It doesn’t hurt to be specific.

Empowered raiders

Using popular raiding addon oRA2, I can set it to auto invite players of a certain rank within the guild and then auto promote officers so that they have an A next to them. All of my officers automatically get one as well as the tanks for target marking. When raids start requiring CC, I’ll auto promote Mages and Shamans so they can mark their own CC targets as it becomes necessary.

Tanking discretion

My tanks have been given full authority to set the pace of the raid. The speed, rate, and amount of trash pulls are at their discretions. That doesn’t mean I can’t halt them. If the raid has a lingering curse or debuff, I’ll ask them to hold the pull. This is especially true if healers are low on mana. But for the most part, they’re on autopilot.

What other methods can you think of to make your guild or raid more lean and efficient?

Image courtesy of: ngould

Myth: It Doesn’t Matter As Long as the Boss Dies

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does-matter

It’s time for a good, old fashioned rant.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as the boss dies.”

Oh, but it does matter. It matters a lot.

It matters if you AFK trash.
It matters if you wipe on a farm-content boss.
It matters if people die unnecessarily.
It matters if the fight drags on for double its usual length.
And it matters because “as long as the boss dies” is the dumbest quote EVER.

Think about it. I understand the need for bio breaks, and taking an announced absence is a perfectly legitimate way to get a drink of water, relieve yourself, and be that much more focused when you return. But when you have a couple of raiders who consistently AFK their way through everything that doesn’t drop loot, it adds stress and resentment to the pressure cooker that is a raid. It’s lazy and inconsiderate. Worse, it sets a terrible example for not just new recruits but everyone else in the guild.

Anyone who’s ever wiped on a “Farm” boss can tell you that it is infinitely frustrating when that happens due to sloppy mistakes and lack of attention. It wastes valuable time, leads to full-on burnout, and can make a guild feel stunted and unsuccessful. Slacking off here can cause major problems, and even if the boss dies on the third try, that’s 30 minutes to an hour of 25 people’s time. Not to mention repair bills, wasted consumables, and loss of morale and momentum.

Okay, so say you didn’t wipe. Say the fight just lasted 12 minutes instead of 7. That’s only 5 minutes extra (Nevermind that it’s really 5×25.) Wrong. When fights double in length, the impact is the same as a wipe, just on a smaller scale. Consumables, cooldowns, and resources are STILL wasted, and more likely than not, players will die needlessly. Not to mention that’s 5 minutes worth of Arrows and Bullets. And you now have a raid-mentality that knows it’s in for a rough night, since the bosses aren’t dying smoothly. Beyond that, if you’re a guild in the position of both farming content AND making progression runs, the sooner you can get the old content finished the more time you can spend on the new stuff. Eating up minutes and hours when you have 14 bosses to get through before you can even get to the fun stuff is “srs biz”.

More than anything, I hate that this quote as it seems to embody the ultimate in epic-greedy laziness. As if there’s no difference between the boss dying in an unspectacular way vs. dying efficiently, with everyone putting out 100%. The reality is at the other extreme – the only thing the two events have in common is the dropping of loot. And if loot, rather than progression and improvement is your focus, I want you the hell out of my raid, out of my guild, off my server, and away from my game. Go play EverQuest with Jimmy.

Luv,
Wyn