On listening skills

Vaguely recently, I vented some hot air about frustrations as Raid Leader during a progression kill on Void Reaver.

Its a pretty easy fight to explain, not too many different things to keep track of. While trying to get the raid spread out to occupy the full physical space of the enormous room, I had considerable difficulty in getting the raid members to actually follow the instructions.

I dunno if everybody was drunk, high, and infected with the Three Hour Itch that night, or maybe they all lurk here and read my follow up article, but last night we proved it was a fluke.

Formed up the raid, preached a little sermon about how the officers need help from each and every raider to find out why we've had some sluggish attendance lately (responses ranged from school/work [understandable], all the way to apathy from lack of kills lately [zomg, we haven't killed a progression boss in 2 weeks, i want everybody in this category to personally fly to my house and pucker up and present me with a kiss on both cheeks, sorry bub, that one just dont work for me])

Sermon complete, lets head on in.

Scary sloppy on the first pull. If I was one of the 3 puggers we had with us, I would have been seriously considering bailing after that pull. But they didnt, which was nice. And we left the slop at the door.

Zip on over to Voidy.

Time to test the listening skills.

Everybody put your Brewfest kegs away and listen up. We're going to form pairs of players.

First, tanks and melee, come stand here so I don't have to look at you.

[woah, they all came right over to where I was jumping, no fuss]

Next, healers, come toe the line. Stand on the rim of this circle on the floor, leave at least a few feet between all your neighbors.

[jeez, its working, all 8 healers on the line, somewhat spaced out, only one DPS'er on the line who needed to be yelled at]

Now, DPS'ers. If you've got a healer in your party, go stand by them now. If you've got more than one healer in your party, divide yourselves up. If another DPS'er got to your healer first, go back to the door. The goal is to have pairs consisting of one DPS and one Healer.

[cut them some slack, musical chairs is fun because its chaotic]

Ok, there's four DPS left. You two, pair up and stand here, you two, pair up and stand there.

[zomg, we've now got 10 pairs of players, all standing neatly on top of eachother. we've barely been at this 2 minutes, am i dreaming?]

Now, you guys on the right, shuffle around the circle counterclockwise, and you guys on the left, move in clockwise. The purpose is to occupy the entire space. There should be ample space between pairs.

[shuffle shuffle shuffle. its working :-)]

/readycheck

Alrighty, last one, learning from a boo boo last time we were here. Main Tank has a looooonnnnnggg way to run to engage the target. From the time he ends his countdown, to the time he's run in and actively attacking VR, DO NOTHING. Just watch. As a matter of fact, take your hands off the keyboard and mouse.

[yadda yadda yadda]

Outstanding work everybody. Cleanest kill of VR I've ever seen (lol, only second kill of VR i've ever seen, but whatever).


The pairs strategy worked like a charm. Granted, we lost the two DPS-only pairs very early on, so the whole way, we were about 30 seconds ahead of the enrage timer, which surely kept me on the edge of my seat.

But we did it. With 28 seconds left before enrage.

I couldn't have been happier with winning at WWS, doh, i mean....er.....getting T5 shoulders.....um....uh... how the team responded to the setup process, and then the execution of the strategy.