You can't regret A+ nights
Posted 03-25-2009 at 09:26 AM by veneretio
...and yet, you still can't help, but wonder what would have happened had you made a different call.
We've had quite the journey so far in the expansion clashing with attendance issues like many others once everyone had farmed the content numerous times. This in particular has affected our Sartharion25 progress.
We've downed him with 2 drakes up numerous times now, but only a few times would I consider these kills especially pretty. It's getting closer every time though to looking more farm-ie.
3 drakes on the other hand, we've done only a couple of nights amounting to around 8 or 9 attempts in total. We're hitting the DPS minimums, but we're just dieing to all kinds of random silliness once Tenebron goes down.
Which is why on Monday with a team heavy on healers, but more to the point a team with more new and weak raiders than usual, did I make the call to just do 2 drakes.
It was our cleanest, fastest, best kill, yet. The raid night ended before it could even really start as Vesperon died with everyone alive. I couldn't help, but be shocked. Where did this random A+ game come from? How did so many new folk immediately get "it"?
Why didn't I do 3 drakes?
But, you can't ask yourself that. You walk into a harder encounter and the outcome is going to be completely different. And sometimes, you just get bloody lucky. Sometimes, the new people even when they have no idea where to go are just exactly where they have to be. Sometimes, your weaker players never even have a blue circle of death underneath them for the entire encounter.
Luck happens.
Which isn't to try to downplay or make excuses for succeeding with a less experienced raid group, but it is to be realistic about what had happened and what would have happened. 3 drakes probably would have ate us alive. We had a few people we'd have even had to replace had we'd wiped even a single time.
You don't get your first 3 drake kill under those circumstances.
That being said, I've known that the 3 drake kill was there for a long time. We've really just needed the right combination of folks to show up under the right conditions. We set that up this week. We pumped up a lot of people's egos this week and gave a lot of folks the confidence to walk into 3 drakes knowing that we can do it.
2 Drakes was the right call. Succeeding quickly doesn't necessarily mean you picked too easy of challenge. Sometimes, it just means you picked exactly the right challenge and your team stepped up their game.
I'm definitely looking forward to next week. Attendance will be better than ever.
We've had quite the journey so far in the expansion clashing with attendance issues like many others once everyone had farmed the content numerous times. This in particular has affected our Sartharion25 progress.
We've downed him with 2 drakes up numerous times now, but only a few times would I consider these kills especially pretty. It's getting closer every time though to looking more farm-ie.
3 drakes on the other hand, we've done only a couple of nights amounting to around 8 or 9 attempts in total. We're hitting the DPS minimums, but we're just dieing to all kinds of random silliness once Tenebron goes down.
Which is why on Monday with a team heavy on healers, but more to the point a team with more new and weak raiders than usual, did I make the call to just do 2 drakes.
It was our cleanest, fastest, best kill, yet. The raid night ended before it could even really start as Vesperon died with everyone alive. I couldn't help, but be shocked. Where did this random A+ game come from? How did so many new folk immediately get "it"?
Why didn't I do 3 drakes?
But, you can't ask yourself that. You walk into a harder encounter and the outcome is going to be completely different. And sometimes, you just get bloody lucky. Sometimes, the new people even when they have no idea where to go are just exactly where they have to be. Sometimes, your weaker players never even have a blue circle of death underneath them for the entire encounter.
Luck happens.
Which isn't to try to downplay or make excuses for succeeding with a less experienced raid group, but it is to be realistic about what had happened and what would have happened. 3 drakes probably would have ate us alive. We had a few people we'd have even had to replace had we'd wiped even a single time.
You don't get your first 3 drake kill under those circumstances.
That being said, I've known that the 3 drake kill was there for a long time. We've really just needed the right combination of folks to show up under the right conditions. We set that up this week. We pumped up a lot of people's egos this week and gave a lot of folks the confidence to walk into 3 drakes knowing that we can do it.
2 Drakes was the right call. Succeeding quickly doesn't necessarily mean you picked too easy of challenge. Sometimes, it just means you picked exactly the right challenge and your team stepped up their game.
I'm definitely looking forward to next week. Attendance will be better than ever.
Total Comments 6
Comments
-
Excellent blog today Vene. You really hit the nail on the head and described what for us is a very similar situation. We are at the same point in progression, having beaten Naxx into the ground and able to handle Sarth 2D but at a large obstacle on 3D. Its caused no shortage of frustration, hand wringing, and debate and I think this gives some interesting insight into the issue.
I'm guiltily gratified others are dealing with the same issues. I wish you guys the best of luck and hope you get it down soon, though.Posted 03-25-2009 at 09:47 AM by Horacio 
- I guess we all have those nights. I happen to be in a guild that is "as a guild" just getting 25 man content established. We got Sarth +1 last night. First attempt was really close then we had 3 or 4 disasters then pulled it off with one death.
Posted 03-25-2009 at 12:26 PM by Gromblee - I hear ya vene. monday was our worst raid night so far. We had downed 3D two weeks in a row. but it takes us waiting until monday for enough of our "top" players to show up. Not to mention our DK tank. people asked to just do 2D to make the raid shorter. well I said no and we had at 3D for an 1 1/2 hours. Idk what went wrong.. but we had reached easy mode 2x (tene and shadron dead 20+ raiders up) and we managed to blow it.
Guess what we ended up doing.. 2D. guess what happend... trash respawned = wipe. then we wiped for real on 2D... (people including officers dropped group and left without saying a word) ... finally killed it.
Had I just went along with what people wanted to do and settled for 2D from the start I would have a happy guild. Instead I'm dealing with flame threads on our guild forums.
In the end we're over it. But a lof of aggravation could have been avoided.Posted 03-25-2009 at 02:28 PM by hbombs - It will be interesting to how this affects next weeks attempts for your raid. Hopefully building on the success of this attempt will be as easy as the kill was.
A little confidence can go a long way, good luck next week.Posted 03-25-2009 at 08:23 PM by Squeegiemama - Moral is the largest buff your raid can get. Motivation stretches every stat, perfects every rotation, builds the strongest bonds. I wish the best of luck for your future attempts on defeating Three Drake Sartharion.
Posted 03-25-2009 at 10:23 PM by Dalarandude - The reality is, Wrath content is mostly easy. A lot of people know this, and are part asleep at the wheel. You learn things in 'hard' 'unfair' 'random' 'bullshit' fights. Anyone who did C'thun during progression knows how much of a total bitch that fight was. Anyone who did 4 horsemen at 60 knows how much of a PITA that fight was. Nothing in Wrath even comes close to this, except Sarth+3. If you go into the night expecting to down Sarth+3, you're prepared for a really hard encounter. You die a few times, you wake up and pay attention, pull out all the stops perform your best. Maybe it's not good enough for Sarth+3, yet, but then you kill Shadron(or whichever) and boom, all that skill that you just awakened on the hard mode makes the easier mode a total cakewalk.
Posted 03-26-2009 at 06:21 AM by Durenas
