Comments on: Bouncy, happy people and pugged raids?

By: Stormtrail

Stormtrail — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:57:09 +0000

Bear,

You don’t actually need to dismiss your pet for large elevation changes anymore. If your pet is on follow and you drop down in Gluth’s room for example, just keep moving forward and spamming the pet passive button or macro. Your pet will warp to you, I think there may be a minimum distance from the pet required, but I’ve been doing this for a long time now, so the details are foggy but I know it works. I did this all through Naxx and Ulduar, Gluth, Thaddius, and Thorim come to mind as the most useful situations. Also, if you put your pet on stay, if you go past a certain distance your pet will despawn, so it saves you the time of casting dismiss for situations where you REALLY don’t want to make a mistake but don’t have time to dismiss your pet. Say if your bouncing bear tank runs off into the next area…like the old Blackrock Spire arena!

By: Smack

Smack — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:48:08 +0000

The key to Frogger, for any of those who still get clipped by it, is to aim just inside the tail of the slime that has just passed by. Once you get used to the “sweet spot” you should aim for and the timing, you can literally run circles around the slimes and never die.

By: Xylch

Xylch — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:11:41 +0000

I wish I could be as happy go lucky as you about bad PUGs. Oh wells :+)

By: Kayeri

Kayeri — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:18:22 +0000

::sighing and wishing we weren’t all separated by servers so I could share this experience every week:: We run semi-pugs every Saturday, we fill up on Guildies first, then pug in the holes… and yeah, we get a few people here and there who try and spoil it for the rest, but they get put on a ‘do not return’ list, and they go very smoothly. Our RL, although he can get stressed here and there, handles things well for the most part, and a side benefit we never anticipated is that it has turned into a wonderful recruiting tool for us.

But I wish we could share that with more people if its such a novelty for you, BBB.

By: JK

JK — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:36:40 +0000

Another trick for frogger is to have a shammy drop totems in the path of the slimes. They are immune to the damage the slimes to and pop them. Tanks can SOMETIMES pop a slime and live, but I find it’s about 50/50. Pally bubbles work well too. I time my runs to run right BEHIND the slime I’m passing, seems to account for any lag issues. I have also laid down smoke flares for Heigen’s dance, but they usually don’t last the whole fight. Everyone dies to begin with on the safety dance, soon after a few runs, you can tell where to go. (there are 2 “U” shaped craks that are safe (position 2 and 4) and position 1 and 3 are 1 crack to the left of the safe “U” cracks – that’s how I can tell).

By: Staris

Staris — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:12:05 +0000

On Nagrand, my guild is in the middle of Ulduar content at the moment (Mimiron), but some newer guildees who are working on their gear to get up to speed for Uld or those gearing up alts are raiding on Wednesdays with a guild who call themselves “Lemmings.” I have heard they are much like the guild you are speaking about and have only heard good things. It’s good to hear there are good guilds pugging raiding content!

By: Naissa

Naissa — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:37:13 +0000

I am soooooo glad for puggable raid content. My guild usually only raids every other weekend. Sometimes in the middle of the week but mostly on alternate weekends. This is fine with me but sometimes it leaves me with nothing to do on a night where I’m pretty bored and that’s where pug raids come in handy. Yesterday I did OS-25 and it was actually one of the smoothest runs there I’ve ever done. Almost wish we’d tried with a drake up. :)

I try to avoid full-on Naxx-25 pugs and prefer to do half pugs with some of the established raiding guilds. Two of the top raiding guilds on my server put together Naxx groups for their alts and such and I try really hard to tag along on those when I can because they’re smooooooth.

As much as my guildies seem to not like Naxx-10 these days, I really really like doing Naxx-10 runs and this is why I look forward to mondays. One of my guildies that doesn’t get to play all that often puts together a naxx-10 on monday mornings/afternoons. Good times.

Glad you had fun, BBB! :) I’ve had that whole disconnect disconnect disconnect thing happen to me as well. So bloody annoying!

By: Minos

Minos — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:51:56 +0000

To clarify Twice’s advice, make sure you’re not too close behind the slime poppers. The splash damage can kill you as far back as the middle of the rows of slimes. Bears are good for popping slimes, too. With Survival Instincts and Barkskin on, I can take 2 of them.

By: Artorin

Artorin — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:50:18 +0000

On the whole DBM thing… you really don’t need it for any fights in WotLK. I mean really don’t. The default UI tells you everything you need to know about Thaddius. The default UI shows the debuff in the upper right hand corner (bottom left of the map). It is also simple enough to tell when is is switching because he does a big wavey things with his hands when he is casting it that you can’t miss…

The only fight that I really found it usefull on was emalon because it would mark the add with a skull when it enraged…. but they changed that now to where the add gets freaking gigantic and you would have to be a blind leaper gnome not to see which one it is.

In ulduar I’ve seen it actually cause problems because DBM will display a warning if you get hit with the eyebeams telling you that it is focusing on you… but it could be really focusing on someone else you just happened to get hit by it. This can cause several people to run for their lives instead of the one person that needs too.

I’m not saying it isn’t helpfull and don’t use it but it really shouldn’t be required. Every major boss ability or trick is clearly displayed through an emote or visual effect. Gone are the days where you had to turn up the sound to hear the thunderstorm coming in on the eagle boss in ZA.

I’ve cleared 25 man Naxx and the first 5 bosses in 25 ulduar w/o using any mods what so ever. Being an attentive raider is really all that is required. If someone misses the boss cues built in more then likely he is going to miss the giant warning flashing on his screen from DBM.

By: Agora

Agora — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:08:59 +0000

@Stupid Mage
I apologize for the uncompletness of my answer.

First, ask an engineer friend to manufacture smoke flares (skill level 335). I recommend using two colors (one color for moving from zone 1 to zone 4, and the other for the reverse direction). Although you will need only 3 flares of each color if everything goes well, it is better to stack up on them as they are cheap and only last 5 minutes.

Before the encounter, give the smoke flares to your off tank or any melee charcater who is confident about not dying to the dance in the first phase. Have him keybind the flares or place them on his action bars.

When the encounter starts, the individual carrying the flares does not DPS the boss for the duration of first phase (slow dance). His sole responsibility is to place the flares in safe spots for the fast dance. Smoke flares can be used like any other object (right-click it or bind its use to a key) and then target a safe spot (usually beneath you if you are doing the slow dance).

The smoke flares will need to be refreshed every second first phase.

Smoke flare carrier

First round:
1st phase: place smoke flares
2nd phase: dance!

Second Round
1st phase: DPS
2nd phase: dance!

Third Round
1st phase: place smoke flares
2nd phase: dance!

etc.

Good luck!