Optimizing our Cores for Progression

[gelmir]

Hello raiders,

As you know we've established two Cores in past weeks and we have been training and progressing since then. This topic will be about reporting on our Cores, as our Raid Leaders see it and improve upon what we got, by applying few changes and testing upon those changes until we tune our performance further. So let's start!

 

Changes to Come: General Overview

There will be changes of following types to come:

• DPS parses after every boss fight will be required during raids. If we notice people struggling with DPS during boss fights, our Guidance group are organizing DPS Training/Inspection runs twice a week. Such members will have to attend these events, it's mandatory.
• Few members will be interchanged between Cores, for testing purposes. With these tests, we want to see how Cores can be optimized further. After all test exchanges, eventually we will make final reformation of Cores. Overall, these changes of Cores will involve all roles, tanks and healers not outstanding.

 

Raid Tiers

Before going deep into optimizations, we decided to separate Veteran Trials into following Tiers:

Tier-1 consists of Craglorn vTrials and their HMs , vMOL, vAS+0 & vCR+0

Tier-2 consists of vAS+1 and above, vMOL HM, vHOF, vHOF HM & vCR+1 and above

vHOF DD-wise is considered Tier-1, but tanking-wise it's a living nightmare; so we moved it to Tier-2.

Our Cores initially will be clearing Tier-1 content. Once completed and mastered, we will be moving to Tier-2 content.

 

Progressing into Tier-2: Critical Roles within Cores with Problems

In order to improve our odds, and increase the success, we constantly monitor our raiders. Following are just observations we've made so far (there will be some direct addressing of people, please accept these as positive criticism):

• In Core-1 we observe having problems with our Tanks (mostly relatively slow learning) and a Healer performance:
  • @Feleran and @ElderHaan : General consensus from raid leaders is, your learning is a bit slow. We want to step up on that. In coming 1-2 weeks, @david0001 will be talking to you guys, trying to explain what makes Tier-2 raids a nightmare, when it comes to tanking. vHOF and vCR especially. Please join him whenever you are called: he generally organizes events where you guys group up on Discord, sharing your screencasts and doing events, David monitoring. Other than that, he has videos of him tanking - watching them also will prove valuable. Additionally, I want to stress the fact that, in past few months, our guild had few raid leaders changing and almost all of them trained you differently, thus causing a lot of confusion at the end. As David says, please "forget what you know" and try to train with him. He is experienced, skilled, and would love to share all that with you guys. So please focus on your training! For certain information, please grab pen and paper, take notes: mob disposition, spawn points, timings etc - gaining this habit will be extremely helpful in Tier-2 raiding.
  • @ElderHaan , we also noticed you log on quite rarely, mostly only for raiding. As David always says, "you learn tanking by playing". Please try to play the game as much as possible, because unlike DDs, for you, there is no other way of learning tanking. Please change that schedule of gaming-only-raiding into gaming-to-learn-playing, as much as possible.
  • @LocaSugar , we noticed few problems with your Healing: your Combat Prayer uptime needs training, especially on boss fights. You also need to farm every single gear set healers use in trials. Those are extremely important points, so please start working on them. @Maxime will be monitoring your progress on these topics as she is our Raid Leader and also Healing Inspector. Please make sure you deliver some progress in timely manner. Additionally, certain points such as "you can't resurrect the dead players during fight" are important to follow. Even if you feel safe, don't resurrect please! Last, but not least, you should learn the ranges-of-effect for certain sets, memorize them and understand at which fights sets with low range of effect shouldn't be worn in fights where people are widely separately. Grab a pen and paper, take notes please. Your journey into Tier-2 will require that.
  • Core-1 DD's: You already saw our new DPS requirements. And we haven't yet been able to clear vAA HM and vHRC HM. @Maxime will be organizing once-a-week HM runs for these trials, and we will try to finish them. Then on the remaining days, we will progress and conquer the remaining Tier-1 raids. Since after all this, Tier-2 is what we will be doing, DPS is very important. So everyone, let's focus on improving and posting our progressive improvements regularly on Discord.
     
• In Core-2:
  • DDs: in general, as expected, DPS overall is low. It is important our Core-2 DDs train constantly and start breaking their DPS barriers. Feel free to ask our experienced DD Trainers for help and training please.
  • @Nerfmysorc, I being told you have been referred to few skilled DDs by @david0001, in order to train and improve. Please use this, and also feel free to ask for help from our own inspector - @Kydum. Important thing is, you have to ask! Noone will be assisting you, if you don't.

 

Changes in Cores for Optimization Testing

In coming weeks, we will be doing few player exchanges between Cores to test and eventually optimize them. Most significant tests will involve following players:

• @Kydum and @vbf , to be tested as a tank and a healer, respectively, in Core-1.
• @Feleran and @ElderHaan to be tested and trained under @david0001 in Core-2.
• @Quake89 and @Jaynoel to be tested as tanks in Core-1, along with @Kydum.

 

[gelmir]

Ok guys, we will be doing the changes in Cores in steps, in multiple weeks, to test them in an incremental fashion. This week we will start with DDs.

Following changes are in effect, effective Monday, Oct 15th: @Dryell moves to Core-2, to raid under David, whereas @Kydum  and @vbf (Vera) are being shifted to Core-1, as DDs. kydum and Vera aren't able to play on Mondays, so Dryell moving to Core-2 is essential for that Core's events. I will be sending appropriate Club invites on forums and switch your Cores on Discord. Thank you!

P.S.: The changes after the next Monday, the 22nd of October, will involve Healers and Tanks.