We should do the "first" bosses - Gruul, Oregorger, Beastlord, and Hanz&Franz. They're the 'easy' tier. Then we should push to second tier bosses to make the most of our time.
Agreed, looks like Operator and Flamebender aren't much ahead of these on the difficulty curve either. Also worth keeping on eye on the 'easy' Heroic bosses, with Gruul and Beastlord being suggestions.
After reviewing WowProgress I suggest we skip Blast Furnace initially as it appears to be far harder than other bosses. Frankly, I had a hard time digesting the Icy Veins guide for it.
10 times more guilds have defeated Hans and Franz and Beastlord. Flamebender Kagrazh also appears to be far easier.
We have several options for what to raid this Thursday (and onward). Normal bosses, of course, but we can also do the first Heroic bosses like Gruul, Hanz n' Franz and Beastlord. Then there is the option Moonprowler suggested of farming Mythic trash with his guild.
While doing a couple Heroics and getting a couple Mythic gear pieces would be nice, the main problem with that is it takes time. We've never been particularly held back by gear, when we have trouble it's usually not enough experience on a boss and not enough time to work on it. Taking a whole hour out of our night, plus whatever set-up time is required, just for TRASH? The idea of gear is naturally appealing, but I don't find the idea of intentionally ignoring bosses a good one for our limited schedule.
For much the same reason, I'm hesitant to spend much time on Heroics. While I'm sure we can beat the bosses, it involves spending a lot of time on trash twice in the same night. With 10 bosses to beat, I'd really like to get to the end ones. As we said Monday night, the main reason we didn't go on to Maidens or Furnace was our lack of experience on them. Which we may never get if we spend all our time clearing trash and doing the same bosses twice a night.
So there's my thoughts on the matter. I think a Heroic boss or two towards the end of a night if we don't have time to learn a whole new boss is a fine idea, but early in the week I'd rather work on clearing the Foundry faster so that we can have time to learn the new bosses. Also, less time running back and forth between wings will help that. So I suggest we start with Hanz n' Franz tomorrow and stick with that wing through Kromog, then move on to the other two wings.
I was thinking that we could just bypass normal modes and start progressing on heroics. Gruul was easy enough. If not this week, then soon. I agree that it doesn't make sense to do both normal and heroic in one week.
Trash farming seems like something to do outside normal raid times. It doesn't take a whole raid, 6 or 7 pugs without voice comms were enough for the easy trash.
I wouldn't be opposed to scheduling something optional for a bit of farming with Moon's guild but I think our raid time should be focused on organized boss progression.
I'd like to quickly finish out Normal to learn the fights and focus on Heroic progression.
Remember, Heroic is essentially the old Normal difficulty. While Blizzard might have tuned some of it a little harder, it is still tuned to the Flex system to allow raids of various sizes and compositions to complete it. Under previous content tiers we'd be slowing working our way through the current Heroic level difficulty, leaving us to optionally pick up smaller upgrades in Flex mode on our own time.
We can start playing raid lockout games to start maximizing our returns on time and gear. At some point we get someone's alt saved to a Normal instance cleared up to tier bosses and make that a quick clear at the start or end of our raids.
I've seen a lot of suggestions that Blackhand is far more difficult than the other bosses on normal, and probably requires an average ilvl of 670 to kill. We don't have that yet, and it is actually higher than the ilvl of the loot we are getting in Normal mode.
Warcraftlogs shows three total kills of Blackhand for guilds with ilvl below 665. Our guild ilvl is 665.0 - ish depending on who shows up.
Yeah, realistically we should finish the two bosses before Blackhand and start on heroics. 6.1 coming is going to change some things but I don't expect it to make a huge difference.
That's fantastic for execution. We really do pull fights together once we get it sorted out, we've hit decent (though maybe not quite that high) execution ratings on a handful of previous fights.
This lines up with my thoughts. We should be able to get Maidens and Furnace down on Normal before moving on to Heroic. The goal is definitely to get into Heroics as the standard level. A mix of adjusting to the new expansion and gearing up has left us a little behind, but we should move on soon.
We actually barely beat Gruul. He enraged right as he died! I think we will improve on that though, we had a couple deaths which certainly pushed the DPS check a bit. The biggest thing for Heroic will be cleaning up mechanics such as the wolves on Flamebender and Stamps on Hanz n' Franz.
Thoughts for the week: I'd like to get Blast Furnace down this week, so we should do something similar to the past week. Clear a wing, then clear to Furnace and start there Monday. I suggest the Iron Assembly wing to do Iron Maidens again.
Assuming Furnace goes about the same as Maidens did, that will leave us 60-90 minutes on Monday. Could go for a Heroic or two, but I'm inclined to do the third wing for an almost-full clear. Heroics is fine too, if the group prefers.
For NEXT week, we should do a full 9 bosses, but probably not Blackhand quite yet. If each wing takes us about 90 minutes, then we will have 90 minutes left on Monday for Heroics. Maybe move heavier into Heroics after that. I'm a bit surprised at how rough Heroics have been so far. I expected them to be harder, of course, but struggling on the first bosses is strange. Eh, maybe we were tired or trying different strategies too hard.
One note about Heroics is that it'll slow down our Runes collecting. Not killing as many bosses means not as many runes. So probably want to balance it out as we move into Heroics. A night of Normal clearing and a night of Heroics. Plans will shift, as we see how things go, of course! :)
If you want to do 9/10 normal this week (a good goal) then perhaps we could start with all of the easy bosses and try to carry Yakitate and Rhadamunthas (If Rhada still wants to switch) as far as we can to get them geared up. We're going to be clearing all of the trash anyway.
Yeah, that's a good idea! Stone also pointed out to me that we should be able to clear all of the two Wings we have done in one night and then quickly clear Gruul and Oregorger on Monday. That plus an alt or two is a fairly good idea, so long as we aren't taking up too much time.
I'm just gonna put it out there. Last night's raid wasn't as much fun as usual. I was hugely distracted by work problems. I couldn't call the trains, avoid the bombs (or turrets) or even do my rotation quite right. Nevertheless, I am hopeful for next time.
You are a wonderful group of people to raid with, especially when things go south.
Thank you for that, Aanvil. I completely agree. I also felt a little off. Maybe it was my Internet going out for awhile or the lost time at the start for the Garrison boss that didn't spawn, but it was definitely a rough night. An atypical one. Every once in awhile a bunch of things will conspire to make for a bad run, but that's ok because the next one will be great!
We had a rough night, but it's past and we will have many more good ones. As Aanvil said, you all are a wonderful group and I absolutely look forward to our next raid, which will be awesome!
It's the "first Monday of the month" thing with my daughter, so I could be about 15 minutes late. I'll keep Rada posted on my ETA, and hopefully he makes it tonight.
Slagworks here we come!
Slagworks, right? :)
We should do the "first" bosses - Gruul, Oregorger, Beastlord, and Hanz&Franz. They're the 'easy' tier. Then we should push to second tier bosses to make the most of our time.
Agreed, looks like Operator and Flamebender aren't much ahead of these on the difficulty curve either. Also worth keeping on eye on the 'easy' Heroic bosses, with Gruul and Beastlord being suggestions.
You are both correct!
Gruul is the first boss in the Slagworks wing of the Blackrock Foundry raid instance.
another video guide to the bosses we're likely to focus on first
After reviewing WowProgress I suggest we skip Blast Furnace initially as it appears to be far harder than other bosses. Frankly, I had a hard time digesting the Icy Veins guide for it.
10 times more guilds have defeated Hans and Franz and Beastlord. Flamebender Kagrazh also appears to be far easier.
Yeah, according to my research on WoWProgress here's the tiers of bosses:
Easy:
1. Gruul
t2. Beastlord == Oregorger
4. Hanz'gar & Fronz
Medium:
5. Flamebender
6. Thogar
7. Kromog
Hard:
8. Blast Furnace
9. Maidens
10. Blackhand
Raid Awareness applied to BRF: Some Weak Auras for debuffs and a GTFO style warning.
http://iam.yellingontheinternet.com/2015/02/16/raid-awareness-applied-bl...
I'm not sure if this is terrifying or awesome
Seriously, check out the whole channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqGSBX4YDlrLr8ev5exKT3w/videos
I'm not sure MS Paint is up to par anymore.
We have several options for what to raid this Thursday (and onward). Normal bosses, of course, but we can also do the first Heroic bosses like Gruul, Hanz n' Franz and Beastlord. Then there is the option Moonprowler suggested of farming Mythic trash with his guild.
While doing a couple Heroics and getting a couple Mythic gear pieces would be nice, the main problem with that is it takes time. We've never been particularly held back by gear, when we have trouble it's usually not enough experience on a boss and not enough time to work on it. Taking a whole hour out of our night, plus whatever set-up time is required, just for TRASH? The idea of gear is naturally appealing, but I don't find the idea of intentionally ignoring bosses a good one for our limited schedule.
For much the same reason, I'm hesitant to spend much time on Heroics. While I'm sure we can beat the bosses, it involves spending a lot of time on trash twice in the same night. With 10 bosses to beat, I'd really like to get to the end ones. As we said Monday night, the main reason we didn't go on to Maidens or Furnace was our lack of experience on them. Which we may never get if we spend all our time clearing trash and doing the same bosses twice a night.
So there's my thoughts on the matter. I think a Heroic boss or two towards the end of a night if we don't have time to learn a whole new boss is a fine idea, but early in the week I'd rather work on clearing the Foundry faster so that we can have time to learn the new bosses. Also, less time running back and forth between wings will help that. So I suggest we start with Hanz n' Franz tomorrow and stick with that wing through Kromog, then move on to the other two wings.
As always, thoughts and opinions are appreciated!
For Science!
I was thinking that we could just bypass normal modes and start progressing on heroics. Gruul was easy enough. If not this week, then soon. I agree that it doesn't make sense to do both normal and heroic in one week.
Trash farming seems like something to do outside normal raid times. It doesn't take a whole raid, 6 or 7 pugs without voice comms were enough for the easy trash.
I wouldn't be opposed to scheduling something optional for a bit of farming with Moon's guild but I think our raid time should be focused on organized boss progression.
I'd like to quickly finish out Normal to learn the fights and focus on Heroic progression.
Remember, Heroic is essentially the old Normal difficulty. While Blizzard might have tuned some of it a little harder, it is still tuned to the Flex system to allow raids of various sizes and compositions to complete it. Under previous content tiers we'd be slowing working our way through the current Heroic level difficulty, leaving us to optionally pick up smaller upgrades in Flex mode on our own time.
We can start playing raid lockout games to start maximizing our returns on time and gear. At some point we get someone's alt saved to a Normal instance cleared up to tier bosses and make that a quick clear at the start or end of our raids.
I've seen a lot of suggestions that Blackhand is far more difficult than the other bosses on normal, and probably requires an average ilvl of 670 to kill. We don't have that yet, and it is actually higher than the ilvl of the loot we are getting in Normal mode.
Warcraftlogs shows three total kills of Blackhand for guilds with ilvl below 665. Our guild ilvl is 665.0 - ish depending on who shows up.
We actually got a really nice guild execution ranking for our kill on Kromog.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/7#boss=1713&difficulty=3&metric=ex...
Yeah, realistically we should finish the two bosses before Blackhand and start on heroics. 6.1 coming is going to change some things but I don't expect it to make a huge difference.
That's fantastic for execution. We really do pull fights together once we get it sorted out, we've hit decent (though maybe not quite that high) execution ratings on a handful of previous fights.
This lines up with my thoughts. We should be able to get Maidens and Furnace down on Normal before moving on to Heroic. The goal is definitely to get into Heroics as the standard level. A mix of adjusting to the new expansion and gearing up has left us a little behind, but we should move on soon.
We actually barely beat Gruul. He enraged right as he died! I think we will improve on that though, we had a couple deaths which certainly pushed the DPS check a bit. The biggest thing for Heroic will be cleaning up mechanics such as the wolves on Flamebender and Stamps on Hanz n' Franz.
For Science!
Thoughts for the week: I'd like to get Blast Furnace down this week, so we should do something similar to the past week. Clear a wing, then clear to Furnace and start there Monday. I suggest the Iron Assembly wing to do Iron Maidens again.
Assuming Furnace goes about the same as Maidens did, that will leave us 60-90 minutes on Monday. Could go for a Heroic or two, but I'm inclined to do the third wing for an almost-full clear. Heroics is fine too, if the group prefers.
For NEXT week, we should do a full 9 bosses, but probably not Blackhand quite yet. If each wing takes us about 90 minutes, then we will have 90 minutes left on Monday for Heroics. Maybe move heavier into Heroics after that. I'm a bit surprised at how rough Heroics have been so far. I expected them to be harder, of course, but struggling on the first bosses is strange. Eh, maybe we were tired or trying different strategies too hard.
One note about Heroics is that it'll slow down our Runes collecting. Not killing as many bosses means not as many runes. So probably want to balance it out as we move into Heroics. A night of Normal clearing and a night of Heroics. Plans will shift, as we see how things go, of course! :)
For Science!
If you want to do 9/10 normal this week (a good goal) then perhaps we could start with all of the easy bosses and try to carry Yakitate and Rhadamunthas (If Rhada still wants to switch) as far as we can to get them geared up. We're going to be clearing all of the trash anyway.
Yeah, that's a good idea! Stone also pointed out to me that we should be able to clear all of the two Wings we have done in one night and then quickly clear Gruul and Oregorger on Monday. That plus an alt or two is a fairly good idea, so long as we aren't taking up too much time.
For Science!
I'm just gonna put it out there. Last night's raid wasn't as much fun as usual. I was hugely distracted by work problems. I couldn't call the trains, avoid the bombs (or turrets) or even do my rotation quite right. Nevertheless, I am hopeful for next time.
You are a wonderful group of people to raid with, especially when things go south.
Thank you for that, Aanvil. I completely agree. I also felt a little off. Maybe it was my Internet going out for awhile or the lost time at the start for the Garrison boss that didn't spawn, but it was definitely a rough night. An atypical one. Every once in awhile a bunch of things will conspire to make for a bad run, but that's ok because the next one will be great!
We had a rough night, but it's past and we will have many more good ones. As Aanvil said, you all are a wonderful group and I absolutely look forward to our next raid, which will be awesome!
For Science!
It's the "first Monday of the month" thing with my daughter, so I could be about 15 minutes late. I'll keep Rada posted on my ETA, and hopefully he makes it tonight.