Learning to Raid

Learning to Raid

Hello everybody. Welcome to my 'Learning to Raid' blog.

This blog will deal with my experiences whilst I learn the fine art of raiding in World of Warcraft. Like so many, I dread the learning curve of the raids available in WoW. There are so many different tactic, gotchas, armor sets and more. And I'm not even talking about all the attunements and keys that you need to get to get access to the places let alone the fights themselves.

Right now I know precisely nothing about all of this, which I think is the right place to start thinking about learning about these things. But why not share my experiences with the wider public? Well, that's exactly what this blog's intention is.

Let's start then with a little bit about myself and my character. I'm a 37-year old guy living in the UK. I work in the games industry but not on anything you'll have heard of (or I can talk about) so don't ask. I've played WoW since the US release and European Beta, but I'm not a hardcore player, so my current main character (a lvl 63 Draenai Hunter) is the highest I've ever achieved. I'm fully intending to level him up to 70 in the next weeks (easter weekend is a godsent) and after that get into the endgame and PvP sides of the game. I'd like to have at least a good understanding of the mechanics before Wrath of the Lich King comes out.

I'm a member of the (very) casual guild 'Invincible' on the EU server Lightbringer, but I also have the distinction of being one of the co-founders of The Dark Portal Monkeys on that same server. (For those of you who want to know: yes, I was Blanch. She's still alive, but I really can't play Paladins anymore)

So there you go. The first order of the day then is to get to level 70. This will probably take another couple of weeks, but I'll try to be as fast as possible. As I said, I've got the easter weekend, but I'm also looking forward to some time with my feet up (literally!) a week later when I'm recovering from an operation to one of my feet.

Stay tuned and if you want, tell me what you think I should do to learn more about raiding in the meantime. Are there any good introductory sites or should I just bite the bullet and dive in.

Regards,

Pointee.

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  • LeXXXis said 
    Tue, Mar 18 2008 5:54 PM ()

    Hey There Pointee . I'm a 2 year veteran WoW Player. Ive played both on private servers and on retail. I currently have a 4/5 Season 3 Warlock on Laughing Skull. I just came by your blog and I tought maybe I could give you a bit of help.

    As soon as you reach 70 and have all spells learned you should start raiding heroics with your guild so you can get gear-ready for Karazhan. Also while doing this be sure to pick the Karazhan Attunement Quest if you run by Shadow Lab. 5 Man Instances are easy you just need to listen to your team and It will be fine. Hunters usually pull the mobs with miss direct so have that ability somewhere on hand.

    By the time you finish gearing up for Karazhan you should already have some experience.

    I will recommend some addons to you for instances : Big Wigs / Deadly Boss Mods .. its an addon that gives you a warning when the boss casts a spell.. it doesn't tell you what that spell does... that thing is what you should know.

    Atlas Loot Enhanced - Gives you a list of all the loot in all instances. Helps you to pick your gear.

    DPS Meter - Gives you a overview how you are doing. Try keeping yourself in the top 3.

    Titan Crit Line - This addon will record your normal and critical attacks with every spell. Helps you keep track of your improvement.

    Omen / KTM Threat Meter - Very Important. Helps you keep track of the threat you and the others have done. Always keep it atleast 1/4 below the tank's threat or you will risk over aggroing.

    Also don't get creepy in a raid... you just have to listen to your team and know the spells the boss hits so you dont have any surprises... no philosophy really.

    This would be all for now. I would also like to recommend you 3 sites to help you in WoW and Raiding Experience.

    www.bosskillers.com You can find here all the bosses and what they do what spells they hit etc.
    www.wowhead.com A huge database with recipes, drop rates, quests, etc . Usefull for finding attunement quests.
    www.thottbot.com Same as WoW Head . I prefer WoW Head above thottbot.

    If you have any questions or etc you can find me at zuper_gaby@yahoo.com

    Good Luck

  • gongchao said 
  • Tue, Mar 18 2008 5:54 PM ()

    Thanks LeXXXis. That sort of advice is exactly what I'm looking for. It seems plug-ins are a big part of the story here. I got some other advice listing good plugins as well.

    Cheers!

    Pontee.

  • LeXXXis said 
    Tue, Mar 18 2008 5:54 PM ()

    Its Ok... I'll keep checking the blog to see what youve done recently. As I said if you got any question feel free to contanct me at zuper_gaby@yahoo.com via IM or E mail . Im more than happy to help.

    EDIT: Talking about addons. You will see that every guild that respects itself will require some addons for raid members. Big Wigs/Deadly Boss mods KTM/Omen threat meter. These are present 100% in every raiding guild so its a must to have them.

    What I forgot to tell you . Customise your UI. Dont leave it as WoW gives it to you because its *** unless you have a slow comp. Addons do slow WoW Down but aslong as you got 1 gb of ram or more theres nothing to be afraid of.

    You can find lots of UI's over here at Curse. Pick one download it and use it for a while then start and improve it. Add further addons etc. Also as you know spells got hotkeys from 0 to 9. I suggest you change them. Go to main menu and then controls. In a raid you need to feel confortable with your UI and your spells arrangement. Lets face it no one can extend his hand to reach from button 1 to button 9 on the keyboard... its just unconfortable. Therefore in controls change from 5 and above to keys like F , X ,Z , C, Q, E . If you move around with WASD these should be very confortable because they are close to you're hand. If you run out of hot keys try with Shift +Z etc. It might seem hard to work with combo keys but its pretty cool once you get the hand of it.

    Further more addon proposals:

    Mob Info - Shows you Mobs and players HP . Only works with mobs after you hit the mob. But if you download and import a mob database it should show 90% of the mobs hp.

    MobMap - Very usefull. You got an in game mob browser. You can find any mob and its location on the map. Useful for questing. Also has some drop rates, drops, recipes drops etc but its not complete in this matter.

    Elkano Buff Bar - Its an panel that shows you buffs and duration of them. You can make it to show debufs as well. Looks very nice to the eye.

    Enhanced Equip Compare - When you put your pointer over an item in the inventory it shows you what item you got equiped on yourself in that slot so you can compare them without going manually to the character sheet.

    If you feel like you can customize your action bars yourself you can try Bongos/ Bartender with Skinner and CyCircled addons. If you play with the options inside them you can make a pretty imba UI.

    Ok I think this is all for now . I'll reply to your blog once I come with more suggestions . Good Luck

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