Help leading a PvP raid?

[Litlemouse]

Ok, so I'm sort of freaking out. On the last of the month, which is 2 days away, I'm supposed to lead a raid to Thunderbluff to take out Baine for the achievement. My guild practically shoved it in my face, they were so excited about the idea. They even put it on the calendar. As guild leader, I'm supposed to lead the raid. And before anyone asks, no, there is noone else who could lead it. It's either me or canceled.

Here are the problems with it:


1) My server is very small, so getting enough people to come will be hard.

2) My gear is not in the best of shape as I'm still working on it. Possible ridicule there, but not that important.

3) I have hardly any experience in raids. In fact the only time I've raided is For the Alliance raids on the PTR.


So as you can see, I need help. I don't wanna regret this raid and remember my first lead raid as a failure. D:

[Acherontia]

Well, as a Horde, I can give you tips from the opposite side of the spectrum. That said, *shakes fist,* WHY SO MUCH HATE FOR OUR LEADERS?! ;D But yeah, I think half of it is getting a good group together, and the other half is the element of surprise, and keeping it quiet during the raid--and by "quiet," I mean the amount of attack messages your raid spams, so kill only what's necessary. Anyway, here's some ideas you might consider:

1. Do it at an odd time--if your server's big on Tol Barad, try getting your raid together a half hour or so in advance and waiting at Thunder Bluff until Tol Barad starts. Coordinate your raid to start AS Tol Barad calls. The later at night/morning, the better, but you'll have to balance the ability to gather raid members with the enemy's ability to gather a defense. If you know you can pull a raid together at 4 am, that's awesome--do it.

2. Thunder Bluff is pretty quiet. It takes Horde awhile to get there, and often, they just don't bother. That said, the bosses now take a long time to kill. Station PvPers around the outside to stop PvP interference. That means that they can dps the boss, but their priority should be to stop problems before they start. For example, if a mage starts casting Poly on your tank, your PvPers should be ready to take him out.

3. Have as many core members on voice chat as you can, for coordination, especially on the PvP side. Healers should know when to cleanse incoming CC off the tank, as otherwise Baine will then wipe the raid; having two offtanks for this is a good idea, just make sure they stay at the top of the aggro table. Voice chat will also allow you to coordinate AoE healing or shielding in the case of a Horde say, spreading a very nasty Combustion throughout your entire raid. You can also rotate mana returns--Mana Tide and Innervate, Hymn etc. If you don't have voice chat, consider making /raidwarning macros in advance.

4. Be unobtrusive. No /yelling, no killing guards that haven't aggroed. The raid should land in front of Baine--OUT of range--and quickly deal with all NPCs that summon guards. The fewer "Thunder Bluff is under attack!" messages you trigger, the better.

5. If you PuG members, don't tell them exactly when or which city you're doing, if at all possible. Spies abound. Keep someone with Have Group, Will Travel in Mulgore, and tell them to respond to any questioning /whispers with "I'm trying to get the Thunder Bluff flame." Or, keep a lock + two people in an adjacent zone, to move into Mulgore only as the raid's about to start. Regardless, keep them *out* of the raid until it's time to start. If you're advertising in /2 for people and telling them when and where you attack, hordes of Horde may very well be waiting when you arrive. Also if a spy joins the raid and sees a lock + two people in Mulgore, they're going to know what to expect.

Obviously, you need a good couple of tanks, quite a few good healers and plenty of dps; the bosses have a ton of HP, and mana may become an issue. Baine is, however, the easiest of the lot--the easiest to get to, and one of the more distant for Horde to defend. Since you're doing it during the Fire Festival, too, the attack messages that you trigger might be taken as "someone's getting the Fire," unless your raid gets out of hand and wipes a whole rise before the raid.

Oh, and ReadyCheck before you start >.<

Hopefully some of this helps! Remember, it's all in fun, and more often than not, these raids fail anyway... and people don't care, because it's almost always really fun regardless.

Good luck! (I can't believe I'm saying that to a FTA )

[Litlemouse]

Thanks for the detailed reply Acher, I'll try to keep most of that in mind. The hardest problem I'm thinking is gonna be recruiting, and I'm a bit worried we will end up 10 manning it (which is possible in succeeding but very hard ). Also, just a random tidbit here, but someone in our guild who's level 50 signed up for it... >.>;
Other random tidbit, my guild originally wanted to do Orgrimmar, but I don't have a good feeling about that xD

Again thanks for the tips, especially "1" is interesting, I didn't think about that.

[Konor]

Also Horde here and the advice given is pretty good. TB is abandoned on my servers, even RP ones. Mine is fairly high and Horde and Alliance are pretty close to 50/50% representation. The Alliance regularly raids TB, UC and Silvermoon. We all just stand around in Org going "Oh, hmm, yes" and never do anything about it. LOL

I'd either get all of your raid together and hover about Baine then drop down immediately when everyone is ready or get a Rogue or Druid to stealth to an area they won't aggro anything and have them mass summon everyone. Problem with the latter part is what happens with lag, someone is afk, etc.

With that said, Org is another story entirely. Garrosh hangs out in the middle of the busiest part of Org (in between the Bank and AH and in the same building you get VP and JP gear from). The Alliance has tried a handful of times to kill him and even at stupid o'clock when hardly anyone is on they fail. Poorly designed IMO on Blizz's part.

[Kalliope]

If you have mages going, be sure to have them ready to port the entire raid out afterwards. It's a solid finish, especially if you end up needing to move to a different boss next. Decoy portals are also a plus if you've had resistance.