25-man TOC

[Vecter]

Anyone interested in getting a 25-man ToC run going?

[Fursphere]

Define 25 man.

All solos, or boxers included?

[Vecter]

Define 25 man.

All solos, or boxers included?

Whatever works I don't care. Feel like trying something new that has potential to drop some gear that is useful for peeps. And 25s wont conflict with any 10man raids. Something to try and have a blast at with the guild.

Edit: Just a note as my reply kinda sounds like its not a serious run. I would like to be successful and get as far as we can, doesn't make sense to bang our heads on the first boss for 2 hours

[Fursphere]

Thats why I asked.

Getting things going with this guild - espeically 25mans - has always been a challenge. Everyone wants to DPS, couple want to tank, and NOBODY wants to heal. And the people who end up healing are kinda like "well - if I HAVE too..." and aren't skilled healers to begin with.

And its always a dynamic group - so we dont' get a lot of time working together and learning strengths and weaknesses - its always an ad hoc run with mixed and matched toons.

I'm not trying to discourage anything - just putting the challenges out there up front. I usually end up tanking because I had the best geared tank for the longest time (not the case anymore). I don't mind healing either - just gota get warmed up (the ICC10 runs have taken care of that.. i'm back in full swing there).

But custom macros, raid buffs (flasks!), and having personal gear in "top shape" isn't something boxers put at a high priority, because they are very casual players. So that's another challenge.

I'm willing to try it for sure - our 25man Onyxia run wasn't bad the other night, just took some adjustments to get it to work.

TLDR - WE NEED HEALERS - GOOD ONES AND LOTS OF THEM! lololololol

<3,
Fursphere

[Vecter]

Thats why I asked.

Getting things going with this guild - espeically 25mans - has always been a challenge. Everyone wants to DPS, couple want to tank, and NOBODY wants to heal. And the people who end up healing are kinda like "well - if I HAVE too..." and aren't skilled healers to begin with.

And its always a dynamic group - so we dont' get a lot of time working together and learning strengths and weaknesses - its always an ad hoc run with mixed and matched toons.

I'm not trying to discourage anything - just putting the challenges out there up front. I usually end up tanking because I had the best geared tank for the longest time (not the case anymore). I don't mind healing either - just gota get warmed up (the ICC10 runs have taken care of that.. i'm back in full swing there).

But custom macros, raid buffs (flasks!), and having personal gear in "top shape" isn't something boxers put at a high priority, because they are very casual players. So that's another challenge.

I'm willing to try it for sure - our 25man Onyxia run wasn't bad the other night, just took some adjustments to get it to work.

TLDR - WE NEED HEALERS - GOOD ONES AND LOTS OF THEM! lololololol

<3,
Fursphere

Oh I hear ya! I am very naive when it comes to 25-man raids (the Onyxia run was my first) so expecting to just throw together something might be overly optimistic! However that said i'm willing to give it a try and will be one of those healers that wants to heal Now if I am forced to dps then we have a problem! hah

[Kicksome]

I'd like to give it a shot. maybe make it BYOH. If we got 25 man down, that would really help everyone out.

[Mercurio]

I for one would like to try some more boxing things as a guild. 25 man ToC would definitely have some actual upgrades for people too since it drops ilvl245 gear (above what we can all easily get from heroic badges) and would be fun and challenging.

However, ToC is pretty rough. I ran it on 5-10 toons a week for a few months, so I know the fights pretty well. I think getting past the first "boss" (trio of mini-bosses) has a number of boxer-related challenges:

Gormok the Impaler:
This guy shouldn't be terribly hard - needs two tanks taunting off one another, people to run out of fire, and everyone to focus on killing snobald adds when they spawn.

Dreadscale and Acidmaw:
Things get a bit tougher here. Need one tank on each worm the whole time, all DPS on Acidmaw till he drops. One issue will be the paralyzing poison / burning bile coordination. Acidmaw will spit poison in a small area that tends to hit 3-4 people if everyone is spread out. This will do damage and slow you, increasing the slow for 12 seconds or so until you can't move at all. If you don't get to the toon in the raid that has burning bile (something Dreadscale spits out), those who are paralyzed won't be able to move and will eventually die. Additionally, one of the worms will be pooping out slowly expanding acid clouds that may be in the way of burning bile / paralyzing poison guys moving together.
So for boxers our job would be tougher because more toons would be hit (harder to spread out boxers) by each poison attack and movement may be a bit tougher than normal.
Overall, with good coordination shouldn't be a show-stopper, but tough.

Icehowl:
The last boss is the easiest for a normal group but will present a major problem for boxers. He is solo tanked, usually with the tank's back against a wall as he does a knockback attack. About 5-6 times during the fight he jumps to the center of the arena and blows everyone back to the arena walls, stunning them for about 4 seconds. He then points himself at a random raid member and charges them, hitting them only 2-3 seconds after the stun wears off if they aren't moving away very rapidly. Every single raid member must be on their toes for this - looking at where he is facing after they are stunned and determining which direction they will run along the arena walls to avoid his charge. If anyone is in the path of the charge, he becomes enraged and one-shots anyone he attacks for about 15 seconds (killing a good portion of the raid). If someone isn't looking very carefully, they may move INTO his path right after the stun, as well as someone who isn't moving right when the stun wears off or moves at the wrong angle, etc.
When I two-DPSed this in a recent PuG, I positioned my toons near the center of the arena but about 20 yards apart on either side of the very center. That way, they were blown to opposite walls by Icehowl and I could quickly look to see who would be closer to the charge and only move that toon. With some practice (and losing quite a bit of DPS time trying to get everyone well positioned) one person could probably do this with 3 or 4 toons, but no more than that or you'd have to move two toons at once (both potentially being in his charge path) which would be dicey at best.
Most boxers tend to keep their toons together and just use /follow. I'm fairly sure that there is not enough time during the charges for follow to effectively get all the toons out of the charge path.
One bright point in this is that hunter's tranquilzing shot ability will remove the enrage, but even when this is done Icehowl has usually one-shotted at least 1-3 toons.

Those are my thoughts on boss #1.
Boss #2 should be much easier.
Boss #3 (faction champs) would present more problems.
Boss #4 should be doable (with multi-click)
Boss #5 should be doable as well.

I don't think these issues are insurmountable - we'd just have to come with a lot of patience and some gold for repairs.

[mrmcgee21]

Theres plenty of time to use /follow and get out on normal thanks to the speed buff on Icehowl. I've 5 boxed the encounter a couple of times. Also using a mouseoever setup + the mouse passing regions thing in isboxer its possible to setup a pretty efficient raid healer ( I haven't used it a whole lot yet because facts are facts, healing is a headache either way ). I've been thinking about re-rolling over on KJ, maybe do a the 4 priest team I've been thinking about for sometime or something. Plus I have RaF this time =) so might as well get it while the gettings good..... maybe I'll go do that right now infact.

[Fursphere]

BOYH is an idea, although it cannot be a "boxed" healer. If you want to run a healer as your "leader" with DPS followers - that's fine. But a macro'd in healer is simply not an option for anything outside your own group.

I did a bit of raiding with a resto shaman up front and 3x elementals in tow. it works. Dave has used his holy pally up front, with dps mages and priests in tow. That works too.

Mindlessly blasting chain heals into the raid group heals - but its not the same.

And the MT should be solo in my opinion - off tanks are doable, but the MT shouldn't be in a boxer group. (yes, I know, I've done it successfully myself - but it wasn't easy, and there was a lot of painful learning lessons along the way)

[daviddoran]

I'm game!