Boomslang Raid

Dang guys, once again sorry about last night. I will rotate to the bench for the next few raid nights and should be available to fill around 9 or 930 if needed. Hopefully things settle down over here soon but until they do I don't want to eat up a slot for someone who can reliably commit the time. These kids really cramp my style ! Good thing they're cute.  

2 hours ago, Twisted said:

Dang guys, once again sorry about last night. I will rotate to the bench for the next few raid nights and should be available to fill around 9 or 930 if needed. Hopefully things settle down over here soon but until they do I don't want to eat up a slot for someone who can reliably commit the time. These kids really cramp my style ! Good thing they're cute.  

No worries, Twisted!

Assuming Kintari and Gavin are both in, we'll be set with 10. Not sure if you want to stick with w5 the whole night, but when we do get to it, let's tentatively go with the comp below. I'm going to ask Khani to swap to druid. I think it's our best chance, but I'm willing to be talked out of it.

• Chronos: Pyro, Mold
• Druids: Maia, Kintari, Khani (pure healing)
• Warr: Ser
• Scourge: Bone
• DPS: Strange, Temerity, Gavin

Walls are our biggest issue right now, but less chaotic add control and higher overall dps will make our lives much, much easier.

A few strat notes based on our conversation Monday after the raid was over:

• Gavin pointed out that we might be moving more than we needed to, so we'll try to tank as stationarily as we can. That should improve group dps and quickness/alacrity. To support that, Chronos will try to take aggro in such a way as to avoid unnecessary boss movement.
• Everyone will try to stay closer to boss; if we manage that, we'll have much more alacrity on average than we're getting right now.
• Kintari and Maia will both bring LB & the piercing trait; primary pusher brings glyph of tides and tries to pop into CA for group heals as soon as the LB push and tides are spent.
• Off tank will try to stay closer to the group. Just behind rather than way out there.
• We need to get epis off earlier then we were on Monday. Either primary pusher will call for it sooner or scourge will pop it as soon as the add is in a favorable position. We need the scourge to call epis and shout if it's not going to happen.
• Temerity is going to try to call the safe spots for walls, but any contribution on that front is good. I think it would be best to call "safe" instead of wall if the group doesn't have to move. In other words, only calling wall if there's danger. If you see wall and it's dangerous, call it even if you don't know where to go right away.

I'm thinking both me and Kintari could bring GoT:

Khani (normal healing traits): bring all spirits

Maia/Kintari: (Marksmanship and Skirmishing): GoT, Muddy Terrain, Search and Rescue? 

If we keep Skirmishing we can quick draw LB 4, but that means Khani has full spirit duty. If we go nature magic, we can share out the spirits, but LB 4 will be up less frequently. 

I also think we should think about it as first push and second push rather than primary and backup. I've been looking through more videos and most of them have 2+ pushers. If Kintari and I handle it, the chronos can concentrate on quickness/ alacrity.

Found this on Reddit.

Since the Surging Souls always come from cardinal directions, it can be useful to always knock the Dead to the NE, NW, SE, and SW to avoid blocking off the edge that the o---o pattern leaves. Markers can help people remember this in the middle of a fight.

Seems like a good idea.

A second thing: 

The walls are not very RNG at all. Everyone overestimates their randomness. In actuality, those nice and easy walls with the holes in the middle spawn every time if the entire raid stays in the middle of the arena. By contrast, the difficult walls with no holes, which are only avoidable at the edges of the arena, those spawn every time if the raid stays closer to the edge of the arena. If the tanks keep the boss near the center, and the raid stays with the boss, you'll only get easy walls. Furthermore, there are 4 guaranteed "safe spots" where the holes are always found on the easy walls. I've enclosed a picture illustrating this. Remember: this only works if you keep the whole raid near the middle and push the golems outside the arena. Moving the raid to the outer edges leads to a snowball effect which almost always results in a wipe. They posted this diagram https://imgur.com/a/oK94n

This sounds too good to be true but maybe we could try it for a few pulls.

Keeping the boss in the center seems reasonable enough, will you guys be able to push the golems out fast/far enough still though?

Just a note, the mid strat might be a meme. I rechecked this thread and someone posted this didn't work for them. Could have just been good luck for the OP's group. 

Hmm. Could be easier if the off tank is off the group slightly. For example, lets say we're tanking at circle, if the off tank stands towards square or heart (now that I think about it heart is probably best) the golem should run there. If the group is faced outwards, the golem should? survive long enough for us to push it. We should be able to push faster with 2 LB druids using glyph and point blank shot everytime.

That all-middle strat does sound too good to be true. And it doesn't really seem to align with my memory of events. But it is worth trying to have everyone stay just a knuckle inside the circle to see what happens. 

I think Maia's right about the proposed druid comp & strat; quick-drawing LB4 would be huge, and doing 1st and 2nd KB (with the quick-drawn #3 to knock it all the way off) would simplify things considerably.

I'm also willing to try to push the golem toward the corners rather than straight NESW, but I think that's going to prove to slow and cumbersome. Getting it out instantly, and knocking it all the way off the platform seem far more important to me than placing it carefully. That's especially true if we're staying anywhere near the middle of the platform.

Sorry, folks. I am out for tonight. The plague took me.

Gross, Bone, sorry. I'll see if I can get Fred or Odd to join us.

4 hours ago, Bone said:

Sorry, folks. I am out for tonight. The plague took me.

Yuck. Feel better soon, bud!