Raiding Rules, Please Read!

**Inoe** Tue Jul 06, 2010 12:40 pm

====Dies Irae Raiding=====

*Here will be listed the Raiding rules for Dies Irae members, so that there is no confusion when it comes time to raid.*

Short Form: for folks who don't like reading, but at some point, please read the whole thing to get a clearer picture.

Raid slots: We do our best to balance signups, consistency, and need
To Raid With Us: Know your class/spec/gear. We aren't a "hardcore raid guild", but we want to be good and make progress. We have many experienced players, ask for help!
Addons: Must have Omen, DBM and Vent (and be able to use them!)
Raid Etiquette: Remember everyone is committing time to the raid - lets have fun but focus when appropriate, clear vent for bosses, don't afk too often, and mostly, be positive.
Loot Rules: "Link what you want to replace", main spec first, biggest upgrade get it. Raid leader will occasionally give to someone else (a consistent player with few remaining upgrades available, for example).
Raid Prep: Have your gear ready (repaired, gemmed, etc), have food and flasks, know the fights, watch tankspot, etc (unless we specifically are trying a boss fresh).

Long form for people who like rambling discussions:

Raiding:
Raids are usually placed (in the WoW calendar) by Sunday Night, sometimes Monday. Check them out, and accept if you want to come along. If you accept but last minute can't make it, it is ok, though if you have a way of notifying us (or swap your status) please do... when we have a lot of tentatives, folks who didnt sign up but who want to raid, and folks who did sign up but dont make it, it takes longer to get the group going.

Right now we usually get 10-15 signups for each raid night, of which most show up. Therefore, a sign up wont guarantee a spot. As we are usually a touch oversubscribed, we wont be able to bring everyone every week, though we'll try and rotate slots around as fairly as we can. Please don't take it personally if we have to skip you at times.

We try and get invites going 10-15 minutes before raid start time, so please be punctual. While we of course look at sign up sheet, we also look at who is online. So showing up exactly at raid start may mean we're already full, so try and be on a bit early for raids. And again, please be understanding of oversubscribe situations, or cases where we really need one more ranged even though they didn't sign up.

Right now we are a bit big for 10-man raids, but not quite big enough (or correct class distribution) for 2 10's. So we are focusing on 10man ICC's at the moment. Folks have suggested trying 25s, but at most we usually have 15 sign ups, leaving us needing several healers, many dps, and a tank, which is a bit much to reliably (and enjoyably) manage in a PuG. I'm spoiled by running with guildies and enjoying it - so personally i'd rather not risk a unfun raid for better loot. When Cataclysm ships, word is that 10s will have same loot as 25s (though proportionally less) so the "get to 25" goal isn't a long-term need.

That said, if the guild grows to have more reliable raiders who get along, like working together, and have fun, awesome. If you do know people who might be interested in joining the guild, please direct them to one of the guild officers/senior members. A good goal would be to grow enough to have two separate and solid 10 man groups. But we aren't looking to become a huge guild (well, other than the number of alts, that is).

Loot rules:
The basic idea is "Link what you'd replace, biggest potential upgrade gets it - if pretty close, roll". That said, this is always a bit tricky. The "usual raiders" often have only one or two drops left that are useful for them, but a new team member will usually have greater need.

So as raid leaders, we do reserve the right to occasionally override the usual rule. This will probably be very rare, and we of course will do our best to be fair to both our new members and consistent raiders.

Raid Etiquette:
When we are fighting bosses, please cut vent chatter to a minimum. We need to be able to hear whats going on and what needs to be done for a fight. It is important to keep silent unless sometime urgent is happening and your guildmates need to be alerted. Please feel free to chat it up during trash pulls and what not, we still want to have our fun discussions as well!

On the purely mechanical side, get the basics. Have DBM and Omen installed (and know how they work). We aren't slaves to Recount (and certainly not GearScore) as raid awareness and teamwork are much more important than pure DPS/HPS… but if we are going to progress we do need to all be effective. Also, know the basics of assist/focus targets, what buffs you can give the raid, etc. And as we said at top, know your class/spec/rotations. Between asking in the guild and the huge amount of web content (wow.com, etc) it should be possible to get comfortable and effective with any class/spec.

Progression Nights:
This is pretty important as well. Please read up on the fights that you don’t know yet, or fights that we are having trouble on. Tankspot.com has a lot of advice on boss strategies to look over, as well as those very helpful videos. Please make sure that you are aware of your job when coming to the raids, if you are a DPS, know where you have to stand and what you have to look out for. If you are a Tank, know what the bosses abilities are and know where to tank them. And if you are a healer, know your position, are you a tank healer or a raid healer, and know how much the bosses/adds are expected to hit for so you can plan your spells accordingly.

If we ever want to progress in ICC we need to be able to one shot bosses our first night, and then get into progression on newer fights. And be aware for some Progression nights we are likely to be pretty specific with building the group, to try and get a group we think has the best chance of succeeding - so sign up if you can make it and are ready, and then we'll figure out the strongest and best balanced group we can. Come expecting to wipe and maybe do dailies the night before to have enough gold to pay for repairs. Wiping is part of progression, don’t get discouraged, it’ll take us a bit, but we’ll get there. Just look at what we were able to do with the Dreamwalker fight! Awesome job!

Minor upgrades are good as well. This is something that is optional, but might be something to consider investing in. What I have found out is that if you want to push yourself just a bit farther, just a bit longer, investing in epic gems is a good idea. While it can be spendy, if you know that you just got a piece of gear that won’t be replaced a long while, I would suggest epic gems for the slots. The extra stats might not seem like much of an improvement compared to regular gems, the added stats might reduce a global cd by 1 second or something else, if you can afford to do so, and have a really nice piece of gear, spend gold for epic gems! The guild has several high level profession masters (Kakari has many of the Epic Gem cuts, for instance) so ask around and the guild can probably help you improve your gear.

Also, please try your best to remember flasks, I know that I myself have trouble remembering to go have some made or to go buy some, but those extra burst of stats the flasks provide can help a lot, and it is worth investing into.