Breakfast Topic: Banging our heads against the wall
by Tori Eidson 
May 14th 2010 at 8:00AM
Fast forward to Wrath of the Lich King, a different guild and a different server. We have found our proverbial wall in the Lich King. Many of us have successfully downed him in 10-man, but the 25-man fight is a different story. Our problem seems to come from executing phase 2 right, with having a stun rotation on the valkyrs and placing the Defiles in the right spots away from other raid members. Yes, we have the lag monster come out during this phase, but it is mostly an execution point.
In both those cases, I have seen my guildmates get so frustrated that they either leave the guild, take a break from the game or even not show up to raid on those nights we are focusing specifically on that boss. They just don't want to be hitting their heads against a wall all night, even though it would be for progression.
Raid leaders, how do you get over that hurdle? Do you just keep picking away at the boss until you get him down, or do you take a night where you go through old content to give your raiders a break? Raiders, how do you handle constant wiping on a boss? Are you the type who stays with your raid group through thick and thin, or do you jump ship when you are stuck on that one boss?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Josin May 14th 2010 8:03AM
If you figure out an answer to this, I (and my guild) would be appreciative.
Cube May 14th 2010 8:13AM
Yeah, I second this wholeheartedly.
More often than not I just give up. I "fade away;" I don't want to disappoint my friends by continuing to try week after week and failing and then seeing fewer and fewer numbers...25 mans turning into 10 mans after just a few weeks... Recruitment becoming 'desperate oh god invite everyone' again... It's just too bothersome. I just give up and hardly log on, avoiding raiding for whatever reasons I can muster up...
I, of course, am a part of the problem - and it's what a lot of folks run into - they just...lose interest in even attempting failing again. It really sucks.
If only there were some tool to make this all easier... Or an answer to it all...
Deathknighty May 14th 2010 8:44AM
@Cube
Dude, see a therapist, you sound suicidal!
Rakah May 14th 2010 10:54AM
Attitude is a very big part of pregression, you and your team must be positive to have people performing at their best. If you believe you will wipe you don't try and end up making mistakes that cause a wipe.
Sometimes the issue is some people are not comitted and you end up struggling to get the full 25. At those times it may be better for the guild to try something differant to build people back up again, maybe some old raid hard modes.
thefool May 14th 2010 11:47AM
Personally I love a challenge, and I really think the LK fight is quite a great challenge at that. It's pretty awesome to be stuck on a boss because of execution and not for other stupid reasons (DPS check, lag monster). It definitely gets frustrating at times, especially after wiping to him 52 times so far, but we are getting better so overall it's a good experience. It comes down to whether or not you are making progress on each wipe.
Camo May 14th 2010 11:57AM
That's pretty much where I'm too (exept we're at sindy in icc10).
I'm fine with wiping on new content but our raid leader and most of the other officers decided to extend the id.
The reason was because "none of the raiders need the loot". That is partly true, everyone has an average ilevel of 255+ but there are still items people need on top of the 20 frosties or more with the quest.
I wouldn't join a pug with bosses down if it's not reset day so why would I keep an id especially when one shotting 9/12 in one go is possible?
thefool May 14th 2010 12:17PM
Also, keep in mind that you can practice positioning for phase 2 and defiles without actually pulling the boss. Setup on the platform, have a DK pretend to be LK and have them setup a macro that targets someone and does a raid warning with the target and start a 2 second cast. Then cast D&D where that person is. Don't pull the boss until everyone is moving correctly in practice.
clevins May 14th 2010 12:53PM
Some of this is attitude - people think "Oh god, not that boss again, we always wipe..." and proceed to wipe. If you have alternate bosses you can do (the Keepers in Ulduar, the choice between Fester/RF and Dreamwalker in ICC, etc) then tell the raid "OK, this week instead of the boss we've been wiping on a lot, we're going to learn and kill Other Boss." That way everyone has something new to look forward to and progress or a kill will remind them that they're OK. An Ulduar example... we were stuck on Thorim. Splitting the raid was just not working for us.... so one night I took us to Freya. We cleared the room and, on try #6, killed her. It was a good feeling and reminded the raid we could do this.
ON an end boss like LK, spend some time going over the stuff that needs to happen and isn't and then set a wipe limit so that people know they're not stuck there for three 3 hour nights wiping 20 times. Either set a number of hours or set a number of wipes and, if you haven't got him, let people go do other stuff. People tend not to want to login when they're being forced to do something they feel is futile and not fun. Of course, if you hit your limit but you're all of a sudden making progress you can keep going... but if you're not, don't make people feel like dicks if they don't want to continue to bang their heads against that wall.
Eisengel May 15th 2010 5:17AM
I have to echo some of the comments above, don't get down. Whenever my guild wipes we always say, 'what happened' as we're running back. Sometimes the cause is easy to determine, sometimes not, but we come up with some idea on what wiped us, and what we're going to do to change it the next time. We usually take bosses down after 2 or 3 times the first time we see them. The only that I can recall wiping on without a kill over a raid or two were Grobbulus, Gluth, Netherspite and Nightbane - all fights that required some pretty high coordination and had bosses that packed a wallop, where a small slip-up here or there meant you were doomed.
It also helps that a lot of my guildies have a lot of alts, so if we want to shuffle the raid comp around and try something different, we usually can. Sometimes all it takes is a little shift in the comp. Try not to get down and focus on what you did well... placement, movement, handling adds, how close the boss was to being downed... and then try to figure what else you'd need to get over the hump. Lag is tough to beat, but don't be afraid to mix things around or alter your strategy a bit.
Shamdark May 14th 2010 8:07AM
I kind of have the same issue but with an easier boss. Well, easier bossES. Either way, I'd like to know to how to make people who understand how a fight works TEACH people that don't understand instead of, well, instead of what they do now.
Cataca May 14th 2010 9:50AM
The most frustrating fight to TEACH was Instructor Razuvious in Naxx. Not because it was hard but because the person teaching the priests to MC had to explain a different classes abilities. And also get over the fact that even though MC and Mind Sooth are key abilities to a priest, the priest your teaching may not have ever used them or even know what they do.
Then to teach the rest of the raid to not attack the Understudies. And get over the fact that even though you have clearly stated "DO NOT ATTACK THE UNDERSTUDIES" half the raid still will because it's such an odd concept.
Kanuris May 14th 2010 12:29PM
A guild i was in was banging it's head on Festergut for 3 weeks straight at one point. The guild i'm in now is one-shotting most of the heroic 25's on farm.
If the guild your in has hit a brick wall, do try stick with it. But if it starts taking the mickey, look around for backup guilds to jump up or down to when others start to jump ship.
Arizor May 14th 2010 8:14AM
My guild have recently downed the Lich King on 25 after countless wipes, dont worry - you'll get there eventually :).
There were nights when I was actually hoping we wouldnt have enough people to raid so that it would be called, and I wouldnt have to heal a crushing 3 hours of what felt like futility, though I always showed for the raid.
Then in 2 weeks it just sort of came together and we made excellent progress resulting in a kill!
The elation we all felt was amazing! The the longer you wipe on a boss, the sweeter it feels to finally overcome, imo.
L May 14th 2010 10:09AM
Wow, are you in my guild?
Elleyna May 14th 2010 10:09AM
Same here (although I wasn't present for the kill...). We spent several nights hammering away at phase 2 and it just didn't seem like ANY progress with the defiles or valks was being made. Defiles would still drop in the middle of the raid and we'd still have 1 or 2 people dropped off the side. Then one night (when I wasn't there of course), everything just clicked and they had a fairly clean kill.
kebosangar May 14th 2010 8:19AM
Well I'm more of a casual guild. So I'll just go and do other bosses. But, dang, since it's the LK, I usually just go at it with good humor. We bang our heads on putricide for 6 hours total, so what I can only do is keep the moral up by being high in spirit my self. And dang does it feel good when we finally downed him.
Of course you need to be realistic though. If the progression is not improving after after 3 hours, there's something wrong with how you do it (maybe) or just need moar gear? If all else fails, sleep on it, and tell them "Don't worry guys, we'll get the sob tomorrow." and really mean it.
Adam May 14th 2010 8:19AM
It may seem like a brick wall but you are progressing and once you get over that big hurdle it all falls into place and the effort pays off.
Case in point - my guild spent many weeks wiping on 25 man Lich King... after we downed him 2 weeks later we started to be able to one-shot him.
biker_rob23 May 14th 2010 8:21AM
Recently ive been leading our 2nd 10 man against LK and we've spent several nights working on him so far and we're probly extending again next week. Now there is a raider or two who wants to get back to grabbing up all the emblems but In all honestly being able to say I killed LK is much more important to me. Anyways I just keep reminding them that each night we push a little bit farther into the fight ( got to p3 last night several times ). If we continue our trend of getting deeper into the encounter each night eventually its going to pay off. I plead with them to keep focusing on the goal and doing their absolute best to master the mechanics of the fight. The feeling of relief and absolute joy of finally mastering a fight that is challenging, that you spend many of nights of dying on, is very well worth every moment.
Bunneh May 14th 2010 8:23AM
Every wipe you have is a step forward, every person who skips the progress raid or takes a break is several steps back. Keep that in mind.
Coors May 14th 2010 8:35AM
The problem with having low numbers is that most often you'll have to bring someone new to the fight who perhaps has read up on it but hasn't actually experienced it. It only takes 1 person placing a defile in the wrong place to wipe the entire raid.
So it seems if you can't get the exact same raiders progressing every night, you're doing nothing but starting progression over from scratch. This really lowers morale. And defile really seems to be brick wall we're stuck at right now. Even on 10 man.
I continually try to encourage members to attend and assure them that it'll be worth it when we actually kill him and can hold Kingslayer over our heads, but it's hard to herd intelligent sheep to a slaughter.