Seriena
10-14-2003, 11:57 PM
First let me say that this is only from my experience and that I’m asking for others to give input based on their experience.
I’m in a guild that I consider pretty casual, family and friends oriented. We teamed up with 3 other guilds with the same background about 2 years ago in order to give our members the chance to raid and see the end of each expansion. The majority of our members are college age or older, hold full time jobs, go to school, have families and other obligations and don’t want the pressure of a full time job in game. They come and go from week to week as RL requires and when they’re in game they want a good mix of being able to raid as well as time for hanging out with friends, explore zones, do quests, etc.
It works great, but the thing about it is we attract a lot of people from very small friend and family guilds that basically have no raiding experience. They pretty much solod or duo’d their way through the game and don’t know what is expected of them on raids and are to overwhelmed or afraid to ask.
Some things I come across is that druids are especially shy when it comes to being a casual raider. They don’t know how or when to assist heal, what aa’s to get, when to nuke or when not to or how to be in a CH chain (maybe not how to be in a chain but how to have the confidence to be able to do it).
So, as raiders, what words of advice would you give to a new casual raiding druid coming into your guild? What aa’s would you encourage them to get (remember it’s casual raiding so nothing is required)? How about spells? When to have up certain spells, when to use MGB and when not to, etc. Any other tips?
The biggest thing I expect out of new druids is for them to be communicative. Join the druid channel (I’m sure not everyone has one but we use one to organize debuffs, buffs, mgb sotw chains, etc.) without having to be told to join it. Ask if debuffs are covered and if they aren’t then offer to take one for the duration of the raid. If the raid requires MGB SotW work out the order and make a hotkey.
The most basic aa’s I would suggest are MGB, SotW, SCM, HA, SCR.
Effects I would put importance on are Flowing thought, Mana preservation, Improved Healing, Improved Damage, Spell Haste then Extended buff duration.
When raiding, our biggest problem is getting druids to /assist heal. When you see a summoned message that isn’t the MA or one of the back up tanks, target the mob and /assist to check their hps. If their hitpoints are dropping fast, don’t wait to see if the person in their group is healing, just heal. I put my patching hotkey message in /say so it’s not spamming channels but other healers can see who I’m healing if they want to.
If you’re going to be in a CH chain, try to be in between 2 clerics. Most of the time your heal will be enough but you never know. If the mob you’re up against has mana, try to get in a group with a necro so you can get extra mana regen from Mind Wrack.
If you're strictly on patching duty, heal smart. Don't just blindly patch and blow through your mana. Get spell haste by BoR and an item (mage summoned if you need to) and only patch when necessary.
Have PotN mem’d and buff people as they are rezzed. Announce it in channel so someone else doesn’t double buff.
Anything else? I know we have a pretty diverse group of people that visit this site, from hard core raiders, to casual raiders, to hard core soloers. What advice would you all give?
I’m in a guild that I consider pretty casual, family and friends oriented. We teamed up with 3 other guilds with the same background about 2 years ago in order to give our members the chance to raid and see the end of each expansion. The majority of our members are college age or older, hold full time jobs, go to school, have families and other obligations and don’t want the pressure of a full time job in game. They come and go from week to week as RL requires and when they’re in game they want a good mix of being able to raid as well as time for hanging out with friends, explore zones, do quests, etc.
It works great, but the thing about it is we attract a lot of people from very small friend and family guilds that basically have no raiding experience. They pretty much solod or duo’d their way through the game and don’t know what is expected of them on raids and are to overwhelmed or afraid to ask.
Some things I come across is that druids are especially shy when it comes to being a casual raider. They don’t know how or when to assist heal, what aa’s to get, when to nuke or when not to or how to be in a CH chain (maybe not how to be in a chain but how to have the confidence to be able to do it).
So, as raiders, what words of advice would you give to a new casual raiding druid coming into your guild? What aa’s would you encourage them to get (remember it’s casual raiding so nothing is required)? How about spells? When to have up certain spells, when to use MGB and when not to, etc. Any other tips?
The biggest thing I expect out of new druids is for them to be communicative. Join the druid channel (I’m sure not everyone has one but we use one to organize debuffs, buffs, mgb sotw chains, etc.) without having to be told to join it. Ask if debuffs are covered and if they aren’t then offer to take one for the duration of the raid. If the raid requires MGB SotW work out the order and make a hotkey.
The most basic aa’s I would suggest are MGB, SotW, SCM, HA, SCR.
Effects I would put importance on are Flowing thought, Mana preservation, Improved Healing, Improved Damage, Spell Haste then Extended buff duration.
When raiding, our biggest problem is getting druids to /assist heal. When you see a summoned message that isn’t the MA or one of the back up tanks, target the mob and /assist to check their hps. If their hitpoints are dropping fast, don’t wait to see if the person in their group is healing, just heal. I put my patching hotkey message in /say so it’s not spamming channels but other healers can see who I’m healing if they want to.
If you’re going to be in a CH chain, try to be in between 2 clerics. Most of the time your heal will be enough but you never know. If the mob you’re up against has mana, try to get in a group with a necro so you can get extra mana regen from Mind Wrack.
If you're strictly on patching duty, heal smart. Don't just blindly patch and blow through your mana. Get spell haste by BoR and an item (mage summoned if you need to) and only patch when necessary.
Have PotN mem’d and buff people as they are rezzed. Announce it in channel so someone else doesn’t double buff.
Anything else? I know we have a pretty diverse group of people that visit this site, from hard core raiders, to casual raiders, to hard core soloers. What advice would you all give?