Another wall of text about stuff from me. In this suggestion I wanted to address something that we might be doing for the wrong reasons.

Let me explain. In Classic we did not take consumables for "learning attempts". The expectation on new bosses is that if it's challenging at all - you need your screw-up time to figure everything out. The more complex an encounter, the more you can expect people to die to the stuff they aren't supposed to die to - at first anyway.

When it's looking good, like an enrage at 2% or something - then you can be almost guaranteed that flasks will help turn a close attempt into a progression kill.



So, the suggestion.

1. Don't flask or take anything more than a fish feast and standard raid buffs for "learning" attempts.

We need our screw-up time to get the complex mechanics down, every guild does. Might as well make that part of the process cheap while we are working out the details.

2. When it's looking good, have the raid flask up (yes you still have to bring a couple flasks - cheapskates!) take the best buff food for your class - and kick some boss booty.

Your consumable money is going towards an attempt with a fairly high chance of success, so it's money better spent.

That's a good suggestion and we'll go ahead with it. Not that we've ever really policed consumable use (nor are we interested to). But raid leaders will take it upon themselves to announce when it's time to flask up and when we can keep them on ice.

There's not much in the way of good excuses for not bringing a couple flasks to every progression raid. The guild-bank is well-furnished. And when it doesn't have what you need, money is acquired easily enough to hit the AH. I'd like to think we can trust our raiders to be responsible about that. Please don't make us play consumable police, that'd be rather petty and we have better things to do.

I generally buy my own flasks I get enough dailies done through the week to cover that cost, and honestly dont care about using them from the beginning, well maybe not the trash pulls in ICC. But that's just me.

Raiding never was cheap. That's why they made daily quests!

Maybe for your first or second attempt on a boss for the first time this would make sense. Past that I see no reason not to be fully raid buffed for every encounter and get the most out of every attempt. Also, considering the 9 hour weekly raid schedule I doubt this can get to be too expensive especially with the help of the guild bank.

I haven't been with Stolen Souls very long and I don't mean offense to anyone, but a relatively inexpensive fish feast to offer the entire raid a food buff might seem small if you are just looking at your stats, that stat increase over the entire raid is pretty substantial cost-wise. The same idea applies to flasks which obviously persists through death.

If you still find it hard to afford a few flasks a week let me know and I'll help you out, I'm elixir spec so you might even get more for your money. And who knows, maybe you'll save a few gold in repair bills along the way.

Seeing as now we can clear content on easy-mode first and I'm assuming most people do thier homework and watch video strats before fights anyways, I don't think we need quite the learning curve to adapt to the "complex mechanics" to each boss fight like we used to.

imo

I dont about others but i rather not use the guild bank money for my own repairs . sure it is less a factor for us that wear cloth and I much rather see the people that use plate or mail have a little help because there costs are so much to repair. also i just want to thank the guild for such a great time learning the new raid content. someday it would be fun just to wax through Black temple for the fact i have never even been inside the place.i know there is not much to gain loot wise but it would be fun to try just to see it once. If not it is ok too.. well happy new year and congrats to all the new people that have had some babies this past year. i hope all is well with them and there family..

I see your point of view, Plasmatik

I think you take the title of the suggestion too literally. I can be a sarcastic person, which does not translate well to people who don't know me - and doesn't come across the same in written form.

I have to agree and disagree. Consumables do aboslutely nothing for the raid while we are stumbling to the basic mechanics of the fight.

Assuming we make a lot of progress in a couple of attempts though, we might as well flask up and see if we can bring it home in the next couple of attempts. I'm sure the raid leaders would see that as the right time to ask people to flask.

That's also kind of the trap these days. Real meaningful progression is not going to come after everyone watches the tankspot video. Some amount of screwing up/learning is still required on anything but the easiest fights - most of those we would have got on our own with little trouble anyway.

The raid has to reach a reasonable point in it's execution of the fight before consumables do anything but cost money. That's the heart of the issue.

Even then, it's not as much about cost as it is about using consumables smarter. My original point is that it is better to take a flask for a reason than just because.

* Many edits, I should not attempt to post while on the phone and handling support issues at work lol

I understand it's cheaper and perhaps more efficient to only fully buff with consumables on encounters where you believe we have a reasonable shot at downing the boss. It just seems counter productive to me. Although, you could argue that wasting gold on learning attempts is also counter productive.

I also think we'd have a better idea of where we stand as to how close we are to downing a boss if we were fully buffed as compared to not fully buffed. Adding to this I think players would perform better not only becuase they are fully buffed but becuase we aren't accepting the encounter as a premeditated wipe.

I suppose I'm used to watching tankspot 10 times and testing PTR before an actual encounter, so like I said before I would agree with you for lets say the first or second attempt on a new boss.

Is this also considering Professor Putricide, Blood Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa and the Lich King given the limited attempt system?

Limited attempts do change things some yes. It's probably best if people are taking a flask and the best buff food for their class up front.

Homework makes a big difference here too, since we can into some kind of workable strategy a little quicker if everyone understands the jist and what to do. If we could get some PTR time and have our core group well versed in the fight by the time it goes live most of the time - then we could push for a kill on every attempt including our best consumables.

Part of the spirit of the suggestion was something like North Rend Beasts in ToGC - where the norm for a guild like SS is to be around 20-25 attempts out of 50 for the night when you get your first kill. Attendance suffers when you get into the 2nd/3rd repair range for the night - which is sometimes just the amount of wiping/learning that's needed to get a breakthrough. Classic casual raiding guild dilema.

Currently the raid leader has been having people flask for progression attempts.