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Svensson
CaptSvensson
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re: Svensson's maxims about effective groups and raids

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Like all good things, this started as a joke. But I wanted to gather some opinions and see if we can get a good discussion regarding how effective fellowships work. Everyone agrees we have had some effective fellowships (like doing 5 radiance instances in 2 hours), but we never really quantified why they worked. This is my theory:

1. Morale, Morale, Morale

Part of what made Moria a controversial expansion was that it radically changed the mood of the game. Shadows of Angmar did not have as much Area of Effect damage, so extreme specialization was rewarded for Carn Dum/Urugarth (tank has massive morale/mitigation, and everyone else was all DPS and power regen). Mines of Moria radically changed that, but players grew frustrated because they didn't really recognize that. Every instance in Moria has massive amounts of Area of Effect damage; and there are times when any healer is going to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of burst damage coming in. Thus, Svensson's #1 maxim is:

Quote:
A dead <insert class here> does 0.0 DPS/healing. Worry about your morale before you worry about your <insert any stat here>!


Furthermore, Moria introduced timed objectives. Many instances only give you 20 or 30 minutes to beat them before you lose the reward. Deaths cost time in the actual rez, or worse, releasing, and time is often a luxury we cannot afford. Maximizing your morale keeps the fellowship cohesive, and having all 6 of us alive is usually better than having that extra 0.001% more heals/DPS. Use your judgment, but it's generally true!


2. Trust your team, stick to the plan

The best fellowships I've seen come from the team trusting each other to do their respective jobs. The poorest PUGs I've seen is where a member clearly believes his fellowship members aren't dependable and breaks ranks. The clearest example is when you are raiding with two Minstrels and one decides that the other is not doing a good enough job and tries to heal both groups. When both Minstrels accidentally heal the same tank, the other tank is going to die. If both had stuck to the plan, the raid probably would have been able to keep going. This leads to Svensson's #2 maxim:

Quote:
Stick to the plan until something actually goes wrong! If no one is defeated, no one should be breaking rank!


All the way to that treasure box, tank according to the plan, heal according to the plan, DPS according to the plan! This also applies to fellowship maneuvers. If someone is not putting in their color, they probably have a good reason for it, but throwing in random colors unless called for can wreck it. The color assignments can be changed, but everyone needs to know first.


3. Coordinate and conquer, work as a unit

Plans can become obsolete the moment the fighting starts, and this little game is no exception. There will be times when things do not match what we agreed would happen. When that comes, effective communication has always been the hallmarks of a successful Twilight Avengers fellowship. Remember that time we accidentally pulled TWO groups in the Halls of Crafting? Remember how we all survived?

What I noticed about that fellowship was three things. The first was that we did not excessively communicate; everything was to the point and strictly necessary for our survival. We all exercised good judgment in determining what was necessary to survive and cut out the extraneous stuff.

Secondly, we followed a chain of command; ultimately the fellowship leader is responsible for coordinating things when contradictory orders are issued. The leader did not hesitate and put out a game plan. We followed through, and we won.

Thirdly, all of us knew how to play our individual classes; but on top of that, we also knew how to make them work together. The Captain and Minstrel coordinated heals to avoid one person getting too many and another getting too few. We coordinated our stuns to avoid wasting them on immunity timers. We coordinated our fellowship maneuvers. We used Ebbing Ire and other aggro tricks to pass the aggro around when someone couldn't get healed. We used Stun/Mez to interrupt monster inductions.

This leads to Svensson's #3 maxim:

Quote:
Your own individual character abilities are much more valuable when combined and coordinated with those of your teammates!



4. Analysis comes after!

Most of us have families and jobs; so we don't have the luxury of spending 4 hours on an instance. The reason why it works is because we don't waste time. Debating mechanics or how a boss exactly works is not a productive use of time, we can do that on the message boards when we're at work (well, some of us). The reason we're able to kill so many bosses and do instances in so little time is we're smart about it.

We play and if we don't get it, we'll talk about it out of the game, come up with a new plan or theory, and then next time we play we'll test it. If it doesn't work, we repeat, discussing it out of game when we can't play, and then spending our game time actually playing.

This carries over to raids. We don't take forever on our raids, because we don't have the time. We post raid strategies ahead of time, expect our members to read and understand them, and follow them. If something goes wrong, we don't spend hours debating it, we make a decision and carry through.

This leads to Svensson's #4 maxim:

Quote:
Most plans fail not because they are unsound, but because we lack the practice of executing them! We will try a plan until we are sure it's the plan and not our execution. Feedback about the plan is short and to the point, and decisions will be made by the leader and carried through by the raid.


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Tocanis
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re: Svensson's maxims about effective groups and raids

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Where's the 'like' button? *grumble*


Anyway, good info! I'd like to add an extension to number 3. In order for us all to coordinate our skills together, we need to know what skills we have available and what they do exactly. It's one thing to know how to play your character, and it's another thing to know what every single one of your skills does/doesn't do (referring back to Alli's tip of the week regarding going back and reading the tooltips on your skills again).

Story: I didn't know that minstrels could remove corruptions until Alli posted that tip and I went back to read my skills again. Since then I've been actively looking for situations where minstrel corruption removal might be an optimal course of action.


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re: Svensson's maxims about effective groups and raids

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I wish Minstrel corruption removal were more effective, but since it is within melee range only it just isn't.

I do like the post though.
RockOnn
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re: Svensson's maxims about effective groups and raids

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"Everyone has a great plan until they get hit in the face" Randy Couture


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