Post by merlinmast on Feb 7, 2011 11:59:33 GMT -5
Raid Basics
In the interest of getting people more knowledgeable about raids I'm going to start writing short articles about raid concepts that are mostly generalized. Mind you I have a personal spin on all of this so if you've raided before you might have slightly different opinions.
For the uninitiated, what is a raid like? The best comparison would be to a heroic. Imagine a dungeon where instead of 5 people, you had 10 or 25. What do all those people do? This can change from boss to boss but typically a 10 person raid consists of:
2 Tanks
2-3 Healers (depending on skill or gear)
5-6 Dps
If you've never raided before you might be curious why so many healers and tanks?
Generally, raid fights have mechanics or boss abilities that require two tanks to function. One simple example is a 'boss' fight that simply has two bosses.
Healers are generally broken up into two categories: Tank or Raid healer. Tank healers have primary responsibility to keep their assigned tank alive, thus why there are usually two. The raid healer is responsible for everyone else, thus why their area effect heals are of prime importance.
Dps do not have roles in the strictest sense. However, there are many important considerations for the makeup of a raids dps such as having a mix of different crowd control, having the most buffs, and not having too much melée versus ranged. Additionally, Dps have a bigger contribution to wipes than usual in raids due to most boss fights being timed in some fashion. Maximizing dps is much more important.
Typically raids consist of anywhere from 3 to 6 or more bosses separated by a small amount of unusually difficult 'trash' pulls (normal mobs) The bosses within any one raid generally escalate in difficulty though depending on who is in your group some may be easier than others.
Difficulty wise, it is right after heroics and is easiest when you have all of your gear from heroics. Also it is imperative that you know all the features of your class.
One last note: You will wipe. If wiping even once makes you want to throw your keyboard through your monitor, raids might not be right for you :-p but the feeling of finally killing that challenging boss is a great feeling.
Oh and there's purples!
In the interest of getting people more knowledgeable about raids I'm going to start writing short articles about raid concepts that are mostly generalized. Mind you I have a personal spin on all of this so if you've raided before you might have slightly different opinions.
For the uninitiated, what is a raid like? The best comparison would be to a heroic. Imagine a dungeon where instead of 5 people, you had 10 or 25. What do all those people do? This can change from boss to boss but typically a 10 person raid consists of:
2 Tanks
2-3 Healers (depending on skill or gear)
5-6 Dps
If you've never raided before you might be curious why so many healers and tanks?
Generally, raid fights have mechanics or boss abilities that require two tanks to function. One simple example is a 'boss' fight that simply has two bosses.
Healers are generally broken up into two categories: Tank or Raid healer. Tank healers have primary responsibility to keep their assigned tank alive, thus why there are usually two. The raid healer is responsible for everyone else, thus why their area effect heals are of prime importance.
Dps do not have roles in the strictest sense. However, there are many important considerations for the makeup of a raids dps such as having a mix of different crowd control, having the most buffs, and not having too much melée versus ranged. Additionally, Dps have a bigger contribution to wipes than usual in raids due to most boss fights being timed in some fashion. Maximizing dps is much more important.
Typically raids consist of anywhere from 3 to 6 or more bosses separated by a small amount of unusually difficult 'trash' pulls (normal mobs) The bosses within any one raid generally escalate in difficulty though depending on who is in your group some may be easier than others.
Difficulty wise, it is right after heroics and is easiest when you have all of your gear from heroics. Also it is imperative that you know all the features of your class.
One last note: You will wipe. If wiping even once makes you want to throw your keyboard through your monitor, raids might not be right for you :-p but the feeling of finally killing that challenging boss is a great feeling.
Oh and there's purples!
