Raiding and you

[Steppy]

So, this guide will (hopefully) help you to become a better raider with a few easy steps.
This is a guide for both new raiders, aswell as people that are raiding/have raided before, but wants some tips to make them better at it.

This guide will contain:

* How to play
* General behaviour
* Macros
* Addons

Here we go.


How to play

An important step to become a good raider is to learn how to play properly in raids.
Now you're probably thinking "But I know how to play, I don't L2P!". Well, most people know the basic mechanics of their class and such, but you need more than that to become a good raider.
Look through your spellbook, those spells that aren't at your bars. You might not think that you need Hand of Salvation, Cleanse, or taunt as a retri pala, but you do! There's always times in raids where those will help. Is a mob punching your healer? Slap on your 50% damage reduction bubble and taunt it, even if you're a dps.
Are you doing Thorim hardmode, and that mage is about to overaggro the main tank? Throw Hand of Salvation on him.

It's also a good idea to make spells such as HoS, HoF, and so to on-mouseover spells. This way, you don't have to stop hitting the boss, target a member, and throw the spell, then go back to the boss.
You can see how to make on-mouseover macros in the macro part of this guide.

You should also read about your class on sites such as Elitist Jerks. Go to the class sections, or the theory think tank links there and start reading

Focustarget
Another thing that helps alot in raids is using the focus frame, it's even good for trash.
For example, the mobs before Kologarn and Iron council (the stone statues) will throw runes at people. They will target them just before they start casting.
Simply focustarget the one you aren't dps'ing down first, and look at the focustarget's target, and target's target while dps'ing down the mobs. If you see that they're targeting you for a second, be ready to move.
Or the arms on Kologarn, Sara in P1 Yogg, etc.

Interupting
Interupting casting is also important.
Even tho someone might not die from that Flamestrike that the Pyromancer is casting, it will require more healing, and longer downtime drinking.
Simply be ready to wind shock / CS / kick or whatever that mob that are casting.

And if a sap breaks loose early, cc him unless you're cc'ing someone else. Even Hex, Repentance, or Blind works great.

Dispelling
Dispelling is really important aswell.
Even if you're a dps, there's no reason why you can't dispel members of your raid, and buffs from mobs.
Make a on-mouseover macro here so you don't have to retarget the boss/the person you're healing etc.

It's important that you don't dispel things such as the Binding Heal that a mob casts in Freya's room. If you dispel that, it will damage everyone around you.
Make sure you know which spells that are important to dispel

Make sure you know what you're doing
Reading guides for bosses you haven't done before (or mayby have done, but haven't done it as a specific role) is important.
Even if you have done it before, you might not know exactly what his abilitys does.
Yeah, you know they deal damage, but what else?


General Behaviour

This stage is important. The way you should behave is different depending on which type of guild you're in ("immature" people that likes to do fartjokes, or mature people that are serious about raiding).
But most of the times, you're best of by being mature and serious.
Of course you should be able to joke about things aswell, but don't be some immature idiot that seems to be ten years old.

Another somewhat important thing is to have decent grammar.
It's really annoying to see people who can't spell at all, it just makes them look stupid.
Of course, being mature and a good raider is more important than this.


Ventrilo
Most 'real' guilds will require vent. It's important for you to have vent, and listen, and if needed, talk aswell.
Every guild doesn't require you to talk tho, but it is often not a good idea to write in the chat while doing a boss fight (unless you're only writing a word or two).

Attendance
An important part of this guide is attendance. You want to have as high as possible.
Some guilds wants you to have 100% attendance, some 50.
But the most important thing is, if your guild have some kind of signup system, and you have signed up - be there.
If something comes up, and you can't come, let them know. Signing as unavaible at the page is often not enough tho, atleast not if there's less than a day until the raid.
Talk with your guildmaster/officers, or make a post at your guildforum. Make sure that they know you can't come.



Macros

Some macros will help you alot when you're raiding.
Below is some macros that you can use for raiding.
Don't be afraid to experiment with new macros, be creative!

Targetmacro

/tar Dark Rune Sen
/tar Iron Const
/tar Heart of the D
/tar Life Spa
/tar Kolog
/tar Right A
/tar Charged Sph
/tar Feral Defender
/tar Flash Freeze
/tar Iron Roo
/tar Eonar's G
/tar Strengthened Iron Ro
/tar Constrictor Tent

This macro is great. It allows you to target things that have to be nuked down fast etc.
You can add other mobs to the macro if you want to.
It's important to know, that the lines at the bottom will get prio. Meaning that it will target Strengthened Iron Roots over Eonar's Gift etc.

The reason that it's not the whole name of the mobs, is so I can fit it in one macro.


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Combatressing macro

/cast Rebirth(Rank 7) 
/raid * * Combatressing %t! * * 
/run local t="target" if (UnitName(t)~=nil) then SendChatMessage("* * Combatressing you, be ready to accept! * *","WHISPER",nil,UnitName(t)) end

This will announce who you're ressing in the raidchat, and whisper that person that he will get a ress (assuming you have him targeted).


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Castsequence

/castsequence [nogroup] reset=4 Windfury Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Flametongue Totem, Mana Spring Totem
/castsequence [group] reset=4 Windfury Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Searing Totem, Healing Stream Totem

A castsequence macro, will cast windfury totem on the first click, strength of earth on the next etc.
If you don't click the macro for 4 secons, it will reset, and the next time you click it, it will cast the first spells.
You can replace the [group] and [nogroup] with [spec:1] and [spec:2] if you want to have different castsequences depending on spec in the same macro. You can also remove those completely.


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Harm/Friendly unit macro

/cast [harm] Lightning Bolt; [help] Healing Wave

Basic harm/help macro, will cast LB if your target is a attackable unit, or HW if it's a friendly unit.


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Casttarget

#showtooltip Purge
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists] [target=target,harm,nodead] [target=targettarget] Purge

Will try to cast purge on mouseover target if it's a enemy unit, if that doesn't exist, it will cast on target enemy unit. If that doesn't exist either, it will cast on target's target.

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The showtooltip line will allow the macro to show the right icon, and the tooltip when you mouseover the macro if you use the black icon with a '?' when you choose macro icon.


You can find more, great macros at Wowwiki

User Interface

First of all, you should make sure that you get a decent UI.
A clean UI, with bossmods, threatmeters, and raidframes in easy-to-see locations on your screen will help alot.

It can however take a while to get used to a new UI, so you might miss basic things like not seeing a bossmod warning, or not finding the threatmeter the first week.
But don't worry, you'll soon know where everything is.

If you don't know how to set up your own UI, or need some inspiration, you can look at this guide that I've written here: http://www.mmowned.com/forums/wow-gu...ur-own-ui.html


Addons

There are alot of addons for raiding, some are pretty much required for raiding, while some are optional.
Keep in mind, that addons that aren't 'required' for raiding, can still improve you by quite alot.
But of course, it's equally important to keep your UI somewhat clean, and make sure you don't have a thousand addons clogging your screen, and lowering your FPS.

Here's a few addons that I would recommend for raiding:

Bossmods:

Bigwigs - A bossmod, I personally prefer BigWigs over DBM, since it gives it's warnings for critical spells (Ground Tremor, Flame Jet's etc), By flashing the entire screen in one color for a second or so.
This is alot easier to see than just a raidwarning type warning.

Deadly Boss Mods - A bossmod

Threatmeters:

Omen - Threatmeter

DiamondThreatMeter - Threatmeter

Support/Healer:

Decursive - Addon for dispelling

Clique - Healing addon

HealBot - Healing addon

Damage meters

Recount - Damage meter

Skada - Damage meter

Gear-switching

Outfitter - Mod for switching gear sets

Loot Frame

XLootMaster (requires XLoot) - a lootframe with options for the masterlooter (such as announce what the boss dropped, and an easier-to-use item assignment than the original blizzard frame.
Party-/raidframe

Grid - Raidframe

Other


oRA2 - Raid assistance addon

QuickMark - Mobmarking frame

ScrollingCombatText - Text of incomming/outgoing damage, and buffs/debuffs

Atlas (requires Atlasloot Enhanced) - Will allow you to see what the bosses will drop (so you can decide which items you need before they actually drop)

Pawn - This mod will allow you to fill in the EP value of different stats, and them summarize the total value of a specific items. This will make it easy to find upgrades.
To find out EP values of items, run a simulator (Can be found on the Elitist Jerks class sections)

WarnMe - Flashes the screen depending on buffs/debuffs, can be good if you want to have a easy-to-see warning when bosses does things such as Ground Tremor, or Lunatic Gaze etc.

Some of these addons are pretty much required (for example, a bossmod, and a raidframe if you're a healer etc.
You can however manage without addons such as damage meters, Atlas, and WarnMe. They are often really good to have aswell tho.

Anyway, that's all folks. Thank you for taking the time to read my guide, and I hope that you've gotten some tips now.

Good luck with your raiding :wave:

[Hunterplay]

Nice. Have some rep

[Ic3fuzion]

Healbot is a healing addon, not RaidFrame addon.

[Steppy]

Healbot is a healing addon, not RaidFrame addon.

Sorry about that, edited it now - thanks

[Bakedzeina]

Nicely put together, Helps me out. +2 Rep

[Anti-Christ]

Really nice guide ! I can't give you rep just yet but when i ever have the possibility to Rep you'll be the first one But as a Cat DPS going out of cat to dispel curses is just plain madness cause i'll lose tons of mana and if i can't get back to cat then no DPS so there are some exceptions

[Steppy]

Yeah Anti-Christ, that would indeed be plain madness
But if you're a boomkin, shadow priest, or similar, there's no reason why you can't dispel

[Anti-Christ]

Well as a boomkin it's alot easier cuase you don't go out of the shapeshift + i repped you ^^