Re-activating your WoW account, or interested in "Trying Before You Buy"?@WoWGrrl Seeks Input From Raiders: Consumables #fb
WoWGrrl Raiding Guides
Just have a quick question here - I'd really love to hear from as many people as possible via Blog Comment, Twitter Posting, or even contacting me on Facebook. I want to get a wide taste of thoughts on this subject.
What Level Of Consumables Use Is "Normal" In Your Raid Group?
That's the question.
To clarify:
In your guild raids, are you expected to bring any of the following:
- Flasks or Elixirs
- Buff Foods
- Reagents for Group or Raid-Wide buffs
- Anything else I've missed?
And secondarily - of those expected to bring those things, how often is that requirement checked by your raid lead/officer core?
If you are in a guild that the "Norm" is to flask/elixir and buff food up for the entire raid no matter how well or poor geared you are for the content, please respond with something simple, like "We Flask No Matter What".
(then, ForeverFlaskers, please message me on Twitter because I want to talk to you more :) )
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We pretty much flask/buff/reagent-carry no matter what. Raiders are expected to be fully-buffed, including food buffs, and to carry those buffs with them. Food is the only one some don't carry, and usually someone has a Feast to drop if it's necessary.
On progression content, I expect my raiders to have flasks (not elixirs, due to the cost of them).
Buff food is expected. Reagents are also expected. I expect their gear to be repaired. I expect every item and weapon they're carrying to be enchanted and gemmed to the max.
I do use Big Brother to check buffs, flasks, and oRA to check durability before the first pull of every raid.
Now here's the interesting thing. I'll alert the officers if anything is amiss. If a player is missing a buff, I'll make sure they get it. But if they're missing a flask or a food buff, I let the loot council know and I'll privately remind the player.
If we loot the boss and two players express interest in an item (I use Loot Council), we are far more likely to award the item to the player who flasked and food buffed as opposed to the player who "forgot".
Progression content - all raiders flasked/elixired with food buff. All raiders expected to have reagents. We use feasts, but all raiders are expected to carry their own food buffs in case a feast is not available.
For farm content, we leave that up to the individual. Newer/lesser-geared raiders are expected to be fully flasked or elixered. We use group food buffs
Food, Flask/Elixirs, being fully gemmed/chanted, and repaired are REQUIRED for every raid. I use BigBrother add-on to monitor it before boss fights and call out those that are not prepared.
We offer free consumables to our raiders via the guild bank, and we turn on guild repairs for all progression and most achievement runs. That way no one has an excuse.
BigBrother is also good for checking priest/druid/pally buffs before boss fights. I'm an officer and it's part of my duty to keep my eye on this. I think it is of the utmost importance. Every little bit counts, and when you add up all those "little bits" they can make the difference between a guild-crushing 1% wipe (been there before!) and a kill before enrage.
On guild heroic 25-man raids, all players are expected to come prepared with the appropriate Flasks or Elixirs, stat food, and reagents for buffs.
raidwide, since we half group with another guild and a couple pugs for 25 man content (we're a small guild), i would say about half to 2/3rds flask(or elixer)/foodbuff. Of the raiders in my guild we always have a flask up. We have a few great raiders that are sweet enough to farm for fish feasts, so we usually have food buffs raidwide - if we're out of feasts then there are probably a good 30% of people that don't have a FB.
I tend to be the FB troll (hah) in the raid though, since i can tell who doesnt have a Well Fed buff. I usually dont call out individuals, but I will say, "5 people still dont have foodbuff." and then i'll see 3 or 4 people sit down immediately :D some people just dont care.
reagents for raid-wide buffs arent usually a problem, since maybe 3 people in our raid have a mammoth - if we're out we just pop one, but usually not an issue.
<--ForeverFlasker and ForeverFooder
Hope post here is okay... All is voluntary... but at least two of us will have Giant Feast ready and on long Friday nights I bring the good 'ole, reliable Repair Bot!!!
We Flask no matter what. As an officer of my guild the only time we really check for buffs is if someone is performing poorly or it's a progression night.
Hi, I'm actually a co-raid leader of a semi-casual 25 man raid group.
Our policy is that for progression content you are expected to bring flask or elixirs and buff food (of either kind, doesn't have to be the top stuff made with the spices) - in many ways this is as much about having people come to the fight with the correct attitude than the buffs themselves.
Right now it's not something we make a big deal about as we have the majority of content comfortably on farm and the group as a whole is well geared - if something goes wrong at this point it's an execution problem not a gear one (we're finding a lot of people are in general losing focus while we wait for patch). That said, as most folks have herbing alts they do it anyhow because they like the big numbers flying about on screen ;)
So while technically it's on every sign up sheet as standard it's not something we currently enforce for farm content - we do still expect folks to have consumables in their inventory at all times 'just in case' which at this point only really boils down to making life easier if we're under-manning.
Group buff reagents are absolutely required at all times though - we prefer to kill things not stand around waiting for individual buffs just so people can save a few silver.
In the past when we've been attempting a new fight then generally we just make a note on the sign up that we consider it a Progression raid which is our way of indicating that we expect people to push the boat out more than normal. It is largely a matter of trust from that point onwards and we don't sit at raid start checking everyone has done what we've asked.
If we (or a co-raider) happens to notice someone being cheap then we'll throw out a general reminder about what is expected and hope that fixes the problem. If it continued then we'd follow up with a quiet word directly with the person but fortunately it's never come to that.
When we move in to Ulduar we'll obviously be pushing the importance of buff items again.
- bring your own flasks
- bring your own reagents if you need to buff
- guild provides feasts but if you want another food buff bring your own
Flasks are a must and it's checked everytime!
Same for bufffood but happily some1 always has a fishfeast up so we don't have to keep a big eye on that (i'm an officer so i'll watch it :)) Raid wide buffs are normal, all have to do it and bring the reagents themselves.
Flasks Check: at start and after 4 hours if we go on
Bufffood check: Since we always have a fishfeast and look who eats none atm but normally every boss.
We buff no matter what but raiders are expected to bring their own flasks. A few of us have taken on the role of bringing Fish Feasts to raids so our buff food is taken care of there.
We use Food + Flask/Elixirs for everything. (And you're expected to have reagents for all your spells.)
The raid leader checks before pulling each boss. I think he has a mod that does the check. We use ORA2 for raiding, so that might be the mod.
Flasks, etc are HIGHLY suggested. We did Naxx25 last night and the two OTs were kind called out for not having indestructible potion for the beginning of patchwerk. Since we don't have the guarantee of 25 from our guild, PUGs fill up the slots. Our GM and RL want everyone to act accordingly so we rep the guild well. We try not to babysit raiders, but we expect everyone to bring the A-game.
Consumables (other than buff reagents to save being laughed at) are not officially expected unless requested. Only time I've known us to request them since WOTLK was once when we struggled with Thaddius a Maly on heroic.
Unofficially the more hardcore "oldies" bring mats and comment on those that don't if things go wrong but I don't think we have forced it since Gruul.
Well, I'm a healer, and as such i have no influence on how long will the fight last, how many mistakes will the dps's make and therefore i buff-food, flask and reagents-buff everytime.
Current guild
BYO Buff Food, Flasks and Reagents
However
Flasks can be brought from Gbank for 1/2 Ah Price, and Fish that get donated to Gbank get turned into Fish feasts for raid use. we are expected to bring out own, but if the fish is there we use it.
Old Raiding Guild
All food and flasks were supplied, and were given to the class leaders to distribute only what was needed. Eg 1 flask, 5 foods - and any unused food went back to bank on a honor system. This was a massive task for the officers/gm to make sure we had the right flasks and food for everyone
Another thing for your list.
We are using repair nots more often, and I suspect even more so in 3.1 I will buy some of the mats and send them to our repair bot dropper, and I belive that other people and the guild bank help them out as well.
i suppose 'we flask no matter what' pretty much covers it, though the rl who used an addon to check took a time out so people are probably slacking. but the guild rules say flask + food buff is a must. e-mail me or find me as jenisbored on twitter if you need me.
Ah yes, the repair bots are important, too, for sure - thanks for the tip!
Two regular raiders in our guild (one officer, one not) have the Traveller's Tundra Mount and that's our main repair bot.
With Naxx when repairs were an issue, we were encouraged to repair in Venomspite every time we had to run back, and that worked nifty for the majority of us (except that melee guy who kept dying on trash pulls)
Ah yes I was wondering what it was that ORA2 actually did.
I have it working, and that's all I need to worry about ;)
I have tried the addon BigBrother for my own personal interest as well - it communicates Misdirects/Tricks of the Trade when cast, but also can report on consumable use. I think you can tell it to report to various channels, but I always just leave it with the default of "self".
Thanks for your feedback!
Same with our guild regarding fish feasts: Four of the regular raiders bring fish feasts, and we trade back and forth as to who drops theirs for this next attempt. Guildies are expected to bring their own buff food in case nobody drops a Feast tho ;)
Awesome feedback, Wonk!
Thank you so much! :)
Yep, it's funny how you don't need to be SUPER specific to get the job done - just specific enough to be a tap on the shoulder :)
Ah very nice to have access to guild funds for repairs on progression/achievement run nights, hopefully you have other systems in place that financially support that so it's not coming out of your pocket!
Another thing being fully-flasked, fully-buffed from the start of a raid helps with, is the overall speed of the run. Our guild is able to clear Naxx25 in one night's 3.5 hour raid, and I'd like to think buffing helps with that, too.
Hey there, Matticus! Great to hear from you :)
You make some great points there - starting with why you encourage Flasks vs Elixirs.
And as a raider who always brings and uses consumables, I appreciate the thought that it's being noticed and weighed into "the equation", whatever that equation is. ;)
Sounds like you do it well - no public embarrassment, but certainly a wee sliver of motivation to step up our game.
It's important we're all trying to do that, and encouraging each other to do that in various friendly ways. :)
Awesome :)
Our group has a few people who "compete" to put down the fish feast when it's time, but it's also interesting to listen to the officers reminding members they're responsible for their own buff food, too, when the regulars are out of feasts or not attending that night ;)
Dern I wish my own comments would go after the people I'm responding to, even if I don't respond as they come in... (ponders editing the db directly)
I used to run raids before I got burned out. No, I would never check to see if someone didn't bring something. No it was not a requirement to bring anything. However, if your DPS could be replaced by someone else who was more prepared, then....
With that being said, our guild was a casual raiding guild full of people with too much time on their hands. Most of our entire 4 tab guild bank was linned with consumables. (food and potions)
We are expected to have our own flasks and food buffs, but we do have a supply/reagants for some if someone forgets, can't afford it, etc. Before most of us were well geared this was more of a necessity -- an extra 125SP was a huge difference -- but now that most of us are geared if you forget the flask it isn't life or death. I still think that any help you can get for yourself and the raid though should be done, so flask/food buff away!