Copernicus

There are two major swaps that I'm looking at - moving people in and out of the shadow priest group and moving shaman around to maximize heroism's power. A shaman's Mana Tide totem would be another example, but it's not something I've ever tried to abuse.

Shadow priest grouping is the main one I'm concerned about. Our mages don't need 100% of shadow priest anymore. With only a little bit of their mana regen (maybe 25-50% of the shadow priest's group) a mage should be able to get by without running out of mana and having a potion cooldown available. Our hunters and healers are in the same situation - a shadow priest the entire fight is too much but going without one restricts their options.

Heroism swaps is an issue that occasionally comes up. There are a few fights where I know we use them (Gorefiend, Archimonde, Vashj) and a few more I think where they would be useful. Most of the time they go to the melee group. It would be nice to have some math to back that up, but our rogues are also good at timing all their cooldowns for multiple heroisms.


Now, the major problem with changing groups around. The interface is very clunky. As far as I know, it's impossible to set up a macro or mod that will autoswap two party members in combat - http://elitistjerks.com/516374-post88.html is as close as I could find.

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So my main questions and advice I'm looking for-

* For those who often swap people around in combat, how do you handle it?

* What fights would it be reasonable to feed one group Heroisms on? And if you do feed heroisms to one group, what's the group makeup that tends to get it?

* Which classes get a big benefit from only partial shadow priest regeneration? Which ones would you rate as requiring it almost 100% of the time?

* Has anyone ever tried swapping for Mana Tide?

 

Nuveena

I use the standard raid UI to do swaps. As for how.. Well, I guess my DPS suffers a little, but I can generally find the time for some quick swaps. At times others have been doing them as well. Certain fights, like Teron, are ideal for swapping. Random deaths and a stationary target to DPS so you can sit and re-optimize groups at leasure. I very rarely do swaps for mana regeneration, but on a few very tight pulls I have been juggling the SP(s) around to keep everyone with mana when the raid was down to fighting on fumes. In general, I prefer not to depend too much on swapping and rather just build groups that are good enough to start with. But yes, swapping a shaman from one group to another for a quick heroism is common for us.

 

• Shabadu

Swapping for Mana Tide was quite common back in the pre TBC days, most notably on Patchwerk.

These days, I don't see much use for it. We run 2-3 resto shaman often, with elemental and enhance shamans for their respective DPS groups. One resto gets hunters who benefit from Tide, another gets the healer/shadowpriest group, and the 3rd would likely get the tank group. I could see a raid that doesn't rely on 1-2 strong shadowpriests swapping for Tides, but given the commonality and incredible synergy of shadowpriests, I don't hear of it being used often.

 

Yessia

I do basically all of the group swapping for my raids, for almost all the things you mentioned. We usually only run with 1 spriest(that should change soon) so I feel my mana tide can be pretty important and it's generally worth it for me to move myself, so as long as I'm not too busy with healing I'll take the time to glance over different groups averages on mana and drop it accordingly. For heroisms I'd say is really depends on the fight, Al'ar for example is a great fight to give all the heroisms to your best ranged group, and Tidewalker is a great fight to give them all to your melee, and when the fights are have ranged and melee roughly equal I give it to the group that performs the best for us usually(mostly the caster group).

As for how I go about doing group swaps; I made sure my raid interface window was not in the way of any sort of important information, it's off to the middle left of my screen. I rebound the hotkey to open up this panel to a more easily accessible location(Shift +D) because O was waaay to far away to ever get to in a timely manner. Then I just do my best to swap people around, usually I'll start a heal right before I've located who I'm moving and what spot I'm moving them to in place of, then start a heal again the same way as I move people back. I also have notifications that let me know via my SCT when someone has used their heroism/mana tides etc.. that way I know exactly when it's okay to move people back. It's still a pain to drag people around but the things that I mentioned make it much easier on me then it used to be.

 

james

Get someone on standby to handle group swapping.

Someone in group 6 can see mana bars. At the start of TBC, we used to have groups with 2 to 3 shadows in because you could recharge someone on mana more quickly, and the shadows did more damage themselves at a max mana/dmg rotation.

 

KayossZero

While I'm not sure these still work or are what you're looking for I used to use these mods for doing premades in BGs quick and effortless way back pre BC.

RaidTemplate

Raid Restore

 

◊ Klasto

At Teron, we just give A to the first person who gets the ghost and let him do the swapping.At Archimonde the main tank can do it if the fear cooldown is not yet over.And at Vashj, we don't really do it and just blow it at every group at 48% or something.

We use one of our shadow priests with a destruction warlock and/or an arcane mage to maximize the raid dps.We use the second with the healers on some fights and throw some ranged dps who ask for it,sometimes we don't even have the luxury of having two shadow priests in the raid anyway.

But if used wisely raid swapping can even help you in a 10 man instance I think.

 

spiderella

* For those who often swap people around in combat, how do you handle it?

We just promote everyone in the raid (1-button via X Raid Assist) and generally have a little discussion when we're learning fights as to what players are likely to be swapped around. Generally one of our destro locks handles most of the bloodlust swapping; he's pretty alert in raids and I think it's a little easier for him to pull some attention to the task as caster DPS. Bloodlust swapping is pretty pro-active as we've planned when we want to use those ahead of time, while individuals can swap for shadow priests (more reactive).

* What fights would it be reasonable to feed one group Heroisms on? And if you do feed heroisms to one group, what's the group makeup that tends to get it?

I think that some fights are baised along the lines of ranged vs. melee, if there's a bias like that (even for a specific part of the fight) we'll feed those classes who've got a leg up in the fight. It's different for every fight but usage should be paired with the most hectic parts of the fight to get them over with, quickly. It's something to consider in planning on every fight. On Kael'Thas we cycled bloodlusts to ranged dps until Thaladred was down in p3, on Illidan we're poppinig all bloodlusts in phase 2, on FLK we'd use them all off the top to try and get one add down as quickly as possible . . . there's a lot of different tactics.

* Which classes get a big benefit from only partial shadow priest regeneration? Which ones would you rate as requiring it almost 100% of the time?

I do think hunters actually get more from a shadow priest than a mage or warlock (even if for no other reason that VE keeps their pets up). Depending on if the fight is more strenuous for tank healing or group healing that can effect which healers should get one. If you have a resto druid who's very strictly keeping up lifeblooms etc on tanks, I think they can be a good candidate for not getting a shadowpriest full time.

* Has anyone ever tried swapping for Mana Tide?

I can't think of any specific situation where we've done this.

 

Keyne

Edit: removed for irrelevance to post topic.

 

Katrana

I have swapped myself in for mana tide into a caster group a few times, notably when we have no enhancement shaman on the run and thus I am in the melee group (and thus mana tide would otherwise be wasted).

It doesn't seem to be super important, but we have done it mostly on longer fights, like kael when we were learning him.

The interface is clunky, and I would just keep the raid window open for the few seconds that tide was down to swap myself back and forth.

 

Pyros

What I wonder is why Blizzard allows group switching, yet doesn't allow addons to do it. On one hand, they're not forcing you to keep the same groups, but you have to use the basic crappy UI to do the switches yourself.

As for OP, I think you pretty much only need to swap shamans around for the heroism/bl on certain fights, but most of the time, switching isn't really needed anymore. Switching for mana regen can usually be fixed ahead of the fight by setting the groups based on quality of gear/consumables available.

As for who handle it, the most obvious choice to me are ranged dps, especially mages/warlocks, because, and don't jump on me for that, they're the most "thoughtless" class to play. At least, they have the most time when they can switch to spam one key mode without fucking up totally. A healer who stop looking at healthbars is usually a pretty bad thing, tanking isn't really a good idea either, melee dps it depends on the class, rogues are very dependant on cycles so not sure they could afford the time to switch, and warriors, as far as I remember, have to be reactive. Feral druids though, sure could do it.

 

GSH

It's probably just an issue of priorities. Imo, Blizzard's lack of support indicates that they would probably prefer to disallow group changes while in combat, but that they have bigger issues to deal with. Sort of like the Totem Twisting situation. There probably isn't a situation where you *have* to swap people in groups, and probably no situation where swapping has game-breaking results.

It's really the type of thing that they would push to the lowest priority for fixing.

 

◊ Quigon

They used to allow it. We used to change groups on-the-fly for instance in phase 1 kel'thuzad to something COMPLETELY different (40 people almost all moving and changing groups in under a second with 1 button press). This is considered "programatic group changing." This "feature" was removed from the game sometime after 2.0, but before TBC launch.

The raid restore mod that we released was incredibly powerful for phased fights, and I think Blizzard's stance on this mod was "Not everyone gets it, it is too useful, therefore no one gets it." Thus you can no longer use a mod to change groups mid-combat. However, I still recommend folks look into raid restore - it is exceptional for shifting groups around out of combat, and loading up a group setup based on names and/or classes and/or class type for every boss, saving potentially an hour on the entire night.

Now we just have our resident angry enhancement shaman move players between groups mid-combat. The important question one should be asking is: why are most enhancement shamans so angry?

 

GSH

Do you have a link to a current version of this mod? It sounds very useful.

Well, they do have a talent called Unleashed Rage...

 

sovelis41

On a lot of fights with expected deaths, or even on any fight that goes a bit sour, and a good chunk of people are on the floor, I'll consolidate groups so that dead people aren't taking shadow priests from an alive healer(for example).

Specifically, we actively change people on Kael'thas a lot to optimize p2 heroism, and then after that to spread blood pacts around. If there's a fight with a lot going on, I'll assign a person to do the swapping since their usually the one that will be benefiting from it and will remember. I don't think I've ever considered swapping for mana-tide. Our restos are pretty good about dropping it effectively for their group (they are almost always inc aster groups).

I'll have to look into raid restore, that sounds like a pretty kick-ass mod.

You pay for the whole chair, but you only need the edge.

 

Hop

The only switching we really do is for heroism. The restoration shamans will have an assist and move themselves there and back when a heroism call is made.

[Edit]
Here's a link to a version from 2006: Raid Restore.

 

Xav

This topic has been on my mind for ages, and with the creation of 25 man raids I wondered about the possibilities of a "raid manager" raid spot. Basically a 26th+ person in the raid who isn't necessarily in the instance, but has all typical raid management tools running and available, and is familiar with the fights and such. This person would handle all of the group swapping while not even being in the instance so noone loses focus. I know it's kind of off topic, but it's something that is possible now, but I've never heard of it being done.

 

Kasi

It's not a bad idea, but I think for it to work that person would need to be a friend/spouse/etc of one of the 25. There is only so much of the context of the fight you can get through ventrilo. To really know about what to do with on the fly group swapping that person needs to be able to see the details of the fight itself. Being in the same room would be the way for it to work imo.

 

squig

For bloodlust our shamans swap themselves in the groups they want to buff and then swap themselves back to their usual group (ie resto shaman in healer group moves to the mages, casts bloodlust and then moves back).

When we are doing a fight with a lot of deaths the dead people usually "fix" the groups (filling up the shadowpriests group etc.)

For all other stuff people do it themselves as well (warlock moving himself in MT group for imp buff at phase 4 Kael Thas, shadowpriest swapping with a dead shadowpriests every now and then so both groups get some mana, etcetc)

 

◊ Shalas

One of the major goals of the 2.0 UI revamp was to remove any way to implement Decursive, practical or otherwise. Automated group swapping would make it theoretically possible to implement it ― instead of choosing who to cast the spell on (now impossible), you could put the person into the spot you're casting the spell on. Adding a way to macro group swaps would probably be fairly easy, but it isn't something I've even seen requested.

 

Pyros

That's a good point, the other post about making it too powerful if you don't have the addon is another good point too. I just think they could have something in the base UI to switch people around better than the current system, but I'll admit I haven't touched it for some time, maybe it improved. Last time I played with the raid tab, you couldn't filter classes or have them listed by class type and not as a big random clusterfuck of colors. The drag and drop was pretty sloppy too.

But yea it's probably not high at all on their priority list so I don't blame them. I just wish, being the tree in MT group with lock 2prot wars and 1feral, that sometimes someone would switch me to a mana tide group ^^.

Something else too, IIRC, when you're dead, you can't switch people around anymore. Is there any reason that escape me as to why this is not possible? Obviously the person with the most time on his hands to do swithing is the guy that fell asleep 15secs into the fight and ate a random AE that he wasn't supposed to. It's better than the 26th person sitting outside since you actually see what's happening first hand.

 

tedv

Our raids run with everyone flagged assistant. Generally you're not supposed to touch groups (although we do have a few warlocks who think they need shadow priests more than mages and switch when they shouldn't). But if all hell breaks loose, people are pretty proactive. For example, if four or more people die, someone will often consolidate groups. Shaman sometimes have to swap themselves for Bloodlusts and so on. Most of the time it's the raid leader who handles this but not always. If you can trust your raid mates not to abuse the power for wacky hijinx and hilarity, it really works well.

 

shieldb

You may have an addon or something interfering with your ability to swap groups, we have dead people consolidate/swap groups all the time on encounters if there isn't someone in group 6-8 to easily do it.

 

Furio

I've actually played the role of "Raid Manager" for Mother and Illidari Council on our second and third kills - it's not nearly as enjoyable/useful as it sounds. Because I raid lead all of our raids, but was sitting out to allow others a chance at loot/experience I stayed online to help out. Using good unit frames (agUF that has been heavily customized and now resembles Grid), I could watch health/mana/buffs/debuffs on all of my players. Nerve wracking doesn't even begin to describe the experience. Frankly, without being able to see the encounter, I didn't have context to interpret data from my unit frames and timer mods. I really don't recommend trying to "lead" or "manage" a raid without actually being present in the instance.

Now, if Blizzard ever succeeds in developing a spectator mode for Arena play, then I would love to apply the same technology to raiding. Then, perhaps, one could actually manage raids without directly interacting with any mobs.

 

Amonra

Out of interest, does the mod still work if the mod runner (e.g. in group 6) is out of combat but the rest of the raid is in combat. If so then it would still be useful - either run by a raid member who is sitting out, or even just by an alt.