Warning for sudius: Post Signing

◊ Kaubel · 01/31/08, 8:34 PM

Post: Trash Matters
User: sudius
Infraction: Post Signing
Points: 0

Administrative Note:

Message to User:

How long a reader exactly?

Original Post:

Hey everyone, long long time reader, first time poster.
I feel like I have something to add to this conversation because we've recently run into this issue that our guild gets extremely lazy on trash.

I read all the discussion about risk vs reward and things like that, and I hope that a blizzard developer is reading this thread because there are lots of great ideas such as the time-trial trash thing, where theres more rep or a reward at the end of a fast trash pull.

On the topic of "spicing up trash pulls" though, we've found a few pretty fun methods.

Firstly (which doesn't specifically relate to trash although, but I still felt like mentioning it.)
We have a betting pool set up with different rewards each week. We have everyone submit their loot predictions for every boss from Hyjal through Shade (which is what we do in one night) then Teron through Illidan. (Night Two) Rewards being a free BT gem of your choice (we bank them for T6 gear, and they are not readily available for all members).... or having officer permissions for a week (seeing o-chat and gkicking friends as a joke (which happens a lot, haha)).

5g entry fee, in-game mail to our guild master who runs the whole thing and keeps track of it via spreadsheet.
The pool ends up being 150g+ after the entire guid bets on it, and its actually really fun to keep track of peoples predictions. Our guild also has a terrible history of drops such as double vanquisher for 4 weeks in a row, or healing leather and retribution plate. Its a fun topic to talk about on vent.

Which leads me to another point.
Vent conversations are fun and a good way to blow off steam. We tease eachother and joke around and have fun during trash. I often find myself having more fun on trash than on a boss, even when I'm not giving my 100%. I know I'm not giving my all, but I'm probably typing or talking on vent and socializing. Afterall, this is a SOCIAL game in the end. I sign on every night to talk to my friends, if I wanted to play a fun game by myself I'd play a final fantasy.

Finally, we have other significant trash pulls that revolve around betting (surprise!) and often its more funny than serious.
For instance, the giants between RoS and BloodBoil, akin to AQ40 trash they have a Meteor ability. To spice things up, we have a select group of players that especially like to have fun, and they play a sort of "Russian Roulette" with the Meteor. Standing away from the raid in hopes that the trash will summon the Meteor on his head and leads to his 1-shot and a repair bill. It's funny to joke around on vent and have 2-3 people bicker at eachother. Sometimes if the situation is epic enough, the losers (dead people) pay the winners. YES this leads to slight slow downs as we have to res people, but morale is ultimately higher because everyone is having more fun... which I feel is more important. (Discussed Later)

Occasionally we also have two "teams" compete to dps down two sets of mobs. For example, Supremus' room. There are two sets of mobs, flying and ground. Often we mark them up and compete Melee dps VS Ranged dps (Attacking the ground / air mobs). Have a pair of officers go through and pick people, sort of like dodge ball from 3rd grade. One at a time. This is a double measure to let the last few people to be chosen know that they aren't the highest on DPS... as the most geared/best players will be chosen first. (Side Note: This was always a motivator for me to try harder, as I didn't want to be picked last).

It's all about competition for us, and while that MIGHT not sound very fun, after reading this.. try to start something up like this in your raid tonight and see what people think. It takes the edge off, dulls the corners so to speak.. loosening things up so people have more FUN. (ITS A GAME, REMEMBER?)

As I said earlier, I feel high morale is important. Last night we had the end of our first 2-day clear of Hyjal and Black Temple. Thats right, two nights. 4 hours each night. (Hey! I'm proud! We killed Illidan mid-december, so it hasn't been very long to master these fights!)

Nearly 1-shots for every boss, and if it wasn't a 1-shot, it was a slight goofup and a partial re-set. The other significant part, which I feel ultimately lead up to this 2-day clear is that we all had a ton of fun doing it.(More than usual!) There was no tension, we were all joking around on trash while still getting our job done and discussing the next boss and our loot predictions. "Ohh it will be double Vanq again, damn druids have every single set of off pieces... we're giving T6 to that new rogue because no one else needs it.. "

So remember if you feel like your guild hit a wall, or is struggling on trash, or morale is low. Try some different methods to get everyones spirits up. You'd be surprised how fast trash goes down when you make two groups compete over bragging rights on which group can dps down a mob faster. This might be seen as misleading, especially if blatantly stated "hey lets get this trash down faster, group 3 vs group 4"... don't make it out like your ultimate goal is faster trash... make it look like you're legitimately trying to have some fun (even if you ARE trying to kill trash faster).

Hope this helps-
-Sudius