Of time ingame

Heya again, long time no post, which seems to be the going rule around here. RL blahblah and so on and so forth. I really lacked the inspiration during the past month and I honestly thought that my muse had died. In the meanwhile I have maxed Mining and JC on my DK and all was well. I was pleased. But (there’s always a but) what I hadn’t considdered was that just by havink the skill does not make you a licensed jewelcrafter. You have to learn the recipes and they each cost 4 tokens of which you only get one a day. Believe you me, that knocked my gold making dreams down a peg or ten.

Then I turned to my Warlock and saw it was seriously lacking. No gear to be proud of and he had his Enchanting in the 150 range plus tailoring about the same, slightly higher. In a fit of ingame rage I ditched enchanting and thought I’d pick up Herbalism for my up and coming Paladin Scribe. That las all through reaching skill 2 before it got removed too, go figure. I focused my full and undivided attention on leveling my Tailoring and PuG-ing with my DK, of the rare and soon to be extinct breed of Blood damage dealer. Got some nice upgrades for her, by the way, she is currently guildless and sitting on a 5.7 k groovy score, enough to grant me a spot in any GS PuG. Now if only I could work out how to change my rotation to take full advantage of the ilvl264 sigil it would be great. But I digress. Back to the Lock:

While camping the AH for cloth I figured I’d PvP for a bit. Mind you, I have not entered a BG in almost 11 months since I got incredibly disheartened by the survival chances of a shaman in a PvP environment and the number of leechers that joined and then did not move for the duration. I shelved my hard worked for Elemental and Enhancement PvP gear in the bank (this was before the Honor Jug was broken over BGs, when it took a week of loosing constantly to get an upgrade or a set piece – think ilvl 213 being teh bomb) and swore myself off PvP.

All that aside, I entered my first BG on my lock past lvl 29 in my full set of PvE gear and got mowed down repeatedly within seconds. SotA, 2 minutes left on the clock and the Horde hadn’t made it off the beach.

Damn! Things haven’t changed at all, I thought, until I remembered that I had 2 PvP set pieces in my bank, from VoA, things I chose not to roll on but were awarded to me regardless. Equipped them, gemmed and enchanted them and stepped back through the portal in my Affliction PvE spec. The alternative would have been Destro PvE and I never even tried it out, just got it because all the cool kids were doing it. Things were better. I even managed to survive for a while even though I was pummeled on. Sure, having a keybind for Fear helped a lot with that but I was pleased with the results. So much even that I respecced into Affliction PvP as OS. It was fun but I felt I didn’t pack a punch, really and for me it’s all about the big numbers. Respecced Destro PvP and after reading the tooltip for all the spells and talents I felt confident enough to go in a BG again. And I loved it. I still died a lot because of low resilience but with practice comes perfection and honor. I am currently sporting a 4pc PvP set (2 ilvl232 and 2 ilvl251) and almost everything I wear has resilience on it. I can even haz trinket!

I even has Arena team. It is fail because I am fail at arena PvP and my RL friend and partner is a resto drood that last did Arenas in TBC. We’re working out the kinks in the system and we even won our first match! Gogo sap-trinket machine! Oh, yeah, because I liked PvP I also maxed my Engineering skill for teh sweet toys. Not cheap, mind you!

The reason I did all this was because I was really bummed about my shaman, my first love. I hadn’t gotten any gear upgrades since fucking forever and really, not for lack of trying. I had the same darn MH since early December, the Anub 25 mace of awesomesauce (back then) and it was getting old logging to see that melon on top of a pike every time.

I joined a new guild on the shaman about a month back, that had the core of the guld I felt best in. Things looked pro and all I wanted was to bring down Arthas. Match made in heaven, amirite? No. Like with any good guild, there were raiding hours and they never were during when I could be online for the full duration. I either had to work those hours or have to leave for work after 2/3.5. Bummer. I went on an ICC 10 run with the GL and I guess I made an impression because I was asked again despite the guild having a shaman join per day for a week or so. Fast forward, I explained why I couldn’t raid, the GL said it’s ok and I went back to PvP on my lock. All of this until yesterday night, when out of sheer boredom I opened the Armory app on my phone. Saw a ICC10 HC run scheduled for the next day, and figured that if I tried really hard I could make 3/3.5 hours and then take a cab to work. I signed up and was online at invite time. And 5 minutes after. And 10 after that, during which everything was quiet. Out of the blue, when I got tired of re-listing auctions the invite swooped in out of the blue. There were so many to sign up (only 9, making me the 10th, when I had) that there were actually 2 groups put together.

I wasn’t really surprised to not make thefirst group, the A team, and was just fine with being accepted. I got my flasks and feasts and proceeded to ICC.

Buffs, trash, feast. Marrowgar HC. I had only seen this fight on HC once before, when it ended terribad and we did not try it again. One wipe. Rebuff. Feast. Kill. Rejoice. Lady Deathwhisper, never seen her before so pissy. Had the fight explained for the priest so I listened to everything except the tanking bit because I am not a tank and why the fuck should I care about tanking? I was wrong. It seems that she is untauntable in phase 2 which had me actually watch Omen. The second time around. Apparently the mage wasn’t listening either cause he snatched aggro in no time flat and whaddaya know, was 1 shotted. A death promptly followed by mine because I was next in the pretty aggro chart. A kill in two is not that bad, I wager, I have seen and been in groups flailing about and not able to down her despite the 25% (at the time) buff on 10m normal.

Onwards and upwards to lootship where I finally got my new weapon. Yes, it’s a healer’s weapon, it has mp5 but the trade-off was worth it. Some measly 50 crit for 120 SP plus a yellow socket of hasty goodness? Yes, please! I honestly wouldn’t have minded HC Muradin’s Spyglass either but I was thrilled to get an upgrade, any upgrade. And a weapon upgrade was to die for at this point, really.

Heroic Saurfang was the stuff of legends because of the tauntfail that had us bursting in laughter. Our KS (on another char), the OT, had 4 consecutive taunts miss, 2 of which being during Jr’s ‘oi, look at me, I’m big and bad’ phase. I was the only one on the floor at the end, got 1shotted by a blood beast when the boss only had 300k HP left -.- . Luckily I did not have a mark on me so it was all cool. 1shot, by the way.

This is where the HC bit ended, even though we easily could have downed Festerface based on the level of teamplay involved and the DPS we were pumping out. We got Festergut to hit the ground in 2 minutes and 10 seconds without using Bloodlust. I was honestly shocked to see this. Rotface posed no problem and dropped some boots for mah enhancement offspec (ARP meh) and then we killed the Proffessor although judging by the MT’s shoddy Abomination handling I thought we wouldn’t.

That was all the ICC experience I had, both in 10 and 25 man. I know it’s little, so late after the raid opened its gates and with the buff and all but just how things were. I find it weird myself if you’re asking.

Next up – Blood Wing. I had been in a few attempts to kill the Princes but nothing that even made it past 50%. One-shot. I knew the tactics for this one, which was more than I could say for Blood Queen. I knew the general direction the fight would be going in, with the biting and the lazor and the flames but never having seen it… I was reluctant to believe in myself that I would perform according to expectations. The healing priest admitted to not knowing tacts so they were explained briefly and I had my ears peeled. RC and gogogo, I blow all my cool-downs, which are not many – racial SP and EM and lo and behold, I am the first one to be bitten. The RL actually loled a bit at this (elemental shaman to be top bursty DPS? Unfathomable!) but then ignored me. No Bite assignments? Really?

I proceeded and bit the mage, which was the only other ranged DPS in the raid group and then before I knew it (was chained with the lazor once) it was over. Achievement pops up and I’m like yay, I have gone where no me has ever gone before! All on the inside, I did not need everybody to know that I was excited about such a ‘trivial’ thing as a new wing clear. I had to go shortly after so the frost wing and the LK will be rescheduled. I sure hope I can make it then!

So yeah. I like my Shaman again and that’s both good and bad news. I will now have 3 raiding characters again (the lock is always warlocky and greedy for some upgrades) and this means time. Time that is very precious to me actually. So far the only thing I have been cutting off on was sleeping. I am at an all-time record of maximum 4 hours per night and I don’t know if I should be proud or sad.

The /report that changed the /roll

In case anybody was wondering, I am still playing although to a significantly lesser extent than what I was used to. RL is a bitch and it has puppies, as my boss likes to say.

Out of the ~ 30 hours of playing per week I am now down to maximum 10, spread out across three max level chars and two lower alts which I cannot bring myself around to push to 80. Nothing interesting happened over the last few weeks. My previous guild has pretty much migrated to a bigger one and I’d like my DK to join it as well. If not for that elusive LK kill, at least for the actual good times I’ve had playing with my old guildmates (and when I say old I mean… erm… well we were in the same guild for about 6 or 7 months. It’s still the longest stretch of time with a guild for me).

The one thing that did remind me that I have a WoW blog (not that I’d forgotten) was what I did last night in an ICC 25 run. I’m partly embarrased of this incident so be gentle.

I’m one for reporting spammers every time I see them. My general rule against spam is as follows: If I see the person posting the same message twice in the same chat window it’s spam. Ofcourse, there are some special exceptions, like when he/she is correcting typos made in the first announcement and so on. This doesn’t only apply to /2 /1 and whichever other channel I might be on. Yes, I’m a bit of a grammar nazi IRL so this bothers me, moreso as on EU servers English is often enough botched. I also do this in raids if somebody is either spamming useless crap or using the good-ole formula of one word per line. Report Spam. Problem solved.

So I was in an ICC 25 PuG raid the other day on my Shaman when Wodin’s Lucky Necklace drops off of trash between Festerface. This hunter was a very chatty type of person, in a mildly annoying-but-let-it-be type way. He had nothing constructive to say, wasn’t particularly funny but at least he was awake during the snoozefest. Which I wasn’t, and as I’m currently in between changing homes (leaving one rent for another, yay me!) I wasn’t in a very friendly mood either.

Anyway, the RL links the drop and the hunter begins rejoicing, as if he was the only one with a bow and nobody else had a claim to this drop. ‘Yay, my neck! OMG it’s mine’ type of lines, over and over again, all in the span of a couple of seconds filled the raid chat. To which I instinctively right clicked his name and reported spam. The RL then proceeded to ask for the MS roll from people who wanted it. I would have liked to roll on it too, my Enhancement set is in dire need of a neck upgrade but I was there as Elemental so not much I could do as long as there were numerous others rolling. This hunter didn’t. Which I found strange but didn’t pay much attention because WTH, I was annoyed and not being able to roll on an item usually makes me a very grumpy panda. Just later I pieced it together, when said hunter left the raid without a word. In my reporting him as a spammer pro’lly he was not allowed to roll by the Powers that Blizz because it is some sort of communication (is it now?). I killed his chances of winning this much sought after item. And I felt bad about it. Sort of. What were the chances that he’d get a roll higher than 92, the winning roll, anyway?

It got me thinking, though. I believe this is worth investigating. Perhaps it can be used as a tool for blocking others from rolling. I would never do it on purpose for my own personal gain, but I believe others would. I know others that would and I hate them for it. Mommy, does this make me an evil person, for even conceiving it?

Elemental Shaman and ICC: A Love Story (Part 4/12)

Deathbringer Saurfang

A rather simple fight in terms of mechanics, the Saurfang the Younger fight starts off with a monologue from papa Saurfang that touches the childhood and his life expectations of Jr. You can use this to get into position or go for a bio break, there’s an almost 2 minute mark for the yapping.

Saurfang Jr, whom we will only refer to affectionately as Saur or Jr, has an interesting gimmick up his sleeve that will kill your defense if you’re not paying attention. He casts Boiling Blood at a random target, an ability doing 5k dmg every 3 seconds and you want to be 11 yards away from your closest teammate if you get tagged otherwise upon him using Blood Nova (another interesting ability) he would get more blood energy back, 1 for each player within 11 yds of the Boiling Blood target. When he reaches 100 energy he will cast a Mark of the Fallen Champion on a random target except the tanks, who will take the same damage taken by the tank each hit Saur lands.

Because of the above abilities, positioning is crucial. If your team is bunched up he will get the chance to cast a helluva lot of Marks and that will bring extra stress to the healers (most comps are running 2 healers for 10 man and 5 for 25). If the target of the Mark dies, Jr will be healed for 5% of his total HP so you will not be only down a player but also will have a harder task ahead of you.

Periodically Saur will also call a couple of Blood Beasts and they will give him 1 energy per hit made as well so it’s important to kill them on sight and not get gibed. Here is what smart positioning does. Ideally you will want more ranged DPS than melee for this fight because you can keep your spacing for Boiling Blood and be able to kill the Beasts until they reach you. As a Shaman this is where you shine, with Thunderstorm and Earthbind Totem.  With a bit of luck you won’t need to use the totem if you have a strong partner that can also CC the beasts (they cannot be feared) so you get some damage done on them plus some mana back? Good times!

You will want to be at maximum range from Saurfang, that’s a given, but you also want to be in a place where you can easily kite the beast around without having to get into somebody’s 11yd bubble. I found that the location I’m most comfortable with is at the bottom of the big platform leading up to him, far into the corner. You would then be able to kite the beast towards the enclosed area of the balcony (where the loot chest will spawn) without anyone else having to run out of your way.

If carefully executed, the beasts thing will at most have you move one or two yards back, if TS isn’t enough or on CD, just then use the totem and /profit.

The beasts will be spawned roughly every 10% of HP the boss looses so you will know when they will be summoned. Plus, if you’re using DBM or BigWigs or any other similar addon you’ll have a visual representation of the CD on this ability.

The best time to use BloodLust (again, wait for the RL to call out for it or ask when he wants it used) would be around 30% HP left on Jr. That’s when he will hit a soft enrage and the healers will need the breathing room. That’s also when adds will be summoned so you get to not go full out DPS on the boss because you have to kill them dead. Not a big win for us ranged but at least we’re helping out so it should be cool. Remember to always switch to the closest beast to you as soon as possible.

Elemental Tips:

1. When beasts are spawned you don’t actually need to immediately (as in split second) switch, as long as you make sure your CL is off CD. Hit the button for the extra damage on the boss plus both adds (in 10 man) and then rock your beast’s world with DS, LvB, LB and then TS if you’re the one with the aggro.
2. When you see that Blood Beasts are about to be summoned and the LvB CD just ended don’t blow it on the boss, instead LB again so that it will be up from the get go when the beasts actually spawn. You really want your hardest hitting attack fly as soon as possible (except if you want to go with 1.)
3. If you are the target of a Mark of the Fallen Champion, depending on how far into the fight it’s cast, you would rather want to keep yourself alive rather than doing damage to Saurfang. For instance if you’re it before the 30% soft enrage you will want to let the healers handle this. If you’re tagged on the enrage or immediately after (that would be down to 20% on the boss, until things cool off in their department) you will want to keep yourself alive. Spamming LHW will be enough for this. Another moment when you will want to self-heal is if you get gibbed on the last 10%. A lot of players relax early and might miss the Mark, if you get it and die that’s another 5% more HP that they’ll be too relaxed for.

Totem Selection:

Earth: Stoneskin Totem, for the extra mitigation on the tanks, thus making it easier for any Mark victim. Switch for Earthbind only if needed.

Fire: Go with Fire Elemental in the start and then, when it expires, ToW is the best choice.

Water: Depending on if you have a Paladin that dishes out GBoW, Mana Spring or Healing Stream Totem

Air: Wrath of Air Totem all the way, baby!

The 25 man version doesn’t bring a lot more, just 5 beasts and more HP on them and the boss. Well, that and, given the extra numbers, more Marks will be cast so watch out.

Elemental Shaman and ICC: A Love Story (part 3/12)

The Gunship Battle in ICC is one of the easiest and more exciting battles that you will find in end-game content by far. It is, in fact, so easy, that it doesn’t even merit a walk-through but I’m’a do it anyway because it is also one of my favorites.

OK, so you’re on the boat. Remember to always equip the jetpack. This is mighty important for you, as a shaman, because otherwise you will not only not contribute to the success (or only marginally) but you can also be the bringer of death and sorrow, namely of a wipe. This is, of course, given the fact that you are stepping into ICC for the first time and are not at a vast disadvantage, gearwise, compared to your group. After you have the jet-pack equipped it’s very important to ask what is expected of you for this fight. There are a number of viable scenarios as to how this battle can be won so make sure you know what your part in it all is. Most likely you’ll be on add duty and that is the easiest part of the easiest battle. You just have to grow roots in one place near the ledge of your ship and go all out on the dwarven riflemen on the other side. CL is a good idea for this part, because said riflemen will be shooting at your ship and try to take it down. More on this later.

You will see that there are two cannons you could use but usually they are assigned to specific people so unless told otherwise, stay clear of them because you’ll be most likely mocked for your gunnery affinity. If you are assigned to be in a cannon, however, the only thing you need to do is to spam 1 until the heat bar to the right of the ‘vehicle’ UI goes up to around 75%-90% and then pres 2. A normal way to start causing more damage (albeit not a lot) is to pre-heat the cannons by starting firing them once the gunship is on the move so that you can use the special attack as soon as possible on the enemy ship.

Now down to the nitty-gritty, (if only) the fight itself. Your job will be to kill the enemy’s riflemen. Normal rotation on these guys, FS, LvB with the addition of CL off CD. Don’t worry about mana, it’s EZ mode, trust me on this one.

From time to time you’ll hear Muradin asking for a mage to come to the stage (‘Get a Mage in here to freeze those cannons!’ I believe are his exact words), and your cannons will be enclosed in a block of ice and their respective gunners will be ejected. At this point the jetpack kicks in and you’ll have to board the enemy ship and kill that pesky mage as soon as possible. Once he’s down the cannons return to normal and the group can have at it again. Rinse and repeat until the enemy ship starts going down in flames. Loot. But make sure you’re not actually aboard the enemy ship when it starts descending or you’ll be going down with it. Like a captain. With a another faction’s ship. Erm… yeah…

A little tid-bit about the riflemen. Make sure you snipe all of them, otherwise the longer they stay up the stronger they become and the more they hurt your ship.

This was the offensive part, now for defense: to make your healer’s lives a lot easier when you see that there’s a circle under your feet get outside it’s radius and start blasting again. That’s where a rocket is going to land and even though it doesn’t hurt that much, multiple rockets can kill you if you’re not paying attention. Be wary also of Muradin’s cleave. It hurts like a MOFO even though you’re wearing mail so make sure that when you jump over to the enemy ship:

a) You’re not the first one otherwise he will come get you and turn you into a smear on the floor.

b) Make sure that you don’t target him at some point and start unloading damage in his arse or you’ll be getting some back in retaliation – this doesn’t hurt, some 1.5K ranged attack (while you’re on your boat) but it’s better to not cop damage at all, if possible, as your healers would appreciate it.

Fun things to do while in this fight:

1. Just as you’re about to jump back on your ship after killing the enemy mage position yourself between two riflemen , select your landing target and as soon as you’re in the air Thunderstorm. You’ll get some mana back and do upwards of 15 k dmg if you’re lucky enough to hit 3.

2. I’ve never actually tried this but you can leave your fire elemental on the Alliance boat, in the furthermost left corner. You want him there otherwise he might wonder up to Muradin and he won’t be happy about having a big ass fire thingy wondering about on his wooden boat.

Totem Selection:

Earth Totem: Stoneskin. It will help everybody and it’s the safest choice.

Fire Totem: You want to go with ToW on this one unless you’re trying the Fire Elemental thing mentioned above. Searing might also be a fun choice but it always chooses a random target and might end up shot at by a rifleman.

Water Totem: Unless GBoW is on the table, really, really go for Mana Spring, otherwise Healing Stream.

Air Totem: Wrath of Air, plain and simple

The difference between the 10 man and the 25 man version is in the number of cannons available to your side (2/4) and the HP of the mobs.

Happy Sniping!

Elemental Shaman and ICC: A love Story (Part 2/12)

On to part two of the ICC and Elemental Shamans, the never ending story of life and love. Or loot pinata:

LADY DEATHWHISPER

I’m not sure if this was intended or not, but the only raid boss in this instance that has the Lady title is a chatterbox. She keeps yapping about how the LK is the savior and you are doomed and about apple pie recipes. Or something like that. After the first time you fight her you sorta zone out while she blabbers and go on a mental afk.

Remember the room heading up to Blackheart the Inciter, In Shadow Labyrinth? It’s about the same, with nasty ass mobs that you need to kill plus two priests on the sides. Word of warning:  while it is possible to AoE the trash here, be careful not to pull one of the priests as well, they have a nasty AoE and do a bomb-type thingy on a random player (this time it can be a tank too) that will act like a DoT and explode after a few seconds. Once you have this, and if you’re using DBM you’d have to be legally blind and deaf not to notice, move away from the raid, 20 yards will do. Once you explode you can go back and hit that if you want to. You might get it twice or more in a row so look out for it!

The fight itself is not a lot different than the M’uru fight. It boils down to managing adds as soon as they spawn and dropping them, if possible, where they stand, and then on to phase two and kicking the oh, so honorable lady’s behind. Also known for us shamans as the BL BL BL BL BL BL phase. You’ll get it.

First phase:

This begins when somebody throws a random punch or kick or spell at the good lady. She will be so afraid of the lot of you that she will immediately shroud herself in a mana barrier. The faster you DPS it down, the faster you push onto phase two.  Mind you, this phase is not a DPS race. You have to take care of the spawning adds and then, until the next wave spawns, go for her shield. If you have a very good group with lots of people dishing out insane amounts of hurt you can have one or two people DPSing her shield at all times. Not recommendable tho, it can all go to hell in a hand basket really quick if the adds are not controlled.

For the 10 man version the adds will spawn alternatively from your left and right, in this order. On 25 they spawn both left and right with a couple thrown from behind for some surprise buttseckz if your tanks aren’t paying attention.

There are two types of adds to begin with, Cult Fanatics and Cult Adherents. Usually you’ll set your melee DPS on the Adherents and Spell Flinging DPS on the Fanatics. Don’t fret, if their names are just as I’ve written them above you can actually use Chain Lightning and Magma Totem freely. The problem becomes when Lady D. brings one back to life. Now if you’re not careful you can haz a cup o’ death by 1 shotting yourself. The assignments above, melee-> Adherents, ranged ->Fanatics are in placed because at this point they will be almost immune to spell respectively melee attacks.  Their names will change to Reanimated Fanatics/Adherents and your sole concern is to down yours. They hit twice as hard as well, as an added bonus. You might also encounter the Deformed A/F, just as deadly and just as almost immune to specific damage. They deal thrice the damage but have their speed cut in half. All fanatics hit like Mike Tyson so melee (and you, if you had to go Enhancement for this one) will need to be behind them while someone kites them.

Be careful with the buffs they get. Your priority, the Fanatics, get something to further boost their damage done by 25% so Purge it immediately. For this fight I have my Purge button bound to one of the side mouse buttons, just like for the Jaraxxus fight if you don’t have a couple mages handy. Be on the look-out for Curse of Torpor, which is cast at random by the Adherents on a healer/caster DPS. If you get it stop casting and wait for it to be removed, it’ll make your GCD some 8 seconds and you don’t want that. The boss will cast at times Death and Decay on the ground so MOVE! ASAP, it ticks for some 4-5-6 k and will get you killed din no time flat if you’re not paying close attention.

Time the death of the adds very well when the the Lady’s shield is low so there aren’t any adds up when you move on to

Phase two:

At this point it becomes a DPS race, albeit not a very challenging one after a while and some 6 K DPS raid average.  You will only have Death Yeller, erm, Whisper to handle.

You will get Raid Warnings, Whispers, Yells and so on telling you to BL! Do it! Watch the boss’ cast bar, she will only cast Frostbolts which ARE interruptible. If you see nobody else is doing it, go for it. Even if you see somebody else kicking go for it, they deal a decent amount of damage and can cause death when combined with:

a)      Death and Decay, which she will continue casting at random

b)      Ghosts

Yes, Ghosts! They will spawn at a random location and target a random player, to explode on impact for some 10-12 K-ish AoE damage.  When you see them just run for the hills, they don’t have a very long life and move slower than you do. After they explode go back to DPS-ing and barring any tanks not switching when their debuff hits the mark and/or healers dying from Frostbolts/ Ghosts you should get a kill.

And that will shut her up! Or at least until the next week, that is.

Totem Choices:

Earth Totem:  Stoneskin is your best choice in this fight hands down.

Fire Totem: You might want to start out with ToW and after Lady D’s barrier is down switch to Fire Elemental Totem. If you have a Demo Warlock with the right speck you can go Searing instead in P1 and Fire Elemental in P2.

Water Totem: Unless you absolutely must use the MP5 totem, go with Healing Spring.

Air Totem: Haste, pure and simple.

What the 25 version brings, besides from more adds, is that Lady Deathwhisper will periodically Mind Control a random player (not a tank but I could be wrong here). Do NOT kill him, CC his ass instead. Frog him! Go on! Do it! You know you want to!

This is, at least for PuGs, the make or break fight. A lot of 25 man pugs can’t manage the adds and disband. If you’ve leading said raid try to assign people to sides. It should go something like:

3/4 Ranged + 1/2 Melee on the left + Tank

3/4 Melee + 1/2 Ranged on the right + Tank

At the back you only need a tank, really, because what spawns there is random. If you feel like it then assign somebody, otherwise after side adds are down the respective DPS should switch there and the rest go on the Mana Barrier.

And during P1 always know how much of the mana shield is left. Trust me, it’s important!