While NOR remains a casual and family friendly place to enjoy the game without the threat of being berated about your gear and performance, we've also had a vibrant group of players who enjoy (most of the time!) pitting themselves against the hardest content available in the game. We plan to continue progression raiding in 4.0 and this post will outline the expectations and requirements for participation on a progression team. Keep in mind that being on a progression team does not make you an über NORbie or anyone more important. It's just one aspect of the game that some of us enjoy. It's not for everyone, and that's okay!
Progression raiding takes a lot of patience and commitment. We have gone though weeks and weeks working on the same boss until we finally find a rhythm that is successful. It's a real team effort and everyone needs to do their part. You need to be willing to die a lot, pay many repair bills, and have a good, supportive attitude with your fellow NORbies. It's been great that our friendships and personalities have remained congenial while working on progression. While we all have our weaker moments, I've never seen any fights or negative fallout from progression, and in many cases, it has just bonded us more closely together.
Here is a portrait of the kinds of things that various roles should strive to do in order to have success in progression:
Tanks:
- A thorough knowledge of operation and boss mechanics and an ability to identify them as they happen.
- Knowledge of boss attack and damage types (melee/range, force/tech, kinetic/energy, internal/elemental) and which of your defensive abilities best mitigates each combination.
- Sound knowledge of how defense, shield, and absorb work, and a willingness to have multiple sets of gear with distributions maximized for different ratios of incoming m/r damage.
- A commitment to dummy parsing in order to understand your best potential DPS rotation and make it second nature. You won't have time to think about your abilities during the tougher progression fights, it needs to be automatic.
- Understanding and willingness to min/max your gear for your class and spec(s).
- Ability to play multiple specs where applicable (most DPS have more than one viable spec., with trade offs on which performs better for a given fight).
- Ability to minimize incoming damage while maintaining high DPS output. It's not enough to know all of your damage dealing abilities, it's also really important to maximize the use of defensive cooldowns and utility points. Oh, and don't stand in stuff.
- Understanding and willingness to min/max your gear for your class and spec.
- A good knowledge of operation boss fights and which phases have burst damage, cleansable DoTs, etc.
- A good knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of your tanks to help anticipate burst damage.
- A patient, humble, and constructive attitude!
- Commitment! We often invest time just to gear each other up appropriately, and it takes time working with the same people to get the harder mechanics down. It's demolarizing to go through that work and have someone drop out soon thereafter. As always, real life comes first, but please also consider the time that your fellow NORbies put in and whether or not you can realistically commit.
- Faithful attendance in Star Parse while raiding. This really helps us to understand how we're doing as a group, what we need to work on, and whether or not we're truly ready for the content we're attempting.
Great! Let one of the DMG members know! Work on maximizing your gear as best you can with the content available to you. Do some parsing if you're a DPS, and come along with us on story mode or progression nights when there is a spot open. Jump into Star Parse with us so we can see how things are going and how you might fit in a group.
"That sounds awesome! I'm not sure if I'm cut out for it though. What should I do now?"
Great! We would really enjoy working with people and helping them to reach their potential as best as we can! Let one of the DMG members know. Read the class and gearing guides and come along on story mode nights. Join us in Star Parse and we'll ask questions and make suggestions where applicable. When you and the DMG members are all comfortable with how things are going, we can try to find a regular spot for you on a progression team.
Happy Raiding!
