This seems like something we should easily handle. So far the issues that I have noticed.
1) Not understanding/following the emotes / trigger messages - Last run looked much better. The trigger message of check for LoS buff was misleading to some but, I think people got it last run. The effects do not appear to be LoS based. What was meant by the trigger message is to look for the effect icon in your effects window. If you see it, you are still in an area to be affected.
I'll change the voice part of checking buffs to be less confusing. I admit it was confusing using an LoS reference. At the time of write up a few weeks ago I was trying to create a short descriptive message. Anyway, that's why this past week we spent time during prep to talk about what the buff means. So I'll change the voice portion to something like: Check for penalty area buff.
You guys let me know if you have something more concise. Trigger has not be changed YET.
Also, there are post effects apparently that help in this regard. So that may be an additional option some players can use.
2) Miss on tank swap - This seemed to happen once the week before Christmas. I ended up with Vito's killing blow that according to our writeup was a tank swap failure. I don't think we got one of these last week. so we were better.
4) Tank swap and repositioning - Even this last week, we were a bit slow on the tank swap repositioning for one swap. We need to make sure that he gets back into solid position prior to the next emote. We still did fairly well, but when he keeps moving a bit, it makes us keep watching him to make sure we are ready for the next emote. This takes a bit of concentration away from the tasks at hand and can hurt.
Addressing both your points #2 and #4. We were looking at this closer post raid, and the inner knee-wall corner appears to have a lip. Zak was pointing this out, you can see it when the target ring is on the MT in the corner, the ring elevates up. So what can happen (and this is something I believe Gimamam and I both witnessed on our last run), is that the boss gets pushed into the corner, beyond the MT; due to the corner lip, and then the boss pivots to realign with the MT. This just causes massive chaos during an emote, and I believe we lost a lot of ground when that occurred.
We have some other pin options and some I want to avoid. We can't use the outside corners, as they have false pillars. Outside wall shoulder-pins is something I want to avoid as well, because we'd have to deal with the boss being pushed along the wall. In addition, for left/right emotes the MT would have to flip the boss.
Zak suggested the door frame (there's a little corner on the frame/wall). My concern here is the boss coming out of that corner and getting knocked out the door and leashing (not sure on the leash length, but either way, it's not a solid corner unfortunately).
Another idea I was thinking about is just reversing the MT on the inner knee-wall corner and tank the boss facing outward. So the MT is tanking outside the corner and the raid is pushing the boss into the corner with attacks. With this method, the lip shouldn't come into play. Although frontal attacks are not favored, melee can still pivot to the sides if we have the MT stay to the right or left of the inner corner wall.
3) Non-full raid - We still lack flags to get a full raid in. The extra DPS and healing should really help and it won't be long before we have full raids.
Aye, this is just a product of bad timing for our attempts (holiday season), and artificial progression blocks (flagging). Our three attempts so far have been between 35-40 players. That's including the limited pigs we can get in for those attempts.
This leaves the main issue we had last time:
5) MT death - This is a real bad thing for us. This causes new MT to try and take agro and then get into position. Since we are burning from the start, it also means that some DPSs may die before the next tank can grab agro. This is even worse if it happens during an emote or just before an emote. Healing seemed rather easy when we were not moving. In fact, I could cast a dot or debuff between two heals. The part that we may have to concentrate most on is healing during emote movement. The first week we did this we got three stay away from his right side emotes in a row. That meant less movement and more solid heals. However, every time an emote caused us to move, ALL the healers are moving around the same time. We likely need the fastest possible heals during those moves and heals from everyone who can heal to make up for the fact that every healer is moving. The more people healing around that time, the better as not everyone moves at the exact same time due to letting a spell finish or checking mob placement before moving. This will give us a better chance at the gap between heals being small enough to keep the tank alive.
Others may have other observations or thoughts
It is true, that when our MT dies, if the next MT is not positioned front of the boss (which isn't always possible when the MT dies as other tanks are reacting to an emote), then it causes many failures.
Feroxide made a good point with regards to the emote and healing. We can spread our healers out. That'll reduce the odds that all will have to move on each emote and result in less gaps in the healing.
Both pre/post raid we're talking with healers to ensure they understand the emote mechanic and what the penalty buff means. In addition, it's helpful to move enough to avoid the emote, but not overcompensate. For example, on the move away from boss one, there's no need to run clear across the room to distance. The extra time; albeit may seem small, is time taken away from healing. I try and orient in a way where I can walk backwards on a move away emote, or use strafe to adjust to left/right to save time as well.
Our tank deaths cost us though. For the last few weeks, we've been working one on one with our healers to improve their performance (across the board). This process is ongoing; with the end goal being a mean healing machine (naturally it'll conclude by healers race changing to Halfling! Go team Halfling!). Huevos will now chime in and reply with some feeble remark against the Halfling race out of shear jealousy.
