Raiding Addons

There are thousands of addons you can get for WoW but there are a few that are especially good for raiding. Some guilds make some or all of these mandatory for raiding.

Deadly Boss Mods (DBM)- DBM helps you out by announcing various boss mechanics. This can include warnings to move or timers for various mechanics. DBM will sometimes audibly count down to events which helps the raider move before they take a lot of damage or before an event. It will also announce spells and debuffs cast and changes of phases. DBM also works for instances and battlegrounds.

GTFO - GTFO is a great addon in addition to DBM. GTFO will make a sound if you are standing in something on the ground, get hit by something your not suppose to, or generally dying in some way. It is nice because you will hear the sound and know you have to move out of something even if you are focused on healing or rotation. Another perk of the addon is that it warns you of things outside of raiding also like getting fatigue or drowning.



Recount - This addon keeps track of DPS, Healing, Interrupts, CC breaks, and a handful of other stats. This addon isn't something mandatory to raid but it does help keep track of the dps or healing you are doing in relation to others in your raid. You can click on each member and see what spells they were using to do damage and heals and you can in turn use that to help figure out your own rotation. You can also see the main mobs the person is DPSing or healing. This can be very useful if certain members are not changing targets during a fight.

Omen Threat Meter - Omen is an addon all raiders should have. It shows how much threat you have on a mob. This is extremely important for tanks and DPS. If the DPS sees they are getting too close to the tanks threat they can stop DPSing until their threat goes down or can Misdirect or Tricks of the Trade threat to the tank.

Healbot or Vuhdo - Both of these addons deal with healing and decursing. You don't use both. Choose one or the other. Quite a few people prefer Healbot but test out both if you haven't used them before. You can set up your healing spells and cleansing spells to mouse buttons and shift/ctrl/alt modifiers. Instead of having to click on each person to heal them you just click on the addons raiding frames to directly heal them. Using one of these addons is much more efficient and easier to heal than manually clicking a raid member then clicking the healing spell you want. You can also see debuffs on all players, a quick view of everyone's health, and which players have died.



Omni CC- This addon changes the count downs of your buttons. Instead of seeing a clock dial counting down your buttons you see a number. Instead of having to guess how much time you have before a button can be hit you can just look at the number and know if you have time to hit another spell before the cooldown is up.



Tidy Plates - This addon was made for tanks but it has expanded to be helpful to all classes. It adds a health plate above a mobs head. You can change the style depending on what info you want to see. If you are a rogue you can have it show the timers of your bleeds and poisons. If you are a tank you can show the mobs you have a lot of threat on and which ones you are losing threat. DPS and heals can see if they are getting too much argo on certain mobs. The plates can change color depending on how much threat you have on a mob and also if there are any raid markers on the mob. The plate will change to a certain color marker such as white for skull, red for X, and yellow for diamond.



Rating Buster - Sometimes when looking at gear that dropped it is hard to decide which is better, what you are wearing or what dropped. This addon helps with showing how your stats will change. It takes into account your class and spec. You can see what stats you lose and what you gain. It also shows resilience, mana, armor, and health changes.

Raiding Guidelines

You are a part of a guild. Act like it.

If you only go on raids that benefit you people will take notice. If you only raid until you have what you want and then stop going to that raid you may not get invites to other raids you want to do. If you are going to guild raids then continue to go on guild raids to help others get the gear and achievements they need. If you act like a pompous jerk then you will be treated like a pompous jerk.

You may not go on a raid you signed up for.

A raid leader must first invite the tanks and heals. After that they choose the DPS that signed up. Under normal circumstances DPS will be added according to the time they signed up. Sometimes invites are based on needing Melee vs Ranged. In some cases like progression or off specs needed a better geared/raid aware person or person with needed off specs will be added instead of first signed up.

If you sign up for a raid then show up. If you sign up tentative you will be taken into consideration after any accepted people are added. If you really want to go but you are not sure if you have to work or will get back home in time from something then let the raid leader know and it will be their choice if your tentative response is considered an accepted.

Be prepared.

Sometimes the raid is graced with a person or people who will supply raiding food tables and flask cauldrons. Do not rely on these always being available. The people supplying them have other things to do in the game and may not be able to make up enough for every raid. Something you can do to help out with this is to get supplies needed to make them and put them in the guild bank. Then raiders can look in the guild bank for mats they don't have and make up meals and cauldrons. Remember the raid feasts are BOP once made and the flask cauldrons are bound to your battlenet account. Don't make up a ton of feasts on a toon you do not raid with or cauldrons on a battlenet account you don't raid with.

The seafood feast requires Highland Guppy (2), Lavascale Catfish (2), Fathom Eel (2) per meal.

The flask cauldron requires Flask of Steelskin, Flask of the Draconic Mind, Flask of the Winds, Flask of Titanic Strength, Deathblood Venom (8). This is basically all cata herbs and volatile life.

Show up ready to raid.

If you show up to a raid stoned or drunk don't be surprised if you are kicked from the raid. Yeah sometimes its funny to have a drunk person in raid but if the raid keeps wiping because your impaired ass is killing people off then you will be kicked.

Learn the fights.

If we are doing a raid you haven't done before there are a million Youtube videos on how to do the boss fights from every classes aspect. Taking a couple minutes to glance at videos will give you an idea of what the fight is like and can help you with tips and tricks for your class.

If there are certain raids that you just cant get a hang of or just hate the raid don't feel like you have to sign up for them. If you are getting frustrated just let the raid leader know and they will see if they can get a replacement. If you down right cant stand the thought of going into Naxx then dont sign up for those runs. Either through guild, friends, or pugs the raid can find a replacement for you.

Listen to the raid leader.

If you are not the raid leader or the raid leader hasn't asked for your opinion then shut up and let the raid leader do their job. If you learned a trick in a pug group and think it would be helpful in the raid then mention it to the raid leader and they will take your input into consideration. If you are not the raid leader and are trying to set up placement of people for a boss fight 5 trash pulls away just shut up. People tend to have a short attention span and it is easier for the raid leader to set up pulls at the boss than for 3 people to shout out commands and confuse the rest of the raid.

When you agree to sign up for a raid you are agreeing that you are willing to put the cyber life of your toon in the hands of the raid leader. If there is a boss that instantly kills the first person to attack it and the raid leader says you are that person then you run in and die. If you find out that you don't like how the raid leader is running the raid then no one is forcing you to join any of their raids in the future.

If you get to a boss and the raid leader starts to explain the fight listen. Do not say you are going afk and then get back after the fight is explained and ask how to do the fight. Personally I would kick the person on the spot. If you need a break ask for one. Don't just say afk like you know what you are doing and come back and say that.

Keep vent clear.

Listen to the raid leader when they give orders on how vent is to be used. If it is a run that's on farm and lol-easy then you will probably be able to have fun and joke around. If it is a fight that requires people to hear orders or people are learning the fight then keep vent clear except for people the raid leader designates. Some things the raid leader may assign vent role to include decursing, calls to offtank adds, or timers. When a bunch of people try to talk on vent at the same time the voices are mumbled up and it is hard to hear what people are saying.

Also please don't yell in vent. Some people get headaches from being on vent too long because of people yelling about random things. You may be really excited about something but please try to stay within average decibels. There is no need to yell things like you have died. Healers can see you have died and usually a couple different messages pop up that you have died.

Don't start pulling shit before the whole raid gets there and before the raid leader says to start.

It is great that you have the initiative to get to the instance before everyone else but if you start pulling before the raid gets there then you are just being an ass. In some retro raids the trash mobs are easy to solo but some raid members may be going to get rep or rep drops. We have also had retro instances completely cleared and last boss killed before the whole raid gets there. Something like Mags and Gruuls are very short instances. Wait for your raid. If the raid is too slow getting there for your liking by all means leave the raid and do the instance by yourself.

Know your role.

Not all raid leaders know what spec you have and what gear/skill level you have with certain specs. If on a raid signup the raid leader asks for role then send them an ingame mail saying what specs your toon is and what spec you would rather play in. If you are offspec tank but don't know any of the fights let the raid leader know. You will not be forced into a role you are uncomfortable with. Also know that if possible the raid leader may allow you to use the raiding time to learn a new spec. Some really good tanks and healers can come out of an understanding raid that allows them to learn.

Don't waste the raids time and gold.

It is one thing to learn how to do a fight. It is another to wipe over and over again because of stupid shit. If you cannot grasp the concept of raiding mechanics on retro raids then don't expect to be accepted into progression raids. In progression raids there needs to be people who are willing to learn and give a shit about the game.

Don't point fingers.

The raid leader isn't stupid. If someone keeps messing up they know about it. Going off on a person in raid chat or vent does nothing to help the situation. You are not gods gift to raiding. You will screw up big time too.

Just because you can raid the LFR doesn't mean you are geared and experienced to raid.

The looking for raid option is the lazy mans way of getting gear. LFR is no different than getting into a battleground. Yes, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You can stand in whatever you want, take the hits of Faiding Light, and stand in the stomps and still live. If you put a trained chimp in front of a computer it could do better than some LFR people. True story. If you are fully LFR geared that just means you are lucky at drops. If you do well in dps or heals what would happen if we took into account how much damage you took or how much overheals you did? Just because you can survive the LFR does not mean you are ready and able to raid Firelands or regular Dragon Soul.

Guidelines for Raid Leaders:

If you have something that is on reserve then let people know that on the calendar. It is rude to have 10-25 people show up and then let them know a highly prized item is on reserve. If you do reserve items limit it to 2-3 items a raid and switch around people the reserve it going to. No one wants to go on raids just to gear up the raid leader and their friends week after week.

State loot rules before the raid starts. With some raids you may want people to need all items over 185 item level to try to get people the Needy achievement. You may have everyone greed and only need items the actually need or for items they want to transmog. State if people should need on items like mounts, quest items, or bags. It is usually better for everyone to need on such items so there isnt confusion when it comes time to roll.

If you do loot master you may want someone you trust to handle that. You have enough in your hands running the raid. Let someone else deal with tells and rolls for loot.

If someone is being rude in your raid then warn them. If they continue then kick them. There is no reason for a raid leader to have a headache or be fuming because of some jerk. If you dont like what a person is doing say something. Raid leading is suppose to be fun, not a nightmare.

Raiding 101 - Mechanics

I am going to start a new series on basics of raiding. There are a lot of raid mechanics that has been used in previous expansions that are being brought back in Cata. With how many new players in LK tactics of older raids are not known to them. I am hoping this series will help you out when raiding. Know that not all of these apply to every boss fight. These are just guidelines that tend to repeat throughout the game.

Don't stand in front of the boss.

Unless you are the tank you shouldn't be in front of the boss. Many times bosses will have a cleave or cone effect that will cause a lot of damage to anything in front of it. Tanks have stats to help decrease this damage and the healers are focusing on them. A stray DPS standing in front will likely get one shot.

Dragons tail swipe so don't stand behind them.

Many of the dragon type bosses have a tail swipe which can cause a lot of damage and sometimes do a knock back. If you are a melee DPS don't stand any further back than the dragons hind leg. If you are ranged or a healer stand off to the sides or at the very least stand near max range behind the dragon.

Don't stand in stuff on the ground.

If you see the ground rumbling or some kind of fire or slime on the ground don't stand in it. Sometimes there is some sort of warning that something bad will be on the ground and other times it will just appear. Move away from these areas asap. Another thing is stuff falling from above. If you see stuff dropping on you then move out of the way. There are a few instances where you shouldn't move out of stuff on the ground like Shade of Aran in Kara's fire but those are few and far between. 95% of stuff on the ground should be moved away from.

You can't DPS or Heal when you are dead.

Not all fights are a DPS race. Some involve so much movement and environment awareness that slow and steady is the best option. If you are putting total focus on your rotation then you are not paying attention to the fire ball heading towards you. An old term for DPS was Glass Cannon. You can deal out a lot of damage but you can take very little. Blizz uses a lot of different mechanics and some are to throw people off of what they think is normal. Think of Heigan the Unclean in Naxx. Before you can DPS you have to master the dance so you wont die.

If you have to click something be there before hand.

This is another DPS flaw. There are some fights like Magtheridon where you need to be at a certain location to click on an object during the fight. When using an addon like DBM go to that location early enough so you are standing by the click for a few seconds at least. Don't try to DPS as much as you can and cut the travel time to the item short. You never know when there will be a knock back or stuff on the ground you have to run around causing you to take more time to get to the click.

If you are to CC then that is your main focus.

If you are in a fight where you need to CC a mob, such as the Moroes fight in Kara, then your main goal is to keep that mob CCed. You doing slightly less DPS will make up for a mob running around smacking healers and wiping the raid.

Not all bosses have argo tables.

I mentioned Shade of Aran before and I will again here. There are some bosses that are not tanked like how we are used to. Some pick a random person and they have no threat level. On these types of bosses the DPS can do everything they can to top out their DPS so long as they pay attention to other game mechanics such as stuff on the floor.

If you are sucked in you need to get out fast.

General rule is if a boss is able to suck you to them you need to get away from them as soon as you can. We have seen this with Shade of Aran in Kara, Karsh Steelbender in Blackrock Caverns, and Asaad in Vortex Pinnacle.

One of the best things you can do when learning a boss fight is to check out web pages or YouTube channels that have write ups and videos. Don't just read one write up about a fight because many times they will list only one tactic and usually have a lot of numbers and theory crafting which is just too much info for the first time raider in an instance. Watch a few videos and once you have the fight down pat then you can go back to theory crafting of the fight.