opinions of Ward of Elements Difficulty.

Geothe wrote:

Actually, if you notice what I wrote, it was 3-5. It truly depends on who is available at the time we run the raid and already has their t2 gear (or at least a majority of it). I truly believe that neither gear, nor skill, nor group makeup is lacking in this instance. While not an expert by any means on raiding we have all communicated thoroughly what is required and had discussions on how to maximize dps through gear, autoattack timing, casting order etc. Everyone has at least 4 pieces of t2 gear (and most have full set), and If i can recall correctly, our last try was as follows.
Group 1 (pretty much set each time we go)
Myth Berserker (tank)
Fabled epic swash (me)
Fabled epic inq (I know... wheres the temp... he's AWOL at the moment LOL)
Fabled epic defiler
Fabled epic dirge
Fabled epic coercer

Group 2
Myth wizzy
Myth brigand
Fabled epic illy
Fabled epic warden
Fabled epic conj
Fabled epic fury
I don't remember our raid zonewide but my zonewide was right around 4k. Since Dayakara is basically a tank n spank n burn down fast, I liken it to the first named actually, just with a difference of having the MT grab and keep the adds. On the first named our raid DPS was right around 21k (mine was 4.9k). I happen to think this is a pretty good group setup, although of course trading one of the druids out for a troub would be ideal. But since we don't really have a troub (consistently) the second group is made up of who is available. If you think that we could feasibly set up our group better, please do let me know, understanding this caveat... As a casual guild, we don't always have the perfect setup available. On a side note I AM one of those people that likes to try to do all I can to better myself at my class. As a melee DPS class I know that gear will account for a lot, but so does player skill. If anyone thinks I can/should be doing better than I have been PLEASE let me know constructively. You are welcome to send me a PM with suggestions on what I can do skillwise to parse higher, since my playstyle and time is not conducive to being able to invest large amounts of time to get better gear (pregnant wife, 5 year old, full time job, studying to get my CPA). My swash's name is Krislyn and I play on the Oasis server. Thank you for taking the time to read my post.

Sadly, a well played troubador would increase your dps by about 8k. I know that illy/troub buffs account for roughly 30% of conj dps alone. Kinda ridiculous the amount of difference a bard makes... hence why successful raid guilds have 4-5 bards consistently. Its dumb, but it is what it is.

Slowin wrote:

That is truly a shame to think that we may suffer from not being able to progress through this zone beyond Digg due to lack of 1 key class.

urgthock wrote:

Try this:
Berserker, Swash, Warden, Defiler, dirge, coercer
Wizzy, brig, illy, inq, conj, fury
or
zerker, warden, inq, defiler, coercer, conj
wiz, illy, brig, swash, dirge, fury
My point being, I'm not sure your maximizing your groups. If your zerker can still hold aggro in aoe while everyone else single target burns, the second makeup will do better at maximizing dps. Be sure the defiler is roa on conj, I'd have the dirge flury buff the swash and the fury melee buff the brig. Oh IA on the dirge of course.
Just my 2cp.
Oh, my expectation of above group dps wise:
Zerk 4.5k, warden 1k, inq 1k, defiler .5k, coercer 4k, conj 4k
Wiz 6k, brig 5k, swash 5k, dirge 3k, fury 2k
36k dps should be achievable with that group with the gear you have.

urgthock wrote:

Meaning no disrespect, but I can't imagine you are using all the available tools if you are having to use 5 healers to keep up a tank with a 6 set bonus for t2 shard armor up in the zone. I solo healed a t2 shard tank in the zone completely as a mystic (my normal tank was locked out), with a druid in the second group, and it was a little difficult but frankly I expected it to be harder than it was. I think that you might not be using all the non-raid tools available at your disposal if you are finding it that difficult to keep a tank alive, like I mean, a non-raid plate tank should be getting to 70%+ avoidance without any raid gear whatsoever and if you put a non-raid geared brawler with an avoidance lend on them with similar avoidance, then with a templar even solo healing them with shield ally and also 40ish% avoidance and a dirge in group... well, I mean, they just won't be hard to keep up. I mean, is your tank using a 3% riposte fabled adorn on mainhand, 3% parry adorns on each wrist, parry/food drink, a danak mastercrafted neck for 2% parry (if you aren't using fabled, that will blow away anything you could be using), runnyeye cloak. With cleric/avoidance lend fighter doing the same thing. I mean maybe he is but honestly I'd be pretty surprised if you are having to use 5 healers.

5 healers seems excessive for this zone. Perhaps there is a lack of curing or positional issues. Tempest fight and Water guy will kill you if you are not standing in the right place.

Atan@Unrest wrote:

I will definitely make those suggestions to the raid leader. Thank you for your help and input Atan. One thing though, your melee expectations are just about right, that seems to be what we are running. But the caster dps your expecting is way high compared to what we are experiencing (except for the wizzy, he is parsing 6k). May have to have a talk with our casters. To be fair, I made a mistake on the second group makeup we had, one of the druids was a myth necro. The necro, conj, and coercer were all dpsing much lower than your stated expectations. More in the realm of 2kish each (and the necro was like 1.8k. I remember thinking that was really low for a myth necro) But again, thank you Atan.

Apos wrote:

Actually, as per my most recent post, I just recalled we had 3 healers the last time we went. We only had 5 healers one time, all other times has been 3 or 4. And to be honest, we just roll in with that many because we expected it to be hard enough to need them. We may have to rethink that assumption. Thank you for the advice Apos.

Well, our last raid was parsing right at 15K and it is pathetic I know. The Assassin and myself were doing around 10, (no Dirge) and the SK tank was around 3. Four healers doin nothing, a Wizzy around 1500, a 78 Monk who couldn't hit the mobs, (lol I know but it's all we had). Illy who doesn't know the class yet. Just leveled it to have one in guild. Zerker off tank, ect.
Total of 11. Now you should be able to hit 30K no problem if you have the resources to pick and choose which classes you want. However, we don't have that luxery, and as you can see we couldn't even scrape together 12 level 80's because two people didn't show.
I'm pretty sure we can do the 3rd named and Digg, but we're not taking down the Fire guy or the rest for a very long time if DPS is the real requirement and not skill.

Kunaak wrote:

Soe isn't going to adjust this fight too much beyond what it's set at now. It's the choke point for the zone to keep everyone from burning through the X2 and right into the X4. They have it set so only thier premier guilds will get first crack (and Beta test it) at the loot. When they had their fill they will adjust the difficulty (mostly upwards) of the X4, unbug the Aiden fight, and fix it so Najena spawns all the time at the end of the zone. They will let us commoners in after their favorites are 80% complete with the zone, we'll just have to wait our turn.

urgthock wrote:

Np, was offering some perspective that you guys might be able to work it out.
I believe your other casters can parse where I placed them at, they probably just need to do some research on flames regaurding spell priority and aa selection. Maybe even a little gear optomization as well if they're really behind. But all in all, with a little work I think you can bring that group up to winning.
But this isn't unique to WoE, this is true of raiding advancement in general. I'd wager at your current output levels group zones like PoF are giving you trouble as well. But, if your gear is where this zone expects it to be, with some optomizations, you should be able to be more successful.
Lastly, I personally recommend workign on Digg first. While the script is more complicated, the min gear / dps to kill him is much less. Learn the script, and he dies fairly easy.