Raiding

Originally posted on Raiding board by Derar:

I've been out on a couple of raids recently that have been a little sloppy, and I think this is in part due to some people getting into the Raiding game who are a little new to it, which is good to see. However, since they don't necessarily have the experience of familiarity, I thought this would be a good opportunity to go over some terms and rules of thumb, in the name of a better overall Raiding game.

Rules of Thumb:

AutoSac OFF, AutoAssist OFF, AutoLoot ON

This is the standard configuration for your Auto-settings when raiding. AutoSac is kept off in case you fail to loot a guard of its key on death; it gives you a second opportunity to grab it if you're quick. AutoLoot is ON obviously to make sure you get any and all items off a guard corpse.

Finally, the most important, AutoAssist should be kept off at all times. There are a few reasons why: first, it makes skipping rooms (see below) significantly more difficult if people are engaging. Secondly, you cannot cheal, quaff mana, respell, etc. if you're always in combat. Thirdly, autoass will usually put everybody on the same guard, which causes problems with slowkilling (see below), and fourthly, sometimes you need someone to stay out of combat to test something - autoass screws that up too.

You should be manually engaging guards. No ifs, ands, or buts.

GTell Triggers Off

Turn off all your gtell script outputs! Raiding is super-spammy as is, and your important instructions will be coming across gtell most likely! Don't make people have to scroll back up for your meaningless last hour crap. It's courtesy, if nothing else.

On a related note, if you plan on raiding regularly, you should consider setting up a channel capture window for gtell - this makes it much easier to make sure you don't miss instructions in the spam. You also might want to consider a pheal gag trigger, as that can get verrry spammy.

Stack Commands

If your raid leader/cracker gives you directions, such as "Derar, go east, enter 4.cp, try doors, and report", then unless you are not using a client, the command you send should be: (assuming your command separator is ;) e;enter 4.cp;op north;op east;op west;op south;op down;op up And a report of the results to gtell.

If you're the lead tank, and the raid leader says "Derar east, Aless follow" That means stack "vis;e;cast fire breath", not just go east. The group needs to see the lead tank move, and the lead tank needs to ensure they pick up all guards, since they don't all aggro at the same time, so you have to.

Be Prompt!

This is a pretty encompassing rule. If the raid's starting and the invade time is ready, get to the maze asap. If your timer is ticking down and the raid leader's calling for raiders to the buffer, don't do your quest, get to the buffer! If you're testing a room, report the information as quickly as you can. If you're getting smoked by guards, send "guards!" first, then scroll back up and get the info. If you get instructions from the raid leader to test a dir, test a portal, move somewhere; wait 5 seconds (in case they say wait/hold) and do it!

Those last few are important, even though with a 5-hour timer it wouldn't seem it. Nobody really wants to have to spend 5 hours, for one, and secondly, it's often not the 5-hour timer you're racing against, but the 10-minute repop.

Testing a Dir/Portal? Wear your Shield!

If you're testing a room, wear your shield first. Always. If it has guards, the Shield can be the difference between utter annihilation and getting the info requested, or even being saved by the party if that's the room to go to.

Do not Over-Rescue!

It doesn't matter if you're the uber-leet T9 tank of the century. If there are enough people capable of tanking a guard, then they should be. Simple. You should never have more than 2 guards on you, with some exceptions (quickly rescuing to re-aim, somebody's about to die and you're getting a re-rescue right after, low group count, etc.). If you're needlessly tanking extra guards, you're generating a drain on the raid party, because incoming damage starts to over-tick incoming pheal. With no defenders, it's not *as* big a deal, but if there are defenders, you really need to watch this one.

PHeal, PHeal, PHeal!

If you're engaged with guards, you should be casting Party Heal. No question. If you're with the full party (more or less) and there are no defenders, you can quite safely alternate PHeal and an attack, but always make sure PHeal is in your rotation. The minute defenders show up, you need to be making sure that you keep PHeals going between Aim/Rescue; just don't spam. If nothing else, in a -Regen maze, PHeal keeps the party's moves up.

Terminology:

PHeal: Stands for Party Heal. This is your bread and butter healing spell in Raiding. Use it. Copiously.
CHeal: Stands for Incomplete Healing. Use this during skip rooms, or when you need to keep a specific target alive through lots of damage. Can't be cast in combat.
Skip Room: If the raid leader says the next room is a Skip Room, that means it's a room with guards that the party will NOT be killing. A lead tank is designated, all party members should be CHealing that tank and *NOT* engaging, and the raid leader will either provide the direction before-hand or determine it once in the room.

Several Skip Rooms can be chained together; usually multiple lead tanks will be called in order to take each Skip Room. Guards can Area Attack; if everybody gets engaged through this, you need to watch GTell closely to see if you should be killing the room, or retreating a direction.

Slowkill: Slowkilling a room is used to wound guards before a repop, but not kill them. The idea is to avoid having to kill extra guards needlessly, and speed up the overall maze progression. Everybody should engage, but you need to keep an eye on the health of the guard you are fighting and remove weapons if it starts to get low (<30% is a good time to strip weapons). If you aren't tanking a guard, try not to engage the first guard in the room; pick one of the later ones, as people tend to hit the first and that kills it quickly. You can also use Rescue to re-aim to another guard if you're able to take the hits. Once the area repops, rewear weapons and kill.
Lack: A quick way of saying the keys you are holding do not open a door.
DS Point: Usually awarded to raid leaders for walking the party into the jail, they can also be handed out for exemplary raid technique, such as tanking a 7-guard room with no gear on, walking into the open shop after breaching, getting intimmed by a guard while holding keys, or fleeing a guard room because of wimpy... while holding the group.
Able: A quick way of saying your invade timer is complete and you're ready to go.
Missing #: The keyholder is missing # of keys from the room, still.

Handy Aliases:

doors - open east;open west;open north;open south;open down;open up

Nice quick one-word command to test all directions for doors in a room.

keys - inv filter key

Shows you all key-type items in your inventory. Useful for seeing if you got a key from a guard without having to look at your whole inventory.

I hope this has been helpful. This won't make you a pro raider overnight, but hopefully it'll help those of you starting to Raid, or those of you a little rusty, get into the swing of things. :)