Lirix

Ok, I reposted my original mission statement and my party fundamentals post because after we left the raid I went to work. My work being not the most challenging of tasks, I had plenty of time to review a gnawing feeling in my gut that we could have completed the instance even with our less than optimal party.

So the recap. 10 man raid on Strat, Baron side. 2 mages, 2 warlocks, 3 druids, 2 paladins, and 1 hunter. One replacement near the end of the raid, hunter for hunter.

Early on, we expressed some concerns with being able to pull safely without crowd control due to lack of priests and prevalence of undead. Due to some downright awesome pulling, the majority of our pulls were single or double. Thusly, they were easy work for our massive firepower.

Early success led to us continuing with the method that worked. Our strategy didn't vary much until the boss fights and even those didn't phase us much. The possessing boss was by far the most annoying, but our two mages simply alternated sheeping the possessed party member until the possession elapsed. Artillery commenced firing on the possessing witch.

The sequence of events at the gate prior to the Baron was foretelling. Easy to see in hindsight, I know. While the abominations were unable to destroy our entire party, they did manage to drop 1 or 2 members consistantly due to their extreme resilience and AOE attacks. Due to limited manuevering room, I'm uncertain about what we could've changed in this segment except perhaps to have designated healing targets for our healing capable classes. With fewer members to watch, perhaps the heals could have come more efficiently. Still, while bumpy, we were able to defeat the challenge and proceed.

This left the fight with the Baron as our only remaining obstacle. With the power of hindsight, I believe that our mistake may have been in continuing our reliance on firepower versus a far superior foe. Having our higher level paladin tank was the proper course of action, but having our mages and 'locks open fire even after a delay to build threat was more than adequate in overwhelming our paladin's ability to control the Baron. Once the Baron started moving, his AOE attack peppered our cloth classes and left them with few hp to survive his DD attack.

Because of our prevalence of secondary healers, we might have been able to leave the tank in proximity of the Baron indefinitely. With the mages using their AOE to eliminate the summoned masses, our healers could have remained safely outside the range of the Baron(or at least been only minorly exposed during heals). With the Baron safely contained and the healers out of immediate danger, the 'locks would have been able to apply a DOT or 2 each to supplement the tank's DPS. The advantage to this method, assuming that the theory plays out as anticipated, would be that the fight is won despite our "unbalanced" party makeup. The disadvantage would be a significant time investment on the takedown of a single creep, even if it was the Baron.

In my time playing with TG, I have noticed tendencies in our members that made the outcome of this raid inevitable as happened. Our casters have not shown restraint beyond the delay period in prior engagements, relying on our excellent healing support and superlative tanks to cover for this engagement style. Our healers and tanks also seem to take this behavior for granted. In the party makeup of this run it proved haphazard and slightly telling of a weakness in our current practices. While staying within the accepted party makeup would keep us from having further issues of this kind, I would personally prefer to see us developing skills that allow us to continue undertaking instances with parties outside the accepted norm. It's just more fun that way.

Now if only I'd have thought of this during the raid!