Raid/Epic Training - Something INCREDIBLY AWESOME

[BladeTricks]

Awesome initiative, I'll join with my lvl 17+ characters and hope to expand my horizons past Shroud and carnival/sentinels epics.

[TonnoTopia]

I'd be happy to help out with Tod if I'm not on timer whenever you schedule it. It's one of my favorite raids.

It will be done on a Thursday and you'll have 1 1/2 - 2 weeks notice to not be on timer.



to BladeTricks: tonight we'll likely be doing a HoX and VoD make sure your on the channel and you can jump on, we'll give you the same lessons we gave out last time.

[Zephea]

I like this idea. I'm on at odd times though.

Hope to see you around.

[Tobril]

I’m doing tod flagging and helping some people get boot materials this week.

We’ll advertise in channel, keep an eye out. If you miss my groups and want
to run ToD feel to work on flagging. I’ll throw up a training post like the previous
runs soonish, but on-call and moving are impacting my schedule a bit.

[Lost_Leader]

Once again opened up a few open spots to channel members this evening for my guild's drink-n-raid night. In the past, folks have joined relatively quickly. We usually don't invite others, preferring to shortman raids, but I like the idea of this channel for giving newer players a look at things, or older players a chance get drunk and mess around.

I was surprised by the response I got this week though.

I asked, "Does anyone want to join for a Shroud-n-Booze run, I have a few open spaces."

Channel member replies, "Are you guys solid?"

. . . are we solid? What is this? Is this now the channel where you only join groups if you/they are xpert?

As one of my friends pointed out, learn2channel folks. Tobril has started up an excellent channel for new folks to get their feet wet in raids/epics. I promise to teach new folks the ropes, even if I am three sheets to the wind when I do it. (Some would argue I play better that way, anyway.) But if you ask me if the group is "solid" in the training newbies channel, we are all gonna laugh at you.

Even if we suck, new players would be able to see a raid without pressure of having to be leet. We ended up running a hard hound, vod, tod, echrono and edq after the boozey shroud warm-up. We took along a first timer through the epics, though it turned into an all guild run by the end of the evening as our pugs got waggro and logged off. We drank through the whole thing. I am now rambling and posting.

Point of this whole post? Defense channel is great fun to teach new folk or learn new quests. Or run with other new folk to learn it together without pressure. Or am I wrong? Are you guys solid?

[Taimasan]

Ill pop in and see whats going on since I pretty much have nothing to do but teach now, why not.

[jimmy.]

as the top page of every challenge level 25 solo
and leader of many solo/group epic raids/quests
i think i could be a good teacher as i already teach others.

add Syphiroth as teacher pm anytime to learn.

[Tobril]

Once again opened up a few open spots to channel members this evening for my guild's drink-n-raid night. In the past, folks have joined relatively quickly. We usually don't invite others, preferring to shortman raids, but I like the idea of this channel for giving newer players a look at things, or older players a chance get drunk and mess around.

I was surprised by the response I got this week though.

I asked, "Does anyone want to join for a Shroud-n-Booze run, I have a few open spaces."

Channel member replies, "Are you guys solid?"

. . . are we solid? What is this? Is this now the channel where you only join groups if you/they are xpert?

As one of my friends pointed out, learn2channel folks. Tobril has started up an excellent channel for new folks to get their feet wet in raids/epics. I promise to teach new folks the ropes, even if I am three sheets to the wind when I do it. (Some would argue I play better that way, anyway.) But if you ask me if the group is "solid" in the training newbies channel, we are all gonna laugh at you.

Even if we suck, new players would be able to see a raid without pressure of having to be leet. We ended up running a hard hound, vod, tod, echrono and edq after the boozey shroud warm-up. We took along a first timer through the epics, though it turned into an all guild run by the end of the evening as our pugs got waggro and logged off. We drank through the whole thing. I am now rambling and posting.

Point of this whole post? Defense channel is great fun to teach new folk or learn new quests. Or run with other new folk to learn it together without pressure. Or am I wrong? Are you guys solid?

ROFL "Are you guys solid"

I suspect as we draw near the new year most people are going to be a little more on the "liquid" side of things, if you catch my drift...


It's really cool that all kinds of groups are forming out of this, we've taken various peeps into LoB and elsewhere, several of which did excellent. (a few needed a bit of work, but hey that's what this is all about)

I would like to point out that a good attitude and listening to direction goes a lot farther than gear/build. Gear can be ground, builds can be TR/LR'd into, but being the type of PLAYER that contributes no matter the build/gear takes a lot more effort and swallowing of pride sometimes.


General "State of Tobril" update - We flagged some more peeps for ToD, once some other people get back from vacation and get their schedule straitened out I'll post a training ToD run. I would recommend getting flagged, me and other people are available-ish to help out.

[LazyTigerLily]

I can say with some certainty that, yes, the Lost folks are solid, and a ton of fun. If you are ever able to, hop into one of those groups, quick! I did a couple of weeks ago and had more fun in that set of raids than I have in quite some time! They even let me drag my gimpy low level cleric along on a few

For those of you who are new to the defense channel, the people who list stuff there are generally very experienced players looking to bring new people along on whatever it is they happen to be doing. No need to ask if a group is solid, since they likely are.

Speaking of... Tobril, I did a flagging run with a couple of folks from the channel, and will continue to do so until flagging for those who want to run ToD is complete, and will likely do some boot ingredient farming for them as needed as well. My question though is do you have a date in mind? (just as an fyi I am on vacation until the 6th) I would love to drag my gimpy cleric along as I have yet to run this raid in the healer capacity and all. Do you have a thread that goes through the expectations for what to bring along on a ToD yet or is that to come after you have chosen a date?

[Tobril]

Speaking of... Tobril, I did a flagging run with a couple of folks from the channel, and will continue to do so until flagging for those who want to run ToD is complete, and will likely do some boot ingredient farming for them as needed as well. My question though is do you have a date in mind? (just as an fyi I am on vacation until the 6th) I would love to drag my gimpy cleric along as I have yet to run this raid in the healer capacity and all. Do you have a thread that goes through the expectations for what to bring along on a ToD yet or is that to come after you have chosen a date?

No set date yet. Holidays and life in general have been rather uncooperative, I hope to have everything sorted out within a couple of weeks and will post something at that time.

[Quetzacoala]

Yeah, this is a really fantastic system, got flagged for TOD and did my first ever Hound of Xoriat through it. Really learning a lot about the end game quests from this and becoming a better player as a result.

[vyvy3369]

Great idea, but it seems to be turning into the new Abbot channel. If the constant general chat spam or noob bashing continues, don't be surprised if there's nobody left.

[Tobril]

Great idea, but it seems to be turning into the new Abbot channel. If the constant general chat spam or noob bashing continues, don't be surprised if there's nobody left.

I'm semi-nudging things back on track. Daytimes are a little crazy apparently, but so far evenings have been a lot more on-topic.

[BladeTricks]

Okay good. I played a little bit during the holiday break and the level of chat spam was worse than the Marketplace general chat. :P Incidentally, it always come from the same 2-3 ppl. Oh well...

[Tobril]

Okay good. I played a little bit during the holiday break and the level of chat spam was worse than the Marketplace general chat. :P Incidentally, it always come from the same 2-3 ppl. Oh well...

Heh, kids get playful during the day I guess.


We flagged a bunch of guys for ToD tonight. Also saw some epic action taking place. Good times.

[BladeTricks]

I saw ToD flagging yesterday evening, but couldn't play. Otherwise I would have tried to join on my fvs, still need all of them. I hate Genesis Point, use of ddowiki is pretty much required.

[Tobril]

ToD up! http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=4254130

[thx.janus]

Hey Tobril.

Thats a great thing you got going there. I would really like to participate, both as a teacher and a student. I never ran the titan, eDQ and most of epic phiarlan carnival and epic sands, but I'm quite familiar with most roles in the other raids and epics.
My only problem is your schedule. I live in Europe, and there is no way I can join you in the early evening hours during the week (7pm MST is 3am here). Would you consider offering other times, maybe like 11am (would be 7pm here) on weekends, or something like that? I guess there are some more people with the same problem that would be happy about that.

[Tobril]

Hey Tobril.

Thats a great thing you got going there. I would really like to participate, both as a teacher and a student. I never ran the titan, eDQ and most of epic phiarlan carnival and epic sands, but I'm quite familiar with most roles in the other raids and epics.
My only problem is your schedule. I live in Europe, and there is no way I can join you in the early evening hours during the week (7pm MST is 3am here). Would you consider offering other times, maybe like 11am (would be 7pm here) on weekends, or something like that? I guess there are some more people with the same problem that would be happy about that.

Waking me up on a weekend before noon would probably result in missing limbs.



There is nothing stopping other people from running training events, whether they
are formal signups or random “hey let’s go do something”. I don’t have a good solution
for the Euro-peeps aside from getting together with people that are on at the same time.

[Tobril]

Quoting some good advice I saw:

Here are some quick tips:

1. Don't be afraid to put up a LFM - LSS, you are not the only one who wants to run a epic. A simple LFM suffices, Epic BoB, Epic TTT, EDA, etc. Often overelaborate lfms are shunned if the name is not known. But that leads on to the second tip...

2. Know the way to the quest - Call me superstitious. But there is no worse omen then having someone join your pug Epic OOB and ask, "How do you get there again?". Don't make the mistake of seeing loot you want, and immediately throw up a lfm. Come with scrolls/pots and be prepared, for info; DDOwiki.com is a good source.
Also the Interactive DDO Guide(http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Crafting_Planner) is hands-down the best all-in one tool for the game. Pro Tip: Set it to be "On Top" when needing to play and use the tool at the same time!

3. Be prepared to fail - Especially this if you consider yourself still green to epics. Most individuals who sport alot of epic gear is because of lots of fails and lots of learning time and time again. Anyone remember using the shield-wall technique for completing Epic OOB?? ::raises hand::
People benefit now from a wide pool of experience, but, be prepared to put your time in.

4. Use your words - Be prepared to ask questions when you don't know something. Communication is key. But also know that not everyone knows what they are talking about and there is more than one make-up/way to do a quest or raid. Always keep a open mind, taking people with strange builds or having a goofy makeup is a great way to make friends and have fun.
The worse that can happen is you fail, and if your not here to waste a little time anyway; then why are you here?

~Quis Out~

*
Feel free to add on to this thread. If we can get a wide pool good tips, maybe it can be a helpful thread.