Kannkor
Ogre
As todays game continues to push forward, more and more people are looking to see how far they can go with just bots. Bot raiding continues to happen more and more often, and it is becoming more widely used. I get many questions regarding bot raiding, that I thought I would share some insights.
With anything bot related, there are rules.
The Rules
The usual - Keep everything private.
Great, you just killed Uber_Mob_02 - no one cares except the raiding guild that can't kill it, so now they petition you. Congrats on getting yourself into trouble. I'm going to expand on this a little. You will experience GREAT feats, you will overcome a mob that is extremely difficult for you to kill. It will feel awesome. It is unfortunate that you can't really share it with anyone, other than botters, but that is just the way it is. Share it on these forums if you must, but keep it out of the game/official forums. Jealousy kills.
Don't sell loot rights.
The idea is to stay under the radar, not to broadcast you are botting raid zones to make plat. My opinion on this differs from others. If you get petitioned from jealous people because you are selling loot they can't obtain, and you get nailed for botting, it's your own fault.
Humans are competitive.
At the top level, they are extremely competitive. Many, many top raiders feel they 'own' things, like discoveries. If you 'steal' their discos, they may get all epeen hurt, and try to take action against you. Looking at worst case scenario, they are a legit player (no botting), and they are petitioning you for botting. Unfortunately, you lose, even when the only thing you did, was loot an item.
Be sneaky.
So you're using 12/18/24 toons, don't drop a flag at the entrance. Drop one in the middle of the zone where no one can see you, and take 1 person to zone you in. This means people don't really 'see' you, and people can't inspect your toons, and they don't see 24 toons piled in 1 spot. Remember, the idea is to enjoy the game and be left alone to do so.
General common sense.
Be smart about what you're doing.
Now, with the rules out of the way, lets get into the 'how'.
The How
Learn your raid encounters.
In order to truly be successful, you need to understand the mechanics of the raid encounter you are up against. This is VERY different than in a real guild. In a real guild, parts of the encounter can be assigned to people. For example: Player1 handles the clickie, player2 handles somethingelse, player3 handles adds, player4 offtanks with the maintank, player5 etc etc. In a bot raid, there are generally only 1-4 humans. So you must take on more responsibility, so you must understand the fight.
Do not ask me for the mechanics of fights. Watch youtube videos, or google for strats.
Don't try to be a 'real' raid.
Bot raids and real raids are very, very different. You read about some real raid doing 10+ million dps on a mob and killing it in under a minute, ignoring the script. Great, can you do 10m dps on that specific mob? If you can, you probably can stop reading this post right now. You are a bot raid. Most of the time, you will need to obey the script, and endurance the fight.
Understand your strenghts, and weaknesses.
In the case of having 2-3 other humans with you, understanding and assigning roles is very important.
Leader - You need 1 voice, who has the final say, or makes the calls. Don't need to be a douchebag, but someone has to decide where you are raiding, who will be tanking, offtanking, etc etc.
Main tank - Not everyone understands how to main tank. Unfortunately, 95% of people are average at it. Guess what, average won't cut it for a lot of raids. You need a main tank who understands why/when a mob should be at 20 meters with his BACK to the raid, and when he should be at 30 meters with his FRONT to the raid. You need a tank that can move a big ass giant 2 meters in 1 direction, without having to run him half way across the room and back. You need a tank who knows how to use their defensive abilities, at the correct times. This is one of the most important roles in the raid. Once you have it mastered, it is actually one of the easier roles, but if you don't have an expert main tank, prepare to struggle.
Off tank - Needs a lot of what I listed for main tank, but also has to realize the offtank role is very different. You generally need AE aggro, and AE snaps. Need to be VERY aware of everything around him. AE rescuing and bringing the named onto the raid, is generally a wipe. IMO, the offtank role is the most difficult role.
Assistor - This is more of an input job. Someone inputs this into the bot and the bot handles the targeting. IE: Make an 'AutoTarget' (OgreBot) and it handles the targetting for you.
Jouster - Someone who watches and maintains the scouts, basically. Allowing them to be jousted in when appropriate, and jousting out when appropriate.
Resser - People ARE going to die in stupid spots where the bot won't automatically res them. You should have some kind of plan in place for this.
Back to the Leader. It is your job to make your raid as successful as possible. Lets say there are 3 of you. Player1, player2, and player3. Player1 really wants to be the maintank, but he is simply average, whereas player 3 excels. It is your job, to successful get player3 into the main tank role, preferrably without pissing off player1 - since you probably want him around.
While there are many roles that are needed to be taken care of, and limited number of people to handle them, people have to double up. Again, as the leader, you must determine (and definitely discuss with your folks, you need their input) how to best distribute the roles. Hint: Maintank+Offtank on 1 person is generally a bad idea
Nothing is set in stone either. Just because Player3 is an awesome maintank on 99% of mobs, doesn't mean there is a mob where PLayer1's skills are better suited to maintank that specific mob. Class can also play a role. Example: Some fights a monk just can't tank, so our monk isn't allowed to tank, it is done by the plate tanks instead. Nothing against the player.
Loot:
Loot can get complicated real quickly. I see three ways of doing it.
Least effective: DKP for bots. Just seems dumb and not practical at all.
Fair and square: Attempt to distribute loot 'equally' between humans and between bots. Meaning, if you have 3 people, each playing 6 toons, then each 'set' of toons gets 1 piece at a time. IE: Player1's group gets 1 piece, then player2's, then player3's, etc.
Leader assigned: Leader assigns loot based on most benefit to the raid.
I dislike the 'fair and square' method, because you are putting feelings and equality above efficency and progress. If you're a bunch of emotional girls, this may be the best option for you..
I personally like Leader assigned - as long as it's done objectively. There is no one 'rule' to follow, but you make a set of guidelines, and follow them the best you can. There will always be exceptions.
Guidelines:
Who will benefit from the item the most.
For example: a mage item drops and there are two mages who could use it. One has a skyshrine item, and one has a PoW item. It is technically an upgrade to both of them. The mage with the skyshrine item will benefit the most. So he gets it.
Example 2: a mage item drops and there are two mages who could use it. Both have the same existing item. So the new item is an 'equal' upgrade to both. Now you move onto a new set of guidelines.
Lets assume the mages are: An enchanter, and a sorcerer.
A 2 potency/2 crit bonus increase will provide the sorcerer with a larger damage increase than the enchanter.
A 2 potency/2 crit bonus increase will provide the coercer (if applicible) with a better mana flow.
More health, mitigation, resists, will provide increased surivibility. If this is a main tank/offtank group, that could mean using less wards, resulting in larger wards for the tank group.
An item that is usable by both mages and priests: Your choices are, heals or damage.
Hopefully you are getting the picture. Looking objectively, look at the fights that are very difficult, or the fights you can't complete yet. What is the reason? Are tanks dying? That means priests get priority of gear, specifically the ones with tanks in the group. Are you failing a DPS check? Then your main DPS toons get priority. Is it a mana issue? Anyone who gains benefit from increased mana regeneration gets priority.
DO NOT LOOK AT WHO OWNS THE CHARACTER. You are looking at how each item will benefit the raid, the most. If you can not do this objectively, do not be in charge of loot. When doing loot, do not consider peoples feelings.
Recruiting
Recruiting is extremely difficult, because you want to stay hidden and all secretive, remember?
I don't really have many tips here. When discussing with a new person, make sure you are open and honest about how you handle things. How is your loot handled? You can discuss what roles he believes he can handle etc.
Failures:
You will fail to first pull, flawless every mob in the game. There are two things you can do when you fail.
Pick someone, blame them for sucking, and yell at them. Because some how people believe this will help. Or...
You can find out why/how you (as a raid, not specifically YOU) failed, then see if there is anything you can do to minimze it from happening again. IE: Another tank, another priest, not afking mid pull to get a grocery deliver - admitly on this one, we still won, etc.
Civil communication is key. If someone fucked up once, who cares. Just pull it again. If something is happening consistently, fix it. The fix could be reassigning a role (IE: A maintank who can't stoneskin a red text - he needs to be replaced), or removing some additional roles so he can focus on a main role. IE: The maintank doesn't assist with ressing because he has to watch for ___. Discuss how you can be successful! Don't blame.
Progression
Collectively as a group, you need to decide what kind of raid force you will be. I'll classify these as passive, and aggressive.
Passive - You basically kill anything 'easy'. Boar+PoW trash, most or all of CoE - easy mode. Working on the more difficult (additional mobs in pow, CoE-HM) isn't really what you're after.
Aggressive - You want to be World Wide #1 guild. Seriously - that's what you strive for. Sure, it may never, ever happen, but you will sure do your best to try. This means you are willing to spend a few days wiping against a mob to learn it, and find a strategy that works for you. You adorn every single piece of gear, with the best possible adornment. You reforge every single piece of gear to maximize your toons efficiency. You work, and rework, and work some more, on all of your Bot profiles, so they are amazing, hardworking machines, striving for #1.
Neither one of these is 'right'. It depends what you want out of the game.
My Raid
Example of my raid.
I take the role of Leader. I am a very, very passive leader (IMO). We discuss what we want to raid and when etc. If we need a decision, I pick a place based on when things will reset/best reward for effort.
We generally discuss who should handle what roles. Majority of the time, I am the main tank. We have a very strong offtank who handles offtanking named, and we have a 3rd who is more dps oriented, so he handles non-named adds (swarm adds etc).
Loot is handled mostly by me. We maintain a spreadsheet with all our toons on it, and every piece of gear they are using. Sorted by type (fighters, shamans, clerics, scouts, mages) for ease of comparing items amoungst the types. I can quickly glance at the spreadsheet, use my guidelines above, and assign the loot. We have very good communication between us, and everyone is fully aware how loot is handled, if a piece of loot drops and I'm afk, someone else can look at the spreadsheet, use the guidelines, and they can assign it the same way I would.
When a piece of loot comes up that won't follow the normal guidelines, we discuss where we think it would be best used.
I personally believe I'm part of a very successful bot raid. I'm realistic though, we wouldn't be where we're at without all of us. We work as a team, with the goals of progressing to the next fight. That's our common goal, and we work together to achieve it. Good communication, keep things enjoyable, and HAVE FUN. If it's not fun, it's not worth doing.
With anything bot related, there are rules.
The Rules
The usual - Keep everything private.
Great, you just killed Uber_Mob_02 - no one cares except the raiding guild that can't kill it, so now they petition you. Congrats on getting yourself into trouble. I'm going to expand on this a little. You will experience GREAT feats, you will overcome a mob that is extremely difficult for you to kill. It will feel awesome. It is unfortunate that you can't really share it with anyone, other than botters, but that is just the way it is. Share it on these forums if you must, but keep it out of the game/official forums. Jealousy kills.
Don't sell loot rights.
The idea is to stay under the radar, not to broadcast you are botting raid zones to make plat. My opinion on this differs from others. If you get petitioned from jealous people because you are selling loot they can't obtain, and you get nailed for botting, it's your own fault.
Humans are competitive.
At the top level, they are extremely competitive. Many, many top raiders feel they 'own' things, like discoveries. If you 'steal' their discos, they may get all epeen hurt, and try to take action against you. Looking at worst case scenario, they are a legit player (no botting), and they are petitioning you for botting. Unfortunately, you lose, even when the only thing you did, was loot an item.
Be sneaky.
So you're using 12/18/24 toons, don't drop a flag at the entrance. Drop one in the middle of the zone where no one can see you, and take 1 person to zone you in. This means people don't really 'see' you, and people can't inspect your toons, and they don't see 24 toons piled in 1 spot. Remember, the idea is to enjoy the game and be left alone to do so.
General common sense.
Be smart about what you're doing.
Now, with the rules out of the way, lets get into the 'how'.
The How
Learn your raid encounters.
In order to truly be successful, you need to understand the mechanics of the raid encounter you are up against. This is VERY different than in a real guild. In a real guild, parts of the encounter can be assigned to people. For example: Player1 handles the clickie, player2 handles somethingelse, player3 handles adds, player4 offtanks with the maintank, player5 etc etc. In a bot raid, there are generally only 1-4 humans. So you must take on more responsibility, so you must understand the fight.
Do not ask me for the mechanics of fights. Watch youtube videos, or google for strats.
Don't try to be a 'real' raid.
Bot raids and real raids are very, very different. You read about some real raid doing 10+ million dps on a mob and killing it in under a minute, ignoring the script. Great, can you do 10m dps on that specific mob? If you can, you probably can stop reading this post right now. You are a bot raid. Most of the time, you will need to obey the script, and endurance the fight.
Understand your strenghts, and weaknesses.
In the case of having 2-3 other humans with you, understanding and assigning roles is very important.
Leader - You need 1 voice, who has the final say, or makes the calls. Don't need to be a douchebag, but someone has to decide where you are raiding, who will be tanking, offtanking, etc etc.
Main tank - Not everyone understands how to main tank. Unfortunately, 95% of people are average at it. Guess what, average won't cut it for a lot of raids. You need a main tank who understands why/when a mob should be at 20 meters with his BACK to the raid, and when he should be at 30 meters with his FRONT to the raid. You need a tank that can move a big ass giant 2 meters in 1 direction, without having to run him half way across the room and back. You need a tank who knows how to use their defensive abilities, at the correct times. This is one of the most important roles in the raid. Once you have it mastered, it is actually one of the easier roles, but if you don't have an expert main tank, prepare to struggle.
Off tank - Needs a lot of what I listed for main tank, but also has to realize the offtank role is very different. You generally need AE aggro, and AE snaps. Need to be VERY aware of everything around him. AE rescuing and bringing the named onto the raid, is generally a wipe. IMO, the offtank role is the most difficult role.
Assistor - This is more of an input job. Someone inputs this into the bot and the bot handles the targeting. IE: Make an 'AutoTarget' (OgreBot) and it handles the targetting for you.
Jouster - Someone who watches and maintains the scouts, basically. Allowing them to be jousted in when appropriate, and jousting out when appropriate.
Resser - People ARE going to die in stupid spots where the bot won't automatically res them. You should have some kind of plan in place for this.
Back to the Leader. It is your job to make your raid as successful as possible. Lets say there are 3 of you. Player1, player2, and player3. Player1 really wants to be the maintank, but he is simply average, whereas player 3 excels. It is your job, to successful get player3 into the main tank role, preferrably without pissing off player1 - since you probably want him around.
While there are many roles that are needed to be taken care of, and limited number of people to handle them, people have to double up. Again, as the leader, you must determine (and definitely discuss with your folks, you need their input) how to best distribute the roles. Hint: Maintank+Offtank on 1 person is generally a bad idea
Nothing is set in stone either. Just because Player3 is an awesome maintank on 99% of mobs, doesn't mean there is a mob where PLayer1's skills are better suited to maintank that specific mob. Class can also play a role. Example: Some fights a monk just can't tank, so our monk isn't allowed to tank, it is done by the plate tanks instead. Nothing against the player.
Loot:
Loot can get complicated real quickly. I see three ways of doing it.
Least effective: DKP for bots. Just seems dumb and not practical at all.
Fair and square: Attempt to distribute loot 'equally' between humans and between bots. Meaning, if you have 3 people, each playing 6 toons, then each 'set' of toons gets 1 piece at a time. IE: Player1's group gets 1 piece, then player2's, then player3's, etc.
Leader assigned: Leader assigns loot based on most benefit to the raid.
I dislike the 'fair and square' method, because you are putting feelings and equality above efficency and progress. If you're a bunch of emotional girls, this may be the best option for you..
I personally like Leader assigned - as long as it's done objectively. There is no one 'rule' to follow, but you make a set of guidelines, and follow them the best you can. There will always be exceptions.
Guidelines:
Who will benefit from the item the most.
For example: a mage item drops and there are two mages who could use it. One has a skyshrine item, and one has a PoW item. It is technically an upgrade to both of them. The mage with the skyshrine item will benefit the most. So he gets it.
Example 2: a mage item drops and there are two mages who could use it. Both have the same existing item. So the new item is an 'equal' upgrade to both. Now you move onto a new set of guidelines.
Lets assume the mages are: An enchanter, and a sorcerer.
A 2 potency/2 crit bonus increase will provide the sorcerer with a larger damage increase than the enchanter.
A 2 potency/2 crit bonus increase will provide the coercer (if applicible) with a better mana flow.
More health, mitigation, resists, will provide increased surivibility. If this is a main tank/offtank group, that could mean using less wards, resulting in larger wards for the tank group.
An item that is usable by both mages and priests: Your choices are, heals or damage.
Hopefully you are getting the picture. Looking objectively, look at the fights that are very difficult, or the fights you can't complete yet. What is the reason? Are tanks dying? That means priests get priority of gear, specifically the ones with tanks in the group. Are you failing a DPS check? Then your main DPS toons get priority. Is it a mana issue? Anyone who gains benefit from increased mana regeneration gets priority.
DO NOT LOOK AT WHO OWNS THE CHARACTER. You are looking at how each item will benefit the raid, the most. If you can not do this objectively, do not be in charge of loot. When doing loot, do not consider peoples feelings.
Recruiting
Recruiting is extremely difficult, because you want to stay hidden and all secretive, remember?
I don't really have many tips here. When discussing with a new person, make sure you are open and honest about how you handle things. How is your loot handled? You can discuss what roles he believes he can handle etc.
Failures:
You will fail to first pull, flawless every mob in the game. There are two things you can do when you fail.
Pick someone, blame them for sucking, and yell at them. Because some how people believe this will help. Or...
You can find out why/how you (as a raid, not specifically YOU) failed, then see if there is anything you can do to minimze it from happening again. IE: Another tank, another priest, not afking mid pull to get a grocery deliver - admitly on this one, we still won, etc.
Civil communication is key. If someone fucked up once, who cares. Just pull it again. If something is happening consistently, fix it. The fix could be reassigning a role (IE: A maintank who can't stoneskin a red text - he needs to be replaced), or removing some additional roles so he can focus on a main role. IE: The maintank doesn't assist with ressing because he has to watch for ___. Discuss how you can be successful! Don't blame.
Progression
Collectively as a group, you need to decide what kind of raid force you will be. I'll classify these as passive, and aggressive.
Passive - You basically kill anything 'easy'. Boar+PoW trash, most or all of CoE - easy mode. Working on the more difficult (additional mobs in pow, CoE-HM) isn't really what you're after.
Aggressive - You want to be World Wide #1 guild. Seriously - that's what you strive for. Sure, it may never, ever happen, but you will sure do your best to try. This means you are willing to spend a few days wiping against a mob to learn it, and find a strategy that works for you. You adorn every single piece of gear, with the best possible adornment. You reforge every single piece of gear to maximize your toons efficiency. You work, and rework, and work some more, on all of your Bot profiles, so they are amazing, hardworking machines, striving for #1.
Neither one of these is 'right'. It depends what you want out of the game.
My Raid
Example of my raid.
I take the role of Leader. I am a very, very passive leader (IMO). We discuss what we want to raid and when etc. If we need a decision, I pick a place based on when things will reset/best reward for effort.
We generally discuss who should handle what roles. Majority of the time, I am the main tank. We have a very strong offtank who handles offtanking named, and we have a 3rd who is more dps oriented, so he handles non-named adds (swarm adds etc).
Loot is handled mostly by me. We maintain a spreadsheet with all our toons on it, and every piece of gear they are using. Sorted by type (fighters, shamans, clerics, scouts, mages) for ease of comparing items amoungst the types. I can quickly glance at the spreadsheet, use my guidelines above, and assign the loot. We have very good communication between us, and everyone is fully aware how loot is handled, if a piece of loot drops and I'm afk, someone else can look at the spreadsheet, use the guidelines, and they can assign it the same way I would.
When a piece of loot comes up that won't follow the normal guidelines, we discuss where we think it would be best used.
I personally believe I'm part of a very successful bot raid. I'm realistic though, we wouldn't be where we're at without all of us. We work as a team, with the goals of progressing to the next fight. That's our common goal, and we work together to achieve it. Good communication, keep things enjoyable, and HAVE FUN. If it's not fun, it's not worth doing.
