5 Man Raid Strategy for Instance: The Bar

[Relikk]

*From the Warrior Forums*

As many of us are starting to gear up for the new "end-game" encounters via heroic 5 mans and what not, I feel that it is time to share the strategies I have found most useful for attempting some of the hardest runs you may ever face, that of attempting to pick up chicks at a bar. These strategies however rely upon teamwork, you will find little if any advice on soloing this type of instance. In advance I feel the need to warn you that these tactics have only been tested at the epic collegic level, but not at the higher heroic post graduate level. I hope that these strategies will aid many of my fellow WOW players who decide to attempt these difficult instances in the hopes of the phatest of l00ts. (btw, any and all sweeping generalizations I make concerning the female sex are made out of chauvinistic ignorance and latent misogynistic tendincies. I apologize in advance for any offense I give.)

1.How to 5 man your local bar

The title of this section may be somewhat misleading since the majority of the tactics and strategies that will be described were built around a 3 man team. However all of these strategies can be scaled up to the 5 man level with little or no effort. Be warned though, in my experience trying to raid a bar will likely result in failure. A 5 man, possibly a 7 man on the outside is the maximum number of people you will want in your group. But you will definitely need at the least 2 members for your group, because after all a group of 1 is not a group.

The reason behind the need to approach an instance such as a bar with a group and not solo is simple, almost all women travel in packs, especially in an environment such as a bar. (of course there will be some women who go to bars by themselves, but these will be considered epic bosses due to the fact that they will most likely wtfown you if you make any mistake in pulling them. And its a sad thing to see a man out in the parking lot crying.) Therefore any man who attempts to solo a group of women will soon be either zoning out of the instance, or having to make a corpse run back to his dignity. Further, you can not PUG an instance such as a bar, you need a solid premade with members that you know well, know their roles, and are willing to fulfill these roles in order to make the run successful. The quick break down of successful groups looks something like

2-man

1.party leader

2.MT (DD)

3-man

1.party leader

2.MT (DD)

3.OT or rogue

4-man

1.party leader

2.MT

3.OT (DD)

4.rogue (should bring a seperate car)

5-man

1.party leader

2.MT

3.OT(DD)

4.OT

5.rogue (should bring a seperate car)

The party leader of course being the one who is guaranteed the loot if the run is successful, with the OT's and rogue with a better than fair chance of loot, and the MT probably with a long drive home, unless the run is uber successful.

Now then to focus primarily on the 3-man team with a MT and an OT (rogue tactics will be explained later). To start the encounter, you must first pick which group of women you will be attempting to pull. If this is your first run, try to take on groups of women with at least one member fewer than your group, after a while you can move up to groups of the same number, and eventually if your team is solid, you can attempt groups that outnumber your own, with a maximum of 2 members more than your own, past that number and the encounter becomes impossible imo. This scenario will focus on a small pull of women, namely 2.

Pulling

Once your target is selected, you start the pull either by sending the MT or the PL in, depending on the situation (btw it is a good idea to do at least 5 minutes of recon before attempting the pull), you send the PL in first if the dominate personality in the pull is the primary target. However if the primary target seems to be one of the lesser members of the group, you send the MT in first. Either way, quickly after the pull, the trash mob will make her appearance, she is the one that is out to make sure the run will be difficult for you. ( you know, the one that constantly reminds her friends that they have a test coming up or not to drink so much, basically the blocker.) This is the raison d'etre for your MT, his role is to identify and nullify the trash mob by tanking her. This is to be accomplished by engaging her in conversation and buying her drinks. Once he has the aggro of the trash mob, he needs to try and turn her around so that the primary target is no longer in her LOS. Once this is accomplished the PL and OT move in, the PL engages the primary target with the usual methods of courtship, while the OT takes up position nearby and nurses a soft drink. His only task is to make sure that if the MT loses aggro, he can quickly step up and start tanking before the trash mob is able to do too much damage to the PL and throw down massive debuffs while buffing the primary targets ability to say no. If the MT does lose aggro and the OT is capable of picking it up, the MT and OT need to work together to draw the trash mob further away from the primary target until they are no longer in each others LOS. Continue this strategy until the PL takes down the primary target and then it is up to the MT and OT to decide if they wish to try looting the trash mob.

Pulling for larger groups

In encounters with larger groups on both sides, the tactics are basically the same, with the exception that the OT(s) will handle the mobs that are not the primary target nor the trash mob, with occasionally taking up aggro from the trash mob if the MT loses her. These other mobs usually are better in the quality of loot that they drop than the trash mob, so usually it is a good idea if the OT(s) go ahead and loot.

This strategy works

This strategy works based off of the many times I have employed it. However I have only tested it in college level bars, and also with my own skill set of picking up chicks. Not everyone has maxed out this valuable stat, however I would suggest that you do so by attempting this strategy, sure you may fail, but it is a good way to level your ability to pick up while minimizing the outside factors that effect being able to get the digits.

*edited for spelling errors*

[ Post edited by Jahan ]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...52348&sid=1

I think it's important to have a healer tho, one who can restore your humiliation on a double crit. Also have a hunter to kite one around the bar or snare one while buying drinks, drag her back slowly...

Rel

[Wolf]

*Ducks the projectiles being flung at Relikk*

Now, that was quite humorous. I think the ladies in the crew will even get a good laught at that.

[Guilozak]

This is one instance I will not attempt to heal until they give me leather armor . . . plate would be better but I'm no Pally.

[Rhoach]

Funny! Also a little creepy!

p.s. Don't forget us rogues!

The role of Rogues

I decided to split this into a seperate section because the role of the rogue in a run such as this is unique. Depending on how you look at it, the role of the rogue is to either screw over his own party for personal gain, or to aid his party ... through personal gain. The way the rogue accomplishes this is through their ability to vanish. This is a very important skill that takes time to perfect and is one of the more usefull skills that a party utilizes when runing an instance such as this.

Vanishing

The ability to vanish is simply put, the ability to perform a type of kiting, really it is pulling aggro on a target (not the primary target nor the trash mob) and then vanishing from the encounter with the mob you pulled in tow. The way this helps a party is that it reduces the number of mobs they have to contend with, and the way it hurts is, if the encounter goes badly, the rogue may be the only one to get loot.

The way a rogue should operate sounds simple, but is at the same time quite difficult. Once the MT goes in and pulls the trash mob aggro, the rogue should go in and pull one of the other mobs through either his wit, appearance, or linguistic capabilities. Once aggro has been established, the rogue needs to find someway to seperate the selected mob from the rest of the group (invite to the dance floor, ask her to help carry an order of drinks, whatever). The key factor which makes this role difficult lies in the fact that once the mob is seperated, the rogue has to continue to come up with ways to hold aggro, primarily through use of his linguistic capabilities. Once the seperation occurs, it is vital for the vanish to go off without a hitch for the rogue kite the mob away from the rest of the party. I.E. make sure that once you aggro her, her friends never see her again for the rest of the evening. (Of course this also means that your party will not see you again for the rest of the evening either, thus you "vanish") From this point it is up to you and you alone to solo this mob in order to make sure that the loot drops.

If the Vanish works

If your plan succeeds, you should attempt to leave before the rest of the party is finished with the encounter. Thus it is recommended that you have access to a different vehicle than the rest of your party. Further it is necessary that you limit your intake of alcohol during the fight in order to be capable of driving (while making sure she ingests much more in order to increase your chances at soloing.) Once you get her to the car though, its all up to you.

Conclusion

I hope this strategy helps others in the WOW community refine their attempts on running the bar instances on those Friday and Saturday nights. May your phat loot be epic both IG and IRL.

Jahan.

Here is the address of the How to Date women, WOW-style thread

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...39680&sid=1

And the address of the Dating women(Heroic Level), WOW-style thread

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...75793&sid=1

[ Post edited by Jahan ]

Edited March 13, 2007 by Rhoach

[Tonac]

Hehehe

[Scryll]

Funny! Also a little creepy!

p.s. Don't forget us rogues!

The role of Rogues ...

Damn, being a rogue is even more dangerous than I thought. We really need to get some better mitigation.

[Raeda]

You boys are hopeless.

*makes Relikk repent* *casts blessing of freedom on herself and wanders off*

Nice try tho.

[Vendes]

hee hee

boys, boys, boys *shakes her head*

[Waldonnis]

I feel that the strategy is lacking in one element: crowd control. With the proper person in the role, one person could effectively handle more than one of the adds if needed to relieve some pressure from the main tank (his job is challenging enough). Granted, not just anyone can do this, so proper player selection is key for the strategy to be effective. I understand that the original audience of the thread are those going to non-heroic bar instances, but early practice with crowd control can make the transition into heroics that much easier when the time comes....

Crowd control when pulling the packs is very delicate (I've found it helpful to use misdirection shot when pulling) and it's essential that the cc'er not focus any one single mob they're controlling at any time. AoE classes are often the best selection for this role, as their abilities surpass those of classes who can only tank/seduce one mob at a time. Once an appropriate crowd controller is used, several methods may be used, but I prefer the kiting method in my raids. Kiting the adds away from the boss is extremely effective, but only if you can build up sufficient aggro with the adds. Maintaining a position within the adds' aggro radius is also required, so do not stray too far from them at any time...the last thing you want is for one of them to return to the MT and complicate the fight. Also, the MT must use every ability they have to hold the attention of the boss...they're social and do tend to assist each other randomly, so make sure not to blow all of your cooldowns at once. Oh, also, make sure an OT is available in case the cc'er runs into problems keeping aggro on all of them (intercept is a valuable ability - learn it, love it, use it!).

Having proper crowd control allows you to handle the same amount of mobs with smaller parties, but it can involve lots of attempts to get everyone comfortable in their roles. Wipes will be common at first, but you'll get the hang of it. It may be helpful to swap your MT role to another player after a few attempts or for other bosses, as they may be vulnerable to one type of damage but immune to others (still working on adding the known types to the boss mods).

Also, one other rule in my bar raids - NEVER LOOT IN COMBAT. Not only will it likely get you banished, but it prevents you from engaging any more mobs once you have removed one from the battle.

[Kailand]

*breaks out his notepad to write down the raid strategies*

Hummm, for the sake of completeness, you missed two critical things which are important to any instance run.

First - the prerequisite attunement/keying process required for the instances that provide better loot, which usually involves the dispersal of cash to enter said instance (also called the cover charge).

Second - Quests involving the instance. These are usually to be avoided unless you are committed to their completion as they usually are long chains. Usually the successful completion of one of the steps in the long chain involves a large payout of hard earned gold to purchase a ring of at least good quality so that you can successfully increase your reputation with the faction of the Boss, and potentially earn the right to acquire even better rewards. Beware, the bosses faction is linked to several other factions, so if for some reason you lose precious rep, you risk becoming hated with many factions.

(I think I've taken this as far as I could, my creative juices are starting to run out)

[Scryll]

*snip*

I dunno, Waldy. I hear a lot about their effectiveness from the AoE crowd-controllers, but in my experience, they can't control their AoE enough to keep from picking up the boss.

[Relikk]

I agree Waldo. I think the best way to tackle a tough group like that is to prepare prior to raid.

1) Start out by buying drinks (I consider this the warrior charge). Make sure your group buffs you up prior to the attack tho, they should inflate your ego to ensure you can take the first few crits on confidence should they toss a few snips at you.

2) Cheesy come-on lines are bad, unless you are well versed such as moi on tactical use. For instance, going in with "Haven't I seen you somewhere before" or "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this" won't work if you are serious. They will use their cooldowns on you, and you will be forced to wadle back to your group in flames / running out the instance. However, I have done a twist on a line like that before which did work, I simply followed it up with "You like that line? I have more..." which made her laugh. Basically, if the boss target is laughing, and you continue with your wit to make her laugh, you'll be soon be picking up the lewtz.

Rel

[Maube]

/facepalm

[Amahli]

I'm going to echo Maube's /facepalm, and add a /headdesk.

You guys are nutso.