Raiding - Pre-Raid Setup / Gear

Couple of things to have ready to go before raiding:

1. Repair... Make sure you are 100% repaired.

2. Get on Ventrillo

3. Clear TWO hotkey buttons. Use these for creating target/assist macros.

4. Know who the Main Tank (MT) and Main Assist (MA) is for a raid. NOTE: This can change during the zone, as we try new things. Know how to edit these hotkeys quickly.

5. Main Tank Group (MT Group) will pretty much always be setup to keep the MT alive. Their main focus is to keep the MT alive.

6. Main Assist Group (MA Group) will pretty much be stacked with melee classes / healers. This is a very important group... On named fights their job will be to keep the MA (Main Assist, secondary tank) alive during difficult encounters. Or if the MT (Main Tank) dies, the tank in this group will pick up the aggro in the fight.

7. Make sure to have at least 2 repair kits with you. These probably won't be used, with the advent of the Repair Bot. But... The repair bot has it's own "bugs". Like only being able to be cast once per zone. If it has been cast once, the person (tinkerer) that has casted it must link dead, (probably reboot), log in, re-cast. This can take 15 mins to do. The repair bot also costs a crap load more to repair.

8. Food and Drink -- DUH -- Make sure you have it, and it's equiped. As a level 80 provie, I will try an bring extras.

9. Resists Gear -- This is something that longer raiders know about... Don't throw away gear that you won't wear "every day". Some gear has VERY high resists, and for a difficult fight that has AOE attacks, all classes can benefit from high resists. Get used to carrying a box (or two) of gear to raids. Setup macros to swap resist gear. This is difficlut to do (because your gear can change nightly). You should really have the follow gear macros setup before the raid: MAGIC/MENTAL, HEAT/COLD, and with the RoK expansion: POSION/DISEASE. MAGIC/MENTAL is big for T7 raids, and POSION/DISEASE for T8 raids.
NOTE: When Rays (mage class with 58 STR) goes to a raid, she only has about 10 open slots in her bags... She's always swaping gear around. And I will drop +2 Crits / 60 BoE to have a piece of gear with +600 to a specific resist... This might allow me to resist a massive AOE damage over time (DOT) to lessen the healing cost to get it off me. I'll be alive, and can continue to DPS, but it might be 100 DPS less for said fight... NO big deal... can't DPS at all if you are dead from an AOE.

10. Roots and Stuns - For the most part these do NOT affect Epic targets. Don't waste time casting them.

11. DPS and de-aggro -- Don't throw away any gear that has a de-aggro. There will be fights that this gear will be needed. Don't be afraid to equip this gear in place of +crit / BoE gear... Again, you can't DPS if you are dead.

12. Every group is important on a raid... And knowing your roll.

13. The MT group is all about keep aggro on the tank, and keeping the tank alive.

14. The MA group should be worried about keeping the Main Tank alive, DPS, and possible hate transfers (MT down, MA picks it up).

15. DPS groups should be DPSing. Sometimes you'll see DOT (damage over time) class throwing stuff out before a DPS call... If you are a Wizzy, don't be nuking until you see the call... DOT classes should pretty much know when / where they can cast their spells. As a conjy I know how to do this... Some of my spells last 30 seconds and do very little damage in the beginning... This means the spell won't draw aggro right away. When doing instance zones, all classes try to get a feel for the new "aggro" and how / when to cast.

16. Summoners : Conjy / Necros = Always have your Mage pets up. Never use your scout / tank pets on ANY raid. There are also times you'll have to put your primary pets / dumbfire pets aways (I know that sucks). Never, ever use your scout / tank pets on raids (unless you are selected to pet pull). No matter the encounter, the Mage pet will >>> all other pets on an epic fight (even if you are AA speced for other pets).

17. If you are having issues hitting the mobs, or you are not healing, cast a debuff before you try your healer nukes... Hex dolls / class debuffs. Sure, you might not be landing your "HOLY SMITE", but the hex doll debuffs can increase the over all DPS of the other raid groups. The DPS of DPS classes >>> your holy smite (or whatever). On this note: if you are a melee / healer class, get yourself a few different Hex Dolls... INT for magic debuff, STA for melee debuffs, and / or whatever the other debuffs do. Everyone has the ability to debuff, use 'em. NOTE: There are T8 raids that Melee class CANNOT par take in... They are ranged only fights... So your STR / STA dolls won't do anything for the raid

More to folow and/or edit.