The Importance of Really Knowing Your Spec

Naxx is easy. From the moment I step into the portal, I know what my job is and where my responsibilities lie. I know where the trouble spots are, and I know how to survive should something go wrong. I laugh at the dance, and enjoy freezing all of Gluth's zombies when I step up to kite them in the back. I'm a clicker, and I know my rotation and bars so well that half the time I don't need to see them to summon gargoyle, deploy anti-magic shell, or reapply bone shield.

This is important.

In Naxx--noobs to the fights may feel overwhelmed at times, but a group can generally sustain casualties and still down the boss. In Ulduar, however, for the majority of casual raiding guilds, deaths are not an option. A dead tank= wipe. Dead DPS= enrage /wipe. Dead heals= AoE death.
The reason I bring this up, is because the level of play necessary to be successful in a 10 man Ulduar group is much higher than any roll through Naxx. Even with the nerfing of enrage timers and trash damage, being able to navigate through a fight is a much more tedious job than it has been in the past.

Last night was difficult. After one-shotting Razorscale last week, we wiped it up so much last night that we moved straight from leviathan to Deconstructor. Players were good. Gearing was good. And raid make-up wasn't all that different from the week before. But something was off.
Timing with turrets was off on razor, random deaths during tantrum on deconstructor....I'm a pretty calm guy, but last night I almost lost my cool.

We're better than that.

It really got me thinking though about what could possibly be going wrong. Raid composition? Definitely solid here: DK/Warrior Tanks, Priest/Pally/Drood Heals, DK/Ret/Lock/Mage DPS...
Synergy? Couldn't possibly be that...I just couldn't figure it out. And I still can't. Maybe it was just an off-night.

I guess the point to this post, was about the correlation between really knowing your class, and the margin for error. The more you know, the faster your reaction time--and the more wiggle room you have. Because lets face it, when a one second split-decision on popping a CD means the difference between life and death, wouldn't you choose life?