[Interview] Treckie - World Top Tank Tells All

 

Treckie Method EU Xavius Tank Current Toon: Treckie Realm: EU Xavius Guild: <Method> Guild Position: Tank Age: 22 Occupation: Stopped studying earlier this year, currently unemployed. Gender: Male # of years playing: 4 & ½ years # of years leading: 1 ish

1.Have you lead raids playing different classes? If so, what was the easiest class/spec to play and lead simultaneously?

My first experience with Raid leading was with my mage, a class that always stands in the back while mashing buttons, so it was pretty relaxing for me playing as that role, and i could always blame low dps on that i was leading ^^

 But, long time ago since i re-rolled my paladin, and always been tank with it.Tanking is a weird science, and at times it can be frustrating or relaxing, but since our “job” generally is just to hold aggro, we can get a lot of slack with our dps.

The mindset of a dps is to always compete on the meters, as a tank you’ve already lost that one  so it doesn’t feel as mentally satisfying to even try to compete, thus you can slack a lot with your rotation and have a lot more of your attention on what the raid is doing, and how you can help them instead.

 For me its always felt very natural to be “leading” the raid, as a tank usually has to call out for stuff anyway, so you usually fall into that position by default.

And as long as your holding threat, the tanks damage output is usually neglected, so without that kind of pressure on you, raidleading is pretty easy from that position.

2. Essential mods for raiding/leading?

The most essential part of progress is to figure out what went wrong the last try, and improve. Thus, addons that tracks deathlogs are very useful to see what actually killed someone, and if it was healable or not, and sometimes, just who’s fault it was. Personally i prefer Fatality, and Recount sums up the last few seconds of everyone before they died, and its very useful reviewing between tries.

 3. How do you nurture/mentor players to get the most out of them?

Just talking to people goes a long way. We obviously have very high expectations of our recruits, and knowledge of how to play your class shouldn’t be an issue.  But it is still very important to make sure everyone is on the same page, about everything from special strats to fundamental guild management.  As we dont take in many Tank recruits I havnt been “mentoring” someone for quite a while.

4. Does your raid call for raid CDs such as Rebirth, Pain Suppression, etc? If not, is it left up to the individual player to use at his/her discretion?

 Combat resses are always announced, and pretty much always right after someone died. I think both druids and DKs have some sort of order of what order they should res people in, so we don’t always have to tell who will ress who, that way it usually goes both faster and you don’t have to call for more than you have to mid-fight. Some raid CDs are assigned to be used at specific times, those unassigned are called upon during the fight when needed. Several of us have addons that track raid CDs so we can say who should use what when, rather than asking if this or that is ready all the time.

 5. What is the most challenging encounter to lead and play right now? Baleroc is always a very interesting fight each week, as there’s no fight that gets as chaotic on TS as that one.

Ragnaros P4 is close, with dreadflames, group positioning, tank rotations and meteors being called out at once. Fortunately, none of the fights are very complicated from a tank point of view, so calling things out isn’t really an issue if you choose to do so. And since there’s pretty much always two tank positions in a fight, whoever feel they need to be calling things out can usually take the more “relaxed” part. Ragnaros might not be a complicated fight for a tank, but it is a good fight for your whole raid

 6. Does your team delegate some responsibility? (calling out X or Y on a certain boss) If so, what?

Whoever calls things out during a fight is more or less always related to whoever it most affects. Such as the interrupters call out about interrupts, tanks call out about tank swaps and general boss movement, healers coordinate raid CDs etc. Although, i wouldn’t really say calling obvious events out raid leading, its more of having an enhanced bossmod. Even if everyone helps out wherever they can, there’s still some who will take the quick decision everyone follows if things has started turning for the worse.

 7. How does your team handle removing a player from your team for skill-based issues?

Its usually not that much about removing a player, as replacing.  And most people we get in understands this, and its not uncommon that they take the decision to leave themselves. Since we are a very competitive guild its hard to feel comfortable around others when you don’t feel your pulling your own weight. Just about everyone who comes to us does so cuz they are among the best in their guild, feeling they need a challenge, but sometimes the step up is a little bit to high for some.

 8. What’s the most difficult part of being part of a top guild in the world?

 There is a lot of personal pressure during progress, since there is a lot of people following the race. Id say the most difficult part is probably during progress to keep it together as a guild and to keep the spirit high. The few intensive weeks of progress is very demanding, in many ways, and when people spend to much time with each other, things can get a bit tense.

 9. If you could suggest one thing to new raid teams, what would that be?

Learn to play as a team. Try to not have anyone feel left out, and advertise your intentions to new recruits so they know what they are joining for. A tight-knit guild can go far if everyone’s motivation is the same, and help each other to improve. Get that community going within the guild, that’s usually what keeps people to log back on to meet their friends, and to have fun while raiding.