Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

One of the most difficult issues in any raid is "that guy." You know who I mean. The one who stands in fire, isn't pulling his weight, doesn't bring potions or food, is mean on Vent, is quiet on Vent, is a drama bomb, argues about loot, or otherwise does something that makes you think "this guy isn't getting it done." The only way you're going to resolve these problems is to coach them through it.

Of course, there are many reasons someone in a raid might need coaching as there are raids. Not every reason for coaching is necessarily a performance flaw. Most coaching sessions will probably be performance related in some way, but you could end up coaching a raid member because you think their sense of humor is just a little off.

Ultimately, it's up to you and your guild officers who is responsible for the actual coaching. But whoever does the job, you want to make sure they're doing it well. Take a look behind the jump for some coaching tips.

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

One of the most difficult tasks any raid leader is going to face will be one of communication. Communication is a complex, ugly issue. It can be one of your strongest assets, but it can equally be your biggest downfall. This is because communication operates on two levels.

First, there's the obvious data-based communication. Things like "The next boss is named Anub'arak" are data-based. It's fact, unassailable, and fairly meaningful. Almost everyone's going to agree with quantifiable information. You're not going to round the corner of the instance, and find something that's not Anub'arak.

Second, however, is "shadow" communication. This is a level of communication that can be a great deal more complicated. In the absence of quantifiable information, the recipient will "read into" your words a whole series of meanings and concepts that you may not have intended. For example, "This next boss is Anub'arak, so you should get ready" can be interpreted as "Get ready because we're going right now" or "get ready by reading up on the boss strategies." Now, that's a fairly hyperbolized example, but it's a true one none-the-less. We've all had experience with "I didn't mean it like that" in our lives.

One of the oldest business cliches is that "Workers don't leave companies, they leave supervisors." While a raid leader isn't a supervisor in the same way as a business manager, some of the viable tips from the corporate world can still apply to raiding life. Let's take a look after the jump at some simple tips to enhance communication.

Here he is. The big cheese. The final countdown. The last boss (currently) available in raiding progression. Anub'arak is the final encounter in the Trial of the Crusader. If you feel a sense of deja-vu while getting ready to throw down with the big bug, don't worry -- you're not insane. (At least, you're not insane because you think you recognize the boss.)

Anub'arak was the final boss in Azjol'Nerub. And while the Trial of the Crusader version is certainly much higher octane, this raid version does share some basic similarities with the previous fight. They both have adds, some kind of burrowing action, and bugs. Lots of bugs.

Let's jump behind the cut and see how to get this done.

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

The Twin Val'kyr encounter is the fourth and penultimate battle in the Trial of the Crusader. In this fight, your raid will face down two Val'kyr bosses. They are identical in every way, except for the nature of their attacks. Fjola Lightbane will attack you with the power of the Light. Her sister is Eydis Darkbane attacks you with the power of the Dark.

The Twin Val'kyr fight is a confusing one. However, e should be careful not to mix up confusing with difficult. But we should at least be honest and acknowledge that keeping track of the "Stand in Light" and "Attack the Dark" can get pretty mindbending. To sum up, you get light and dark buffs that protect you from your aligned source of damage, and buffs you when you do damage to your opposite.

So, while this fight's pretty easy once you get the handful of maneuvers down, it can be confusing to talk about.

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

Okay. This event is different than any other raid instance that currently springs to mind. It's got a level of customization that is novel to World of Warcraft's raid design, and heralds even more exciting changes in Icecrown Citadel. What's the big deal?

The boss mobs change according to your factions. Sure, statistically, the enemies are similar across the two factions. (Can you imagine the outcry if the Horde mode was somehow easier than the Alliance? Or vice versa?) But the character's names and models are customized according to whether your raid is Horde and Alliance.

The other thing that's specialized to the Faction Champions encounter is that the exact characters you fight will change week to week. It's random, similar to the old Karazhan Opera encounter. That makes it more difficult to figure out a strategy before you face the encounter. The first step is to understand what each character does, and then try to piece together some overall tips out of that collected knowledge.

Let's jump behind the cut and take a look at the fourteen different possible characters you'll be fighting.

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

Last week, we took a short break so that Matthew Rossi could join us and celebrate the return of Onyxia. Hopefully, everyone's had the opportunity to go re-pwn her by now. If not, don't give up -- I'm confident everyone will be able to get her down eventually.

Lord Jaraxxus? Maybe not. Lord Jaraxxus is the first boss fight in the Trial of the Crusader which I felt was a true raid-check. It's not an impossible raid check, mind you. Once you get the hang of the fight, you'll do fine. But getting the dance steps down in the first place will probably give a few raids a migraine headache. Let's take a look at the big demon behind the cut.

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

Hi howdy and hello, everyone. I'm Matthew Rossi, famous for being tail whipped into the cave on our first Onyxia 10 attempt yesterday. Twice. Despite having been a veteran of the original raid, which means I've heard this kind of ranting many, many times. What I'm getting at is, there are certain things you do not do in a successful Onyxia kill (then and now) and if you go in cocky, thinking that you're mister fancy pants Conquerer of Ulduar, then she's going to embarrass you. If, on the other hand, you just go in and kill her, it's much less embarrassing all told. As long as you keep her mechanics in mind, she's not a terribly complicated or hard fight, but she's been updated and tuned fairly well for an 80 raid.

Before we get to the meat of things, two caveats: one, she can hit very, very hard. On 10 man, as I dragged her back into position (we'll go more into that) I found that I went from 45k health to 11k health in two seconds. My healer actually screamed on vent. Later, we had a discussion about how mister tank doesn't go out of range on mister healer without warning. Secondly, I'm not sure if I'm just remembering it differently or if it has actually changed, but her hit box seems a lot smaller than it was at 60. It does not seem possible to melee her while she's in the air, for instance, and my melee DPS reporting having to come in fairly close to hit her.

Not to worry, though. You'll have plenty to do without being able to melee Ony. She brought friends! Oh, so many friends if you're not careful.

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

The Northrend Beasts are the first series of encounters inside the Crusaders' Coliseum raid instance. Today we'll look at their non-Heroic version. You actually fight four different critters, all of whom are the Biggest and Toughest of their racial types in Northrend. That Tirion sure is a kidder, isn't he?

The four bosses that make up the Northrend Beasts are:

• Gormok the Impaler, a massive magnataur
• Acidmaw & Dreadscale, a pair of Jormungar worms that Hunters cannot tame
  
• Icehowl, a really big Northrend yeti

These encounters all take place immediately after one another, so you're not going to have a lot of time to buff, rebuff, and drink in between the fights. You can consider the entire encounter to be like an endurance test, but it goes by fairly quick. Let's jump behind the cut and get started on how to kill them all.

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

If you remember, back when Emalon the Storm Watcher hit the ground, our own Zach Yonzon warned you that Emalon was no loot pinata. While Archavon required only a bare minimum of basic skills, and was really just a DPS race even when he first came out, Emalon to this day requires your group to vaguely pay attention and kill the big, growing add first.

With the beginning of the new Arena season, Koralon the FIre Watcher has taken up residence with Emalon and Archavon. He lives to the left of the hall, opposite to where Emalon hangs out. In terms of skill, he's only slightly more difficult than Archavon. In fact, I'd say he's probably easier, if your group's gear can support your ability to kill him. Check out the strategy behind the cut.

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

This is the show stopper. The big guy, the final countdown. Yogg-Saron is the last normal boss in Ulduar. (The only other dude is a freaky guy made from stars. Let's stick to the Old Gods here.) Yogg-Saron is the second Old God raid boss in the game, and shares an important dynamic with his predecessor: in-order to kill Yogg-Saron, you have to go inside him and fight a vital organ. Pretty freaky, huh?

Yogg-Saron is actually my favorite fight thematically. Perhaps as a purposeful shout-out to game mechanics from the Call of Cthulu, your raid members will have to manage a buff called Sanity. That dynamic was a signature, revolutionary aspect of the tabletop game, and Blizzard uses it very similarly in this boss fight. At least, I hope it's purposeful. It's possible they were simply inspired by Lovecraft's stories the same way that tabletop designers were. Still, I prefer my little world where those guys threw some dice and stared at their SAN score.

Anyway, let's get to talking about the boss fight.

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

So far, you've wrecked the Flame Leviathan. You euthanized Razorscale. You gave a cold shower to Ignis the Furnace Master. You marvelled at Deconstructor. When it came to Kologarn, you damned well shall pass. The Assembly of Iron said court was out of session, and Auriaya and her small legion of adds gave you no pause. You've asked Hodir, "Who's your Daddy?" You've entered the mountain, and tackled Thorim. You've beaten down the master of metal, Mimiron.

You've only got one more obstacle before the big finale.

Ready Check is a twice-a-week column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. T

Welcome back to Ready Check. We took some time last week to take a look at the changes that patch 3.2 brought to raiding in Azeroth, but now we're back to burning through Ulduar. Today, we'll take a look at Mimiron, and then start working on the final portions of the instance with General Vezax.

So far, you've wrecked the Flame Leviathan. You euthanized Razorscale. You gave a cold shower to Ignis the Furnace Master. You marvelled at Deconstructor. When it came to Kologarn, you damned well shall pass. The Assembly of Iron said court was out of session, and Auriaya and her small legion of adds gave you no pause. You've asked Hodir, "Who's your Daddy?" You've entered the mountain, and tackled Thorim.

Ready Check is a twice-a-week column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Today, we step back a little and look at endgame in the context of sports.

You've wrecked the Flame Leviathan. You euthanized Razorscale. You gave a cold shower to Ignis the Furnace Master. You marvelled at Deconstructor. When it came to Kologarn, you damned well shall pass. The Assembly of Iron said court was out of session, and Auriaya and her small legion of adds gave you no pause. You've asked Hodir, "Who's your Daddy?"

Now, though, it's time for Thorim.

While the Thorim encounter may not be as wildly unique as the Flame Leviathan fight, I think Thorim is probably going to be a fairly novel fight for most people. It has a similar to dynamic to Gothik the Harvester, but only in-as-much as you need to split your raid in half.

Here's the short, short, short version of the fight. You start the entire encounter by attacking the Jormungar (big worm) and associated adds in what's called the Arena. By finishing off the last of that group, you start the real fight. You'll note Thorim is standing up on a balcony. Thorim will become immediately ensconced in a sheath of power, which prevents even ranged DPS from really hurting him. To kill the boss, you need to get him to come off that balcony. But, how would you ever do such a thing?

Ready Check is a twice-a-week column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Today, we step back a little and look at endgame in the context of sports.

Let's recap Ulduar so far, shall we?

You've wrecked the Flame Leviathan. With a touch of kindness in your heart, you euthanized Razorscale. In a moment of vengeance, you laid some justice down on Ignis the Furnace Master. Guffawing in humor at his odd voice, you looted Deconstructor.

Then it came time to "bridge your experience" by beating up Kologarn. The Assembly of Iron proved to be no difficulty for your incredible raiding prowess. Even Auriaya and her small legion of adds gave you little pause.

Perhaps you've even stepped up to the man, the myth, the legend: Hodir. But now, Ulduar's got a life. You're facing down Freya.

Ready Check is a twice-a-week column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Today, we step back a little and look at endgame in the context of sports.

Let's recap Ulduar so far, shall we?

You've wrecked the Flame Leviathan. With a touch of kindness in your heart, you euthanized Razorscale. In a moment of vengeance, you laid some justice down on Ignis the Furnace Master. Guffawing in humor at his odd voice, you looted Deconstructor.

Then it came time to "bridge your experience" by beating up Kologarn. The Assembly of Iron proved to be no difficulty for your incredible raiding prowess. Even Auriaya and her small legion of adds gave you little pause.

Now, however, you're on to the big leagues. It's time for you to showdown against the Keepers of Ulduar. Immediatley after defeating Auriaya, you get to fight none other than Hodir himself.