Follow the Jumping Bikini.

I have a habit of jumping around, even more so when moving as a hunter.  Guess a little comes from it being a hard habit to break from when you needed to do the jump shot to kite.  Now we have such a wide range we can shoot sideways and everything, well almost everything, can be shot while we are moving.  Hasn't changed me from my old habits.  I like to jump around.

In one of my LFR runs yesterday I got a very understanding, even if not skilled, group were we were wiping on the first boss of the 3rd section of throne.  The people in the know were trying to explain to people what to do so I did not need to chime in.  I only mentioned that I turn particle density down to low and it helped me.

After the first wipe and seeing as I was the only person to survive the maze someone put a marker on me, the bikini if you will.  It was after another of the DPS so proudly explained to everyone how to run the maze and told them to follow him.

I will give him credit for stepping up and offering to lead the mad mad dash through the maze of death.  He explained it perfectly too.  He told people to look for the beam and then head to the side of the beam where the shadows begin and that will be the direction we will be running in.  Perfect explanation, not so perfect implementation.  He quickly lead everyone to their death.

While the marker was put on my head for the second attempt nothing was mentioned in raid and honestly I did not even notice it was on me.  I enter the "zone" when I am on a boss and sometimes don't notice little things like that.  I am thinking about where I am going to position myself, when I am going to use cooldowns to maximize what I get out of them, where I am in relation of the healers, all those little things that I would like to think are what make me a good raider.  Yes, even if it is only the LFR I still try to be prepared.  I might not use a flask there or care if I eat but I will be damned if I am not going to at least hit my buttons in the right order as best I can and move to where I need to move as quickly as I can.

After the second wipe I noticed the tank and two healers had been following me on the outside ring with one other hunter.  Amazingly enough, that one tank, two healers and us two hunters where the only ones that survived as the helpful DPS that explained everything to everyone promptly lead everyone to their death once more.

On the third attempt the tank said to follow the dancing bikini as I stood there jumping in place.  That is when I noticed I was said bikini.  It was also when I noticed that there are some people that really want to learn and just have a hard time understanding things.

Why I say this is that I saw people run to me like lightning.  I mean they dropped everything and in no time I had a pile of 12 people on top of me, maybe more.  They actually were trying.  There was one issue however.  I position myself, being I do not know what side the fog will spawn on, in the middle or off center a little bit more precisely.  When the fog did spawn, I moved, most of the others did not.  A few that followed me tried to do what I did and keep with their rotation while moving.  The hunter did just fine, but the non hunters fell behind and died.  At least they tried.  I will give them credit for that.  Need to teach them, damn the DPS, move, survive, that is all that matters.  Once you know how to do it like I do you can DPS, but while learning, stop DPSing and learn.

On the forth attempt I explained that I do not know which way I will need to go until the fog starts, so if you are running to me and see me running... follow.  Don't just go to where I was and stop there.  We did a little better that time around, might have had a shot at getting it too if only we had two tanks.  Only one survived and no one that could revive the other did.  But we were getting close.

Before the fifth attempt someone asked me why I am always jumping while we are running around the circle.  I said, because it is partly habit from doing jump shots and partly to avoid the purple junk on the ground.  I also like to do the jump, twist, disengage, turn back trick so I can basically blink.  Which on this attempt I had decided not to do because I could see it was confusing the shit out of some people seeing me turn around but still go in the direction I was originally headed.  Someone said in raid, stop jumping around, you are confusing me.  We got a chuckle out of it.  I said I would try.  Old habits are hard to break.

We wiped again on the first attempt but more people made it through.  Lost too many to finish it however.  Sixth attempt was that much better, we wiped at less than 10%.  On the seventh attempt however we nailed it.

Both tanks followed me, the healers and a few DPS did as well.  Between one DPS joining the group on that attempt that kicked some major butt and destroyed me on damage done and DPS, and enough people including both tanks making it through it was enough to get the job done.

I did not want to be the person everyone follows, it makes me change how I act.  I become a little uncomfortable with it when people I don't know are depending on me because I do not want to let them down and it reflected with my output. 

While I had usually done full DPS while running the circle I did not.  I paid a lot more attention on where I was and where everyone that was following me was so I did not lead them to their death.  But I still did the spinning jump shot here and there, because lets face it, I am a hunter and that is what I do.

That one kick ass DPS that joined had done 14% of the damage and I did 11%, like I said, he destroyed me.  But between us we did 25% of all damage done that fight.  It goes to show you that all you really need to do that fight is have the right people survive.   We had two tanks, three healers and a few DPS including the top two and we did it.

Not a great run, but only one person called anyone names and they did that when the left so them being gone was really all that mattered.  Even if it was not a great run, it was not a bad run either because people were understanding that not everyone has done this before.  It took me a wipe before I understood what to do and three wipes before I could basically say I knew exactly where the spot would be every single time.  I would never insult someone else for having their time learning.  As long as they are willing to learn and this group was.  Not a great run like I said, but not a bad one at all.  People explained, people learned, people tried.  That is all I ever ask, is that people try. 

I dropped after that boss, I was just there for another shot at the ranged weapon but I hope the rest of their run went well.  They were a good group of people, even if not the best players, and they deserve smoother runs.  They do not deserve to be put into random content like this, where they need to be lucky enough to get an understanding group willing to wipe.  Now all these people, hopefully, know how to do the boss and there are more players that will do it better next week out there and maybe some that will take up the mantle and dance around with a bikini on their head while leading people around.

Becasue, at least on this one day, the secret to success was to follow the jumping bikini.