Alliance Raids: Does anyone follow mechanics or it just bull rush?

So, I did my first Alliance Raid last night (LOTA Labyrinth of the Ancients), had no idea what really to expect so I announce that it was my first time. I was tanking DRK.

The 8 man group I was in said no worries just follow the crowd. We get to first area kill. kill, kill, no problems. Then came the first sub boss I guess and I did not know the mechanic so I asked for pointers and nothing...no response....I KO...

Next sub boss again same thing. Im like can anyone of you vets give me some directions or pointers would be great. I did watch a youtube video but no one was doing any of the mechanics. Pretty much everyone for themselves.

Now, I get it im new to this raid and I certainly don't want to hinder anyone but asking for help usually isn't a problem....but no response at all...got me peeved.

we get to last boss I die right away because stood to long in AoE which is my fault all the way. No one rezz me I watched the entire fight dead....not cool....

This so called friendly community seems much different in the raids then normal dung in df.

I feel like I shouldn't do them anymore. Is there something else I should do to train for those so I can learn the proper mechanics. Youtube helps very little. Any suggestions would be great

Those videos were made years ago when that content was relevant. Most of the ppl doing that stuff now are farming for glamour and powering through the content. I'm sry you had a bad experience but it will get much better when you are doing the more recent 24 man raids that can't be plowed thru.

Essentially, the first 4 or 5 Alliance Raids will be like this, with people just dpsing bosses down with no respect for mechanics. This boils down to the synced ilvl of these raids being way above the mark where these were challenging. There are still a few spots where people will need to do certain mechanics, and if too many people either don't feel like doing them or don't know them, there can be wipes. Your experience mostly mirrors my own when I first started doing these as well. I died to mechanics because I had no idea what was coming, and no one was explaining anything. I've mostly learned them over time by running them repeatedly and seeing them enough that I figure them out, or occasionally having someone pipe up and explain something.

On the bright side, you will rarely see people kicked over failing mechanics in alliance raids, so just take those deaths in stride, pay attention to whats killing you and ask for explanations whenever you're in one. You will sometimes get someone willing to explain boss mechanics. I would say not to throw in the towel just because of the less friendly experience with LotA. A lot of the alliance raids are really fun, and the stories that go along with them are some of the best side stories in the game.

LotA and the next raid, Syrcus Tower are really the only two 24-mans that suffer greatly from overgeared, overexperienced players plowing through them with no regard for the fights. The next raid after that is the final raid of the level 50 raid series and players will not be as overgeared as the others. While it is still very easy, you will still see most, if not all of the fights and their mechanics. Although enough people know them that even if you yourself just flail around, things will still go smoothly. The level 60 Heavensward raids are mostly like the final level 50 raid, but the final Heavensward raid still requires people to know what they are doing and is very wipeable, even today (I should know, I have been doing it every single day for months trying to get the minion....)

The level 70 24-mans are basically still done normally and there is not anything really skipped or ignored, and likely never will be. SE seems to have learned to make 24-mans more durable and less cheesable since the early days.

As the others said, this isnt quite as big a problem as your one run would indicate. I am sorry that no one was really explaining things as you went, but LotA doesnt have much to it and the item level sync leaves everyone powerful enough to eat a lot of mistakes. The boss mechanics as i remember them for LotA...

Bone Dragon - Fight him toward the outside of the arena. The first two times he dies kill the adds that try to run to him. Most tanks point him outward, so he might have a cleave.
Atomos(not technically a boss) - The groups split up into 3 paths. Try not to pull early, because if the arena gets locked before people show up the system doesnt send them to the proper lanes - can cause wipes. Get 4 team members to stand on the button to open up the next teams boss(one of them should be opening yours). Have someone pull the adds back to the people stuck on the button while the others focus on Atomos.
Thanatos - The boss can only be hurt by someone with the buff from the Magic Pots around the outside. At the start of the fight they mark up alliance a, and just before their buff fades alliance b gets marked(etc). Those buffed can just focus on the boss. The rest of the raid should focus on the adds that will be trying to destroy the Pots.
King Behemoth - Main mechanic is ecliptic meteor. Small rocks will fall from the sky. Stand with them in between you and the boss to avoid the hit. Note: If you are inside the bosses hit box the rock wont save you - so if you get marked with a falling stone make sure youre at least a little bit back. The adds will try to break the rocks and otherwise be a nuisance, so an offtank can corral these to make things a little easier.
Phlegethon - His main aoes are obviously telegraphed. The big mechanic is Ancient Flare. When he starts to cast it everyone needs to run out of the central arena and stand on their groups trigger. If enough people dont get there the shield doesnt go up and everyone wipes(one group failing wipes the raid).

Thats more or less one important mechanic per fight, a few of which are basically cheesed by doing too much damage. As the others pointed out Syrcus Tower(the 2nd alliance raid) has some of the same tuning issues and even with everyone ignoring mechanics most of the fights are too easy to wipe the group(the last 2 fights are the only real dangerous ones). The mechanics in the last level 50 raid must be at least somewhat followed or everyone dies(each boss fight can go poorly if no one wants to play along - a couple of them spectacularly so). The first level 60 raid mostly has mechanics that hit hard or give vulnerability up stacks, so some of them get skirted a little. Everything after that requires a good portion of the raid to pay attention and do it right. So try not to be discouraged too much, these fights get better.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

Bone Dragon - Fight him toward the outside of the arena. The first two times he dies kill the adds that try to run to him. Most tanks point him outward, so he might have a cleave.

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He does - a quite nasty breath in front of him that will give you the "disease"-debuff (is it called that in english? the thing that makes you slow but isnt heavy). He also has a frontal cone AoE. Its also just a tank habit of basically poiting everything outwards, which is the safe way to go.
The Bone Dragon has the habit of just running away from the tank randomly, even though the tank didnt loose aggro.

By now he mainly has the habit of just dying for good though, with no one having to deal with any mechanics.

Any tank who wasnt the MT used to be in charge of pulling the skeleton-adds to the outer platforms to create maximum distances between them and the boss (when they touch the boss, the whole raid will take damage, so that was to be avoided). Normally it ended in aggro-fights over the adds, so I used to just have a cup of tea during this fight when it was current content...

I think you need to know mechanic then go It will be much better

I haven't seen Bone Dragon mechanics followed in a long while now. Current meta is just "This is going to hurt." Healers can help mitigate or otherwise time heals to keep everyone alive, doesn't hurt to pop any of your own defensives if you have any. Sadly, if you're not very high iLvl, would probably expect not to survive that.

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

The level 70 24-mans are basically still done normally and there is not anything really skipped or ignored, and likely never will be. SE seems to have learned to make 24-mans more durable and less cheesable since the early days.

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While mostly true I can start to see the power creep from better gear affecting this. Especially in Rabastre I see fewer mechanics due to the fact that the bosses die faster then 6 months ago.

y'all say that this changes but people barely even do mechanics in Rabanastre let alone the Heavensward raid series.

OP: Overgearing = zerg.

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Originally Posted by Racen

y'all say that this changes but people barely even do mechanics in Rabanastre let alone the Heavensward raid series.

OP: Overgearing = zerg.

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So lets look at Weeping City, second raid in the HW series. First fight - Arachne. If no one gets out of her web to cut the keyknots i think thats a wipe(im not positive about this one). If you dont find a safe spot during the quicksand attack you die. The rest is mostly damage. Second boss - Forgall. If you dont do the mechanic for his megadeath attack you die. If you dont attack the adds in a smart order you probly wipe. The rest is mostly damage. Third boss - Ozma. Overlapping meteors can wipe a party. The rest is mostly damage(though a couple of those attacks are rough). Final boss - Calofisteri. All her attacks are more or less just damage. Haircut in particular only leaves your healer about 2 server ticks to save you before you die. So, looking at this raid as a whole - if you dont do the mechanics you can expect to die a few times and if no one does them you dont clear the second boss. The first fight in Dun Scaith has an enrage timer(and 3 or 4 instant death mechanics) for heavens sake. Yeah, this does get better after Syrcus.

I agree with you OP, the older content is completely ruined for new players... the dev team could easily fix it by adding a ilv cap but most likely they wont do it... it's kinda sad that the new player experience is absolutely trash now alot of fun fights in the older content ain't being sync'd down to what they were originally were like and since anyone can just do them unsync'd now like the extreme fights, coil etc there is alot less players who are looking to make a full group for it via party finder or who are queued in duty finder for them.

Roulette for 24 man raids is only for players who want their rewards, they have no intention of helping others in the actual fight especially now since every mechanic can be ignored due to op ilv of players, those players ain't even there to have some fun, they just want their tomestones/exp :/ poorly thought out from the dev team.

People do not do the fights right and it kills me. Why not add an ilv sync like in some of the arr lv 50 dungeons. Let em be ez but not too simple(no mechs). Why can't the LotA be set at ilv 85 or 90 max? Then set the next part at 100. Leave WoD at ilv 130 because it works. Also, How can they want more people to run the crystal tower quests before 5.0 with it being un-fun. Per the original posts story as one example.

This relates to my absolute biggest issue with this game right now, by far. Old content is just WAY too easy. It's all an absolute faceroll and incredibly boring. I actually feel sorry for people who are starting to play the game right now. The content doesn't even get remotely challenging until maybe the end of stormblood. I've even had friends who have played through the game who were really looking forward to their first raids, such as Crystal Tower and Alexander, only to come out of them saying, and I quote "That was it? That sucked". It's sad, and all I can say is "yeah... but it least it gets better in current content" :/

I only started playing during like 4.1 or something so I actually experienced this myself too, and it honestly hurt my early experience with the game to the point where most trials, dungeons or raids left me disappointed throughout ARR and HW; left me wishing that I could experience the content how it was meant to be instead of just bum rushing through it all without thinking.

Sure, people will say "well if you want to experience it the way it was meant to be then just min ilvl in party finder" but let me tell you, that is not exactly something that is easy to make happen. There is not really enough people in the party finder who is up for doing that kind of thing.