This is a set of thoughts I've pondered for a while, and I think I need it out of my system. While raidleading, and through some extensive raiding, I've discovered these "phases" in understanding and executing a boss fight. I've tried using them to my advantage.
1. Reading/hearing about it
The very first step is getting a general idea of what is going to happen. Written guides tend to focus a lot on exactly how much damage a certain ability does rather than the execution itself. This is good for finetuning (figuring out the abilities that will be healable through for example), but does not really help someone trying to understand the basic composition. Instead, people hear other people talk about things that happen in the fight and get a (sometimes faulty) idea of what's going on. When I'd read the Yogg-Saron fight quickly (didn't want to spoil it too early on!) I figured there'd be tentacles and an episode of going into the god himself - just like C'thun. When I truly studied it (in preparation of maybe downing Vezax) I quickly realized we'd have no chance on performing the fight without ample preparation and practise. This is a very basic step, you need to know the abilitie's names to be able to distinguish what the hell the raid leader is shouting about to be able to execute the fight. This leads me into the next step.
2. Watching videos of it
By now, you have the very utterly basic grasp of what the boss can do. To realize what you are going to experience however, you need to see it done. This also helps with stuff like situational awareness, graphics/animations for boss abilities and a general feel of timing between events (written guides, again, are very specific - but 15 seconds during Ignis are completely different from 15 seconds during Razorscale). If you can find PoV's from your class it's all the better, but anything works. By now, you're fairly well equipped. Assuming your raidleader (or someone else for that matter) has a brief repetition before the fight, you are ready to go on to step 3.
3. Doing it the first time
Face it, you'll most probably fuck up. You've misunderstood how an ability works, you're too slow, you forget an important mechanic and you most likely have a few others in the raid who are just like you. Or, everything will go fine, you got carried by the raid and whatever pitfalls were there you avoided them through some kind of miracle. However, this only leads to ignorance as you will think you did fine, which you may have done due to luck, and the next time, one of the random abilities may pop more often, and you'll wipe.
4. Doing it the fifth time
This is perhaps my favorite phase of all - the fight still feels new, you still have some ideas about what to do to do better, and you have learning experiences still. You'll also be starting to work out a way to optimize the execution for future smooth kills. My first Hodir tries I had no idea about the fires so I'd run around like an idiot between Starlights and tested the limits of my IA Arcane spec's mobility. Too much running, too little DPS. Then I learned about the Singed debuff, and I figured the toasty fires out, and the other day I hit a 18k DPS peak (overall DPS was still weak but I'll get som epic DPS next time...). Arguably, I'd been stupid before and not read the add's abilities thoroughly enough, but we did down him and I'd probably never noticed unless I'd sat down to study the fight again. Reason I did this? To start raidleading, which brings me onto my next step.
5. Being able to explain it to someone
It is true for all knowledge and understanding: you have truly understood it the moment you can explain it to someone and have that person understand too. This is doubly true for boss fights in WoW, since you actually need to do good and accurate explanations to maximize performance. Once you know everything there is to know about the boss fight (to be able to execute it "good enough", at least) you have reached an understanding. By now you have several high performance kills behind you and you still try to do your best and beat your score on those kills, be you healer, tank or DPS. If you haven't already, you could problably lead a raid that does this boss - you know all the ins and outs and can make judgement calls about who does what. You also have enough awareness and multitasking skill to shout at people, warn about abilities and mechanics.
When I raidlead, I utilize explanations made by raid members as both a kind of checkup, a way to have people other than the raid leader be heard, and to make sure that the people attending get explanations by different people (which guarantees different angles). It's a trick I learned as a squad leader trainee in the military. :)
6. Being able to dick around
This is the final phase in a boss fight's life - when he or she or it turns to the dreaded farm status. You are good enough that you can afford to make mistakes and still make the kill, and you might even try and have a threat race with the tank, doing your best to steal aggro instead of manage it, just to give the tank a challenge. You might blabber on Vent and not do your job and the raid's overall performance won't be affected that much. You might not need to kill offtanked adds cause the tank who's on them is good enough. You can go watch a Youtube video on your other monitor and still keep a decent DPS rotation up. Be mindful though! Once the mistakes I mentioned start to happen, and the interrupting rogue steals aggro and gets twatted, you still need to focus and shape up. All of a sudden it got serious again. If you have gotten to step 6, you should be able to drop down to your step 5 performance and still pull the kill off. This is what separates a good group that's on step 6 from a bad one.
5. Being able to explain it to someone
It is true for all knowledge and understanding: you have truly understood it the moment you can explain it to someone and have that person understand too. This is doubly true for boss fights in WoW, since you actually need to do good and accurate explanations to maximize performance. Once you know everything there is to know about the boss fight (to be able to execute it "good enough", at least) you have reached an understanding. By now you have several high performance kills behind you and you still try to do your best and beat your score on those kills, be you healer, tank or DPS. If you haven't already, you could problably lead a raid that does this boss - you know all the ins and outs and can make judgement calls about who does what. You also have enough awareness and multitasking skill to shout at people, warn about abilities and mechanics.
When I raidlead, I utilize explanations made by raid members as both a kind of checkup, a way to have people other than the raid leader be heard, and to make sure that the people attending get explanations by different people (which guarantees different angles). It's a trick I learned as a squad leader trainee in the military. :)
6. Being able to dick around
This is the final phase in a boss fight's life - when he or she or it turns to the dreaded farm status. You are good enough that you can afford to make mistakes and still make the kill, and you might even try and have a threat race with the tank, doing your best to steal aggro instead of manage it, just to give the tank a challenge. You might blabber on Vent and not do your job and the raid's overall performance won't be affected that much. You might not need to kill offtanked adds cause the tank who's on them is good enough. You can go watch a Youtube video on your other monitor and still keep a decent DPS rotation up. Be mindful though! Once the mistakes I mentioned start to happen, and the interrupting rogue steals aggro and gets twatted, you still need to focus and shape up. All of a sudden it got serious again. If you have gotten to step 6, you should be able to drop down to your step 5 performance and still pull the kill off. This is what separates a good group that's on step 6 from a bad one.
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