Breakfast Topic: How do you prepare for new raids?

Raid preparation is always an odd task for me. I say that because I’ve almost always been at least some form of raid leader — currently donning the title, “Assistant to the Raid Leader” among my team — and yet, I am terrible at taking my own advice. I’ll encourage my group to read strategies, watch videos, all that sort of fun stuff. But in truth, I find those to be the least effective method of learning new fights.

For me, a fight doesn’t really gel until I’ve experienced it. Sure, I still watch videos, research abilities, and do all that fun stuff beforehand — but it mostly ends up being retrospective knowledge. I can read about X, Y, and Z abilities from a boss and know what they technically do. I can watch videos to see what those abilities look like and where I need to be standing for them. But I’m not comfortable until I’ve done a fight at least once.

I’d say everything I do before the fight itself — no matter how many videos I watch or guides I read — amounts to about 15% of my overall feelings of preparedness. Give me one — maybe two — shots at the boss and the next 80% is there like that. (The last 5% is the next few months of doing the boss so many times I could kill the boss in my sleep.)

But I know everyone is different. Several team members need that pre-fight work to understand a fight; a video or a written guide may be their 80%. How you all of you best prepare for new raids?