So very recently one of our Officers has been bringing his alt to our raids, not just farm content but our progression nights. This was obviously given the go ahead by raid leadership but it did stir up interest in a few raiders asking what was going on. As a standing rule my guild has never really taken alts on main raids. Normally alts are left to the alt raids on the weekends. We have in the past however asked very well geared alts along to fill gaps in our raid make up. So after taking care of a few guildies concerns, I figured it was something post worthy.
There seems to be a large concern about officers abusing their power to take their alts on main raids and get loot that would otherwise go to mains, or using their positions to get main raiders / toons to take their alts through content to gear up. While I’m not saying this doesn’t happen, because I’m sure it does, but I don’t think it happens as much as people think. Most time I see guild officers gearing up their alts to be able to pitch hit in a raid if need be. I’ll use my guild as an example. Most of the officers there have well geared alts, it breaks down something like this
GM DK tank main – Well geared Rogue alt
DKP officer/hunter class lead – Well geared Warlock alt
DKP officer/Warlock class lead – Well geared Unholy DK
Recruitment officer Dps DK – Well geared Paladin alt
Raid officer/Shaman class lead – Medium geared DK tank / low to medium gear Hunter
I put myself on the list because I am actively seeking to bring my hunter up to the well geared level of things. Other officers have other alts and such but you get the idea. The intent behind our gearing is something to help our raid and groups out. Let’s say our guild is doing two ToC 10 man runs, normally we have 6-7 raiding healers available. You don’t need 7 for two ToC groups. Let’s say one group is short a tank, my goal would be to be able to hop on my alt and fill that role so the group doesn’t fail to start. Another example and one that we’ve been using. We’ve been a little short on the melee front this past week. As a result the warlock class lead hopped on his Unholy DK for this weeks raids. It provided the same spell buff his warlock did to the raid but gave us the melee we needed for our encounter. It was useful to be able to pull someone’s well geared alt to fill the gap and keep the raid moving.
It should be noted that this isn’t required and that the vast majority of the time we spend gearing our alts up are through pugging instances and farming badges. That said it’s already proven useful a few times.
How to Handle Loot Priority:
So something that is key is to set up a loot priority for any guild raid even if it’s not a main raid. Our weekend alt runs we use a loot priority to keep things going smoothly.
Main spec > Off spec // Main toon > Alt
Pretty straight forward right? This has also encouraged more then a few people to bring their main toons to these alt runs as they are normally instances we don’t run anymore or alternate versions of what we are running (my guild is a 25 man focused guild so we do 10 man / alt 10 man runs on weekends) Everyone has fun and anyone can bring their alt along if they want, as long as we get a group composition we need.
Having well geared alts in a guild raid environment is a very useful tool that an be called upon when needed. It seems most people’s apprehension is when they see officer alts pop up in a main raid, I suppose I can understand that. If you’re in a situation that you feel like the officers or some officers in particular are taking advantage of the system, say something just like my raiders did to me.
Now, with all that said, this doesn’t just pertain to officers, but as the questions and concerns was about officers taking advantage of the system to bring in their alts to gear up that’s where we kind of hovered around. Raider alts can be just as helpful and there have been occasions when we asked a raider to bring in their alt. Sometimes this has even lead to them wanting to switch their mains for both their enjoyment and the good of the raid.
So, what do you think about alts getting geared up to raid? Do you have an alt army ready to take down Icecrown? Ever bring an alt to a main raid at the leaders request?
That’s it for today, until next timE
With the 5-man “progression” heroic instances giving out loot that is just a tier behind 10-man instances, it should be pretty easy to get alts geared up in the 5-man content and have them geared up for Cataclysm without even having to raid with them…
.-= Lissanna´s last blog ..GC confirms reduction in rejuvenation duration. =-.
You can’t gear up for Cataclysm until it comes out. There will be 5 more levels of content…
.-= Tara´s last blog ..And now with no wipes =-.
for the record I mean gearing for current content. and @lissanna while I agree that heroic ToC drops slightly below raid level gear, it doesn’t have things like set bonuses or specific gem sockets that appeal to certain classes. And with cataclysm still a ways away, you still have current content to contend with.
Tara – I meant in terms of having good gear for leveling. It’s a lot easier for me to level in epics than in greens…
The IC 5-man heroic is going to have better than Ulduar 25-man level gear. They’re giving so many progression paths that there are plenty of opportunities for alts to get geared up even if they can’t go in the normal raid runs…
But I think I’ve veered a bit too far from the post’s original intentions, haven’t I? 🙂
.-= Lissanna´s last blog ..GC confirms reduction in rejuvenation duration. =-.
“Main spec > Off spec // Main toon > Alt”
Does a Main toon’s offspec beat an Alt’s Main Spec? I can see someone be a little narked if they tanked a tough night of raiding and a healer kept nabbing all the tank loot, especially if the stuff just ends up in the bank.
It’s a toughie but I think you have to make room for alts. Otherwise people just pug which rather undermines the spirit of a guild.
@Lissanna
It’s not about making leveling alts easier in future. It is about ability to pick sertain alt for raid when you are missing certain class/ability.
No paladin in raid -> bring pally alt so he can give BoK for raids and do also nice dps if geared well.
@stabs I realize I didn’t make that very clear. It overlaps for us. Main primary spec /. Alt primary spec / main off spec / alt offspec
As one of the Raid Leaders of my guild, as well as Priest CL and officer, I found the time to level my DK as a farming toon first and foremost. Then I decided to make it get some gear, and threw myself in the tanking way of life. My DK is now one of the better geared tanks in the guild, and this opens up a lot of room for multiple 10mans per week, combining other alts.
Every officer has at least two raidworthy well geared toons, but none were geared up in favor of mains. Alts pass on any gear a mainspecc player needs. In 10 man raids however, there isn’t often a lot to pass on seeing whatever drops will have very little interested people. Our guild doesn’t have the manpower for continuous 25mans, but they would involve a DKP system where main/alt shares DKP for a person. Up to them to decide what toon they want to spend it on.
Alts just enable what you just said, possible shifting of raid compositions for the better. It just enables you to do more raiding and please more people.
We run with EPGP and loot goes like this:
Main spec then 2nd Spec (IE off tank that has to DPS in raids in some fights) then Alts Main spec then Offspec.
I’m the GM of my guild and I will only bring in Alts to fill spots when needed if its not farm content don’t ask to bring a alt its just as bad as showing up with out food or flasks or enchants. A good raider will all ways bring his best to raids!
I am an officer and raid leader in a casual raiding guild and I have 8 level 80s. My main is my dk tank and I bring her everywhere. Our policy on alts in progression is ONLY on the discretion of the Raid Leader. If your alt can fulfill your same role to the same degree [and has proven so in some fashion – 10 mans or VOA] we will consider allowing them. If your alt fills a needed role, we may ask for them. I was asked to bring my disc priest in on a progression raid because we had the tanks covered and needed another healer. We use an SK system with offset roles where applicable that doesn’t cost your spot if no one needs it for main spec.
As a tank, since I get priority on tank gear, I don’t bid on any dps gear but roll offset. Similarly, if a main can use the gear my priest could I don’t [and didn’t] roll on it. Perhaps my perspective is related to the fact that I co-raid lead the 25 mans, but if I take a piece of loot for my alt over someone’s main spec, I’m hurting our 25 man progression, so I don’t. The time for loot will come and frankly, I get plenty on the alts that no one else needs.
As a raider with four or five alts more than capable of pulling their weight in 10 man Coliseum, I see this situation arise quite a lot, and the potential for drama is obvious. Luckily we have a dkp system that solves any loot issues before they start. Put simply, if you have the dkp, you can bid on an item. But dkp is earned per character. So if I was asked to switch to my warrior and tank the Coliseum, my warrior would pretty much only be walking away with any loot that no-one else wanted, since all the mains in the raid would have dkp and he doesn’t. But you also have to bear in mind that in a 10 man raid there’s not much competition for tanking plate loot, so there’s a reasonable chance he’s going to come away with something for his efforts.
As it happens, this exact situation arose last weekend, where a raid would have been cancelled if someone (me) didn’t have a CC10 capable tank available. My warrior stepped up to the plate, we cleared the instance, some lovely plate tanking shoulders dropped which no-one else wanted and I collected enough tokens to also buy the dps plate shoulders for my offspec. Raid went ahead, I got some new gear for my efforts and everyone’s a winner.
For progression raids it’s a completely diffferent matter. In CC25 and CC25 Heroic we sign up with our mains, no-one would even consider signing up with an alt. If the raid balance is off, and only if the raid leader asks someone to switch to bring a needed buff, then and only then would an alt come along. The raider/alt would then have the choice of deciding on which character they wanted the dkp. We’d have to be pretty desperate to ask for an alt on a CC25 heroic though, it’s not happened yet.
We raid 25 content with our mains and everything else is considered free for all.
Mostly 10 mens and the occasional toc 25 alt run.
That has been made very clear. Of course we do a lot with guildies but if you want to do your 10 men raids with other people it’s no problem. We’re a raiding guild, raid 4 times/week. 25 mens. Outside of that, there’s no enforced commitment to do things in guild. Most people want to, but if you don’t want to, either do it with someone else, go watch Oprah or get drunk with your buddies.
I think players have to be judged on a case by case basis.
I have seen some players (including an officer in my old guild), bring in an alt in theory “to help the team…” but in truth, out of greed. It can and does happen. I’d say it’s rare, though.
For most, bringing in an alt isn’t altruistic. I’ve never actually seen a case where “to help the team” was the only reason an alt was brought to raid. Our characters are flexible enough with dual specs now that everyone can probably use their main. However, most player’s motivation isn’t selfish either–they play their alts because they enjoy it. A different class spices things up. Maybe they want to make a permanent change? Maybe they want to play the flavor of the month? Fun is good, and guilds should try not to restrict it if it can be avoided.
One thing I’ve learned is not to disparage people who want a change of pace–I think a guild should be successful enough to allow for it within reason. A couple cases of loot greed will slide by as a result, but as long as the guild’s loot policy keeps the loot from concentrating in the inventories of the GM and the officers, even a very, very loot-motivated altoholic can’t really do any harm. In my experience, ordinary players don’t often have the power to get an outsize share of loot. Sometimes an old, undecayed DKP system can let that happen–but then it’s the leadership’s fault, not the players.
I don’t agree with taking alts to progression content ever unless you are specifically missing a needed class to fill a role that you cannot fill with a main or do without.
It’s not about loot rights, It’s about the fact that it’s progression raiding and if your main isn’t able to do more to help your raid progress than your alt then you probably have the wrong main or you’ve already been abusing your power gearing up your alt “just in case”. Once your main is geared you have a responsibility to the rest of the raid to help the people who got your main where it is as much as you can.
For farm content, sure bring enough alts to keep it as a farm experience, but if you start wiping get back on your main. If you prefer that progression feeling with your alt then do what we do and set up an Altduar run for alts.
If the main raid has worked hard to reach the point where a clear is fast and easy, then that should be the reward for their hard work. Simply put, it’s presumptuous and unfair to expect some mains to carry one or multiple alts through an instance so that the alt-players can get some easy loot. I don’t care how “geared” your alt may be, the fact is you are burdening your teammates with a gear/knowledge disparity.
If you want to have fun raiding on an alt, form an alt raid or join a pug. Don’t be so self-centered to think that your guildies are just as excited about you playing your alt as you are; chances are they all have alts they’d like to be playing.
We have a very strict policy against alts on progression raids. Actually, we have a strict policy against alts on any scheduled raid. If it’s a 25-man and it’s on the calendar, you bring your main. With the dual spec world these days, there’s never a problem with having enough healers or tanks. They may not be as good a main spec, but they are usually geared better than most other alts. If we’re missing heroism or boomkin crit or whatever because we don’t have a specific class in the raid, we just have to deal with it. But we don’t crack the main/alt wall.
The obvious reason for this is that once you step across that line, you’re going to create some resentment, no matter how well-intentioned the decision may be. It’s going to come to “why her alt instead of mine – mine’s is just as geared (and gosh I’d love to get that last piece of tier.)”
If someone makes the decision to switch mains, then this is slightly different. But main switching requires a petition/application just as if we were recruting a new person to fill that role, and has to be a highly driven by a raid deficiency. An overabundance of that main’s class is not a good enough reason.
For 10-mans, we basically go free-for-all. A main will be given preference on a piece of loot (although they usually don’t need it), and will be given preference on a 10-man invite assuming a balanced raid can be established (i.e. healers/tanks), but primarily it’s 2 tanks 3 healers 5 dps, GO. We’ve also started trying to build 25-man alt ToC runs, but we don’t usually have enough online on an off-night to do that guild-only. But Mains are always preferred, even in the instance where an alt is better geared and does better dps/tps/hps. You joined and raided on you main, you stay on your main.
We also have very strict rules about alts coming into a raid. Under no circumstance do we ever have alt in our main 25 man raids. Whether the class is “needed” or not (when in WOTLK other than Raz’s MC do you really “need” a specific class) we don’t allow alts of any kind come in.
We also have very strict Main to Alt Main swapping. Loss of DKP, possible raid spot etc. The drama that can ensue when someone is allowed to bring an alt over a main can be horrendous.
My guild is rather laid-back raiding and progression-wise, but several of the officers (myself included, as Priest CL) have well-geared alts we like to bring. The difference, however, is we’ve spent extra time (running a glut of ToC5’s and a few PUG raids, not to mention regular heroics to get badges for t8.5) and in some cases, extra money (I dropped 400 gold as soon as my Boomkin alt hit 80 to get her Naxx-ready off the bat) to make them able to perform up to snuff. Myself, now that we have 2-3 other priests in the guild who are hungry to raid, I am more than happy to step aside to let them get the experience and the gear while I plug away on my Druid. Likewise, our Prot Pally GM has several different healing-capable toons he’ll swap amongst depending on the situation, and our Hunter CL has been bringing his Prot Pally to help out with off-tanking lately.
The difference, however in my guild, comes down to gear and skill. Our resident Elemental Shammy has a Warrior alt who’s currently Arms and wants to go Prot, but his gear and numbers is just not raid acceptable. Even in heroics, he barely pulls his weight. We let him swap toons for random Naxx runs, but that’s about it- he’s just not Ulduar or ToC capable. Even some of those up-and-coming priests I referred to earlier just can’t cut it, which results to me winding up getting both toons saved to a raid, just because healing isn’t up to snuff. It doesn’t thrill me, to get 1 character saved after 1 or two bosses only to finish the raid with the other, but I’m a team player, and will do what I need to to help the raid as a whole.
For me, loot is easy, since we don’t have any other Moonkins or even a Tree lately, so all leather spell gear is mine, but we run loot council for drops, so whichever person it’ll be a bigger upgrade for, will get it. Going along with that, we try to distribute loot evenly (if you get something off boss #1, you have a lesser chance to get something off the other bosses unless no one else in the raid really needs it). It’s a complicated balance, but the last thing you want is regular, reliable raiders to burn out from doing X all the time, so like I said- we try to keep as fair and balanced as we can.
.-= Binya´s last blog ..A Busy, Grind-Happy Week =-.
We had a very similar situation. Our paladin tank MT, back as we were starting Ulduar hardmodes, had a very well geared DK tank…BiS naxx25 gear from pugging Naxx back when you had nothing else to do after the Wednesday raid where you cleared everything, and a few pieces of Ulduar10 gear.
Since DKs were ridiculously OP for hardmodes back then due to icebound fortitude, he brought his DK for any hardmode attempts over his paladin.
Eventually he just stopped bringing his paladin entirely and switched mains as he enjoyed being a DK more.
This is more an example of how its a fairly minor change. As far as the raid is concerned, he’s still a tank. And as far as loot goes, we only take two tanks to every raid anyway, so it doesn’t matter much.
My two cents: Leave alts out of it!
If you are a guild thats ALL about the alts, ofcourse you should gear them all up. If you are thinking about bringing in alts, just leave it alone. Getting raids and loot division to be done in a fair manner is hard enough when its one person pr toon. Dont complicate it 😛
@ Lodur
I am really surprised that you put such favoritism on officers.
If its about “alts is the good of the guild” it should be for anyone who can bring a wellgeared alt, not just for the /o crew.
But then I guess the problem with that is that suddenly you will then have twice as many characters to review, a more complicated and QQ saturated raidcomposition/planning – in short: Much work for little gain.
After all, what you are doing is bringing in toons that perform worse then they could (if alts performed better then mains – someone is playing the wrong class). And in such: increasing the chances of farmcontent turning into wipecontent.
Good luck though.
@Kristine I do not offer any favoritism for officers. This article came up as a reaction to one of our officers in guild filling a raid gap on his alt. People were concerned we were showing favoritism to officer alts which we weren’t.
One of our raiders was a DPS warrior, he was having more fun on his rogue and was geared well. We allowed him to bring the rogue to the raids to see if he wanted to do it full time, and he made the switch.
A lot of our raiders have well geared alts. and if needed they will be called on. But I can assure you there is no Favoritism for officer alts. It’s just the situation that sparked a conversation that became the starting point of this post.
@Lodur
Then I must have misunderstood your post. After all, it did only list officers and making the point that several officers have good alts available. Something I dont doubt as officers are often the ones with the most playtime and very active on raids.
Also, there is a big difference between swapping mains (letting someone test out a possible new main in a raidsituation) and opening the gates for Team Alt.
Guess I am mostly approaching it from a management POV: Alts just makes things more complicated. Its hard enough getting 25 mains together performing well, let alone involve their alts.
.-= Kristine´s last blog ..Skill and gear: Who’s myth is really being debunked? =-.
@ Kristine Fair enough. Complicated though is something we tend to love thought =D
I guess it should be said I used this last night to pull in a guildies normal raiders alt to fill a raid gap last night too.
Must be nice to be able to gear out your alts 😛 In the guild I just recently joined, they told me up front that mains are in the main raids, fri-sun is goof off raids, just make sure that the toon you bring is geared for it.
That being said, I still get told to bring my warrior to everything, even though I have a disc priest in Ulduar 10 gear, a ret pally in a mix of badge gear/TOC-5 gear, a feral druid (can tank or dps) in the mid 70’s that can easily tank a lvl 70 raid.
As a former guild leader, I think it is important to gear out alts so that on the nights when you dont have squat to work with people’s mains (ever log on and see 24 warriors and another 20 DK’s?), you have alts you can fall back on. But gearing the alts should not come at the expense of progression (i.e. bringing an alt to progression raid just b.c that person is bored of their main)
I’m pretty partial to the idea of anyone (officers of a lesser rank in the guild) bringing alts to raids SO LONG AS they are geared enough for it, because my main is a resto shaman on Cho’Gall and my alt is a ret pally on Garona.
Lol, so what i’m saying is that you ain’t gunna find my alt in any of my main’s raids. But we have a beastly mage (officer in the guild) that would bring his tank druid to some of the bosses back in ulduar times, and it never really seemed to bug me at all.
I’m all for gearing alts if it can be done in a civil way without sacrificing progression.
Just left a guild for that very reason. I was relatively new, and I was expected to stay on my main while a raider with more tenure was permitted to bring his alt for the first half of ICC. Yeah, I have an alt I’d love to gear as well, and I pay that same 15$ a month, but I expect to bring my main to the scheduled raid night. Gone like the wind.