Guild Topics

Can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. Guild topics for your perusing.

When should you change your raid strategy?

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I have been reading numerous posts lately about how to pick a strategy for an upcoming boss fight and even more discussion about how to go about tailoring a strategy to your particular group. While I have read many good suggestions and valuable tips, I still think I disagree with the the basic premise of “choosing which strategy is best for your group.” The portion related to tailoring your approach based on your specific group is good, but the vast majority of the time, boss fights have one basic strategy that they were intended to be completed with.  Everything else is a modification of the basic strategy. Each decision to make additional modifications should be for a specific and, more importantly, *intentional* reason.

Here are the basic reasons for modifying a boss strategy. Whether it be during the research stage, during an actual raid, or after a full night of raiding, once you get some logs, a little perspective will help with the decision making process.

Wait! I can think of examples of multiple strategies used for bosses!

No, I actually put a fair amount of consideration into that statement.  For the most part, all WoW raid bosses have one basic approach/strategy that everyone used to defeat them.  That being said, almost every group that originally “progressed” through the boss fight made certain modifications to this basic strategy in order to adopt it to the particulars of their own group and situation. Generally though, each boss encounter has a single strategy/approach that is dictated by the mechanics of the encounter. Far too often I see people confusing two different modifications to the one basic strategy as somehow being completely separate from each other.  Understanding where something comes from is an essential step in the road to gaining mastery over it.

For example: in the Yogg Saron fight, the basic strategy required to complete the encounter is to kill sarah by blowing up adds next to her, then you send people through the portals to damage the brain, finally you kill Yogg himself all while dealing with the various adds/abilities/”bad stuff.” Whether you tank the adds in phase1 in the center of the room next to Sarah, or tank them by the door and then kite them into the center is a difference in tactics, the strategy is the same. Who you send into the portals during phase 2 is a question of assignments, the fact of the matter is though, in order to get to phase3, you send some people into the portals and they have to damage the brain to push through the phase while everyone else does stuff to stay alive.  In phase 3 you can tank the adds over here, over there, all grouped up or separated out, the individual assignments and tactics used will vary from group to group and depend on a number of factors but the basic strategy used to complete the fight is always going to be the same.

Reasons for modifying your strategy

You overgear or “out-awesome” one or more of the basic mechanics of the fight.

I’m not going to spend much time on this one although I think it is the most prevalent reason for differences in strategies being discussed. 10 man Sartharion 3D is a great example of this as is Yogg+0. Both are highly technical fights with what were some very unforgivable mechanics when they were “current content.” With access to greater gear and higher performance numbers from your average raider, it became possible to ignore the majority of these encounters core mechanics and opened up access to “new strategies” (and again, I am arguing that it is the same basic strategy to kill the boss, you are just choosing to ignore/skip a portion of it)  It is important to be aware however if you have chosen to ignore one of the basic mechanics of the encounter.  This can often be especially important when you get to the point of switching the encounter to hard mode or try and work on one of the raid achievements.  If you have only learned how to do the fight using some kind of short cut or something that ignores a basic mechanic, then forcing yourselves to relearn the fight is often times a tough sell for the raid leader and a frustrating experience for your raiders.  My advice is to learn to do it “right” the first time through.

You are missing some sort of raid utility buff/skill integral to the fight.

A lot of fights require something to be purged, dispelled, stunned, interrupted, etc… Especially when you are doing 10man raiding, it isn’t impossible that you will find yourself without one of these things while standing in front of a boss who “requires” that skill. Thankfully Blizzard is aware of this possibility and usually provide some method to address the issue.  For one, they have spread around all of the basic raid utility skills so that the likelihood of finding yourself in this position has gotten MUCH less likely.  In the past, they have usually toned down the adverse effects of the ability in case you don’t have the ability to purge/interrupt/cleanse each one.

One example of this for us in ICC were the occasions we found ourselves in front of Saurfang with 3 melee and no hunter to distracting shot kite one of the adds.  We have done this fight with just about every composition of range and melee possible at this point, and our raiders have pulled all of them off without any more struggle than we were having at the time with “optimal” setups.  Another example is when we were progressing through Naxx 25 and reached Instructor Razuvious without any priests in the raid, sorting out how to do that was an adventure all in itself.

The plan isn’t working

You outlined the plan on the guild forums ahead of time, you gave a brief synopsis over vent before you started, why isn’t the boss dead yet? Being able to accurately articulate the answer to “why isn’t this working” is a critical step that a surprising number of people get wrong in my experience. Here are some questions to ask yourself when trying to figure out the answer to this question:

How many times have you attempted the fight already this raid using this plan? If the answer is less than ~15-20, then unless you either clearly misunderstood some mechanic during your research, you probably need to collect more data.  Unless you feel that everyone in the raid is executing the plan exactly the way they were asked, keep trying.

At what point in the fight did the group diverge from “the plan?” Was it a milestone you failed to meet?  Unless everything went exactly as it was supposed to and your dps are putting out the same numbers they always do, you probably just need to let everyone work out their own kinks with some more practice.  Depending on the type of milestone involved, possibly consider things like switching between 2 and 3 healers.

Are people dying? Every raid leader should have some sort of death tracking addon installed so you can easily review what caused people to die and what happened to them in the ~15 seconds prior to death.

  • Tank death: did they use their defensive cooldowns appropriately? Were they where they were supposed to be? How much healing did they receive during their last ~10 seconds alive? If the healing received looks low, all appropriate cooldowns were used, and they were not out of healing range for some reason, it might be a “healing issue.”

If the healers weren’t healing the tanks, then what were they doing?

Were they all moving or unable to heal for some reason, maybe the positioning needs to be changed.

Were they healing someone else/themselves? Then those people need to get better at avoiding damage and your healers need to either have better healing assignments or different healing priorities.  This is one of the biggest mistakes I see raid leaders make in blaming the healers for people dying when in reality it is the healers being forced into a no-win decision in to try and compensate for other people’s mistakes. Find out why they weren’t keeping the tank alive.

  • Healer death: were they standing somewhere they weren’t supposed to be? Did someone fail to taunt/CC an add that killed the healer?  …there shouldn’t really be any other reason for the healer to have ever died.  Keeping themselves alive, followed closely by keeping the tank/their assignment alive is every healers only real responsibility in most fights.
  • DPS death: Were they standing where they weren’t supposed to be?  Did they pull aggro on something they weren’t supposed to?  If they weren’t killed via a one-shot, how much healing did they receive before they died?

If you can’t figure out why your plan is failing and the boss isn’t dying, then your biggest problem isn’t with the plan you are using. Thankfully there are a wealth of resources available to you as a raid leader and a truly amazing number of members in the various raid leading communities that are just waiting to help you figure it all out. All you have to do to find help is be able to do is follow two simple steps:

  1. Generate a combat log during your raid and upload it to one of the available *free* services that will parse the information into a useful format.  My personal preference is World of Logs.
  2. Ask someone for help.  Everyone starts out as a newbie at some point, none of us are born with the ability to play wow or lead raiders.  Some of us still remember what it was like starting out and we are more than happy to offer help.  Being able to provide a log of the your raid attempting the encounter in question will allow FAAARRR more useful feedback then trying to communicate all of the details through any other method.

Have you ever had a boss kill which came from a simple, yet overlooked strategy modification?

Question: When do you Call a Wipe?

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Keeping the post really short today. Whether it’s in a 5 man, a 10 man, or a 25 man, I’m curious as to under what circumstances your raid leaders call a wipe.

Does it ever frustrate you when your raid leaders do?

Does it annoy you when they should and don’t?

For the raid leaders, does farm versus progression content impact the times you call wipes?

I’ve called snap wipes when we lose 2-3 people in the opening minute of a fight. I’ve called for a continual push even when we were down a half raid.

What’s your take?

Recovering From a Bad First Guild Date

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I issued a Valentine’s day blogging challenge earlier on Twitter. It wouldn’t be fair of me to not participate. Any bloggers are welcome to join in. It’s a fun way for bloggers to throw a Valentine’s spin on their posts. If you do accept the challenge, feel free to e-mail or DM me a link to it and I’ll round them all up at the end of the week. I’m sure you can come up with some ideas if you think hard enough.

1327762_rosesPerformance anxiety.

Nervousness.

Fear.

Intimidation.

Those are just some of the few things any prospective raider will experience on their first “date” with the guild. As much as we love to hear a happy ending to a story, the reality is that it isn’t always the case. Here you are, a  player trying to court your new guild. You want them to love you. You want them to be attracted to you. Why? Because you want to be with them too.

But then you screw up.

You stand in the fire. You eat one too many Shadow Crashes. You accidentally dropped a totem in the wrong place.

For whatever reason, your “date” just wasn’t impressed with you at all. Here you are trying to establish a solid foundation with them but you blew your chances because of some silly mistakes. The question they’re asking themselves: Can you be trusted to not screw up again in the future?

Meanwhile, the question you have running through your head is: Will they give me a second chance?

Probably not. At least, not right away. If you epicly messed up, you won’t have a shot. But you know, maybe that guild likes you just enough for another look. But you have to prove yourself.

Communicate

“Hey, I know I screwed up here, here and here. I’m just a little jittery because it’s my first time here. I’ve watched the movies and I know the abilities, but I guess I was just overwhelmed with anxiety. I know I’ll do a better job next time.”

Sometimes a little reassurance to the guild is all that’s needed. Everyone loves a person who recognizes and owns up to their own mistakes. It’s a sign of a truly mature individual who understands they’re not perfect. Now I can’t speak for everyone, but someone who can see where they screw up without having to be told about it is perfect in my eyes.

Listen

Hear out what the guild has to say. If you’re not sure, ask them what you did wrong so you can try to make amends for it. If you know your DPS rotation is messed up, why are you still following the same bad habits? This is especially true if someone is playing the same class as you. Listen to what they have to say, consider it, and see if its right for you. When they drop little hints about what you can do to be better, listen to it.

If that player isn’t you, then you might just need to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror and make the choice between walking away or dealing with it.

Don’t screw up

You were given a second chance. It’s extremely unlikely you’ll be given a third. Don’t mess it up again by choking. They’ve said yes to you again so you better show up and show them who the real you is. Polish up the armor and maybe shotgun a flask.

When they ask you where the nearest raid is, you can curl your muscular Dwarven arm and go “that way”.

Even though you didn’t make the best of first impressions, you might still have a chance to get into the guild of your dreams.

They want to like you

Last thing I want to impart is this:

No one is out to get you.

The guild that you’re going for, you have to remember that they want you to be the one. They don’t want to go back to the recruitment boards again searching for Mr. or Ms. Right. They’re looking for someone who will stick around for a long time.  You’re here because they think they found a potential match and they’re rooting for you to be with them! They want you to ace it so they can go back to drinks! It’s up to you to either validate or prove wrong that claim.

Speaking of which, we’re looking to shore up our roster with a Holy Paladin, an Elemental/Resto Shaman, Rogue and a Mage. But we’ll look at any other classes though. Come check us out.

Does Your Guild Use Set Interrupt Teams?

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Have you ever been in a raid with less than stellar interrupts? I’ve seen it happen many times. A small number of players  seem to have that confidence where they feel they can conquer just about any spells or abilities thrown their way. That is, until the encounter decides to throw a wrench in their plans. It usually sounds a little something like this:

“I got next inter—No, I’m trapped! I can’t do anything!”

If you’re lucky, there’s another player with an interrupt who can bail that player out. If not, the group may have just suffered a large setback. Having dependable interrupters on your raid roster is one of those little things that grant peace of mind to everyone. Your raid leader can rest easy knowing that certain abilities will be shut out. There have been times when I cursed because a key melee player had to run out or died due to some random ability.

From what I’ve seen, raid groups usually have a minimal amount of players for interrupts. This allows for maximum DPS time from other players because if don’t need to worry about catching key abilities, they can focus more on their DPS.

But the case I want to make here is for stability. Doubling up on interrupts can help cut down on the number of wipes due to unnecessary boss attacks going off.

Some examples include:

  • Wind Shear: 6 second CD, 2 second lock out
  • Shield Bash: 12 second CD, 6 second lock out
  • Pummel: 10 second CD, 4 second lock out
  • Kick: 10 second CD, 5 second lockout

This is just the start though. There’s a whackload of other classes with interrupt capabilities (Mages, Death Knights, etc).

How should you set teams?

Your interrupt teams will vary by encounter. A typical setup would involve two teams of 2. Preferably, the interrupters would share similar cooldowns and lockout times. Back in Burning Crusade, there was an encounter called Reliquary of Souls. You could find it in Black Temple. That encounter really brought out the necessity for skilled interrupters who could identify which skills to let go and which ones to shut down (like Deaden, Spirit Shock, etc).

A more recent example encounter would be Maloriak where Arcane Storms and Release Abberations need to be controlled.

Every interrupter should use macros to announce their interrupt skills. Actually, if you want to take it one step further, I highly recommend an addon called RSA. It’ll announce whether you were successful or unsuccessful with your interrupts. Or even if your kick got resisted or if the target is immune! Great to have!

If you have a skilled player who can carry interrupts on their own, then you can definitely disregard this post. I’ll raise my coffee cup to you on that. For the rest of us who sometimes struggle with blown interrupts, that safety net will do more in the long run.

Tough Call: Roles – RL vs GM

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superman-batman

Welcome back for another issue of Tough Call. This week I want to go over a topic that sets the baseline for a lot of what we do and how we can go about building the most efficient raid without imploding the guild.  Before we can get to that, however, I think I need to offer a fair bit of clarification on last week’s topic.

Stay with me, people

Classification is not “name calling”.  In my last post I discussed one set of archetypes (of which there are many) that could be used to sort out your raiders when determining who to take and what areas of your roster to shore up. The objective is never to belittle anyone, because honestly, putting people down takes too much time and energy that I would rather put towards being awesome myself.  As for the intended message, Calaban & Lument had some great points, and yes, X, you are Rudy.

For the sake of simplicity and efficiency, some topics need to be encapsulated.  This was the case last week.  I could certainly turn that 901 word post into 5,000+ words about how to evaluate, coach, refine, recruit, and even alter raid tactics/comps to support the players you have.  The fact that I omitted many of those elements does not mean that I am against them,or that I do not use them myself, just that they didn’t fit into the mold of that post.  Trust me, there’s plenty of ground to cover when it comes to raid management, and I don’t plan to blow my whole load in these T11 pants. 
One thing I will continue to believe in throughout this series is that no leader should ever “leave well enough alone”, or settle for what they already have. Every team needs to get stronger, better, faster, sexier, etc.  Sometimes this happens with teamwork & growth, sometimes a pep-talk is enough, and oftentimes improvement happens by recruiting new blood. For example, we recently got a new priest who’s giving me a run for my money, and my output has increased because of it. Regardless, there would be no point to me writing this column if either of us was willing to accept the idea that you should learn to suffer through the drawbacks of today without making a better plan for tomorrow. 

Lastly, every raider deserves feedback, and that feedback should be honest and constructive.  Some people do benefit from mentoring, some from competition, and some from caliber of shame-filled guilt trip my mother used to lay on me… you pick which works best and run with it.  Regardless, as I mentioned in the comments, your guild should have some mechanism in place to give your raiders this feedback.  I know our guild has a couple different systems that work, and in the future I’ll elaborate on some of this. 

Now, onto today’s topic:

Lessons in Dichotomy // Who runs this joint?

The person/people managing your raid should not be your Guild Leader.

I don’t care how awesome you are as a GM, how amazing your coordination and multi-tasking is, or how long you’ve been doing both roles.  As we continue, I will illustrate how maximum efficiency and stability dictates that the GM not wear the black hat in raid.

Before we break into a list of what each person should be doing, the key assumption here is that the raid leader/officer is a specialist, hired to do one thing and do it well: motivate the team, execute digital dragons and carry back the rewards. 

The job of Raid Management

  • Make the raid as successful as possible
  • Needs to be Honest, Unbiased, and always performance-oriented
  • Make the tough decisions / wear the black hat
  • Assess players based on what they bring to the raid and how well they are executing
  • Manage the PERFORMANCE of the raid
  • Be a clear and present leader at all times during the raid
  • Get progression, achievements, titles, mounts, fame, fortune, super-model girlfriends

The job of the Guild Leader

  • Be the public face of the guild
  • Mediate any issues between guild members (within reason)
  • Take responsibility for the guild’s reputation
  • Oversee / Initiate recruiting
  • Manage the PERSONALITY of the guild
  • Wear the crown, take the heat, buy the drinks at Blizzcon

I know some guilds may be small/close enough that the GM thinks he/she can handle doing both.  I disagree with this because these are two jobs that require different tactics and it’s human nature to have a tough time separating these and/or staying true to the goals of each position. 
Even in a 10-man environment, it is never more efficient to have one person run everything than it is to have separate guild & raid management. This will also decrease/prevent burn-out among leadership.

How the Other Half Lives

Now, this separation also requires a high level of trust/confidence between the two halves.  The raid officer has to trust that there are the right recruitment/retention mechanisms in place to give them the right components for a successful group.  Similarly, since he/she will be handling the fall-out, the Guild Leader has to trust that the raid officer is making the right calls when it comes to who gets benched, who gets invited, who can/can’t main switch, etc. 

Think of it like the relationship between Head Coach and General Manager in pro sports.  These two don’t need to see eye-to-eye on tactics or day-to-day operations, but they do need to have the same objectives and a plan on how to reach them.

Show me an example

A founding member of the guild has lost his drive to raid, but still likes to come and go more-or-less as he pleases.  Further, he uses his relationship with the GM as leverage to get what he wants.  For the Raid Leader, this person represents a liability, as no matter how skilled they are, the risk that they will abruptly stop raiding is ever-present.  If they were given a starting spot, any loot given to this player over another player could be functionally lost at a moment’s notice, and time spent learning a fight with them would have to be adapted or re-learned with their inevitable replacement.  Not to mention the way this would look to other players who may be fighting to prove themselves and break into the starting lineup.

A wise Raid Leader can still utilize this person as a back-up / call-up, borrowing on his skill & experience in the good times, while still prioritizing those players who consistently show up.  Bring the people who have a commitment to making your team succeed, but keep a Rolodex of viable call-ups just in case.

A wise Guild Master will remind the long-term member that the raid team is an ongoing campaign, not something that is won or lost the few times a month this person wants to show up.  The GM will be clear that he expects progression from his Raid Leader, and that not everyone is entitled to raid if they cannot commit. 

Another example

Recruiting!  Without delving into when/how/who to recruit, it’s a very common situation for a Raid Leader to find themself needing to recruit.  Good collaboration between the RL & GM requires that the RL would keep the GM abreast of the development of players within the raid, or at least give them access to any relevant information needed. 

Say you need more melee dps, so you go out and recruit for that spot.  The GM should know WHY the rogue on the bench isn’t being taken over new recruits, so that they can back-up the RL’s decision should the rogue come forward with complaints of favoritism/snubbing/etc.  Similarly, the RL should make reasonable effort to give the GM whatever information he needs to substantiate the roster moves.  Simply “he’s not good” won’t suffice, but “he missed 18 interrupts each of the last three raids” does.

Unfortunately, unlike pro sports, I’ve seen the GM fail the Coach more often than the other way around.  Sometimes this is just simple burn-out, sometimes it’s close-mindedness, sometimes it’s a loss of faith by one of the two people. 

The best advice I can give for longevity is for neither person to say “I can’t….”.  Whether it’s “I can’t recruit another healer” or “I can’t down progression bosses with what you’ve given me” or even “I can’t stand your face”, the only way to maintain success in an efficient raid environment is to always be looking for the next opportunity.  Once you’ve entered into an “I can’t” paradigm, you’re actually realizing that you should have taken action weeks ago, and are now suffering from that inaction/indecision (or worse yet, refusing to realize your responsibility in the matter).  It’s up to you two to always look beyond the current week and stick to your plan you started with.

You do have a plan right?

…please tell me you have a plan.

As always, please feel free to leave any questions or suggestions for future topics in the comments below.  Heck, feel free to leave your favorite bean dip recipes, too.  I need something to do after I’ve cleared the raid and logged off to go watch HIMYM.