No player is an island

February 11, 2011 by Lodur

The phrase “no man is an island” may be something you’ve heard before. It originates from a poem or meditation from John Donne, an English poet, priest and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the time. Here’s the original poem;

“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated…As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness….No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Now the saying is a little bit outdated and now should read no person is an island, but it was on point for the time that married two important ideas. The first is that people are not isolated from one another, but that mankind is interconnected. Essentially, there is something that connects us to each other that is inherent to being human. The second is the concept of mortality which was all the rage at the time. The two together tell us that the death of anyone person affects the entire world. Over time this has evolved from that original meaning to one that no person can really stand all on their own without support. And that is exactly the lesson we’re going to talk about today.

In order to make a guild and a raid run, it doesn’t all fall to one player. It takes multiple people to manage anything more than a small group of folks. I hear a lot of people say that they could run a raid or a guild single-handed. After the events of the past two weeks I can tell you with certainty that it is a lot harder than you may think.

The last month and change has been pretty tough on Unpossible, not going to lie. It’s one of those period where real life hit everyone pretty hard right around the same time. Things like this happen. Two of the core officers had to step away from the game because of work related issues, and a third because of school. This left four of us still around, and things were going alright. Raids were still going and people were leveling and progressing. Then a couple weeks ago one of the leadership was gifted with the birth of their first child. For obvious reasons they had to step away from the game to handle RL as well. Another event took place that caused one of the remaining three officers to be absent for a week, unfortunately leaving just two of us to run the guild and raids for the time being.

I’ll be honest, it wasn’t fun. Raid signups, restocking the guild bank, hunting down missing raiders, running the raids, handling new recruits waiting for guild invites basically everything. It was stressful, lead to a lot of confusion and to speak frankly, it sucked. I’d find myself logging in before work to double check the Gbank, remote accessing my computer at home on my lunch in an attempt to log into the game and check status’, pouring over forums between work assignments and then rushing home to get things started on time. All the while handling raider complaints, DKP and other various factors. It was exhausting. At the end of the day all I wanted was a cold glass of beer, a dark room and some earplugs. Even with two people trying to handle it, it was just simply too much. As a result of our stress, the guild became slightly stressed as well. Things weren’t running with their customary smoothness and adjustments were made to handle things as best as they could be handled at the time.

This persisted for two weeks of basically trying to keep things together and smooth, and at the end of those two weeks I honestly didn’t even want to touch the game for a bit. It was that stressful. Then three of the officers returned, and now things are going back to normal. While I’ve always been a strong proponent of sharing responsibility and delegating responsibility, this did nothing but highlight how very true that is. There’s too much involved when running a guild, let alone one that raids, for one person to effectively keep track and handle all aspects of it.

This is why when you come into a guild there may be multiple officers. In our case we have a DKP officer, healing officer, Ranged DPS officer, Melee DPS officer, Tank Officer, and Recruitment officers / membership officers. Responsibility is divided so that whenever a question or concern is raised it can be dealt with with a certain specialty. Each aspect gets the time and care only a person not trying to do everything can do.

So when someone comments to you that they could run a raiding guild single handed, remind them that no player is an island.

How about you out there? Ever try to run a massive group by yourself without help? Were you ever a part of a raid or guild where one person tried to manage everything? How did that work out?

[GUEST POST] “What is my motivation?” – Getting everyone on the same page

February 10, 2011 by Gaia

It seems like there are a lot of guilds and groups that are starting to feel comfortable in the 5man heroics and are starting to turn their attention to some organized raiding.

For people who are organizing such a group, I would like to share something that I wish I had known when I started putting raiding groups together.

The majority of questions and requests for help that I see around the web from guild masters and raid leaders are all related to one essential factor.

What motivates your raid members?

I recommend that the first thing anyone should do when starting to put any group together to raid is to have an honest and candid conversation with your group about what everyone is expecting from their raiding experience. Make sure that even if everyone’s interests aren’t perfectly compatible, at the very least everyone needs to define, clarify, and understand what the group’s focus and expectations will be. I would say that this applies to everything from a trade chat pug, a new progression raiding guild, or just a decision to start putting some raids on your “friends and family” guild calendar.

Typical questions I see from guild masters and raid leaders

How do I motivate my raiders to show up on time?
How do I keep people from getting discouraged during progression?
One of my raiders says that they don’t want to raid any more (or want to switch toons/roles) because they have all the gear they want from this tier, what do I do?
My raiders have lost interest in XXXXX instance now that we have finally cleared it. How can I keep them interested in raiding?
My raid team doesn’t want to try hard modes because normal modes are an easier way to get more gear quickly, how to I get them to try hard modes?

All of these issues can be proactively addressed with an open and honest discussion with your raid team ahead of time. As cheesy as it may sound, coming up with a basic statement of purpose, a set of goals, or a mission statement is a great way to focus everyone’s attention and can be a lifesaver later on when disagreements arise. Identify what it is that motivates everyone in the group to want to raid together, ensure that everyone’s motivations are at least compatible, and make sure that the goals you have set will satisfy everyone’s desires. If everyone understands and believes that the group is going to help them meet their own personal goals in the game, then the chances of your group weathering the rough patches together will increase significantly. Groups of people who all have their own agendas, that don’t necessarily compliment the rest of the group are the root cause of most of the issues that we all see floating around the internet.

On the flipside to this argument; when you, the individual, are out and about looking for a raiding group to join, the first priority on your list should be whether or not the group’s goals and motivation for raiding are compatible with your own. Whether you are looking for a group of people who you will be spending 8-16 hours a week with for the next several months/years with or looking for an individual to join your already established group, taking the time to get to know a bit about each other first should be one of the first things on your list of topics to discuss. Blindly inviting or joining strangers to raid with is about as likely result in a successful match as hitting up the LFD tool for Cataclysm heroics or proposing marriage to random drunk people in your local drinking establishment.

Tough Call: Time vs Talent

February 5, 2011February 5, 2011 by Viktory

Welcome back for another episode of Tough Call with me, Viktory. Today I want to discuss roster evaluation, and specifically, two factors to look at when examining your depth charts.

You do have a depth chart for your raid positions right?

… Please tell me you have a depth chart for your various raid roles and you’re not just bringing whoever shows up first …

(For anyone who doesn’t get the sport analogy, a depth chart basically lists each position and ranks the players have that position in order. You have your go-to guy/gal, the back-up, the back-back-up, etc.)

Editor’s Note: Before we go any further, if you are of the steadfast opinion that nobody deserves to be benched, or that your best friends deserve a spot in every raid, you will likely want to stop now.

Okay, so let’s say you’ve got your full raid roster in front of you and you’re trying to figure out who’s going to make the cut and get a stable spot in your 25-man raid. Obviously you have certain roles you need to fill (tanks, healers, melee, ranged) and certain skills you need players to possess in those roles (AoE heals, interrupts, soak tank, kiting, etc). You’ve got a lot of criteria to look at when deciding who is THE BEST player for you to bring to your raid.

(Remember, “take the player, not the class” implies “take the best possible player”.

One of the more common downfalls I’ve seen leaders suffer, and one of the worst traps I’ve seen players try to spring on their Raid Leader, is the substitution of Time for Talent/Aptitude.

A few weeks ago I told you that “preparation is king”, and while that still holds true, by now you should be seeing who actually knows what’s expected of them, and who’s just reading a script. In fact, if we think of raiding like a foreign language, we can come up with three archetypes.

Native Speakers

Some players have a lot of natural talent. These players are the mage who always does crazy DPS and makes it look easy, the guy who plays a utility spec and still manages to do competitive DPS, the healer who can instinctively spot issues with the raid and react in a clutch moment (see Matticus in his prime*). Everyone loves to have these guys around, especially when they don’t act entitled or get lazy because they think they’re too good to need to put in the grunt work.

*Note: I said “see”, not “listen to”. He’s a horrible story-teller.

Fluent Professionals

Other players have to work hard to produce the output you’re looking for. Think Rudy here, the guy with a lot of heart who does his homework and gives you the results you’re looking for. As a leader you know that he’s always reading up on the relevant websites, maybe talking to other progression raiders who play his spec, and is constantly seeking ways to improve. Through their effort, they are just as good, or nearly as good as your top tier guys. The key here is that you DO see them improving, carrying their load, and not causing wipes.

I think a “perfect raid” is filled with a solid mix of these two personalities. However, we need to minimize or weed-out the last group:

Tourists

The personality to absolutely avoid is the “trained noob”, to borrow a term from Pure Pwnage. These are players who bring sub-par skill, spend a lot of time logged on, but instead of learning and absorbing their class mechanics, they may have only learned the accepted boss strat. These are the guys at the cafe with their French-to-English dictionary out, trying to look-up each word the waiter just said, because they were not expecting that response.

Players like this will present a liability to your raid anytime things deviate from the norm. Get bad RNG on a boss, or timers that don’t line up with the abilities the boss is using, and you can bet that these players will be toast. Customize the Tankspot strat to meet the capabilities of your raid, and you just may find these guys out of position and thoroughly confused.

Don’t be fooled by people who have a lot of time and very little aptitude. It all comes down to who can get the job done.

It is up to you, as part of raid management, to spot the player who may have raid knowledge, but not raid awareness, and figure out a solution. Determining who’s a “fluent professional” and who’s just a “tourist” will help boost your raid output (and morale) immensely.

If it’s my call, I’d put that person as far back on my depth chart as possible, only bringing them when I must class-stack, or when other players are missing, and I’d definitely keep recruitment open until I found a good core that was made up all “native speakers” and “fluent professionals”.

Please leave any questions or suggestions for future topics neatly stacked in the comments below. Shoot, if you’re so inclined, leave details of your most epic knitting accomplishment, too. Those are always cool.

Raid Leading 101: Starting your Roster

September 23, 2012February 4, 2011 by Thespius

**Forgive the absence of last week’s post. I got “blessed” by a crazy work schedule that had me away from my desk a lot. Don’t forget that if there’s anything you’d like to discuss or see in a RL101 post, you can always email me**

So, you’ve made the choice between 10 and 25. You know which feels right for you and your friends. Now you need to look at your roster. Your roster is the list of players on your team that you can pull from to make your raid on any given night. Hopefully you’ve got a group of friends that you’ve started with, which will take some of the stress off of recruiting and assembling your team. We’ll start out with the basics of your raid (this is a 101 course, remember). You need tanks, healers, ranged DPS and melee DPS.

Tanks

Tanks are the classes that will take the brunt of the damage while protecting your raid. The classes that can fulfill this role are:

Protection Paladin (“Prot Pally”, “Tankadin”)
Feral Druid in Bear Form (“Bear”, “Meatshield”)
Protection Warrior (“Prot Warrior”)
Blood Death Knight (“Blood DK”, “BDK”)

It’s best in a 10-man raid to have ~3 Tanks on your roster (~4 for 25-man). Most raids encounters will require 2 tanks for encounters. Either your 2 tanks will have to alternate who is tanking the boss, one will tank the boss while the other tanks one or more mobs that join the fight, or you’re doing a Council-style fight.

Your Main Tank (or “MT”) should be your most talented tank and will seldom need a DPS off-spec. The other tanks on your roster (“Off-tanks” or “OTs”) should have a DPS off-spec so they don’t need to be totally swapped out mid-fight. Warriors can spec into Fury or Arms, Druids into Balance or Feral Cat, Paladins into Retribution, and Death Knights into Frost or Unholy.

Healers

Healers are the players that you pay to keep you alive long enough to see the boss take its last breath. Classes blessed with this ability:

Restoration Shaman (“Resto Shammy”)
Restoration Druid (“Resto Druid”, “Tree Druid”)
Holy Paladin (“Holy Pally”, “HPally”)
Holy Priest
Discipline Priest (“Disc”)

For your 10-man crew, count on having ~4 Healers on your roster (~9 for 25man). You’ll always need a minimum of 2 healers (5 in 25-man) for an encounter, depending on how healing intensive it is. It’s best to have the other healers in your roster work on a DPS offspec in case you need to convert to more DPS in an encounter. Priests can spec into Shadow, Druids into Balance or Feral Cat, Paladins into Retribution, and Shamans into Enhancement (Melee) or Elemental (Ranged).

Melee/Ranged DPS

DPS are the players that put the hurtin’ on the boss. They’re primarily responsible for dealing damage to the boss and any adds that may pop up, as well as crowd control, interrupt, off-heal, or help mitigate damage. Here’s the laundry list of DPS you’ll find:

Melee

Enhancement Shaman (“Enh Shammy”)
Rogue (Subtlety, Assassination, Combat)
Arms or Fury Warrior (“Arms War”, “Fury War”)
Retribution Paladin (“Ret Pally”, “lolret”)
Feral Druid in Cat Form (“Cat”, “Kitty DPS”)
Death Knight (Unholy, Frost)

Ranged

Elemental Shaman (“Ele Shammy”)
Hunter (Marksmanship, Beast Mastery, Survival)
Warlock (Affliction, Demonology, Destruction)
Mage (Arcane, Fire, Frost)
Balance Druid (“Moonkin”, “Boomkin”, “Boom Chicken”, “Lazer Turkey”)
Shadow Priest

In 10-man, you’ll want ~8 DPS’ers (~22 for 25-man) on your roster, with a mix of melee and ranged. There will be some fights that will be better for melee DPS or ranged DPS, so a mix will give you a good chance of success. Having any of your DPS players with a tank or heal off-spec is great, but more often than not, you’ll be better off if your tanks and healers are all main-spec.

Summing It Up

A standard 10-man raid will consist of: 2 Tanks, 3 Healers, 5 DPS.

A standard 25-man raid will consist of: 2-3 Tanks, 6-7 Healers, and the rest DPS.

Of course different raids will deviate from this basic model, but in my raiding experience, this is usually what you’ll find. To start out, aim for those numbers. Once you have your 10 or 25, add 1-2 more for each role to solidify your team. Your raiders will need nights off or have real-life commitments from time to time, and those extra people will help keep your raid going consistently.

Coming up, we’ll look at more advanced roster planning, as well as a couple recruitment tips!

7 + 1 Simple Ways to Pull Trash

February 3, 2011 by Matticus

Trash pulling can be a bane to players new to the game or new to the raiding scene. Its a basic coordination skill to learn which is employed from the 5 man level to the 25 man level. The act of pulling bosses are generally easy. There’s typically one boss to worry about.

But trash?

There’s a ton of trash. At this level, they can’t exactly be taken lightly! If your group isn’t properly focused or directed, trash packs can easily overwhelm your group.

Assuming you’re not taking on trash mobs with really specific mechanics, here’s a few general strategies your group can use to handle them.

Crowd Control Pull

This is the standard and textbook method that most groups use when grabbing trash. Let the players with crowd control skills open up. Remaining mobs which are either immune or designated as kill targets will automatically chase the raid allowing the tank to grab them.

Misdirect Pull

Have any Hunters around? Good as this is where they’ll come in handy! While a tank is building threat on one mob, a Hunter can send another mob their way. Just remember that the Misdirect mechanics have changed slightly. Best used against trash pulls with many mobs.

Misdirect
The current party or raid member targeted will receive the threat caused by your next damaging attack and all actions taken for 4 sec afterwards. Transferred threat is not permanent, and will fade after 30 sec.

Charge Pull

No crowd control. The tank literally charges straight in and generates as much aggro as possible on all targets. Heavy reliance on the healer to keep them alive. DPS players are typically called upon to focus fire targets or to AoE mobs down. The side pulls in the first chamber of Bastion of Twilight are excellent examples of using a charge pull. The tanks jump in and it turns into a race between DPS and healer mana.

Line of Sight Pull

I would imagine Protection Paladins would be used to using this (for historical reasons). The line of sight pull involves the tank aggroing mobs and then running behind a pillar or a rock or some other object. This forces the mobs to chase after that player because they can’t actually see said player. Just make sure the rest of the group doesn’t start opening up on them until the mobs get into position. Use this if you’re worried about patrols.

Use the LOS pull if you’re up against ranged mobs or if you’re worried about patrols.

Distance Pull

Usually executed on trash packs consisting of all casters, your tank will want to run in and then back out as quick as possible. As the casters begin attempting to cast and chase you, they’ll eventually reach a point where they’ll stack up. This is when the tank then re-engages them in order to generate threat on all of the trash allowing group to open up. (Thanks Hi Ya).

Interrupt Pull

Reserved for any trash packs involving casters, this pull involves the use of an interrupt. I had to practice this one a few times on my Elemental Shaman. I’d manually break the Hex on the target with a few Lightning Bolts. Once the mob started casting, I’d hit it with a Wind Shear to get it to start running towards me thereby allowing the tank to snatch it up in place. This is especially useful if there are no immediate landscape features for the group to hide behind but you still need trash to move due to patrols.

Mind Control Pull

If you can’t line of sight pull, this is the next best thing. Naturally it requires a Priest. Your Priest Mind Controls a mob while the rest of the group stays back. The trash should then gang up and utterly destroy the Mind Controlled mob.* Just keep in mind that you may not get reputation or any loot from the death of the Mind Controlled mob.

Exception: If your Priest is named Matt, he will fat finger Mind Blast instead of Mind Control. Do not assign him to any Mind Control duties.

Bonus: The pet pull.

Yeah.

You know what the pet pull is. Everyone’s experienced the pet pull before. If you haven’t, well that can be easily arranged.