Guide to Healing, Leading, and Progressing in WoW Raids
If you ever get to experience the pain of Mount Hyjal, just make sure you follow this very important rule:
Go to the bathroom BEFORE engaging trash.
Oh, and I forgot to include this awesome screenshot:
Yes, we killed Anetheron. We’re sitting at 2/5 Hyjal.
Phat loots? You bet!
Archbishop’s Slippers
Bastion of Light
I picked me up a pair of slippers to replace my Boots of the Long Road.
I was going through my dailies this morning (a real life quest involving using all my reagents to create coffee, finding clothes, and reading 20 blogs before going to school) and I came across a post on the Raider’s Progress that was seemingly not happy with Warcrafter.
The reason for their unhappiness?
It has nothing to do with the features of Warcrafter.
It has nothing to do with the information on Warcrafter
It has nothing to do with the analysis and conclusions that comes out of Warcrafter.
It has to do with the attitude and mentality that these kind of services support. That is, emphasizing the person over the player.
This quote effectively echoes the sentiment of 95% of players in the game [citation needed]:
That quote was also taken from Raider’s Progress.
That’s fair enough. Everyone likes to feel a sense of achievement. The best way to express that achievement is via the gear on your character. It proves that you’ve done certain things in the game and killed certain bosses. Raiding Guilds are composed of players that want to progress in WoW (Casual and hardcore).
Players that are in the game only for themselves can be detrimental to the Guild they are in. But sometimes, being selfish can be a good thing. If the attitude can be harnessed properly, you can easily turn a player from a loot maniac to a player who will do whatever it takes to get the loot he wants.
So how do you change the mentality of that player who is so intrinsically selfish that he doesn’t seem to care about the Guild?
You, as the GM, officer, monkey, murloc or whatever title you may have in the Guild have to make them understand 1 thing only.
Change this:
to this:
It’s a real obvious statement, there is no question about it. Make that person understand that it takes 25 people to move forward.In order to that, it needs hard work and effort. I don’t know how many times I can emphasize that.
There are always going to be players that have a “me first” mentality in a Guild. Make them understand that in order for them to get the best pieces of gear in the game, everyone else in the Guild also has to get it at the same rate as that player or else that Guild will not move forward.
Dangle the loot that’s relevant to them in front of their faces. Even they can understand that if they want that loot, they have to kill a boss in order to even get a shot at it. The “me first” attitude is fine if they understand that it comes with patience and effort.
In every professional sports teams, there are star players. There are certain names who night after night just seem to deliver their best performances.
The Patriots have Tom Brady, who was able to deliver and lead his team to a Super Bowl choke appearance.
The Penguins have Sidney Crosby, the best overall hockey player in the world.
The Yankees have (had?) A-Rod, who… was probably important for other reasons.
Challenge your Guildmates to be the best they can be. Recount and other DPS meters, used in the right way, can help foster a little of competition. Warcrafter and WWS can be used to show whose slacking and who isn’t.
In my opinion, it’s not about the methods. It’s about the results. Eventually, players will realize that PvP Gear isn’t going to cut it on certain encounters because sites like Warcrafter and WWS will prove that your PvE geared players will eventually top them in damage.
Just remember. If everyone brings their A game to the table, then those end game bosses won’t even stand a chance.
I’ve got a problem that I’m hoping an players in MH or BT can address.
It mainly concerns the epic gems from those places.
How does a Guild handle epic gems like that? We were considering using DKP and bidding but all that would do is determine the order in who gets what gems. Obviously we want the epic gems to get slotted into the T6 stuff. We maximize our performance by putting epic gems and such in there. So we were debating setting up a mail order kind of deal where if a player wanted some gems, all he’d have to do is send a request in (verbal or otherwise), what gem, what cut, and what item he was going to install it on. Only 1 gem per order.
I don’t think our brass have decided on an adequate way of distribution yet. We’re trying to employ a bit of common sense as well since these ARE just gems. Several months from now, we’ll probably have more gems then we know what to do with.
Ideas? =)
This is a guest post from Galadria. She represents half of the knowledge from the Light and the Dark.
We’ll start with a sample scenario. You are a member of l33t Guild, part of the raid core. Your guild is farming the lower bosses of TK/SSC and trying to down Vashj and Kael to get into Hyjal/BT. Since most of your raid core doesn’t need gear out of T4 content, it’s basically PUG. Whoever can throw a run together does whenever they happen to be in the mood. Since the raid core doesn’t want to have wipe fests, when they do farm that content (for badges or off spec gear) they tend to do it with each other so they can blow through it quickly. One day JoeRogue; who has been raiding in Kara for a while and gone on a few runs of Gruul and Mag, asks that oft dreaded question in Gchat:
This sets off a fevered discussion with much flaming from the raid core and much grousing from lower echelons of the guild. The core raiders don’t want to hear it, they’ve put in the time and effort to be where they are. The lower ranked players feel shafted, they never get a chance at better gear or to show the raid leaders that they can play competently.
Overlooking the fact that there seems to be a bunch of whining, it shows a problem I think a lot of guild at this level have. The guild is split between those that are part of the progression raiding and well geared, and those that are just getting Kara keyed or just out of Kara, and learning how to raid. These two groups have different needs from the guild. Both groups need structured, scheduled raid time for their level of content, lead by a competent RL to make things go smoothly. They just need different content.
Kara (1-2 nights), Gruul (1 night), Mag (1 night), SSC (probably 2 nights), TK (probably 2 nights). If you stacked groups correctly, you could do Kara in 1 night and Gruul and Mag in the same night. That’s still 6 nights of scheduled raiding! I don’t see many guild leaders (in average guilds) being able to handle that.
As I see it you have a few options:
Let the lower level players fend for themselves. They can probably make in-guild PUG Kara/ZA runs without much problem but Gruul/Mag is going to be a lot for some random person with a little initiative to get together. This may lead to unhappy players in your lower ranks. However, since they’re not part of your progression team you may not care if they come or go but I tend to think that’s kind of a crappy way to deal with the situation.
Another option is to be up front with this group and tell them that you will not be scheduling any events at their level of progression and if they want to experience that content they should find a guild at their level to grow with. This is tough since a lot of these people will be friends of members of your raid core. I think it’s good to be up front and honest, and you’re doing them a favor by letting them know that you are not able to meet their needs. It can be up to them to find someone who can.
What I think is the best option is to establish what I call the Feeder Guild. This can be a separate entity or a sub-set of your existing guild. This guild becomes a leveling and early raiding guild that prepares your lower level players for higher content. This option will take more work at the beginning to get started, but will be worth it in the end.
You’ll need to find someone (or a couple of people) who have the organizational skills and the drive to run the show. This person should be outfitted with the resources and responsibilities to organize your lower level raids for those that need/want them. It’s also a good idea to get a few of your higher level raiders willing to help out. Even a few above level players can make a huge difference in how smooth a raid goes. If you don’t have anyone willing to help, you can consider offering a small amount of DKP for an incentive with a weekly limit.
This is also a great way for your Raid Core to get their alts into the lower level raids. Just about every 70 raider that I know has and alt (or 5) and most of them have been at it long enough to have another 70. They always seem to ask to take their alts on Kara runs. Here’s a great opportunity to get them access into regular runs of lower level raids.
Splitting the raiding responsibilities between 2 groups means a manageable 2-4 nights of raiding for each group.
Each group can also handle loot individually. I know a lot of guilds tend to throw DKP out the window for lower level raids. Then the guy who’s been playing with your guild for a while can get unlucky on a roll and loose loot he’s been waiting for to a guy who just joined looking for some quick purples.
As with everything else, this is a highly personal situation. What works for one guild will not necessarily work for another. You may be really picky about who gets a ginvite and don’t have this problem since you don’t let anyone in that’s not geared well enough. You may let everyone and their dog into the guild, but don’t really care if they get any raid time. If however, you do have a similar situation, consider this solution.
A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to read Karthis’ post on Building a Raiding Guild. In it, he posed several excellent points:
The other day, an ingame friend of mine asked me to help him create the blueprint of a raiding guild from top to bottom identifying positions and the like. I figured my current Guild model would be a good one to use along with an explanation of each role both within the Guild and within the Raid.
Gnometastic posted a request for input about diving into the T5 instances which I will also address at the bottom of today’s (long ass) piece.
The first thing I will stress to any casual raiding guild is the following: Drop the casualness. The moment you decide to step foot in you T5 instances, you are an official raiding Guild.
From my various experiences and chats with other guilds, casual to THEM means:
And they wonder why they have such a hard time in SSC and TK.
This is what casual means to me
1 definition describes a guild that is struggling night after night in T5 instances and wonders what they have problems. The other is having a blast exploring Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.
Here’s the framework of our Guild:
We only have 1. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. The ultimate decision rests on him. Any hard calls are his to make. We are not tied down or restricted in any kind of way. Your Guild Leader should be rational, intelligent, and must actually have a pair.
I’ve seen a lot of paper tiger Guild Leaders who were not willing to stand up for themselves and their Guild. Everytime someone made a request, they would immediately bend over backwards to accommodate them. The way I see it, if you’re not willing enough to say no to someone in your Guild, you are not fit to lead. I wrote more about Leadership earlier in the school year. Any aspiring GMs, I encourage you to read it.
Your Guild Leader obviously cannot run the show alone. But he must be willing to listen to opinion of his officers and guildies. The guild in turn must respect the decision he comes to. If they don’t like it, they’re free to hit free agency.
Don’t run a CO-GM kind of deal. In my experience, I’ve found that it rarely works well. When 1 GM puts their foot down, the other may not be as firm. In fact, the 2nd GM might even reverse the first GM’s decision. You cannot that kind of instability in a Guild.
If you read Kestrel’s interview the other day, then you can see his best advice to any GM is one simple fact:
These are players that people can turn to for help. There isn’t really much for them to do. They could assist in various day to day guild affairs. Honestly, whoever you put in these positions depends primarily on what your Guild Leader lacks.
If he lacks time and organizational skills, he can delegate an officer to help him set raid schedules.
If he’s lacking people skills, delegate a recruiting officer or 2 to help find some raiders and personnel.
What they do isn’t important.
The bottom line is that these are individuals that your Guild leader can trust and depend on. There is no perfect set of criteria that can define who is eligible to be an officer and who isn’t.
Here’s the real meat and potatoes. I think our raid structure is a pretty damn efficient model.
Note the plural. We have 2 raid leaders who feed off of each other because it’s impossible for 1 person to track everything going off simultaneously. It’s nice to have another leader around to call out something the other might miss.
In addition, it helps reduces burnout on 1 person. We have 1 person research and call the play for 1 boss. We have the other raid leader research and call the play for another boss. For example, our GM doubles as a raid leader (let’s call him Bob). He calls the play for Lurker, Fathom Lord, Tidewalker, and Al’ar. The other raid leader (let’s call him Fred) calls the plays for Vashj, Kael, and Leotheras.
During trash pulls, they light up the marks on the various mobs. They call for what it is that they want to happen. They might want a sheep on square, a misdirect on skull, or a trap on circle. They don’t care who does it as long as it’s done.
They have delegated duties down the chain of command.
The job here for the mage leader is to set up and organize sheeps, plain and simple. If Bob calls for a sheep, the mage leader picks a mage within the raid and tells them to sheep that target. There’s going to be pulls where there could be 6+ mobs involved and keeping track of sheeps can be difficult. It’s the job for the mage to know who sheeps what when. It’s also the job for this mage to be able to “oh shit sheep” a mob incase 1 of the other mages fall.
Set up a mage channel.
Typically, our raiding arsenal includes 2 Hunters. They’re usually good about working out misdirects and traps amongst themselves. If you have more then that, it might be valuable to set up a go-to hunter to work out which mob or boss gets misdirected to who by which hunter so that there are no overlaps. Our Hunters usually interact with the mage leader in case they run out of mages to CC with.
Hunters: The Plan B.
We like to dub ours “Gold Leader”. We even have our own healing channel. His purpose is pretty obvious and straight forward. He assigns the rest of the healers their targets. He’s intelligent enough to reassign or switch people around if it’s necessary.
For the love of god, if you’re a healer, ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR ASSIGNMENT. Echo back to him who you’re healing so that he knows there is no confusion!
I’m going to make a comment directed to Gnometastic in particular to all of his main points that he wanted to know more about.
Carnage runs 1 Main Tank and 1 Off tank. The MT is a Warrior and the OT is a Druid. We also run 2 DPS Warriors who can slap a shield on and help with any extra parts of an encounter. We also have a Holy Paladin who’s willing to go Prot and vice versa as we need depending on the encounter.
As quoted by gnometastic:
I believe in freedom of choice and as long as you can play it you should be able to (within reason) spec it.
Normally, I’m inclined to agree. But this must be balanced by asking the following question:
The 2 DPS warriors I mentioned above? They are willing to respec prot if the encounter requires it or there is simply too much healing required. Both of them respecced prot to allow healers an easier time during Kael.
On the flip side, if I were asked to do something like respec to Shadow, I would not. I’ve never played or levelled as Shadow. I wouldn’t know what to do. I would gimp the raid even further. I have no objections to sitting out a night in favor of another Shadow Priest.
If I were to become benched for the remainder of my time, then nothing stops me from parting company on good terms. I’m sure there are Guilds out there looking for a veteran healer.
Hmm, it’s a toughie. It depends primarily on the Guild. Guilds have to start being strategic with their loot at some point. No matter what system is used, always ensure that Officer discretion can come into play at some point.
Carnage had the past policy of awarding MT priority on loot. That is, if it’s a substantial and noticeable upgrade for the tank, he gets first option no matter what his DKP is. If you think the MT might abuse that privilege, then I say to you to go find yourself a new MT.
There was a situation the past where a Defender token dropped. It would have been a marginal upgrade at best for the MT, but the 2 piece set bonus would have been a huge boon for the Priest. It was lobbied quite hard by our healer lead to have the MT policy revised to keep things like this in mind.
I made a quick note about this a while ago as a response to a reader. Before I believe that PvP Gear could not subsitute for raiding. Now I believe that there are different factors to take into account when deciding this.
Although I still would not suggest raiding with full on Season 3 gear, I am open to the idea of substituting a a piece of gear or 2 depending on how the fights are. The Vindicator’s bracer would hands down blow away any kind of bracer that Attumen drops.
In any case, the gear choice isn’t that different for DPS classes I don’t think. But as a healer, I would value PvE gear way more then PvP gear.
By the way, be hit capped before worrying too much about spell damage and crit. That’s what my colleagues tell me and if you think about it, it does make sense. After all, what is the point of having insane spell damage if your spells get resists half the time?
From my experience with certain DKP systems, I’ve discovered that you can also apply a certain decay rate over DKP via a simple formula. For example, DKP earned x percentage of raids showed up to over the past 60 days.
Raider A has 100 DKP but his attendance has slackened to 30% attendance to real life factors. His effective DKP is now 30.
Raider B is new to the Guild and has 30 DKP so far but has been to 100% of the raids. He doesn’t have a penalty applied since he has showed up to all of them.
Here’s the standard Carnage configuration that we bring:
4 Tanks
14 DPS
We keep an extra Rogue, Shadow Priest, Elemental Shaman, and Hunter on standby depending on what we need more of.
7 Healers
We keep an extra Paladin around in case he is needed.
For Voidreaver, Gnome, bring a Resto Shaman or 3. It makes the other healer classes kind of moot. I always wonder what I’m doing there when we do Voidreaver.
In terms of attendance, we do it inversely. If you can’t show up you make a note on the forums in advance. That gives the Raid leaders time to go scramble a replacement instead of having to do it last minute. We build the raid out of whoever is there with the core members. They are the ones that usually show up 9.9 times out of 10. I think I’ve only ever missed 2 official raids ever since I signed with Carnage back in May. The guys that should be raiding are the ones that want to raid and are willing to make the dedication for it.
We also don’t switch our MT/OT combinations. The MT is made the same no matter what. However, there are certain encounters where a Bear tank is better suited then a Warrior tank (Leo).
It honestly depends on the boss and the instance. We like to bring in 7 AoE. It makes killing things that much faster.
In the end, it does come down to how serious and committed you are. I think 20 hours a week is a bit much. Attrition will take it’s toll sooner or later. I know some successful raiding Guilds going at 6 hours a week. We clock in about 12 hours of 25 mans plus an additional 6 hours of optional 10 mans if we want.
This piece is probably one of the longer ones I’ve written. I probably should have broken it up and divided it. At the least, I would have had material for 3 days worth of posts. But you’re always welcome to bookmark and come back to it at a later time. I’m hoping the experiences I’ve had can benefit you in some way.
I’m kind of curious as to the experiences of other raiding readers. How is your guild set up in terms of class balance and leadership? Is there only 1 individual leading the entire raid including direction sheeps, heals, and so forth (Bless him)? Have you had any success with other styles of leadership?