Ah the Group 2 problem. What a sad and illustrious history it has. It generally consisting of B-List raiders who do not appear to be as active or as skilled as Group 1 (yet). Back in the day (when Kara was THEE instance to run), Group 2 was like the middle sibling in the Guild. They would always be overshadowed by the elder group. Every week, Group 1 would continue to link their swag in Guild chat. Eventually, it comes to a point where Group 2 (or the reject group) feels demoralized without the desire to raid any more because they feel they aren’t “good enough”.
Would it be accurate to say that the above experience happens to all Guilds? No. But I suspect that it happens to most casual raiding Guilds (the hardcore raiding Guilds don’t have such a problem since they advance through Kara at roughly the same pace).
From what I’ve seen in the past, Group 1 consisted of the most keenest raiders who shot to 70 within a week or two, spent another week gearing up their characters, and then straight dove into Kara while the rest of the Guild lagged behind a littl bit because they were unable to keep up with that pace.
How do I deal with it?
As a Guild leader, you have several options. At this stage of a Guild, Karazhan is now on farm. But the problem with Group 2 needs to be isolated. It could range from insufficient gear, bad players, bad raid leader, etc. Personally, I think the main problem is that the Group sets their expectations way too high and consequently feels bad when they fail to meet them. You need to reassure them that your Group 1 did go through the same problems. They went through the very same frustrations as Group 2 has done.
Shuffle Players
Take a few core players from Group 1 and insert them and see if there is a marked improvement. Maybe the tank isn’t able to sustain that kind of damage. Maybe your healer isn’t capable of healing said damage. Maybe the DPS isn’t delivering. Ideally, instead of one overpowered group and one underpowered group, you’ll now have two equally powered groups with roughly the same skill and power set. Obviously, you can’t expect Prince or Nightbane shutouts immediately. It’ll still take some time. Lower Karazhan needs to be farmed sufficiently before Upper Karazhan be negotiated with (I consider lower Kara as every boss up to and including Chess except for Nightbane, Netherspite, and Illhoof).
Problem with that then is that the Group 1 players will feel a little pressure and frustration. All the hard bosses that they have farmed with ease now present a significant challenge. Zero-day Kara runs are no longer a possibility (Runs that are done in under a day I term as zero-day since it usually requires zero effort). It requires a lot of patience on the part of everyone. If all the players just grind through it and stick with it, then crosshair on Gruul will come next.
Large announcement coming later in the evening… stay tuned