Over-view the Raiding
Over the last few weeks I put together a Thursday Raid. The guild appears to have 2 levels of progress. Uldar & OS level and Naxx level. While I can understand the frustration on both sides, there seemed to be little happening to enage the problem. And that’s prehaps the area where the GM of the guild who was RL AFK with a new baby girl steps back into the game and guild. I heard there was a lack of interest in raiding at the high end, by the mid-geared players, and non raiders (wtf non raiders in your guild?) feeling cornered into filling a missing spot, and being undergeared & inexperienced. Many have expressed dissapointment when coming to help out fill a spot, being a good thing, to read the expression, not enough DPS tattered across raid chat. It wasn’t until Leni (Mother of above baby girl and Officer of TDD, stepped in and confronted the comment head on, and explained the reasons why it was so offensive.
…the smallest things, mean the greatest.
"Not enough DPS" / "Too many new folk to the raid who havent done it before" /………………... "DPS isnt good enough" someone would state that as a fact, the reader would see that as an ungrateful slam at their effort, experience & gear. Take the comment into context of a raid, and ask me where the enthusiam went to sign up?...now you understand.
Last Thursday, I assigned Patchwerk as the boss to bench test members of the raid with. I deliberately picked out the lesser members of the guild who wanted to raid, and assessed with recount addon, their failings. 30 minutes spent with a rogue pumping out 800 dps, turned into 1600+ dps under 1 hour of suggesting rotations…No respecs, no buffs, and using a blue and a green dagger. Sometimes we forget that some of us will research and understand websites such as Elitest Jerks, and those who play for the joy of playing hoping that others will take time with them to develop their characters together, within their guild. Players have an expectation of their guild to support them, and in turn they will respect and support you. That’s part to do with life skills, and lets not forget, we still exist outside of warcraft too. I absolutely hate sweeping statements with no direct link to its relevance, person or group if you don’t follow it up person to person later. Get them in a party and take them somewhere, where they feel they are being supported, by you, and working with you to get things right. When I offer spots to guild members who havent signed up for the raid, their first initial question is, "is my gear at the right level?"
The standard of raiding is one of 2 things.
And how much commitment are you prepared to give to support that member joining your raid, and what preparations have you made to include this member?
Being a raid leader, you can ask/tell a raid member, more experienced, to whisper and buddy the new member along. While the Tanks /w each other and inform the Raid Leader of their tanking assignment (MT or OT) and healers are free to assign themselves in their own chat channel, while you over-view the rest. We've practiced this in TDD and it seems to work out. DPS has 2 groups, ranged and Melee. And its easier to buddy them according to which group they belong to.
Communication crossing
Tanks, DPS and Healing. While suggestions and observations are welcome always, too many instructions from multiple groups will confuse the individual they are directed to. There is a raid leader, a Main Tank, a Lead Healer and an assistant raid leader. These 4 are the only ones who should be giving out instruction to each group.
Raid Leader
Assistant RL
Main Tank - DPS - Lead Healer
The raid Leader and Assistant are 1 group and are the ones finalising the plan & stratagey on Vent
Tanks speak to that RL Group, as does the DPS and Lead Healer.
MT, DPS and LH speaking across each other, does not work. And that’s where your drama will start up. This includes loot, recount (in all its information and statistics) & disagreements. Take it up with the RL Group and it will discussed AFTER the raid, and not during.
Keeping a Log
I keep a raiding progress thread for the Thursday Group, so that things like wow stats and my personal thoughts about the raid are available for those raid members to reflect on, and to take note where things need improvement for the next raid. This also allows them to go out for the rest of the week, and 5 man some instances, or take the experience of these raids and what they have learned to 25 man pugs, or even 10 or 5 man pugs, with a lot more confidence.
It's also your single most opportunity to show your appreciation of those who attended and show your commitment to them. After all, YOU depend on them to come next week, right? Better to show your commitment to them as a leader, than someone who logs in on the raid night, smash some bosses and then log off with "GJ all" …theres no development in that, of your team, your team work, or team building.
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