How do you manage 10 man raids?

[rilot]

I run a small raiding community and we're progressing through Karazhan quite quickly. I have a problem withmanaging my members that I never had with the old 20 and 40 man raids.

In the old raids, class makeup wasn't that important. If you were one lock short or a mage too many it didn't really matter, but with Kara requiring very different groups for each on the later bosses I'm having a problem. These are the things I've tried:

First signed, gets to go:
We end up with and odd group that is OK for Maiden but lacks dps for Curator for example.

Pick the best group:
The best get better and the others don't progress. People leave.

Rotate people in and out for different bosses:
People get bored hanging around.

Limit the number of times per week a player can raid:
People only want to sign for the bosses that drop the gear they want so we end up with no one wanting to sign on a wednesday when we do the first 4 bosses.

Have two groups:
Will enentually split the community. If we don't have enough for two the next raid we can't take people from the second group as they are now saved.

So, how do people handle this?

[ChaosSaber]

One approach I've seen is to focus on keying as many people as possible so that we you can run two groups and still have enough keyed people to bring in as ringers for individual fights if the party's composition makes it too difficult, or if the raid is caught short at pull time.

[AeroJonesy]

Recruit a few more souls? My guild runs 3 Kara runs, and that hasn't split us up at all. Not saying that you need to be running 3 or anything, just saying that having 2 runs might be the way to go, and not as bad as you fear.

[Blkmage]

Recruit a few more souls? My guild runs 3 Kara runs, and that hasn't split us up at all. Not saying that you need to be running 3 or anything, just saying that having 2 runs might be the way to go, and not as bad as you fear.



I dont even have the game yet but Im still trying to get down all the terms and understand everything so my question is what are Kara and runs and whats with 2 and 3 are they part of a guild name do they represent 2 or 3 cause I mean they could represent 2 or 3 thousand so Im kinda confused

[memetootoo]

I dont even have the game yet but Im still trying to get down all the terms and understand everything so my question is what are Kara and runs and whats with 2 and 3 are they part of a guild name do they represent 2 or 3 cause I mean they could represent 2 or 3 thousand so Im kinda confused

Kara is a end game 10 man raid (A dungeon)

By 2-3 people mean they have 2-3 groups of 10 keyed and doing kara.

[Justinledwards]

Well, for attumen and mores you need three tanks - then depending on opera 2 or 3, then for curator you need 1

One good solution is a tanking Druid who carries their DPS set with them. So if you have 2 tanks and 1 druid tank, you can replace 1 tank with DPS and the druid can go cat-form in dps gear.

But we always swap in and out, our officers dont like doing it and we are looking forward to the 25 mans - we are just starting our 2nd kara group which means that is not far off.

[Qwertius]

it's a tricky situation. In my guild it was not handled so good and a few people actually left because of it. Respect to the guildleader who gets out of this mess

[roaming eye]

Here's a tip.

Get one or two people to 'raidleader' status. Give them the task of making the most effecient raidgroups and lead the instancerun. They will know what raidsetup they want.

And then take another person, or even better a dedicated webpage, to handle signups and keep track of rotation.

The the proces becomes like this;

1- Raidleaders make a raid-date on the signup page.
2- people wanting to come raiding sign up for the raidnights that they can make it. (this effectively locks them to a karazhan raidgroup)
3- from the signups the raidleader on the particular night selects people who signed up to form his 'perfect raidgroup'. He/she can call a raid off if signups are making certain bossfights impossible (For example; no tanks).
4- Those not selected for a raid will be earmarked on the webpage / another officer. These people get preference on the next selections.

It will be in a raidleaders interest to clear all kara which the same group as much as possible. If people don't sign up for the first bosses, they're not in that group and risk being rotated for a week. This should severly discourage 'boss picking' and people coming for complete runs. How it should be really.

Wash. Rince. Repeat.

In this matter it is very clear when the raids are and who will be going. Also rotation should work itself out as well.
Added benefit is that it makes it appearant which classes are lacking in signups (for example, raidleaders complaining about too few shadowpriest signups) which will be clear signals to the class officers or recruitment.

[wesje]

We have 2 set teams (with a third after the vacation periods)

Those team consist out of about 17 people each.

Theres allways 12-13 online, of wich we can choose from shud there be too many tanks healers or dps

[Naedea]

Well, for attumen and mores you need three tanks - then depending on opera 2 or 3, then for curator you need 1
It is normal for us to do Attumen, Moroes, and opera with two tanks.

I'm really unsure why you want a third tank for Attumen. First tank tanks Midnight. Second tank picks up Attumen when he spawns, dps them until Attumen mounts up, then tank and kill him. Attumen charges, but the only one who is ever out of melee range is a hunter who is in control with feign death.

For Moroes, we use two tanks to keep 1-2 aggro on Moroes so he doesn't go nuts on the raid when he gouges the main tank. Sometimes he will blind the 2nd tank, but if a poison cleanse totem is used, or someone is quick with poison cures (druid or shaman generally), it isn't an issue. If we have 3 priests, we don't bother trying to tank the adds at all. We shackle them until they're ready to be burned down. If we do have a third tank, that's less we have to shackle. If we have 2 tanks and 2 priests, the 2nd tank tries to keep aggro on one of the adds as well as on Moroes. Again, keeping blind off the 2nd tank is crucial. Warlocks use curse of exhaustion, mages counterspell if necessary, 2nd tank taunts them if it's convenient, and they don't last very long.

The only opera event that might even conceivably need more than 2 tanks is Wizard of Oz, but every mob there can be handled some other way. Roar can be chain feared, and Strawman and Tinhead can be kited. Dorothee just nukes random targets and Tito is not really an issue.
Romulo and Julianne = 2 tanks, 1 each.
Big Bad Wolf = 1 tank normally, 2 if tank happens to become Red Riding Hood.

One good solution is a tanking Druid who carries their DPS set with them. So if you have 2 tanks and 1 druid tank, you can replace 1 tank with DPS and the druid can go cat-form in dps gear.Druid's a good idea for a Karazhan tank due to role flexibility, but I don't recommend getting into dps gear except on easy trash single pulls. If it comes time to tank (say a shackle breaks early and a priest goes down), I want my bear gear on. DPS suffers less from wearing tank gear than tanking suffers from wearing DPS gear.

[Renata]

Our set Karazhan group has a protection warrior and a bear tank. So far we routinely get down Attumen, Moroes, the Maiden, and the opera events. We're close to getting the Curator down but need to shift a little more effort into arcane resists on a couple key people.

We have a set group we started ourselves -- 12 in all in the group. Inevitably we have 1-2 people every week who can't make it, so the alternates do get in quite regularly.

...Ren

[Malkuron]

They way my guild runs is the following...

The annoucement is made "who ever wants to go to Karazhan whisper me" by the the raid leader.

They will take first come, first serve up until the point where it gets down to needing specific classes or roles, then the raid leader begins annoucing for specific classes or whispering individual members about a spot in the raid.

That way the people who are ready to go and paying attention get in and we still get what we need.

Normally the raids that I participate in, we go with myself (hunter), 2 tanks, 3 healers (usually 2 priest and a paladin), a shadow priest, and either a rogue, a mage and a lock, 2 locks and a rogue or 2 mages and a rogue, depending on who is available.

If more of a specific class or role are needed for specific encounters, enough of us have alts that we can switch out and get on whatever is needed.

[Kyusoath]

we handle this issue by having peoples alts run on different days, need a an OT i take my druid need a lock i take my lock nearly everyone in my guild has more than one 70 most have 3 , it really does not take that long to level to 70, with the support of a guild.

[bhroam]

One of the main issues with running two kara raids is if one raid progresses well past the other. It will lead to feelings of one being the A raid and one being the other raid... if the other raid stagnates too much, some people will stop wanting to go... or worse get saved to the better performing raid's instance if they're short. This will cause strife.

I saw it happen to a friends guild. There was major drama and it all sucked. The late night raid stopped for several weeks.

It's tricky, but it can work.

My guild has tried to avoid doing that and tried to avoid having too many people sit out.... so when people go on vacation, we either have to call raids or PuG people and live through a night of painful sucking.

We're going to try and run a fine line between being too dependent on certain people and having so many people get bored and felt left on the sidelines.

[Kyusoath]

One of the main issues with running two kara raids is if one raid progresses well past the other. It will lead to feelings of one being the A raid and one being the other raid... if the other raid stagnates too much, some people will stop wanting to go... or worse get saved to the better performing raid's instance if they're short. This will cause strife.


yes this does happen, but with us we have different people on different teams each week

[moopy]

..or you could try and get a roughly balanced raid for the whole place- a couple of tanks, enough healers, mostly ranged DPS, but allow one or two melee DPS if they are signed up, and use a rotation system. This does mean that sometimes you have to adapt your tactics a little on bosses, but this keeps things fresh and a little challenging. You don't *need* all that crowd control on attumen, you can squeak melee dps on the prince if they're smart, and so forth. Flexibility like this means that stale old encounters can give fresh challenges and be little triumphs of their own when you beat them.

To renata:

The raid doesn't need arcane resist for curator, period. At most, the spiteful bolt soaker needs some, but that's it. The rest of the damage should be trivial enough to heal through. Have the dps and healers spread so the flares don't arc between them. Kill the flares quickly. Bask in victory. Profit. :)

[bhroam]

I actually have run curator on both my rogue and my druid. Fully raid buffed, my druid has 18k hp... I can soak hateful bolts all day long as long as I have a healer behind me. Kinda brute force my way through =]. My rogue on the other hand needs some AR or he gets owned by the flares.

I disagree on the CC for attuman. There's a 5 pull right before you get to midnight which would be insane to go without being able to CC them. The humanoid ghosts heal the horses and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Now my guild has done it without a priest (uber hunter trappage).

Back to the topic at hand though. I personally think blizz kinda screwed up having kara be a 10man raid, and then the next in the progression being 25. Kara really needed to be 15. This would be 15 people with 10 on the sidelines for contingency/vacations/different makeup for bosses/etc. When you finish kara, you have the people for Gruul.

[Altaris]

An insightful thread for someone about to get into raiding for their first time ever. Please continue! :)

[dexterhall]

In my experience, it doesn't take a particular setup to do Kara. Ofc some essential roles need to be filled but dps is dps. Tanks and healers and then one of each will do. The best way imo is to use a signup system and rotate people. If you run two raids, you can shuffle if one does better than the other - like switching the best tank. You don't want two groups that only care about themselves within the guild, and you'll all need to learn to play together if you want to progress to 25man raiding anyway. A little healthy competition between groups can't hurt though.

[Justinledwards]

Sorry to clarify on the 3 tanks, was just using that for the clear to attumen. That's why a DPS warrior in tanking gear of feral druid is useful. Holding 3 (rather than CCing 1 and holding 2) speeds up the process greatly and allows plenty of threat generation prior to switching DPS.

However last night did it with 2 tanks and getting MT to switch to shackle after 1st target is down works as well.

[Drevan]

First off have everyone in the guild get an addon called GEM (Guild Event Manager). This makes it easier to sign up for different groups and doesnt rely on people signing up and visiting a website or forums to sign up for a run, as its all done in-game...

My Guild for the longest time was running one Kara group a week. Different groups of people then switched out as needed. But we were not progressing. We just couldnt seem to get past The Curator for a long time, and when we finally did we got stuck on the Shade of Aran forever... Several main people in the guild just didnt seem to get it right or else were just not preparing enough for the raids, so we just not gelling together or something.

We decided we had enough people to do 2 groups a week. One group a steady group of people 11 - 12 maybe. We would raid 3 nights a week, and if you could make all 3 nights you could do the first kara group. The second group was a collection of everyone else in the guild (about 15 - 17). A lot of people could not raid all 3 nights so they would sign up for whatever night(s) they could go on GEM. Between everyone in the Guild we always have 2 full Kara groups everyweek.

Now Once we split up into groups, we found that the Main group consisted of more hardcore players and we found out these guys were mainly the ones who came prepared to the raids... in the course of 2 weeks following the split into 2 groups our main Kara group has completely cleared the instance except for NightBane. In 2 weeks we got Shade, Illhoof, Prince, and Netherspite down for guild firsts.

Now the funny part is that the "Second" Kara group consisted of people who were mainly there for 1 night a week or maybe 2 so they wanted to make the best of their one day so almost all the people who signed up to this second group came prepared now as well... and as a surprise to all of us this group over the course of 2 week has been able to kill Illhoof, Shade and the Prince. They will be working on Netherspite this week and we expect them to kill him as well. We were shocked!!! No one expected either group to progress this far this fast, I mean its the same people...

So I would say go for 2 groups... I think you may be surprised, some people just may work better with other groups then all mashed up into one. Besides even if it does turn into one group being a little better at least that way you can share secrets or switch people in and out of groups to show the second group the ropes or strats for beating a certain boss. I think gearing up people faster with 2 groups will be better for you in the long run when you start on the 25's...

[SadaraK]

Our set Karazhan group has a protection warrior and a bear tank. So far we routinely get down Attumen, Moroes, the Maiden, and the opera events. We're close to getting the Curator down but need to shift a little more effort into arcane resists on a couple key people.

We have a set group we started ourselves -- 12 in all in the group. Inevitably we have 1-2 people every week who can't make it, so the alternates do get in quite regularly.

...Ren

No one should need arcane resist for the curator to down him, we have never had any. If the problem is the flares attacking the soft casters get your melee to either start attacking them quicker and draw them back or if your tank is any good get him to catch them when the spawn to hold for the dps to nuke them.

Anyway back to the ot. Kara group organisation is an utter pain in the bum, big time. Because of the balances of certain classes even organised signups can't work all that well. Same with 2 kara groups if you start running them, all it takes is a bad night for a certain class in attendance and one kara is underpowered in some needed class.

Basically start by accepting that quite often people who would have liked to have gone wont go, because even if you run 2 or 3 kara's (like we do atm) there will always be some poor bugger who was a member of a class you have to many of.

Because of the general fludity of everything you need in there its best to call it as you see it but have some solid guidelines. We have 4 officers that can sort the kara from the signups we do for it, along with some trusted members if the officers arent there (and no officer can be there 7 nights a week every week).

These officers and trusted members use the signups as a guideline to create kara's. The important thing is if 2 people are creating 2 karas from the possible people they talk alot to make sure its even, or (even better imo) 1 person simply makes both groups distributing people and classes evenly. This is about as organised as it can get under the circumstances though.

Aside from that it might help to keep informal track of any player or class thats left out alot to make sure they get in to, which is more important if its just the 1 kara group. Even then though problems will begin to arise because a certain number of people who are needed all the time will become nearly indespensible because they have the xp and great gear.

The solution to that depends on what you want. If you want fast progress you try to choose more experianced and geared people, if you want to give everyone experiance and dont mind taking ages to get through kara you keep rotating.

We compromised with this, after a while the first night of kara was full of bosses we could kill, from that point onwards kara first night was for as many newer people as poss to get them geared. Kara second night was more more experianced people in decent gear to get kara onto farm as fast as poss. Onces its actually on farm you can start rotating as you wish, though some fights like Nightbane will still need a pretty experianced tank.