Advice for a new raid leader?

[Ausbrehar]

i went from OT IN KARA to a newly created guild as the raid leader. we have 10+ 70'S all wanted to raid kara and all become T4 geared together. from seeing a good bit of kara and tanking all of the 5 mans i believe being the raid leader would suit me.

i plan on raiding about 2-3 times a week with sunday being an extra day. meaning if there is enough people online or if someone missed a raiding day to go then on sunday.

I plan on watching vids of the bosses i havent been to but does anyone have any other advice for a newly formed raiding guild raid leader such as myself?

[Katrala]

Make sure to set loot rules and raid standards and follow them consistently.

[Ausbrehar]

Make sure to set loot rules and raid standards and follow them consistently.

i plan to be loot master. basicly going to be going by who needs it the most. if someone gets something from attunman, then they dont get anything from mores etc etc unless they are the only class that can use it. basically thats the basic on the loot rules.

[Aerath]

i plan to be loot master. basicly going to be going by who needs it the most. if someone gets something from attunman, then they dont get anything from mores etc etc unless they are the only class that can use it. basically thats the basic on the loot rules.

I'd be *very* careful with that one. You may well have people passing on upgrades because they want something from a later boss more.

And, mostly with 10 people in the raid, it's not like you'll have 6 people all vying for a single item.

[Ausbrehar]

I'd be *very* careful with that one. You may well have people passing on upgrades because they want something from a later boss more.

And, mostly with 10 people in the raid, it's not like you'll have 6 people all vying for a single item.

well if that happens ill let them know that theyll have to take the chance and roll with some one else.

[luziferial]

Being a raid leader isn't hard. Basically you'll have to mark (you can assign someone to do that if you want), decide about looting and most importantly scream "DON'T STAND IN THE FIRE!!!!!"

Nah, The most important thing is make sure you read and understand each boss encounter, tactics and be fair about looting. Since you're not the GM, I don't think you'll need to worry about the guild falling apart. People will do their job, badly or greatly. I as a raid leader would have some combat log (like WWS) to summarise the raid and look at later to see where and who can be improved.

Good luck!

[Aerath]

well if that happens ill let them know that theyll have to take the chance and roll with some one else.

That wasn't my point. It means loot goes to waste that would've been an upgrade to someone, whereas the next boss might not even drop the loot they're after.

[Cerberus]

Dependign on what your guild is like you might want to consider running some sort of dkp system. It just keeps that kind of drama out of the guild. Better safe than sorry and it's pretty hard to implement once you've started running without one. Might not be needed for 10 man raids, but you'll want one for 25 man raids.

Try to read up on all the classes so you know who can do what and what classes should be put in the same group.

[Lothaer]

make sure EVERYONE has the correct mods, ie oRA2, BigWigs/DBM, Omen etc.

[Aerath]

Anyway, to recap the most important thing that's said above:

1) Know what other classes can and can not do.
2) Know the boss fights in detail - not just your own role.
3) Work out a loot system that'll give as little drama as possible and waste as few items as possible.

[clevins]

OK, first off do NOT set yourself up as loot master and say "I'll decide who gets what.' That way lies drama. The easiest system is this: do /roll. If the person has won something already they can roll IF no one else needs it for a main upgrade (meaning their main spec). If the same people are there week in and week out that's all you need. Loot things to be sharded to an enchanter, DE and put the Voids in the guild bank. Let people use them for enchants etc.

BE ORGANIZED
This means several things. Pre-raid it means DO SIGNUPS. Don't fall into the 'we'll raid if people are online at 8 server' thing. Nothing will happen that way. Schedule runs, post signups in the forums on your site.

Do invites 15-20 mins before start time. Make sure people know that they should be repaired with any consumables they need/want. Mana users should have water, etc.

Do summons 10 mins before start time. If people are in an instance/BG/questing ask them to drop. If they won't, replace them. DO THIS RIGHT AWAY. If you start off letting people make the group wait it will be much harder to reverse later on. People signed up for a raid at a certain time - it's their responsibility to be there and ready.

Make sure your guild officers explicitly support you. If you don't take someone because they're not geared you should tell them that *and the officers should back you up.* You're either RL or not... if people can go to the officers and get things overturned you have the responsibility but not the authority - that's a recipe for fail. HOWEVER... that means getting buy-in for things. If you don't have class leaders, have everyone read up on what gear they need and post it on the forums so everyone can learn from each other and so that newer people have a reference for what the guild expects.

Be ambitious but realistic. You're not clearing Kara on the first run.... but you should shoot for 2-3 bosses at least. Set goals and try to hit them. Up through Curator in 3 hours.... then through Shade.... then Prince... Then a full clear in one night... etc.

Be patient. Someone WILL move during Flame Wreath, the tank will miss picking up Attumen, etc. Don't be over-tolerant of bad/sloppy play, but remember that it's a game - it's fun. I once led a raid where the co-leader accidentally backed into mobs SIX times. Never wiped, but people died. Instead of freaking out we laughed it off and still rib him about it.

[Pongle]

Explain clearly, coordinate people, find a working dkp system.

[Beruen]

OK, first off do NOT set yourself up as loot master and say "I'll decide who gets what.' That way lies drama.

Depends on the raiding guild, it would actually work fairly well in our guild, as long as those making the decision take input from others. The method we use is that anyone that would use the item in their primary role for raiding gets to roll first, with high roll getting the item, and if noone rolls, we open up rolling to anyone that could equip the item. The raid leader/assistants have a veto ability on rolls when something stupid is about to happen, like a rogue that can't understand why the hunter should get a bow upgrade before he does. We encourage people to discuss the items to get a feel for who it would be a better upgrade for. Needless to say, this wouldn't work in a 25 man raid, as it would take too much time. It also wouldn't work for a guild that's trying to speed clear Kara. It also wouldn't work for a guild that doesn't have a good amount of teamwork.

Then again, most of our raiders understand the concept and benefits of building a good team, starting with the leaders and going on down (the understanding, not the gearing). Heck, my priest, who was quite well geared before stepping foot in Kara (PMC/whitemend/Boots of the long road/etc), passed on the Shard of the Virtuous twice, the T4 gloves, the T4 helm, and several other healing upgrades before getting her first upgrade from Kara, just because the other healers needed gearing up more than she did.

And yes, we've got a few people that don't get it. Almost entirely younger players (we normally don't allow anyone under 18 unless a family member of a guildie or someone has grouped with the person enough to know that they're capable of behaving maturely), including the son of one of our mages who can't understand why people thought he was being self centered for wanting to roll on an epic necklace that would amount to trading +1 hit for +3 STA as an "upgrade" for him over a hunter still in a blue necklace.

Same rogue also took it wrong when the first time a hunter'ish bow dropped it went to a hunter rather than to him, or that Moroes Lucky Pocket Watch went to the MT first. If you don't use a DKP system or just let them roll and stick to it, you'll run into these kinds of issues. Personally, I'd rather deal with one person that doesn't get it than force a system that doesn't make room for intelligence on the other nine raiders. When we're geared up enough that leveraging the drops we get isn't as important, then there will be a lot less discussion, but for now, this works.

If that might be a big enough issue for your guild that you want a DKP system or /roll system that tries to fairly distribute the gear, I will say one thing. Make sure that any system you adopt has no condition where something that someone might want gets sharded just because the person that wants it already got something, is out of DKP, or whatever. Any system that would shard something that would upgrade the raid is flawed, in my opinion. There will be freak loot nights. We had one night that four items that would have been upgrades for any of our four rogues dropped. Of course, only one rogue was on that night, so she got it all, causing a little loot stress amongst the other rogues, but that calmed down as soon as the others realized that that was one less person that would be rolling against them next time those same items dropped. Then there was the night that 3 cloth wearing DPSers split 5 major upgrades. We haven't been raiding that long, but we've had these kinds of nights often enough to realize how common they can be.

In summary: Early on, a DKP system might not be the best answer for 10-man raids. Once you're starting to gear up, who gets what item is less critical, so DKP works fine, though by the time you're all fully geared up, you've gone back to not needing it.

Other problems you'll likely see:

The wrong number of raiders. We usually have too many DPSers, but barely enough tanks and healers. You'll need to decide who's going, either on a nightly basis, or on a per-boss basis. We try to rotate everyone in on different fights so that everyone that wants to gets at least one boss fight a night, and everyone gets to see every fight sooner or later. Then again, there are times we have to say "We can't do this with the group we've got, we HAVE to take the following people." This will probably go away as we gear up. We've already gone from having a hard enough time doing Moroes with two shackles to pulling it of with one shackle if the DPS is good enough, and there are guilds that don't bother shackling at all. And then things will surprise you, last night, we were short DPSers but too many healers, so our discipline priest was smiting.

Lack of focus: Our first attempt on Attumen wiped because we didn't stay focused enough on getting through the trash fast, so some of the trash started respawning behind us without us noticing, so it added when we pulled Midnight. Even with that example of why to stay focused, we still have problems keeping the raid focused at times. Last time we went, we wiped on Shade and had to clear trash to get back to him, and we cleared the trash in half the time as we did getting to him the first time that night, just because everyone was pissed and focused (too many wipes on Aran due to stupid things, never by the same players. Heck, our best people were the ones moving during flame wreath that night).

Closely related to lack of focus: Bored players doing something stupid. After taking down Aran (that same night that we had to reclear the trash and did it in half the time), while we're clearing our way to Chess, a rogue gets bored and discovers that you can in fact leap over the railing to your death. Or a priest that has a brain fart and pulls the mob right before Prince before the entire group is ready.

People not coming equipped. This means buff food, water for mana users, potions, etc. Getting back to our problem rogue, he's famous for showing up asking for Agility Elixirs, Agility food buffs, health potions, etc., and seems to think these things grow on trees for other characters. I'm sure by now some of you are wondering why we keep him around. :grin: He's not a bad person, just doesn't have enough life experience to understand that life isn't all fun and games, sometimes you have to do actual work, even when playing a game. Oh, and yes, he was the one that jumped the railing. Amazingly enough, he's actually a good player when he's got his game face on.

People losing interest when unrealistic expectations aren't met. Our first time in Kara, we didn't have one toon with any Kara gear yet, and only two people that had ever been in Kara before, and they had been in different roles and hadn't paid enough attention to the fights to be able to lead effectively. We got Attumen down, wiped on Moroes seven times, and Maiden one or two times before calling it a night. The second time, we got those three down, and wiped on Opera. The third week, we had to call off because too many people decided not to go because we weren't getting enough loot. We consistently downed more bosses every time we went (until we got stuck on Prince for a few weeks), so that's not a problem any more. Everyone knows that Tuesday night we'll take down Attumen/Moroes/Maiden, maybe Opera, and sometimes even Curator if everything goes smoothly, then Saturday we'll get whatever we missed tuesday, Shade, Chess, and then make attempts on Prince and the optional bosses with no guarantees of sucess, since we didn't get Prince down until last week, and never tried the others until last week.

It's pretty much a given that you will wipe your first time on any given boss. No matter how much you read up on the fight, it's all theoretical until you see the fight happen (videos help, but still aren't perfect). Then people will go "Oh! That's what the strategy guide meant!" and things will go better. Heck, my guild even managed to wipe on Chess the first time we tried it (too many people had disabled their pet bars or had addons that interfered with the pet bar), and some players had never seen a pet bar and took too long to get used to it.

[clevins]

Nice post. Some thought back atcha...

loot: If you're taking people who don't get why certain things are good for others and not them, you have a problem. Same if people are there only for the loot. Kick them and replace. Sound harsh? Yes it is... but they're a drag on morale and cause drama. A rogue who doesn't get that a ranged weapon should go to a hunter first is an idiot. You want people who are there to see the raid succeed and progress - people who are there only for themselves are poison and need to be removed ASAP.

DKP is overkill for Kara. WE used master loot to prevent idiocy or misrolls, but in general we did /roll. Then again we didn't have people being fools and rolling on things that they didn't need, were wrong for their class or that were far better for someone else in the raid.

Attitude: people get bored? Too effing bad. Keep moving with the tank pulling when mana users are close to full, but anyone who jumps over a railing for the hell of it would be the recipient of a /rkick. Mana users who need mana should drink after a fight. People who are low on hp should eat/bandage. Tanks should be told, in raid chat, to pull when healers have full mana. This will prevent people from being bored and will drive home the point that they need to pay attention.

Attendance: swapping people in and out for fights slows down the raid and overall progress. Try not to do it. As long as you have 2 tanks, 2 healers and six dps you'll be fine. Rotate people in and out weekly, but doing it per fight is a PITA. Deny people who come in only when the instance is on farm - if you don't suffer through the learning, you don't get to swoop in for the easy loot.

Set a start and end time. That way people have an incentive to move quickly and they know what they're in for. Make it 4 hours or less. Longer is very hard to take, esp if you're wiping.


Note that most of the above comes down to 'recruit and raid with people who know their class and have good team attitudes.' This is why so many of us emphasize looking at gear/gems/enchants. People can say anything... but what they have on shows what they will really put effort into.

[Beruen]

Attendance: swapping people in and out for fights slows down the raid and overall progress. Try not to do it. As long as you have 2 tanks, 2 healers and six dps you'll be fine. Rotate people in and out weekly, but doing it per fight is a PITA. Deny people who come in only when the instance is on farm - if you don't suffer through the learning, you don't get to swoop in for the easy loot.

I agree for the most part. Really the only time we swap is right before/after a boss fight, and then only if the person is ready and outside the instance. We've had a few people get bored and wander off and join a battleground, so they missed their chance. We tend to take breaks before/after a boss anyway, so it's not slowing us down much. If we find our current composition isn't working for a particular boss, we'll swap between attempts, but we try to limit that. We probably wouldn't swap at all, except that we usually have too many DPS that want to go. Not enough DPS is never a problem, since two of the tanks and two of the healers have DPS alts that are geared well enough for Kara.

Note that most of the above comes down to 'recruit and raid with people who know their class and have good team attitudes.' This is why so many of us emphasize looking at gear/gems/enchants. People can say anything... but what they have on shows what they will really put effort into.

And people that are raiding for the same, or at least compatible, reasons. People that are raiding strictly to improve their gear should find others like them. Those that are raiding because of the social aspect should do the same. Mixing the two doesn't work well usually. :grin: Same applies for raiding frequency. Personally, I'm good with two nights a week, I might be able to handle three, but any more than that, and I'd start feeling like all I was doing was raiding and prepping to raid. Some are fine with that, I'm not. If we reach the point that we can clear all of Kara on Saturday (we usually raid for 6-8 hours on Saturday, and we can't quite clear it in that amount of time) and we're not ready to start 25 mans or ZA, I'm fine if that's all we do.

And no, I'm not claiming that anyone should base their guild on how ours functions, just in case anyone got that impression. What works for some doesn't work for others.

[RWGreen]

<sarcasm>
Everything you need to know about leading raids can be learned here: http://www.warensemble.us/troxed1.html
</sarcasm>

[Dalamin]

Make sure the buggers are on VC, nothing slows a raid down and causes wipe than the raid leader having to type instructions, especially mid fight when they have their own role to perform, even if the recipient is even reading raid chat.

[Beruen]

Agreed on some kind of voice coms, especially at first. Once everyone has seen every fight, the need goes down, but we still run into problems once in a while because one of the people that can't use ventrillo for whatever reason didn't get a message that was said in vent and someone forgot to put it in raid chat. Personally, I don't have an issue with the quality of the in game voice chat, which has the bonus that it can turn down the volume of the other sounds while someone is talking, but I'm fine with using vent when we do use it.

[Beruen]

Oh, and another thing you'll run into, though it's not a raid-specific one. Guildies that assume that the officers know about everything that is happening, including how everyone feels about it, even if that person hasn't told anyone.

I've seen it before, but we just had an extreme case of it turn up Saturday. We're forming up a Kara raid, and one of the lvl 70 rogues says "I've bitten my tongue long enough" and then /gquit. To the best of my ability to determine, he never told ANYONE that he had an issue with ANYTHING. I don't even know if the problem had to do with the Kara raid. People, we're much more likely to at least try to fix a problem we know about than the ones we don't know about, OK?

Other problem we had was one of the other rogues was upset because we weren't bringing him in the Prince fight until either he geared up or we got enough practice on Prince that we didn't need our best players. He goes off on "but how can I gear up if you don't bring me in." We point out the fact that he's the 7th boss we kill, and there's a lot of rogue gear on those other 6 bosses. At which point he switches to "It's no fun sitting outside kara for hours just to come in for 5 minutes" and we say "Then try harder to show up on Tuesday, we're doing the easier bosses then, and you'll be in more fights." At which point he decides that there's no point discussing it any farther, that we obviously can't see his point of view, etc. Note to people that believe the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Sometimes it works. Other times, you just become someone to avoid. We might have brought him in on Shade of Aran, to see if he could be effective there, but as is, the only thing we were willing to put up with him for was Chess.

[clevins]

Good points. But your second rogue issue is why I don't like to sub people in and out for fights. They start thinking that they can come in just for the cool fights etc. Want to fight Prince on Wednesday? Sign up for the Tues/Wed raid ad be there both days.

You really don't need to sub people in and out for the fights in kara - watch that you're not creating unneeded drama by doing this.

[Beruen]

Most of our raiders are pretty good about sitting out a few boss fights (the two rogues are the only ones that are problems). Fewer would be OK with sitting out an entire night, and we don't have what we need to run two Kara groups yet. We've got four tanks now, but one of them isn't present often enough, and depending on whether one of the priests is shadow or not, we've got 4 or 5 healers. We rotate to give everyone a chance to play (on most fights), not because we have to in order to down the bosses.

Part of the problem with the second rogue is that he took a few months off just as we were starting to raid, so he's not used to how we deal with this and he's way behind in gear. He's only been back for two weeks, and didn't realize that we just got our first prince kill the first week he was back.

[clevins]

The reason I don't like sitting people out for some fights is that you have people not learning the whole instance. Their view of it is piecemeal. Add to that the inevitable "X dropped just before/after I was there... damn" and I just don't really like it... but that's me and I'm not in your raids. :P

I just cycled people in week by week including tanks, but it depends on what people are OK with. Personally, I'd not want to sit around for a couple of hours if I didn't have anything else to do while I waited for the raid to get to a certain point. I'd rather go do something else vs being tied to WoW.

[Beruen]

Agreed completely. It really is a matter of what works best for a particular group of raiders. We find that between being able to give more reliable estimates on how long it takes to reach certain bosses and having enough dual-boxers to always have someone at the Kara meeting stone, we really don't need to have people waiting outside for hours, just as long as they stay on Vent so that they keep up with our progress. The people that have missed their spot is actually a rare occurance. On the other point, yeah, last week was one of those times where every boss kill dropped something that someone that sat out had wanted, but in the long run, that's as likely to happen if we rotate on a per boss basis or a per night basis.

As for experience on all the bosses, we don't use all the same people on the same fights each week. At this point, except for a few undergeared people that haven't raided with us much, everyone has taken part in a kill on every boss that we've downed more than twice. Some fights are easy to rotate. Attumen, for example, we once did with our two most undergeared tanks, our new priest healer, and one old hand priest healer (I keep joking that one day I want to do Attumen with one tank, one healer, and 8 DPS just to see how fast we can take him down).

[thorleader]

Agreed completely. It really is a matter of what works best for a particular .....
(I keep joking that one day I want to do Attumen with one tank, one healer, and 8 DPS just to see how fast we can take him down).

We tried this last week, with a fury warr dps/OT when they both are there (and super leet healer keeping them up) answer SUPER DUPER FAST