Written by: Bellemorte
I must say, I am recently trying to train an officer to run the raids when needed. Just small stuff like khara and za, or bosses that in theory we have so far on farm we can do them in our sleep. We all credit the stability and success of a raid on the Mt, and the main healers, you can have slightly less on the ball people for anything else but those positions have got to be the best. It just never works if you don’t.
But what about the raid leader, does a slightly less on the ball raid leader really make or break your raid? Does the raid rely on those calls for the things they should be watching that much. Is everyone really that immune to the bars, the warnings, the mobs running around? I mean when your halfway through ssc, do you really need your raid leader to tell you so and so is sacrificed on illhoof in kharazan? In theory, we’ve all been doing this for months and it should be autopilot, i mean khara clears in under 4 hours every week both raids for badges mostly, put a new raid leader in to take charge and all of a sudden its a two night event. Is this due to the raid leader or people not paying attention.
I wondered this, so i decided to get sneaky and slip into the vent channel with the announcements off and see what was going on. I slipped in and i listened to the raid, the new leader was doing much better this week, but it all seemed so stiff, there wasn’t allot of communication, and everyone was quiet because the prior week they had spent the entire raid overriding the raid leader and ignoring the instructions, or outright contradicting them even though they were the correct instructions. So of course they got balled out for that. But all of this brings me down to one question.
No matter how wonderful your raid is, does your raid leader make or break it?
And if as i suspect this is the case, what do you do when you find you need to train a new one, and no one has the certain something it takes. I’ll tell you now theres not alot of good raid leaders out there that can hold there temper, and solve the problems the raid runs into. I find as time goes on that the people who could be good raid leaders are scared to step up, due to former issues where there stepping up was considered an attempt to take over and caused conflict with the officers. And so this one way monologue, waunders into a conversation on drama and maturity.
Where do you as guild leaders and members draw the line? We all know the line, the someone that is trying to show there worth, but ends up arguing with the gm instead of listening as they should be. Or the raid leader who can’t handle people stepping up to help them out because they are so much in control. BTW this is me to a slight extent, if im in the raid im in charge Period, Exclaimation point, were doing things my way and no one elses. However i fortunatly listen to my officers and my way has been developed through research and trial and error. So at least i temper the control freak in me with a little moderation.
Another question to the guild leaders, Why are you a Gm? Why do you day in and day out deal with the difficulties, the trials the stress and the sheer time from your real life to be a guild master and raid leader. People rarely thankyou for it.
I think these are all good questions you should ask yourself. If your confortable with the honest answers more power to you. Anyhoodle back to work now, thats my meandering for the day. Ill put up an antecdote next time i think.
-Bellemorte
February 25th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
See, I totally understand where you are coming from here… I love leading the guild, but am HORRIBLE at raids. So, I have the best raid leader team ever. They know my weakness is in leading raids, and they are totally cool with it. But I still attend the big important raids… a lot of times I let all those other people who really want the chance to lead raids lead things like kara, or gruul’s. It gives them the chance to get their feet wet without having to worry about the pressures of progression, so it is a very good thing
February 26th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I serve as guild master and defacto raid leader (when I can’t shrug the responsibilities to another raider). However, my guild runs just Karazhan and hasn’t hit the 25-man phase yet. I doubt that as a guild we ever will.
On the other hand, in the past I’ve lead 40-man raids. That’s a hassle in and of itself. I’m aware of 99% of what is going on in raids, but there’s always that little sliver that misses my attention.
In my opinion, raid leaders serve multiple roles. First, they organize. This means learning strategies, picking the one that applies best, and convincing, coercing, condemning, and cajoling people to do their job. They also need to be able to recognize and gauge performance; if someone isn’t doing his job and it’s affecting performance, then the raid leader has to take steps to correct it. Raid leader have to serve as captains, morale officers or cheerleaders, mediators, organizers, and the list goes on and on and on.
But no raid leader is omnipotent, so it’s important to have people under him that might not know everything but can point out those class/spec-specific details that might have bearing on this or that fight. That eases the raid leader’s job and lets him focus on the logistics of a fight and other details.
February 27th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I’ve learned that raid leaders can’t be trained, they have to be found. Keep your eye out for people who take initiative to form smaller raids (10 man vs 25 man). This was mentioned on WoW forums, but try taking a quick AFK break in the middle of a raid and ask someone to keep the raid going. i.e. “Hey guys, I’ll be off vent a second, gotta take a phone call. Someone set up for trash pulls.” If you have someone in mind, assign them the task of setting up trash pulls if no one steps up. Assigning them gives them a sense of authority that people will listen to so that the ones that are normally scared to step up will be empowered to.
Short answer, “Yes”, a good raid leader can make or break your raid. They can be the difference between a 5% wipe and a guild first kill.
I’ve also learned that it’s important not to depend on one raid leader. You should have a handful of people ready, willing, and able to lead should the primary raid leader not be available for whatever reason. It doesn’t have to be an overnight process. You can have your primary raid leader for progression fights and others for clearing farm content.
There has to be a consensus among your raid leaders about how’s leading a particular raid. They need to know when to be flexible to adjust a strat and when to put their foot down and call wipe. We had a time where multiple people were speaking up and two people called wipe and the 3rd, who was the actual raid leader, did not. People got confused and a very retarded wiped ensued. Make sure people know who the raid leader is and that their word is the final word on whether you finish a fight with 5 people up or call a wipe at 5%.
I’ll have to get back to you on that last question.