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by Amanda Dean 
Oct 13th 2009 at 6:00PM
It's so nice to run a raid when everyone is up to snuff on their characters and can focus entirely on what their doing. Unfortunately there seems to be at least one person who is not at the top of their game. Either the healer that's standing in fires or the DPS that can't fight their way out of a paper bag. They're not bad people and they mean well, but they are better cheerleaders than raiders. What's a raid leader to do?
I like to help people out and give people a shot, but there's only so much that I can do. At some point I have to consider the needs of the other nine or people in the raid over the needs of the single player. I was leading ToC 10 with a Hunter pulling 1800 DPS and the entire raid averaging about 2700. We had a number of wipes, but low DPS was a contributing factor. I called out the DPS saying, "Guys, I really need to be seeing 3K DPS." The 1800 Hunter said, "I don't think Hunters can pull 3K DPS." I nearly fell out of my chair.
My first response is to try to offer quick suggestions for how to resolve an issue (this is considerably easier when it's a raid awareness problem rather than a role problem). I feel genuinely awful when I have to remove someone from a raid, but the raid environment is not where one should learn his or her class.
This is a good time to be tactful. Usually I say something along the lines of "Hey man, let's run some heroics later, but I really need a little bit more for this raid." I always feel a pang of regret as I hit the "remove" button, but sometimes it just needs to be done. I'm always delighted when someone takes me up on the heroic offer, but more often than not they leave thinking I'm an elitist b***h.
While most people would love to be running Trial of the Grand Crusader, it's just not always feasible. Part of the Guild Master/Raid leaders job is to lead their team into appropriate content. Do a reality check for your team. The raids should be challenging and providing gear upgrades toward progression. If you take on too challenging of content, you may be able to get a boss or two down, but you're likely going to end up spending a lot of time and getting very frustrated. That time might be better spent gathering gear for a more achievable range. Naxx is a good training ground for raid awareness issues. With escalating gear levels it provides a safer environment for learning positioning, avoiding gas clouds, and other common raid issues.
I actually find that carrying guildies that aren't pulling their weight to be the most heart breaking. On the one hand, I'd like get gear on them on the other hand the whole team is suffering for their mistakes or insufficient play. One strategy I use is to recommend resources to struggling players. I rely on TankSpot videos for raid information. Generally I refer players to someone of their class for spec, rotation, and web resource information. Not everyone takes the advice, but many do. In the end the player and the guild wind up in a better position for the effort.
I truly wish there was a market for a school of raiding. I still believe that anyone can be a raider, some just need a little more patience and direction than others. But you don't just wake up one day and decide you're worthy of the endgame. Raiding takes practice, study, and perseverance.
WoW.com offers a plethora of information on guild leadership and guild membership. Be sure to check out Scott Andrew's Weekly Column Officer's Quarters and keep an eye on the community with Mike Schramm's Guildwatch.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Raiding, (Guild Leadership) We Have a Tabard
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
PodPeople Oct 13th 2009 7:22PM
Sorry Amanda, but I have to disagree with you. Raiding is the Best place to learn your class/spec/role, "Progression" raiding...probably not. Raiding sometimes has a lot of challenges that require strategies that you just don't have in 5-man content. So what if you fail, that's the best way to learn in this game. If you down the boss while being a scrub, why should to try to do something different? I'm ok with carrying people through farm content to get them respectable gear, but you should also be trying to help them learn rotations, fixing talent specs that are "interesting", give them websites they should use as resources to better their understanding. If it comes to having them go from only 500dps in green/blues to 1800 dps in full 219/226 gear, then you know you failed at helping them become a contributing raid member. In the end there's only so much hand holding you can do. It's sorta like dealing with an addict, you can only help them so much but if they don't want to get better, they won't.
Clevins Oct 14th 2009 2:38AM
Please. You've had EIGHTY LEVELS to learn your class. You think people should just screw around all that time bumble their way to 80 and then a raid should teach them? No. You should know the basics of PvE on your class/spec before you raid. There are 5 mans from level 10 on - do them. They'll teach you 90% of what you need to know.
I don't mind a new 80 doing worse than a geared 80 if they're doing as well as they can - that's cool, we were all there once. But they need to know the basic rotations for their class (or if they're a healer and there's not a rotation what spells to use in most common situations.
Azgoth Oct 13th 2009 7:22PM
Change server
Amaxe-1 Oct 13th 2009 7:29PM
Jousting and latency reduced dps is why I don't do ToC. With the latency I have, I'm lucky to pull 2200 DPS fully raid buffed, and anything with split second timing (frogger anyone?) will usually leave me a corpse.
So until I can get better internet, I won't be going beyond Naxx. I don't want to hold my guild back.
swampsquatch Oct 13th 2009 7:37PM
They were talking about ToC10 (no jousting)
To add to the topic though, being a hunter (not epeen stroking either), I was doing 1800 dps at level 78. That person makes me sad :(
TalbuksForever Oct 13th 2009 7:52PM
I'm running into this problem right now in two of the guilds I'm in.
I have two 80 raiders, both geared and skilled sufficiently for 25 TotC content. One is in a fairly high-end raiding guild, and usually holds his own on the dps charts (always top five on overall damage and dps, usually top three). He knows his class, he keeps his gear properly enchanted and gemmed, he uses appropriate class-specific and raid addons to maximize his efficiency. There is a boomkin in his guild who out-gears him by a considerable margin. This boomkin is wearing almost full 245 gear, mostly because he's the only leather caster in the guild, so any of that stuff that drops goes to him automatically. The boomkin uses flasks, he knows the fights, he listens in on Vent, he gives every indication of being a good raider... but I have *never* seen him put out more than 2k dps, less than half what I do on my feral. I don't know what his problem is, I don't know if the officers have talked to him about it, but I just twitch every time I see him get a raid slot, because it means that the rest of us will need to work that much harder to compensate for his low numbers.
My other 80 went into semi-retirement back in Ulduar days, but I recently dusted him off to tank for a newbie raiding guild formed by an old buddy of mine. A lot of the new guild's members are true newbies, just dinged 80, haven't even run a 10m OS with no drakes yet... but their attitudes just *infuriate* me. I can work with undergeared people who just need upgrades, I can work with people who need help understanding how to use their skills, I can work with people who need advice on what stats to gem for, but I cannot work with people who expect everything to be *handed* to them. These newbies don't want help, they want handouts. Heck, they aren't even content with the welfare epic handouts available through pugging heroics: they stamp their feet, say "Heroics are boring!", then expect nine other people, including my already-geared tank, to spend hours every week running through Naxx and Ulduar, even though they could get better gear in less time by busting their own butts for it.
I'm sure Jay is going to come blustering in here huffing at me for being an elitist jerk, but if you want to play the game at a high level, you need to put in the damned effort. If you are unwilling to put in that effort, or if you are just functionally incapable of raiding because you can't pay attention or take it seriously, you should not be allowed to raid. It's a privilege, not a right. Yes, you can play the game however you want, it's your dime every month; yes, if you think your 1500 int arcane-shot-spam hunter build is the best thing in the world, you can solo your little heart out with it; but as soon as you start raiding, as soon as you start working as part of a team with other people, you play by the team rules or you get the frak out. Initial ignorance is excusable, simple lack of knowledge can be easily fixed with instruction, but willful stupidity or laziness have no place in raiding guilds.
Jay Oct 13th 2009 10:10PM
Not at all.
Being the top level of the game I fully agree that people need to be sure of their own skills and also realise this is not just about them, that there are other people on the team who are going to end up with a wasted time investment, frustration, raid locks and huge repair/consumable costs.
My PoV was to the author of this post who gives every indication she took members of her own guild into a fight that she should have known was too hard for them, but then rather than admit she was wrong decides to publicly call out the huntard on WoW.com
As others have said, including you, gear checks are a pretty good starting point here, especially as the complaint is NOT about the style or ability of his play but that he was putting out only 1800 DPS and didn't know he could do better. In a guild only situation then you also should have an inkling about the player if not from grouping with him in heroics then from other guildies.
Nope, I hold it is Amanda who is the elitist/incompetent one. She even says later in the article "Part of the Guild Master/Raid leaders job is to lead their team into appropriate content. Do a reality check for your team." but she hasn't in this case, and then had the nerve to write a column about it.
Go back and read what I wrote with that in mind. This is *not* a PuG 25 man complaint the author is making, this is a complaint about a guildie who got invited to something he couldn't handle and is then called out about it on WoW.com
Mordockk Oct 14th 2009 11:28AM
@jay
stop calling him a huntard you elitist b***h!
the raid was clearly a pug. and yes i am removing people of low dps from current tier raids. they need to just get better gear, that's all and learn the mechanics of the class. yes it is the responsibility of raid leader to make a good composition but sometimes we are rushed to fill the group in fear of it disbanding because of downtime.
and i sure as hell try and help people play better but most of the time they call me an
a-hole and whatever....I told a prot pally once that he should use blessing of sanctuary, but he said he is using wisdom because he is has mana problems......he got really mad at me..
themightysven Oct 13th 2009 8:08PM
why can't you run a raid training school?
if you're worried about lock-outs, don't have school in Northrend, have it in Outland.
Have an experienced raider or two run raid through these instances that these players should pwn (but don't 'cause they just started) you can teach current guildies how their class works if they seem to be having difficulty, and appraise prospects. (do a run with your core though, to see what numbers translate to, because 3k dps against BC raid bosses is different than 3k against WotLK raid bosses.)
Rules:
1 every player at the start can call for 1 item, and if it drops, it's theirs, (this will get them looking at the strategies ahead of time) everything else gets sharded or sold to vendors, all proceeds go to guild bank
2 classes that can tank ro-tank the MT (so that they can learn to tank and dps as there are slackers on each side) Similarly classes that can heal, uhm, Heal-wheel (rotate, I just wanted something that sounded vaguely circular)
3 (optional) whoever does the best jorb gets a shot at the guilds lowest progression raid, whoever in that raid did the worst gets farmed down to raid school.
there you go, people get to L2R, the guild gets material benefits for their time and potential awesomesauce new raiders, and all against content that shouldn't be too wipey. (unless they need to be run through the 60's first)
TalbuksForever Oct 13th 2009 8:55PM
Here are the main problems with the idea of a raid training school:
1. If you do it on outdated content, it's worthless.
1a. Even a fresh 80 wearing greens will be ludicrously overgeared for any Outland content, which will trivialize large portions of each encounter. There won't be any challenge, there won't be any sense of danger, there won't be any of the excitement or thrill that makes a real raid fun.
1b. None of the gear will be upgrades, which makes people feel like they're wasting their time. DEing or vendoring stuff is nice in theory, but bear in mind that Outland enchanting mats can only be used for Outland-level enchants, and other than the still-rare Mongoose, there isn't a single Outland enchant worth getting these days.
2. If you do it on moderately outdated content (ie, Naxx), it's worthless.
2a. Again, most of the gear will not be an upgrade for people, which is disheartening.
2b. People will still outgear the encounters, which will allow people to get away with making mistakes that *should* wipe them. When my old warrior did Naxx for his new newbie guild, half our fights were just sloppy as hell, people were not listening to instructions, and when I tried to bring it up as a problem, I was brushed off with "Well at least we got the boss down, that's good enough." Well, no, it's not. The only thing people learn from sloppy runs is that it's OK to be sloppy.
3. If you do it on reasonably current content, people need to gear themselves up first.
That last one is the clincher. A lot of people do not understand the importance of running heroics. They want to jump right into raiding, but they *can't*, because everyone else is geared way beyond entry-level stuff. Blizzard is going out of their way to make it easy for newer players to catch up, it's now possible to get ilvl 226+ stuff in every slot just from running heroics, but if people can't take the time to gear up, well, they shouldn't raid.
Considering the life stage of the game right now, the number of genuinely new players who want to learn how to raid, *and* who are willing to put in the time... well, there aren't many out there. At this point, in any given guild, pretty much all of the people who don't know how to raid either don't want to learn or can't be taught, and all the well-meaning advice in the world won't help them.
Now, I do recognize that there are a *few* genuine raid newbies out there, and I'm a big proponent of running heroics with them to gear them up, working with them one-on-one at the training dummies to go over rotations and gear choices, then integrating them into raids. But even they would benefit more from an afternoon of chain heroics than from being dragged through Kara.
(Hopefully this doesn't double post, I waited like five minutes to see if it showed up the first time).
Ger Oct 13th 2009 9:32PM
I stopped raiding with my "casual guild that raids" for this reason, and I think our guild has lost many well-played raiders for this reason. It's a great guild with great people. We have one frequent raider that does excellent DPS but is exceptionally clueless and is pretty much impossible to keep alive, especially during boss fights. Out of a dozen attempts on Yog, this person was directly responsible for at least 6 wipes (even after being repeatedly told to stay out of the green clouds) and their subsequent deaths on the times we survived caused a lack in DPS making it difficult on the rest of the group.
It sucks because this person is a very nice person... but the frustration they brought out in me wasn't worth it. Raid and guild leaders know this person is a liability and never really do anything about it so I am no longer raiding and yet not necessarily willing to leave the guild. I just don't see myself raiding as people aren't held responsible for their performance and at some point what is the point of playing the game if you cannot advance through raiding? -for me anyway.
Go ahead... call me an elitist. Maybe some people are perfectly happy to carry others, but if you are raiding then you should be pulling your own weight or you are cheating 9 or 24 other people.
Eredur Oct 14th 2009 2:41AM
I think about this issue all the time because it seems unfair both to the player who can't perform and for the players who can.
I remember the warlock who would do 800 dps in raids and stood in fires. And how her husband was a great healer.
I remember the mage who did 1200 dps in raids, and complained that they weren't getting into raids to get geared. Frost resist head enchant and stam enchants elsewhere.
I also remember how hard it was for me to learn all this. My first Kara I caused 2 wipes and dps'd in half blues and greens. My shadow priest was still learning all the fights. A few months later, I kept getting asked to stop dpsing as I was getting over the tanks aggro without vampiric embrace active.
I think the most frustrating thing about this game is how Blizzard doesn't tell you how things work. People have to reverse engineer their characters performance to detect how things actually tick. The fact that people have to go outside of Blizzard to learn about how to play WoW kinda annoys me.
Vagrant Oct 14th 2009 2:46AM
Well, regardless if this person is in your raid for reason x or y, I can see the point that matters, trying to help people be a bit better. I don't think it's an elitist sort of thing, the stuff you are trying to take down is hard, therefor those participating should be good. If someone is not, you try to help him get good, it's really something that sounds like very fitting for in a guild.
And it can be a bit frustrating, in a small guild like mine we often take along a bit of the 'lesser gods' to fill up a spot and it can be a bit of a struggle. Yet I came from the same place, I was a hunter with no real clue about dps requirements, a bit too scared to join the big mean raiders and someone took me along, got me some new gear and above all made me realize the damage I could be doing. So soon after I went down all the possible sites, builds, rotations, gemming and now I often find myself on top of the chart.
The point is though, sometimes you have to prod people a bit to get them to learn. And hopefully they accept the advice. A little motivation in offering to run some heroics can already be quite an incentive though it likely requires some self criticism from the person below par to see and work on it.
It's not elitist, it's just the learning curve build into a game.
No different then the tank explaining me in the Deadmines that I should just forget about most other heals and go for flash heal.
themightysven Oct 14th 2009 7:51AM
so you're saying that there's no value in learning the basics of a raid in a safe environment? no value in learning their role when they won't wipe? progress can still be monitored with recount, and, as I said if a veteran group goes through first, you'll have a better gauge of how the newbies stack up. basic fight mechanics are still there, you don't waste a lock-out, you can do it in off time, and alot of 80's don't have the acheivements for outland.
I don't want to be rude, but I think you missed much of the point.
Trillian Oct 14th 2009 8:00AM
This problem is one I've run across a lot of times. A lot of people on my server seem to be very sensitive about their DPS, like if I say it's too low on a fight it's like I'm actually insulting the person themself. Whether it's from gear or not knowing how to play your class, dps problems can generally be fixed. Generally when we run ToC and we keep wiping because of lack of dps, I do a short raid warning saying that we need to pick up the dps. I don't like to single anyone out, but if that doesn't work I'm going to have to boot them. I know that me and the nine other people in ToC really don't want to carry people - I know you came here to get geared, but if you're in blues and greens you really need to be running heroics, not ToC.
Mykeb14 Oct 14th 2009 8:43AM
What is the addon that makes all your action bars like that ive been looking for it forever
jrizutko Oct 14th 2009 1:45PM
There are several action bar replacements that could easily produce that look. I personally favor Bartender.
jrizutko Oct 14th 2009 10:26AM
The hardest people to help are the people that already think they know what they're doing and just need to do the same thing a little better. The best of the best in all things are ALWAYS looking at ways to improve their performance, and assume that they can do even better than their previous best. If you can just get those bad raiders to understand what goes into the mentality of success, the transformation can come.
Jimbo Oct 14th 2009 10:34AM
My general rules for raid leading:
1. I absolutely CAN and WILL judge you by your gear. If you have empty sockets, unenchanted gear, or level 70 items then you clearly don't care enough about raiding to do the best you can. It's VERY easy to find people that ARE trying. You get replaced.
1a. It's very rare that I would boot someone for regular raids because their gear was too low, but it's dependent on the instance level. Very skilled players can (and do) perform well generally *despite* their gear levels but there is a certain level of gear for which it's impossible to do adequate dps in a raid. For me personally that level is having below an item level 200 average gear score.
2. If I *do* have to boot someone for low dps, I generally try to give them a heads up along the lines of "If we fail again, I'm going to have to remove the lowest dps and right now that's you". Only rarely do people get upset (which they WOULD be if you just up and booted them) and when they DO get upset I just tell them "If you don't want to get the boot, don't be the lowest on the damage meter."
3. Go ahead and line up a replacement before you boot someone even if it means giving them one more fail try. Nothing can tear up a raid faster than wiping a few times and then sitting around looking for better players. 'Cause all the good players in YOUR raid are looking around for better groups.
BigBadGooz Oct 14th 2009 10:30AM
Even 2700 dps average is a perty low end number to have in any raid especially when people in sunwell were pulling 2k dps with lesser gear. I run a 10 man grp toc uldar hardmodes and such. Basicly you pull 5k dps or it's a raid kick unless it's a specific fight were massive dps dosent matter. People who play this game even in naxx epics you should be 4k dps or above. It just takes a decent spec a rotation or priority system and proper itemization. After that it's your ability to not stand in the glowy gunna kill u shit. Last week I had a paly pug whu had some nice gear and I'm like sure u can run with us. Low and behold 2.3k dps he was really happy we carried his ass through uldar and asked when we would raid again. Mr reply: tommarow but ur not. Folks dps isn't rocket science skill+gear/suck=win(everyone else)