Ready Check: Soothe the savaged nerves
by Michael Gray 
Apr 22nd 2011 at 3:00PM
For better or for worse, modern raids have a lot going on. It's like standing in the middle of a laser light show programmed by a hyperactive teenager fueled solely by adrenaline, Mountain Dew, and giddy excitement about the new season of Doctor Who.
With all this happening, it can be easy for a raider to get rattled. Especially following wipe after wipe, pressure builds up as the raider tries to overcome the challenge. That pressure, coupled with all the crazy spell effects and raw confusion, simply leaves the raider frazzled, stressed, and at the end of his rope.
While it's probably not the most glorious task, it falls on the raid leader to help folks stay focused and calm. Let's talk about how to handle the frazzled raider.
Keep yourself calmThe first rule of helping another person through frazzled nerves is to make sure you keep calm yourself. You need to try and keep your voice low and even-paced, without tell-tale signs of aggravation.
As the raid leader, you set the example for your group. If you let yourself give in to the temptation to nerdrage, you'll certainly drag down the morale of your whole team. By the same token, try and fight off the "Eeyore" syndrome. If you act down and depressed, then surely you'll tank the team's mood also.
The first step in handling the frazzled members of your raid is make sure you keep yourself the most even-tempered member of your group.
Call a bio break
If you sense a member of your raid is starting to lose control of his emotions, call for a bio break immediately. Send the person a private tell and check in on him. Many times, this is all you need to do; it gives a small break in the action and lets everyone breathe.
Of course, if you're calling for a bio break after every boss attempt, your raid at large will eventually notice that there are problems. This is where we start getting into the deeper into management techniques.
Choose your goal
You will need to decide quickly if you're attempting to make the frazzled player feel better or just keep their frazzled nerves from affecting other people. While it would be ideal to always make the person feel better, if you're having a bad stretch of raiding, that might not be possible.
The essential problem here is that frazzled nerves tend to be indicative of other things; the person might have trouble with a learning curve, might not react with the same speed as the rest of your raid, or, heck, might be struggling with feelings of inadequacy.
It's not your job to be a professional counselor (unless you happen to be a professional counselor -- in which case, rock on). Your job is to run your raid and make sure your raid runs well. Help your fellow raid member, but don't try and be a psychologist.
That being said, a simple conversation or three can go a long way toward helping a person get a grip.
Addressing the frazzleIf you're trying to chill someone out, it might help to send them a private tell. You don't have to send a clever statement or anything like that, just simply say, "You sound stressed out. How are you feeling?"
The open-ended question is important as a way of soliciting more information. Hopefully, the frazzled raider will tell you something on which you can take action. If he finds the fight confusing, you can take the time to explain the fight in a more simple way. If he finds all the spell effects confusing, you could recommend turning down the graphics.
Keep the frazzle contained
If you're not able to help stressed raiders chill out, it is necessary for you to try and help them at least keep it contained. This is, admittedly, a lot easier.
First, if someone's freaking out and damaging the raid's calm, it is perfectly okay to straight up tell them that. It's not only okay, it's your best bet. "Dude, you're damaging my calm" will do a lot to help someone realize they're being needlessly stressful.
Second, recommend they remain quiet if they're worked up. You don't have to be rude about it. Tell the person, "Man, you sound really stressed out. If you need, just leave your microphone turned off until you feel better."
If for some reason, the person still won't chill out or won't keep it to themselves, you may find yourself having to separate them from the raid. It's unfortunate, but we're going from the angle that the person's stress is so severe it's affecting everyone. Once you've had a few conversations with Bob the Frazzled and things aren't improving, you have to watch out for your raid.
Ready Check shares all the strategies and inside information you need to take your raiding to the next level. Be sure to look up our strategy guides to Cataclysm's 5-man instances, and for more healer-centric advice, visit Raid Rx.
Filed under: Ready Check (Raiding)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Necromann Apr 22nd 2011 3:11PM
If someone is Gavin trouble with spell effects, they can turn off projected textures. It turns stuff like desecration and consecration off and except maybe Sinestra (I have no clue),, no boss ability uses them so it is safe to turn them off
Necromann Apr 22nd 2011 4:02PM
Having*
joshua.l.miles Apr 22nd 2011 3:16PM
I have found that I am what I like to call a Tier 3 Frazzler, I don't mind wiping 13 times in a row or when people get frazzled and nerd rage from wiping but once the nerd rage spreads to the group of ragers raging because of the previous raging and the finger pointing and name calling and the (hey warrior you just need to go cuz you only did 9K dps, you need at least 10K) followed by the " I did 9K because the healer quit healing the AoE damage and I died" around that point I get frustrated with dealing with them all and just drop from the raid.
dehlers1 Apr 23rd 2011 9:02PM
Since ragers move fast its best shoot them in the head 1st, then focus on the shamblers. Unless of course a shambler is almost on top of you.
(cutaia) Apr 22nd 2011 3:22PM
Fighting the frazzles...at eleven.
Cale Apr 22nd 2011 6:13PM
I'm not wearing any pants. Film at 11.
Eirik Apr 22nd 2011 8:20PM
But the dial only goes up to 10?!
Eregos ftw! Apr 23rd 2011 11:40AM
Cutaia got downvoted?!
Jessekoby Apr 22nd 2011 3:48PM
Depending on the raid team, I also find a well timed Rick Roll helps calm the nerves. Sometimes all your raid team needs is a good laugh to put things back into perspective.
Vrykerion Apr 22nd 2011 4:08PM
This. Very this.
Sometimes I think the only reason my raid team kept me on was the fact that was I good at keeping people laughing through the wipes.
etherlithium Apr 22nd 2011 4:25PM
"The essential problem here is that frazzled nerves tend to be indicative of other things; the person might have trouble with a learning curve, might not react with the same speed as the rest of your raid, or, heck, might be struggling with feelings of inadequacy."
Right on. What wasn't mentioned in the article (which was otherwise excellent) is that nerves can be frayed by a disconnect between guild or officer ambition and the current abilities of the group, at which point the solution isn't in raid but entirely out of it.
Case in point: in the guild I was in at the start of cata, we had a mixed bag of officer attitudes and player progress. We had about ten players who burned through levelling right off the bat and were all 85 within six days of release, heroic geared (i.e. most of the then-agreed BiS drops were theirs, plus JP items) within the fortnight, running Baradin's for epics, grinding archeology for rings and trinkets (and finding them), farming mats and crafting epic gear. One of the officers was in this group, and about three weeks from then a balanced composition was viable as people caught up. We had a wipefest first night as people learned new specs, new abilities, new mechanics, even new classes in the raids but we quickly got the first two bosses down in BRD. Next week we had the third on notice.
Then, however, the rest of the guild caught up, which included players whose goals weren't really to raid at all, but in the interests of working toward running 25-man they were shanghaied into raiding and we wiped and wiped and wiped. Players who were previously excelling were getting frustrated, and the newcomers were scared and out of their depth - they had been pressured into raiding when they didn't want to. Everybody was tense. But the raidleaders held it together and they gained their nerve; progress resumed. Several offciers expressed a desire to have two 10 - man groups running.
Shortly after the new year, enough people were geared and active to raid 25 man, and so it was decreed by the GM that this would be our focus. One officer had been pleading not to go ahead, as again we had a new cohort of inexperienced and unwilling raiders, plus a few that were known as raid wipe liabilities. But the drive to get 25-man raiding, at any cost, held sway simply because the GM said so. The group couldn't even kill Magmaw, and at this point an officer physically quit mid-raid. Yes, it was because he was hugely stressed, but no smooth talk could plaster over a schizophrenic progress policy that created it. People had no idea if they were in a social guild or a hardcore guild, and this extended to the officers. The right hand did not know what the left hand was doing. So, to conclude this shaggy dog story, one way to beat stress in raids is to not cause it in the first place. Make sure that the group is motivated, and knows why they are there. Do not try and straddle two goals; have a clear leadership and goal.
Eirik Apr 22nd 2011 8:35PM
Oddly, I drew a couple of other conclusions from your story:
1) Don't force people into activity they really don't want to do. You had people press ganged into raiding through, I presume, either overt ("raid or leave") or social ("we desperately need YOU") pressure. Less forgivable when the other options were available (2x 10-man vs 1x 25-man, rotating people through 10-man). So people don't feel compelled to "raid or die", offer options to the non-raiders allowing them to support the raiders if they want. (Perhaps BoE drops from the raids can be incentives.) Making flasks and feasts is popular. Creating support items (Drums of kings, runescrolls of fortitude, etc) helps too.
2) Don't expect novice raiders to perform as veterans. Put time into training them, gearing them, and counseling them on various subjects (gear, rotation, etc). For instance, going through old content would provide a "safe and sane" environment to learn basic raid skills. Adding restrictions (we use THIS tactic, and to increase the difficulty, I want everyone to do it half-nekkid) to get people used to how tactics work. Not to mention the bosses where tactics triumph over brute force. You can use achievements as a carrot, if you like.
3) Have a Plan B. And a Plan C. If folks are wiping on this boss for too long, go take out trash in a different instance. Or hold less stressful (or more social) events to let folks take a break. Once performance starts slipping, call it a day instead of insisting on One More Try.
Eirik Apr 22nd 2011 8:40PM
One thing to add to that... 2x 10-man does not necessarily mean you have 20 people raiding. My own guild had 2 10-man runs going on alternate days, but with significantly fewer than 20 players involved. Drama ensued one day when we had *almost* enough people to run both groups at the same time.
Ice Apr 23rd 2011 6:48AM
And please, PLEASE guild/raid leaders..
When its "bio break" please stop the "Ok 3-5 minute break for bio"..specially if you are wanting to deal with "angry person". Its not enough, the conversation can get cut off etc.
I mean seriously, three minutes only? Make it one 10 minute break during the whole raid. Tell people to go walk, take bio, relax, go take water and fruits etc. Sounds MUCH better than literally running around the house.
Its way better than two totally random "3 minute" breaks ones.
Three minutes isnt even enough to walk to fridge to get one sandwich, you have to basically run there and do everything in hurry specially if you want to go to bio too!
I mean look at schools. You see clear difference on attention spans and emotions when the classes are two 45 mins straight rather than when theres 15 min break in between.
dacamper Apr 24th 2011 3:34AM
One good piece of advice is don't worry about max dps, worry about surviving the encounter and doing the right things first. I'd rather die to an enrage than lose people early because they messed up because they were trying to top the meters and do the crazy raid dance,
You should be excited by the new Dr Who, the first episode was pretty crazy!
Colombe Apr 26th 2011 7:32AM
POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT
It's not just for animals.
I raid with this horrible DK who gets verbally aggressive at people over vent and his massive ego prevents him from accepting any blame. He can be a great friend to talk to, but raids have gotten really hairy with him in them. Unfortunately, I'm one of the few people that can get him to shut up when he starts arguing.
Best way to fight the tension he twists around in the air is to just compliment people on what they are doing RIGHT. Just a "good job" or "awesome". There are so many things you can say in vent during the fight to one or more raiders about how well they dealt with a mechanic. There are 20948702983 ways to NOT kill a boss; a lot of time is saved by pointing them in the direction of HOW to kill a boss. This also lifts the dark veil of low raid confidence and makes raiders feel better about their position in the raid. They'll want to do that job correctly if they know they'll get some praise and are acknowledged. A holy priest whispered me once after a raid saying how stress-less the Nef attempts were, even though we kept wiping. Point out progress and remind them when they succeed. Your raiders will realize that they have progressed. Maybe not in boss % but in mastering mechanics.
Not enough Raid leaders compliment their raiders and it's the best thing you can do to cheer them up about wipes and make their progression more enjoyable. It even gets that grumpy DK into a better mood by the end of the raid. If someone is still being frazzled and stressed about wiping then remind them of what has gone well. Sometimes it really does just take and RNG with the raiders, not the game, to get all of their mechanic handling to fall into place.
And out of personal experience, the worst raid I've ever been in was a ToC25 back in Wrath when the RL kept calling us idiots in vent. He was being horribly degrading and we had to keep replacing people. If I weren't so determined for loot from Anub than I would have left the raid too. The game is an MMO. You will be dealing with real people. Please respect that.
And that episode of Doctor Who was absolutely amazing. If I did not know there was a whole season then i probably would have cried at that first part.
Badgelooter Apr 26th 2011 1:56PM
I second this, and not just to individual players, and not just after a wipe. Keeping focused on progress is important while learning a fight, as is setting realistic goals. The first time you see a boss, you should aim to hit the second phase. Then the third. If it's a 2 phase encounter (I'm thinking Atramedes, for one), focus on getting his HP down more each attempt. If the boss is dying a little more each attempt, then people are learning what they need to know.
When someone does something right (continuing with the Atra fight), hit them right then with a "good job smacking the gong after just one tick of Searing flame" or, "nice job keeping your sound down that attempt." Then turn it around to the raid. "Did everyone see where Larry was standing that attempt? I'm going to mark him so you can follow."
The other thing I've used with some success is to let the whining player be the RL for the next attempt. Tell them to watch everyone so they can see what happened and give feedback. This forces them to realize that lots of things are happening. As a melee player, I recognize that I have a huge blindspot in that I can't see what my healers/ranged are doing unless I'm constantly slewing my camera around. Forcing people to watch what others are dealing with cools the temper sometimes. If the best the whiner can offer is "stop failing", then quickly point out out unhelpful that advice was and tell them to keep their mouths shut until they can offer pointers on specific failures. Being in the spotlight may make them think twice about popping off.