When we first started this guild I was trying to figure out how to measure success in raiding. It seems to me that relative progression is dependent on other people and therefore a poor indicator especially given our late start. With this in mind, I decided I’d measure success on if I thought we were capable of killing a boss with the experience and gear we currently had. We have Kalecgos to 14% and I think we should have killed him last week; but we didn’t. So I’ve spent a large portion of the past 3 or 4 days figuring out why. Since this research took me away from blogging for a bit, I figured I’d try and make it up to you by documenting “Auz’s OMG Why Haven’t We Killed This Yet” strategies and analysis tools.

Let me preface this by stating my perceived credentials AND lack of credentials - I am not a raid strategist. If I were a raid strategist I might do this differently. I do believe I have an excellent understanding of raid healing and healing teams and that this understanding is in some ways linked to a fairly good understanding of tanking (though I’m a terrible tank) but when it comes to DPS and what to CC for the trash etc, it’s just not my thing. Thankfully I have an amazing raid leader in my employ to do those things for me and let me do “the healing thing.” I also have 6 years of statistical analysis under my belt and I’m not afraid to confuse you with it.

So for me the first step was to limit myself to my strengths and go find someone to look over the DPS for ways to strengthen that. Sure I could poke my head in the DPS numbers, but I know my lack of experience and understanding will just make me look like an idiot. So I started with asking my amazing raid leader AND my amazing fury warrior what they thought of the DPS. Their feedback bore out what I was seeing too, that the DPS is not currently what is keeping us from winning this fight. With that in mind, I still asked them to look over their DPSers for any improvements they can make in anticipation of Brutalus and because despite some boss mechanics being designed to challenge one aspect or another of a raid, all raid roles can help compensate for each other. I also asked them for their perspective on the tanking and healing regarding threat generation and early DPS deaths. I learned that threat gen was fine and the few early DPS deaths we’d had were mostly avoidable by those DPSers.

So with the concerns of the DPS heard and knowing the DPS was in more capable hands than mine, I shifted to what is my focus, healing. Before we continue, I’d like to take a moment of silence to mourn the lose of my Assessment death reports to the combat log changes and point others who share my woes to GrimReaper (from WoWAce.com) as the only semi working in-game death report mod I’ve found since 2.4. For “what went wrong” from a healing perspective, a death reporting mod is the quickest way to find out why a tank died. That being said, I had no such tool for our Kalecgos attempts, so I started by crawling through our WWS logs and manually finding tank deaths. Hours later I emerged from my hole muttering about demons, dragons and looking for Advil. I also had a sheet of paper noting the first tank that died for each of our attempts, what healers were in that tank’s side, what spells they were casting, what damage the boss was doing to the tank, and what tricks if any the tank has used to aid in his survival. I promptly put that list down and took a break.

Once I’d recovered my will to look at Kalecgos information again, I started drawing conclusions from the information I’d gathered. We were taking 9 healers to this fight. 3-4 Shaman, 2-3 Priests, 1 druid and 2 Pallys. We were using either 4 shaman, or 3 shaman and 1 priest for raid healing and the rest as tank healers. I noted the following things seemed to be true for most of our tank deaths: healers were in the process of being ported from one side to the other, our druid was on the tank side or pallyA was on the tank side. I noted that PallyA was mostly casting Flash of Light. I noted that our druid was pretty much exclusively casting Lifeblooms. I noted that my healers that typically cast big heals were generally on the other side when tanks died. And I discovered one of our tanks was not making any attempts to save himself.

Okay Auz good job, have a cookie! Nope not done yet. I’d figured out how we were not killing it, but now it was time to figure out what guilds that are killing it are doing. So I went WWS hopping. If you don’t know how to do this, just go to their site and browse by boss. The first thing I did was pop over to damage in and see how many tanks they are using. Since my illustrious raid strategy dude pulled together a 3 tank rotation I decided to ignore the 2 and 4 tank reports I saw. It seems counterintuitive to teach my raiders a new rotation strat this late in the game.

So I found 3 reports from different guilds that used three tanks. I took a look at the damage in and found something odd. For 2 of the 3 fights the damage the tanks were taking was 20% lower than our tanks. Looking deeper I found that our tanks were taking an average of 300 more damage per hit than those 2 sets of tanks and it seemed they were dodging more attacks than my tanks. These fights also lasted about a minute longer than our best attempt. I wrote this down on my paper and looked into the other one. On this one the tanks were taking slightly more damage than our tanks so this looked promising to me, what could these marvelous healers be doing? It turns out that guild took 10 healers and 3 shadow priests who were healing a large amount with their VT. Note to self: Bring more shadow priests! I also noted with pride that our DPSers kicked the shit out of the other guild’s DPSers and it made me proud. (I might need a bumper sticker or something)

So my end notes came out thusly:

• Tell druid more direct heals or pair a direct healer with him.
• Tell PallyA to use holy light.
• Ask for shadow priests to help raid heal, freeing more healers for tanks.
• Ask MT if he and other tanks are wearing avoidance or mitigation gear, ask about important tanking pieces our tanks might be missing - see about loot counsel assigning those piece to the tanks if needed.
• Make armor pots for tanks to be used on healer transitions (thanks fury warrior of awesomeness for the idea!)
• Speak to illustrious raid leader about other ways we can help boost our tanks mitigation.
• Personal note, I’d like my 4 piece set bonus.
• Blog about this process, maybe it’ll help someone else.

Lastly, holy jeebus people commented on my blog! I wasn’t really aware anyone else read it. Thanks Coriel for the link and thanks for the kind words guys! For the one that asked about the book, it’s a general “leading a guild requires the following tasks” book. It covers things like recruiting, websites, voice communication, leadership structures, loot distribution methods, choosing officers, etc. Thus far, it has 13 chapters, 5 of which are written in a readable format and 8 of which are notes scribbled in an outline format. I’ve found one editor who’s interested publishing the book when it’s completed but we haven’t formalized a contract yet (I have to finish it first!) I’m trying very hard to make it a general reference and leave most of my opinionated leadership philosophies out of it. The idea is that the book will help you think about how to accomplish the common tasks guild leaders face rather than be a lecture on how I lead a guild, kinda like a becoming a GM handbook. (I know I wished such a thing existed when I started guild leading!) I’m sure as I come closer to finishing it or it’s closer to publishing, I’ll blog about it more.

Every guild has an identity and goals. It’s what draws people to your guild over another. But, even within a guild there’s a spectrum. No matter how “hardcore” your guild is there is someone who is the most hardcore and someone who is the least hardcore. No matter how talented your guild is, someone out there is the most talented and someone is the least talented.

My job is to bridge the gap. How do I keep my hardest core and least skilled player working together? How do I drive policy and raid nights to cater to the majority while still keeping both my most skilled and least skilled players involved?

Some of this is self regulating, your worst players either realize they can’t hang with your guild and get better or find a guild that is more their speed, or if they are a detriment and don’t realize it, are removed. Your best players either work to better their peers, or they find a guild more progressed and leave (A credit to our guild, this hasn’t happened to us yet). But in someways the nature of a guild’s mechanics help to narrow the gap. But even with that self regulation, the gap will always exist, and no matter how narrow the gap becomes, it will feel huge to the people on the far ends of it.

I won’t say I have the answer, but I’ve picked up a few tricks that I think help the process.

1) Know your raiders - I know, there’s like 30-40 of them and one of you, but it’s really not that hard. When you first recruit your raider set aside 20 to 30 minutes to talk to them. Make sure you do it in their first week. The key thing points you want to make and get are: Where do they fall in your spectrum? What do they want out of being a part of your guild? What are their initial impressions? And make sure they feel like they can approach you. About a month after recruitment, touch base again. Here you just want to get their impressions and remind them you are available. After that touching base can be much more low key. I try and pick one raider a night and at some point just touch base and just say “hi.” By going to them, you create an opportunity for them to talk to you about whatever is on their mind without them having to work up the courage to talk to you or worry about bothering you.

2) Be open to feedback - Receiving honest communication from a raider is a gift, even if you don’t like what the raider has to say. When a raider comes to you with something on their mind, they are creating an opportunity for you. If you make them feel like they aren’t being heard, or worse derive them for their opinions, you ensure they won’t give you another. It takes an experienced ear to know if a raider’s problem is sign of larger discontentment that may be shared with other raiders, a sign that raider has just had a bad day, or perhaps an indication that that raider may need to get over it or find a new home. Regardless of the nature of the feedback or what you do with it, coming to you is a sign of respect and a request for help.

3) Be honest - If you’ve identified a raider that’s on one end of the spectrum or the other, be honest with them. I tell my raiders that I appreciate what they are feeling, but this is a guild of 30-40 other people who all have different needs and their needs aren’t shared with the majority. I’m honest about what may change and what will not. If a raider is on the lower end of the skill spectrum I’ll tell them that they are most likely not going to get in for new content nights unless I don’t have another option, but that there is still a place for them in our guild and in our raids. Often times I’ve been able to take my guild into new content because those “bench” players have been there when a “starter” is sick or on vacation. When those times occur I am quick to thank my “bench” player and remind them that this is why they are important to my guild. On the other end of the spectrum, I listen to the needs and desires of my highly skilled or hardcore players and try to accommodate what I can without disenfranchising the other players. I try to give them the recognition they deserve and remind them of why we need some of our weaker players. More than change, I think most of these end of the spectrum raiders need to know their needs are understood and need someone to help manage their expectations.

4) Don’t be accusatory - Just because someone may not fit the average need of your guild, doesn’t mean what they need or want isn’t valid. No matter how foreign their needs/wants may seem to you, it’s their $15 and it’s their free time. Don’t make them feel bad for wanting to spend it differently than you do. If their wants/needs are irreconcilable from the guild’s it’s in your and their best interest to tell them you don’t think they’ll find what they are looking for in your guild, but try not to make them feel bad for trying to find it. Remember in someone else’s eyes you’re either a “scrub” or a “freak with no life.”

These solutions may not work for you or your guild, but it’s been my experience that they help minimize the drama and they work for my leadership style. I think in the end no matter how much people want to say that the driving factor for people playing this game is the loot, they have missed the mark. I think the driving factor for people playing this game is a sense of accomplishment and a sense of being an important part of a community that shares their values. If you measure that accomplishment in loot, mounts, non-combat pets or the number of people on your server that know your name, we’re all just here to have fun with friends.

I’ve been blog surfing lately, to see what other WoW bloggers are discussing. One almost universal thing I’ve hit upon is that everyone seems to be blogging about what is wrong with WoW, what they’d like to see added or removed from the game. As a long time MMORPG player, I can tell you that I have a laundry list of things that I think could be done to improve WoW. You aren’t going to see that laundry list here.

Blizzard developers aren’t wandering by my blog to see what I think about game mechanics and how much I want a little instanced house of my own. Blizzard has a suggestions/feedback forum, and, while the CM presence on WoW forums leaves much to be desired, it’s your best chance of being heard by someone who can make a difference.

I find bitching into the wind to be a waste of time. As players we need to realize that Blizzard is making decisions that give them the largest profit margin. They are making decisions that make their game accessible to the lowest common denominator. It’s what they should do, that’s capitalism. You time would be better spent, and you would be a happier person, if you just figured out how to best operate within the game mechanics.

Your class has been nerfed to oblivion, roll a new class, or figure out how to work around it. Last night my guild had the following classes on top of the dps meter at one point last night, Enhancement Shaman, Fury Warrior, Ret Pallidan. But Auz, Enhancment Shaman is a support class! Yeah, tell that to my enchancement shaman, cause he’s putting his mace in your face. But Auz, Ret Pallies aren’t worth a raid slot! Mine is. But Auz, don’t you have rogues, Why yes, yes we do. To be fair, this was one snapshot in a raid with many factors that I didn’t explain, but I’m willing to bet it’s a snapshot that doesn’t happen often. Most players have accepted their class is a support class and they aren’t competing on the damage meters. My guys, well you can’t tell them to go sit in their support corner, it only makes them fight harder.

Blizzard makes it hard to be nice and progress in raids. Yeah, it is hard, but if it’s worth it to you, you can make it happen. As you can tell in my previous post, we do struggle to maintain a balance, but the fact is, we maintain that balance. Something that’s worth doing, is worth doing even if it’s hard. Furthermore, “nice” isn’t something legislated in game mechanics. It’s about respect and dignity. Sure Blizzard doesn’t reward these things in game, but they have their own intrinsic rewards. My guild does kick ass, and it does it with the kind of people I WANT to be spending 20 hours a week with. I’m a very happy raider. Blizzard didn’t give that to me, I did.

People should help each other in WoW. Some people are helpful some people aren’t. You’re not struggling against Blizzard here, you’re struggling against human nature. Did you sleep in a nice warm bed last night and is your tummy full of good food while you read this? Someone else in your city slept outside last night, and is hungry right now. Do you help them? As human beings we’re just wired not to care about what we don’t see, and not to care as much about strangers as we do about people who are close to us. It takes effort to see and care about the needs of others. This is going to show itself in our leisure time activities just as poignantly as it does in real life.

So that’s my rant. It’s probably also a waste of time, because I doubt the other Bloggers are reading my blog any more than the game developers are reading theirs. What can I say, this hypocrite suit brings out my eyes.

The advent of Sunwell has unsettled the raiding scene on Medivh, the number one progression guild on our server has collapsed and a new raiding guild has appeared on the scene. With new content on the horizon, my co-gm, officers and I find ourselves with the need to re-focus as we prepare to enter and conquer Sunwell.

When we formed up we knew we wanted to be an end game raiding guild. We defined the raiding commitment we required from our raiders. We defined our loot system, our member expectations, how we distribute our resources and picked our officers. Somewhere along the way we went from just trying to get ourselves established and organized to being one of the well respected guilds on the server. In that transition we stopped focusing so much on where we were going and settled into a routine.

Our biggest challenge is that with about 4 months of BT/Hyjal raiding and only one week of a full clear of both, we are slightly under the gear tuning for Sunwell content. Our current loot system as been serviceable for our 9 months, but really does a nice job of distributing loot fairly equally among our raiders. Some officers and members are in favor of ensuring we do more to gear up our main tank and maybe a few other of our highest level attenders to allow us to catch the gear gap for Sunwell more easily. This and a few other suggested changes, are causing us to question, how far is too far to go to ensure rapid progress.

Our raiding guild isn’t like the stereotypical raiding guild. Anyone who has read my other posts, knows how much I focus on the humanity of my raiders. I believe in loyalty and I know the best way to get respect is to give it. When my co-gm and I created this guild, we sat down and talked long and hard about what we wanted it to be and how we wanted it to differ from other raiding guilds. One thing that has never changed is that we want to carry ourselves and treat our raiders and server mates with dignity and kindness.

It’s become readily apparent that in addition to having fostered the environment we wanted, we’ve also gathered a collection of highly skilled players, who are capable of doing more than we have. Some of this can be attributed to our late start to TBC raiding, but some of it is also, that in an effort to be fair and keep all of our members involved in this guild, we are spreading resources equitably, but not always where they will have the largest impact in our raiding success.

The reason we’ve stood behind this policy is that my co-gm and I believe having a strong bench is what’s allowed us to have nearly uninterrupted raiding for 9 months. (We took a week off for Christmas and one night for the Super Bowl) but now, I’m coming to question if this is the best direction for our guild.

While it can be unsettling as a leader to stop and examine something that has been a part of our guild since the beginning, I believe that continuing something because “it’s what we’ve always done” leads to stagnation. Every good leader needs to take a moment every now and again and examine where they are leading their guild and how the needs of their guild have changed. Regardless of what we decide, I’m certain my guild and it’s leadership will be stronger because we’ve taken the time to examine what would otherwise be routine.