A week ago, the venerated Bear Butt made a post reacting to a blogger speaking about raid guilds struggling this summer. He mentioned in it that he’d like to hear my reactions. Bear’s post can be found here. The Officer’s Quarters post he was reacting to can be found here. Neither are necessary to understand this entry, but both are good reads. Both Bear Butt and Officer’s Quarters speak about two issues, the death of raiding guilds and taking back old members. I’m only going to focus on raiding guild death for this post, as I’ve covered returning members in a previous post.

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Why are raiding guilds falling apart? We’ve all seen it. I don’t think a single server has escaped the death of a well respected raiding guild, but why is it happening? Have these guilds all been simultaneously mismanaged into oblivion? Are aliens shooting discontent gamer radiation down to the Earth? Is WoW dying? Nope, well maybe, but I leaning towards more mundane causes.

I believe current raiding guild deaths are being caused by a combination of three factors.

• It’s summer
• There is a looming expansion
• There is a significant difficulty and gear gap between Hyjal/Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau

It’s summer - The typical hardcore raiding demographic is college kids. (Statistics gathered by a rigorous process of thinking back on the hardcore raiders I’ve known over the past years) Summer for college kids generally means a job, moving back in with their family, maybe sharing a car, basically less control over their own schedules and availability. Outside of that, summer is the time of barbecues, vacations, day trips to the beach or an amusement park, reconnecting with old friends, etc. In my own guild this has affected us:

• one of our two main tanks is currently on a 3 week vacation to France,
• one of our enhancement shaman just came back from Italy.
• One of my favorite priests has to pick up his sister from work at EXACTLY the start time of our raids.
• The list goes on and on.

In addition to that, some people are working hard to re-arrange their schedules to avoid having it interact with raid time. When raids don’t run silky smooth they may start to question why they’ve made that effort, or feel bitter towards their teammates who haven’t.

There is a looming expansion - With the flood of information about Wrath available, many players have their eyes on the future. They realize that in a few months the purple gear they are wearing will be replaced. For those that raid primarily for gear, they look around and realize they are in a hamster wheel, gear will always be replaced they’ll never “finish.” This can be disconcerting and cause people to wonder why they play or at least why they raid. Even for the less gear focused, they may be looking around wondering what aspects of the game they are missing by focusing on raiding.

Sunwell is hard yo! - Sunwell is significantly harder than Black Temple and Hyjal. The fights are more complex and leave less room for error. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s also. in my opinion, designed gear wise for people who have been farming Illidan for at least 6 weeks, more time than that, if the loot gods look upon your guild with disfavor. So when a raiding guild first sets foot in Sunwell they are either; woefully undergeared or fat and lazy from 6 or more weeks of just farming old content.

All of these challenges taken individually are painful, yet manageable. With their collision though, most guilds don’t have the strength or energy to master them. But fear ye not! I am not here to depress you with bad news of your impending doom. I have suggestions.

First, be it known that my guild, where you mostly hear me spout off a list of positive suggestions and ideas, is not immune to this phenomena. We have struggled. We have not progressed as quickly through raid content as I know we can. We are affected by these things too, and my suggestions are not the end all be all of leading your guild through this time period. They are just one GMs list of stuff that works or doesn’t work. With that lengthy preamble here are my suggestions:

• Turn these challenges into positives
• Publically acknowledge your struggles
• Draw on your strengths
• Ask for help

Turn these challenges into positives - I know I just talked about how all these things suck, but the fact is they are also all AWESOME. It’s summer time, the sun is shining, girls are in bikinis and life is generally good. Capitalize on the good mood that summer brings and capture that in your raids. People’s schedules are erratic, use that as a reason to let people try something new. If that’s respeccing a hybrid or bringing in a well geared alt, at this point in the game most people are very open to doing old content from a new perspective. There’s an expansion looming, people are excited about new class abilities, Death Knights and new raid zones. They are excited about the game again! This can help shake of the dulldromes, but remind them while they have their eyes on the future, the reason most raiders learn about our classes and gear up is to experience the raid content. The time period in which to experience TBC raid content is running out, let’s make the best of that time by focusing our raid time to make sure we get those experiences. Sunwell is hard, but that’s what we play for. I don’t know about you, but I get bored when I’m not challenged. Sunwell is a challenge and a half and it keeps me on my toes. It’s heightened my skills as a healer, raid leader and guild leader. I don’t know about the others, but deep down that’s why I play. Life is complex and situations aren’t always what we chose, but all of these challenges have locked within them the potential to be something that grows and strengths your guild in addition to the challenge they provide. You can’t will them away, but you can capitalize on that.

Publically acknowledge your struggles - Your guild looks to it’s leaders the most when things are rough. Don’t hide the fact that the summer and other factors have rocked your world. It may seem counterintuitive but by acknowledging these struggles you improve morale. You send a message to your guild that you are aware of the challenges and working to make them better. You can also help people articulate what they are feeling but don’t know how to express. Sometimes people feel a general sense of discontentment, but don’t always know why. By helping them identify why they are discontent, you can help them find a solution. Finally, but publically acknowledging your struggles, you get your guild focused on them which can lead to some brilliant solutions you didn’t think of. Some of the best solutions my guild has had, weren’t my idea. I’m not here to have all the great ideas, I’m here to make sure the great ideas turn into great solutions.

Draw on your strengths - This may seem like fairly obvious advice, but you’d be surprised how many people miss it. Your guild has different strengths and weaknesses than mine. It has to, it has different people in it. When you’re looking for solutions, it’s great to talk to other people, but remember you’re looking for a solution for your guild. Think about your guild’s strengths and find ways to capitalize on those strengths. If you have an amazing graphical artist, then maybe have them draw diagrams of bosses you’re struggling on. If you have a guild full of friend ranks maybe help organize them into a support crew that helps farm consumables for the raiders and in return hand out some of those yellow and green epic gems you have piling up for their pvp gear.

Ask for help - The worst thing that can happen to a struggling raid guild is leader burn out. When the guild is dissatisfied that creates a lot of pressure on you. It also generally makes some of your members feel helpless to change the dissatisfaction that surrounds them. By asking for help you do two things, you take the pressure off of you and you empower your member. Not ever member feels this way, but sometimes just knowing they are doing something to contribute makes a raider feel content. Don’t be afraid to ask for help on the routine things in order to free you up to focus on the things only you can do. Do make sure to give people thank yous and credit when they’ve agreed to help you.

I’ve said before that what defines you as a leader isn’t always keeping your guild running smoothly, it’s what you do when your guild isn’t running smoothly. I hope these things will give you food for thought, or help you in some ways. If you are the leader of a struggling raiding guild; take a deep breath, remember you aren’t alone in facing these challenges, know that these challenges will pass and your guild will be stronger for it.

Today’s post comes from the mail bag. By the way, if you are one of the lovely people who have written in and you haven’t gotten a response yet I promise I’m getting to you. It generally means you’re getting a long response I plan on posting rather than a short and sweet answer. Please keep writing in and have some patience with me.

Auz,
I guess I have a sort of question, but it’s kind of rambly and behind a story. I don’t know if you read or follow my blog at all, if you don’t, here is the lowdown: for the past year or so, my boyfriend has been the guild leader of a very fun and active guild of some 200 people. We are a dual roleplaying/entry-level raiding guild, do Kara runs, etc.

Anyways, a few weeks back the boyfriend basically effectively quit WoW and gave Guild Leadership to me. I feel very overwhelmed. I have never really been a “leader” sort of person and suddenly being presented with having all these decisions and people asking me to make decisions, is very hard. I’ve had to scale back the guild because having two different focuses was just too hard: at this point I’ve scaled back on the all-guild raiding and now we’re sorta raiding with other guilds. This is just because first and foremost we are a casual/RP guild at heart, and we all hang out together because we are *friends* (as opposed to because we want to raid– as much as we love to do that, too.)

I have a lot of great support in the forms of my officers– heck you may be pleased to know that the my two second-in-commands are both chicks as well as me and they are very supportive and offer a lot of help. Still, I can’t help but be overwhelmed by the stress and I often feel that I bring nothing to the table as a GM– people tell me an idea, and I don’t know how to approach the idea because I am bad at making decisions so I usually just approve it right off the bat. I don’t think this will be good in the long run.

In short, I guess I am asking… what does one do when a guild falls into one’s lap? And is it possible that some people are simply not cut out for this job? I worry I may not be. I can teach and I can write, but I just have never envisioned myself as a leader. I don’t want to be the downfall of this wonderful guild that was sort of “given” to me.

-Pike (of Aspect of the Hare)

Through informal polling, namely talking to the people I’ve met in my online travels, I’ve determined that this kind of experience is the number one source of all new guild leaders. Guild leading is a huge time commitment and a lot of responsibility, and sometimes changes in real life or just burnout means a GM can’t make the commitment they used to and someone new has to take the reigns, often quite unexpectedly. This leaves the new GM perplexed and needing to get it together quickly. (Remind me later on I want to write about the importance of a succession plan.) It sounds like your question is broken into two parts; Am I doing it wrong? and Are there people not cut out for GMing?

Am I doing it wrong?

First - Your former GM chose your for a reason. Even disheartened GMs who burn out are protective of their guild. My co-GM and I joke that it’s our baby. (Which raises an eyebrow from Mr. Auzara who wasn’t aware I had a kid) Your GM likely knows more about the people in your guild than anyone else, and they picked you. That’s pretty strong evidence that you’re cut out for it. In this particular case, I’m willing to bet your boyfriend knows you very well, and knows your flaws and weaknesses as well as your strengths.

Second - You have something no one else does, access to the former GM. You can ask about how he was working to grow the guild, what he might do, etc. Clearly he doesn’t want the responsibility of full time GMing on his head or he wouldn’t have passed on the responsibility, but if you’re ever stuck he might be an excellent resource.

Third - Leadership is a team effort, I don’t believe anyone can do it alone. Even those who in name are sole leaders often spread tasks and responsibilities to other trusted members. It sounds like you have a team of great leaders with good ideas who respect you. Any new leader of an existing environment will need to identify your existing leaders and cultivate a working relationship with them. In addition, identify potential leaders from the membership and look to develop them.

Fourth -Develop your vision. You don’t have to come up with all the ideas by yourself or any of them to serve as a good leader. You steer the ship so to speak. Keep your eye on the horizon and keep your ear on your crew. It sounds like you have a solid idea of what your guild is at heart and what it’s members want. You could serve as a referee bouncing ideas off of you and making sure they are inline with where the crew wants to go.

Fifth - Define what you are willing to give. GMing will consume any and all time you chose to give it. There is always something else to do. Do yourself a favor and first define what time you can afford to give to the guild and then work to fit the things you have to accomplish into that time line.

Sixth - Find a mentor. As a new GM the best thing you can do is find an experienced GM who is willing to take you under their wing. Some things are common to GMing experiences and some skills are developed over time. If you can, find someone to bounce ideas off of and vent frustrations to. (<3Yeti, Tarsus and Lume!)

Seventh - I, a random internet stranger, cannot tell you if you’re doing it wrong, only your guild can. There are millions of different guilds out there all with different views “right” and “wrong.” Nin has come here and passionately argued with me that overruling a loot decision is “wrong,” while others have argued that it’s “right.” The fact is, it’s wrong for Nin and right for those that argued it’s right. What makes a good leader is ultimately decided by those you lead.
Are there people not cut out for GMing?

Yes, emphatically yes.

There are universal truths of GMing.

• You will spend more time focused on the game and the guild than if you were not leading.
• You will hear complaints.
• You will have to make tough decisions.
• You will be to blame when things go wrong.

A good GM needs tools to handle these things.

Time - You need the spare time to dedicate to leading. Lack of time is often what ends up causing GMs to have to resign. You also need strong time management skills so you can make the best use of the time you can dedicate to the game and to leading.

Complaints - You need a thick skin. Regardless of how well or how poorly your guild is doing people will have something to complain about. A good rule of thumb I use to measure the health of my guild is not how much complaining is there, instead it’s how petty are the complaints. If people are complaining about things like “He gave the turtle book he won to another mage and not me.” or “The loot I want hasn’t dropped in 6 months.” This is the sign of a healthy guild. If complaints run along the lines of “He called me a useless mage in guild chat.” or “I haven’t enjoyed a raid in 6 months.” This is the sign of a more serious problem. Good GMs learn to take these complaints and turn them into something positive. That being said, these complaints are the highest cause of GM burn out.

Tough Decisions - I’ve said before, you don’t have to have all the ideas to be the GM, but as GM the final call is left to you. You need to have a vision for your guild but that vision has to be tempered by the needs of the other people who share your guild. In many ways your job as GM is to take the needs of 40 or so individuals and mesh them together into one guild focus. This involved compromise on the parts of the members and awareness on the part of the GM. At some point you will make a decision that you know is bad for an individual you value, but is still right for the guild as a whole. It’s a tough call to make and every time I’ve had to make one like that I’ve hated it. It’s also what makes a strong GM.

The Blame Game - People like to assign blame and they rarely assign it to themselves. As GM you’ve signed off on every decision, therefore when something backfires guess who’s fault it is? You need to be able to accept accountability and you need to learn how to turn failure into triumph. I’ll give you an example from my days waitressing.

Once upon a time I was a waitress, I was good at my job and therefore was “rewarded” with twice the tables as a normal waitress. One day I screwed up. My table had ordered 20 minutes ago and I went to ask the cook where their food was. Ooops I never entered their order. FAIL! Fortunately the cook had a kind heart and put my order in with a rush. I quickly went to my table and said “I’m sorry, I’ve neglected to put your order in, it’s in now but it’ll still be about 10 minutes. I’d like to make it up to you with one of our readily available items to tide you over for free, what can I bring you?” The customers accepted my offer graciously and I brought them out salads (paid for out of my own pocket). 10 minutes later the cook had the food ready and I brought it out to them. I apologized again for my mistake and praised the cook for his quick response time. They got through their meal and I was very attentive to their needs (I’d just cost them 20 minutes it was the least I could do.) When they were leaving I noticed them talking to my boss. I was definitely in trouble. I cleared off their table and did my best to focus on my current customers. Having already screwed up once that day, I didn’t need any more angry customers talking to my boss. At the end of the night my boss called us around and read off a note the customer had left to me in front of everyone. Apparently rather than complain my customers were impressed that I’d taken responsibility for my mistake. They were also impressed that I offered them compensation and that I passed praise onto the cook. They left me a $40 tip, and my boss paid me back for the salads. My boss said something that I’m afraid I don’t remember and gave me the note and a raise. I keep that note with me even today as a reminder that it’s okay to screw up, as long as you take responsibility and work to fix it.

You will screw up. You’ve taken on too much responsibility to not mess up from time to time. What defines you as a leader won’t be your lack of screwing up, it will be the grace with which you recover from those mistakes.

That’s a quick and dirty introduction. It should be known that there are about a million things to learn and develop as an online leader. I’ve edited this post about 5 times and I still simultaneously think it is too long and too short. Thanks for your question Pike! I hope this helps you.

I read a few business leadership blogs. Not all of what they talk about directly translates to MMO leadership, but sometimes there’s a gem. Today I was inspired by Rhett Laubach of Personal Leadership Insight and his 10List. In the same spirit, I present you with my 10 Reasons I love being a GM list.

1) The people - As an online leader I’ve had a chance to meet and get to know some amazing people.

2) The thrill of accomplishment - Accomplishing a task in an MMO is always a thrill, looking around and realizing these people wouldn’t have come together to do it without your efforts definitely magnifies that thrill for me.

3) Constant Motivation - Having a bad day? Frustrated by real life? Doesn’t matter, people are counting on me. It’s a great motivation to “Get a helmet,” or get over life’s little hiccups. (My Pally Officer, Sultan Fantastic, frequently says “Life’s rough get a helmet.”)

4) Feeling of empowerment - While I certainly don’t get to do what I want on a whim, I more empowered than the average player to help enact the changes I want to see.

*

5) Never, ever having to pug - Seriously, I haven’t been in the LFG channel in a year. It’s wonderful.

6) Rarely having people question you when you say you’re busy - Ever been repeatedly asked by a guild mate to run them through an instance? Yeah that doesn’t happen to me. If I let one of my members know I’m working on something for the guild, that’s generally sufficient.

7) Setting Behavioral Standards - Even unintentionally a GM sets the standard for what’s acceptable behavior with their own actions, and intentionally with what they allow. This generally means if it pisses me off, it doesn’t fly.

There is always something to do - I have never logged in and wondered what I should do today. Something is always waiting.

9) The opportunity to grow out of game skills - In addition to working to master my class and overcome new raid bosses, I’m also challenged to develop my interpersonal skills, communication techniques and my organizational tools, all of these things come with me to the real world.

10) The opportunity to help others grow - In my role as GM I’ve had the opportunity to make connections with other people and help them develop both in game skills and some out of game skills. Nothing made me more proud than when one of our raiders found a job in his dream career path and had to step away from his raiding commitment but said that he’d take the lessons our guild had taught him with him to his career and he knew it would make him more successful.

When I first saw this Mr. Laubach’s list I thought this would be a short post I could have ready before my company came over. 4 hours later and with the help of my company, (Hi Gumi!) it turns out it wasn’t as quick as I thought it would be. That being said, taking the time to write down these things has really helped me focus on what makes me so passionate about my guild and good leadership. I’d encourage all of you to sit down and try this. What 10 things do you love about what you put your time into?

*Most of the pictures I use aren’t of people I know, but that one IS my puppy. I know it’s poor quality, it’s still my puppy.

I’ve been a little under the weather this week, but it’s been too long since I posted. In typical Auz fashion I’ve decided it was time to look over the guild forums and find something vaguely amusing.

I made this post today. It’s a time when as officers we decided to go back to our members for feedback about an issue. It’s also one of those weird times where we are holding a member up for discussion. Before the post was made, we talked to the member to make sure he was comfortable with this.

First and foremost let me say this is the first time we’ve asked for feedback directly relating to an individual in a public format. Given the culture of respect for our teammates we’ve developed, I’m going to assume that if you have negative things to say about the person behind the character, you’ll PM them to CasterLead or myself rather than post them here.

Alright Auz, you have my attention, what’s the deal?

We has a problem. “AffLock” is a long standing member of the guild who has recently taken on a job that prevents him from making our attendance requirement. That being said, he is making our progression nights and “CasterLead” and the other officers view him as fairly irreplaceable (I mean he LIKES affliction and he’s not all emo). When he’s not available to us, he’s taken the time to train the lovely and talented “CuteMage” and shared his account with her, so we’re guaranteed to have an affliction lock available to us.

Okay Auz, what about this is a problem?

Well being below the attendance cap means “Aff’s” not eligible for gear until all the others have passed on it. Which means slowly but surely “Aff’s” gear is going to start to lag behind, to the point where he won’t be useful on progression nights anymore.

Oh that is a problem, but you said something about not attacking “Aff”…. when do I get to say naughty things about him…errr I mean, surely Auzara, you must have a solution.

“Aff” suggested that as his actual play time hasn’t changed, just the hours he can play in, that he put that time to industriously farming for the guild to “earn” the same time you guys put in. If that’s demon slaying elixirs or “‘Aff’, can you grab me some adepts, I didn’t have the time I needed this week” In exchange we would waive the 3600 EP requirement for “Aff.” While his gear acquisition rate would be slower than the others (due to slower decay rate and less EP earned) it wouldn’t lag so significantly as to make him not useful on progression nights.

Okay Auz this is a great story, but um… shouldn’t this be in the officer forums?

It was in the officer forums, but we while we mostly support this plan, the people it’s really going to affect are you guys. You’ll have “Aff” to compete with for gear and you’ll be benefited by the farming. Also, “Aff” has earned the officer’s respect for his time and commitment to the guild but also his approach when he got this job. But anytime you make an exception of this magnitude, there will be accusations of favoritism and not fair play. So we decided that if we’re going to be showing favoritism, let’s let the caster core do it. So casters, provide us with feedback. Is “AffLock’s” offer to put in equal times farming that he’s missing raiding worth it to you guys to pull him in your loot rotation? Remember what I said though, while we are discussing a fellow player and friend please keep your comments constructive and related to the discussion. Comments I think won’t help the discussion will be moved to the officer forums.

So now, I can talk about “Aff” and that time I caught him with the goat and the crisco?

Only if you think it’s relevant to the conversation little voice in Auz’s head. Now, let’s go get ice cream!

Sweet I love ice cream!

So why’d you share this Auz, I mean other than being lazy? Well I wanted to show this as an example of:

A) Why I’m not writing for you guys right now - I mean I’m talking to myself about ice cream.

B) Involving your members in decisions - This was a sticky wicket for us, I mean the player is solid, but it’s a pretty massive departure from our rules. When you decide who’s getting in for the raid, you can’t involve the whole guild, the same with which instance we’re raiding. In this case though, we can and frankly I think we should. It these guys who will be affected by both the farming and the loot calls. Don’t forget to keep your members involved when you can.

C) Getting more opinions - You guys aren’t in my guild, so this is mostly just for my curiosity, but what do you guys think about massive departures from the established rules? Is it okay sometimes? Should it never be done? Is farming outside of raid times a valid time make up for being there for raids?

D) I can feel better about having posted “something” and focus on back on getting better and what the guild needs from me.

Hey Auz!

First off, I want to tell you how much I _love_ your blog! I mean…you’re a girl, leading a guild, and a healer…it’s like me, only, you know, with better wording. Superb! It provides such a great basis of everything I want to discuss - healing, leading, raiding, and some pretty great singing to boot. However, I’m sure you’re busy so I’ll make this quick. This was titled “Ask Auz” so I thought it was kind of…a good idea to get some feedback from you on a topic that’s been bothering me.

Introductions quickly: I’m Tulani, a holy priest and Healing Leader of Lothar US, currently 208th in the US, with 4/6 SW with Mu’ru less than a week away from server first; the very first server first for my guild (stupid alliance.) However, lately I’ve been noticing a few things in the healing core:

1) Overpopulation. We have TOO MANY HEALERS. But they’re, uh, generally, all great. Maybe one or two aren’t. Everyone’s antsy since sitting out half the roster week after week for Mu’ru isn’t good, and I’ve gotten a lot of “should I quit? I know we’re full” tells, or just the constant bitchingandwhining of “you always sit me!” To make matters worse, an old resto druid (previous healing lead), who is AMAZING, wants to come back, and the other officers, and I even, are all for it, I don’t think I could make room. What would you do to calm everyone down and make them realize that we’re a little full, yes, but that the only reason they’re feeling like this is because Mu’ru only take 6 healers?

2) Also, I’ve been noticing bad looting going on. Not just trying to scramble to get “that item first” but taking items over other people who could use it more. I often pass loot to those it would be better or more of an upgrade for, but the other priest has called me a DKP whore for it (I have amassed a giant pile), even though I pass to her often, do research on the items and my healers, and take upgrades for myself still. She on the other hand, like many healers, bids on ANYTHING she can use - shadow gear, holy gear, you name it. It all culminated on last week’s Twins kill - 5 shaman and 2 priests in raid, and the resto druid takes the haste offhand, which is THE BEST shaman offhand and a superb priest one. I had, yet again, passed in hopes that a shaman would grab it, because I didn’t think a druid would bid. We run flat out Zero Sum DKP, and I’m worried that loot monitoring would cause issues, and also slow raids. How can I tell my healers that SW will be on farm soon and you’ll all get more gear than you could ever want without talking down to them? I wanted to make a big forum post but we don’t have a specified “healing” forum…perhaps I should make one? I wanted to also, with our bloated roster, get down who needs in for what boss to help alleviate loot and raiding woes.

3) Finally, and I’ll make this quick, I started out raid leading and whatnot about 2 years ago, but usually only on the sidelines. I was appointed to healing lead here by the old one when he quit without me hardly knowing what was going on (I should have seen it, he had me start leading more and more healing while he sat out until I hardly realized it anymore). The odd thing was, I didn’t get as much respect as he did. I’m not bad at it in any stretch; I’m actually very good. However, I’ve realized over time it’s really because I’m a girl, and I’m younger than many of them. Over time I’ve gotten more and more respect, and I can lay down the law very easily, but I’m often afraid to make big posts or anything because, well, I’m afraid people won’t listen. Reading your blog though, along with experience, has really helped me out so much. Now I hardly find respect an issue, and people aren’t afraid to talk to me about topics anymore. I can also do more than just heal lead now too; I can actually lead entire raids, discuss issues, and stand up for points of view. It really has made an impact on my leadership career and I couldn’t be more proud of our guild and it’s progress, and feeling like I had a big part in it.

Thanks for your time Auz, I know you’re a busy woman and this turned out a lot longer than I ever expected. If you could respond it would be very much appreciated, but if not, I understand, and I hope you know that I love the work you’re putting out there, and you should know that it helps!

-Tulani

Tulani,

It sounds like you are suffering from one of the same problems I am. As this is something I have been struggling with too, I wanted to make sure I was giving you a well rounded response. This is why I also shared your query with a colleague I respect, Lume the Mad. In addition to blogging, Lume is a resto druid who leads a guild that’s 40th in US progression. You can find his response here.

Sunwell requires a large variation in the number and type of healers you use and the types of healers that are the strongest for the fight. In retrospect it may have been wiser for me to use some of my hybrids for healing the large healing number of healing encounters and keep the healing population more stable. That being said, not all hybrids are created equal on the healing front and in my case the most amazing healers are generally the most amazing dps.

…….

Names are obscured to protect the healy. Why’d I take a picture and not just copy the text, Matt says I need more pictures to break up my wall of text. (See Matt I listen, and yes pictures of text count)

I made that post for the first time about a month after we started the guild and since then I’ve updated it about once a month, or after a significant healer change. I think this post provides the following 3 benefits:

• My healers know I have a plan - We’re not just willy nilly adding people or making a mad dash for the best healers we can find.

• They can clearly see my raid selection criteria - When I say, well dude, you’ve been missing raids without telling me, they can’t say “I didn’t know that meant you’d be sitting me.”

• It’s clear what my expectations are and what my goals for the team are - I expect the things that get you raid invites, my goal is to speed up our target identification and reaction time.

Aside from the “State of the Healing” address, my individual healers that I think need improvement know what I want them to work on. For example, last night I took two of my druids in a channel and said: “DruidA you are amazing at emergency healing but you lack confidence in your target selection, and DruidB you are amazing at keeping hots up on the tank(s) at all times, but you are lacking in your utilization of your emergency healing spells. Finally DruidA you’re going on vacation, teach DruidB what you’ve been doing on the new fight we just learned. While you two are at it, teach each other how to do what the other is doing, because you’re both better druids than I am.” This doesn’t work with every healer pair, but it works with these two because of their respect for each other and generally positive attitudes.

Over time, I’ve found that most “’should I quit? I know we’re full’ tells, or just the constant bitchingandwhining of ‘you always sit me!’” comes from insecurity or feeling under valued. You can combat this by making the time to sit down with each of your healers and speak with them individually. I forget which leadership book I picked this up out of, but I like these meetings to follow a Positive, Negative Positive pattern. (You can see an example of this pattern in the Druid conversation above.) Regardless of if you have to go looking for the negative feedback go find it. Give them something to work on and focus on other than raid selection. If you have to dig extremely deep to find it tell them that too. Lume’s post also suggests this kind of meeting and addresses another topic you can discuss in this meeting.

It sounds like adding that resto druid back into the mix will strengthen your healing core and I think you should do it but I think the way you do it will carry weight with your team. Make it a point to sit him at first and gradually fold him into your healing roster. As a previous officer he should see the wisdom in earning his stripes with the team (especially the new ones) and he needs to learn the fights he missed while he was gone and gear up anyway. Seeing your previous officer sitting with them will drive home the point that it’s not about all about skill or trust especially with your veteran healers.

Poor Looting

First YES add a healing forum. Go do that now! I’ll wait for you to get back .

~hmms quietly to myself~

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You back? Okay good. Now this can wait until after the blog reading, but if you don’t have one go add the Tank, Melee and Caster forums too. You’ve outlined a classic problem, is having conversations with my raiders about their loot choices important enough to take up valuable raid time? The good news is we don’t have to answer that question. Make the loot decisions and have the conversations before the loot is on the floor. In my forums each of my raiders is requested to publicly post their gear plans. This provides us with the following benefits:

• An opportunity for raiders to see what their teammates want- I use a staff. Would the Illidan Gavel and the Archimonde offhand provide me with stronger stats? Yes. However, all of my healers can use the gavel with great result. I want that gavel in the hands of the people who AoE heal for me. I wear my staff with the pride of knowing that I’m one of the few people on my. team who can put that staff to good use, and having that staff means the gavel is in the hands of the people who benefit the most from it. My other healers can see what their peers want, and they can discus in advance who benefits the most from it. Do I require this from my healers when they bid on gear? Absolutely not. I do instill in my healers the knowledge that healing, more than any other role, is about teamwork, the strongest team kills bosses, not the strongest healer.

• The ability to quickly evaluate what bosses my healers still need to be killing – When we look at dropping instances or bosses off our raiding schedule, I look at these gear plans. What bosses do my healers want? When I make decision regarding who’s in for farm nights, I look at these plans. This information makes my decisions stronger.

• It forces my healers to think about what they want before it’s on the floor – When people are forced to make split second decisions, they tend to take something they aren’t sure about rather than miss the opportunity. Requesting gear plans requires them to think this out in advance when they have more time and more information available, generally resulting in better decisions.

• It allows us to have discussions where I am thinking about overruling them in advance – I love my druids, but they aren’t getting Illidan’s Gavel over my AoE healers or even my pallys. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Knowing if they want it in advance means I can tell them when I’m going to overrule them in advance. It gives me a chance to talk to them and allow them to make their case for the item in their hands when I can really focus on just them. It also allows them to hear my points without feeling rushed or having the adrenaline of having just killed a boss and thinking they’ve won loot in their system. Lume has gone over in more detail the hows and whys of overruling a player’s loot decisions in his post.

Compliments all around

First, thank you very much for the kind words. It’s very affirming to hear that the time I spend working on the blog is having a positive impact! Hearing from readers definitely adds to the reward of writing beyond just what I get out of writing things out and forcing myself to take my own advice. (I hate it when I’m right and it means more work for me.)

Second, the fact that you’re taking the time to read and ask questions means you’re doing it right. Certainly there are great leaders that can do everything by instinct, but even these great leaders can learn from other people’s experience rather than having to experience it themselves. I can’t tell you how much better my leadership has gotten since I’ve met Lume and had him to bounce ideas off of and share frustrations with. Don’t get discouraged while you try and herd your healers through Sunwell. Your leadership got them there and your dedication and continued leadership will get them through it. The trying times are what define people as leaders and give your team confidence in your leadership once you’re back on firmer ground.