Monday raiding - The price of aiming high

Voe had basketball last night so they had to find a healer to replace him.  Gley went over on his shadow priest to their group to DPS for heroic Ultraxion.  Oh dear.  2 priests did not work well healing.  They were disappointed and had to knock it out on normal - with achievement of course :)  But I could tell everyone was disappointed.

Poor Beauti, she respecced disc for that fight, and it didn't work as well for her.  She went non-atonement, which was a different spec to her normal disc spec but she didn't feel it was as good as her holy spec.  Everyone felt sorry for her and her multiple respecs.  I voiced that I had to do it a lot too but Aza said t/hat was self inflicted because I wanted to spec for PVP.  This was true I suppose!

But the rest of the evening also did not go well.  They died on Spine, and also had multiple wipes on Madness.  Fortunately, Voe got back after basketball and came back into the raid and everything went well.  But not without a lot of stress for his team members, who probably now feel like Voe is one of the major supporting pins of their group.

A lot of issues came up after that.  Because Bish can't raid on Thursdays, should he continue in that group? Is it fair for the others who want to raid for 4 days and they can't? Is it fair to Bish that he has to work and must be excluded? And though they had been going well with 2 priests that while, should a better combination of healers be assigned for that group even if they already have the better dps?

The obvious solution is that they take Bloodzta, who as a paladin would make their team look a lot better. However, Bloodzta's healing doesn't seem to be that great but as he said before it may be due to his drug habits rather than poor playing ability. We won't know till he comes and actually heals. But the preconception of his poor playing ability is already in place and those first impressions never change.  And if it is said to give him a chance?  Then they say my group should take him and they take Bladewind.  Then what happens to my group?  Is it fair that we have the lesser dps and lesser heals too?

This is where competitive raiding starts to cause cracks within a guild.  Fingers are pointed at others.  People are not good enough to go with others.  Argument about who should be where causes dissatisfaction and unrest.  What happened to playing as a team?

The group I am in at the moment is the less competitive team.  People don't seem as angry there.  There is no yelling at low dps - though there is a lot of people poking fun at my DPS but they all understand that I'm doing the best that I can, and it's not my role.  Even when we did so badly that week where we couldn't get Madness down, we didn't yell and cry and point fingers, though I remember feeling really down about it.  When we did it easily the following week, was it the nerfs to Dragon Soul that made us get it?  Or was it the fact we had a different paladin healer?  I was feeling happy again after Bladewind came back to raiding, but if we get Bloodzta again will we still be the same?  I'm not so sure.  But should our team take him or the other team?

But the lack of Voe in the other team today highlighted one thing - healing leadership in a team is really important.  Obviously his healing is really important, but he also manages to bring out the best in the other 2 healers as well.  And perhaps this is why we cannot ever raid together him and I if we have 2 teams running - because I direct the heals in the other team.  If both teams had nobody to direct the healing, do we rely on the tanks and DPS to tell the healers what to do?  What a horrible idea.  Can you imagine the uproar if we had healers telling DPS what to do?  They get grumpy!

So what is the solution that is fair for everyone?  Or is best for everyone?

You can look at it two ways.  We can have a progression team, and the other team does normals.  But if you have 5 good players in the other team why should they be excluded from raiding heroics?  So then should we have a rotation roster so all our top DPS and heals and tanks get a go at doing heroics?  Then the top DPSers will say why should we have to sit out and get grouchy.  So far, a satisfactory solution has not presented itself.

And who decides what happens?  Clasically, officers have, but raiders are an important part of the team too.  Do they get a say in what happens?  The role of the officer has always been to mediate and look at things fairly.  Putting the ME into the equation, where does that leave everyone?  Who will look at the bigger picture instead of what do I get out of it and what is best for me?

A progression guild would say just put the best together if you want to progress.  But is that what we are?  We are more than just a bunch of people who play to kill bosses - I like to think we are friends.  Who work together and play together and try to give each other a fair go.  Yes, nobody likes to carry a dead weight, but when we are all trying where does that leave you?  It was hard going to sleep last night with all these thoughts rattling in my head.

But could the real reason be that if we give the a good healer replacement and they do get Ultraxion down ahead of us, will that group again start pointing fingers at my group and call us the crappy group?  Who, in reality wants to hear nasty things like that?

Comments

  1. Groups should stay how they are now and if someone cant raid on a night then thats just bad luck but i dont see why the raid cant go along anyway.There should be someone who can fill in for the night for heroics and even if the boss isnt downed its all good practise. People should just stop complaining about others and give them a fair go, they can only improve.

    Falln

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    1. @Falln - wouldn't it be so nice if life were so simple! :)

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  2. This is a good point highlights the current dilemma in our guild. Not only do we have two 10 man groups that are 2/8 heroic which is an impressive feat on our server, some guilds cant even get 8/8 on normal. But to be proud and say thats it... Its hard.

    Sadly enough im one of those people that wants to get more bosses down. Not just for me... But for the guild. Even if you arent at the kill you can still raise your head high and say you are a Frostie and we are a 2/8 heroic guild!

    Not many like change, officers, raiders, casuals or the daily players that just arent good enough for heroics, we all feel uncomfortable with change. This is life though, we are a family and we need to decide as a collective group what is best for the guild.

    After all, we are to succeed. Just my two cents

    Voe

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    1. @Voe - That's the thing, I do want our guild to all get the next heroic kill down, but all of us want to be there! I hope a good solution will be found.

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  3. The problem still remains no mater what is done. You will have one group moving though the content and one group working on the content. And that is not saying that one is better then the other. It is just how it will work out. As sad as that is. You will always have a group of people in the guild that there main goal is to get to get the bosses down on heroic. At times that group can make other feel left out, not that they are trying to. It is easy to see this as well. The officers as hard as they try to get all to work out cant. Not there fault either is called being human.

    The guild as a whole should choose the the path is takes. (god im agree with Voe, kill me)

    For the healers. Take what you get and try to make it work.

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  4. Once bosses start dropping consistently and you have geared people have them switch group for progression.

    Lets say that you have 2/8 in farm mode and 2 or 3 people are done with the loot from the farmed bosses. Take people that could still use the drops during the farming. It will gear everyone and mix things up.

    That is a very objective way to look at it. It does introduce the complexity of having to keep track of loot tables and who has what. You can put some of the work on the raider themselves.

    Just an idea :) I tend to agree with the two post above, just giving you some options.

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    1. @Logtar - both groups have killed the same thing, so it's hard to say who works on what boss, if you know what I mean. It would have been ideal if both groups worked on DIFFERENT bosses just so we could all get a learning experience out of it, but it's turned out this way instead. And healer wise, I know who has what gear (some are luckier than others!), so one thing to think about is if every healer in one group has a heal trinket that drops from a boss and none of the other group does, they could be rotated for that.

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  5. This is why I miss 25mans, there is no competitiveness between groups as usually there is only one group going. If you miss out one week, you get to go the next week etc. As for pointing out flaws in peoples class and how they play, that's going to happen regardless of what sized group is going. Just maybe the approach should be in whispers.

    Excluding someone who has a RL thing, like work/play should never be an issue. To me I see the guild as accommodating, work around those obstacles, maybe enlist a few reserves. People do this for sports teams why not apply the same thing to raids? This way at least both groups get that chance to do their thing.

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  6. I agree with Faithy's point on reserves. It's hard to have a 100% attendance rate for 20 people week in week out. RL events are going to creep up for all of us now and then and we can't be expected to skip these events or feel like if we miss a raid, we'll be letting 9 other people down. I for one am happy to sit out sometimes to let potential reserves gear up and become part of the raiding teams. If we have say 22 geared raiders that meet dps/healing/raid awareness requirements, it will give us some leeway. This will of course require 2 people to sit out sometimes, but I'm sure some people won't mind volunteering. But if people aren't volunteering and it's the same people sitting out each week, then perhaps a roster would be needed for fairness.

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  7. @Faithy @Shabadu - I like the idea of reserves, I think we are hoping Ayelena and Faith could fill those roles (Ksret has been filling it as well) but we don't have healer reserves at the moment. I suppose we do have a few offspec healers but it's far from ideal for a heroic encounter. I applaud all those who have been patient while we work out this new raiding situation for this year and hopefully as time goes on the solutions will work out nicely for everyone.

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    1. so go find people that are healer's that don't mind be asked to be reserves or does the guild not have any of those? I mean the guild has to have some healers that are ok with asked to heal only when they are needed. So if's only to heal in norms. In a guild that has 512 members(yes i know that means a ton of alts or casual's) there has to be some healers that are ok with being asked to sub in.

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    2. Easier said than done. Dath'Remar isn't in a great place right now as far as recruitment goes. We would also be trying to recruit people ready for heroics which is even harder.

      Subs would be great but there aren't that many people that are capable heroic raiders who would be happy to raid as a sub

      -Hwired

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  8. Subs wont work for heroic raiding, for Ultraxion you need 31k+ dps. the hardcores in your guild wont be happy because nothing will have changed

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  9. @Anon - easier said than done. As Hwired said, there those that are heroic ready are already raiding. And alts who are healers are usually alts of raiders who are already raiding. I am not a fan of recruiting anyone, I would rather use our own guildies to boost the numbers.

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  10. That's why I propose we have a 22-24man rotation. 20 will be core or even 18-19 will be core while 2-5 are "subs". Core people will raid 80% of the time and "subs" will raid 50-60% of the time. Of course this is not idea rading composition as week in week out one person in the team may be different. But this gives flexibility to the teams as you have more people/class to play with. Our strict 20man raid only group, with subs not even allowed in content on farm didnt help us (it matters less now that alt/left overs group can do quite well in DS but we already lost a few weeks. We could have had a lot more better geared ppl by now but we dont.)
    I was fortunate enough to be invited to do blackhorn->madness, I had a good time and learnt a lot but also got gear which make me able to contribute a bit when I got invited to fill in heroic 2 weeks after (even with the fire mage nerf). I would have held back the raid if I didnt get that run. We should have done this much earlier and get Faith, Ayelena involved (bosses on farm which we are not doing on heoic in the 2nd half of raid). It only require 1 person to sit out and we can always rotate the sitting out person (who dont need loot of course). It is too late to do that now since our alt group can make it to madness anyway. But I am just saying we could have had a few more better geared/experienced ppl by now who will actually come close to the dps/heal requirement (that core will be able to compensate for).
    The guild gives an impression that if you didnt get selected initially your chance of making it later is very slim even as a substitue. People are already being sat out before the selection day. I think many ppl stop logging on when they know they wont be given a chance, or they leave the guild. Remember how many mages we had at beginning of the DS that wants to raid. Where are they now? I cant say the same for the other classes cos I dont know them well, but we could have retained more people. Would be good if we still had Targetme, Medfina etc still logging in and getting semi-regular runs to keep up gear/skill. Alternatively we can have some core raiders keeping a viable healing spec apart from dps etc (or switch mains) so all we have to worry about is filling in DPS roles which is easier (and more skill/tolerant).

    Ksret
    (sorry for wall of text, again, and of same stuff)

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  11. @anon
    Subs can work if you only have 1 and give him more chance than once in a blue moon.
    After learning H Ultraxion fight, I was doing 28-30k dps. Not enough I guess, but it is something that the core raiders can easily compensate for. So it is different, not more of the same. I am a sub, but did get to kill Madness once with the main raid on normal and got upgrades to gear. A couple more upgrade in another run or so, I should be able to pull my own (hopefully). I am sure Ayelena/Faithy could do it too, probably better than me.

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I hope these comments work! Not sure why people can't comment lately, it makes me sad :(