Testing strategy reading abilities, Part I

Everyone reading this site knows that it's pretty important to read strategies for the various boss encounters in WoW. No matter if they're from Boss Killers, our own Ready Check, long threads over at Elitist Jerks, or home made modifications, studying boss fights outside of the game is essential to success.

However sometimes it's kind of hard to tell if everyone is actually spending the 15 minutes to read over and understand the strategies outside of the raid. This is particularly troublesome for the raid leaders and officers, since some of the fights can be very hard to explain without first having an understanding of where and what things look like.

We're having this problem in our guild right now. Not that big of a problem, granted, but it's still something we'd like to get better at. So last night our guild master made a map of the Kalecgos play field, detailing where everyone should stand (I know that some readers will comment that it's not necessary, but it's what works for us). In the bottom right hand corner there's a derogatory yet funny message about yours truly, something along the lines of a suggested act I can go do to/with myself. It's obvious, it's funny, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Tonight the GM will go around and ask each of the 35 or so raiders we have in the guild, "What was out of place on the strategy map I posted today?" If they can't answer correctly, they won't be raiding with us again anytime soon.

Admittedly this is a tad underhanded way to test if some folks actually went in and read the strategy or not, but I think it's a good one. Tomorrow I'll report on its success, and look at some other possible ways to test if your raiders have read up on the strats.