raid-slots
Latest
Officers' Quarters: Leftovers
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Last week we heard from a raid leader who was weighing the creation of a second raid team. Ultimately, it seemed like a bad idea. This week, we hear from an officer who has already tried -- and failed -- to create a second team. Now he has extra raiders that he's not sure how to handle. Dear Scott, I would like your opinion on a subject- the veritable, hated bench. See, I tried recruiting for a second group in an attempt to make sure that players beyond our core ten were in the guild and seeing raids, but that hasn't worked out for us at all. It's really been a headache to manage and hard to fill (since everybody who responds to my ads is always interested in our weekday heroic runs. However, now that we've scrapped the idea of having a second group, I could use some advice on how to successfully maintain a 13 or so person roster for a 10 player raid.
Officers' Quarters: Dropping the drama totem
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. Selecting players for slots is always a sensitive situation, whether it's for a Rated Battleground or a heroic raid. That situation can be magnified when other factors -- such as cliques -- come into play. This week, a guild leader finds himself torn between friendship with a member and loyalty to his raid leader after a shaman protests a benching. My guild was dying on our old server, so me (guild leader) and 8 other raiders, who I had been raiding with for 4 years, transferred to a new server. We needed a new dps/healer as a backup and a new tank, and set out recruiting. The new tank has worked out well, but our ele/resto shaman hasn't worked out as well. He's a nice guy, someone who I view as a friend, always shows up on time, often shares volcanic potions with other raid members etc. He's been in the guild now for 2 months and has helped us progress through Heroic Warship, Spine, and Madness. Anyway, last Tuesday, we sat him for H Spine to bring in someone else, and with the 15% nerf, we 1-shot Spine, something he was bitter at missing after spending two weeks with us ... progressing and missing out on the kill. We did a few attempts on madness and looked forward to our Thursday run. On Thursday, we spent about an hour and a half progressing on Spine. Our holy paladin (and also an officer) was getting angry over some in-game stuff and was making mistakes. He finally logged off in frustration and we brought in the shaman and he helped us progress throughout the night (8% wipe).
Officers' Quarters: When raiders hold your guild hostage
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. In these lean times, guilds need to put up with quite a bit in order to keep a viable raiding roster. Sometimes officers will overlook repeated absences and put aside some of their policies because benching a player means canceling a raid. This situation tends to spiral, as players figure out that they can flaunt the rules without consequence. Sometimes it even reaches the point that players make demands. I've heard of many such situations, but none as ridiculous as this one. Hi, I raid lead a progression 10 man team, raiding nine hours a week since Cataclysm has been released. So far we are doing quite well for progression, but due to two weeks last month where we had one dps team member quit the game without notice we were left trying to find PuGs. We got so many whispers and in game mail complaining about PuGing that we recruited two dps, a pair of friends. One has become the guild's best dps. Since one of them had only seen the first few bosses, we asked one of our dps if he could sit out for two weeks as a favor to us to let her get some gear and experience. Where we started having problems was when we asked her to sit, with 24 hour notice, out Heroic Halfus and Cho'gall in the second week so the other player could get a chance at his Tier shoulders and chest upgrade since he was the only one who could use them if they dropped. Her friend was not happy that she was sitting out and argued she could use the loot from those two bosses, too.
Officers' Quarters: Speechless
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. A few weeks ago, I ventured the opinion that raiding addons aren't optional. They are an essential tool for raiding well, and even if you think you're pro enough to go without them, it's a matter of courtesy to your fellow raiders to use them. This week, we have a similar scenario, but instead of an addon, the raider in question refuses to use a microphone and claims that it is a medical issue -- despite some evidence to the contrary. Dear Officers' Quarters, I was tasked with creating a healer roster for scheduled 10-man raids. As expected, some members did not make the cut. I told the backup healers that three things must improve before they could be pulled in for non-farm content. Gear (with gems/enchants) Raid awareness Encounter knowledge One of the backup/benched healers had an issue last raid. She fixed #1 after much prodding ("but this is only blue gear -- it doesn't need gems/enchants"). She still has issues with #2 (compounded by the lack of microphone). She still hasn't fixed #3 on new kills. The x-factor is her lack of microphone.
Officers' Quarters: Mailbox roundup redux
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. Here at Officers' Quarters, I receive a number of emails every week that don't get featured in the column for various reasons (which I explained last time I did a roundup). Once again, it's time to examine some of these shorter -- but no less interesting! -- topics. This roundup's theme is Cataclysm concerns and preparation. Just the two of us Hello, I have tried to find this info but I cannot seem to find it anywhere, or I am really terrible at finding things. Is there going to be a minimum guild size to participate in guild leveling? I started a small guild for myself and my son to play in and we are having a great time, but I hoped we could take advantage of these new features without joining a larger guild or recruiting into the existing one. Obviously we would not get any experience for raids or dungeons, but what about questing and professions, or even rated battlegrounds? Thank you for your time, Callidor
Officers' Quarters: PvPvRaid
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. I have to admit that I was surprised when I read this week's e-mail. This is an issue that has never really come up in my guild. We have players who only PvP, and we have players who do both PvP and raiding. I can't ever recall a time when someone who PvP's and raids has chosen PvP over raiding. After all, you can PvP anytime, while raiding is a limited, scheduled activity. Let's take a look: Dear Wise and Veteran Scott, I need your assistance with an issue that I see will soon hurt the guild I am in. I am the Raid Leader/Officer of a casual raiding guild and we recruited some people (some DPS and a Healer) that at first we would raid with and it would work great but, when Season 8 of arena hit, we couldn't get them to answer us in guild chat regardless of the topic.
Officers' Quarters: How to fill slots
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. This week's e-mail is straight and to the point: Dear Mr. Andrews: In your latest Officer's Quarters article you mention filling raid slots by seniority is not a good system. What is a good system for filling raid slots? What would you recommend? Michael Great question, Michael! When you have too many raiders, it's supposed to be easy to put together a raid, right? It's often harder than it seems, and you can really stir up drama by making ill-considered choices. Let's examine the various systems for filling raid slots.
Officers' Quarters: Critical mass
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.How many members should your raiding guild have? It's a simple question with a complex answer. This week, one reader wonders whether his guild simply has too many people.Hi, Scott.I'd like to first mention that I'm a big fan of your column, Officers' Quarters. Rock on! And today, I'd like to ask you for advice on the problem that my guild is facing. I'm a member of a raiding guild, one that hovers just below the best guilds of our realm. We have cleared 10man Ulduar, and I was lucky enough be there as I'm a member of our 10man progression team, which is now doing hard modes. Our 25man . . . well, thats where the problem comes in. Back in May, we didn't have enough strong players to really progress past antechamber. Then things started coming up for our raiders -- we couldn't do a 25man guild run for whole 3 weeks in May-June due to lack of people! So our officers aggressively recruited people, some of them geared members of a reputable guild that recently went down and some of them friends transferred in from other servers, and our new recruits recommended us with their friends who were also exceptional players. After 3 weeks of no 25man progression, we found ourselves with just under 40 people online for our raid night.
Officers' Quarters: Disposable raiders
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.PUG players seem to be everywhere these days. For guilds that can't field a full 25, PUGs are running Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum and even the Eye of Eternity alongside you. They're practically half the raid in your Vault of Archavon runs. They help your 10-player raid take out Heroic Flame Leviathan for some quick, juicy iLevel 226 loot. If Blizzard keeps nerfing Ulduar, pretty soon they'll be looting Keepers' chests, too. Last week's e-mail was practically a blog unto itself, so this week I thought I'd pick a short one. One reader asks what we owe these PUG players. Can we just boot them as soon as some of our own guild members log on? Hi Scott I have a question about what is considered fair to pugs in a raid. I don't do pug raids myself so I am out of touch with what the etiquette is.We had needed to pug for a raid and were just about to start, when a couple of guildies logged on. They wanted us to kick some pugs so they could join the raid. The issue isn't that they logged on after raid start, but purely about whether it is considered fair to kick a pug out in favour of a guild member.
Buying your way through raid content
There's a new game in town, and Artirius of the Aerie Peak server has noticed it, and admittedly, so have I. With attunements gone, it is now possible for any level 70 to go in and see tier 5 and 6 content whenever they want. Of course, they don't generally have a prayer of actually downing bosses unless they have 20-24 well geared people to help them out. That's where gold comes in. With a few thousand gold, you can buy your way into a tier 6 group that doesn't need the tier 6 armor and go along for the ride. A few hours later, you come out on the other end with Illidan dead and a few shiny new drops, even if you've never set foot in Karazhan. It's not just people trying to buy these slots in the trade channel either. As Artirius observes, many raid groups are actively soliciting for buyers for their raid slots. On my own server, one Horde group is trading tier 6 runs for large quantities of certain herbs, promising that all but a few select drops will go to the people who buy their slots with stacks of Netherbloom and Ghost Mushrooms. So what's causing this?
