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Ready Check: You're fired
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. For the last few weeks in Ready Check, we've been talking about some of the more difficult tasks that face raid leaders. We talked first about some tips in communicating with raid members. Then, last week, we covered some ideas about how to coach raid members. But what happens when you've stepped up your communication and provided repeated coaching, but the raid member in question still isn't working out? When you're left with no option except to excise the raid member from your group? We could call it a dozen different things but it all boils down to this: you have to fire your raid member. I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about how to get rid of people. It's probably more in the hands of your guild officers whether or not the raid member is still going to be in your social circle. But how do you tell someone, "Look mate, we like you, but you can't raid with us anymore." Let's talk about it after the jump.
Ready Check: How to coach your raid members
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. One of the most difficult issues in any raid is "that guy." You know who I mean. The one who stands in fire, isn't pulling his weight, doesn't bring potions or food, is mean on Vent, is quiet on Vent, is a drama bomb, argues about loot, or otherwise does something that makes you think "this guy isn't getting it done." The only way you're going to resolve these problems is to coach them through it. Of course, there are many reasons someone in a raid might need coaching as there are raids. Not every reason for coaching is necessarily a performance flaw. Most coaching sessions will probably be performance related in some way, but you could end up coaching a raid member because you think their sense of humor is just a little off. Ultimately, it's up to you and your guild officers who is responsible for the actual coaching. But whoever does the job, you want to make sure they're doing it well. Take a look behind the jump for some coaching tips.
Ready Check: Communication for raid leaders
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. One of the most difficult tasks any raid leader is going to face will be one of communication. Communication is a complex, ugly issue. It can be one of your strongest assets, but it can equally be your biggest downfall. This is because communication operates on two levels. First, there's the obvious data-based communication. Things like "The next boss is named Anub'arak" are data-based. It's fact, unassailable, and fairly meaningful. Almost everyone's going to agree with quantifiable information. You're not going to round the corner of the instance, and find something that's not Anub'arak. Second, however, is "shadow" communication. This is a level of communication that can be a great deal more complicated. In the absence of quantifiable information, the recipient will "read into" your words a whole series of meanings and concepts that you may not have intended. For example, "This next boss is Anub'arak, so you should get ready" can be interpreted as "Get ready because we're going right now" or "get ready by reading up on the boss strategies." Now, that's a fairly hyperbolized example, but it's a true one none-the-less. We've all had experience with "I didn't mean it like that" in our lives. One of the oldest business cliches is that "Workers don't leave companies, they leave supervisors." While a raid leader isn't a supervisor in the same way as a business manager, some of the viable tips from the corporate world can still apply to raiding life. Let's take a look after the jump at some simple tips to enhance communication.
Ready Check: Anub'arak
Here he is. The big cheese. The final countdown. The last boss (currently) available in raiding progression. Anub'arak is the final encounter in the Trial of the Crusader. If you feel a sense of deja-vu while getting ready to throw down with the big bug, don't worry -- you're not insane. (At least, you're not insane because you think you recognize the boss.) Anub'arak was the final boss in Azjol'Nerub. And while the Trial of the Crusader version is certainly much higher octane, this raid version does share some basic similarities with the previous fight. They both have adds, some kind of burrowing action, and bugs. Lots of bugs. Let's jump behind the cut and see how to get this done.
Ready Check: Twin Val'kyr
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. The Twin Val'kyr encounter is the fourth and penultimate battle in the Trial of the Crusader. In this fight, your raid will face down two Val'kyr bosses. They are identical in every way, except for the nature of their attacks. Fjola Lightbane will attack you with the power of the Light. Her sister is Eydis Darkbane attacks you with the power of the Dark.The Twin Val'kyr fight is a confusing one. However, e should be careful not to mix up confusing with difficult. But we should at least be honest and acknowledge that keeping track of the "Stand in Light" and "Attack the Dark" can get pretty mindbending. To sum up, you get light and dark buffs that protect you from your aligned source of damage, and buffs you when you do damage to your opposite. So, while this fight's pretty easy once you get the handful of maneuvers down, it can be confusing to talk about.
We have a Tabard: I could teach you, but I'd have to charge
Looking for a guild? Well, you can join ours! We have a tabard and everything! Check back for Amanda Dean talking about guilds and guild leadership in We Have a Tabard.It's so nice to run a raid when everyone is up to snuff on their characters and can focus entirely on what their doing. Unfortunately there seems to be at least one person who is not at the top of their game. Either the healer that's standing in fires or the DPS that can't fight their way out of a paper bag. They're not bad people and they mean well, but they are better cheerleaders than raiders. What's a raid leader to do?I like to help people out and give people a shot, but there's only so much that I can do. At some point I have to consider the needs of the other nine or people in the raid over the needs of the single player. I was leading ToC 10 with a Hunter pulling 1800 DPS and the entire raid averaging about 2700. We had a number of wipes, but low DPS was a contributing factor. I called out the DPS saying, "Guys, I really need to be seeing 3K DPS." The 1800 Hunter said, "I don't think Hunters can pull 3K DPS." I nearly fell out of my chair.My first response is to try to offer quick suggestions for how to resolve an issue (this is considerably easier when it's a raid awareness problem rather than a role problem). I feel genuinely awful when I have to remove someone from a raid, but the raid environment is not where one should learn his or her class.
When to move up to the next raid
I like this post over at Tank Like a Girl that raises the question of just when your guild should make the big step to move on up the raiding ranks. Just last night, my very casual guild headed into Ulduar for the first time, and even though we'd never been in there before (we've been doing Naxx, OS, and EoE with some regularity, though when I say we're casual, I mean we're really casual), I think we did it at exactly the right time. We made it up to Kologarn -- enough to know that we didn't go in too early (and come out empty-handed, unable to down any bosses) or too late (and breeze through the place).Now obviously, every guild is in a different place raiding-wise (and most guilds are way ahead of ours, I know), and TLaG is dealing with a different dilemma: whether to take down Yogg-Saron before moving on to ToC or not. And in her case, she's got the added "gotta catch 'em all" thinking. But it's a tough thing as a raid leader -- you don't want to move on past content you know you can do eventually, and progression always beckons. In the end, you've got to figure out what's best for the guild. And of course, the content's not going anywhere -- if you can't drop a certain boss this week, there's always the next raid reset.
Ready Check: Faction Champions
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Okay. This event is different than any other raid instance that currently springs to mind. It's got a level of customization that is novel to World of Warcraft's raid design, and heralds even more exciting changes in Icecrown Citadel. What's the big deal?The boss mobs change according to your factions. Sure, statistically, the enemies are similar across the two factions. (Can you imagine the outcry if the Horde mode was somehow easier than the Alliance? Or vice versa?) But the character's names and models are customized according to whether your raid is Horde and Alliance.The other thing that's specialized to the Faction Champions encounter is that the exact characters you fight will change week to week. It's random, similar to the old Karazhan Opera encounter. That makes it more difficult to figure out a strategy before you face the encounter. The first step is to understand what each character does, and then try to piece together some overall tips out of that collected knowledge.Let's jump behind the cut and take a look at the fourteen different possible characters you'll be fighting.
We Have a Tabard: Strange bedfellows
Looking for a guild? Well, you can join ours! We have a tabard and everything! Check back for Amanda Dean talking about guilds and guild leadership in We Have a Tabard.For years Blizzard has claimed that there would be no chance for faction changes. They didn't use the word "never" but they did say there were no plans on doing it. Much has changed since the Blizzard/Activision Merger. Well, the time has come, and what has become of it. I honestly can't tell you if the impact has been good or bad, but there has certainly been an impact.If I haven't mentioned before, I play Horde. The first night that transfers came out, a number of my friends and guildies swapped characters over from Alliance. Good to see an influx of variety, but much attention turned to leveling forgotten alts. I don't know anyone who has transferred from Horde to Alliance. Given a better opportunity, I'm sure there are plenty who would make the switch. Faction changes have had an interesting effect on guild on my server. A number of raiders from the top guilds swapped factions and joined forces with the top guilds on the Alliance side. The Alliance guilds have always been front runners in progression and this move has served to make them stronger. That's excellent for them.
Ready Check: Lord Jaraxxus
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Last week, we took a short break so that Matthew Rossi could join us and celebrate the return of Onyxia. Hopefully, everyone's had the opportunity to go re-pwn her by now. If not, don't give up -- I'm confident everyone will be able to get her down eventually.Lord Jaraxxus? Maybe not. Lord Jaraxxus is the first boss fight in the Trial of the Crusader which I felt was a true raid-check. It's not an impossible raid check, mind you. Once you get the hang of the fight, you'll do fine. But getting the dance steps down in the first place will probably give a few raids a migraine headache. Let's take a look at the big demon behind the cut.
Officers' Quarters: From the mail bag
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Hello, fellow officers! This week I'm going to try something a little bit different than usual. I tend to focus on one topic that requires a detailed analysis. However, I do receive many more questions that I never feature in the column because they have a more straightforward solution (or, at least, because I believe they have a straightforward solution). So I would write a private reply to the e-mail but never showcase the question here. I've decided to try an experiment this week and feature several of these e-mails with shorter answers. Even though they may not be the most complex situations, I think the answers will be helpful to other officers. Let me know what you think! Here's the first question. Too Many Cooks I was wondering if you could do an article on having too many cooks in the kitchen during raids. My guild is brand new, 3-4 weeks old, and we run Ulduar 10 and ToC 10 as well as Naxx 25 and Naxx 10 for the new 80s. As of right now, I am my guild's GM as well as raid leader. I have plans in the future to add an official "Raid Leader" to create events and lead some raids although I plan on still leading a few because I really enjoy it. Right now though, I have a few natural born leaders that attend my raids and it causes some problems.
Ready Check: Onyxia
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.Hi howdy and hello, everyone. I'm Matthew Rossi, famous for being tail whipped into the cave on our first Onyxia 10 attempt yesterday. Twice. Despite having been a veteran of the original raid, which means I've heard this kind of ranting many, many times. What I'm getting at is, there are certain things you do not do in a successful Onyxia kill (then and now) and if you go in cocky, thinking that you're mister fancy pants Conquerer of Ulduar, then she's going to embarrass you. If, on the other hand, you just go in and kill her, it's much less embarrassing all told. As long as you keep her mechanics in mind, she's not a terribly complicated or hard fight, but she's been updated and tuned fairly well for an 80 raid.Before we get to the meat of things, two caveats: one, she can hit very, very hard. On 10 man, as I dragged her back into position (we'll go more into that) I found that I went from 45k health to 11k health in two seconds. My healer actually screamed on vent. Later, we had a discussion about how mister tank doesn't go out of range on mister healer without warning. Secondly, I'm not sure if I'm just remembering it differently or if it has actually changed, but her hit box seems a lot smaller than it was at 60. It does not seem possible to melee her while she's in the air, for instance, and my melee DPS reporting having to come in fairly close to hit her.Not to worry, though. You'll have plenty to do without being able to melee Ony. She brought friends! Oh, so many friends if you're not careful.
Ready Check: Northrend Beasts
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. The Northrend Beasts are the first series of encounters inside the Crusaders' Coliseum raid instance. Today we'll look at their non-Heroic version. You actually fight four different critters, all of whom are the Biggest and Toughest of their racial types in Northrend. That Tirion sure is a kidder, isn't he?The four bosses that make up the Northrend Beasts are: Gormok the Impaler, a massive magnataur Acidmaw & Dreadscale, a pair of Jormungar worms that Hunters cannot tame Icehowl, a really big Northrend yeti These encounters all take place immediately after one another, so you're not going to have a lot of time to buff, rebuff, and drink in between the fights. You can consider the entire encounter to be like an endurance test, but it goes by fairly quick. Let's jump behind the cut and get started on how to kill them all.
We Have a Tabard: Ring the bell, school's back in
Looking for a guild? Well, you can join ours! We have a tabard and everything! Check back for Amanda Dean talking about guilds and guild leadership in We Have a Tabard.Drama is not the only issue to cause hardship among raiding guilds. We've seen guilds crumble and fall over new raid content. It seems we've come across another time-sensitive factor: the beginning of the school year. Guilds that have been blissfully progressing throughout the summer may be seeing their attendance plummet. Remember folks, some things are more important than WoW. Education tops the list. It would be poor form to badger your scholastic members into raiding when they've got homework to do. Students also need a good night's sleep in order to perform successfully. This goes for college students as well as high schoolers, but they may have more flexibility in scheduling. In the end, WoW is just a video game and school affects the present and the future.
Ready Check: Koralon the Flame Watcher
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. If you remember, back when Emalon the Storm Watcher hit the ground, our own Zach Yonzon warned you that Emalon was no loot pinata. While Archavon required only a bare minimum of basic skills, and was really just a DPS race even when he first came out, Emalon to this day requires your group to vaguely pay attention and kill the big, growing add first. With the beginning of the new Arena season, Koralon the FIre Watcher has taken up residence with Emalon and Archavon. He lives to the left of the hall, opposite to where Emalon hangs out. In terms of skill, he's only slightly more difficult than Archavon. In fact, I'd say he's probably easier, if your group's gear can support your ability to kill him. Check out the strategy behind the cut.
Ready Check: Yogg-Saron
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This is the show stopper. The big guy, the final countdown. Yogg-Saron is the last normal boss in Ulduar. (The only other dude is a freaky guy made from stars. Let's stick to the Old Gods here.) Yogg-Saron is the second Old God raid boss in the game, and shares an important dynamic with his predecessor: in-order to kill Yogg-Saron, you have to go inside him and fight a vital organ. Pretty freaky, huh?Yogg-Saron is actually my favorite fight thematically. Perhaps as a purposeful shout-out to game mechanics from the Call of Cthulu, your raid members will have to manage a buff called Sanity. That dynamic was a signature, revolutionary aspect of the tabletop game, and Blizzard uses it very similarly in this boss fight. At least, I hope it's purposeful. It's possible they were simply inspired by Lovecraft's stories the same way that tabletop designers were. Still, I prefer my little world where those guys threw some dice and stared at their SAN score.Anyway, let's get to talking about the boss fight.
We Have a Tabard: Don't go away mad, just go away
Looking for a guild? Well, you can join ours! We have a tabard and everything! Check back every Friday for Amanda Dean talking about guilds and guild leadership in We Have a Tabard.The above video by Propostris and Gigi, while awesome, is not safe for work.As I've mentioned before, building a guild can be very challenging. Recruiting and retention efforts are critical. Sometimes you find members, however, that may seem to fit in, but in the end they do not. You must strike a balance between having enough guilides to get things done and a team that works well together. Your guild rules and personal interactions help determine which members are valuable members of the team and who needs a /gkick.I have found that having a lot of guild members is generally not better than having quality guild members. There are many ways in which guild members can not fit. Sometimes folks activity times do not mesh with the guild. It doesn't really do any good to have folks tagged up but stuck PUGging raids because they can't be there for raid times. This person may not need to be removed, but don't be surprised if he or she leaves to find a guild with raid times more suited to their play times.
Drama Mamas: Venting
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com.The big event is over and it's time to go back to drama prevention. This week, we attempt to circumvent the need for a Raid Leader's intervention. We also tackle the topic of ventiquette -- which is the etiquette of speaking in Ventrilo and not the manners involved in venting about things. Although I'm sure we'll eventually get to venting etiquette as well. Now that I'm done inventing ways to use the syllable "vent", it's time for the drama.
We have a Tabard: To 25-mans, and beyond!
Looking for a guild? Well, you can join ours! We have a tabard and everything! Check back every Friday for Amanda Dean talking about guilds and guild leadership in We Have a Tabard.Founding and nurturing an up-and-coming raid guild can be quite a daunting task. We see it every day in trade chat <New Guild Name> is now recruiting players of all levels. "We're a fun, friendly guild that regularly raids 10-mans and is looking to build our 25-man team. We have a tabard, bank tabs, and Ventrilo. PST if you're interested." The bark is always the same, the only difference is the number of spelling errors. How do you gracefully move from 10 to 25-man content?If that's your guild, first of all, congratulations on some early success in progress in getting to 10-man raids. When you're not quite there, you have a few options are a few options, all of which have their upsides and their downsides. You can pug into 25-man content, you can run guild raids and take pugs along, you can work with another guild, or you can be content with 10-man content. Let's take a moment to explore each of the options.
Ready Check: General Vezax
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. So far, you've wrecked the Flame Leviathan. You euthanized Razorscale. You gave a cold shower to Ignis the Furnace Master. You marvelled at Deconstructor. When it came to Kologarn, you damned well shall pass. The Assembly of Iron said court was out of session, and Auriaya and her small legion of adds gave you no pause. You've asked Hodir, "Who's your Daddy?" You've entered the mountain, and tackled Thorim. You've beaten down the master of metal, Mimiron. You've only got one more obstacle before the big finale.
