It has been months, or more since I had fun raiding. One fail run and group to the next... blehhh... the thing is they all were fail for different reasons... One was too casual at the end of wrath, the second was life changes and RL drama combined with the old core group shrinking a lot... then they were not all grinding to get ready for raiding. The next one was getting promised a raid slot, which turned out to be for one week... :-/ then that raid lead just quit the game, and another broke off from guild and started their own and took a bunch of raiders with them... That left me and another guy both comming to the same conclusion.. "Time for me to organize and lead a raid." He had tenure with the guild more so than me and so I deffered and let him run it...
As the main group progressed to like 7/12 heroic we managed to get 3 and 4/12 normal.. thats counting the retard in BH... Firelands came out, and the second week he wanted to go BACK to BOT/BWD... Thats when I put my foot down and said NO... Firelands or forget it...
Thats where I am today, I set a core set of standards, and group mentality... Typical raiding stuff for the most part but in my experience not typical raid leadership... I have done the casual raid leadership and it drags you down to their level. Now, I set the standards that for the group, mainly of personal accountability, team leadership, and group accountability... Oh, and my big one.. be on time or be replaced.
So, how is raiding fun again and how did I get there... I put experience to work, set, uphold and maintain the standard the I level agains all the players/raiders wannabes... Its a standard to gear, to grinding your valor on your own... and generally high performance and contribution to the raid... Last week was a blast, ended up pugging 2 healers, but we played w/ shannox and had a ton of fun... silly joke, silly mistakes and still good learning and practice... After shaping the group it was our first real run in there as a group. clowning joking and fun, not a kill but progress and getting a feel for the group and contributions. I have told everyone that I will not be the single point of focus, success and/or failure for the group.. that was great, it was a lot of pressure off me, and there were a lot of good comments that we addapted into attempts and learning...
Then this week came... Full guild run.. 10 man raid w/ 5 druids... :-/ 2 resto, feral tank, feral dps, boomkin, with a pair of pallys holy and prot, mage, lock and furry warrior to fill it out....
Shannox went down after the 3rd attempt... and about 1 hour into the raid... that meant we had a lot of time to play at beth'tilac... woot before our time was up... we got it down... Much harder fight on some levels... an early attmpt was crap since she got a spiderling, and then a later following attempt was too... all of that was worked out and we refined our efforts... it paid off... all said and done... we ran back to Lord Ryolith, got our asses stomped by the trash since it was effectively our first time on it... :-/ then got one run on the boss to get people a feel for that fight... Over all it was a great night and good fun... Imagine that.. playing a game AND its fun...
transparency... its something I lend myself to do... i dont like people that are always whispering like they got a secret, and I dont like to be one of them... one of the raiders, a good friend to boot... in front of the whole raid.. i let them know that I am running interference on the headsman... their dps is low and I am not sure in the long haul they will keep pace with the group. Time will tell...
SET LOOT TO RARE, not epic.. drama over the living ember apparently being "Ninja'd"... bahhh... its a rare item and the threshold was set to epic.. Oh well, had to slow down the raid and figure out what that silly thing was that is for the legendary staff questline... and then work with the group to pick the first winner recipient of the drops for it... :-) fun to do that as a group... I made it all whispers, to me so people could really say what they thought/felt about it... the standing member in the guild with history actaully defered to the new mage... and several others also voted the mage.. a couple vote for the boomkin too.. overall.. it was nice, a new group, no history, no sense of entilement or anything and the guy that has been there week... is VOTED to get the legendary staff... NICE...
What does it take to get there? DO IT YOURSELF... and DONT DO IT ALONE... if that makes sense... prolly not... raid leadership, IMO you really need at least a couple strong "leiutentants"... Me.. they are all given that titel.. no one is better than the other by percieved rank or position or grant of athority... except me and thats my job to empower everyone in the raid that they feel my powere base is not overbearing and threatening... I raid for KILLS... funny, when and if you do that.. gear just falls out of the sky.. :-) sorta...
The DO IT YOURSELF comment.. thats the organize the team, and build the team selflessly, set the standards and enforce them... build a team, empower the team, enable the team... and make fun of yourself... let them know your not better than them, and your let them know your are in it for fair and equitable distribution of loot, leadership, power, fun, encouragement... do all the things casuals do like be nice and say cute things that make them feel better... EXCEPT when they are dorking up... then you have to kick/replace/scold/bench/threaten etc... I will almost guarantee you... in any and every attempt to build a raid group... you will... find people that are more or less casual than you want to be... the less casual will leave because you are not good enough and your standards are too low.. the casuals will accelerate that... they show up late, poor and cheap gems and enchants, sell their valor on the BOE market and such... :-/ YOU MUST find your first victime and be the jerk... cut them, bench them boot them, cold shoulder them... unfortunately that sets the tone for all others... and they will either fall out, or they will step up... and thats what you want...
Ouch, long post, grats if you made it here... but raiding, for me, is fun again....
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