I have been thinking a lot about raid leadership recently, mainly because I’ve seen it in action enough times, now, to actually have thoughts beyond “omfgwtfbbq” which is what’s usually going through my head in a raid. Truthfully, I find it kind of fascinating to watch the ways in which people’s personalities filter through, and influence, just about everything that goes on. I wonder if that’s part of the appeal of the 25-man team over our 10-man runs – it’s such a vast administrative exercise to get 25 people functioning in harmony that they’re basically run by a kind of committee, and everybody either gravitates to the role that naturally suits them, and brings out the best in them. That, or are pushed into that role by sinister forces operating behind the scenes. Who knows? Whereas a raid run by an individual is entirely dependent on the strengths of that individuals and far more vulnerable to his weaknesses and caprices.
One of the many things that bewilders me about pugs (not necessarily pugged heroic 5-mans because that would be the equivalent of leading drowned horses to water) is how little people seem to realise that leading a raid involves slightly more than having your text come out a groovy colour.
I was hanging around in Dalaran the other day when a shout when out for a healer to Ony-10. Now I haven’t paid the old girl a visit in a jolly long time so I whispered to say my sissy robe was at their disposal. Within about two minutes I’d joined a group, been summoned to Dustwallow Marsh and then we were in the instance.
Now maybe I don’t have my raid frames set up as effectively as I could but they’re designed for me – to give me the information I want without bothering me with the information I don’t want. Do I need to see the HP of some random rogue? No. All of which, admittedly, means I am essentially blind to everything except heals and debuffs – but that’s okay, right, because raids have humans at their head who can do things like communicate all the stuff I don’t need to see. In short: who the tanks and healers are.
So far the raid is progressing like we’re a group on monks on a pilgrimage of silence.
“Could I have the tanks marked please?” I asked. “And who’s healing this with me?”
Silence.
Pull.
Shiiiiiit
Heal heal heal … wipe.
Yep, we wiped on Ony trash.
“Wtf was that?” asked Mr Slightly Darker Text.
Feeling the gun of blame slowly swivelling towards the healers, I launched into an explanation of how it is actually really rather useful to have a clear idea of roles rather than expecting people to miraculously fill them.
I know one can discern clues from the environment itself – a tree is probably likely a healer, the dude taking a lot of damage is probably the tank (or a really clueless DPS) but why play Raid Role Cluedo if someone can just tell you?
After a pause, in which I fully expected to be thrown out on my ear for my irritating demands, a couple of guys popped up in the MT box of my raid frames. Win.
“Great,” I chirruped. “Now, who else is healing?”
And eventually a shaman shuffled forward, as if I’d just asked “And who’d like to have their testicles trapped in a vice?”
I began to outline the vaguest healing strategy you can possibly imagine when the shaman observed: “It’s only Ony, we should just heal whatever.”
Which struck me as remarkably optimistic considering we’d just wiped. On trash. I pointed this out, alongside the idea that although the “heal whatever” strategy works fine when you know the other healers and are used to working as a team, it’s helpful for complete strangers to have some vague idea of what the other is doing.
This was the point at which I was expecting them to insist that the verbose, smug one fuck off when the shaman said: “yeh, good point.”
Good point? Who me?!
Excellent. So with the healing thus sorted, the tanks marked we proceeded to pwn that trash. Well, not pwn precisely but the trash didn’t pwn us which was the main thing. And then, with nary a readycheck, we ran full tilt at Ony. Aaaand the DPS took a fuck tonne of damage. We got them through but it was painful and expensive in terms of mana and cooldowns. I shed about half of my big blue bar, had to squander a guardian spirit on a warlock because I didn’t like the idea of starting the fight with 1 less DPS than we should have had, and the shaman had about 30% left and stress was radiating off him in wiggly waves. In the chaos of suicidal DPS, MANY WHELPS and god knows what else, the OT went down and we wiped.
“Wtf was that?” asked Mr Slightly Darker Text. “Why didn’t you heal more?”
Sigh. Since the verbosity ship had already sailed, I weighed in again, pointing out that DPS, not healing, was the problem here. I mean it’s the first thing you learn on your WoW Dragon Fighting B-Tech: you don’t stand near the teeth or near the tail. Both ends of a dragon are bad, m’kay? And half the DPS ripped aggro anyway by staring in with the pain while the tank was still trying to get Ony into position. That’s, like, on page 1 of Raiding for Dummies. Even I know that, and you could probably fight what I know about raiding onto the back of a postage stamp.
When I’d finished talking, or rather typing, typing with attitude, there was a very long silence.
Now, surely, they were going to kick Mr Verbosity Criticism Face.
“So….” said Mr Slightly Darker Text.
Why was everybody staring at me? So I suggested that the DPS all wait until the dragon was positioned before attacked, and line up along the sides. Srsly, why was everybody staring at me? Did they hate me, and were just too polite to kick me?
We tried again, and we failed again. The DPS were sort of better but not what you might call “good.”
“What happened here?” asked Mr SDT, again.
“Same deal,” I said. “This time a bunch of the ranged got themselves blatted by the tail.”
Everyone stood around looking helpless.
“Look,” I said, impelled by some sadistic inner demon that delights in my suffering, “stick a raid marker over my head – I have a fondness for the star – and I want all the ranged DPS to stay on me. Follow me, and stand by me? Got it?”
They got it. Twinkle twinkle.
Ye Gods. That was longest run of my life. I was fucking petrified. Words cannot describe how shaking at the keyboard fucking petrified I was.
It’s not so much that I don’t trust my own abilities to do something relatively simple like run across a room and not get hit by the tail of a dragon (although, actually, I don’t, it doesn’t matter how many times you don’t get hit by a dragon tail, that’s no guarantee you’re never going to get hit by one) it’s more that the dark, cruel, hilarious irony of it all would have been priceless. Sometimes I think irony is the most terrifying thing in the universe – sometimes I even think it’s out to get me. And here I was, standing on top of a building holding a lighting rod and shouting “I’m sure I’m not going to get struck my lightning.” It was like Hubris 101.
I did not, however, get served humble pie a la dragon tail (thank you, thank you, thank you Lady RNG, I am ever your devoted servant). The raid, however, still struggled to survive phase 1. The thing is, there was definitely measurable improvement between each attempt but the road ahead was long and dark, and I had miles to go and promises to keep. Ultimately I think if I’d have worked at it, I would have – with an inordinate expenditure of time, effort and energy – been able to nudge them to victory, assuming they did kick me for being a superior sonuvabitch. It would have been a bloggable story too – you know, the plucky kids who rise from ineptitude and obscurity to down Ony against all the odds, and then do a musical number.
But as I was standing there, in the entrance of Ony’s lair, a very vivid the image of two dividing paths rose up in my mind. At the end of one lay a nervous breakdown. At the other, I basically played WoW a fair bit.
So I apologised, quit the group and never looked back.
I know this was an immensely selfish thing to do – but I’m not a raid leader, I don’t want to be a raid leader, I’m not interested in developing the necessary skills to be a raid leader and, more importantly, I hadn’t damn well signed up to be a raid leader. I agreed to go there and heal a bunch of people through Ony-10. Where, one might ask, does the responsibility for that fade into wider responsibilities to the group as a whole? I think Klep might justifiably tell me off for abdication of an inherent social duty. But I don’t believe I was the only person there capable of leading the raid – in fact, I suspect I was probably one of the least capable (see points above) but the whole thing basically devolved into this peculiar game of leadership chicken. And I lost. What threw me about the whole business was that Mr Slightly Darker Text seemed to have no thought to the meaning of that slightly darker text – as far as he was concerned, his job constituted being in charge of loot distribution and getting 10 people in the same room as Ony, and that was it. I’ve seen people lead badly, for various reasons, but never have they been quite so resolute in their refusal to even take a stab at it. Of course, possibly I’m doing him a terrible dis-service and he was doing fine, until the mouthy one in the sissy robe took over.
Of course such things have an aftermath – and this one had a conversation with Temi, in which I shook my head in incredulity that anyone could ever seriously want to lead raids voluntarily….
aaaand….
….then came home, turned on WoW, and ended up leading a 25-man raid to take out Noth the Boredom Bringer (which was the weekly).
Entirely by accident.
And I say leading. Leading in the sense of a leading a bunch of grandmas to an egg sucking contest, since Noth doesn’t exactly require a Caesar or an Alexander to take him down these days. You just kind of go in there and poke him with sticks until he falls over.
Basically what happened was this: I was standing around in Dalaran waiting for someone else to call out “Need healer for weekly” when I saw “Tank LFG for weekly” and I thought to myself “well, I’m a pink toothbrush, he’s a blue toothbrush, I’m a healer, he’s a tank, these days you only need one tank and one healer for Noth, and the healers is dead weight anyway, so I bet it would be the easiest thing in the world to grab 6-8 DPS and go in there and knock him over.”
FATAL! Stupid thinking, Tam, stupid.
So I whispered him and he was game. So I invited, converted to raid (the first time I have ever pressed that button, by the way), and sang out over LFG: “Looking for a bunch o’DPS for the weekly.”
Within about 2 minutes we were full and one of my own raid was summoning me to Naxx. This was the life.
And then, of course, we all remembered it was Tuesday and about half of us were still saved because Noth had brought us boredom last week as well.
And that was when the second stage of complete and abject madness set in. “No problem,” I drooled, “I’ll just make it a 25-man, hearth back to Dalaran, grab another tank, an extra healer and moar DPS.”
And I have no idea what happened after that. It’s a complete blank.
Well, no, I do. What happened was I initiated a situation in which 25 people were talking to me, at me, or around me, all of them wanting something from me, be it a summon, for me to invite their friend and/or them, an answer on what role they should be filling, could I promote them to assistant so they could invite their guildies, could they instead come on their DK called Zuouehoadiuoueklajdoiujokaehfiojhklejfosiaujlkewnm … arrrrrrgh! Aaaargh! *tears hair* (There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies. that’s for thoughts.) Thankfully, or not thankfully I can’t tell, I inadvertently tapped into another guild, who basically ran it themselves while I did the administration of it. So I didn’t so much lead the 25-man raid as act as secretary to the 25-man raid but … hey … better not to needed, than to be needed, right? Much less pressure, and administrating it was pressure enough. The main challenge was pushing all the administration through before the raid died of boredom – and making sure that we hadn’t left three DKs in Dalaran or something before starting the fight.
It all came together fine, somehow in the welter of “would you like me as healing or dps” and “would you like me as tank or healer?” I managed to get a sufficiency of tanks, healers and decursers together (and even put them in the right boxes) and Noth got pushed over, while I wibbled at the back. And then everyone said thank you, in the manner of nicely brought up little WoW players, and went away again.
And I headed off to find a willow growing aslant a brook.
The weird thing is … the truly weird thing … is that I remember it as being less horrendously awful than it actually was at the time. MY MIND IS PLAYING TRICKS ON ME. I even caught myself thinking, relatively positively, “well, at least I got the weekly done – and with less fuss than if I’d stood around waiting for someone else to organise it.” NO NO NO. It was more fuss, you stupid priest. MOAR fuss!
But I now have the insight. I know why people become raid leaders. It’s an enormous mindfuck. It’s like … it’s like having children. Bear with me here. But it’s the same reason women are willing to have more than one child. From what I’ve heard from anybody who has made the quite frankly incomprehensible decision to acquire small versions of themselves, during pregnancy, and assuredly during labour, you swear like crazy that you’ll never ever ever put yourself through it again. But afterwards, body and mind play biochemical tricks on you and all you remember is the warm fuzzy feeling of holding a soft, sweet-swelling, beautiful bundle of newborn life with perfectly formed toenails. I should add that I’m extrapolating here – I don’t actually like children very much, and I did achieve a measure of notoriety within my circle for dropping my god-daughter into the font during her christening when somebody shoved her into my arms unexpectedly and I panicked at the fact that this tiny thing was a real live human being and wouldn’t it be awful if I dropped her…oh shit.
But raids are like this. You get yourself into them on a whim. Delivering the fucking thing is bloody bloody agonisingly awful and throughout the whole business you’re reminding yourself how painfully unsuited you are to the task and swearing yourself blue in the face that you’ll never do it again.
But afterwards some weird fuzzy, floaty feeling takes over. You feel vaguely proud. Look at it: your monstrous creation, constructed of dead body parts from other guilds and electricity, taking down Noth. And its toenails are perfectly formed.
Maybe the process wasn’t so bad after all…
So I write this here to remind myself: YES IT WAS THAT BAD. NEVER DO IT AGAIN.
I grinned through most of this (you poor thing), and was going to put a serious comment about raid-leadering in (like never forget the ice-cream break), but I got to the bit where you dropped the baby and dissolved into helpless laughter. Sorry
I'm sad our guild doesn't have any ice-cream breaks in our raiding schedule
And, err, for the record – Kathryn was fine. Having a spaz for a godparent doesn't appear to have hindered her development.
It is bad indeed. Took me three years to stop trying to organize and lead things. Only have one child though, so I guess I'm not such a slow learner all the time
My recent post Mammoth!
Hehe – I sometimes think I have a very slow learning curve. There's part of me wondering if maybe it'd be simpler if I tried to organise another raid for the weekly, and the rest of me is not waving but drowning…
See you have people who take on a leadership role by default and enjoy it, you have people who couldn't lead a tea party and you have people who step up when there is a clearly a need for a leader. I'm in that 3rd group and I absolutely hate it.
It's why I try so hard not to ever invite people to raids. But when I do and I end up Raid Leading (ick) I think the only way to run the damn thing is to abuse /RW (raid warnings) and to TELL people what to do and to NEVER EVER ASK a question. Ask "who's healing"? mistake. Ask "who has a tanking offspec?" mistake.
Oh god I don't even like thinking about it.
My recent post Absolute Power
I'm increasingly wondering if raid leadership isn't one of those "sword in the stone" / do you feel you are ready to be king of all england moments – in that a lot of the time the sort of people who are seeking validation from it are the people who probably shouldn't be trying to do it … obviously this doesn't apply across the board, I've seen plenty of people in action who genuinely seem to be in their element, and that's great, but it seems if you can't have a Natural Leader TM you're better off with someone reluctant yet determined to take it seriously than someone who thinks they'd be awesome and are either expecting to faceroll through with no effort or are power tripping like a crazy.
In short: yes, I think we're probably pretty similar.
Although I'll remember the DON'T ASK TELL technique for next time I'm stupid
See you have people who take on a leadership role by default and enjoy it, you have people who couldn't lead a tea party and you have people who step up when there is a clearly a need for a leader. I'm in that 3rd group and I absolutely hate it.
It's why I try so hard not to ever invite people to raids. But when I do and I end up Raid Leading (ick) I think the only way to run the damn thing is to abuse /RW (raid warnings) and to TELL people what to do and to NEVER EVER ASK a question. Ask "who's healing"? mistake. Ask "who has a tanking offspec?" mistake.
Oh god I don't even like thinking about it.
My recent post Absolute Power
As always this had me in hysterics Tam.
Actual hysterics.
I kinda sorta led an Undying run through Naxx a couple of weeks ago and it was undoubtedly one of the most stressful things I have ever done.
Luckily my kindly raid leader had come along anyway and was willing to do something on the fights where we needed to actually still have a strategy, and even more luckily my charge didn't change at any point during Thaddius and I didn't have to run round and therefore kill us all, but my God it was still stressful.
However, it was a lot of fun and afterwards I simply thought "well – it's done now!".
Sometimes when you're in a particularly depressing PuG raid you want to just go; "Oh I'll do it MYSELF THEN!".
Sometimes this goes well and sometimes it gets steadily worse.
RNG dictates that I guess.
Soph
My recent post There is a reason…
Hysterics are good, right? Always glad to amuse
God, just trying to run Undying is hard enough let alone trying to lead one. Probably I'd have stood in the first fire available out of sheer anxiety and, y'know, irony. I still haven't got Undying which makes me sad but I guess the thing about it is you need the right folks. I mean, if you die you have to trust everyone else not to make you feel shitty about it.
But I know what you mean about those depressing pugs, somehow led by monkeys who have been given access to a computer. Those are the only occasions when I feel the call of leadership, but it's more out of frustration and a sense of "even I could fuck this up less" rather than real desire.
You did a great job
I think the other big reason that people end up as raid leaders is that shining moment when you realise, "Wait, I get to set the raid schedule. The raids happen when it's convenient for me!"
Thank you kindly Spinks. I nearly had a heart attack when you rolled up – I was fully expecting to have a story of abject and humiliating failure to write up today and although I'm sure I could have spun it into "ha ha, isn't that amusing, poor cluess Tam" you'd have been witness to the horrifying truth…
At least you know when to leave the group before your sanity breaks. I tend to be the one in our 10 mans to explain the strategies of the fights. I try to keep it light and humorous and to phrase things in a mildly polite manner, but my boyfriend has a nasty habit of holding down his push to talk when I am ranting at my computer screen, " GREEN IS BAD, STOP STANDING IN BAD IT MAKES YOU BAD."
Or worse, the dreaded obscenities. "Six out of those seven words in that sentence were swear words. I'm not sure if that's even anatomically possible honey."
I would never, ever lead a 25. Its hard enough to herd 9 other people in the right direction!
My recent post Dear Tam
Most our 25-mans seem to be led by a kind of committee in guild….I think it's probably the only way anybody gets out with anything like their sanity intact!
Thankfully my brief brush with leadership was more a brief brush admin – I mean, everybody was over-geared and it was Noth. Noth does not have tactics, poor guy.
At least you know when to leave the group before your sanity breaks. I tend to be the one in our 10 mans to explain the strategies of the fights. I try to keep it light and humorous and to phrase things in a mildly polite manner, but my boyfriend has a nasty habit of holding down his push to talk when I am ranting at my computer screen, " GREEN IS BAD, STOP STANDING IN BAD IT MAKES YOU BAD." Or worse, the dreaded obscenities. "Six out of those seven words in that sentence were swear words. I'm not sure if that's even anatomically possible honey." I would never, ever lead a 25. Its hard enough to herd 9 other people in the right direction! My recent post Dear Tam
Welcome to the Fabulous World of Raid Leading! Isn't that bad once you've attended several raids and know what's needed, how people is set up, etc but still can burn you out (no matter if you're raiding with your guildmates who already have enough experience on the raid place), specially if things don't go the right way. For me the biggest problem when leading is making sure everybody is in the right place and nothing gets out of hand or there aren't any nasty surprises (aggro-stealing, pulling wrong mobs, etc) and it's difficult to get a whole picture of what's going on. It depends a lot on your class. The raid leader is not a middle-age general, sitting back at the top of a hill, surveilling the army. The raid leader is also an active raid member and he'll be in the mdille of the fray. If you're tank or melee say goodby to any situation awareness, you're only going to see (and care) for the boss you are facing. Healers might have a better overview sinc they usually stand in the back, but their eyes are too focused on the green bars. The best class for a raidleader is some ranged dps with simple rotation so they can pay attention to other places and give the necessary orders. but still there're times that as raid leader you can only ask what happened because you can't focus on everything at the same time. And it's not waving the Blame Finger, waiting for an unsuspecting raider to be picked as guilty. I just need a clear info of what happened so I can try to fix this next time. At least that first group seemed to take this much better than any groups, even guild groups.
My recent post A Tyranny of Tanks
I saw you on Larisa's blogroll before, but this is the first time I have visited.
What a great post – it had me in stitches!
And I'm definitely coming back!
Thank you for reading, and for commenting. I'm always happy when my silly ramblings amuse
It's funny, I had an experience last night with pugging into a raid and suddenly leading it… But I think my experience was a bit better…
I think I'll write up a post about it for tomorrow…
My recent post Frost Emblem Accessories Redux
Perhaps you stepped up less reluctantly
Oh this cracked me up. What you'll find in ten mans is that it makes it a helluva lot easier if you've got one person issuing commands in SLIGHTLY DARKER TEXT and yelling at people and telling them where to stand, while another person works from behind the scenes, making sure there are enough healers, etc, and inviting people, organizing, generally playing secretary.
In a 25 man, IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER BECAUSE IT ALL SUCKS. This is why I stopped trying to organize 25 mans. See, I used to think I was a good multi-tasker. I pictured myself at a nice little desk with Secretary heels and a sweet smile, organizing people into piles of "Healer!" "Tank!" "Ranged DPS!" "Melee!" but then people started asking questions… can i come in this spec? I'm normally dps, but I will heal for you… does that mean I can roll on both types of gear? I have to leave half an hour early, is that okay? I have a friend of a friend of my gardener and they have a shield – can they try to tank? ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
My head, it esploded. After taking a 2 month break from all organized raids, I finally decided that while I rather liked organizing raids, because then you can do it on your own terms, I'd stick to 10 mans, thankyouverymuch.
Also, I don't think babies are sweet-smelling at all. Honestly, if all babies smelled like little kittens, maybe I would like them more. Meow!
It's funny, I had an experience last night with pugging into a raid and suddenly leading it… But I think my experience was a bit better… I think I'll write up a post about it for tomorrow… My recent post Frost Emblem Accessories Redux
“…I panicked at the fact that this tiny thing was a real live human being and wouldn’t it be awful if I dropped her…oh shit.”
Laughing at work! Hilarious. I have 4 kids, my oldest being 18 in less than two months. As much as I love my children, I am counting down to when the youngest hits 18 and moves/is kicked out of the house (7.5 years).
As for raid-leadering, now that you have Teh Hat of Teh AwesumZ, you’re a natural!
50 gold says that before feb is over, you will have led a raid once again.
Yea thats right, im putting 50 big ones on the line here!
I used to lead Kara back in the day, after having been run through it a bazillion times. And when forming strategies for bosses, im always amazed about how little you actually need to know about the fight in order to tank/heal/pew it. But also how much info you need to have in order to lead a raid into it.
Amazing.
And the trash. Raid leaders has to know stuff about trash in dungeons too. I never knew anything about trash, and i usually tank the damn things.
My recent post Addicted to WoW.
“…I panicked at the fact that this tiny thing was a real live human being and wouldn’t it be awful if I dropped her…oh shit.”
Laughing at work! Hilarious. I have 4 kids, my oldest being 18 in less than two months. As much as I love my children, I am counting down to when the youngest hits 18 and moves/is kicked out of the house (7.5 years).
As for raid-leadering, now that you have Teh Hat of Teh AwesumZ, you’re a natural!
Oh, Zuouehoadiuoueklajdoiujokaehfiojhklejfosiaujlkewnm? I think I ran a pug with him the other day, seemed like a nice guy.
Hilarious, as usual, Tam. And I think Imhoughtep must be right, "mah hat" lends you awesome powers! (Yes, I know it's not actually MAH hat, being yours, but "your hat" doesn't have the same ring.)
My recent post Bones and Brambles
Zuouehoadiuoueklajdoiujokaehfiojhklejfosiaujlkewnm is a total noob! Are you sure you don't mean Zuouehoadiuoueklajdoiujokaehfiojhklejfosiaujlkezouehok?
The fact MAH HAT is on fire helps people recognise my inherent leadership abilities
I have also been in the situation where I’ve lead by default (because no one else knew the content, no one else was willing to speak up, or… who knows?). I much prefer to just know or be told my role and take care of it. Leadership leads to breakdowns. Thanks for the laughs!
Hilarious. And from my experience most leaders in WoW do it not because it's fun, but because if they don't everyone will stand around staring at each other and nothing will get done. Me, I lead pugs out of pure self-interest. It's less painless overall to have someone step up to the plate, even if they're looking up boss strats on the fly because they don't know what the hell they're doing.
Hilarious. And from my experience most leaders in WoW do it not because it's fun, but because if they don't everyone will stand around staring at each other and nothing will get done. Me, I lead pugs out of pure self-interest. It's less painless overall to have someone step up to the plate, even if they're looking up boss strats on the fly because they don't know what the hell they're doing.
Dear sweet fancy Moses, I understand what you're saying.
I led 40 and 20-man raids in vanilla WoW, then led 10 and 25-mans all through BC while being a GM, and still more GMing/RLing at the start of Wrath. I'm the poor schmuck who had to teach my guild how to dance on Heigan. I'm the girl who had to teach people how not to die on slimes after Patchwerk and how to move on Sarth. When my guild lost enough people in the start of Wrath to not be able to run 25s anymore, it was almost (almost!) a welcome change. I joined a new guild, I was just a cog in the machine… until I realized they had no idea how to assign healing. Voila, I became healing officer and, for some reason, this meant I was in charge of cooldowns (Pain Suppression, Guardian Spirit, Hand of Sacrifice, Shield Wall, all that stuff) as well.
These days I'm in a different guild with absolutely no leadership responsibilities at all. What's more, I pug avidly on my other toons, but I NEVER, EVER, EVER LEAD. The most I do is call out who I'll heal if I'm on a healing toon. The thought of putting myself through the pain of actually leading a raid filled with people I don't know makes me want to burst into tears and delete all my toons. Basically, you're right. NO ONE in their right mind would ever, ever want to lead a raid. It is a thankless job filled with people asking YOU questions that you really do have to answer or else things will fail hideously.
I have to say, though, leading a pug raid these days doesn't seem as bad as some of my guild experiences. There I am, a holy paladin, healing Hydross the Unstable in Serpentshrine Cavern, back at level 70. Not ONLY am I healing the crap out of whichever tank is active, not ONLY am I making sure to stand far away enough from other people not to get water tombed, not ONLY that… but I'm also counting the marks of Hydross or whatever until we need to switch. AND announcing it over vent for those too tunnel-visioned to bother noticing. "Mark 3, prepare to stop dots in 10. … Stop dots. Moving in 6. …. Stop DPS, move. Mark 4, TAUNT."
I only did it because it was my guild and I felt a responsibility as the raid leader to help them out as much as possible so that we'd stack the odds of success in our favour, but dear God, I have no desire to be THAT involved as the raid leader ever, ever, ever again.
So, props to you for having led stuff — I don't have the energy to do it these days.
My recent post Awesome.
Just imagine, if as a complete raiding nooblet, you'd let yourself and your pocket tank be sucked into the unenviable position of leading ALL THE RAIDS. ALL THE TIME. Raid night in my guild lasts between 2-3 hours… I usually start 2 hours early, reading strats and watching videos because I've never seen the content either. Sometimes I have to make macros of /rw like "HEAL THE INCINERATE FLESH VICTIM… HEAL THEM HEAL THEM NOWWWWW!!!" and "STOP RUNNING OUT OF RANGE OF THE HEALERS WHEN YOU ARE THE INCINERATE FLESH VICTIM! RUN AWAY ON LEGION FLAMES! THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING YOU TARDS… I MEAN, SWEET BUNDLES OF RAIDING JOY!!" *cough* What have I done to myself?
Just imagine, if as a complete raiding nooblet, you'd let yourself and your pocket tank be sucked into the unenviable position of leading ALL THE RAIDS.
ALL THE TIME.
Raid night in my guild lasts between 2-3 hours… I usually start 2 hours early, reading strats and watching videos because I've never seen the content either. Sometimes I have to make macros of /rw like "HEAL THE INCINERATE FLESH VICTIM… HEAL THEM HEAL THEM NOWWWWW!!!" and "STOP RUNNING OUT OF RANGE OF THE HEALERS WHEN YOU ARE THE INCINERATE FLESH VICTIM! RUN AWAY ON LEGION FLAMES! THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING YOU TARDS… I MEAN, SWEET BUNDLES OF RAIDING JOY!!"
*cough* What have I done to myself?
Yeesh, I have enough trouble orgainising 10 guildies to be online, on the right characters, and knowledgeable enough to raid let alone 25 strangers
Its a lot easier to lead a raid by just telling people you know well over vent when to stop faffing and start pulling, or who should heal who if necessary.
Then again, I have delegated the role of 'fight explainer' to someone else because mine usually start 'well, you know that thing he does? yeah you should not get hit by that… oh and theres this other thing…urm… ' followed by much mumbling and awkward silences :/
Yeesh, I have enough trouble orgainising 10 guildies to be online, on the right characters, and knowledgeable enough to raid let alone 25 strangers
Its a lot easier to lead a raid by just telling people you know well over vent when to stop faffing and start pulling, or who should heal who if necessary. Then again, I have delegated the role of 'fight explainer' to someone else because mine usually start 'well, you know that thing he does? yeah you should not get hit by that… oh and theres this other thing…urm… ' followed by much mumbling and awkward silences :/
As someone that has led 25 man and 10 man raids for well over 2 years straight (maybe 3?), I couldn't help, but be uncontrollably entertained by this. I still remember how I got the gig… no one would step up… everyone wanted to raid, but no one wanted to lead… so I said, I'd do it until someone more suitable could be found. That was High King Mulgar.
We still haven't found someone more suitable. Apparently.
My recent post The New T10 Gloves and Chest
*wipes tears from eyes*
That, sir, was fucking hysterical!
Kids & I don't get along all that well, so I've never been tempted to have one, let alone multiples. OR submit my other half to such painful barbarity.
My hat's off to you on your successful leadership stuff. (though tipping my hat is nowhere near as awesome as your hat is, just by "being"… )
What you wrote is why I'm too scared to lead raids. I'm a good follower, but a lousy leader.
This is a brilliant post, as usual.
You have to be careful leading raids, you never know what types of skills you will pick up leading that weekly raid, which then leads to maybe leading a raid for the guild once in a while, which then leads to leading a weekly raid, which then leads to you organizing 25 cats into a herd as a hobby.
In other words, don't give that mouse a cookie!
My recent post A Tale of Two Heroics
LOL, although my WoW playing time has went down, still got that story. Wanted to do the weekly and saw people spamming LFG for Razovious. So, me being Mr. DK Tank said “fuck it”, grabbed people off trade and BOOM, summoned to Naxxramas.
Then we wipe because neither me or the other tank knew how to handle the MC-with-a-crystal-thingy mobs. I breathed, and I say “Ok, who knows how to do it?”, somebody offered, I put the other guys that was saying that he knew at the beggining and…they start the fight just after I got in, and with me on tank spec/gear.
Add another “fuck it”, switched to Blood Presence and started to beat the crap of Razovious. Not the most clean kill, but we pwned him.
And that’s the point, a raid leader need to know what everybody should do (or alt-tab a strat on WoWWiki, heh), but, more importantly, he needs to know how to keep morale after a wipe, how to keep everybody focused enough to kill the boss and had an idea of the cause of a wipe.
Even if it means having to ask in raid chat.
LOL, although my WoW playing time has went down, still got that story. Wanted to do the weekly and saw people spamming LFG for Razovious. So, me being Mr. DK Tank said “fuck it”, grabbed people off trade and BOOM, summoned to Naxxramas.
Then we wipe because neither me or the other tank knew how to handle the MC-with-a-crystal-thingy mobs. I breathed, and I say “Ok, who knows how to do it?”, somebody offered, I put the other guys that was saying that he knew at the beggining and…they start the fight just after I got in, and with me on tank spec/gear.
Add another “fuck it”, switched to Blood Presence and started to beat the crap of Razovious. Not the most clean kill, but we pwned him.
And that’s the point, a raid leader need to know what everybody should do (or alt-tab a strat on WoWWiki, heh), but, more importantly, he needs to know how to keep morale after a wipe, how to keep everybody focused enough to kill the boss and had an idea of the cause of a wipe.
Even if it means having to ask in raid chat.
I've been there! I sometimes think we all have. We don't want raids to fail, even if we didn't intend on leading them. (And leading them is a ginormous pain in the ass!) And so we step up. But realizing what you're comfortable doing is important, too – some people step up and the role fits them like a glove and other people step up and find themselves jamming a glove onto their foot.
I think what I'm saying here is bravo for being a glove when you are really a sock. Wait. That didn't make any sense. *shuffles nervously* Right. Um. /treehug? Ok, bye.
My recent post The Non-Tree Resto Druid
“I don’t actually like children very much, and I did achieve a measure of notoriety within my circle for dropping my god-daughter into the font during her christening when somebody shoved her into my arms unexpectedly and I panicked at the fact that this tiny thing was a real live human being and wouldn’t it be awful if I dropped her…oh shit.”
Okay, that gave me a good late-night’s laugh! I don’t like children, but I gotta say it’s good you dropped her into the font and not on the ground. And I’m not religious but hey, didn’t they do immersion-baptisms originally anyway and not that sissy two drops of water on the head thing?
The only raids I have headed were small in-guild trips. When I was still raiding with my “proper” raidgroup (I quit last autumn), I was a bit of an unofficial assistant by virtue of feeling responsible for doing what I can do help make the run a success, such as doing briefings and whatnot. I guess that obligation for responsibility is part of why I like tanking too. But at the same time I learned that I very much do NOT want to be a for-real, serious raidleader. Tanking is stressful enough when a moment’s mistake can cause wipes, thank you very much. I don’t need the full burden of organizing, yelling at people who act out, finding last-second replacements, healer assignments etc. on top of that.
God, yes, I'd feel awful if I broke my god-daughter. I understand children are pretty resilient though – since they somehow to have survive surrounded by idiotic adults who panic and drop them!
I genuinely have no idea how people heal or tank AND raid lead. I mean the roles in themselves are demanding enough that I'm pretty sure I started paying attention to what other people were doing, the raid would start dying. But, yes, i think the more people are invested in the success of the group and wiling to help out, take small responsibilities, the better things go. But there's a world of difference between that suddenly finding the success of the whole enterprise resting on your shoulders. *twitch* *twitch*
“I don’t actually like children very much, and I did achieve a measure of notoriety within my circle for dropping my god-daughter into the font during her christening when somebody shoved her into my arms unexpectedly and I panicked at the fact that this tiny thing was a real live human being and wouldn’t it be awful if I dropped her…oh shit.”
Okay, that gave me a good late-night’s laugh! I don’t like children, but I gotta say it’s good you dropped her into the font and not on the ground. And I’m not religious but hey, didn’t they do immersion-baptisms originally anyway and not that sissy two drops of water on the head thing?
The only raids I have headed were small in-guild trips. When I was still raiding with my “proper” raidgroup (I quit last autumn), I was a bit of an unofficial assistant by virtue of feeling responsible for doing what I can do help make the run a success, such as doing briefings and whatnot. I guess that obligation for responsibility is part of why I like tanking too. But at the same time I learned that I very much do NOT want to be a for-real, serious raidleader. Tanking is stressful enough when a moment’s mistake can cause wipes, thank you very much. I don’t need the full burden of organizing, yelling at people who act out, finding last-second replacements, healer assignments etc. on top of that.
“I don’t actually like children very much, and I did achieve a measure of notoriety within my circle for dropping my god-daughter into the font during her christening when somebody shoved her into my arms unexpectedly and I panicked at the fact that this tiny thing was a real live human being and wouldn’t it be awful if I dropped her…oh shit.”
Okay, that gave me a good late-night’s laugh! I don’t like children, but I gotta say it’s good you dropped her into the font and not on the ground. And I’m not religious but hey, didn’t they do immersion-baptisms originally anyway and not that sissy two drops of water on the head thing?
The only raids I have headed were small in-guild trips. When I was still raiding with my “proper” raidgroup (I quit last autumn), I was a bit of an unofficial assistant by virtue of feeling responsible for doing what I can do help make the run a success, such as doing briefings and whatnot. I guess that obligation for responsibility is part of why I like tanking too. But at the same time I learned that I very much do NOT want to be a for-real, serious raidleader. Tanking is stressful enough when a moment’s mistake can cause wipes, thank you very much. I don’t need the full burden of organizing, yelling at people who act out, finding last-second replacements, healer assignments etc. on top of that.
“I don’t actually like children very much, and I did achieve a measure of notoriety within my circle for dropping my god-daughter into the font during her christening when somebody shoved her into my arms unexpectedly and I panicked at the fact that this tiny thing was a real live human being and wouldn’t it be awful if I dropped her…oh shit.”
Okay, that gave me a good late-night’s laugh! I don’t like children, but I gotta say it’s good you dropped her into the font and not on the ground. And I’m not religious but hey, didn’t they do immersion-baptisms originally anyway and not that sissy two drops of water on the head thing?
The only raids I have headed were small in-guild trips. When I was still raiding with my “proper” raidgroup (I quit last autumn), I was a bit of an unofficial assistant by virtue of feeling responsible for doing what I can do help make the run a success, such as doing briefings and whatnot. I guess that obligation for responsibility is part of why I like tanking too. But at the same time I learned that I very much do NOT want to be a for-real, serious raidleader. Tanking is stressful enough when a moment’s mistake can cause wipes, thank you very much. I don’t need the full burden of organizing, yelling at people who act out, finding last-second replacements, healer assignments etc. on top of that.
“I don’t actually like children very much, and I did achieve a measure of notoriety within my circle for dropping my god-daughter into the font during her christening when somebody shoved her into my arms unexpectedly and I panicked at the fact that this tiny thing was a real live human being and wouldn’t it be awful if I dropped her…oh shit.”
Okay, that gave me a good late-night’s laugh! I don’t like children, but I gotta say it’s good you dropped her into the font and not on the ground. And I’m not religious but hey, didn’t they do immersion-baptisms originally anyway and not that sissy two drops of water on the head thing?
The only raids I have headed were small in-guild trips. When I was still raiding with my “proper” raidgroup (I quit last autumn), I was a bit of an unofficial assistant by virtue of feeling responsible for doing what I can do help make the run a success, such as doing briefings and whatnot. I guess that obligation for responsibility is part of why I like tanking too. But at the same time I learned that I very much do NOT want to be a for-real, serious raidleader. Tanking is stressful enough when a moment’s mistake can cause wipes, thank you very much. I don’t need the full burden of organizing, yelling at people who act out, finding last-second replacements, healer assignments etc. on top of that.
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