Leading a Raid is Tough

December 5, 2006 - Posted in the Core category -

Last night, Core went on our first ever raid. Zul’Gurub was our poison of choice. All in all, things went extremely well. We downed the Bat, Snake, Spider aspects, and Bloodlord too. Time was our only problem. We started the raid at 7pm, and it ended at 10pm. Thus, being my first raid to lead, things went a little slower then normal.

Looting, Speaking, Strategizing, etc..

Ok, so I never really thought about this aspect before, but doing all of these things as raid leader, and still playing your class to its top potential is a really hard thing to do. Not only did I have to loot all of the coins, and bijous, I was the one responsible for telling all of the strategies, answering all of the questions, distributing loot, and everything else you can think of that a raid leader does. Don’t get me wrong, it was the most fun, yet challenging thing I have done to date, but it was just a lot more than I expected.

One way I think this can be fixed, is to distribute the responsibilities to different officers. Maybe leave one officer in charge of looting, one in charge of telling strats, one in charge of pulling/marking (thanks Syd, you did a great job btw), etc. This is probably the only way it wouldn’t eventually overwork me. Anyone have any other suggestions?

Loot

I forgot most of what loot dropped, as I was busy doing other things, but heres what little I remember…

Primal Hakkari Aegis x2
Primal Hakkari Stanchion
Runed Bloodstained Hauberk
Zulian Defender
Band of Jin
Zanzil's Seal
Bloodsoaked Pauldrons

Korgg picked up the Zulian Defender. Finally :)

10 Comments »


Deadr - December 5, 2006 -

So, you’re saying I’ll get to enjoy having an ‘experienced’ raid leader by the time I hit 60? Good. I hate dying. :)

Gratz on the loot.

One suggestion that I remember from my raiding days is to have the raid leader pretty much only tell us when to stop. I was in a guild with the GM as our MT and the raid leader was our prime priest, standing back with a wide view of the situation. The GM told our trusted hunter when he was ready and we just kept moving along.

Ogre - December 5, 2006 -

Yeah, raid leading is preeety hard, huh?

And all this time you thought DKP was a nuisance. Change 20 mature players into 40 mismatched prepubescent addicts and you have a REAL guild.

Aeigelus - December 6, 2006 -

Deadr: Ha! Yeah, dunno if i will ever consider myself “experienced” :) If anything, I will just delegate power to others muahahahaha.

Ogre: Well, DKP is still a friggin nuisance. Piece of crap RaidTracker… But yeah, I don’t know how you did it in MC/BWL/AQ etc…

WoG - December 6, 2006 -

Wow - 3 hours for your first raid lead, and you downed a majority of ZG - that’s great! Keep up the good work.

jaed - December 6, 2006 -

jaed sucks, =)))

Kinless - December 7, 2006 -

Job distribution in raids: Here’s how we did it through BWL…

Our Guild Master really did very little in our raids except swing the big stick of authority, mute folks when vent went silly, and heard out the complaints and grievances.

The Class Leaders were responsible for their classmates. (Shamans, Priests, Hunters, etc., each had their own leadership for invites, conflict resolution, taskings, etc.) Class Leaders also got Alternate Raid Leader so they could invite to the raid.

The Raid Leader was the one most experienced with the instance. Typically the Main Tank i.e. Fulcrum of the Effort. After all everything happens after he starts, and occurs around him, or behind him.

The Raid Leader does the markups for sheep duty, shackles, etc. He doesn’t have to be the Main Tank, but ours always were.

We had a designated puller. The Hunter most experienced with the instance we were in. And no other. He had the patrol paths down, knew when he tagged a boss right, and when to feign when he didn’t, etc.

Master Looter was a job that we officers rolled on. Winner (or Loser!) got the job. Some ML’s are lucky for one class, others for BOPs. I enjoyed that job.

Typically somebody else was in charge of the bids and the DKP. We had some system admin types who had our DKP system automated.

You’ll want a designated miner for the ore in MC, skinner in UBRS, etc.

You’d think in the above the Guild Master had the least to do. I don’t think so. Keeping 40+ people motivated, committed, and coordinated is a job and a half all on it’s own.

Get some officers to handle the loot, designate a hunter your Main Puller, designate Class Leaders (who are also officers), and keeping it all together will be your job.

I miss raiding because pulling off those achievements really felt good.

Aeigelus - December 7, 2006 -

Jaed: Why would you say such things about yourself? Tisk tisk :)

Kinless: Holy crap that is a great post. Yeah, I had thought about distributing it up like this as well. One of my main problems, is I don’t know every strategy from every aspect, so I am going to have to ask for the most help for that. Hell, until I leveled my shaman, I didn’t know most of the curses/diseases/poisons from most of the mobs in game, because my pet was always the one to soak those up :D

Aeigelus - December 7, 2006 -

Also, you should transfer to Burning Legion, Kinless :) You would make a great addition to Core :D

Depac - December 7, 2006 -

delegation delegation delegation. It is really difficult for the main puller or main tank to lead a raid and keep up with all of the other stuff. We usually have 1 person pick up all the bijous and coins, 1 person skin, 1 person go for bloodvine. The bijou/coin person also handles the loot. He distributes the coins/bijous after the raid. The raid leader pretty much keeps the raid moving. We are a close knit guild so I guess there is a lot of trust but we can easily make it through zg in an evening.

Kinless - December 7, 2006 -

Unfortunately I went all carebear to play with my wife and only have a 22 Tauren Druid and a 20 Troll Rogue left on PvP servers to transfer. That and I’m six time zones ahead of east coast time. Otherwise I’d be right over.

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