Raiding - Signing up, Turning up & Roles
We've now had a couple of weeks worth of raids under our belts for this expansion. As of tonight, 5 raids have been successfully run with virtually full raid teams. We've had fun, we've had wipes, we've had kills and squeaks and getting lost, and we've had drinks and snacks to accompany us on our journey.
Our "old hands" have adapted well to having much larger raid groups, our newer members have integrated well to the point where they fit in seamlessly with everyone else.
However, from an organisational point of view, getting raid groups organised when so many wish to go - sometimes more than we have space for - is complicated and time consuming.
Roles
As you are aware, raid groups generally have a specific number of certain types of roles - nearly always only two tanks are needed, for example, regardless of raid size. Six healers maximum are needed, depending on the overall size of the raid. We generally need a balance of ranged and melee dps.
This does mean that sometimes people either have to switch to a different role (either on the same character or a different one) or sit out completely. On the whole, everyone has been very patient and gracious about it all, although I understand that it is annoying if you've levelled a specific character in a specific role, only to find you're unable to raid with it.
This is one of the reasons why we were trying to collate a list of what roles people would be levelling for raiding first - not only so that we could see if there were any roles we were light on, but also so that people could see if we had a lot of a specific role.
It seems that, at the moment, we have rather a lot of people who wish to tank. Up until now, I've been trying to ensure that as many people get to raid as possible, even if it's not with their favoured role. I was generally working on the assumption (and yes, I know what assuming does!) that if people had a choice between not raiding at all sometimes, or raiding all of the time but not necessarily on their favoured role, they'd pick raiding over sitting out. I've been therefore rotating those tanks who ONLY had a tank spec, and trying to sub in occasionally someone who could play another role, to tank when possible; whilst enabling those with secondary roles to raid on those instead.
Having discussed this recently, however, it seems the better option is to simply rotate all of the tanks. If a tank does not have an alternative spec, then they will occasionally have to sit out; if a tank has an alternative spec, then they will be rotated in and out of the tanking role. I've not quite worked out how to do this fairly - it will probably end up on a spreadsheet, as not every "tank" will be available for every raid.
It does mean that, in theory, progression may be a little slower as we will regularly have tanks who are new to tanking certain bosses, but hopefully it will improve our flexibility in the future - and we should generally always have someone in a raid who HAS tanked those bosses who can offer advice.
Bearing in mind we currently have 9 tanks showing up in our Legion Raiders list, and I know there may be one or two more on their way, it still means that it may be a few weeks between rotations.
Signing Up & Turning Up
Our raid groups are currently often over-subscribed. Regularly we have a maxxed out group of 30 people picked to raid, and regularly we have more on standby.
Although most people have been very patient and gracious in respect of getting into, or not getting into, a raid group, I have had a few complaints about being put on standby, not getting picked, etc.
Firstly, I would like to emphasise that we have NEVER advertised ourselves as anything other than a social, casual raiding guild.
We do not have set raid teams, we have never had set raid teams, we are never planning on having set raid teams and we've never advertised having set raid teams. We're all grown-ups with real life commitments, families, jobs, studies, etc, and we understand that people generally cannot and do not want to commit to a specific raid team. We've always said that we organise raids in an inclusive way - we don't ban people from raiding just because they've never done it, or they're worried about it - if they fulfil minimum requirements and they sign up and turn up, then that's good enough for us. We accept raiders who sign up in the calendar in-game based on date/time signed (depending on roles/slots available).
If you do not sign up for a raid in the calendar, you will not get picked to go to a raid!!! I still occasionally get people who complain that they're not able to "get into" a raid, yet they've never actually signed up for one.
DO NOT sign up on the calendar if you have not yet reached the minimum level, or you're not sure if you'll be able to attend (unless you sign tentative), or you won't be able to attend for the full raid time, or you don't have Teamspeak installed. If you're unable to use voice chat for any reason, or you're unable to attend a full raid, please contact me first to discuss.
If you sign up for a raid, you are giving your commitment to myself and the other raiders that you will be there. If you are accepted as part of the starting raid team for that night, you MUST turn up if at all possible. You are taking the raid spot of someone else - if you don't turn up, you've potentially robbed someone else of the chance to raid that night.
If for any reason you're unable to turn up, please do your best to notify us - email, private message, forum message, facebook message, in-game mail/whisper/guild chat/mobile app - there are NUMEROUS ways to contact us. If your WoW subscription gave up, if your computer died, if you realised you had to work late - in these days of new fangled mobile devices there are many ways to keep in contact.
We understand that occasionally you will simply have no opportunity to let us know prior to a raid. In these cases it is simply common courtesy to speak to us/leave a message when able, just explaining why you were unable to attend.
If you've signed up to attend a raid and you're placed on standby, you are STILL expected to turn up in-game at raid start time. You're still stating your commitment to be ready to raid, in case someone else drops out at the last minute.
Virtually every raid we've run, someone accepted to raid has not turned up - some for valid reasons, some not - some without reason at all. Virtually every raid we've run, we've had people on standby - and virtually every time, some of those on standby were not actually online in order to be invited. Some of those people complained about not being picked to go raid. Yet if they'd been online when they were supposed to, when they'd signed up to .. they would have been able to raid.
Please do not sign up to raid unless you will be online, ready at raid start time. Please do not complain about not getting to raid, if you don't sign up to raid, or if you don't turn up to raid.
Organising raids is hard enough, without having to deal with complaints that you then invalidate by not showing up. It is unfair to me, it is unfair to the raiders who have to wait around whilst I try to get replacements for those who haven't turned up, it is unfair to those who decided it wasn't even worth signing up or logging in, because they thought we had a full raid group.
It may sound a bit harsh and not very "social, casual raiding" - but it actually takes a lot of work to make these raids work - not only by myself but also by the other officers who help out with a lot of the background stuff, and by the other raiders who take the time and effort to be prepared.
At the end of the day, if we continue to have large raid groups, and we continue to have people regularly fail to attend when they make a commitment to do so, then I'll start having to give priority to those people who do make the effort to attend on time and ready to go. Which I really don't want to start doing because the amount of admin needed is already rather bonkers - setting up yet more lists is something I'm trying to avoid.
Finally
I've had various suggestions in respect of raiding going forward. Some we are considering, some we aren't.
One that has been suggested, that we will not be considering, is having two raid teams to raid on the same night.
Whilst on the face of it, with a surplus of tanks, potentially a surplus of healers and plenty of dps, this is a good way to ensure everyone who wants to raid gets a space, we have to take a few things into consideration.
- Although raids are often over-subscribed, they are also often not full once we start raiding, primarily due to people signing up and not turning up. Generally in a raid group of 30 people, where some have alternative roles, this doesn't have a huge impact. If this happened in one or both of our two raid teams, it would potentially mean that a lot more may not be able to raid. It would certainly mean that trying to rearrange groups in order to maintain viability would take a lot longer. Making two seperate teams is not going to increase the reliability of raiders.
- Maintaining and running two raid groups would require double the effort and additional people willing to run and lead the groups.
- Running two raid groups goes against the whole ideal of our guild - of being inclusive, social and casual raiders.
- Running two raid groups would lead to arguments and drama (which is the better team, who goes in which team, etc, etc).
We are considering other options, and it is worth noting that, as the expansion goes on, not only will our flexibility increase as more people are raid ready with alts but also more options will open up with regard to raid locations. We're already looking into expanding into Heroic Emerald Nightmare which will then potentially give us the option of "alt" nights in Normal and after that it won't be long before the next raid opens up, providing even more opportunity.
I'd like to thank you PoisonEnvy and everyone else involved in organizing the raids. Doing all the prep work with a large number of members we have is no small feat. That being said, regular guild members and raiders should have understanding that we have to put a bit more effort than simply signing up, or removing ourselves from the list. Timely preparation (login, TS, raiding consumables, running to the raid entrance) is our responsibility and disregarding it shows lack of understanding towards the organizers and other members of the raid team. If everyone puts a little bit more effort into communication then we will only see improvements.