The sacrifices we make for guildies.

Because our guild is not a "Raiding Guild", our memebership is not built around raiding. While this is not a bad thing in itself, it does put a small burden on those of us who want to raid.

We build a raid, and like alot of Raid Leaders, ours wants to have a full guild raid. Herein lies the problem : we are obligated (more by a sense of 'trying to be a good guildie' than actual rules) to admit guildies to the raid regardless of their skill level, play style, class, role, performance, or attendance, simply because they are 'interested' in going.  This causes some problems within a raid. Any raider worth his salt will tell you that a full compliment of buffs is the bizniss, it makes you perform at you peak, doing more and taking less damage, or doing better healing using less mana etc.. When you have to admit everyone who's interested, sometimes you end up with a great composition with all the buffs you need, sometimes you get shafted and miss out on crucial buffs/abilities which affects the raid in a big way. This can be categorized as a raid composition problem, but... our Raid Leader can hardly be held responsible due to his 'obligation' to the guildies, thus he lets them bring whoever they want, and if we are missing a shaman for heroism, "oh well". 

We have players of all skill levels in the guild, and it takes being a real raider to realize that there is a very big disparity in the skill levels required for raids. This being said... people who aren't real raiders have no clue, they think if they can get in the door, they have met the requirements for said raid. There is no way a serious 25man raid would ever admit anyone wearing green (uncommon) or blue (rare) gear, and all purples (epic gear) are not the same. Gear goes hand in hand with experience, we want to see people in gear they acquired in 10man ICC, so we know you've seen some of the fights.  In our raid we have people who have never seen the inside of ICC before, no Uld, no Naxx even. People in badge vendor gear that they acquired by running fail heroic dungeons all day every day, which is admirable (hey, gotta start somewhere), but it does not attribute to your skill level at all.  So the raid leading team is required to not only explain the fights, but actually micro-manage what people are doing throughout, and then monitor them through the whole fight (on top of playing their own class) to make sure they are adherent to the tasks they were set. 

Some people dont have what it takes to raid. Simple statement I know, but here's the rub. Most of the people who dont have what it takes are in the worst kind of denial, they think that just because they 'want to go' and they 'can get in' that they are ready. Any real raider will tell you it takes attention, temperament, patience, knowledge, awareness, reaction, anticipation, and a host of other 'actual' skills to be successful in a raid. Some people's playstyle does not include these things, they are laid back, they dont actively think of how best to use their toon's capabilities (ex:  a hunter using misdirect when the tanks have a 4million threat lead on any of the dps... waste of time).

Perhaps one of the biggest problems with a guild raid (as opposed to a raiding guild), in my eyes at least, is that it's hard to hold people accountable. When people screw up, we have to be nice about it, shuffle our feet and try to tactfully help them to come to understand where they went wrong and how they can do better, as opposed to telling them to get it right or gtfo.

Another accountability issue we have been having in particular is attendance. Here we are tripping over our own feet in a big BIG way : we tolerate poor attendance. We miss out on 45+ minutes of raid time filling up the raid, which is no more than the Raid Lead saying every 5 minutes "we are waiting on (fill in names of the 10 guildies who accepted and didnt show yet), let's give em another 5 minutes" then when one shows up it's "we are waiting on (fill in the names of the 9 still missing), I'm gonna start trying to fill their spots".  When we finally do fill, whether it's with the latecomers on the accepted list, or with pugs, does the RL give them a good lashing for starting 45mins late? No. "Thank you for coming".  Which brings me full circle to the root of most of the problems : our Raid Leader.

We talked about what it takes to raid, but what it takes to raid lead goes further on in the list of required skills, too numerous to count out here, and honestly I dont know them all. I do see a few large ones lacking here though. One of them, and I dont know if it is the inherent 'good guildie' implications or just 'I dont care', is the ability to deal with problems that affect the whole raid. You have 15 people there on time and staring at trash inside the instance for 45+ minutes and then you act like it's all good that we are finally starting, instead of being pissed that we are starting late. In fact, 20 mins before raid start this week, I said on vent "Ok, I'm gonna log over and line up for the raid". the raid leader said "Hey wanna try and sneak in a random heroic before the raid starts?"  (which caused him to be around 10 mins late to HIS OWN RAID, by which time myself and several others had been lined up and waiting for 30 mins or more). My advise to him, if he should happen to read this post, would be to start thinking about the raid an hour or more before the raid is slated to start. HE should be the one waiting around, not sticking 20 people inside and making them wait for 45 minutes. You owe it to the people who show up on time and come ready to do the damn thing, to make the raid happen, because you 'promised' them that it would. If the guildies are ever to get better/more serious about the raid, if the attendance/punctuality is to ever get better, if people's skill level is to get any better, it starts with the integrity of the Raid Leader. If you dont take it serious, who will? I, for one, will, and I can tell you that the people who do care get very upset when a Raid Leader doesnt care. I understand the scheduling and the monitoring of people's availibility and the sorting out of who's interested is alot, but it doesnt stop there. I also understand if you need help explaining fights due to your lack of experience yourself in 25man, these things are fine, even expected. But... the raid needs you to be strong and that works both ways, carry who you can, but be decisive enough to cut the fat, people who arent pulling their weight, arent showing up, arent getting better, for the better of the raid. End Rant.

BTW made my 30k kills, and I dropped my tank spec for a few days to try out some moonkin pvp, which is about the funnest thing since Disneyland. Starfalls-R-Us is now open, and we are giving out rain checks.