Views of a Raid Leader

Leading like lots of things can happen from many different perspectives. One thing I've learned is that situational awareness is harder depending on what role you fill. The question is where do you want to be standing when things get weird? Well in this particular post I want to explore some of the common roles raid leaders fill and the advantages and disadvantages of those spots.

As a druid I've filled all four roles in a raid. I've been Tank, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS and a Healer. Yes... my altoholic in a box druid has raided in all three main specs. So lets talk about what I've noticed while leading in each of these three roles and their impact on the raid leader's position.

The View From Behind - Tanks and Melee DPS
"I can't squat through my own big fat @#*!!!!!"

As a tank or melee DPS, frequently your view is quite limited. As a bear tank, all you get to see for a lot of fights is big hairy butt for hours on end. With bears in particular, the angle it drops down too and all you see across a third of the screen or more is your own big butt. God forbid you have to back up against a wall!!! But there are some nice benefits too.

Pros

• As a tank you can set the pace of the raid. You control the speed of pulls as well as the amount of down time.
• You get to pick the tanking assignments. Want to try XYZ boss? Grats you can try to tank it.
• You get a close up view of the boss and everything going on.
  

Cons

• Frequently in boss fights you suffer from a limited field of vision. Any fight where you are forced to back up against a wall you can really be limited unless you are very good at tanking in reverse and messing with your camera.
• You limit the amount of Off tanks and trained tanks you will have. If you always fill a tank slot you really limit how many other tanks can train up in your instances.
• You may miss some times if adds appear and some times you are so busy keeping people alive you don't have time to call out on TS or Vent for an issue.
  

Boxed in - Healers
"The boxes... All I see is Boxes... They blink at me in my sleep"

As a healer you gain the advantage of perspective. You are most times not standing on top of the boss. So you have distance on your side for sizing up the situation. Healers come from all perspectives. Druids have the advantage with their healing of being very mobile. I also am a "mouseover" healer. I LOVE mouseover healing for Druids. With most of their spells being instant HoTs its great to just bind them to keys and constantly hover over the raid frames and just press 1,2,1,1,2,1,1,1,2 etc.. I can quickly heal large swaths of people. But from a raid leader lets look at this differently.

Pros

• Not right on top of the mob. You get a much broader view of the fight.
• You should know at any given moment where the damage is going in the raid. You'll get a very good perspective on where healing needs to go and when spikes occur.

Cons

• Healers can some times suffer from what I call "tunnel" or "Grid" vision. They get so focused on what they need to heal that they can tune out what's is going on around them.
• It can be difficult to manage lots of rapid fire healing while watching for boss abilities to call out.
• Depending on your type of healer, you may not be able to move well and get a decent view on a fight.
• As a tank healer you need to watch the tanks and can't slack off of healing to adjust things in raid. YOU MUST HEAL.

Flying High and Far Away - Ranged DPS
"See him?? Dude I saw him and I burned him down before you ever got a chance to get a whiff of his stench"

Ranged DPS has a unique perspective on most fights. They have to be mobile enough to move when their target moves as well as far enough away to keep out of the range of special abilities. Of the three roles the easiest one I've personally found to play is Ranged DPS. Whether hunter, warlock, mage, shaman, druid, priest, etc... the distance and situational awareness that I have gained as a ranged DPS has dramatically increased my raid leading.

Pros

• You have a broad perspective on the fight. Spotting problems and adds is easier as you are LOOKING right at the boss or other targets on the screen. You also tend to catch when people are out of place.
• Limited focus problems. Once you know your spell rotation, you only have to really watch what is happening on the screen and where you are on your threat meter.
• Its easier to catch threat problems on threat based fights. Generally you focus on the threat meter so catching someone overthreating is easy.

Cons

• If you are doing CC, your focus may be split.
• Your speed and control is in the hands of the tanks and healers. You have to rely on them to pull at a reasonable pace.

Tools of the Trade: Druids the Altoholic in a Box

For raid leaders and raiders, understanding the value of the various classes can be difficult. People tend to like to latch onto a stat and really beat it to death. Various tanks latch onto their TPS (threat per second) stat. Some people latch onto their Crit Percentage. Other look at their DPS purely on its own. These same people can fail to mention that they did 800 DPS, but they only had 4% DPS time since they died immediately after the boss fight started due to threat issues.

Lets take a moment to look at some of the various tools you can leverage in your raids and what they really bring to the table.



Balance Druids
"Yeah though I walk through the valley of Doom I shall fear no evil because I am the Harbringer of BOOM"

Buffs Provided

• 5% -6% crit percentage to all ranged Casters in their group
• 2% miss chance for boss Mobs with Insect Swarm ** ALL BOOMKIN SHOULD HAVE THIS**
• 1-3% increase hit chance for Ranged and Melee people with Improved Faerie Fire
• Gift of the Wild

Advantages

• Medium to high DPS class capable of producing considerable damage boost to other raid members as well as their own.
• Reduces incoming damage to Tanks.
• With the 3% hit bonus they can increase tank threat
  
• Can reduce the amount of hit necessary for ranged and melee classes.
• If they bring an healing set they make very good off healers.
• Battle Rez
  

Limitations

• Moonkin suffer from threat issues. Without extremely high threat tanks, Moonkin can suffer from less time on target than other classes. Moonkin have a threat dump via Cower in Kitty Form, but by the time they swap forms (costing mana) wait for 3 seconds to tick up 20 energy and then hit Cower (dropping ~1700 Threat) then swap back (costing mana), they probably could have just sat still not casting for 5 seconds and letting the tank gain an agro lead and gaining valuable MP5. (@Thanks to Hammaer for pointing out the Cower, but I've never thought for its effect that its a true agro dump for Boomkin)
  

Overall Raid Analysis

Balance druids are a nice addition in 10 or 25 man raids due to their buffing potential for casters. Typically Balance druids need to be judged not only on their own DPS, but on the DPS addition to other classes. For instance the 5-6% crit increase could easily equate to 50-100 DPS gain by casters depending on their gear level. That is DPS you should consider added to the Balance druid's base DPS. If they are doing 550 DPS and added 50 DPS to 4 other casters, their DPS contribution to the raid is really 750DPS. Similarly, if they are spec'd into it, they can add 3% hit to the rogues, warrior and shaman who are dual weilding which is a godsend. Balance druids like other classes need to also be careful to keep Insect Swarm up at all times. This has a positive impact by decreasing the amount of hits your tanks will be taking.

Feral Druids

"I walk in shadows... death waits in blood soaked teeth."

Buffs Provided

• Leader of the Pack - adds 5% crit to all party members who do ranged or melee. Can also be talented to add 4% healing on party members who crit of their base health.
• Mangle - Targets affected by Mangle take extra damage from bleed effects. In the current iteration, this has more value for the druid itself which relies on bleed effects rather than other classes. Rogues in their current iteration get more mileage out of Combat which uses Rupture in its rotation. (@Thanks to Wolflord for pointing out the Rotation for Combat Rogues uses Rupture... See I learn as much from my raiders as they learn from me :) )
  
• Gift of the Wild
• Battle Rez
  

Advantages

• Druids can provide tanking and Melee DPS in one package and do it well. For instances with fights that require more tanks for one and less for another they are a great asset to provide tanking and then good DPS when not tanking.
• Can act as Main tank for instance. Decent multi mob tanking capabilities.
• Feral druids can provide passable off healers for fights where you need more healing than your standard contingent of healers.
• Feral tanks are relatively easy to gear up for Karazhan.

Limitations

• Under the current itemization Feral druids DPS suffers in late T5 and beyond. They have trouble keeping pace with Rogues and fury warriors who are given access to Windfury and Mongoose.
• Feral druids can't match the multimob tanking that Pally's can provide.

Overall Raid Analysis

Feral druids have the advantage that none of the other tanking classes currently provide to a raid. They can Tank AND DPS. For other classes it may be necessary to swap characters in and out depending on the boss fight. Druids itemization for tanking is strong enough they can tank most if not all bosses. Resistance bosses they suffer on. There isn't enough gear for Druids to effectively tank Hydross to the same level a warrior/pally could, but it can be done. Their DPS is very passable in higher tiers and their ability to shift from tanking to DPS in mid fight can go a long way toward speeding up certain boss fights where full time tanking might not be needed. For instance on the Illhoof fight if they tank the Imp, they can go to Kitty DPS when the Imp dies.

Resto Druids

"My Bark is much worse than my bite!"

Buffs Provided

• Gift of the Wild
• Healing buff for all people in their group based on their spirit
• Battle Rez
  

Advantages

• Proactive Healing technique does amazing work to smooth out the damage received by tanks.
  
• Their buff for healing affects all healers healing the people in their group. This means one will typically be placed in the MT's group.
• They make passable raid healers, but their forte is the ability to heal multiple tanks at once. Utilizing two resto druids, you can mitigate large amounts of damage on tanks.
• A large amount of their healing ticks every second. Instead of waiting for a 2-3 second heal wind up, their heals tick every second providing constant streams of healing to their targets.

Limitations

• In Tree of Life Form their speed and mobility is limited. For mobile fights they may have to shift out of T0L thus limiting the buff from Tree of Life.
• The druid's big heals can't be cast in Tree of Life. The big heals are mana intensive and not nearly as strong as a priests heals.
• If you want a mixed healer/DPS a hard core resto druid will be hard pressed to fill that role. A modified spec involving what's known as Dreamstate healing can be used, but it comes at the expense of Tree of Life form.

Overall Raid Analysis

Restoration Druids bring an amazing amount of raw healing to the mix. However unlike most other healing classes their healing takes time and tends to be proactive. They do have larger heals, but comparatively they are weak and mana intensive. Resto druids fair best for healing if assigned to heal multiple tanks. They can easily keep up HoTs on 2-3 targets at a time and as long as the other healers are aware of the healing they can cover small spikes easily. If you have two restoration druids you can tag team them on 2-3 tanks with a Pally to back them up and they can cover most of the tank healing.

The hard part for most other healing classes to understand is to just let a druid's healing tick. Lets assume two resto druids have a full lifebloom stack and a Rejuvenation on a tank. If the tank takes 9k worth of damage every 3 seconds, the druids will need some back up, but a typical Life bloom might tick for 700 per second. Just looking at that, you have 700 x 2 x 3 = 4200 healing just from the Lifebloom. The rejuvenation now covers probably another 1k per 3 allowing the druids to heal 6200 of the 9k damage. With pally and their 1.5 second heal you've now mitigated all of that damage in 3 seconds.

Summary

Druids can be an amazingly powerful addition to your raids, but as with all classes you should use them in moderation. Your best balanced raids will leverage all of the tools you have available to you. Here is a glimpse into some of the benefits that a druid can provide to your raid in the various specs. Next up next week Friday: Hunters Savage killers or puppy tamers???

Under the Hood Part 2: Assembly of the Perfect Casual Raid Group

Ha!!! I bet you thought I was going to tell you the perfect raid composition for every situation didn’t you? Congratulations…. It doesn’t exist. Raiding is more art than science. I’m not a theorycrafter. I don’t like to sit there and try to come up with the perfect druid/rogue/mage spec. What I like to do though is analyze what makes groups successful and why.

One of my favorite lines to use is, "Reality (or Life) is what happens when your busy making plans." The line my wife likes you use is, "If you want to hear God laugh tell him your plans." So many times raid leaders make the mistake of reading the strategies written on WowWiki.com and bosskillers.com and really failing to recognize that these strategies were written by the best of the best. These are people who have spent weeks/months coming up with the perfect group and scenario.

Most of us aren’t blessed enough to really see that size and kind of group assemble. The key traits I list below aren’t going to be everyone’s strong points. The point of putting it down here is to give you an idea of the types of people you need to find. Some people are very strong in one area, but lack in others. Balancing out personalities and drawing on people’s strengths can help the group as a whole. In a casual raiding environment you rarely get the opportunity to hand pick 10 people who will always be there. There are no attendance requirements. Casual environments typically put life above raiding.

Enthusiasm

Assembling a raid group requires all types, but no matter what, pessimism does nothing to help you in a raid. Pessimism is pervasive and can lead to raid groups just generally hating being where they are. The true key to getting a solid raid group is to find people who really have an enthusiasm and drive to be present. Can everyone be enthusiastic every week? No, but the overall mood of the raid needs to be fairly up beat and driven to work. Casual groups tend to maintain very up beat moods in their raids given their overall focus in the game.

Willingness to Learn

Nothing drives a raid leader more nuts than a person who absolutely refuses to listen to them. Are raid leaders GOD? No they aren’t. However a stubborn refusal to listen to advice and criticism drives the raid and the leader crazy over time. This willingness to learn has to flow both ways though. In raiding situations, the raid leader has as much if not more to learn from his raiders than the raiders do from him. Similarly raiders need to be willing to analyze their own ability rotations, specs and gear to find methods to improve. Mages, Priest, hunters, Rogues, etc can learn so much from their peers as well as their raid leaders.

Confidence

Raiding is hard work. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just flat out being dishonest with you. When you are first learning encounters it requires reading, studying, lots of concentration and thinking. Just like any skill, these things will become automatic over time, but in the beginning when you are wiping over and over it can be daunting. When assembling a raiding group, confidence is key. Confidence must be present in the raid leader for certain. Raiders must develop confidence as well. Raiders need confidence in themselves and their abilities as well as confidence in their leader. Likewise the raid leader much display confidence in their raiders.

We had a fellow who joined our guild a while back who used to drive me up the wall. He’s a really great guy who had extremely large confidence issues. It some days drove me to want to ring his neck. He had issue with confidence in himself and his ability to adjust. He was a good solid player. We had a lot of conversations and mentoring from various people in the guild and over time, he’s become one of the people I’ve come to rely on. He also contains a very strong willingness to learn which has really transformed who he is.

People can transform and confidence is not an immediate trait. This particular raider slowly over time has progressed to more and more of a leadership role and I look forward to seeing them blossom into a true leader as time progresses.

Adaptability

Unless you are extremely blessed you will never have “the perfect” group for every situation in a raid. One key ability you should look for in your raiders is adaptability. The ability to be situationally aware and adapt to things changing is a critical skill. Some players just need time to develop this skill. Some players are very good technical players. They know their class inside and out, but unless you are able to follow a given strategy to the letter, they will falter and freeze at some point.

One of the things I’ve always prided my raid groups on is their adaptability. Our guild is perhaps one of the smallest in our raiding alliance. When we started raiding in Kara, we were lucky to scrape together 10 people to run Kara. So we took who we had. At the time it was extremely heavy on Paladins. So on any given night we’d have 3-5 Pally’s in Kara. Talk about overkill… We lacked a lot of the CC that many groups took for granted. It was months before we had a priest regularly for Kara. This translated to having to develop a lot of very unique strategies for dealing with fights like Moroes, the Opera bouncers etc. The core “well known” strategies just wouldn’t work for our group so we constantly solicited advice and feedback for ways to “fake it” through Kara.

Sense of Humor

Keeping things light can be important in a casual raiding environment. It’s not to say everything has to be a joke, but the ability to give each other a hard time and take it in stride when you make a big goof is part of the picture. That one person who’s incredibly good at coming up with puns can do a lot to lighten the mood when you’re having trouble wiping on a new boss. Sure half the raid group may groan when they hear the pun, but it does a lot to break up tension. Not everyone can tell the best jokes, but one or two good comedians can do wonders for morale in a raid setting.

Summary

All in all, you will be hard pressed to really find any one person with all of these traits. However picking a team that can cooperate, get along and has people individually strong in these traits can go a long way to making the raid leader's job easier and the raids time raiding much more productive and enjoyable.

Stupid Cool Raiding Tricks - Kara Connection Part 2

Most of the remaining tips here come from other raid leaders within the SLACK Alliance. Without further ado, here are some more fun tricks and tips for Kara.

Single Tanking Kara
“But what about Joe?”
“What about Joe? If he’s not available I guess I’ll have to do it myself!!!!”

Its possible to run Kara trash with just one tank. The only boss that really requires two tanks is Moroes. (NOTE: K4 brought up a very good point... Netherspite will require either a second tank or a pally healer to pass by as well.) Now obviously you can do it with a Pally tank with ease. However for the warriors and druids in this world here’s a tip on how you can do it. Set one mob that would be Off Tanked as your focus. Set up a Macro to perform a certain agro holding ability on the Focus Target… so for instance

/clearfocus [modifier:shift][target=focus,dead][target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/cast [target=focus] Lacerate

Line 1 clears your focus if you hold shift and push the button, or if your focus is dead.
Line 2 sets your focus if you don’t have one to the mob you are clicked on.
Line 3 uses your ability of choice on the mob.

IceTombing the wrong guy
“I refuse to hit him… did you seen what he did to the priest last week????”

The guards outside of the Opera have always been a pain. To avoid deaths due to CC’d mobs, have a dps break the initial shackle with a small "love tap". These mobs tend to IceTomb right away after clearing the Shackle. This lets the tanks pick him up safely without having to worry about being Icetombed right away.

Curator’s Hall - the long mile
“God why does this hall have to be so dang long???”

The hall with the Curator patrolling in it is a MILE long. The first four or five pulls are fairly safe. However that last group can be a nightmare to pull given the sheer distance you have to pull them before you can safely DPS without fear from the Curator. To make it simpler for Druids you can pull using either Moonfire or Feral Faerie Fire and then use Kitty’s Sprint ability to get safely back to the hallway. For Warriors have a person stand by the hallway out and then Intervene to them. Saves tank deaths!!!

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf
“What are you doing?”
“Playing dead now quit talking to me or he’ll notice.”

Most people probably know this already, but it bears repeating. The following classes can escape being Little Red Riding Hood during the Big Bad Wolf Opera event. The trick is to use the ability listed and DON”T pop out of it till after effect wears off.

• Hunters – Feign Death
• Rogues – Vanish
• Mages – Iceblock

Getting the Blues with Netherspite
“Hit him… and hit him HARD”
Netherspite is one of the most confusing fights for most people. Here are some quick tips on some tricks people have found with his fight.

The blue beam can be single tanked per phase with a warlock. That’s a very well known strategy. The warlock can use Drain Life the entire time and the healers only have to watch him closely. However have you ever thought of letting a warrior tank the Blue Beam? Not only can they soak the extra damage from the Blue beam, but their abilities get amped as well. The warrior can rapid fire TONs of abilities and at the end of the phase Toss out Executes. Can you say 32K executes? I knew you could. Rogues, Fury Warriors and other melee are also great secondary choices to tank the blue beam if you are a melee heavy group.

Thanks for this round of tips. As I gather more I’ll continue to post them here for everyone to use.

Stupid Cool Raiding Tricks - Kara Connection Part 1

So many times reality meets the road of strategy and we find that there's just something stupidly cool you can do. Stupid Cool Raiding tricks is my summary of tricks and tips that we've shared within our raiding alliance. This first in the series is three tricks that I've personally learned while leading our group in Kara. Later posts will concentrate on tricks that other guilds have shared with us.

AOE Tanking Druid Style
"Pally's.... we don't need no stinking Pally's"

This is a trick that I developed while tanking. We had grown complacent in Kara and we always had a pally tank. Our pally tank at the time burned out and the AOE packs in Kara just started eating us alive. We'd lose a good 20-30 minutes of play time rezzing and rebuffing people just to the AOE packs. Over time I worked on a ton of different techniques, but the one that worked best is what I use for AOE tanking. This requires a Druid tank in their tanking gear. This also requires healers who can watch you very closely.

Step 1: Line up your tanking position. Know exactly where you are taking the mobs. You will be in caster form for this.
Step 2: Pull the mobs using a Starfire and run back to the tanking spot.
Step 3: Pop Barkskin, then launch a Hurricane AOE centered on yourself or where a majority of the mobs.
Step 4: Channel the hurricane most of the way down and then pop bear form.

ICE TOMB No More
"Ice Tomb? What Ice Tomb? These guys cast Ice Tomb?"

Perhaps one of the most annoying mobs in the first half of Kara are the guards right outside of the Opera. Not only do they hit like a ton of bricks, but they freeze the tank and swap to the second agro target. This makes it almost impossible to tank both at once. So one almost always needs to be CC'd. The following technique can be used to avoid the Ice Tomb all together. It does require a shaman. If you have two shaman, you could in theory tank both mobs at once and avoid the need for CC. We learned this from one of our raiders who happens to be a QA tester for software. His mind tends to periodically just do weird things and tested this out.

Step 1: Put your tanks and the Shaman(s) in the same raid group.
Step 2: Ensure the shaman puts down a grounding totem.
Step 3: Pull the Opera guards. CC one if need be.
Step 4: Kill as normal. Note the Grounding Totem will eat the Ice Tomb.

If you time it right you shouldn't ever have to worry about the Ice Tomb again.

Fun With Pillars - Peekaboo... can't see you
"You mean to tell me, he can't see you if you back up a half an inch? You're kidding me right?"

OK most people probably do this, but it bears repeating for those people who haven't ever been in Kara before. As you look at Moroes in his room, there are two tables of AOE packs that have to be pulled after you clear the first table. To make them group up properly for AOE it can be a challenge. However directly behind you are two pillars. You wouldn't think they can help you, but there is a way to use them to group up the AOE. If you stick your tank in the corner behind the pillar the mobs will run around to your tank. Its a tiny corner, but it works... don't ask me why or how. The trick is you must follow some simple steps for survival.

Step 1: NOBODY TOUCH ANYTHING. Don't pop trinkets.. Don't shoot the mobs. Don't do anything till the tank has control.
Step 1a: Its possible if you have one available to cast Prayer of Mending on the tank.
Step 2: The tank pulls.
Step 3: The tank runs back around the little corner on the pillar. Use the right pillar for the right table. Use the left Pillar for the left table.
Step 4: Wait for every mob to run to you and then leverage your favorite AOE tanking technique.

You can expect some more tips and tricks moving forward. Have a great time in Kara folks.

Under the Hood Part 1: There can be only One

Raid leadership takes time. Its not learned over night. It won't be right the first time and you'll screw up almost every time you do it. At least in some way shape or form. Little mistakes get glossed over, but little things can grow over time. Under the Hood is a series I'm going to be working on discussing the challenges a raid leader might face while dealing with their career.

This first segment really spawned out an interesting problem we ran into last night. As part of my ongoing duties, I am trying to prep our guild for WotLK. When the expansion lands, we will have the option of doing 10 man content for all the way to Arthas. There are some very excited people over this change. I know personally I won't be able to dedicate 4 days a week to raiding, but I want to set the stage for those who want to or can. We've been training up and providing opportunities to new raid leaders. So last night we ran into a very good highlight of a problem that many leaders face.

There Can Be Only ONE

Whether your popular or not, as a raid leader, there is only one raid leader. This is not to say there aren't supporting roles for that raid leader. This is not as necessary in a 10 man scenario, but in 25 man raids, the complexity increases substantially. Its more likely you'll have supporting roles such as a healing lead, caller (for calling out boss abilities), Warlock/Hunter/Mage/etc leads, and the list goes on. However for all of these supporting people, there is only ONE raid leader. If you can work out a co leading scenario more power to you, but from an order and coordination perspective, the overall direction, lead and pace need to be determined by ONE voice, ONE person with ONE vision.

Now this doesn't mean that nobody can talk but that one person, but frequently we need to be queueing off of that person. If your a raid leader attending another person's raid, its key that you learn to shut up, sit down and do what your told just like everyone else is expected to do. I had a very good raider who worked with me. I know him personally so he was always good at telling me when I had stepped over the line. One day I was attending another person's raid and quite naturally I started barking out orders. By about mid way through the raid I'd taken over the raid and was driving it. After that raid my friend sat me down and told me what I'd done. Its hard to take that back seat when you are used to leading, but so many times we need to just watch, follow and listen.

Does this mean advice can't be offered? No. Quite the contrary actually. When I'm leading I encourage people offer up cool tricks and ideas. However there's a time and a place. Rewriting boss strategies shouldn't be done mid stream. Ideas should be in the form of a question rather than, "You should do it this way." If you really feel you need to share something with the raid leader and don't want to voice it publicly, then send a tell. However there are key points:

1. During the raid, its the raid leaders way or the highway.
2. Each raid leader has their own style and method of doing things. Just sit down and learn something.
3. Don't take it personally if the raid leader calls on you or fails to call on you for special duties. Their job is to fill roles... their call, their way.

Does this give raid leaders the right to just roll over anyone they like? No, but occassionally you'll have to remind people that its your voice thats driving this. You don't have to rip their heads off and beat them with it, but occassionally you have to step up and remind people who's leading and why you're there.