How to lead a raid Ferrel style
I’ve covered a lot of topics on guild leadership over the life of Epic Slant. Most of my articles focus on how to be a better leader or reflect on management theory issues. Sometimes I forget about the practical application side of leadership and miss out on providing some useful tips that can actually be put into immediate use. Today I want to cover a topic that has appeared all over the internet but never here: how to lead a raid. Not just how to lead a raid but, instead, how I lead raids. Most readers will not agree with everything I say and it certainly won’t work for every guild but in my experience this is what has worked best for me.
The raid leader outranks everyone!
Once selected, the person leading a raid should be in total command and make all final decisions. I’ve seen far too many raids go south when some well meaning officer decided to publicly question a “lower ranked” member while he or she was leading a raid. Nothing is more disruptive and disheartening than that. To all you well meaning guild leaders and officers: shut up for the duration of the raid. If you picked someone other than yourself to lead your raid then you need to let them do it. If they make a tactical mistake, violate a rule, or screw up in your eyes, wait until after the raid is over to bring it up and do it in private. Otherwise you’re disrupting your own raid and reducing your chance at success. If the issue is an emergency, send a tell and keep it quiet. Let it look like the raid leader made the decision to change something. This will build the confidence of your raid leader, increase their respect for you, and ensure that the members are comfortable with him or her leading. If you question the leader, even if you out rank that person, your members will too. Set a good example and keep your mouth shut!
Know the raid’s vital stats before you bring the guild out
Preparation goes a long way when it comes to MMO raiding. Five minutes before an encounter is the absolute worst time to be looking at the intel for it. Raid leaders should study all relevant materials to the raid they intend to lead at least an hour prior. It is important to know what abilities the mob has, what the group make up should look like, if there are any special item needs, and generally anything else relevant to the encounter before you get there. The raid leader should have notes and be able to clearly explain them to the raiders. Appear knowledgeable and confident while answering any questions and concerns BEFORE you engage the first time. A sloppy raid shows and members will put less faith in you. If you’re testing a new raid for the first time, try to have a general understanding of what may happen and take good notes as it does.
Keep voice chat clear of Chatty Cathy
Human beings are social animals who all fit on a sliding scale of how often they want to share. Some know when it is appropriate to be quiet and others seem to be unable to deal with silence. If your voice channel is filled with inane banter about poop, breasts, and Youtube your raid stands a far greater chance to fail. Members are not focused on the task at hand (no matter how much they claim to be) and the raid leader should never have to shout over others. In my experience what worked best for me and pissed members off to no end was to create a muted channel and only give voice to the necessary people. Your players will hate it but it gets the job done. Other guilds have had success by leaving the channel open for anyone to bring up emergency information but punishing those who use it for anything else. Use what works best for you but be aware that an out of control voice channel is basically broadcasting failure.
Know your loot rules before you start
This may sound like a no brainer but for some reason a lot of raids get started without fully covering the loot rules. In established guilds with written rules this isn’t much of an issue. For pick up raids and more free wheeling organizations it tends to be a big problem. Be sure that everyone absolutely understands each detail before you get going because nothing derails a raid faster than loot drama. Issuing loot slows down the pace of a raid in general and arguing about it turns people off. Don’t fall victim to something that is easily avoided.
Don’t slap together groups
The art of building well balanced and effective groups is becoming rarer these days. Spend some time learning about the abilities that each class has to offer and how they interact with other classes. Build groups that promote a certain activity, like melee dps, and then put melee players in it. A few hours of research can greatly increase your chance of success. Review certain specializations and find what works best for your raiders. For the main tank group, no matter how much others will complain about it, you need to use your best tank, best healers and best support members. Only change people out when the encounter is one of the easier ones. In raiding success for the group is more important than stroking individual egos.
Handle problems with maturity
Regardless of how good a raid leader you are, you’re always going to run into a Scrappy Doo or two. Some yahoo is going to want you to try a different strategy, group set up, or anything else because he heard that Iniquity did it on Oasis. Remind players that they need to submit all these things to you before or after the raid, not during. Drastically changing strategies in the middle of a raid (unless you’re massively not succeeding) only confuses your raiders. Stick to the plan and take all the suggestions in as feedback. If the information has merit and is minor, adjust immediately. If it is a complete overhaul save it for the next raid. Just ensure that you never dismiss a suggestion as “stupid” or “ignorant.” You’ll turn members off and might miss out on some great insight.
Don’t exploit to win
I’m not going to go too deep into this other than to say any win is not alawys a win. I am sure there are tons of guilds out there that think exploiting is fine because, “the game let me do it.” Let me clue you in to something. That is the most ignorant and idiotic sentence you can utter as a raid leader. Software is imperfect and will allow things to happen just as real life does. There are ways to cheat in real life but more people don’t because they feel bad. Don’t say “It is just a game” because it isn’t. We’re talking about your integrity, reputation, and honor. That might mean jack to a lot of people but to others it is everything. You might lose quality raiders over it because they want to win legitimately. A slip here or there might be allowable but using any tactic to ensure a win is just pathetic.
Don’t expect any thanks
As a raid leader you will put in a lot of effort and a lot of time. No matter how successful you are and how great a job you do you will get at least five complaints to every one compliment. Raiders rarely recognize success and are always critical of failure. Do not take it to heart. They do appreciate you in a way but they will rarely say it. Your only reward is a dead mob and knowing you made that happen. Others will try to undervalue your contribution but a good leader can pull less than skilled players through more than they imagine. Enjoy the success, expect no gratitude and check your ego at the door.
Enter raid data swiftly
If you’re using a point based system, don’t make everyone wait for the raid results. The sooner your data is updated the better since another raid is right around the corner. Out dated information is your greatest enemy and will cause loot drama. We’ve covered why that is bad so get those updates in as soon as you can. If you’re falling behind find a system to speed it up!
Ferrel is always right
I’m just kidding about that. I absolutely was not always right but I did actually enjoy a lot of success. Everything above might not work for you but don’t dismiss it immediately. These are some good practices to follow and they’re all designed to make your life easier.
Consider discussing “How to lead a raid Ferrel style” on the Epic Slant Forum!
Lot of good common sense.
The only thing I would add is about raid data. If you have multiple raid leaders and some of them are forgetting to update dkp scores you may as well just dump the system completely and /roll or Loot Council. Dkp only works well if it’s done pretty much flawlessly.
[...] Ferrel re: Leading Raids – “Most readers will not agree with everything I say and it certainly won’t work for every guild but in my experience this is what has worked best for me.” [...]
Hi, agrees with most of what you said but I do think you ran your raids more tightly than I did. I know I would allow and even encourage silly chat while doing trash to get it out of their systems.
I recently did a two part post on theorycrafting on my blog that I feel ties somewhat into this. I’d be really happy if you could check it out and give me some feedback (theroycrafting madness part 1 and 2).
I’ll check it out here shortly and let you know!