Average trial period for a new recruit?

[Dracodraco]

As someone who leads a guild in the tail-end of the top 100, our trials usually last 3-6 weeks; and that's weeks of actually being present. During farm where we raid half a night one day a week it's possible that someone might have real life emergencies they have to attend to and won't make it for the raid, even while on trial, which just means they extend the trial for another week.

Generally, most of our trials are promoted after a month. They get one week to adjust to tactics on bosses, ask questions and fuck up mechanics that we do differently than they're used to (EG, we use doomspikes on Mannoroth to blow up marks of doom, NOT volleys, which means strict positions for the marks of doom in order to trigger them rather than "just get away from the raid"), a second week to get used to the new timings, how their cooldowns should be used if DPS players etc, and then 1-2 weeks of seeing what they can really do.

For some people, we're not entirely happy with their output after those 1-2 weeks, so their trial extends a bit further, with us encouraging them to actually try and perform output wise, while still maintaining tactics; For others, they might still fuck up that one specific mechanic, and we want to see that they start doing it right, which is when we go into week 5/6. If neither of those things have happened by then, it's not fair to either them or us to waste anymore time; If you can't adjust to our requirements after that long, there's no place for you in the guild.

And of course, while on trial, members will take priority over trials, no matter the size of the upgrade. Why the heck should we spend loot on you if you might not be using it here? That's right, we shouldn't.

[Kakera]

Don't kid yourself. If you are raiding, you are raiding to "raid", which encompasses getting loot so you can raid more competitively and progress. Even if you don't admit it you are raiding for the same reasons as everyone else. Raiding to raid. What does that mean? You raid for the sense of teamwork, to socialize, to experience WoW, to kill bosses, to have fun, to be competitive, etc. That is what I mean by, "I play this game to raid". Loot is a distant last, but still something we all desire. Don't misconstrue what I wrote. Ask and don't assume. You look like a child.

Yeah, confirmed for troll. Thanks. Still would boot you in an instant for even mentioning loot. The fact that you don't think it's a big deal proves you aren't worth anyone's time. Just in case you are serious

[Kirbypro]

If the guild was DE'ing loot that nobody needed instead of giving it to you (the trial), then that is pretty lame and I would ditch them immediately and find another guild.

Clear and timely communication is important in WoW and real life. Message the RL/Officers about the status of your trial. If they say explicitly that they want to trial you for 1 more week, 2 more weeks, or whatever, then stay. If they ignore you, then cut your losses and ditch them.

Set clear expectations and follow up.

[Deleted]

If the guild was DE'ing loot that nobody needed instead of giving it to you (the trial), then that is pretty lame and I would ditch them immediately and find another guild.

Clear and timely communication is important in WoW and real life. Message the RL/Officers about the status of your trial. If they say explicitly that they want to trial you for 1 more week, 2 more weeks, or whatever, then stay. If they ignore you, then cut your losses and ditch them.

Set clear expectations and follow up.

You're speaking with HFC in mind, which is 9 months old content and any kind of high-end guild has it on farm for fucking ages with core roster members being close to full BIS WF. Obviously you don't DE upgrades, even if it's a trial spot, that's just unbelievably stupid. 50g temporal shard in a world where players make 10k a day with garrisons? ROFL.

In a normal environment where the guild is progressing, DE's don't happen or happen very rarely on crap loot (versatility items from lower etc). Loot priority is valid there, cos most people need upgrades from a progress kill. Therefore you don't want to give that bis trinket to a guy which might not be there in 2 weeks. Instead it goes to someone who's been there already for a while and is going to raid further bosses certainly.

[Riistov]

If the guild is progressing, 2-4 weeks
If it's on farm, could be endless. Hard to judge someone fully on faceroll content.

True, but you can get the general vibe fairly quickly, even on farm content.

Does the recruit die to mechanics often?

Numbers/logs look good?

Can they take criticism when necessary?

Do they fit in with the guild culture?

If you can answer those questions within a couple weeks, I would say you're good to offer them a spot. 30 days seems excessive to me to be honest, especially at the end of an expansion when it's much more of a players market in terms of finding a guild.

[durrtygoodz]

Does the recruit die to mechanics often?

Numbers/logs look good?

But it's easy to do high numbers and avoid mechanics when you've done the fight 10 times already.

[Nzete]

We do one month trials. Loot by EPGP where a trial is lower priority than a raider. We put a high priority on making sure that people fit the guild and having high retention of raiders. Trials... are trials... raiders are raiders. We obviously aren't DEing things that are upgrades for trials (even off spec trials), but too much a concern about getting loots "right now" isn't a sign that the trials is going to stick around. If you really want to stick around, note that your damage/healing/tanking is going to be judged relative to your gear (not the gear level of the current raiders - being low priority on loot for the moment isn't going to hurt your longevity with the guild... it might however hurt your ability to take some gear and run... the reason that guilds have special loot rules for trial periods).

[IxilaFA]

True, but you can get the general vibe fairly quickly, even on farm content.

Does the recruit die to mechanics often?

Numbers/logs look good?

Can they take criticism when necessary?

Do they fit in with the guild culture?

If you can answer those questions within a couple weeks, I would say you're good to offer them a spot. 30 days seems excessive to me to be honest, especially at the end of an expansion when it's much more of a players market in terms of finding a guild.

Not really. Farm content is almost useless for evaluating performances. For example, we've had a couple healer apps recently on farm and usually I'm so used to the fights that half the time I'm on autopilot and it's hard to even notice when mistakes are made. My raid's gear is high enough that we can compensate for some pretty major mistakes, and a lot of fights we skip entire mechanics. Some examples being P2 on Iron Reaver, Fel Waves/Pounding at the same time on Kormrok, extended healing through debuffs on Council, healers going down on Kilrogg (only one group goes down now), impossible to evaluate healing on Gorefiend essences when I can solo heal a full wave on my own, Iskar we have to hold DPS for ages since we don't mess with chains, Socrethar we only get one add who shields Soc so we don't have to worry as much about interrupts or the marks, Zakuun we only get one seeds and only 10 people have to soak and nobody goes down anymore, Tyrant we can heal through people with edicts staying in the raid during P3, Xhul we can heal through someone accidentally blowing up the raid or chains going on the wrong targets. Mannoroth and Archimonde are the only fights where I can even get a good estimate of an app's abilities because they're the only fights we even struggle on anymore.

Furthermore, one of the top qualities of a raider is adapting to new circumstances and being able to come up with solutions to problems, and recognizing those problems. None of that occurs in farm because there's one way we do things now and we don't need to come up with new strategies or need players to be creative with their abilities.

Numbers can look a lot better when DPS is standing in fire due to being able to ignore it, and healers can pad meters. DPS can pad meters by staying on the boss and not swapping targets as often, or by cleaving when they're not supposed to.

It's also hard to tell the difference between dying to mechanics because they're new to the fight or dying to mechanics because they don't know what they're doing. For example, we had an app die on Gorefiend and still killed the boss easily. So we never got another chance to see how he adjusts. It can take forever until an app gets an ability that everyone needs to know how to handle, and until you see how they handle it you won't have a gauge on their abilities.

That said, in my guild, fitting in and being able to roll with the punches is much more important to us than amazing performance, so we still only do 5 weeks of trial even during farm. But I can see why many high-end guilds don't promote people during farm.

[Seramore]

Trial periods should generally go for about a month long minimum. Farm shouldn't really matter when it comes down to a trial period imo because you're not able to gauge somebody's skill level when it really matters (progression). As for loot, I've been in various guilds throughout my time raiding and it has always gone MS for member > MS for trial > OS > OS for trial. An offspec piece would only go to a member over a trial if they would actually benefit from it and would play their offspec in raids. You simply not getting loot (if this is the case) is kind of weird, but if it's what the guild has as a rule, then you did sign up for it.

[Valech]

If the guild is progressing, 2-4 weeks
If it's on farm, could be endless. Hard to judge someone fully on faceroll content.

+1
/10chars

[Deleted]

I'm in a guild that is 10 years old. The trialing period appears to last for a month. Everyone is wondering when it's going to end by the 2 week mark since they are used to be members faster in other guilds.

[Denkou]

2-4 weeks, depending on how far along the guild is.

[Deleted]

1month and up

[healzforu]

Unless you're in a top world guild, 30 days is plain retarded, i have raided with top 50 us guilds in the past and even there trial was 2-3 weeks, imo, i would have not agreed to that. I am one that does not join a guild for loot but for progression, but if im beating there other players constantly after 2-3 weeks and im still a trial, i would move on.

[Dracodraco]

Unless you're in a top world guild, 30 days is plain retarded, i have raided with top 50 us guilds in the past and even there trial was 2-3 weeks, imo, i would have not agreed to that. I am one that does not join a guild for loot but for progression, but if im beating there other players constantly after 2-3 weeks and im still a trial, i would move on.

Trials are there for a guild to figure out if you're worth spending loot on. 2-3 weeks is the bare minimum for a great performer in almost any serious raiding guild - but when you join, multiple things are evaluated during your trial:

1: Can he push numbers?
2: Can he do mechanics?
3: How is his attitude in the raids?
4: Will his personality fit with the rest of the guild?
5: Is he capable of doing specialised tasks, making him extra valueable?


That you seem to think that a guild should be capable of figuring out points #3, #4 and in under 3 weeks is laughable. It can take *awhile* for people to settle in - I usually don't even bother reading into the personality and attitude issues (unless they're extraordinarily bad) untill the third week, after they've had 2 weeks to settle in - one to get up to speed with the tactics, and one to get used to the raid.

Usually, #1 and #2 are a 100% must through logs to even *get* a trial. The fact that you suggest that this alone should be enough to pass a trial in 2-3 weeks is so fucking naive, from the perspective of a raid leader. If you're loothorny or a drama starter, there's no amount of DPS or performance that makes it worth dealing with you unless the raid literally can't function without you.

[healzforu]

Trials are there for a guild to figure out if you're worth spending loot on. 2-3 weeks is the bare minimum for a great performer in almost any serious raiding guild - but when you join, multiple things are evaluated during your trial:

1: Can he push numbers?
2: Can he do mechanics?
3: How is his attitude in the raids?
4: Will his personality fit with the rest of the guild?
5: Is he capable of doing specialised tasks, making him extra valueable?


That you seem to think that a guild should be capable of figuring out points #3, #4 and in under 3 weeks is laughable. It can take *awhile* for people to settle in - I usually don't even bother reading into the personality and attitude issues (unless they're extraordinarily bad) untill the third week, after they've had 2 weeks to settle in - one to get up to speed with the tactics, and one to get used to the raid.

Usually, #1 and #2 are a 100% must through logs to even *get* a trial. The fact that you suggest that this alone should be enough to pass a trial in 2-3 weeks is so fucking naive, from the perspective of a raid leader. If you're loothorny or a drama starter, there's no amount of DPS or performance that makes it worth dealing with you unless the raid literally can't function without you.

Im not gonna totally disagree with you, but im not gonna completely agree either. While i understand its hard to judge on farm bosses in most cases, there are still mechanics on certain bosses farm or not, that can 1 shot you, my point is sure to some maybe 4 weeks is not bad and to some 4 weeks is to long, most "Experienced" Guild leaders and officers, already know in 2 weeks time, if it takes 4-6 weeks to know then either, a) The guild is not that experienced or b) The recruit is not doing all that great and needs more time to determine the fact.

Point is, once again, if your in a high level guild, im not talking about people that are still progressing, which is what i believe is the op's case, I fully accept a top guild to take much longer, but if you think a guild still progressing this late in the tier should need 4 weeks for a trial, then thats insane. Honestly, at this point, if your still progressing, the guild has bigger issues then a trial and chances are high the trial can probably out perform most of there raiders.

Imo, 2-3 weeks is more then enough time for a guild that has not completed this tier yet.

I also want to add as far as fitting in and all that is concerned, how would you know if the person rarely talks or is always quiet? I raided with some top world players that barely sd 2 words, so your saying they fail cause there not all social and talkative? Thats dumb, im sorry, but that makes no sense, alot of people are just not chatty like some.

[healzforu]

What I did back when I was a raid leader.
Try to get trials in every raid. See if they can keep top attendance.
Check their performance, let them ask questions (and don't be a bitch about it; some people might be new to raiding).
Give them an answer ASAP. A month is too much imo unless the guild is not actively raiding. If the trialist was not around for enough raids during the trial, they shouldn't stay. If you did not pick him for the raid, why are you inviting trials? Do not string along people because it is convenient for you, that makes you a selfish piece of shit. Better to kick them after 5-6 raids, than keep them on trial indefinitely or invite them as raiders then never invite them to raids.

This is a great point, it's almost like your keeping him just "in case" People don't show up...

[Dracodraco]

Im not gonna totally disagree with you, but im not gonna completely agree either. While i understand its hard to judge on farm bosses in most cases, there are still mechanics on certain bosses farm or not, that can 1 shot you, my point is sure to some maybe 4 weeks is not bad and to some 4 weeks is to long, most "Experienced" Guild leaders and officers, already know in 2 weeks time, if it takes 4-6 weeks to know then either, a) The guild is not that experienced or b) The recruit is not doing all that great and needs more time to determine the fact.

Point is, once again, if your in a high level guild, im not talking about people that are still progressing, which is what i believe is the op's case, I fully accept a top guild to take much longer, but if you think a guild still progressing this late in the tier should need 4 weeks for a trial, then thats insane. Honestly, at this point, if your still progressing, the guild has bigger issues then a trial and chances are high the trial can probably out perform most of there raiders.

Imo, 2-3 weeks is more then enough time for a guild that has not completed this tier yet.

I also want to add as far as fitting in and all that is concerned, how would you know if the person rarely talks or is always quiet? I raided with some top world players that barely sd 2 words, so your saying they fail cause there not all social and talkative? Thats dumb, im sorry, but that makes no sense, alot of people are just not chatty like some.

You figure out if they fit in by communicating with them. Ask them how they're doing, if they are enjoying it, if they're having any issues we need to adress before making the commitment to each other - in short, you be an adult. We've got plenty of people that hasn't said a word the entire tier in my guild, and trials that don't socialize. As long as they're happy with that end of the deal, there's not much they can do to upset other people, because they don't talk. It's important to remember that we're spending atleast 18 hours a week in each others company - that's half of a job. If you don't enjoy the environment, it's not going to be good for anyone, so it's only fair to each party to discuss concerns and communicate :P.

As for "knowing" after 2 weeks, I'd say that it's still too short a timeframe for someone to get comfortable, and I've been leading my guild since the start of Cataclysm at the same level of play. First week is useless - new healers don't know voices so they are slow on throwing out tank CDs, DPS don't know when you use the ring outside of super obvious stuff (or if it's saved for something, like how we delay ring on Socrethar for 6.5 seconds so it blows up on the add+Socrethar rather than overkill the robot), tanks need to figure out new positions etc.
Week 2 they know all this and can start putting it to use.
Week 3 they should be comfortable.
Week 4-6 you see that they consistently perform at a high level.

If they instantly perform at a high level and keep it up with minimal errors, sure, the trial can be shortened, but I don't recall doing trials shorter than 3 weeks at any point.

As for someone progressing right now, I'll concede that you're probably right; If you're still progressing now, you can't afford to be picky *at all*. I can. I've got a roster that's all suited up for Legion, so anyone wanting to enter has to really impress. That requires longer trials or extraordinary performance.

[Kuruption]

I was going to say about 2-4 weeks, depending on the guild. If you're good, fit in, show up early and prepared for every raid, and show that you want to be there, it could be 2 weeks, but I don't see the problem with 4.

Also, it's pretty standard practice that anything that's an upgrade for a member, the member will get priority over a trial. It's pretty obvious why that is. But if they're sharding or giving upgrades that you could use to members for their offspecs, then I probably would find another place.

[Bigbazz]

Trial should usually be 2-4 weeks, if you're on farm then it depends on attendance, attitude, performance etc. I joined a new guild last year while they were on farm and I was a long way behind them on gear/progression. Loot wise we were on farm so I had loot in every raid I joined and they were very fair with it (though I had no priority on loot, just that on farm the raid is generally geared), after all if I'm going to be playing with them it's not much use to be behind on gear.

It's important to make a good first impression, most guilds say they aren't looking at dps on your first raid, but if you're doing bad dps they are still going to note that and take it into account. If you go in and get rank 1 in your ilvl bracket on your first kill then it's going to look impressive, but if it's a complex or risky fight that you're not familiar with it's best to be focussing on not screwing up, even if it's at the expense of numbers performance.

In your case I think either there is something missing from your story or this is them simply not interested in keeping you as a player/person. I'd personally discuss with them about it, there is no point being messed around. It's possible or even likely that after 30 days they are just using you to fill empty raid spots while they have no intention of passing your trial for whatever reason.