Best Raid Spot to be Raidlead

[Celestraza]

Honestly I think this happens whether it is ideal or not because tanking attracts the people who like leading. I have lead raids as a tank since Wrath (and was leading raids as a healer before) and as a tank it was often not ideal since I could not always see who fucked up a mechanic. But people are conditioned to listen to the tank from a very early level in WoW so it works.

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Why on earth are you not in drop down view? How can you judge positioning if you are looking at the boss?

He has a point. On Xhul it was impossible for me as a tank to see what my ranged were doing wrong with shackles/baiting/kiting with 3 big models in my face even with max zoom. All the while having to chain external CDs to survive. It's even worse now with max zoom decreased so harshly.

I personally find a ranged hunter easiest to raid lead from. Easy rotation, 2-3 buttons, pretty much no casts (can run and dps really).

[Vladinator]

State of things right now, BM hunter. Hard to mess up your DPS while looking at other things in the fight, since the rotation is so simple.

The best is to have one of each role to help analyze the fight, then talk with the RL post-raid for next raid and figure out how to tune/change the tactics.

[Dangg]

Go ahead and mention any top guild with a non tank/healer raid leader. Oh that's right, there's none. The only way you can think a dps can make a good raid leader is because you don't raid, in the other words, you don't know what you're talking about.

I guess everybody has their own opinion, even if it's a wrong one.

What a massive fail post.

[Deleted]

I'm raid leading as a ranged DPS. I had to raid lead when tanking a few times and found that 100 times easier.

[Maylander]

We've always used several announcers. Usually something like this:
- Both tanks communicate positioning, specific boss buffs/debuffs and similar.
- A specific ranged DPS (usually our GM) keeps track of general things like "clump here, go over there, why the f*** are you standing in that?" type of thing.
- One of the healers (a healing leader of sorts) keeps track of healing CDs, debuffs and what not.

Always worked well for us.

[Allenschezar]

We've always used several announcers. Usually something like this:
- Both tanks communicate positioning, specific boss buffs/debuffs and similar.
- A specific ranged DPS (usually our GM) keeps track of general things like "clump here, go over there, why the f*** are you standing in that?" type of thing.
- One of the healers (a healing leader of sorts) keeps track of healing CDs, debuffs and what not.

Always worked well for us.

I find that an interessting way to do it. Never experienced it myself. Were there never problems with mixups between the different "leaders / announcers"?

[Alydael]

No clue, but every single raid leader i've ever had was a healer or tank. You absolutely can't raid lead as a dps, dpsing requires way too much attention and button smashing.

I have had the same experience and have been raiding since the first tier of BC. I have never had a dps lead.

I think a healer makes the best raid lead because they see a lot of the field. A tank is mainly focused on the boss and might not see everything that is happening. A healer can usually see who is moving out of range, who is out of position, who just took a spike of damage because they mismanaged one of the bosses abilities, etc.

[Firefall]

If the definition of raid leader is the person calling the shots and making the decisions to change a strategy or move a boss ect, then tanks are always the best raid leaders. No middle-man to fixing the problem. Good tanks are probably the most aware of the state of healers and current position of melee DPS as well. A good tank can carry a fight.

If a raid leader is a replacement for DBM and calling out mechanics in voice chat because people are too lazy to watch timers, healers or ranged DPS with a simple rotation.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

We've always had our tanks raid lead since they're the ones in control of the fight where the worst that can happen are usually tank swaps.

I thought this was a universal decision but apparently it's far from it.

[Leenaleena]

I don't understand how people say healers make the best raid leaders. When shit hits the fan, a healer's eyes are glued to the interface, and maybe some timers at best. I myself sometimes fall under that category and completely ignore my surroundings/the field and focus on watching all 20 health bars to make the best split second decisions I can to make sure all of them make it out alive. There is no room at all to also watch the boss/adds/timers/position at such times.
Melee DPS are just as much at a disatvantage due to their inability to see the entire field beyond the fat boss' toes.
Tanks can do great shotcalling because they always watch boss hp and timers anyways, and apart from their mitigation they have windows of opportunity to survey the situation. They still suffer from melee range.
Range DPS are the best as far as I am concerned. They have the range/vision to evaluate the field properly, keep track of boss/add position anyways and usually keep an eye on timers to know when to make the best of their own cooldowns for maximum dps. When shit hits the fan their dps might suffer a little bit, but one person doing a little less dps at time is better than tank losing aggro/dying or healers missing to heal and someone else dying.

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As someone who played several types of raids ( from normal to mythic) and 10 to 25. Its differs.

I would say:


normal/hc ranged

mythic ranged and heals
Simply because they see the whole field. A melee/tank could be a second RL who announces other things or takes over for certain things. I would not say 10 pers healer being a rl..they have it busy enough with healing.

Isn't that contradictory? A 10-raid healer only has to watch 10 health bars and make decisions based on them, a mythic 20-raid healer has to watch out for twice as many.

[Deleted]

I think it really depends on the class, you could argue for healing and tanking it doesn't matter but I originally raidlead on a MM hunter and would either stay silent or fuck my DPS up because I wasn't or was too focused on Vuln and focus management - I swapped to a DH (after NH prog) and it was alot easier as dpsing was basically hitting cooldowns and pressing chaos strike.

I had a raidleader in WoD that played sub rogue and man that spec was confusing to play without worrying about what others were doing, not sure how he managed it but he was fantastic.

I'd probably say Tank for the most part you are probably watching timers and positioning more than anything else anyways, might as well call it out while you do it.

[Deleted]

Tank fails tank mechanics (taunt swap, picking up adds in time, using survival cds properly)-> he dies/others die, easily a wipe
Healer fails healing mechanics (clutch spot heal especially) beacause he's too focused on raid leading -> others die, easily a wipe
Dps fails max dps rotation for a few seconds because he's too focused on raid leading -> slightly less dps for a few seconds, literally never a wipe

Not so hard to figure out now is it - ranged dps by a landslide.

[Maylander]

I find that an interessting way to do it. Never experienced it myself. Were there never problems with mixups between the different "leaders / announcers"?

Rarely, as there are specific things for each individual to watch out for.

Let's use Inquisitors as an example:
- The tank currently on Atrigan announces quills and its target, bonesaw and when to tank swap.
- The healing leader keeps track of which healer has the highest Torment, and announces which healer goes in at any given time.
- The overall raid leader (ranged DPS in this case) announces when the DPS should swap bosses and so on.

That lets each player in question reduce the amount of things to track and announce, which also means they can turn off various boss mod warnings and so on.

[Swalload]

No clue, but every single raid leader i've ever had was a healer or tank. You absolutely can't raid lead as a dps, dpsing requires way too much attention and button smashing.

lolololololol that made my day

[Queen of Hamsters]

Our raid leader does a pretty damned good job, and he's DPS.

[baskev]

I don't understand how people say healers make the best raid leaders. When shit hits the fan, a healer's eyes are glued to the interface, and maybe some timers at best. I myself sometimes fall under that category and completely ignore my surroundings/the field and focus on watching all 20 health bars to make the best split second decisions I can to make sure all of them make it out alive. There is no room at all to also watch the boss/adds/timers/position at such times.
Melee DPS are just as much at a disatvantage due to their inability to see the entire field beyond the fat boss' toes.
Tanks can do great shotcalling because they always watch boss hp and timers anyways, and apart from their mitigation they have windows of opportunity to survey the situation. They still suffer from melee range.
Range DPS are the best as far as I am concerned. They have the range/vision to evaluate the field properly, keep track of boss/add position anyways and usually keep an eye on timers to know when to make the best of their own cooldowns for maximum dps. When shit hits the fan their dps might suffer a little bit, but one person doing a little less dps at time is better than tank losing aggro/dying or healers missing to heal and someone else dying.

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Isn't that contradictory? A 10-raid healer only has to watch 10 health bars and make decisions based on them, a mythic 20-raid healer has to watch out for twice as many.

.....Nope....

And WHAT???!?!?!?! Healing is more the watch HP. Its looking at what is to come. Placing yourself correctly. Looking at where your team is going. Predicting damage etc.

Look at it like this. A healer in a 10 man only has to look at 10 bars....but there are only 2 healers in total..so if the raid lead is not paying attention for 1 second it can be a wipe.
While on 25 man yes the healing is a bit higher. but mistakes are like 5 to 10% more forgivable. No i am not saying 25 is easier. Just saying that because of the back up a small mistake that can be a tank not dying etc is easy to correct with more back up.

To put it simple ( on general HC/mythic terms not top tier players). 5% less healing means wipe on 10 man, 5%less dps is doable.



btw this is general speaking...their are always epic people who can do everything

[Kluian05]

In my experience its easiest as a healer since you're at range and you don't need to pay attention to a DPS rotation. Though sometimes as a healer you are tunneling grid and not paying attention to timers/surroundings as well.

I don't like raid leading as a tank/melee because your field of view is obstructed by the boss often.

Healer ~= Range > Tanks > Melee

[Sonnillon]

Ranged with a simple rotation > melee with simple rotation > tank/healer > rest

Those are just my personal preference.

Ranged like a BM is the obvious choice, but I placed melee as the second best choice cause I have raided and raid with melees who can do good DPS, do their mechanics as well as notice things and call out things on time.

I lead and tank at the same time and during progression when I am "ironing out" the tanking stuff, keeping eye on the raid/their positioning and why we wiped is really challenging without getting myself or my co tank killed cause I fucked up on crucial mechanic bit.

And as a healer... you end up focusing on the raid rather then your job (when I playing one on the seldom cases), specially if you are going in with less healers then "recommended" or not so good healers; which leads to people dieing most probably. But if there are very good healers as your partners then you can just cover the holes while focusing on leading so in that case it can make leading as healer easier.

But when the tactics have been mastered by any class and they are confident enough, even in groups of strangers, then any class can do the leading role afaik without sacrificing too much of their "job".

But that all goes most probably for those guilds and groups who don't compete at the top level, I would imagine that any role in any of the high end guilds can lead and perform their task very well, cause their skill level is lot higher then most players.

[Heladys]

I find that an interessting way to do it. Never experienced it myself. Were there never problems with mixups between the different "leaders / announcers"?

Why would there be? It's not like there's competing strategies, just different calls relevant to different roles/situations occurring. That's how we roll, not that we're pushing any serious progression.

All these posers making flat declarations are laughable. The correct answer is whatever works for your specific group makeup, and that's going to come down to personalities and ability as much as role. Sure, some roles tend to make it easier or harder, but ultimately it's the player that makes it or fails at it.

[Sarevokcz]

I was raidleading as range dps for years, but it definitely affected performance, even when playing relativly simple spec as ele, it was always great, when I could chill out on farm and focus on numbers and movement properly. RLing from tank PoV is definitely easier, there are very little consequences for missing a filler here or there and tank usually has unique overview of the raid, as they usually are facing the raid and see it from the other side than ranged, the hardest part is adjusting to calling left right and vica versa, since people see it the other way.

I definitely wouldnt want to RL from melee on most bosses