How To form A Raid Team

[davidmac267]

Hey guys not sure if this is the right place to post this so srry if its not. Anyway I'm wanting to form a guild raid team and was wondering if anyone had any tips on what i should do? How i should go about it. Anything you guys can think of would be greatly appreciated thanks all.

[Desdonde]

Starting a raid group from scratch is pretty difficult, but first thing is you need to identify what kind of raid you want it to be. Casual? Progression based? Semi-Hardcore? Hardcore? And figure out your raid times.

Then obviously you need to start recruiting members. I would at least do some kind of vent interviews when recruiting people, just ginviting them when they say they want to join will lead to high turnarounds. An application process can help increase commitment a bit, and using forums and requiring raiders to visit the forums at least once a day will also help commitment. In the end though, since you are starting from scratch, it's the start up that is most difficult. Don't be discouraged by people just randomly leaving or not showing up to raid, it's going to take time for you to find raiders who are actually committed, and even after that, recruiting is a never ending process.

If you have friends (real life or not), it's much easier to start up a guild/raid group if they are helping you out. Starting it up just by yourself will be very hard.

Good luck to you...

[Deja Thoris]

If you already have a guild, state your intentions and set up a calendar event for t11 raids just for something to do. This will let you see if your signups actually pitch up. If you do get the raid going you can then see who has potential and who likes to lick windows while standing in the fire and ignoring boss mechanics.

Tell people that seem eager that you expect them to take care of their characters. See that ret paladin with an int cloth head and no glyphs? You probably don't want him. Raiders should be properly gemmed and enchanted. One substandard person can cause 9 others to wipe. Don't be afraid to set high expectations.

As was said above, setting up something competely from scratch can be hard unless you already have a few relatively commited people who are raring to go. Don't be afriad to pug people in. Nothing kills a prospective raid team quicker than forming up 8 core people and then abandoning the evenings activities just because you were 2 short. NEVER let this happen. Give people fun activities to do and they will come. Decent pugs are good candidates to recruit too.

Decide where you want to pitch yourself. I'd imagine you'd fall into the "casual"(ish) category. Raid 2 or so nights a week depending on what people fancy most and stick to the advertised times. If the raid ends at 11pm then make sure it really ends then. Remeber that there may be someone who has to get up for work at 5am and hes too polite to say no. If it starts at 8pm then tell people to be logged in 10 minutes before then. If people are late I actually go out of my way to replace them that week. It rarely happens twice.

tl/dr version is provide fun activities / make it clear casual doesn't mean you accept mediocrity and be very firm without being a tyrant.

[RehabOC80]

I did this with the 4.3 Release(although we had a 1k member guild to draw from) after there was some interest in it, but since we had skipped T11 + T12, LFR helped a lot and there was a challenge at the start, few things I've encountered to be ready for; I'm basing this off a current guild, cuz it seems like that's what you have::

1.) See what intrest you have in-guild so far and class/spec you're working with, then talk to them thoroughly and see how interested they seem
--See how many healers you have, Tanks, etc

2.) Consistency! That's the most important thing to look for, gearing someone up is easy, but if you're gonna be helping people gear to get ready or start getting a boss or 2 down at the start, make sure they're gonna show up each week, otherwise you end up giving away upgrades that aren't helping your raid get further
--On top of this, see how willing your members are to run LFR, HHoT's, PuG FL's, BoE's and Crafteds, All Enchants/Gems on their gear -- if someone isn't willing to gear up on their own/through stepping-stone means, then you're gonna end up having trouble with them long-run

3.) Bringing Pugs is the best way to get new members(spamming a recruitment is okay) but even if you only have 3 members and have to PuG 7, you'll start getting new members quickly, as long as you are a good leader, have the fights pre-strategized, patience, etc. You also get to see them in action before you recruit them this way instead of just picking them up

4.) Figure out your loot-rules ahead of time and stick to it. One of the biggest downfalls of Raids is loot-whoring, selfishness, greedyness. Just recently, we've been running DS10 for ~6weeks, and ended up grabbing someone from the guild to fill a spot. We had very loose MS RR rules, the guy got 4 pieces of gear, then made a hissy when the 5th went somewheres else, so we had to tighten it up, so make sure they're well known ahead(wether you want to do a cuncel, just a MS RR, DKP, thats up to you)

5.) Look everything up yourself, responsibility of being the Raid Leader requires that you know what's going to happen every fight and have a strategy in place, you can be open to suggestions, just make sure you've watched videos/read posts so you have a general idea of whats to come, everyones looking at you. It also helps to know a good amount about each and every class, know the CD's each class provides/buffs/debuffs/etc. Then if one of your core membrs is having a hard time, you can speak with them and have a general idea of what wall they're running into.
--the raidcomp feature on this site is great to see what buffs/debuffs you're missing.

You'll notice the more consistent you get, and the further you get, the more that will want to join. You're inevetably(sp?) going to end up with some bad/disrespectful players from time to time when pugging til you get your core going, then you have to deal with backups and others wanting in once you have your core. It's tough from scratch, but the best advice I can see is if you want a more casual Raid, keep it friendly! Then if you want to turn it more serious, you can, more strict, once you've got some raids under your belt.

[Sodium]

Figure out what kind of raid group you want, and be honest about it when recruiting members. Figure out how many hours a week you want to go, how dedicated to progression you want to be (and be realistic here, if you yourself have no hard mode experience, don't decide you want to jump right into making a hard mode realm first competition team and expect success), what attitude you want the group to have (is joking in vent okay? what about people afking lots for kids? RL > WoW or turn off the phone during raids?), what sort of loot system you want to use, and then recruit accordingly.

The big thing is to stick to your plans. Don't start trying to change the group to be more or less hardcore for the sake of one potential recruit, and try to be consistent week in and week out. If someone is unreliable, then replace them. Remember, replacing people is okay. Sacrificing the group for the sake of one raider is not.

Also, is your guild going to support you in this? Is there interest in guild to recruit from? A very easy way to start a raid group is just to make a calendar invite in guild (pick a reasonable ilevel minimum for it and enforce it but otherwise see who shows) and then just pug out the remaining spots. If you see pugs you like, try to recruit them. If you see spots you consistently need filled, recruit for them. Do this enough weeks in a row and you will have a raid group.

[davidmac267]

yes srry guys when i said raid team it would be a guild raifd team srry if that mixed anyone up and thanks for the amzing tips

[Javster]

Just put together a team recently. We've used LFR as a tool. We have open guild LFRs twice a week, run a log and take a look at the results. After about a month, we put together a team, we're casual so each pick wasn't solely based on performance, but also attitude. First week, we had a late start and sort of limped around, yet we went 3 of 8 in just under 2 hours. Week two we went 4 of 8 one-shot each boss and only took 4 looks at Ultraxion before calling it quits for the night.