How to initiate a raid leader switch?

[Deleted]

Hello!

Our usual raid leader was away last week, and one of our normal raiders took the lead during that time. The overall atmosphere was much nicer and calling out stuff during a fight was substantially better. It just went so much smoother. Basically everyone I asked agreed with this as well! Yesterday though, our usual raid leader came back and proceeded to lead in his mediocre manner.

How should I approach the situation to have the normal raider (who is willing) start raid leading instead of our usual one? Don't really want to call it out during a raid or anything. Making a thread on our forums would also be very awkward and clunky. What should I do?

Thanks!

[soterya]

Try to get both of them in vent,mubble,etc. then talk it out durring a guild meeting? or even a off-night raid? and or bring it to the GM of your guild.

[Lecan]

Hello!

Our usual raid leader was away last week, and one of our normal raiders took the lead during that time. The overall atmosphere was much nicer and calling out stuff during a fight was substantially better. It just went so much smoother. Basically everyone I asked agreed with this as well! Yesterday though, our usual raid leader came back and proceeded to lead in his mediocre manner.

How should I approach the situation to have the normal raider (who is willing) start raid leading instead of our usual one? Don't really want to call it out during a raid or anything. Making a thread on our forums would also be very awkward and clunky. What should I do?

Thanks!

Speak privately to the RL's next in command. If he is the guild leader, speak to him. Gossiping behind his back ("everyone I asked") or making public drama ("call it out during a raid") will only backfire on you. Simply put, be an adult about the situation.

[Kisho]

Careful; it could 'seem' like he's better, but that's only because he's the shiny new guy. It may end up that he's actually not; doesn't bother reading up on tactics, can't think on the move, ends up shouting at people when they do stuff wrong... etc.

Something like this is a very delicate process. The people to talk to are the GM and the old/new raid leads... nobody else. Don't make a forum thread, and ESPECIALLY don't bring it up during a raid! Have a private chat, maybe make a party in WoW or on Ventrilo/similar, and discuss what the guild feels like.

Maybe the old raid lead has been waiting for someone to step up. Maybe he's been having issues outside of WoW which has affected his raid leading. Talk it with him, maybe see if he can improve himself first before getting replaced. If you just replace him instantly he'll get super offended, then if the new guy turns out to be terrible then you could be without a raid leader entirely.

Give him the chance to improve first, ask him how he feels as well. A private discussion between the guild leader and the old/new raid leaders would be very beneficial.

[ripponesan]

At first be sincere to yourself.

Was it a better atmosphesere?
Was your performance better?
Would you still like to raid with the new RL even if performance will suffer?

In my eyes every raid needs a bad cop to call out faljures, bad preparation or stuff like that. Naturally people dont like that, but still in most raids it is neccesary to maintain at least the performance.
We have such a guy as well in our raid. And as much as i hate his flaming from time to time i know we need him. Without him we probably would still be trying the second boss.
So for me the situation is better WITH the bad guy.

[Valium104]

You want me to not tell you that you should call it out during raid, so i wont. Damn.

[Auloria]

Raid leading is a whole lot more than just calling things out during a fight. The RL needs to prepare the strategy, trouble shoot problem areas in the fight, settle drama, coordinate player schedules, have backup players handy, call people out for not being prepared.

Maybe you should tell your RL specifically what went better so that he could improve, or this new guy could be the call things out guy. In my last guild, our tank was RL and he wasnt so great at multi-tasking, so I was the one who would make raid announcements/decisions during fights.

[Deleted]

Remind me back in vanilla, I was raid leader during our 40-men raid during AQ progression.

I'm not insulting anyone but I used to be quite rough toward the raid and not very nice whent it comes to manage raid mistakes.
When you want 40 people to be fully focused you need to be the "bad guy"
Ambiance wasn't awful but I liked when the raid was serious and we were progressing/performing quite well and we were the top 1 guild on our server.

During our weekly AQ20/ZG guild runs I wasn't the leader as far as It was well known by everyone and I was not there every weeks.
Some mates start complaining that the lead from "John" was much more better, pleasant and much more this and not so that blablabla.

As far as I was already a mature person I let him read lead during one week, and let him do ALL the job I was doing as far as he asked to.
Prepare healing assign on Huhuran for example where you had to know all nature resist for all your melee.
Prepare calendar, loot attribution etc.

I have to admit that his lead was much more nice and forgiving than mine, too much from my point of view.
End of the week, Huhuran was still alive, but most of the mates seemed to be happy with the new RL.

Due to personal reason I had to quit wow for a few months after that.
My guild loose the rank 1 a few days after and struggled weeks and weeks to down the twins, C'thun was still alive when Naxx40 was out.
During this time they changed the raid leader multiple time but kept loosing somes of their best players.

The guild eventually broke up.

What members need is not always what is the best for the guild.

[Deleted]

i would imagine you would want both,

the first guy is probably the guy who comes up with the tactics your guild uses to kill bosses as every guild makes it's own adjustments to fit it's current raid members abilities so u want to keep him for tactics etc

the second guy is the one you want co-ordinating the raiders to do what the first guy told them to do during the fights themselves.

share the responsability out you might find the first guy likes not having to speak on mumble all the time as if he is so "bored sounding" he is probably "bored saying it" as well

[Mazar]

I hope you understand that there is a lot more to raid leading than just calling things out. You had one night go "better" for you does not make someone a better raid lead. For the most part raid leaders shouldnt have to call out anything, people should know their jobs. Typically I call out when things go wrong and we ahve to make adjustments.

Does the new guy want to stand in trade chat for an hour looking for a replacement? Does he want to be the one that has to decide if raid gets canceled? Does he want to be the one that has to deal with deciding who does what on every fight? Does he want to know the ins and outs of everyfight so he can determine who's failing at their job? etc etc etc

Just because he did well after the group was already formed and one some tracks doesnt mean he'll be a better a lead. However if he does want to step up to all the responsibilites of a RL then he should start up his own raid imo. Trying to take over another raid is BS IMO. Plus with the added "gossip" behind his back it may be best to split the raid anyways. Have the people who feel they'd be better off go to a new guild or start their own raid.

[blackpink]

In my last guild, our tank was RL and he wasnt so great at multi-tasking, so I was the one who would make raid announcements/decisions during fights.

If you were making all the decisions and calling out stuff, what was the "raid leader" doing?

---------- Post added 2012-11-09 at 10:27 AM ----------

Careful; it could 'seem' like he's better, but that's only because he's the shiny new guy. It may end up that he's actually not; doesn't bother reading up on tactics, can't think on the move, ends up shouting at people when they do stuff wrong... etc.

This reminds me of an old guild of mine long time ago on my old server. The group was led by a very incompetent player and then one night a pug came in and took the lead and the group did very well (I cant remember what bosses we killed). Then when the raid was finished, everyone agreed to ditch the "old" raid leader and followed this new guy. We formed a new guild and everything. The very next week, and the weeks following, this new guy ninjas every gear to himself and then eventually when deathbringer's will dropped he just took it for himself. Needless to say, the new guild immediately disbanded.

[Auloria]

If you were making all the decisions and calling out stuff, what was the "raid leader" doing?

A shit ton of work. Really. Between fights, he was the one deciding when to switch things up, who should take what role, who made the mistakes and how to fix it. Between raids, he made sure we had a supply of feasts and flasks, that we had a pug or two in the wings, and he was the one who sat in trade chat for hours. He was just bad at calling things out consistently, especially for things that had to change on the fly. I had a better vantage point as a ranged and was a little faster to react.

[Strakha]

In the raiding guild I was in til recently we didn't really have a "leader". It worked fairly well. Everyone kind of just gave their opinion then we had people meta moderate the opinions on the forum and the most acceptable opinions were graduated into the guild philosophy.

[Mazar]

If you were making all the decisions and calling out stuff, what was the "raid leader" doing?[COLOR="red"]

Man, I can't wait to log in tonight and let the guild know that my responsibilities as RL are makign all the decisions and calling out stuff.

I wonder if feasts/flasks will still get made, I wonder if replacements will magicly show up, I hope the strats and videos get posted to the guild site, I hope someone pays for a VOIP for us to use, I hope someone else knows all the ins and outs of the fight to review WOL and help the raiders get better.

Sweet, raid leading means calling shit out and making all the decisions. Whoot my job just got a lot eaiser!

[Strakha]

Man, I can't wait to log in tonight and let the guild know that my responsibilities as RL are makign all the decisions and calling out stuff.

I wonder if feasts/flasks will still get made, I wonder if replacements will magicly show up, I hope the strats and videos get posted to the guild site, I hope someone pays for a VOIP for us to use, I hope someone else knows all the ins and outs of the fight to review WOL and help the raiders get better.

Sweet, raid leading means calling shit out and making all the decisions. Whoot my job just got a lot eaiser!

Your guild sounds really lazy if they won't even do WOL / watch videos / flask food buff. That is basically what everyone should be doing.

[Chrno]

I (been main RL myself) always had a 2nd raid leader for when i couldn't raid due to RL or when i rotated myself out (we had a fair based on activity rotation system where even the guild master rotated himself).

More then often tho we were both in the raid at the same time so when i took a wee during trash he took over. We kind-off did a rotating raid lead thing on boss-to-boss basis.
+ You always had a 2nd opinion during progress nights, was a good atmosphere back then.

Well anyway, it worked for us might work for you aswell.

[Deleted]

Your guild sounds really lazy if they won't even do WOL / watch videos / flask food buff. That is basically what everyone should be doing.

Yeah if he's the RL and he's dealing with that he's failed and should step down for the good of his guild, really.

[Rivellana]

Careful; it could 'seem' like he's better, but that's only because he's the shiny new guy. It may end up that he's actually not; doesn't bother reading up on tactics, can't think on the move, ends up shouting at people when they do stuff wrong... etc.

Something like this is a very delicate process. The people to talk to are the GM and the old/new raid leads... nobody else. Don't make a forum thread, and ESPECIALLY don't bring it up during a raid! Have a private chat, maybe make a party in WoW or on Ventrilo/similar, and discuss what the guild feels like.

Maybe the old raid lead has been waiting for someone to step up. Maybe he's been having issues outside of WoW which has affected his raid leading. Talk it with him, maybe see if he can improve himself first before getting replaced. If you just replace him instantly he'll get super offended, then if the new guy turns out to be terrible then you could be without a raid leader entirely.

Give him the chance to improve first, ask him how he feels as well. A private discussion between the guild leader and the old/new raid leaders would be very beneficial.

I've gotta agree with this guy.

You should probably talk to the old raid leader first and find out if he's actually even still interested in keeping that sort of position. Perhaps he was doing it because no one else had stepped up and doesn't really care one way or the other if he does it or not? If you find he does want to continue it but you and the rest of your raid have more interest in the new raid leader holding that position, then I'd go talk to your GL privately.

Your GL could then take both of those people aside and speak with them privately and help decide what to do.

[ati87]

I kind of doubt he will take it well, had a similar thing a long time ago.

We had few RL's who usually spread the workload (depending on the tier they would either get a boss or the whole instance) around but that single RL either didn't prepare or didn't prepare right. Anyway he was pissing off allot of people with his attitude (not limited to the raid members) and the other officers eventually asked him to ''step down''.

Well he didn't take it well, he made a youtube movie where he was showing his notes while he was shirtless, he then left the guild.

Best thing you could do it try to spread around the duties of RL (if you want him to stay) approach him and say that we want to divide the workload by multiply bosses so that each RL can focus on a boss/instance.

[blackpink]

Man, I can't wait to log in tonight and let the guild know that my responsibilities as RL are makign all the decisions and calling out stuff.

I wonder if feasts/flasks will still get made, I wonder if replacements will magicly show up, I hope the strats and videos get posted to the guild site, I hope someone pays for a VOIP for us to use, I hope someone else knows all the ins and outs of the fight to review WOL and help the raiders get better.

Sweet, raid leading means calling shit out and making all the decisions. Whoot my job just got a lot eaiser!

lol wow. Feast doesn't have to be sole responsibility of the raid leader but sure they usually are, but only because alot of raid groups are just lazy as hell, and the raid lead can usually do it for reasons I won't say here. VOIP is not always the responsibility of the raid leader...I know quite alot of guilds where the voip is provided by a regular raider. Your raiders should be responsible for themselves and take it upon themselves to improve. Raid leader is there to setup strategies during raid, and call stuff out, make assigments etc. not carry all the workload that your raiders should be doing themself.

Your guild sounds really lazy if they won't even do WOL / watch videos / flask food buff. That is basically what everyone should be doing.

this.