I am requiring my guild to do their spec's "Gold" Proving Grounds - thoughts?

[Cov]

The few people who haven't done it have usually said "I know what I'm doing wrong - I'm going to try x to fix it next time!" "Okay, finally got past the double healer wave - I repentance'd the 2nd healer and it worked great! I didn't realize the big sha required burst though, so I'm going to use my avenging wrath on him this time and I'll save my BOAK for the 10th wave where you told me another Sha was."

It's been great for our guild.

That's why I think your idea is great in your situation. And it is going to improve your raid a lot simply by the fact that several people realized that proper analysis of their mistakes will lead to improvement. That's a very useful thing to learn before start raiding.

I would probably raise an eyebrow if my guild suddenly requests something like that, because we already are a raidgroup with members who should trust each other. But if your forming a new raid group at entry level (like stated in the first post) its better way than any "post a ui screenshot", "what's your ilvl", "post a lfr log" criteria.

[Halicia]

I would probably raise an eyebrow if my guild suddenly requests something like that, because we already are a raidgroup with members who should trust each other.

even in a 10man, there's 90 different opinions of 'who's pulling their weight'. additional standards that need to be met can help defray some of the resentment that grows when people feel that they are working harder at their class then others are. it can also provide the raid & guildleader with a "neutral arbiter" to speak for them.

i remember reading an anecdote about when damage meters were first introduced. there were 3 mages in the raid, two of them constantly belittling another one because he wasnt 'as good as they were'. once damage meters were used to track the raid, it became clear that the situation was the opposite, and they quickly shut their mouths.

[Tankitbetter]

even in a 10man, there's 90 different opinions of 'who's pulling their weight'. additional standards that need to be met can help defray some of the resentment that grows when people feel that they are working harder at their class then others are. it can also provide the raid & guildleader with a "neutral arbiter" to speak for them.

i remember reading an anecdote about when damage meters were first introduced. there were 3 mages in the raid, two of them constantly belittling another one because he wasnt 'as good as they were'. once damage meters were used to track the raid, it became clear that the situation was the opposite, and they quickly shut their mouths.

I would have loved to been there for that.

So far, the experiment has worked for my guild. Wondering if other guilds have done similar things.

[zoomgpally]

i've done gold tank and dps as a dk tank (yes im a noob and did the dps one in tank gear because i have no dps gear ;_ but it's really easy, if people complain about doing an easy solo scenario that takes 10 minutes (literally) to get in a raiding guild, then just let them leave, they are A) not willing to put in work B) not listening to their guild or raid leader (whichever you are ) and C) if they honestly can't do gold .. they really shouldn't be raiding.. especially if you are looking for decent progression

Id rather take a healer that prepares for raiding than a healer that optimize gear FOR PROVING GROUNDS and spend a day actually working on it(time that should probably be spent capping valor or doing timeless)

....I guess that's just me

[Itisamuh]

So you deem it unnecessary?

Of course. I could almost understand wanting new players with no experience to do it, but not people who have been playing forever.

[Goremonger]

This seems like a great idea, back when Brawlers guild came out. I felt that even that could be used as a great tool to judge new raiders, taking somebody who has beaten brawlers guild and gotten gold on proving grounds would make a much better recruit than somebody who didn't or can't.

[Evect]

Not even doing Proving Grounds, yet i'm raiding.

[MasterDinadan]

I think proving grounds is valuable to train and demonstrating understanding of SOME raiding concepts, but I don't think it is really important. The most important skill that 90% of the group can have is being able to follow instructions, and proving grounds does not teach that.

[Caanrial]

In B4 the bleeding hearts at Blizz say "O Noes! Guilds using PG not for what is is intended for??? We better nerf it asap so people aren't sat for raids!"

[Lucetia]

That's not even close to true. If having SotR + guardian with SoI requires you to LoH then gold is impossible for everyone else. Guess what? It's not.

The only wave of gold that needs some kind of CD is the start of round 10

This is why I said the challenges don't prove anything for raiding. As some of them are skewed. Having to blow that many cooldowns in the tank one I don't think is intended since not all tank classes have as many tools. That's why I said things like the NPC not healing and dps more could cause issues for some, etc.

[Tankitbetter]

This is why I said the challenges don't prove anything for raiding. As some of them are skewed. Having to blow that many cooldowns in the tank one I don't think is intended since not all tank classes have as many tools. That's why I said things like the NPC not healing and dps more could cause issues for some, etc.

You're missing the point. Every tank class can do it. We've done it.

It means you're making a mistake if you have to use those cooldowns at that time or that for your class that is the most dangerous part.

[Lucetia]

What he meant was probably that you were doing something else wrong, since other classes do not have that many cds yet survive just fine.

Quite possibly the case. The only thing that were up at the time was melee mobs. There was no fire caster, wind caster or anything that would've taken a lot of damage. Just the stacking bleed dot they do. Though as I mentioned before I only gave gold one attempt to see what it was like and could just be a case of really bad RNG. I'll have to toy around with it later this week. Would do it tonight, but I have a paper to write and I want to beat the Celestial Tournament before it resets.

[Lucetia]

When it comes to the stacking dot, you're supposed to use an aoe CC ability (blinding light comes to mind for a paladin I guess) and cc/kite for a bit in order to reset the stacks.
I didn't attempt it on live at all, but that's what I did on my PTR attempt and it went just smooth.

Yea, I think I tried that but it was on CD from an earlier pack. Either way I'll attempt it later this week and try a few other things. I mainly did it once to get an idea of it. In the end though I think it's just silly to ask people to do gold to raid. Bronze/Silver I can see. Gold would just frustrate *most* people and make them want to leave the guild and find another guild that doesn't require it or just not raid altogether.

[Tankitbetter]

Gold would just frustrate *most* people and make them want to leave the guild and find another guild that doesn't require it or just not raid altogether.

This is not supported by the fact that 17 out of 20 people of my original raiders are okay with it. This is a small sample - but it's the only sample we have.

[Deleted]

Not to mention that as a paladin you can both bubble and bop the stacking bleed.

[tiporispit]

I see nothing wrong with it, but why stop there?

Require a minimum Arena or RBG rating, since there is nothing better in-game to train a player to think on their toes and survive dynamic mechanics.

You didn't think 70% of the Top 10 progression servers being PvP servers was a coincidence, did you?

[Lucetia]

Not to mention that as a paladin you can both bubble and bop the stacking bleed.

I thought about this but I figured knowing my luck my UI would mess up and say "No cancelling bubble and let the mops destroy your healer". Just because the UI hates me every once in a blue moon.

Edit: Just realized I was dumb. Didn't get rid of the stacks because I Lay on Hands is why I didn't.

This is not supported by the fact that 17 out of 20 people of my original raiders are okay with it. This is a small sample - but it's the only sample we have.

Yea, that is a pretty small sample size. That's why I said most people. I've been in guilds before where I know something like that would start irritating people and cause them to leave. I'd say you got lucky :P

[judgementofantonidas]

So having just completed a current tier of heroics while it was current (quite a tough one I might add with DA and Lei Shen in there) the advice of some one day week casual raid leader is that I should drop back to lfr? Sounds like retarded advice.

Back on topic, it sounds like you aren't sure where to pitch your raid team. Ex hardcore raider leading casuals one night a week and making them jump through hoops to meet your standards. While standards aren't a bad thing I'm not sure your philosophy is in line with the teams. Having said that, its your team to lead (or destroy in this case)

sounds like he just wants a team that can claim to be casual while clearing all content on heroic in one night.

[Estride]

Very interesting, like reading a research article as that one guy said!
In most cases I would have thought such a requirement to be quite pointless but I can definitely see the possibilities for it to be beneficial in your case.

In my opinion Proving Grounds (mainly endless) is amazing practice to develop the skillset needed in gold+ challenge modes, healers included. Most people criticize them for being unrelated to raiding but I believe it's a more adaptive and reactive playstyle that is absolutely required to improve yourself as a player and to become flexible. Every role gets to refine their CD usage, dps maximise damage during movement, tanks get to have some fun with kitting and healers have to make intelligent decisions with their spell usage because mana matters.
I don't know about you but those are all skills I put in action to acquire realm best CM times and I'm positive it translates, at least partly, into my skills as a raider. Of course some specs have it harder than others but we're a few who made it past wave 30 as elemental, gold is definitely not out of reach.

Glad to read its been working well so far OP, hopefully the last few manages to pull it off with your help and ends up making your raid stronger as a whole.

[Deleted]

If you run around, trying to kite the boss, you're a pretty terrible raid tank. You can't root raid bosses and if you root trash mobs, they turn around and melee the closest player. Also proving ground teaches you how tank dps is completely irrelevant, as your npc does 4-5 times your dps.
The tank one has the least to do with raiding.

There's loads of bosses that needs to be kited as part of their mechanics, primordius to name a recent one.
Plenty of adds/trash that can be rooted, seemed to work excellent on garrosh yesterday.
I didnt spend much time in PG as i got my title after 3-4 tries but if i didnt push enough dps i'd get overwhelmed and die /shrug.

I've been tanking for years and i really think PG is fantastic for its target audience, dont forget OP and his guild is doing flex