General transition changes for a 10 man guild to a 20/25 Raiding Guild

[Deleted]

Hey everyone,

To start the topic I'll give a short summary of my story. In patch 5.1 I joined a raiding guild Defqon on the realm Outland. While Defqon only had one or two bosses down in Mogu'shan vaults lucky enough I made it into this raiding guild even with my lack of raiding experience. So I began my raiding adventure with the second raid team with eventually the core raid team breaking up. Apparently the GM was so impressed by the way I looked at things (always look on the bright side but be sure to take the clouds away) he threw me into the depths. He decided I would become the raid leader of the new core group. During patch 5.2 things went really well and we cleared ToT full normal mode and even two bosses on Heroic with a fully new formed core group which I leaded. Soon after this progression the Guild Master left on a trip to Vegas while leaving two others members in charge. A week after they were in charge they wanted to realm change towards Silvermoon. After they transferred the guild slowly died out with almost no activity left. During my time in this guild I felt so comfortable (with some really nice friendships) that I wanted to something about this. I demanded the GM rights from the two members (or there alts) who transferred to Silvermoon. I began to establish a new core group but this time I also focused on the aspects of the guild itself. During 5.4 we took a great jump by ending up as a 11/14 HC guild (with a summer break since March). Beside the great raiding progression compared to where this guild always was, we also have a great social atmosphere and are fully preparing for Warlords of Draenor.

As a new Guild Master and Raid Leader I do however have to change the 10 man guild into a 20 man guild. While I already have 26 raiders from previous raid experiences I had with them (All skilled enough in my eyes) I'm wondering if I should change certain things in general within the guild. Since I have not been a GM for too long yet, I was hoping I could get some advice on the following items:

Officers - Currently we have 185 members (including alts) and 4 officers. 1 Officer has the responsibility for the social aspects in the guild but the other two don't have any certain responsibility at this moment. I'm thinking of how I can manage or change this for WoD in the amount of officers what would be needed, what is the best way in selecting the right people but also what responsibility I could give them for their ranks. Any advice on these three questions?

Rules & Communication - While having a less amount of people in the guild in MoP, having more people online in WoD will of course result in bigger guild activity and so also more chances for conflicts. As a 10 man raiding group the atmosphere was mostly pretty good but raiders (even myself every now and then) have their good and bad days. I can imagine 20 raiders and 5 raiders benched can result in more voices and noise on for example the Teamspeak server. How is your experience with this and do you have any good tips to keep control of a good and social atmosphere in Teamspeak/Guild Chat?

Role/Class Leaders - As 10 man group I managed to get around handy enough. For most classes I knew enough basic information to guide and help them if needed. Mages specifically are not a real problem to help and guide towards more dps. Some other classes however are something different since I lack the experience and knowledge to analyze their roles and performance. As a 20/25 raiding group are there class and role leaders in the guild and if so how much and with what responsibility?

Raiders - As 10 man we always had 13-14 raiders since there's always some people who have things in real life that have higher priority (extra working shifts/personal issues/traffic delay/you name it). Now for first raid kills I always went for the best setup. After bosses could be farmed efficiently enough I traded the other 3/4 people in and out so everyone had equal raid times and chances for loot. This always went very good without any conflict between the raiders. How much extra raiders should I take into account for a 20 man Mythic group and are there any changes in giving raid spots out?

Loot System - In 10 man raiding I always used Loot Distribution (Masterloot). This means equal gearing for everyone (Sheet of who had how many heroic items and which item were BiS for what specs) but with higher priority for example healers who have to push for Iron Jugg HC or when set bonuses could be acquired. For 20/25 raiders however this would take loads of time and since I have not raided with DKP/EPGP before I wonder what you guys can advise me as loot system?

I would greatly appreciate any input I could get to make preparations more smooth in WoD. Although it’s just the double amount of raiders I do want to prepare myself enough in upcoming changes.

Spartex

[Sonnillon]

Officers - Currently we have 185 members (including alts) and 4 officers. 1 Officer has the responsibility for the social aspects in the guild but the other two don't have any certain responsibility at this moment. I'm thinking of how I can manage or change this for WoD in the amount of officers what would be needed, what is the best way in selecting the right people but also what responsibility I could give them for their ranks. Any advice on these three questions?

In a 20-man+ raid you will be needing more then 1 RL for calling out various things. I am not doubting that you can keep an eye on ALL of the raid and every single timer for stuff, having some extra support on certain people telling lets say like x to healers, y to dps etc.

As for assignments... 1 can be responsible for raid tacs, while 2nd handles sorting the members - who gets to raid, who gets to be benched etc, other 2 just mainly focus on leading the raid for certain roles. Eg. if one of them is a healer other DPS then each just can take one role and make sure that everyone in that role do what they are suppose to be doing, calling out CDs and what not. Or well all 4 officers can be responsible in raid for calling out various stuff, cause from my personal experience from 25-man HC raid leading... It gets tough to be calling everything out alone.

Rules & Communication - While having a less amount of people in the guild in MoP, having more people online in WoD will of course result in bigger guild activity and so also more chances for conflicts. As a 10 man raiding group the atmosphere was mostly pretty good but raiders (even myself every now and then) have their good and bad days. I can imagine 20 raiders and 5 raiders benched can result in more voices and noise on for example the Teamspeak server. How is your experience with this and do you have any good tips to keep control of a good and social atmosphere in Teamspeak/Guild Chat?

Make different rooms in you voice chat - Eg something for socializing and other for raiding. That way all the chatter can be kept away from raid. In general from my experience with 25 people it's not that messy. As long as you make sure that everyone understands that during boss pull, the raiding channel should be kept only for important stuff while they can chat about rainbows and unicorns during breaks or downtime or trash. Even then having few different rooms on voice chat server helps out.

As for guild chat... Well... That gets bit trickier. You can have your guild chat and raid chat in different chat tab, so that wouldn't distract people or if people prefer just one chat tab... Make sure that the chatting in guild chat is kept to something which doesn't distract the people who raid or they can chat in your voice com if they have to.

Role/Class Leaders - As 10 man group I managed to get around handy enough. For most classes I knew enough basic information to guide and help them if needed. Mages specifically are not a real problem to help and guide towards more dps. Some other classes however are something different since I lack the experience and knowledge to analyze their roles and performance. As a 20/25 raiding group are there class and role leaders in the guild and if so how much and with what responsibility?

You could have people, who are good at their class be the leader for that one. Eg. you have an extraordinary hunter and you run with 4 other hunters... Make that person the leader. Or if you have someone who is seasoned in several classes they can be class leading for that one. In general I personally am not that fond of class leaders.

You can see the role leader remark under the officer section. I personally would go with having a role leader for ranged, healers and melee. They would just make sure that everyone performs their role tasks well. It should be everyone's responsibility to keep their class knowledge up to date, but if someone is lacking you can always have that person consult the member of your guild with excellent class performance for help. That way you don't have to have a defined class leader.

As I've said if one of your officers is healer, melee or/and ranged DPS they can become the role leaders themselves, which result that you don't have to have a specific rank for a "class/role" leader.

Raiders - As 10 man we always had 13-14 raiders since there's always some people who have things in real life that have higher priority (extra working shifts/personal issues/traffic delay/you name it). Now for first raid kills I always went for the best setup. After bosses could be farmed efficiently enough I traded the other 3/4 people in and out so everyone had equal raid times and chances for loot. This always went very good without any conflict between the raiders. How much extra raiders should I take into account for a 20 man Mythic group and are there any changes in giving raid spots out?

I am personally in my guild aiming for 25-30 of total raiders for Mythic or less, if you know that most of the guys can raid every given day then you can cut the number of people you need to have down, but if you know that several people cannot raid one or the other day, then I think 25-30 seems like a good amount of people. I would keep the same mentality for switching people - core gets first kills, filled in by people in bench if needed to fill a spot and later everyone gets to raid. If it worked for you so far... It should work with more people as well.

Loot System - In 10 man raiding I always used Loot Distribution (Masterloot). This means equal gearing for everyone (Sheet of who had how many heroic items and which item were BiS for what specs) but with higher priority for example healers who have to push for Iron Jugg HC or when set bonuses could be acquired. For 20/25 raiders however this would take loads of time and since I have not raided with DKP/EPGP before I wonder what you guys can advise me as loot system?

There is a topic in this forum somewhere were people discuss the various loot options, but atmo don't have time to find it for you.