Raid leading RL friends is literally aids

[Tankitbetter]

Well, this has been quite the mess. Logs at the bottom to understand what I'm referencing. I'm Laradrin, by the way.

I took a hiatus from WoW for 3 months until friends convinced me to come back and heal. That was 7 weeks ago. The raid group consisted of 6 IRL Friends and a few internet people they managed to keep in the guild. In March, they were 5/7 Normal Highmaul and 1/7 H highmaul. These were raiders who had defeated progression content before. They have AotC and some CE achievements!

The guy who replaced me as tank and raid leader did nothing to inspire his players. He didn't adjust strategies between pulls. I came in the first week and we wiped on butcher over and over again and each wipe was "Well we got it this time guys!" and that's it. I out-healed our resto druid, another friend, despite being 35 ilvls below him. I don't say this to brag - the next week, he kicked my ass by like 12k HPs - but to point out that no one cared. We had 1 DPS above 20k. We had a healer who was doing 7k HPs. When we wiped again, I told our healers that I'd like to organize healing CDs to help with his potential burst. We killed him next attempt.

Things progressed about how you'd think. Slowly, I took over raid leading responsibilities until 2 weeks ago he officially stepped down and I took over. We are now 9/10 normal BRF and 4/10 heroic BRF. We've managed to recruit - and keep - a lot of DPS and healers who are performing amazingly. I'm happy overall. Players have seriously progressed. They're happy and they strive to improve themselves rather than stagnating.


...But, I'm raiding with IRL friends, and I don't know what to do about two of them.

One is - a resto druid who just moved to boomkin. She is my best friend's girlfriend. She is incapable of taking instruction or constructive criticism. Anything is met by "uh-huh" or, if pressed, she gets super quiet until the topic is over and then leaves and is bitchy for two days. She stands in every type of fire imaginable. She got hit by 9 darmac spears one night. She does ~12-15k DPS at ilvl 673. She did 17k HPs on our H Flamebender progression night.

The second is , the former Raid leader, a casual friend of mine and a very good friend of another friend. He makes severe mistakes and blames others. On Flamebender, he died to Charring Breath very often. After looking through logs, we found attempts where he would Shield Wall, Last stand, and ask for Vigilance...on the first breath. The first breath. The one a weak shield barrier would keep him up on. And then he'd have nothing for the 2nd or, if he survived the 2nd, 3rd breath. We wiped all night purely due to tank deaths. Although it was a peaceful transition, and he doesn't seem upset (I've raid led him for 6 years), any time I try to talk about something it gets tense. It's awkward for sure.

Does MMO-champion have any advice? Anyone been in a similar situation - and how did you fix it? It won't be long until I ask a DPS who is not an IRL friend to fix something in his rotation and he will respond with "yeah, that might give me 2k DPS, but what the fuck are you doing about who is 20k DPS below me?" HALP!

[Ryme]

Hindsight is 20/20 but never play in a guild of RL friends, it's always a disaster!

That said, just leave man, there's too much to fix there and you'll just burn out again.

[Tankitbetter]

Hindsight is 20/20 but never play in a guild of RL friends, it's always a disaster!

That said, just leave man, there's too much to fix there and you'll just burn out again.

I wish it were that easy. I'm really only playing because of these guys. Plus, leaving them = IRL friend issues.

[GhostSkull]

Does MMO-champion have any advice?

Find something fun to do with your friends.

[LailaniM]

You have to treat them like youd treat anyone else, or the guild just isn't going to work at all. If you're just going to favor your friends over online players, that are carrying your friends, that will just cause problems in itself.. So yes, they are your friends, so that means they should understand your reasoning's EVEN MORE, they should take your advice and already KNOW you aren't being malicious.. Isn't that the point of friends? If they get mad at you (IRL) over video games, just because you're doing your job.. Well, they are just being childish and stupid.

Its your job as raid leader to fix/help your players, and give them advice like you have been.. If they aren't taking it, its your right to sit them or kick them if need be.

[Feuerbart]

It all depends on the goals of your raidgroup. If progression is the goal then everyone has to put some work into it. If having fun with friends is the goal then calm down and accept that not everyone plays on your level.

Define the goals clearly and from that you can talk with your raiders. RL friends or not.

Despite that you may come across unwilling individuals that don´t want to learn or can´t accept that they need to learn.

[Snakaso]

I had a similar problem when my friends convinced me to start playing again in 5.4. We were about 10 mates, most of us pretty good, although a couple were a bit worse than others. The problem we had was that a couple of my mates just weren't dedicated enough. Especially our two tanks. They didn't look up fights beforehand, they didn't know their classes, etc. On the other hand I had two friends there with me who were on my level, so I had some backing. What we did was that we sat down and discussed our goals with playing, how much we wanted to play, etc, and in the end they just quit, since they felt themselves that they were holding us back.

So I agree with Feuerbart, define your goals and ambitions for yourself, and then talk to your troublesome friends about it.

[Tankitbetter]

Here is my nightmare scenario: we sit down and talk with Auroralight, and she throws a tantrum and quits. My best friend and the other druid healer, Cattack, is her boyfriend. They are my housemates. The awkwardness is going to be extremely intense on raid nights and it will be a huge deal for months.

[Deleted]

One is --SNIP-- - a resto druid who just moved to boomkin. She is my best friend's girlfriend. She is incapable of taking instruction or constructive criticism. Anything is met by "uh-huh" or, if pressed, she gets super quiet until the topic is over and then leaves and is bitchy for two days. She stands in every type of fire imaginable. She got hit by 9 darmac spears one night. She does ~12-15k DPS at ilvl 673. She did 17k HPs on our H Flamebender progression night.

I was in the exact same situation in arenas for a while during MoP. This girl was probably the worst player out of any RL friends I played with. Couldn't survive for 10 seconds without me and my friend both babysitting her. And the best part was she was so uncapable of handeling criticism, she just straight up ignored any advice you gave her. If I suggested anything she basically said 'alright' but didn't actually try at all. And it's not like it was anything hard, I can remember this one case where I told her she forgot a buff that she should use that would help her survive a bit easier and she still didn't do it. If my friend, her boyfriend, suggested anything, she'd freak out and tell him to stop telling her how to play (meanwhile she forbid him to play warlock when he wanted to). She completely destroyed my friends will to do any PvP and annoyed me to no end. At one point I just stopped playing with them. If he didn't play with her all the time real life drama would ensue. She wasn't happy because no one wanted to do any PvP with her but, man, I have not felt so annoyed by anyone in game ever since. My friend, now her ex, still doesn't even want to try arenas anymore with somewhat competent friends because she made him completely forget how much fun it can be.

My best advice: Stop doing progression or any competative game element with the bad ones as soon as possible, or if that causes RL issues, stop doing those things with friends altogether. Just do fun things with them in the game where there is pretty much no skill involved. Do some transmog runs, LFR, some dungeons, or perhaps a random battleground.

TLDR: Playing with anyone's girlfriend, or other RL friends who refuse to take any advise, sucks and will only cause drama. Stop doing it as soon as you can to keep your sanity intact. They will get over it eventually.

[Detritivores]

Sounds like you need to just lower your expectations. You've already stated that you're only playing to play with your friends, so make your team normal mode only "friends and family" and stop worrying so much about performance. Yes, Aurora's numbers are more in the range of a slightly-below-average lfr player, but it's easy to carry friends in normal if a couple of you have your act together.

[Deleted]

I strongly advice you remove the raid logs and any name references if you plan to keep the trust of your raiders or keep any friends at all. How would you feel if I went on a public forum with pictures of you telling you by name how much of an idiot you are.

I also thought it was common sense that it is not a smart idea to play boss over friends. There will always be an argument at some point and as the "leader" people will group up against you regardless of being right.

- - - Updated - - -

Here is my nightmare scenario: we sit down and talk with Auroralight, and she throws a tantrum and quits. My best friend and the other druid healer, Cattack, is her boyfriend. They are my housemates. The awkwardness is going to be extremely intense on raid nights and it will be a huge deal for months.

Never raid with couples, every guild I've ever seen fall apart was with couples and them bringing their bullshit to the guild. NEVER.

[hollafame]

Sounds like you put yourself in a sticky spot. If you value your friendship then ICL people will have to suffer for it. They wanted to play with you, so it'd be inconsiderate to create some form of expectation out of them and/or rate their play. If progression is more important to you, then that sort of defeats the purpose of even playing with your friends to begin with.

This isn't advice but... What's more important? IRL friends or progression in a game? If you ditch your friends will progression still feel just as rewarding? If you ditch progression will you still be having fun with your friends?

[Deleted]

Here is my nightmare scenario: we sit down and talk with <SNIP> , and she throws a tantrum and quits. My best friend and the other druid healer, <SNIP>, is her boyfriend. They are my housemates. The awkwardness is going to be extremely intense on raid nights and it will be a huge deal for months.

That girl sounds like a real keeper.

[twiddler]

The notion that one cannot take constructive criticism is a facade. Learn to correctly give it and they will be able to take it. It is quite a necessary low to mid-level management skill.

[Deleted]

That girl sounds like a real keeper.

Pretty sure we all have thrown a tantrum when we shouldn't somewhere in a relationship. If it always happens though. :P

[Deleted]

The notion that one cannot take constructive criticism is a facade. Learn to correctly give it and they will be able to take it. It is quite a necessary low to mid-level management skill.

Some people feel that any criticism at all, no matter how constructive it is, is a personal attack on them.

[Deleted]

The notion that one cannot take constructive criticism is a facade. Learn to correctly give it and they will be able to take it. It is quite a necessary low to mid-level management skill.

Some people can't take it, my brother is one of the most friendly bosses ever...every female employe cries when they receive constructive critisism. He says he never minded working with woman untill he got promoted and had to manage them.

Those are my brothers words, for what they are worth to the internet. xD

[NastyNotion]

I've always played with IRL friends and haven't had any problems with it, even raid leading and throwing out criticism. Obviously it's not a one way street, but one thing I found that helps is creating a competetive environment to make everyone striving to outperform eachother. This can be trickier with healers/tanks, but it can still be done.

[Deleted]

Some people feel that any criticism at all, no matter how constructive it is, is a personal attack on them.

Like my dad when he cooks, he asks how it was...we all say it's super tasty and it was extremely well done...just next time a bit less salt in the soup and he goes on a tantrum about never cooking for us again. lol

[Deleted]

Pretty sure we all have thrown a tantrum when we shouldn't somewhere in a relationship. If it always happens though. :P

Sure, but apparently any sort of criticism directed at her leads to her "being bitchy for two days", which, if true, is kind of a disproportionate reaction considering it's a video game we're talking about here.

Like my dad when he cooks, he asks how it was...we all say it's super tasty and it was extremely well done...just next time a bit less salt in the soup and he goes on a tantrum about never cooking for us again. lol

Ah, yes. The pride of a passionate cook is easily insulted sometimes.