What to play as Raid Leader?

[Deleted]

I loved shadow priest at the time. You had a very methodical/cyclical rotation, you are ranged and you could defensively dispel so you had incentive to show raidframes.

Elemental shaman worked really well too for the offensive aspect, but I lost track of the defensive stuff. I blame it on the spammy playstyle.

I hate resto druid. I can make it work in CMs because of the CM healing playstyle, but for raiding the UI-centric maintenance'y playstyle of resto druid is horrible for me. My performance drops like crazy when I wanna do anything besides mechanics and healing.

I think the more binary and easy a class is, plus ranged, the better. I can see holy paladin work really well.

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I've been RL'ing as disc for the past few tiers. I love it. I can more or less stop people from dying and know why they are dying instantly. Lets be realistic. I spam one button most of the night ~ pw:s isn't op at all....

In my raid though - Tanks are responsible for their own shizz. I lead the DPS/Healers. If you need to be directing the tank I would recommend just being the tank as you can't possibly know what sort of monster crotch situation they are staring at.

Very good suggestion! Have a tank call all the tank-relevant stuff and have someone else call everything else. Works really well whenever I run into a tank that is competent enough to do it, and is fun to lead with.

[MidnyteTV]

Hunter. By far the best. Rotation for all 3 specs are simple. They can move and cast so they should be able to always damage the boss. And they are ranged so they can see the battlefield.

[Frolk]

As a tank i used to raid lead, and id not recommend it, be a ranged dps, not hunter as they tend to get the bitch-duties on most bosses, being mage will let u focus on leading as rotation is rather simple

[Radio]

Play whatever you want and make sure that you have another officer in an opposing role (melee/tank vs. ranged/healer) that you can confide in and have individually lead their section when necessary.

For raid leaders that want the dictator style experience, then probably better off being a healer or easy ranged DPS. You won't get perfect coverage on every fight though, sometimes you can't see everyone no matter where you are.

[ThePants999]

Count me in the "healers are best" camp. It's certainly true that ranged DPS is better than melee DPS (he says, as a melee DPS :-( ) but the key point is that DPS players are naturally focused on themselves and the boss, whereas healers are focused on other people - and as RL, that's what you need to do. So as a healer, you're naturally seeing what you want to know as a RL - what people are dying to, where they're standing, etc.

But as a melee DPS, I have a simple solution - I delegate the calls etc that I can't see well.

[Styxxa]

I think a strong tank with a healing captain co-leading is an ideal situation.

[Locknrollen]

What alot of people already have said: i Believe that a tank and a ranged, be it a healer or RDPs, as raidleaders is the best solution. thats whats my Guild has been like and it works out really well.

Ofcourse the most important thing is WHO your raidleader(s) are, not what role they play.

[Deleted]

Ranged dps. You are not distracted by high focus requiring activities like tanking and healing, and you can keep an eye on the raid and who is failing at what, not to mention give directions in real time. Don't worry about your dps, raid leading is more important and demanding than topping Recount.

[Zungate]

Our raid leader is melee and doing a fantastic job. We do however usally have a healer call out for major healing cds and our tanks are calling out cds for them.

I don't see the particular need for a ranged raid leader. If you need to able to see that people are standing in shit in order to tell them to move... well, things might be hard regardless.

[Deleted]

I would say a ranged dps that doesn't have to do any special jobs, you can completely focus on just raid leading and your own dps without the stress of healing or kiting something at the same time.

[Deleted]

imo it doesn't really matter. You can see and/or analyse anything with logs and ingame tools, even as a melee.

[Deleted]

Our raid leader is melee and doing a fantastic job. We do however usally have a healer call out for major healing cds and our tanks are calling out cds for them.

I don't see the particular need for a ranged raid leader. If you need to able to see that people are standing in shit in order to tell them to move... well, things might be hard regardless.

Implying everything is easy, and the only thing you have to do as a raid leader is tell people to move out of shit. I bet you are a really valuable asset to your guild on progress, if you can't even grasp the concept of raid leading.

[Teebu]

Ranged is obviously preferred due to a larger view of the fight.

Hunter or Mistweaver if you want to eliminate as many elements of positioning/mechanics and focus on raidleading. Hunters can generally cast on the move, the only bad thing is when Hunter jobs appear like Siegecrafter belts where you can't see whats going on in raid thus can't call it out. Mistweaver so you don't get mechanics that hit ranged people.

Other than that I'd say just get a good UI with good addons and auras. Make your UI work for you, not the other way around. If all else fails, start livelogging and immediately after wipes go check it for things that need improving and people that need replacing.

[Thelxi]

As a hunter though you are constantly doing misc and utility stuff for the raid, and even though hunters are definitely easy, they do have to constantly keep an eye on their focus bar. I'd vote for something like spriest for ranged dps. A very straightforward, predictable non dynamic rotation.

[Deleted]

I've done quite a bit of raid leading as hunter, prot warrior, resto shaman & disc/holy priest over the years but the role has changed a lot in MoP/WoD to what it was before then.

I'd recommend healer as the best place to RL from now though you need to be a healer who can do it with one eye still on the environment.

Ranged dps would be a good 2nd though I wouldn't recommend hunter unless you have a lot of them as you'll often want them to handle specific jobs. Raid leading Brackenspore from hunter PoV was a PITA due to being across the arena when mushrooms were spawning, interrupts were happening etc.

I'd also point out though that "combat raid leading" doesn't necessarily need to be the solitary task it once was though. I think it helps to have 2-3 voices (usually RL, a tank & 1 other trustworthy person). I call it "combat raid leading" because there's lots of other responsibilities of a RL outside of a fight which should not be a committee.

[Deleted]

Hey I Raid Lead a 7/10 MM guild (althought I cleaned the content before).

I would rank the roles easier to RL as like this :

Caster with perfect knoledge of dps rotation = Tank > Melee dps > healer

[Deleted]

Caster with perfect knoledge of dps rotation = Tank > Melee dps > healer

Be interested to see your reason for healer being worst. I raid lead most easily as a healer because they are very complimentary. To heal well, it is in your interests to be aware of where everyone is and what they are doing; it helps proactive healing and triage immensely and also gives you a good insight into who is taking unexpected (and therefore possibly unnecessary) damage and who is in the wrong place. I literally had nothing extra to do when I became a raid leader. I stopped as soon as I became melee DPS because I didn't have a clue where half the raid was or what they were up to with their sneaky gnomish ways.

[Deleted]

Be interested to see your reason for healer being worst. I raid lead most easily as a healer because they are very complimentary. To heal well, it is in your interests to be aware of where everyone is and what they are doing; it helps proactive healing and triage immensely and also gives you a good insight into who is taking unexpected (and therefore possibly unnecessary) damage and who is in the wrong place. I literally had nothing extra to do when I became a raid leader. I stopped as soon as I became melee DPS because I didn't have a clue where half the raid was or what they were up to with their sneaky gnomish ways.

As a RL you don t want to be focused on the raid's healthbar in my opinion, you wanna check them but no refill them. As a healer if someone's health bar drops dangerously, you will have to heal him then you will check its position, then you will have to watch the incoming DBM timers, while using your mouseover healing rotation with your mouse. That s a lot. Maybe not for you but for the average raider.

As a caster, I put my dps rotation on auto pilot and I can focus on what the raid is doing (usually some crazy bat shit). During progression, fight are so intensive in mythic in terms of raid damages that you could miss someting. I think that if a healer RL, he needs at some point to take his eye off his assignments to watch somethingelse and someone dies.

I don t say it s not possible, when a healer is good, he can do whatever he wants while healing the raid (pizza, RL, cigarett...etc.).

In the end, every role can RL and be a very good RL, as well as a very good player. But a new RL will want a role asking for the less attention possible in order to focus on the raid.

That's my reasons.