Bringing it up a notch...

[DaveTheHunter]

Having been in a server first guild, I can tell you how at least that one had its performance monitored. You either performed or you were replaced. We did not hold hands and coach people. Every person was responsible for their own performance. I realize that's a bit of a hardass approach, but it gets shit done and ensures that everyone in your raid are progression minded.

[Keoren]

Don't start with too big changes, keep it small while trying to simply move to the wanted direction.

As far as performance officers etc. go, you need to find a model you and the guild feel content with. Switching to say for example class/role officers responsible for their respective area of raiders overnight to reduce a single person's amount of work is an action you wish you truly consider before deciding to do. You want to know it would work out.

[stillboredatwork]

Blanket require tuskarrs vitality on everyones boots

sorry couldn't help it

seriously though, it is a very difficult question to answer. People tend to be burning out on raiding lately as this expansion is really coming to a close, people still serious about raiding tend to use guilds such as yours as a stepping stone to transfer to a hardmodes guild. It's unfortunate but if you do have a casual atmosphere, and rather lax style this is pretty inevitable and reaching hardmodes will be difficult.

Sorry I can't really offer anything but bad news, I suppose dkp bonuses for great performance and dkp docks for poor performance/causng wipes could increase motivation, but at the same time they would frustrate/anger people who are on the short end of the stick and your transfer/attendace problem could get worse.

Would help to know what your schedule looks like too. How many days do you devote to raiding a week? How many hours per raid? Are you extending lockouts for lichking or just farming 11/12 for more gear? Stuff like this

pretty much the closest to perfect answer I have heard in these forums in a long time. nice

[ThePocketNinja]

Having been in a server first guild, I can tell you how at least that one had its performance monitored. You either performed or you were replaced. We did not hold hands and coach people. Every person was responsible for their own performance. I realize that's a bit of a hardass approach, but it gets shit done and ensures that everyone in your raid are progression minded.

One big difference between your situation and mine is that server first guilds are always getting applications. I look at wowprogress and guild join/leave reports and it's always the top guilds with basically revolving doors. Easy to say "perform or your gone" in that situation as you have people waiting in the wings to step up just happy to be wearing that tag and hoping for a spot in the mean time.

We are trying to recruit... but we just do not have that same level of incoming applications to be able to implement the same type of system. Hence why I'm taking an active approach to work with the members we have to improve.

[Keoren]

One big difference between your situation and mine is that server first guilds are always getting applications.

As of currently even world top 50/100 guilds are not getting too many applications and most of them are horrible. Trust me in this, finding good people is a tough job unless you manage a breakthrough that gains attention or another guild of your level breaks up.

Most "X has joined guild Y" are from an alt leveling to 80.

[ThePocketNinja]

That must be why I see so many joins and leaves listed for the top guilds on my server... too many bad applicants joining and getting removed quickly. The burden of success, I suppose...

I guess the struggle I have is that one can teach a rotation/priority system and fight mechanics, but it's hard to teach awareness and drive to excel. I'll keep throwing the recruitment lure out there and see what we can reel in.

[vesseblah]

Probably the biggest performance increase in fights like the Lich King comes from one very simple thing.

Not screwing up the basics.

Make sure everybody in the raid has working boss mod, and force them to turn on the /say or /yell warning of Defile for starters. Have somebody with a clue in vent holding peoples' hands ("defile incoming, spread out"). And finally, if somebody keeps repeating same mistakes over and over again, talk to the person in private and try to figure out what's the problem. Also LK is one bossfight where you might have to be cold and just ditch everybody from first 1-2 kills who disconnects or lags a lot. It does not give much room for slow reactions.

Performance as in who's doing bad DPS is pretty simple. Most classes currently do about the same dps within 10-15% except shamans drag behind on some bosses, so it should be easy to spot if somebody doesn't fit into the margin. Especially in cases where you'd have 2 hunters at the top of the damage meters every night and third hunter at the middle or near the bottom, there's something wrong with the third guy that the two others probably know best how to fix. Healing performance is lot harder to spot from simple meters, but you should get pretty good idea of it depending on if the people assigned for person x to heal keep dying more often than others and stuff like that.

[Duilliath]

I'm all for extending the id and working on LK the whole week.

As long as you don't kill anything, you won't get saved. Meaning you can reset the raid on the last day and just clear it there.

[Malania]

I'm all for extending the id and working on LK the whole week. It has been discussed these last two weeks, but we always end up deciding that since we clear 11/12 in about four and a half hours we might as well. There are still upgrades to be had and badges are always good is usually the argument that wins.

Don't turn it into a democratic debate, as an officer, speak to the Raid Leader who makes the decisions and simply advise him that you need to be prepared to spend a week on him if you want him down. Don't advise the Raid team, let them all sign for a farming night. Advise them on the night you've decided to extend the lockout and put the needed time in on him. There will be complaints and then you know who the leechers are. the gear upgrades from a night will not make or break the encounter and an extention is for a week. The next week you can farm again, but they'll never know if you'll be extending again.

As a RL make a raid decision on whats best for the team. I've never seen a RL who lead by democratic vote. The best RL i've been with said what was to be done, who was being shit, who was standing in void zones. He decided what we did, when we did it and it really does work.

[Traejun]

As far as personnel go - DPS is generally what kills raiding guild progression. If you don't have the DPS, you hit brick walls. Eventually, a 30% zone buff should solve that problem...but you don't want to wait that long.

Beyond that...you need to follow these rules:

1. Call people out if they underperform - it might hurt to do it, but it must be done.
2. Zero Tollerance for Insufficient Availability - progression is often just about bashing your head against a boss for hours on-end. If people can't commit enough time, they have no business in your progression runs.
3. Don't be affraid to remove people from your progression groups if they don't cut it.
4. Recruit - and that means not only spamming your recruiting pitch in /2, but also actively stealing people from other guilds. I know this sounds nasty...but you'll need good people if you want to progress

[kudzupo]

As long as you don't kill anything, you won't get saved. Meaning you can reset the raid on the last day and just clear it there.

Pretty much this.

If you extend the raid lockout, you have 1 of 2 things happen.

1) You kill LK, celebrate and get to begin on hardmodes the next week
2) You don't kill LK, but get a solid 3 nights on him, then get to reward those who stuck it out for progression by resetting the raid and clearing it on the last night

Just don't tell them #2 is an option :P