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

[Tankitbetter]

Update: There seems to be some confusion so I'll back up the story some. My guild is a casual, 1 night a raid guild whose first raid was Wednesday night. I have never raided with the vast majority of the ~20 people who showed up in a wide variety of ilvl and raid experiences. I had players who are former hardcore heroic raiders who don't have time to raid more than 1 night a week and players who first started playing WoW 2 months ago. I have players in 505 ilvl and players in 540 ilvl with legendary cloaks. It's a melting pot. It went decently well but there were a lot of mistakes by a lot of people. I decided to implement the gold requirement in order to potentially weed out those who just want to be carried and to help identify those who would need extra attention in the raid.

So far, overall, it's worked. We now have 4 or 5 people who haven't done it yet. Some of the people - including a DPS DK and a healer shaman - had some problems in it and I was able to give advice on certain rounds to do certain things to help them. Many looked up videos or strategies - some realized after checking out askmrrobot that they were gemming incorrectly for their specs. So far: this has been a success.


Original Post:
My guild is a 1-night a week raiding guild that as long as players meet the ilvl requirements can come to raid. This week, this became a huge problem during Siege, as there were many many mistakes during the course of the raid. I decided to go check out proving grounds - and 1-shot gold on my DK. I didn't feel it was terribly difficult and so I asked my guild members to get gold before coming to next week's Siege.

I figured this would be a simple request. I was not prepared for the hell that broke loose. A couple people got silver and on the same day, when they couldn't get gold, /gquit. I lost a healer and 2 dps. A couple people whispered me and asked advice, and many of them were able to get through gold without problems.

Because I felt that perhaps the tank one was simply easier than the healing or dps ones, I swapped to a shaman I haven't played much in months and gave them a shot on him. I do agree - the healer and DPS ones are harder - however, I got gold on them too.

Right now, out of my guild's ~20 raiders, 9 got gold, 3 gquit, and the other 8 are working on it. 2 of the people working on it are talking about how it's unfair and that I am requiring it. What are your thoughts?

Proof that I have all 3:
http://imgur.com/y0g6wd2

I did the tank one before getting my meta.

[artem123]

Im not sure what logical reasoning you would 'require' people to get gold
Seriously.
it might be 50times easier on class A compared to B.
And doesnt exactly prove how well a player does where you're comparing a 463 scaling to people that have been raiding past that for months, some even nearly a year.

Edit: Also, you dont have gold. Which is where the issue starts to arise with different classes.
And if you want to extra pretend PG means much for recruting, you might as well go for endless 30.
Then you can stack class a raid of mages + locks

[ZealousBlade]

I do not think this is unreasonable at all. Gold is super easy to get (and its not like it does not scale everyone down to the same iLvl), its a matter of knowing basic raid mechanics. If they cant do proving grounds gold, they probably should not be raiding.

In reply to the above poster, I have seen every class get this on dps, (have not seen every tank) and have seen every healer class get it. It really is not all that challenging to get Gold.

[Tankitbetter]

Edit: Also, you dont have gold. Which is where the issue starts to arise with different classes.
And if you want to extra pretend PG means much for recruting, you might as well go for endless 30.
Then you can stack class a raid of mages + locks

Yes, I do have gold. Armory just isn't updating fast enough.

http://imgur.com/y0g6wd2

[Deleted]

it is indeed very easy to do on dps.. but do it on a DK tank in the other hand.. is abit harder..

[BEYR]

If you, with a weeks notice, try to up the involvement level of your guild there will be issues. Some people cant be assed to do it, some don't have the time and some will take it as an insult (Probably the three g/quits). Not saying its necessarily a bad thing if you want to progress, but it probably should have been expected.

[Jtbrig7390]

My guild is a 1-night a week raiding guild that as long as players meet the ilvl requirements can come to raid. This week, this became a huge problem during Siege, as there were many many mistakes during the course of the raid. I decided to go check out proving grounds - and 1-shot gold on my DK. I didn't feel it was terribly difficult and so I asked my guild members to get gold before coming to next week's Siege.

I figured this would be a simple request. I was not prepared for the hell that broke loose. A couple people got silver and on the same day, when they couldn't get gold, /gquit. I lost a healer and 2 dps. A couple people whispered me and asked advice, and many of them were able to get through gold without problems.

Because I felt that perhaps the tank one was simply easier than the healing or dps ones, I swapped to a shaman I haven't played much in months and gave them a shot on him. I do agree - the healer and DPS ones are harder - however, I got gold on them too.

Right now, out of my guild's ~20 raiders, 9 got gold, 3 gquit, and the other 8 are working on it. 2 of the people working on it are talking about how it's unfair and that I am requiring it. What are your thoughts?

Proof that I have all 3: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...adrin/advanced my shaman and http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...stuff/advanced my DK.

I did the tank one before getting my meta.

It really depends how casual your guild is. If your guid is a laided back barely raids type of guild that is find with having only Normal Mode kills right before the xpac ends then this requirement mite annoy some. But really in the end its your raid your guild your rules and if they don't like it then the guild is clearly not for them. Personally I would have said if the next week go at SoO was just as bad or worse then I would require everyone to gold then.

Just wondering what was you at in ToT right before SoO came out.

Edit: Also keep in mind SoO is really new and will take sometime for people to get use to the fights unless your in a top raiding guild.

[Zalavaaris]

Id rather prove myself in a raid, not some mini-game set up on the side for some entertainment. Id be kind of offended and most likely tell you to go to hell "requiring" me. HA

[Mammoon]

Your raid would learn more from spending 10 minutes on the forums than they would spending time doing proving grounds.

[Stormspellz]

I do not think this is unreasonable at all. Gold is super easy to get (and its not like it does not scale everyone down to the same iLvl), its a matter of knowing basic raid mechanics. If they cant do proving grounds gold, they probably should not be raiding.

gold healing really wasn't that hard once you identify what each mob does. Although has a one day a week raiding, you seem a heavy casual guild and the concept of that would offend many.

[artem123]

Yes, I do have gold. Armory just isn't updating fast enough.

http://imgur.com/y0g6wd2

Oh there you go then.
But you seem to honestly be putting up a useless barrier. PG proves nothing compared to how someone will do in siege.
Also, you dont seem to be more of a hardcore type raider (Judging off of kills currently). So whats the point?

[Muezick]

The question is, is gold required?

What do Proving grounds really prove?

Are they the accurate focused laser of skill measurement that every one seems to think they are?

I am not so sure. How long before some one comes out with a guide that allows you to game them?

They scale your gear, so with the right trinkets and reforges, I honestly feel that any class could get gold easily. If you knew it was coming and had a good strat ahead of time for dealing with it? Absolutely.

[Deleted]

I seriously hope this will backfire and your guild/raid disbands over this. You deserve it.

[Orcindauh]

I have not even thought about doing proving grounds yet. There's a lot of stuff to do in 5.4 and proving grounds in kind of near the bottom of my "to-do list".

If my GM told everyone they were required to have gold in proving grounds to raid I'd laugh and assume they were joking.

[Muezick]

Your raid would learn more from spending 10 minutes on the forums than they would spending time doing proving grounds.

As this guy said.

Research the boss fights. Proving grounds might be a nice little initial check, but I'm not entirely sure they're the "Ready for raiding check" that people thought they would be.

[Soisoisoi]

It's not exactly unreasonable since people should be working on their chars and know their class when raiding enough to do them... but with that said it is pointless seeing as Gold is fairly easy, I did them all first time around on patch day.

[lokithor]

Personally I think its bulllshit. I couldn't care less about proving grounds and I'm not doing it...period.

[Nobleshield]

You know I don't think PG is an adequate gauge of anything, mostly due to the scaling. Some classes are totally screwed (see: Fire Mage, possibly Fury Warriors) and have to switch to subpar specs that worked in 463 gear. Also, speaking as a tank the last two waves of Gold are pretty tough; I believe it took me around 10 tries or so (did a few the first time, took a break, came back and did it finally) to clear it so I certainly would not consider it trivially easy.

I think you were wrong to mandate getting it, because it's not a good indicator of performance or skill as you are getting gimped by the scaling; no legendary cloak, no legendary meta, typically stats dropped to where you ideally would need a totally different set of gear for them (you'd almost have to go back and collect a 463 blue set from heroics and pretend you were back in 5.0.4) but with class abilities that have changed drastically since anyone was at 463 iLevel. Personally I think PG should have been scaled to something more indicative like 496, because when everyone was in 463 gear things played a lot differently.

[Tankitbetter]

Your raid would learn more from spending 10 minutes on the forums than they would spending time doing proving grounds.

This, of course, is a matter of opinion - one which you are welcome to hold but I disagree with.

DPS has many 'good' parts to test - not standing in fire, controlled burst, manipulation of raid objects, correct aoe spread, etc

[Bloodydemize]

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