What does it take to be a good RL?

[Deleted]

Greetings everyone,

as it seems i am soon our guilds new raidlead and as such i want to do a good job. In order to do that i have to be prepared as good as possible so i need to ask other raidleads what they are doing in order to prepare and organize their raid. What addons do you use specific for that and what external tools you use to prepare bossfights and how you do it. Every bit of feedback is apreciated.

[Feanoro]

More so than any addon, or specific boss, or trash pack, you need to know your people. Know what your raid's strengths and weaknesses are. Play to their strengths and encourage improvements in weak areas. For example, they may be meter whores who skip interrupts because "healers will cover it". You can get away with that to a degree, especially when things are on farm and you outgear the place, but it can really slow progression.

Never be too reliant on any one person, you never want to say "We can't raid tonight, Fred is out teaching water skiing". Push people out of comfort zones to handle things so Fred has a backup for soaking Killer Peanut Butter Tsunami.

Building on that, don't etch roles in stone. If Fred is always handling the "bitch jobs" and never gets a chance to relax and meter whore a bit or whatever he enjoys, he will burn out faster.

Be able to remain calm when shit hits the fan, it can be the difference between wipe and recovery. This also plays into knowing your raid's abilities, as you can call for Jane to cover what Fred was doing before he swan dived into lava.

[Great Destiny Man]

Angry Assignments or the Note function on Exorsus raid tools are a great way of giving clear instructions to people that they can constantly refer to throughout a fight (this can include both Healing CDs and a priority order for people to deal with mechanics, such as person x takes 1st soak, person y take 2nd etc).

Also be prepared to scroll through logs of the night to see where mistakes are happening. It's a good idea as well to scroll through logs of other guilds and compare them against your own as it'll help with identifying where to be more efficient.

Another thing would be get people to use their damn mics to announce important things. For me a key example of that would be on Mythic Zul where you may be assigned to soak a pool but he just targeted you with Dark Revelation; announcing that early means someone can quickly take your spot and prevent any pulses going out.

[Alphatorg]

I prepare for the raid:
-look up strategies, videos, replays
-make sure they are viable for your raid, check dps requirements, healing/tank classes
-pick a strategy, fill in the assignments for your raid and give it to your people in advance, so they can prepare
-watching live streams is not exactly efficient use of your time, but watching a better raid, seeing where they struggle and how they overcome it, why they do certain things the way they do them, can at times be invaluable

II lead the raid:
-try to understand why you wiped, if it's an execution error make sure the players responsible understand their mistake and move on quickly, flaws in your strategy might take more time
-try to get a feel for whether or not your group can match the timings of your strategy constantly
-keep the voice chat clear during important phases
-depending on the raid you have to remind people about what's important for this particular encounter (e.g. clean execution > DPS or priority dps > overall dps)
-maintain consistency in what you call, so people know they can either rely on your call or have to watch out themselves
-maintain a steady flow of tries, unnecessary discussions, people afk-ing, etc all dirupts the rythm, people tab into their browser, they lose focus, they fuck up

III analyze the raid:
-crawl through logs after raids, find out who slacks on mechanics/priority targets, who dies too often to mechanics, who burdens the healers with unnecessary dmg taken, etc
-i've had raid leads who dissected one or several typical wipes with screenshots from logs and replays, it can help a lot when people aren't aware of mistakes, especially in their positioning
-talk to people whose opinions you trust about what's going wrong, for example if there is a melee player who constantly fucks up or scumbags on positioning making life hard for the rest of them you won't necessarily spot it on replays or from across the room during tries, but someone who is directly affected by it will feel it every try

[Aphrel]

This is how to do it.

[Deleted]

Insult everyone. I'm not joking. Nice RLs lead fail raids, assholes lead successful ones, this is kind of a fact.

Ofcourse some peopl won't put up with it and bail, but those who will stay are the good players.

So choose if you want a social raid with crap progression, or a toxic raid with good progression. Because if your raid's progression is worse that what the average group finder pug raid can do, you may as well disband the raid.

[Bakis]

<video>

This is how to do it.

That one is as epic and classic as Leroy. Love it

[krallamulla]

Insult everyone. I'm not joking. Nice RLs lead fail raids, assholes lead successful ones, this is kind of a fact.

Ofcourse some peopl won't put up with it and bail, but those who will stay are the good players.

So choose if you want a social raid with crap progression, or a toxic raid with good progression. Because if your raid's progression is worse that what the average group finder pug raid can do, you may as well disband the raid.

Yea, just like Method.. oh wait.

[Alphatorg]

Insult everyone. I'm not joking. Nice RLs lead fail raids, assholes lead successful ones, this is kind of a fact.

Ofcourse some peopl won't put up with it and bail, but those who will stay are the good players.

So choose if you want a social raid with crap progression, or a toxic raid with good progression. Because if your raid's progression is worse that what the average group finder pug raid can do, you may as well disband the raid.

You have to be consequent, sometimes blunt but unless you associate these qualities with being an asshole what you're saying is not true.

[Deleted]

Insult everyone. I'm not joking. Nice RLs lead fail raids, assholes lead successful ones, this is kind of a fact.

Ofcourse some peopl won't put up with it and bail, but those who will stay are the good players.

So choose if you want a social raid with crap progression, or a toxic raid with good progression. Because if your raid's progression is worse that what the average group finder pug raid can do, you may as well disband the raid.

I would say successful raids are combination of both bit toxic and chill environment, it should be balanced. Sometimes you need to shout at people, to wake them up, to realize, they fucking up. If they constantly failing, even after deep explanation of what to do.

People then would not want to be shouted at them, and improve and do stuff the right way, at least they will try harder. Then you can have mostly chill atmosphere on raid.

[TwentyTwelve]

Depending on what type of guild you're in but there will always be a sensitive snowflake who tries to change the way you do things, I'm not talking about being an ass but as a RL you do need to be blunt at times and call peoples BS, assuming you mean mythic raiding, people have got to understand that you aren't personally attacking people so if you're calling out their BS it's for the sake of progress, i remember first week of Ghuun HC, we had a healer get hit by the fear EVERY time, on our kill she got hit TWICE, after raid she would moan about other people but when i mentioned the fear she would respond "me getting feared dosen't matter", Delusional, a HEALER not being able to heal in the last phase of Ghuun dosent matter guys - Needless to say she was replaced during mythic progression for lack of mechanical skill. (zekvoz M was fun with her)

Ofc fails happen but people should be quick to adapt and not continue to make the same error 5 times in a row.

You're job as a RL is basically to mimick bossmods vocally for the raid so they can focus more on their role, this means you will take a performance hit yourself, not to the extent that some people make out though, you shouldn't be dying 9/10 times and blame it on "i'm raid leading" but you also shouldn't worry too much about your own damage and such, again there is a limit to this.
If you lose a bit of damage or whatever for raidleading, then that is more then acceptable, having 1 person lose a bit of damage but 19 people able to perform better due to having clear calls, is by far more worth it.

Outside of raiding you pretty much just check BETA before a new raid and you'll be fine for the most part, depending on how dedicated / good your guild hopes to be, you can look into PTR raiding and also streams, NA serves a good purpose for this if you're EU.
You will need to also understand how to look and read logs.

[Caprix]

Insult everyone. I'm not joking. Nice RLs lead fail raids, assholes lead successful ones, this is kind of a fact.

Ofcourse some peopl won't put up with it and bail, but those who will stay are the good players.

So choose if you want a social raid with crap progression, or a toxic raid with good progression. Because if your raid's progression is worse that what the average group finder pug raid can do, you may as well disband the raid.

Just like in real life, this is total bullshit. Been very demanding and pointing what is wrong and must be done better has nothing to do with been toxic and insulting.

But yeah, this stupid point of view is pretty common both IG and IRL.

[Gomelus]

Depending on what type of guild you're in but there will always be a sensitive snowflake who tries to change the way you do things, I'm not talking about being an ass but as a RL you do need to be blunt at times and call peoples BS, assuming you mean mythic raiding, people have got to understand that you aren't personally attacking people so if you're calling out their BS it's for the sake of progress, i remember first week of Ghuun HC, we had a healer get hit by the fear EVERY time, on our kill she got hit TWICE, after raid she would moan about other people but when i mentioned the fear she would respond "me getting feared dosen't matter", Delusional, a HEALER not being able to heal in the last phase of Ghuun dosent matter guys - Needless to say she was replaced during mythic progression for lack of mechanical skill. (zekvoz M was fun with her)

Ofc fails happen but people should be quick to adapt and not continue to make the same error 5 times in a row.

You're job as a RL is basically to mimick bossmods vocally for the raid so they can focus more on their role, this means you will take a performance hit yourself, not to the extent that some people make out though, you shouldn't be dying 9/10 times and blame it on "i'm raid leading" but you also shouldn't worry too much about your own damage and such, again there is a limit to this.
If you lose a bit of damage or whatever for raidleading, then that is more then acceptable, having 1 person lose a bit of damage but 19 people able to perform better due to having clear calls, is by far more worth it.

Outside of raiding you pretty much just check BETA before a new raid and you'll be fine for the most part, depending on how dedicated / good your guild hopes to be, you can look into PTR raiding and also streams, NA serves a good purpose for this if you're EU.
You will need to also understand how to look and read logs.

I agree with most of what you said, but not the bossmod part. Calling every single mechanic creates a REALLY bad habit on your raiders. If you happen to space out on a mechanic (like, you know, move-out-of-fire sort of thing), half the raid dies because they're used to YOU to tell them to move, not because they KNOW they have to move.
The raidlead, during a pull, should keep the voice clutter to a minimun. Healing CDs should be planned beforehand, and not even needed to be called for (unless someone forgets or you have an unexpected burst of damage), same with interrupt orders (Zek'voz adds come to mind), or stuff like that.

[Shiftzor]

Kick & Replace shitters asap before the good people leave or tilt the fuck out the raid so people can shape up, the good ones usually stay, the shitty ni**as will leave. Its a win-win. Shitters can't handle criticism because they only look at dps meter.

[Blackmist]

You have to become a human boss mods addon.

[Deleted]

Lead by example. Even though you are the raid leader, you are not infallible and you should be the first to admit mistakes if you commit any instead of being stubborn and/or making excuses.

Do not fixate. You may have spent inordinate amount of time designing the 'perfect' strategy, but it may not work out in practice. Accepting this and making the necessary changes are important.

Keep it simple. It may be enticing to make the perfect, the most optimal strategy ever. However, if the mechanics it is supposed to deal with is not deadly or if dps/healing checks are not hard, then it is most likely wasted work on your time and potentially extra wipes because your team had to get used to your needlessly complex strategy. I made this mistake on freaking Taloc. Luckily we killed it on the 2nd pull.

Raid leading is not a solitary job. If you are unsure about how to design a part of your strategy, talk to someone within your team who is relevant to that part. If you are a DPS player and you are unsure about healing, you ask your healers for advice.

Delegate responsibility. Some may expect you to keep track of everything, but you are only human. Example: On Fetid, we have two groups for the small adds. I call out where the Group 1 add is spawning, while a trusted raider in Group 2 calls out where the Group 2 is spawning. Example: On Zul, I was failing keeping track of the Decaying Flesh debuff whilst maximising damage for the P1 zerg and calling out CC on the Hexers, so I delegated, again, a trusted raider to make the correct CC calls for the Hexers.

Maintain a clear vision. This is more of a recruitment tip, but it is important that you and your team are 'on the same page'. What are your ambitions, how many times and for how long do you raid, what kind of atmosphere do you want, alts/split runs? These are examples of what a vision can be. Strive towards maintaining this, and recruit people based on this. In my guild, at the end of every tier we have a guild meeting where we talk how the tier went, and if the vision should be adjusted moving forward. Changing your vision mid-tier is a source of a lot of disruption and should be avoided.

[parasight]

Be honest with people.
Delegate responsibilities.
Lead by example.
Delegate responsibilities.
Being an asshole doesn't work IRL, either.
Delegate responsibilities.

Managing people becomes easier when you have people that don't require managing.

[SpikeySquad]

Lead by example. Even though you are the raid leader, you are not infallible and you should be the first to admit mistakes if you commit any instead of being stubborn and/or making excuses.

Do not fixate. You may have spent inordinate amount of time designing the 'perfect' strategy, but it may not work out in practice. Accepting this and making the necessary changes are important.

Keep it simple. It may be enticing to make the perfect, the most optimal strategy ever. However, if the mechanics it is supposed to deal with is not deadly or if dps/healing checks are not hard, then it is most likely wasted work on your time and potentially extra wipes because your team had to get used to your needlessly complex strategy. I made this mistake on freaking Taloc. Luckily we killed it on the 2nd pull.

Raid leading is not a solitary job. If you are unsure about how to design a part of your strategy, talk to someone within your team who is relevant to that part. If you are a DPS player and you are unsure about healing, you ask your healers for advice.

Delegate responsibility. Some may expect you to keep track of everything, but you are only human. Example: On Fetid, we have two groups for the small adds. I call out where the Group 1 add is spawning, while a trusted raider in Group 2 calls out where the Group 2 is spawning. Example: On Zul, I was failing keeping track of the Decaying Flesh debuff whilst maximising damage for the P1 zerg and calling out CC on the Hexers, so I delegated, again, a trusted raider to make the correct CC calls for the Hexers.

Maintain a clear vision. This is more of a recruitment tip, but it is important that you and your team are 'on the same page'. What are your ambitions, how many times and for how long do you raid, what kind of atmosphere do you want, alts/split runs? These are examples of what a vision can be. Strive towards maintaining this, and recruit people based on this. In my guild, at the end of every tier we have a guild meeting where we talk how the tier went, and if the vision should be adjusted moving forward. Changing your vision mid-tier is a source of a lot of disruption and should be avoided.

Love this post. Thanks for sharing.

[Deztru]

You need to be firm, if a player keeps failing week after week you can't keep them around anymore patting them on the back and saying try again next week, it drags the entire guild down if you keep allinall bad players around.

They might be your friends or people you've played with before, that's the hard part.

[capri sunset]

Something I don't see mentioned is that I'd caution against falling into complacency and using the excuse of "I'm raid leading so my performance is bad", because while it absolutely is the most difficult job in the raid, it goes a long way if your raiders believe that you're good and actually trust what you're saying.

UI is super important as well, when I started raid leading I realised just how little I was previously using my bigwigs timers, because so many of them are unimportant to your specific role and the ones that are become habit. Then with having to make sure everyone else was doing their jobs I found glancing over at timers so much more often way unforgiving so I turned the relevant ones into icon weakauras basically in the middle of my screen and it got a lot easier.

You also want raid frames in the middle regardless of being a healer or not, with all appropriate debuffs and defensive buffs, total absorbs are helpful too. A way to track raid cds as well, I use ert with another addon called vocal raid assistant just to make sure they're being used as planned.