Being a raid leader can be a tough job. Not only do you have to organise anywhere between ten and twenty-five people into a coordinated force, but you have to have the answers for any questions that come up and try to keep things fun for everyone despite the inevitable competition between raiders.
To put it bluntly, being a raid leader means that whether or not your raiders enjoy their precious raiding time rests squarely on your shoulders. It's a big task.
There are three steps to becoming a good raid leader. They're relatively simple, but they'll take up a lot of your time too, so make sure this is something you really want to do before you proceed.
In the examples below I will show you the resources I use. There are many, many other resources and guides out there, so make sure you look around for yourself too.
Step 1: Education
Raids are much more complicated than anything else in the game. The first thing any raid leader needs to do is educate themselves. First, pick the raid you want to do and look up the details:
Eg. Naxxramas:
I use wowwiki.com for when I begin researching a new raid. You should find a list of all the boss encounters (or even trickier trash encounters) on these pages, and normally a basic idea of the order in which you fight through them. From here, open the page for the encounter you want to learn more about.
Eg. Northrend Beasts in Trial of the Crusader:
On these pages, read up on boss abilities and strategies. Even if they don't make sense straight away, you'll find yourself surprised at how much of it comes back to you when you see it all in action. Which is where the next part of education comes in.
Head to Youtube.com and enter this into the searchbox:
Tankspot *bossname*
Tankspot *bossname*
For example, "Tankspot Malygos" will bring up the following video.
Eg. Malygos:
Tankspot.com videos are extremely useful for raid leaders - not just for tanks either. Everyone in the raid will benefit greatly from the knowledge contained within the wiki pages and the videos, and it's that same knowledge that you need to bring to the raid.
The final stage of education is educating your raiders. Once you know what to do, you need to communicate the strategy to them. How this is done is up to each individual leader. I prefer to explain everything via chat before the encounter then let everyone charge in head first; others like to take a 5-10 minute break before each encounter so all raid members can watch the strategy video. In the end, the choices are yours.
Step 2: Preparation
Relatively simple compared to the first step. Try to plan ahead for the raid you want to organise. When planning, ask yourself the kid of questions you would expect your raiders to ask:
· Where are we going?
· How many bosses will we do?
· How long do we want it to take?
· When is the best time to do it?
· What are the loot rules?
· Will there be punch and pie?
Once you’ve answered those questions you’ll have a plan. Now you need to let your raiders know about the plan. Setting a calendar event is the way I prefer to pre-organise my raids, though you are free to go about it any way you choose.
To set up a calendar event, follow these steps:
· Right-click the day you want to have the raid and select the appropriate event (Eg. Create guild event.)
· Select the event type, in this case Raid, and select the raid you plan to do from the list that appears.
· For guild events, guild members can sign up in their own time. Otherwise you will need to invite members to the event manually.
Step 3: Execution
Once the time has come to begin the raid, invite your members (convert your party to a raid using the Raid tab in the Social window) and head off.
Make sure you lay out the ground rules before you begin, as well as anything else your raiders need to know (ie. Loot rules, time frame, etc.).
In a perfect world this would be all you needed to do to have a successful raid, but there’s one last responsibility you’ll need to manage: Leading.
As a raid leader, your leadership style ultimately comes down to you, but you must remember that as the leader you are responsible for the enjoyment of everyone else in the raid and sometimes you just can’t please everyone.
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| Q: What has two thumbs and doesn't give a crap? A: Your raid leader. |
In case of any disputes, be it over loot or wipes or someone getting annoyed at another raider, you must act as the judge, jury and executioner when necessary to preserve the raid overall. I can’t tell you what you should do for every situation, but this aspect is by far the most important of raid leading.
How you resolve these situations will affect your reputation as a leader. People are generally begging to be picked for raids by good leaders and telling the bad leaders “Uh, I just remembered I left my cat in the freezer” and immediately logging off just to avoid them.
In short (hah!): Do your research, set your goals, communicate with your team and be a leader. Like I said, it’s a rough job, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you watch a team of raiders thrive due to the effort you’ve put in (and watching the lazy leaders fail miserably :P).
Every day is a good day to die... remember that.
-Ahz
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