Rotating Players/Dealing with 20+ Mythic Raiding Roster

[BicV 0]

Hello,

 

I am the raid leader for my guild, and I will try to be to the point with the current summary/history of our raiding situation. 

 

My guild has recently been on the upswing of momentum in terms of roster changes and we have been rather aggressively been searching for quality raiders who can make the mythic cut, to the point where we now only have maybe just 1-2 players who arnt quite up to par. 

 

We have been screwed over very badly by some of our healers leaving at the worst time, (yesterday we only had 2 mainspec healers and had to force two others to play offspec healers with a 2x resto druid and 2x holy paladin setup haha). Regardless we have made plans and confirmed some changes, including finding; at least one strong resto shaman and possibly a disc; as well as a balance druid and mage to be added to the team. These changes will put us above a raid roster of 20man, and up until this point hasnt yet been an issue in terms of having more than 20 "core" raiders show up in one night.

 

We are anticipating more than 20players to show up this thursday, and I am really desperate for some solid advice on how to fairly/properly manage substitutions and benching for the "extras" on that night. It's extremely important that these players feel that this is a strategic move for the guild, and that they will be "rotated?" back in next time somehow.

 

Not only am I looking for some advice on how to substitute/manage a 20+ raid roster, but I really want to emphasize needing strategies to handle these substitutions quickly. In BRF we were fairly successful achieving 5/10 Mythic despite endless roster issues, however when we did have nights with more than 20raiders available and had to sit some, we wasted an enormous amount of time trying to pick someone to step out.

 

In summary:

 

1) How do you efficiently and quickly rotate players on a raid night

2) How do you manage the logistical nightmare of needing more than 20 raiders not just to cover emergencies/absences but also tactically needing certain classes for specific bosses.

3) Suggestions for methods of staying in contact with players "on the bench" so that they arn't tied up waiting all night to maybe be needed

 

Any other guild management related advice not specifically asked for is also welcome!

 

Thanks,

Bic

[Pandacho 286]

Heyas, BicV.

I’ll try to answer this question for you too

 

But first a disclaimer: Everything I’ll write below is applicable to non-hardcore guilds (less than 5 raiding days in a week, mostly 3). The logistic for 5+ would be different in some ways.

 

We found out that during progression it’s better to keep the same people from start to end of the night, especially when you are close to the kill. It’s extremely exhausting and time ‘wasting’ to bring new people in the middle just to be ‘fair’. You will have to explain your tactic tweaks to every new person and wipe 3-5 times for them to get grip of the fight.

 

On farm bosses though it’s fine to go for a ‘per fight’ rotation based on people gear needs.

For dual specs it is better though to rotate on a reset / night base. What I mean: if for example you have 6 healers but normally use only 4 or 5, it’s preferable to keep same people in dps spec during the night. Changing spec for every fight is very exhausting and leads to unnecessary mistakes in gear / consumables switching and loss of ‘automatic’ maintaining of certain rotations.

 

How we are doing this:

 

1. Create a Google Doc ‘BiS Gear’ with the edit access for all the raiders. Everybody should fill and keep updated their needs (including BiS gear they already have). In this way you will always know whom to bring to specific fights. People that are not bothered to keep their gear updated will stay in the end of the line.

 

2. Make a forum raid absence thread where raiders should post in advance when they are not available (obviously if it’s something they do know in advance - holidays, work, travel, being ill, etc).

 

3. Post ‘per boss’ lineups at least a day before the raid so people would know how to manage their time right. Make it clear that every raider that can’t attend the raid due to some unexpected events should post about it in this thread. If they don’t have immediate access to forum, they should WhatsApp to RL.

Being late or not notifying in advance repeatedly would drop the raider to the last place in rotations.

 

Always keep a couple of backup raiders for emergency cases. You can agree whether they should be around in game, Vent or just on phone (Skype, WhatsApp). In my raid people on backup receive same amount of EPGP for the raid night so they don’t mind.

 

Having early posted lineups will save you a lot of time and nerves during the raid.

You can discuss lineups before the raid - on forum, Skype, Vent, you can kill each other for the spot but when the raid starts, there’s no place for discussion and you should make it clear to all your raiders.

 

I personally maintain an attendance doc and after about a month you are able to see very clear all the non reliable people.

 

4. Bring a warlock to your raid. Having lineups before and lock's summoning stone during the raid makes the rotation almost immediate if you are doing it right.

 

How my raid is maintaining that: after a kill our RL starts to distribute the loot while the raid immediately moves to clear trash. You don’t have to stay near RL to get the loot - you will receive it in every place while you remain inside the instance. You can roll (or whatever your raid is doing) for loot while killing trash and normally the distribution is done when you are ready for the next boss. Now a warlock makes a summoning portal, people that are out for the next fight leave the raid and port out of the instance, RL and people that are in for fight are being summoned to the boss.

In this way the time loss is minimal.

 

5. Regarding bringing certain classes for specific bosses. I would argue here: in my opinion while you are not a ‘Bleeding Edge’ raid, it’s pretty much irrelevant. Every boss could be killed in any setup (if we are not going for silly exaggerations). You would be flexible enough just having your raiders maintaining dual specs. If at least 5-6 people are able to efficiently switch between tank / dps, healer / dps specs, you are fine.

 

Hope it helps

If you have any further question, I’m glad to answer.

[BicV 0]

Hey again Pandacho :D,

 

I'm starting to wonder if we are the only two user's on icy-veins forums anymore :P. We've started to apply a lot of the advice you've given in this thread and advice we've gathered from other threads into practice and are really happy with how it's been implemented/received. We shuffled a looooot of players into the roster recently and today went very smoothly for transitions. People in the guild seem to be on the same page now.

 

The idea for a BiS gear list has come up repeatedly and we are looking into sorting that this weekend, and will likely change our loot distribution strategy more towards loot council. Planning the roster ahead of time will also be a big time-saver and will ease frustration of being suddenly sat the night of the raid. We looked into communication venues and came across a great app called "Line". Its functionally very similar to whatsapp, however instead of requiring the exchange of phone numbers you can instead search and chat by adding each others unique id's. We found this to be a much more preferable solution as many players would've been hesitant about giving a phone number contact.

 

Thanks again for the write up :P,

 

Regards, Bic

[gnomad 1]

Hi,

Check out the system Vox Immortalis uses: http://www.voximmortalis.com/content/195-Vox-Contribution-Points-%28VCP%29

It sounds like it would make rotation transparent although it takes some maintenance.

They also have really great video guides. I'm a huge fan.

 

Morganna