On Raid Leaders
July 31st, 2009 Posted in General, UncategorizedMatticus is searching to recruit a new raid leader for his guild. I can’t help but wonder however if his search is doomed to failure. I’ve written in the past about what makes both a good raider as well as leader of raids, but in doing so I missed out on the most important aspect of what makes a raidleader, and that is chemistry.
A raidleader needs to have the trust of his raiding team. Without that, it is very difficult to understand his decisions, to agree when a wipe is called. Look at it from another way – while you or I might have trialled in a raid in the past, the only person whose opinion really mattered was the leader. Did you do your job well and not put anyone’s nose out of joint while doing it? Trial a new raidleader and you’ll have twenty-four others you need to get on your side, or they won’t listen when you need them to.
I’m in the position of knowing enough about two equally-progressed guilds on our server. Their raidleaders are polar opposites – one never raises his voice, almost never swears. The other is a barrelful of expletives, ready to vent on Vent at the slightest irregularity. Remember, these are equally progressed guilds, but swapping raidleaders would be a disaster, because of the management style each set of raid members expects. It might be an insurmountable barrier.
I’ll leave you with an anecdote from my raidleading days back in Karazhan. We were undergeared and had managed a double pull, which our two priests had managed to get under control with on-the-ball shackling.
Then our (on the lower edge of competent) holy paladin dropped a consecrate under the shackles, making things ten times harder. The next thing heard on teamspeak was my bellow of:
“Which f***ing idiotic paladin did that?”
I’d never sworn at a raid member before, and I never needed to again. Sometimes an unexpected curve ball from a raidleader can do good. That can only work if the raid already has a well defined set of expectations of its leader.
2 Responses to “On Raid Leaders”
By Veneretio on Aug 4, 2009
I couldn’t agree more. I don’t know how you do a trial run for a Raid Leader. I think a RL has to come from within. It’s pretty shocking that no one already in the guild isn’t willing to step up and take the reins.
By Matticus on Aug 4, 2009
You’d be very surprised. A raid leader essentially needs two things: a) He has to be qualified with the skills and knowledge of leading and b) He has to want to.
We have a lot of capable raid leaders. They’ve flled in admirably for me in the past on a fight or two. But no one wants that responsibility on a full time basis.
Yeah it’s going to be hard to look for a raid leader. I never said it was going to be easy. But NHL teams are able to bring in coaches to help get their team going. True, those guys have a salary and bonuses motivation. I suppose another way to look at it is bringing in a new quarterback. Someone who calls all the plays. It’s always going to take time to mesh and gel.
I’ve never gone head hunting for a raid leader before. It’s not something most guilds really do. They shop for tanks, healers or DPS. I’ve always liked challenging the status quo and ^^.