This Week's ZA Post-Mortem

This week was a ZA week for my guild. We usually raid once or twice a week, either Kara or ZA. Since I don't really have much I need from Kara - save for the ever-present badges - I was really excited. I logged on, I bought myself some more healing pots and flew on up to Ghostlands. On the flight, we were determining who would have to roll for spots, and who wouldn't. Oddly, we had exactly the right amount of DPS classes, too many tanks, and too many healers. Being a casual guild, we usually have people that opt out, and this week was no exception. One of our healers said he'd step down, and then one of our tanks said he'd step down. That tank happened to have been our most experienced player, as well as raid leader.

So, for the first time in ZA, and only the second time ever, I'm leading the raid. Note that this was only my third time in ZA. How'd it go, you ask? Well, let's just say that I picked the title of this post very carefully.

Now, we were missing several of our A-listers. Four of the people in the raid had not done ZA before. So, it was a learning experience. Unfortunately, some people didn't see it that way. Here's how it went down:

We buff up and start the instance, heading toward Eagle first. Our prot pally (new to ZA) is leading the way, and I'm on rear-guard duty. The first time through, he's taunting too many mobs off of me, and dies when the healers can't keep up. Oh well. It happens. I inform him as such, and we try again. We get through the gauntlet pretty well this time, and our ever-picky feral druid compliments the newbies on getting through it so well. Which is an accomplishment, I'd say.

Then we wipe twice on the actual boss. Each time, we got him down to the area of about 20%, and a good portion of the group died to the storm. One of the more experienced members of the group was calling out when to collapse in, and go back out, which was really helpful. Props to Aliera.

After the second wipe, the gauntlet had respawned, and we decided to try Bear instead. But then we wiped when we were taken by surprise by the first two mobs in the trash. Somebody, maybe me, got a little too close. This was apparently the last straw for the aforementioned feral druid, who said "I'm out" and left without another word. Lellik, one of our experienced priests, also said "I'm out" and left (though less silently than Kamei, the druid).

Somebody suggested getting a couple more guildies and doing Kara instead. I got the feeling that some people were not up for that, so I left it to a vote. Turns out there were 4 people who didn't want to continue, so I called it for lack of people. A certain mage whispered me complaining about how it sucks that ZA fell apart, because he doesn't get much time, and had an argument with a teacher just to get to the raid. I apologized as best I could, and explained that things just don't work sometimes. It's unfortunate, but true.

I guess I can't shake the feeling that I failed in some way. But I'm not sure I did. I mean, I probably could have led the group better, but I don't think I did terribly. Perhaps I'll ask some of the experienced guildies who were there. Anyway, the moral. There's gotta be a moral, right? I guess it's less of a moral and more of a "things I learned":

• Raid leaders have far more to pay attention to than I realized. I should have been calling out the storms, I should have been paying attention to where the other members of the raid were, etc.
• ZA really is a gear test. I felt like the heals were good, the tanking was good, but the DPS was a little slow, at least compared to nights where we've progressed.