My Best Choice for Leading 25s
...was leading 10s.
It's unbelievable the massive advantage that you gain by seeing the content before you have to explain it to your 25 man raid. While it's true that sometimes the 25 man's abilities aren't quite handled in the same manor as the 10s, that still doesn't change that having seen the abilities first hand gives you a totally different level of information that neither videos nor the written word can possibly transfer.
Refining Your Core
Even better still is having that core group with you and downing the 10 man bosses before the 25 man even sees them. Those other 9 people are going to offer a level of support that blind raiders never could have in the past especially when you consider that they've already experienced your strats in action.
Where it can Fail
What is tricky to manage though is the expectations of your core. They've already killed these bosses. They're executing the fight flawless that much sooner than they otherwise would and as a result, are waiting on the other raid members to catch up that much sooner.
Which can breed resentment pretty quick.
But, not if you manage it and make your core aware that doing 10 man content with 25 man gear means you grossly outgear it and as such, it's a lot easier. You don't have the same massive advantage on a 25 man level. And most importantly, don't breed the resentment for them. If you're saying anything along the lines of...
"Come on guys, we already downed this on the 10 man, it's not that hard... focus!"
...then you are failing at leading. Never forgot that while a single person can often be to blame for a wipe that you as the raid leader are also always to blame. It is your job to lead that person, to train that person, to teach that person. If you don't think you should have to...
Then you aren't leading.
Anyone can yell at people, read strats someone else wrote and excel personally at their role.
Leading takes something more.
It's unbelievable the massive advantage that you gain by seeing the content before you have to explain it to your 25 man raid. While it's true that sometimes the 25 man's abilities aren't quite handled in the same manor as the 10s, that still doesn't change that having seen the abilities first hand gives you a totally different level of information that neither videos nor the written word can possibly transfer.
Refining Your Core
Even better still is having that core group with you and downing the 10 man bosses before the 25 man even sees them. Those other 9 people are going to offer a level of support that blind raiders never could have in the past especially when you consider that they've already experienced your strats in action.
Where it can Fail
What is tricky to manage though is the expectations of your core. They've already killed these bosses. They're executing the fight flawless that much sooner than they otherwise would and as a result, are waiting on the other raid members to catch up that much sooner.
Which can breed resentment pretty quick.
But, not if you manage it and make your core aware that doing 10 man content with 25 man gear means you grossly outgear it and as such, it's a lot easier. You don't have the same massive advantage on a 25 man level. And most importantly, don't breed the resentment for them. If you're saying anything along the lines of...
"Come on guys, we already downed this on the 10 man, it's not that hard... focus!"
...then you are failing at leading. Never forgot that while a single person can often be to blame for a wipe that you as the raid leader are also always to blame. It is your job to lead that person, to train that person, to teach that person. If you don't think you should have to...
Then you aren't leading.
Anyone can yell at people, read strats someone else wrote and excel personally at their role.
Leading takes something more.
Total Comments 12
Comments
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Aye, it's very important to take a step back and realize you're not in the 10 man anymore, not everyone in your raid has killed the boss yet, the encounters are ALOT harder. The difficulty jump between Yogg 10 and 25 is tremendous.Posted 05-06-2009 at 11:07 AM by Inaara 
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Vene - So what about when you literally can't train that person, and are unable to replace/exclude them?Posted 05-06-2009 at 02:30 PM by Alent - I like this advice. Soon enough we'll be doing 25 man content. And I will definately take this with me on every run. Not that i'm not a great leader. I dont bash people or make them feel responsible. Instead I use the mistakes as a learning tool, and allow people to grow from it. On a side note... it's frustrating to try and push 25 man content and run into recruits that only want a guild to carry them to the gear.
Posted 05-06-2009 at 03:40 PM by Sillybones -
Alent, if you are finding that you are unable to train a person, I would delegating someone who has a different approach to leading to help them because ultimately, you as a leader are failing. Your attitude that they are untrainable speaks volumes to that.
If you're finding that this is a common problem among numerous people then I would consider stepping down as leader as clearly your leading style doesn't mesh well with the guild you're leading for. It takes patience, understanding and realistic expectations, but also you have to have this innate ability to inspire people to listen to you and trust you. Not everyone has these qualities.
So, while it's probably the most difficult thing to do, often times the best step for a guild is to try having someone else in charge of the raid. After all, just because someone may be the best or most vocal player doesn't make them the best leader.Posted 05-06-2009 at 04:07 PM by veneretio 
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Alent, if you are finding that you are unable to train a person, I would delegating someone who has a different approach to leading to help them because ultimately, you as a leader are failing. Your attitude that they are untrainable speaks volumes to that.
Maybe the individual IS untrainable for Alent. Sometimes you just don't gel with a person; it isn't necessarily because you're a bad leader or they're untrainable, it's just a difference in style. Speaking anecdotally, my year 9 maths teacher could not make anything stick in my brain however she tried and I could not learn from her. It felt like a failure for both of us but there are times when we just don't work in the same way as another person.Posted 05-06-2009 at 04:25 PM by Jalousie - I think that's exactly what Vene was getting at. He's not suggesting Alent fails at leading in general, just that if he's unable to train this person he might need someone else with a different leading style to take this case.
That being said, I do believe everyone has a level above which they cannot be trained, paid, educated, bribed, or bullied into reaching. It's not an excuse to give up early, it's just a reason to not totally beat yourself up over it.Posted 05-06-2009 at 09:16 PM by Talisman - I think Jal is indirectly onto something, but what do you do when you're one of the only people of that "personality type" in your raid and it falls to you to teach someone of an incompatible type?
I'm fairly compatible across the board, but without a "common bond" (And raiding is not a common bond, from what I've seen.) I can't connect to people. Most of the people in my raid group are completely different thinkers than I. someone talks to me about DPS, say. He's trying to rave about this back to back string of crits he got on one (insert boss here) attempt and I'm just thinking "It wasn't sustained, why is his overall so low when he's getting spikes like that? his crit rate is X, so divided out he should be at (number), but he's at (lower number)..."
I guess it fair to say that I always critically study a situation. I've tempered that in my communication because I've seen what happens when I simply blurt out critical analysis. Most people can't accept openly critical analysis. I've shifted to giving anecdotal "I wonder what happens..." and "why not try (blank)?" and those are readily received, and offer critical analysis when asked instead. With some people the seed takes and you see improvement. I had to plant such a seed in our ret pally the other night:
However I have next to no casual contact with most of my raiders. I've started these running forum posts that are all providing a centralized place to discuss a given raid. our meters are linked in it, my ideas are there, our next raid's "loose schedule", etc. the only people who use it are the people I have casual contact with, defeating the purpose.Quote:"I know why your DPS has been dropping lately."
"why?"
"You're doing the same thing I am. You're paying attention to everything but your own DPS. Spot healing here. watching raid HP bars to see if you need to DivSac. You're not putting the same zeal into DPS you did when we started."
"Huh... That makes sense."
There's more, but I don't feel comfortable putting it in a blog. Maybe a PM later.Posted 05-06-2009 at 09:22 PM by Alent - I think Jal, you've missed an important distinction. There's a difference between failing and bad. I fail constantly at leading, but that doesn't make me a bad leader. How I respond to those failures is what defines me as a leader. (as well as how I respond to my successes too)
As I said, if you can't teach them, delegate. If you can't teach a lot of them, step down. (ie. Delegate everything) Too many people are afraid of this nasty word, Failure.
Alent, I feel like I've known you long enough that I can be blunt with you, I can see why people are struggling to learn from you. You make every single thread here about you lately. Every one. They start very, very loosely connected and then they never end up relating back to the topic at hand. Seriously, look at the last 8 posts you've wrote about raiding. They're walls of text that aren't about the threads, they're about you.
The people you're training or trying to connect with don't care about you, they care about how you relate to them. You're not relating anything to threads at hand anymore and if you take the same approach to connecting with people, I can assure you, you're just frustrating them.Posted 05-07-2009 at 12:13 AM by veneretio - Point well taken, Vene.
Thanks for the honesty.Posted 05-07-2009 at 02:05 AM by Alent - There's a difference between failing and bad. I fail constantly at leading, but that doesn't make me a bad leader.
Yes, we can argue that our failures do not define us as leaders. I was under the impression, however, that Alent's problem was with one individual. In that case I couldn't see how one personality clash, which is something that can very rarely be rectified, could be classed as a failure. I consider a failure as being specifically linked to a deed or omission and not to a coincidence or an incompatibility.
Given your response to Alent I see the situation isn't so simple, but still, I wanted to make clear my understanding of 'failure' because I think we throw it around quite casually and it is a very negative word to be preoccupied with.Posted 05-07-2009 at 06:31 AM by Jalousie - I consider a failure as being specifically linked to a deed or omission and not to a coincidence or an incompatibility.
This is definitely where we disagree. It's a pretty common theme in what I write be it here or at TankingTips that failure because of "bad luck" so to speak, is still failure.
Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective. [wikipedia]
That's it. To try to steer this somewhat back to the topic at hand, this all stemmed from this line:
Never forgot that while a single person can often be to blame for a wipe that you as the raid leader are also always to blame. It is your job to lead that person, to train that person, to teach that person.
I think too many people are afraid of holding someones hand. Of accepting that sometimes they're going to need to compensate for them. I also think though that as leaders we often set unrealistic expectations for ourselves and our teams. I find when I'm really feeling down it's because I'm expecting too much and I'm missing the small victories and focusing on the single obvious problem.
Handling all of this can definitely destroy you inside sometimes, but that's just the way it is.
Leading takes something more.Posted 05-07-2009 at 08:15 AM by veneretio - [...] failure because of "bad luck" so to speak, is still failure.
I'll agree with that as a general definition, for now. But it still doesn't take away from the fact that sometimes despite everything you and your team do, there are variables which cannot be controlled. Personality clashes are one of those things, and I just don't think it's healthy to constantly think of them as "failures". Just speaking from personal experience, I would rather say to my group, "Okay, we couldn't have seen that coming. Let's figure out how to get around this issue" than "Wow, that was a cataclysmic failure".
Perhaps we conceptualise failure very differently because of the stakes involved. I play very casually and usually my groups are half a dozen friends who don't expect amazing loot or Project Marmot-esque runs. On the one hand, that means I have to work extra-hard to be encouraging because they can get disheartened very easily when comparatively simple content gets the better of us. On the other hand, it means at the end of an unsuccessful night we have a less oppressive sense of "failure" because we're still learning. Just a thought
Posted 05-07-2009 at 11:32 AM by Jalousie
