Voice communication in raids

**Khayra** · #1 06-07-2008, 08:17 AM

In a recent guild officers meeting we thought about organisation of voice communication in our raid.
In our 25s we usually have all people in the same channel on TeamSpeak, but I heard from a lot of other guilds who use seperate channels like for tanks and healers, ranged dps, melee dps and raid leaders (we did this preBC in our 40 player raids).
The "All-in-one" thing works just fine for us, but it requires a little discipline and there is always some "trash talk" going on between boss fights.

So I just wanted to ask how other people organise their voice communication and what experiences you had with either seperated channels or only one channel?

bludwork · #2 06-07-2008, 10:15 AM

are you sure you aren't confusing in game chat (text channels) with the voice one? I've never heard of separate voice coms for class types on vent.

**Cynocide** · #3 06-07-2008, 10:43 AM

Separating groups into different voice-com channels is a bad idea because if you need to tell someone to do something that is in another channel, you have to switch channels or type it. That can be fatal. Your raid just needs to get their act together and keep things not related to the raid to a minimum.

**Armstrong** · #4 06-07-2008, 12:25 PM

Source: Cynocide
Separating groups into different voice-com channels is a bad idea because if you need to tell someone to do something that is in another channel, you have to switch channels or type it. That can be fatal. Your raid just needs to get their act together and keep things not related to the raid to a minimum.

Actually both Ventrilo and Teamspeak allow you to define keybindings to speak to a specific channel or group of channels, so this is perfectly doable and manageable.

With the smaller raid sizes in TBC, we now have everyone in the same channel except raid leader(s), healing commander and main tank who are in what we call "raid command" channel.

**Khayra** · #5 06-07-2008, 09:48 PM

Source: bludwork
are you sure you aren't confusing in game chat (text channels) with the voice one? I've never heard of separate voice coms for class types on vent.

In our 40s we always had peolple seperated in different channels. You can set up key binds in TS (I think it's the same in vent) to speak in multiple channels. That's what our raid leaders did. We had one leader channel and channels for each class.
Now in 25 player content we're all in one channel, but I know few guilds on my server, where there are still seperated channels for tanks & healers / ranged / melee.

Throng · #6 06-08-2008, 03:28 AM

We use one channel for 25-mans and don't have any communication problems. A bit of playful banter on trash helps everyone feel part of the team, and adds to the fun, too.

Hollowskin · #7 06-09-2008, 12:24 AM

I'll never switch to more than one vent channel in a raid (nor would I allow it normally). Simple reason being it makes them feel part of the guild-- someplace where they can all call home. Splitting them up artificially creates little cliches, but if you have your guild set up that way, by all means...

Theres a lot of playful sarcasm and fun times in vent, and I don't think anyone wants to miss that. If things get out of control when you're trying to explain/lead, take charge. Usually I dismiss them like they aren't there and talk over them or tell them to shut the fuck up. That usually shuts them the fuck up and refocuses them on their task: raiding.

To answer your question though, sometimes I do pull the tanks over to another channel to explain what they need to do when I have another guy explaining the main boss strategy quickly.

If someone has a special job, pull them over. Usually not for the whole fight and definitely not the whole raid. If it makes your raid more efficient/informed and doesn't take away from the guilds atmosphere, I'd say go for it.

**sapling** · #8 07-03-2008, 01:09 PM

Keep everyone together in the same channel. No reason for the different channels, or even different binds. In exception for an officer bind.

Also explaining the fight to everyone, and letting everyone know where each class (DPS, TANK, or Healer) is going to be and what their main objective will help greatly with raid awareness. This will also help the raid leaders/class leaders find and fix problems faster, leaving you more time for progression rather than more wipes.

Nothing hurts a raid more than poor communication, and having to type or switch channels so that your feral druid will pop out and brez a healer would take way too long, when a loud shout out would do the trick.

minrog · #9 07-03-2008, 02:15 PM

We keep everything in a single channel. We don't often have to tell people to shut up because we don't keep a lot of dead time in the raids.

There might be some gains to having seperate channels but I don't think they outweigh the down side you get from people not knowing what is going on. As far as information goes it's nice to have an idea of who is healing whom and where the tanks are supposed to stand, even if you aren't one of those people.

Loliiten · #10 07-05-2008, 11:11 AM

We use one channel only while fighting a boss..

Before the boss however, CL's often order their members into a separate channel to give final orders and advices.

Corise · #11 07-06-2008, 12:37 AM

We also use one vent channel but have additional text channels in game, such as a healing channel where healing assignments can be given.

However, our vent is extremely chaotic, we usually have music pumped through and is really only quiet on learning encounters. An active vent helps break the boredom of trash (like Gorefiend)