Training a Co-Raid Leader

Our guild is getting close to having enough for two 10 mans and I want to get to 25, but I need to train up another person to raid lead in the case I cannot make a raid, or we get two 10 mans going. The problem is the only person that I feel is level headed enough and has the knowledge needed to run things, doesn't want to job. I have had a couple of people offer, but they do not have the right personality for the position. How would you guys go about training the right person up on raid leading?

Some things to teach them:


1) Raid pacing is vitally important. Keep people moving or they get bored and get up to get a glass of beer, and while they're gone someone else gets bored and grabs a glass of beer. Try to keep things moving and watch the amount of time between wipes and picking back up afterwards.

2) You don't have to do everything yourself. Assign someone else to take care of loot (ideally an officer) so that you can concentrate on what's coming next instead. Assign people to important functions within fights who are not you. That includes doing call outs.

3) Make sure you have the appropriate addons and know how to use them. That includes Grid or equivalent, Skada/Recount or equivalent, DBM or equivalent. Know how to read Skada/Recount between wipes so that you know what happened. Look at World of Logs or the equivalent after the raid. Tidy Plates/Threat Plates also helps more than you might think for knowing what's going on at any given time.

4) Know and explain the fights, but don't be afraid to take advice from others in the raid. Sometimes they've learned something on some forums somewhere you haven't, and it's good to let them have input into the strategy.

5) Don't let the other players walk over you. It's good to let them have input, but in the end it's your decision as raid leader. I've had a few occasions where I had some dissenters in my raid in terms of opinion, but I was pretty sure we were on the edge of success with the strategy we'd been using. I firmly stated that we were sticking with the strat, and we killed it the next attempt, after which I see in /raid, "THAT'S why Reev is the raid leader."

6) Know when to take a break or move on. If you're beating your head against a wall for 2 hours without visible progress, or worse, regression, stop and take a break. Make sure to tell your raiders to get up and move around a lot. When people don't move for a long period of time, their mental concentration starts to wane. Doing a few jumping jacks or situps or whatever can help this problem immensely. When you come back from the break if the problem is still happening, evaluate if it's an issue with execution, or if you need to fundamentally re-evaluate the strategy. If strategy re-evaluation is in order and you don't have any ideas right now, you can always move on to an easier boss to get the morale up and look at the strategy before the next raid. Which leads us to:

7) End on a positive note and give homework. Even if you've had a shitty night wiping, make sure that you frame it as a learning experience and give the raiders some homework on how to study up. Emphasize that they shouldn't just look at one video and stop there. Most of the best information is found in the posts surrounding the videos or on class-specific forums. Getting a diversity of ideas and discussing them on the guild forums before raid time is extremely useful.

8) Look for the strengths and weaknesses in your raiders. There are some raiders that I know are very situationally aware and know how to move/click things at the right times, but I wouldn't trust them to kite anything if the guild depended on it. Know the players' capabilities and you'll save yourself a lot of heartache. This includes how players take criticism. Some people respond really well to yelling and view quiet private talkings to as weak. Others see any critical comment at all as a personal attack, and the only way to keep them in your raid team is to criticize them only in private. These may all be valuable members of your raid team, and there is no good one-size-fits-all approach.

9) Praise your healers. They need it and deserve it. They are quite possibly the least visible factor of success, yet probably the most important. Make sure they know damn well you appreciate them.

10) Realize that success isn't instant. I had a few players the other day complain that we'd spent 2 nights wiping on Cho'gall and that we were totally failing as a guild. Bullshit. It takes time to learn the execution on complex fights. Don't let other people's unrealistic expectations throw you. Make sure they understand that it's normal to wipe and to learn over time.

11) Don't put up with Prima Donnas. Players who think they're better than the rest of the raid and state it publicly are a drag to raid morale. Make sure they know what they're doing, gently, and if they continue, kick them. If they want to act like that, they can do so in some other guild with their "leet skills." Never let another player hold your guild hostage. No one is irreplaceable. There are ALWAYS people looking for guilds, and if you have to, you can PuG the 1 slot while you find your next great player. It's not worth the drama to stroke a Prima Donna's ego.

In a 25 man raid delegating actually helps deal with this issue quite well. By having someone in charge of healers, someone in charge of dps (maybe even one for ranged and one for melee), someone in charge of tanks, someone in charge of loot, and last yourself the raid leader then you have responsibilities broken up. Since responbility is delegated a bit more it is easier for one to take on the additional responsibilities. If your person in charge of loot is out for the week, well the raid leader can pick up the slack. If your raid leader is out for the week, well perhaps your healing captain can also take on the responsibility of leading the raid as a whole for the week. If two people are out, well you still have several to split their responsibilities.

The biggest issue with the one man in charge of everything is when they are out, where do all those responsibilities go. If you split up the responsibilities in the first place however, it becomes considerably easier for someone to pick up the slack, or even reassign it to someone else completely. It's easier to find someone to do one job than it is to find someone to do 5 jobs.

Thanks for all the tips, but the question still comes down to how do I find a Co-Raid Leader. We have 15 active raiders, and like I said out of those maybe 4 have the skill level, but only one has the patience if you will. One of the most important abilities of being a raid leader in casual raiding guilds (in my opinion) is patience. When you have a group like Paragon, I would think patience would be less of a need, because if you didn’t perform at 110% and know the fight 110% you’re going to be sidelined. In a casual guild though you have working Moms, and single Dads that can’t spend four hours four days a week raiding with another few hours studying the fights etc. Now that doesn’t mean you should let everyone slide and not be gemmed enchanted etc. but being patient with one of your healers that spent half the week with his or her child in the Hospital is a most to me. Hope that kind of help describe what I am trying to do.

A raid leader always needs to have the skill, it is pretty simple, if you do not have another one right now then you can not worry about it. You can not train someone to be a leader, they will be a shitty leader, they have to have the ability and want to do it. Going to two ten mans, then to a 25 will cause trouble anyway, pug your way to the 25 man roster. Advertise when you raid on your realm forum and fill out the rest of the raid with pugs until you can do a guild 25 man. One of the biggest things for casual type guilds is to schedule them opposite the more hardcore guilds schedules if possible, this will lead to you getting a few of those players alts which could help immensely. If you are dead set on one, find a way to not lead one night, have a sore throat, or mic issues and see who steps up....most likely someone will. In my experience it is best to throw a raid leader to the fire, otherwise they will use you as a crutch.

Thanks for the advice, after raid on Saturday I called a quick officer meeting and basically told them we needed a backup. And I straight forward told the best option he was the one we needed, and he agreed to help out.

I am one of those raid leaders who tries to do everything, I attempt to delegate stuff out but unless I keep track of who I asked to do what, I end up kind of stepping over them. One thing when I do consciously thing about doing it, I stop announcing stuff on vent, and It is very easy to see someone else step up and make the calls if I am late.

A good leader will let himself be known, and they are easy to find if you look for it. Watch guild chat for the dps person who is always able to get a heroic group up, or the person who is trying to get off hours raids going. Watch and see who your guild members listen to besides you, sometimes you will be surprised at who emerges as the natural leaders. From that point is that person someone you can coach up to get to where you want them, if they are, then you found your back up or second group raid leader.