Any advice on being a class leader?

[Lunestone]

So apparently the GM and officers in my guild have been talking a while about making me class leader, which I didn't know until today. I actually started talking to our GM (who is also our MT) today about something else... our officers are talking about starting SSC in a few weeks. I whispered him... asking if we could coordinate what resist set(s) need to be made. He said he was starting to make the iceguard set... and then started asking me questions. About how busy I am in real life... how well I feel I know my class, etc.

I started getting scared cuz... although I do feel i'm a good tank, we are lucky to have a lot of very good tanks... i'm geared about the same as our GM/MT, there's a warrior geared slightly better than us both and two druids, one quite a bit better than the other but both very good.

Anyway... I thought maybe he was trying to see who might/might not tank SSC. But he went on to say... "I'm just wondering because you would be my first pick as class leader."

I was blown away You gotta understand... it still doesn't feel that long ago that I had decided to leave my nub guild (they were really nice but didn't even run outland instances) to become a raiding fury warrior. As fury, I met someone who talked me into tanking Arc... as fury. I didn't even think I could be a good tank... but he walked me thru it and by the end I was kinda tanking

Back then, my ex-bf had convinced me I shouldn't be a tank... "be a healer, maybe a druid... girls are good at that." I didn't even know if i'd be good at raiding at all... and now i'm class leader?!? I'm incredibly honored that as we move on (fairly quickly) to SSC - i'm in charge of helping any warriors coming in and who gets to run kara (we just started a fourth kara group), gruul's and now SSC.

I am so flattered that they've noticed how I play and want others to play like me Makes me feel like an incredible tank ya know? Yet, I feel I would like to continually become a better one. What I love about this game, is that (if you stay humble) there's always more to learn and new ways to play.

Anyway, i'm just wondering what ideas and advice anyone has for being a warrior class leader

[Rak]

Congrats on the promotion.

I would suggest you read both the fury guide here, and all the tanking information you can. It's important to know how both sides work, since people very commonly itemize incorrectly with both builds. You'll want to aim them down the right path of what goals to reach in gear and talents, rotations, etc. to get the most out of your raids as you get into harder content.

You also need to set an example. So, don't take offense - I know you didn't ask about this, but I would suggest after reading some guides and such, you switch up your talents and orient them more toward 25 man tanking. If you can impress people by outperforming them, they will come to you and eagerly take your advice.

The biggest thing I find myself doing each raid is just watching newer people's performance. If someone isn't up to par, I talk to them about what I think they could change. Usually, as I said, people don't itemize the best way for the content, or don't use the best rotation. If I can't simply talk to them about it because they need a lot of work, I direct them to this site and tell them to read lots of guides and ask me questions.

It can be annoying to criticize people like that, but as you get into TK and SSC it will actually start to make boss kills not happen. With the enrage timers and whatnot getting harder as you progress, tanks performing their best is a big deal.


Because you have so many tanks, you should probably try to be strict about screening applicants. Take them to a heroic and do some crazy stuff to see how they can handle themselves when things go wrong and stuff happens that they aren't used to. Most heroics are so mechanical to tanks nowadays that it can be done in their sleep - so you have to surprise them.

Right now we take applicants to Gruul kills because it's the easiest content we still do (for the dps trinket), but also tests every type of applicant. It requires good dps, good healing, good threat and survival skills from the tank, and it requires everyone to be situationally aware of their surroundings and forces people to move during the fight. I think it's a great proving ground for applicants, but I don't know how easy the boss is for your guys, so this might not work for you yet. Try to look for fights like it though, so you can test many aspects at once. Movement is a crucial skill that many players new to raiding in BC lack when they have only done Kara, so try to test for that especially.

[Shortypop]

Depending on your experience as fury/arms and any gear you have to support them on the live realms, one nice way to experience them (albeit in a somewhat fake environment depending on the premade gear supplied) is to create/copy a character on to the test realms - mess around with talents etc.

Alternatively, re-spec for an evening or two and go on some guild instance runs as fury. I know I was somewhat surprised by the range on whirlwind when I did this (also as a cl I was learning more about "the other side").

If you have a guild forum, be as active as you can on there, linking relevant patch changes etc. Having decent dps gear is very important in 25mans, as the number of tanks you need varies so much, take the lead on this and put together a dps set and ask your dps warriors for advice.

Having your GM as the same class as you - chat regularly to him - he's presumably decided that you're responsible enough for the position which will lighten his load, but he has (I presume) been doing job for a while so work with him.

Have fun

[Lunestone]

Yeah, I couldn't get online the other day and let a guildie respec my toon from fury so he could run them thru kara... I really need to change it, he basically copied my GM's spec which is fine for kara obviously. But I totally know what you mean, no offense taken

Although i'm not a total nub about warrior dps, I actually was planning on raiding as Fury when I hit 70 but enough people liked my tanking and convinced me to just be a tank. I really didn't think i'd be that good of a tank without raiding experience... but obviously i'm not being asked to MT 25 man's, which is a different story I would honestly say that i'm comfortable in my role of leading heroics and kara... and like being able to still watch how my GM handles the true raids. I feel very lucky to have found a guild that is pretty much perfect for me

Anyway... as I was saying I was Fury for a while. But... that's a very good point, I pull okay dps as prot spec in Aran (about 570 and I have no idea with a Fury spec) but a concern of mine would be threat. I know that a big problem with Fury warriors is not being able to go all out like other classes... and really having to manage threat as a warrior is something I need more experience with....

I'll probably ask this again somewhere else... I was a bit bothered when I saw a new warrior post he could raid with us either as dps or a tank. The thing is, he listed stam, crit and ap... he shouldn't even be concerned with stam, right? I really need to talk with this guy on my server more, I met him thru my ex and he's well known as one of the best fury warriors on our server. He told me crit, hit, ap... don't even worry about stam... and that's what I drilled in my head until I become a tank.

Very good points though, granted we really can't plan on having more than one fury warrior at a time right? But nothing wrong with being able to answer any questions he/she may have.

Actually one of the reasons I was chosen is because I do so many links to guides, theories, movies, pictures, etc. I'm constantly trying to make sure i'm learning more and more about my class... and seeing what opinions other people have about playing their warrior.

I guess my biggest concern... is how to bring up the delicate situation of having to tell some how they can play better. We all know that people instinctively get defensive and will say "I know how to play my class!".

The other thing is, even tonight we had one of our guildies decide he wanted to switch his main from his pally healer to his warrior tank... this is someone that has made it clear he thinks he knows how to play any of his toons better than anyone else. I talked about this with another officer and he's like "Don't let him give you attitude... you were given the responsibility of choosing who is allowed to raid and who isn't. We chose you because we believe in you and know you'll be fair... but you need to be strict too." So i've been class leader for two days and already some fun begins

[Lunestone]

Actually if you look right now I have my dps gear on armory... enchants are seriously lacking though I still have 12 stam on boots when I used them to tank....... 0.0

I so need to work on that tomorrow before Gruul's, the mats for enchants are all there... I just have had so many other things to take care of, I haven't had the gold to get my dps set up to par :-/

You'll also see my fishing pole... I have a Drakefist that i'm planning on upgrading to my MH... but my best dps has been the Decapitator MH and Emerald Ripper OH.

I have a feeling I will always be poor being a tank.... maybe i should switch to herb/alc??? I'd love to make my own pots...

[Shortypop]

In 25mans more than one fury warrior is definitely do-able, we run with two normally, and the fact that you are actively looking through forums is good for a CL.

You've more experience than me at fury. I guess CL'ing is all about finding the line between putting your foot down, when you need to, and being someone flexible enough for guildies. The approach of "I saw on wws that you only 10% of your damage was from skill A, this sounds low to me?" or "did you see the post on forum x about skill y - what do you think?" often works well; coupled with praise for a job well-done.

As far as stam for fury warriors go, I guess it's a bit like other non-tank classes in lots of fights it doesn't matter as they won't get hit, but in fights with random agro, aoe damage a decent health pool is important - although we have far more problems with mages with no health than warriors

One thing I've learnt is to find out from your dps warriors which of them actually like trash tanking and encourage them to collect a tank set. For some dps warriors asking them to tank is the last thing in the world they would want to do for others they enjoy the change every now and again.

[Rak]

In my opinion it would be wise to encourage all warriors to learn how to tank and dps well. Otherwise you will probably find yourself being forced to bench for certain boss fights when you are learning the encounter. For instance, on Solarian there is no need for *any* tank. But since myself and my OT both have decked out fury sets and have lots of fury raiding experience as well, we just dps the fight as prot. Prot warriors can put out a surprising amount of damage if the gear and rotation is there, and no one wants to be benched when your guild is doing a progress fight, so what is there for them to lose?

The same goes for fury warriors. They will most likely have to tank at times or be benched. Honestly if a warrior wanted to raid with us but just refused to help tank stuff when it was needed I would remove him from the raid roster - that's not the kind of attitude anyone should have. You should do what's needed to help your guild, especially when it's temporary and doesn't even require a respec.

I didn't even look at your gear because I saw you were not in your tanking set, I just wanted to get a general idea of your progress/knowledge level. You make it sound like you don't want to MT any 25 man content, I think? Maybe you're just being humble, I'm not sure. But you should definitely be ready for it. There will always be nights where your MT can't make it or just doesn't feel like raiding, and I'm sure you'd enjoy filling the role for a night. If you can tank all of Kara, you're probably already ready.

Edit: Oh, about criticizing people. My method (and it could be a horrible one), is to just outperform the person in a boss fight with them, and then approach them like 'hey, I just pulled aggro off you while I was offtanking the boss and getting very little rage... I think you could improve your threat'. Then I talk to them about it and I always invariably direct people to this site since there isn't a single person that can't benefit from reading around here. Your results may vary, a lot of people get very stubborn and refuse to change what they're doing. But then they have to be replaced as content gets harder. I'm a firm believer in the attitude of helping your guild and your raid whenever possible, and I don't think asking someone to do their job well is too much.

[Rak]

I have a feeling I will always be poor being a tank.... maybe i should switch to herb/alc??? I'd love to make my own pots...

Separate post since this is an offtopic reply, but you won't be poor with any class or spec if you really invest a lot of time into just making gold.

My main from release until BC was a holy priest. I never went shadow from the day I hit 60. I was never poor.

My main now is a prot warrior. Different server and faction than my priest, so I started from scratch. Just from farming for 4 days as fury I got the money for epic riding. Then from mining for about a week after that I got another 2500g or so, and haven't farmed since then until I eventually run out of money.

People always say that their spec makes it hard to make money but it's just a myth. Just go mine stuff. You can make 150-200g an hour mining *easy*.

[Shortypop]

My point about getting to know your warriors likes and dislikes was exactly that. If I have a choice and I need a extra trash tank I would prefer to ask the dps warrior who enjoys tanking more than one who doesn't. Maybe my post wasn't clear - all our dps warriors have tank sets and our prot warriors are collecting dps sets.

For me the most important thing about being a CL is communication - good communication is essential and part of this is knowing your warriors: their preferences, where they need encouragement, where they need praise and where they need help.

[Kavel]

There is some awkwardness about butting into someone else's playstyle and telling them how to do it better. I mean, most of these people have been playing their character for a year or more. However, I genuinely think everyone likes to be a better player. Help them be a better and they'll appreciate it.

My advice would be to keep comments very concrete and specific. Use concrete info to back it up (I like WWS for this).

[Lunestone]

Wow lots of replies, thanks guys You'll see I respec'd to add more dps for Gruul's tonight... the only thing i was iffy about was choosing between taking two points from either improved taunt or imp sunder/devastate. I chose to keep sunder/dev and we'll see if I really notice the difference in having to wait 2 seconds more for taunt now... now, I did consider just specing fury for tonight but it's my impression that our GM wants to be able to down Gruul without having to do that... i've offered many times and he said not to change anything. Excited to see how my dps does especially if I get my enchants to dps set done by tonight Like I said i've been pulling 520-570 dps with my previous prot spec... with enchants and the new spec I can't wait to see how that changes

I'll write more later I gotta get on and do dailies

[Lunestone]

OH, in the meantime... any other sites you guys would suggest? I like checking all the good tank blogs, forums, etc out

[Lunestone]

Ugh, i don't like this spec... I thought it would be better for rage generation as an OT in 25 mans but I forgot deep wounds will dot which could be bad for re-ccing... also i want improved taunt back...


On an up note... we downed Gruul's easy tonight so just decided to check out SSC. Um... well it helped we had a druid that has been well past SSC come in and guide us but still... I felt like I was barely getting hit by the trash? By the time we got to Lurker, we had time for one attempt and of course it was mostly a learning experience Seems like a fun fight, can't wait to get some real tries at it.

[Rak]

Personally I would never take imp taunt over imp sunder and devastate. I have imp taunt because I needed the points somewhere in that tree and it was the best option for me. I don't offtank, so my experiences might be bad for your situation.

SSC trash is very easy if you know how to handle their quirks. It's just time consuming to clear through it. Same with the trash on Solarian's side of TK. Void Reaver's trash, however, is a pain in the ass to learn.

For other sites I would suggest TankingTips.com - A guide to tanking as a Warrior in World of Warcraft as it has several good articles in the archive, and Elitist Jerks since it compiles endless amounts of information. The latter really doesn't have much tanking information, but it's an essential resource for the dps side of things.

[Lunestone]

Yeah honestly? The trash was cake... I think we were thinking, zomg we're in SSC! So it was a big surprise when we breezed right thru it... I was preparing myself for at least one wipe on trash.

Actually... although i've heard of elitist jerks, i've only visited it a few times and right now but I do need to educate myself more on the dps side. Particularly because we have this dps warrior - I dunno him well at all because he's part of this group of guys that left another guild we used to run Gruul's with (thankfully we now have all guildies running).

So here's the situation on him... he's arms/fury spec. Has MS. Is wanting to DW MS. *slaps forehead*

I spent like... an hour and a half trying to explain that he should be raiding as fury... that urst damage is horrendous for raiding... that you can't DW MS, makes no sense with the 6 second cd plus you get 250 ap with bloodthirst... plus if he has two weapons of the same speed he gets an extra charge from flurry. He realllly doesn't wanna spec all the way down to rampage... said he spec'd fury from 30-60, etc, etc... and i'm thinking I spec'd MS about that much time then switched to fury until 70. I was a total nub that whole time yet I still know that MS Dual-wielding just... is odd.

As I think about it... although the officers want me to convince him to spec fury, I think they're kinda hoping he won't and then he just won't be allowed to raid. So... I was able to convince him to spec fury but he said he'll do it when he gets DW weapons... so I just told him he won't be able to raid until he does so.

Ya know, I was trying a bit too hard to not be a jerk about it... but while I type this out i'm thinking about the fact that he has 265 smithing, if I worked to get mine up so I could get a Drakefist when I hit 70... he can figure out a way to get his up so he can make one or just freaking run heroics right? I think I was a bit too nice about it... but i've talked to him and he knows what's expected, I can't baby him and make him want to do the work to progress with us. Right?

[Lunestone]

Oh... it's been a while since i've spec'd down into fury or arms... so i'm definitely iffy on making a spec for him, i'll obviously look more around here and the links from here but if anyone has a suggestion for this situation.

On one hand i'm like... eh, do we want to keep someone around that needs to learn so much? But on the other, i'd rather he get better and learn more regardless if he stays with us or not.

[Bonerot]

Some people don't want to give up anything to be a raider and I'm referring to PvP or arena specs. Don't know what your guild rules are regarding raid participation but telling someone he can't raid until he meets the guilds requirements isn't being too hard on him.

My belief is that if that doesn't self motivate him to change why should anyone else care if he's successful. There are plenty of pvp weapons that would be great for fury (and I got as prot MT raid spec) if he put in an ounce of effort.

Help those who help themselves.

[Rak]

Yea, there's no way he should be allowed to raid. He's making up fake excuses. The day I hit 70 on my new warrior I ground out the Aldor rep to get exalted for the sword. And nowadays you can even get gladiator weapons with almost no effort as well, which are on par with the top Kara weapons.

[Lunestone]

Yeah, looking back I was still fury spec when I hit 70 and that day I made a Drakefist for my MH... I wanted an epic right away lol. And he just gave me his suggestion for a new spec... it's kinda wacky. So... but ya know what, he's trying to work with us and show effort. But i'm trying to keep in mind I need to do what's best for the guild... we had two kara groups go thru tuesday and i'm MTing a group tomorrow - we just wanna farm it and get thru as quick as possible... we got talking today and one of the officers was like "if you give the okay, i'll let him come". My first thought? I don't want him on my run, lol. I think that says a lot... if I don't want him on my run, I obviously can't give him the okay to go.