Question about under performers

[Crucious]

Here's my dilemma. I am in a "casual" raiding guild. We raid 3 times a week, with 10 mans on off days. We expect all raiders to be raid ready. Food buffs, pots, elixirs or flasks. Knowledge of the fights...etc. Just as important, general knowledge of your class so that you can maximize your DPS.

We have had, since BC even, a small group of people that want to be carried. They sign up for raids, expect to go, get pissed off if they are passed over, and are generally unpleasant to be around. I don’t expect them to go to the level of research that I go into as a tank. Spending lunch hours and whatnot reviewing strats and viewing videos.

I am so fed up with the (as i like to call it) complete and utter disrespect these few people display to the rest of us. Their DPS is very poor. So much so that Tanks and even a Healer are competing with them.

How have some of you handled this or how would you handle it if you haven't had to deal with it?

[Satrina]

Underperformers don't get into raids and are given the option to remain in the guild as a non-raider until they get the time and/or gumption to put in the effort to earn a spot. This is made clear from the day they tryout with the guild, and is explicitly spelled out in our guild policies.

You "expect all raiders to be raid ready" - are these expectations written down in a policy? If so, /gkick. If not, you have a problem that needs to be solved by your officer corps. One of the most important positions in a raiding guild is the person who writes down and maintains policy documentation. Cue the people crying wtf, it's just a game!

[Nightdemon]

Take it to the officers. If they can see what's going on too, maybe suggest a friendly warning: If they don't shape up, they'll be facing a guild kick.

Theres 2 ways they can take this. Either they don't take it seriously, and they end up facing a gkick (which, imo, just shows their utter lack of enthusiasm anyway), or they take it into consideration and try to shape up. Even if they shape up - Warn them that they're going to be monitored for a while, so any sudden drops in their performance, and itll be taken into consideration in the future. Just let them know they're replacable, and that as a raiding guild, your looking at performance of players as a benchmark for worthiness to raid.

Theres a large player-base out there, many of whom want to be in raiding guilds. Such competition shouldn't allow for slackers to get away with things like this, especially when theres people looking for a guild.

Thats the approach we take, atleast.

[Shadevarr]

Wow raiding is like amateur team sports. It doesn't matter if it's just a game, everyone needs to perform well since that is how raiders enjoy this game.

[Helmer]

slack off on your own time. when you show up to raid your there to take care of business, and any failure of yours is a waste of not only yours... but the entire raid's time. wow is a very easy game, and it shouldnt be that difficult to come prepared and know how to play your class

[Stearns]

Thanks for asking the question. My guild has exactly the same issue and I'm very frustrated. I think the best thing I can do is take it to my officers now. One thing I'm sure many can relate to: our guild lays down rules and then doesnt police them, or penalize offenders.

[gryffyn]

Your first problem is the casual tag. There is no such thing as a "casual" raiding guild. If you want to mess around in beginning content like a lot of guilds that were still trying to get Kara on farm while the rest of the world was killing Illidan than cool. If you want a reasonable progression with players who want to come to raid then stop calling yourself casual.

A casual raiding guild doesn't schedule raids or expects people to be raid ready. They fill in with puggers and hope for the best.

A regular raiding guild does what you describe.

Tell people you are a raiding guild and if they are not ready then they don't get invited. Your GM needs to grow a set of balls and tell them flat out that unless they stop wasting other peoples time they will never get into a raid so they can either shape up or quit.

[Jimbo]

you need to make it abundantly clear to everyone in the guild that they aren't just raiding for personal gains, if they slack it effects 9/24 other people which isn't fair.

You don't raid to gear up, you gear up to raid.

if you can't be bothered to put the effort in, what makes you think your guild can be bothered to carry you through encounters or even bother to provide a home for you.

[sevve]

Drop the casual tag.
Tell people that if they perform poorly, they are letting the others down. There is no excuse. If people actually have to shape up to get a spot they will. If they then don't it's because they don't care, and shouldn't be in a raid.

[Lore]

Casual does not mean bad. You don't have to drop the casual tag to tell people that they need to play better. I've seen casual guilds that just whip together a raid when they happen to have 10 people on that do just as well as the hardcore raiding guilds on the server.

Again, being casual has nothing to do with player skill. Most of the time, being casual means kicking back and having fun. If these handful of bad players are making the game not fun for everyone else, they need to go.

[Eunuch]

Seriously nothing for that, if they came and brought some dps, a little that would be something, but if you want to raid and are doing the damage of the tank you should be gearing in your off time, or in the time the rest of the guild is raiding.

[Theomach]

Despite the baiting above (thought you'd be bigger than that), if people aren't meeting the requirements of the guild, and they understand those requirements, then they need to be told "shape up or ship out". If it's just a thing people do with friends every now and then, that's one thing. But when it affects other peoples' performance, and it's in violation of the rules agreed to, then you gotta do what you gotta do.

[Essarhexen]

Let me give a possibly different take...

I don't know the exact situation as the orginal poster so this may or may not apply, but here are some things to think about:

One of the things you have to struggle with leading a guild is filling out the raid. You have raids planned and need bodies. So a few things to consider:

- Are the underperformers reliable bodies for the raid? After all some dps is greater than zero dps.

- Is the guild actively trying to recruit, or is it so thinly staffed that there isn't anyone else to take? It has been my experience that you need some reserves in the guild.

- Are these underperformers here "to help out" and perhaps they really wish to step down but feel an obligation to be there to fill out the raid?

- Do they know how to get better? Is guild atmospheres poisonous? Some people have a hard time reaching out for help or there is a lot of hostility in the guild preventing it from happening.

If you are concerned I would try to talk to the guild leadership, but realize they can be under a lot of pressure to "make it happen." Just coming in with the "get rid of the l2p people" isn't (necessarily) going to help make things better.

The leadership may not see "get better or /gkick" as a viable strategy for fixing things. The leaders may feel there isn't support in the guild as a whole for that, they may feel they need those people to man the raids, or they may just need some help taking a tough step.

[jettzypher]

im gonna agree with essarhexen here and elaborate on a specific point...

so they have horrible dps and/or arent very knowledgeable about their class. why not take the time and help them? make them into better players. dont just sit there and say "no you suck, you dont know how to play...go away". people never develop when shunned. chances are, if theyve been put down and looked over numerous times, it breaks their motivation so they end up not trying anymore.

everyone has to start somewhere, and only a handful of people can just pick up a game and be instantly good at it. most have to learn and grow into it and the only way thats gonna happen in WoW is when people that know what theyre doing take the time to teach instead of pushing them to the side.

[Satrina]

That's a reasonable point if you have a casual guild that is breaking into raiding. However, you also have to account for the simple fact that some people have no interest in learning and just want a free ride. Beyond all of that, in the middle of a raid is generally not the place you want to be teaching people the fundamentals of their class.

[Eunuch]

That's a reasonable point if you have a casual guild that is breaking into raiding. However, you also have to account for the simple fact that some people have no interest in learning and just want a free ride. Beyond all of that, in the middle of a raid is generally not the place you want to be teaching people the fundamentals of their class.

Do some research and spoon feed them the specs, and rotations they should use, offer some good places to get the mats/gold together to use raid consumables, if they are on offer to them explicitly to go to heroics with them, or fill a group out without them and ask if they can jump in.

Some people just need a chance, if you do those things and they don't change then yeah boot.

[kosh]

To be frank, it certainly looks to me like giving them the boot is the only real solution.
If you've got access to replacements then I think it's an easy choice, unless they're RL friends. Either tell them to step up their game or get removed, or just simply don't allow them priority spots in raids until they've improved.

Like some posters said before me: With multiple raid days, signups and buff requirements you're definitely out of the "casual" realm, and that should have an impact on the strictness with which you deal with these under performers. In my opinion spoonfeeding information won't help in the long run if they don't themselves understand how their class works ... or, if they simply don't care, I can definitely see no reason to keep them around.

As for the performance itself, slack dps seems to be a pretty common issue at the moment. The way I see it, the only thing that needs any effort from a dps standpoint is to take 5 minutes to read up on encounters. Crafted/quest/boe blues should be enough for anyone to at least contribute some to a raid if they know their class abilities and stat weights...anything less than 1500 dps is completely unacceptable. From my experience most dps classes should be able to dish out way more than that before even setting foot in a heroic. In 25 man, anything under 1800 needs some serious scrutiny (I did up to 2500 with 111dps weapons as enhancement shaman)... and if they've started collecting epics then you should definitely be seeing 2000-2500.

[AoDraka]

Let me ask, do you guys and gals only care about DPS on Bosses? I tend to see "somewhat ok" DPS, but throughout the entire night, trash included, I'm doing 2M+ more total damage than some mages and rogues, with Arms and Fury warriors just barely beating me. I mean, yes, I want them to perform well on the Bosses, but don't everyone just disappear while we clear trash or we'll never get to that next boss.

Am I wrong?

[Nightdemon]

Something that you need to bring up with your guild. -dkp or so for being inactive during trash can solve it, or just shouting at them down voice comms :P It's things like that that makes clearing instances longer and more tedious than what they need to be.

[Satrina]

Let me ask, do you guys and gals only care about DPS on Bosses? I tend to see "somewhat ok" DPS, but throughout the entire night, trash included, I'm doing 2M+ more total damage than some mages and rogues, with Arms and Fury warriors just barely beating me. I mean, yes, I want them to perform well on the Bosses, but don't everyone just disappear while we clear trash or we'll never get to that next boss.

Am I wrong?

Fist off, if a melee class can't outdamage most casters on trash, something is wrong. Front loaded vs. back loaded damage on short fights like trash clearing is no contest (unless you are clearing with AE damage).

As for your initial question, yeah, we pretty much only care about boss DPS. If we are at the point where performance on trash is actually a concern, there is a major readjustment needed all around.