Am I doing the right thing?

[mandoro]

Inc wall of text, dont say I didnt warn you! =P

Ok so recently Ive been promoted to the raid leader position mainly because of my ability to shoot people straight. Our current raid leader is a great raid leader but hes not so great at being tough.

So my first night in I did 2 things that caused some commotion, 1 was I switched off tanks and 2 was I sat someone out cause there gear wasnt ready even thought hes been a long time raider with us.

Ok so for thing number 1. For a long time the offtank of our guild has been affecting (effecting?) the raid in a negative way. The offtank himself is very anal about how things are run, which can be a good thing, but the problem with how he does it is that he is an ass to people, our MT is the one that runs things, and when hes gets mad he just sits there quietly and pouts. As you can see its kind of tough to have 2 people running things their own way. Not only did the MT not like him, our raid didnt really like how he was doing things either.

For a long time the MT wanted to replace him but didnt have the heart to do it, the OT has been with us since day one and is a friend of mine and the MTs as well. While he is a friend of mine, the first thing I did was replace him. Lo and behold the first night in with the new tank and the mood of the raid is a lot better, our communication was a lot better and we down Lord Marrowgar (something we were never close to). Hes been making a lot of rude comments here and there about how can someone be loyal if they are just gonna get kicked out and stuff, but I believe what I did was for the good of the raid.

The second thing I did was sit out a long time healer of ours because someone else was better. Now first off lemme give the backstory. We have a druid healer who just seems to be a god at healing and here recently he made a pally for healing. All was good and stuff, but then we had another long time member of ours transfer his healing pally from a different server and started to heal. The transferred pally outgeared to other, plus there were some things about the others gear/spec choices I didnt like, so I sat him out for the transferred pally. I kinda got some flak for it, but eventually they saw it from my point and agreed about it and we are currently working to get our guy back on his druid or somehow get his pally into our raids.

I may have missed some of the story, I do believe that Ive covered the meat of the topics. I basically want to know if what I did was the right thing.

[Bashal]

The only thing I might have done differently would have been to have a chat with both of them first,

1) "hey mr. tank you have to listen to the raid leader, do as he asks, or we might need to replace you." and

2) "hey mr. healer, you aren't geared for this content, it's hurting our raid, if you want to maintain your spot, you'll need to get some upgrades" -- and be prepared to help that person figure out how they can obtain those upgrades.

If you didn't talk to them first about it (you don't say if you or the previous RL did), then you didn't give them an opportunity to correct the problem. If they had been argumentative with you about it, then you'd have been beyond reproach if you summarily removed them for those reasons.

But otherwise, sounds like you did the right thing.

[Penlowe]

I agree with Bashal. Additionally you could have said "I've been asked to do this job for specific reasons and I'm going to do it my way. Don't say I didn't warn you. There will be gear checks, there will be attitude checks there will be (whatever else might be an issue)." Sort of a "there's a new sherrif in town..." speech.

As to your buddy who was sat, you need to have a "come to Jesus meeting" about his attitude. He needs to realize his membership in the raid is based on more than his skills. His trying to direct things when it wasn't his job, no matter how it was conveyed, is a separate issue all together.
The best thing to open up that conversation with is : "I want you in the raid, that's why I'm telling you this so you can make changes. If I didn't care I wouldn't be talking to you".

[Warsreign]

Starting with the tank situation you have to realize that personnel feelings towards friends and such have to be taken out of the equation when dealing in leadership. So it's good you didn't let that get in the way of what needed to be done. However the point I would stress to each is that moral dumps of such kind as overbaring or moodyness can't be tolerated either because if they bring the whole of the raid down then who really wants to be there in the first place. They're just going to get in there do what they have to and leave instead of staying on top of things and working even harder to progress as they would if their spirits are up and actually enjoying the content.

Also one tool that can be used and this goes with the second part as well with the under geared healer... gear is nothing to get in this game anymore to be ready for upper level content. So for instance saying to both tanks something in the lines of "We're friends and thats great but ultimately I have 23 other raiders I've got to worry about so you need to either chill and learn to cooperate or it's going to be to easy to find a replacement. Sorry to say this and all but friends are friends but business is business."

As far as the healers are concerned the one you set out now would take nothing to gear up if that person took it upon themselves to do so. If that person is just waiting for the raids to do it for them then they aren't helping anyone out. No matter how long someone has been with a group it's still their choice to raid and with that comes responsibilities to take it upon themselves to seek out those badges, or pugs, or whatever to achieve the gear neccessary to keep up with current progression. I've got raiders myself who have been with me for 4 years now and since moving into ICC (had the same problem with them in BT in the BC days) they've let their confidence that their places are secure get ahead of themselves and stoped working. So they're now sitting on a reserve list until they get some personnel motivation.

Just whatever you do don't get hung up on the Gear Scores. The skill always will outweigh the gear any day of the week. If they can pull their weigh just fine respect that so long as you see they are trying to gear up more. But if they can pull their weight and still aren't trying then thats not going to work either. Good balance of skill and gear will take you a long way but even great skill can't make you survivable or increase your abilities past the limitations of lower quality gear. You need a good balance of the two.

[Elahrairah]

I'm not professing to have the right answer here, as that wholly depends on the goals of your guild. If you're not a progression raiding guild, for example, and are instead a community / family based guild, I'd say those choices couldn've been done better. If you're a progression raiding guild, though, then I think you made the right choice.

For #1, I'd suggest making it clear to the OT that his attitude is causing issues, and it's received complaints. Let him know that if he's the better player, and can hold his attitude, he can earn his spot back. If he (and the rest of the guild) is not aware of this rule of thumb, he might be able to undermine you by playing the role of a matyr (And I -hate- those).

For #2, it depends on your guild priorities. If you only consider gear, then you made the right choice. If you only consider attendance, then you may have made the wrong one.
On my server, there's a druid tank who will remain nameless. He's geared to the teeth, but he's also a cheat and a liar, constantly doing under the table trades to cheat other raiders.
What more, if he's unhappy about something, he'll often log into a vent with another name, and proceed to spam loud music and/or screams (we traced the IP and confronted him). So, the moral of the story is that better gear =/= better player.

All in all, you just need to consider your priorities. You'll get many responses, some right and some wrong, but without truly knowing what you're trying to achieve, they're all just oppinions with no real answer.

Just think "What do I want from my guild?" and then consider how your choices will impact that goal. If you feel they'll be positive, then go with it. If your gut says not so much, then rethink a different solution to a given issue. But most importantly, watch for the aftermath. Learn from it. And remember it in the future.

Hope this helps.
Between you and me, I'd have made choice #1, but not #2. I'd have made sure the second healer showed more dedication, not more epix. Last time I had transferred players in my raids, they tried to undermine the guild leadership.

Goodluck to you, dood. Tell us how it all works out. ^^

[mandoro]

Well I meant to post this last night but I had some much stuff for the raid I had to get ready I didnt have time. With sitting the guy out the raid leader did talk to him about his attitude and I guess it wasnt enough for him to stop bringing it to the raid.

As far as sitting the guy out he went kinda crazy, I eventually corralled him and told him that he is a big part of the reason our raid's morale has been low and that it is going to be awhile before I invite him again. I dont know if he agrees with the decision, but he is calmed down now and just doing his own thing. We actually lost a second tank because that tank was helped out a lot by the guy I had to sit out.

As far as the healer, the other paladin healer dropped me to a different channel and told me to try him out for the night. I dont think the two of them are geared too horribly different and it went pretty well. The other paladin that stepped out last night has a mage that is pretty kick ass and was second on our dps meters.

Our guilds priorities are kind of weird, they want to progress through stuff, but they want to be a family guild too. There are a few people who can't be hardcore so that is definitely not my aim. My priorities are mainly about progressing more efficiently for us. Im doing this by bringing in our best geared and cutting down on afks. I do however keep an eye on the more family style that our guild has. For instance, last night our pally stepped down for the other one. I dont know if higher end guilds would have done that but I did.

I think I am doing a good job, two nights in and we have gotten Lady Deathwhisper down to 35%. Before it was a pain for us to get her shield down.