Elite raid team, emphasis on team

[Toyoma]

This is my first visit and in turn first post here at Tankspot. After reading the rules and regulations, I looked for similar posts and threads but didn't find exactly what I was lookin for so maybe this is it or maybe I'll get moved but any advice would be appreciated none the less.

What I'm trying to do is set up a raid team. What I've noticed is that a lot of people constantly are lookin for pugs into endgame content, myself included. Lots have a guild and jus as many don't, what indont understand is why, if your in a guild, your having an issue raiding. Now that being said, lots of things come up and maybe someone missed the raid day, your guild isn't up to speed, or any number of other reasons. I'm lookin for the one's who wanna raid, have the skill, but don't have the opportunity. What I wanna do is take 9 others and make a team out of them. This way they keep their guild associations, or whatever they have going on outside the raid schedule, AND get the chance to become wicked awesome at the toon they've chosen to play.

The reason I chose general discussion is because the other threads related specifically to certain raids or instances. The goal for me, and this team, will be FAR more than one specific raid. I've come up wih a list of class and specs that I think would be able to handle ANY situation a raid would throw at us. I'll list my thoughts on raid make-up and any input in general is appreciated.
*Note- the first spec will always be main

Paladin- tank/healer
Warrior- tank/dps
Priest- healer (spec?)
Druid- resto/boom
Shaman- elemental/resto
Warlock- me so I stay
Mage- (spec?)
Hunter- (spec?)
Rogue- (spec?)
Now the leftover... I'm at a loss as to whether I should go DK-dps/tank OR Ret/holy pally

After a lot of consideration, this appears to me to be an ideal set-up, assuming the players are worth they're weight AND everyone is specced properly, to handle any changing conditions in any raid circumstance and provides the best odds against loot overlap. Also note that I'm going to be meticulous in choosing the right players and I'm going to be very strict on gear/spec. For example if I end up with a Druid I will have a resto/boom or whatever spec was chosen for the toon. Thanks in advance for any help, it is all very much appreciated

[Proletaria]

10man?

There are quite a few ways to "stack" a 10man for high dps, and the way that is more effective (ranged vs. melee, caster vs. physical) depends largely on the conent you're running.

I've always liked our melee-physical heavy setup:

DK tank (blood) - frost tank offspec (when the sham has to go resto I cover haste buff)
Prot warrior - fury offspec
enhance shaman - resto offset
resto druid - feral offset
holy paladin
ret paladin x2
hunter
rogue
warlock (doesn't really fit the stack, but covers us on things that physical dps has trouble with)

We occasionally drop a ret and pick up a disc priest (druid goes feral dps) to optomize our raid dps with buffs, but 10man content hasn't been that tightly tuned so we tend to just run with the original team.

[orcstar]

First and foremost an "elite raiding team" needs a top notch leader who is also very very good at their class.

Are you such a person? Are you the one who can lead and push 9 others through ICC? Because really, an elite raiding team isn't as much about setup as it is about mentality.
My "elite" 10 men is: Protwarrior, Prot-paladin, Rogue, Hunter, Ret-paladin, Shadowpriest, Warlock, Restoshaman, Holypaladin and Restodruid.
And we have done all currently "doable" achievements in ICC 10.

[Shortypop]

My only comment is that on 10man I wouldn't go anywhere without a fulltime holy pally, maybe I'm biased because of all sorts of thing, but then again I only ever raid with guildies and can't imagine not doing that so maybe I'm not the best person to answer this

I'd add that with a team of 10people, what is your plan for RL emergencies, broken internet etc and someone not being online when they should, are you aiming for a team of 12 to allow for this, or 10 and not raid if someone doesn't pitch? Do you have Vent (or similar) set up?

[kolben]

You'll want to make sure you have as many of the buffs/debuffs covered as possible. Aside from that "Elite" is not as important as "Not a quitter" in my experience - also need to be willing to try things that aren't neatly packaged and posted in a howto video - unafraid to try and fail etc.

[Bodasafa]

Unfortunately no matter what "ideal" raid composition you come up with you will always have variables. Like not being able to find one of those classes/roles that has the experience, time, and attitude your looking for. Beyond that some people may just have RL truck fall on them and won't be able to make it, which can alter your composition without notice.

In a 10 man you need to be flexible, your most important asset is good players, with good attitudes and experience.

I run a off night 10 man, here's our set up:

Main Roster:
Warrior - Tank
Paladin - Tank
Paladin - Heals
Shaman - Heals
Paladin - Ret/Heals
Hunter - DPS
Hunter - DPS
Rogue - DPS
Mage - DPS
DK - DPS

Backups:
Druid - Healer
Warrior - DPS

So far it has worked well. When we need 3 healers the Ret flops, hes very good and geared for both. Hes actually a main healer in the 25's. I try to keep the DPS split at 3 ranged and 3 melee.

Really just about any composition will work if you have the right people. The Lower Spire can be done with any 2 heal/2 tank/6 DPS combo you can think of cause its fairly easy. You run into more specific issues later in the instance.

[Toyoma]

this team indeed does sound elite... who is the off-healer/6th dps in this set-up? also, to answer your question simply, yes. i've been playing my main for the better part of 4 years and am extremely comfortable with my class, rotation, spec, and knowledge of the game however, things are constantly changing AND this is a very very different game than vanilla wow. i am also a well respected and known member of my server (Thorium Brotherhood) and want to do more. the issue with my server, and where this idea came from, is after "sightseeing" other servers we are wayyy behind. the population is low-medium and has NEVER been high and thats no longer working for me. i have considered a server switch but to do that means cutting away from 4 years friends and i cant bring myself to do it. So, what i decided was that since im upset at the way things are going, i need to do something about it OR i dont have any reason to complain. as i explained earlier, the "team" part is so that people do feel overly committed to day in and day out group.for this group my thoughts are 2-3 days a week a few hours. ToC10 could drop in an hour with a pug so that being said a total of 10-15 hours a week isnt nearly the committment your typical progressive raid gulild requires. many things come to mind when i say that such as guild farm days, called to old world stuff just cause your "leet", and many other things that guilds require. this team would farm their own stuff, no 3 hour guild meetings twice a month that you get demoted cause you had to work and couldnt show etc etc I have very high expectations and a will require some formalitiew such as raid planning meetings and such but nothing that people need to stress over. i play this game to get away not ADD to my stress. i wanna go in and tear some shizzy up and if i can do that AND be the best 10man lock on my server then thats what im gonna do

[Toyoma]

great question and to be honest i've thought about this and the solutions are scarce...

resolution 1- more raid members. problem, keeping people on standby AND happy. im not gonna log in at 5 server and sit there for the next 5 hours hoping somebody drops, so i cant expect anyone else to either
resolution 2- 10 people no more. problem, someone doesnt show, then what? replace a member of our "elite" team? wait for them? postpone? most of these solutions will not effectivly work and is the main reasons guilds exist. there's a pool of bodies SOMEONE will say yes and thats a luxury this team, at least in it's infancy, will not have :/
resolution 3- join a full-time raid guild and forget this happened
resolution 4- move servers, join a guild, and progress without my friends and family

Any opinions, ideas, and thoughts are welcome please and thanks

[Toyoma]

great advice and tyvm

[Toyoma]

i love the 3/3 split for the ranged/melee great idea and thanks

[Bodasafa]

Based on your situation your taking a chance no matter what you do.

A) You can be a raid leader and start pulling some stuff together and see how it goes.
B) You can server transfer and hope you find a good guild.

Maybe try A and if it goes south, go to plan B. In any event seems like you got a good head about things, wish ya the best of luck.

[shadester]

I ran a 10 man raiding guild from Naxx through to ToC. We weren't a hardcore guild, raiding twice a week. But we definitely got stuff done, having ToC non-heroic on farm as soon as we had access to Anub. In fact we one-shot him, which was pretty kewl

The biggest cause of drama and angst was who got invited and who didn't.

The guild had myself as the leader, and there was a raid leader who was the only officer, who ran the raids. Below this rank was a Sergeant rank, and below that a member rank.

Sergeants were players who had full attendance, and were basically the core raiding set. They always got preference to raids. The number of Sergeants never would go above 8.

Members consisted of all the other players, and who would get invites if we needed more people.

My duties involved putting the events into the calendar, recruitment and general organisation. A week before the raid I would invite all the Sergeants and some of the members. After two days I would then mark on the event who was actually invited. So at this point, everyone knew where they stood. Anyone invited to the first raid of the week would automatically have preference to the second raid.

It was the core raiding set that drove my guild and was the basic reason for its success. And for their efforts I rewarded them with a guaranteed spot and with that came guaranteed loots.

My guild forum had a very clear and easy to read post on how all this worked. People who didn't like the system for whatever reason were encouraged to find a guild elsewhere. I was also a fairly aggressive recruiter, so if we lost someone for any reason I could fill the void quickly. But when the core raiding set got to 8 I would immediately stop recruiting. Sometimes people dropped down to members and sometimes if someone expressed interest in having 100% attendance I would promote them to Sergeant.

Sometimes you ran into a position where you need just 1 or two more people. We just pulled them from LFG, and many times they actually ended up joining our guild or at least coming on more raids with us, mainly cause we made raiding pretty fun and weren't too militant.

[Skaggi]

Whatever that "elite" is about. Sounds to me like the idea of "lets build a 10man raiding group for more than one ID"

Currently the dream heal setup for 10 mans is holydin and restodrood. Having a tanking warrior there for the sunders is never a bad idea and for the second buff and general survivability a tankadin would be in my book. Add any flavour of DPS that you like.

Anyway. 10 mans are never make or break because of class composition. If you really want a performing raid, then look for performing players regardless of the class.

Cheers!
skaggi

[Deleaus]

In my opinion

Warrior Tank
Paladin Tank
Paladin Holy
Druid Resto
Shaman Resto/Ele
Rogue (does spec matter)
Druid Feral (i guess other melee can work i just like ferals)
Hunter MM
Mage Arcane
Shadow Priest? not sure