Falling Apart

[Twix]

I want to apologize in advance for how ridiculously long this turned out to be. I really do appreciate any advice.

Towards the end of WotLK a friend and i made the decision to run a ten man progression minded guild together. We decided that i would be the gm and he the officer. Over the next few months we worked to round up the best possible roster for our guild. Obviously this isn't an easy task since starting a guild so late in the expansion makes it more difficult to find people who want to start from scratch, which in return makes it more difficult to recruit for the next expansion. We made the decision to hold off raiding as a guild until the second week of Cata, meaning that we would have no achievements as a guild to brag about in order to make people want more details on our guild.

Many of the guilds from Wrath ended up breaking apart towards the very end of the expansion and we soaked in a few of their players. We eventually managed to recruit enough people from off server to complete our roster.

When Cata hit everything started off smoothly. Most of our raiders were among the first to level to 85 and hit heroics. However, one of our melee dps decided to transfer off server without any warning. We were fortunately able to quickly replace him, but then we ran into trouble with two other dps not hitting 85 in the allotted time. We ended replacing one and keeping the other after multiple promises that he would catch up and be ready to raid on time.

Well needless to say he wasn't ready to raid and we ended up pushing our first raid back a week while looking for a replacement for him. When we finally felt that our roster was solid again we headed into blackwing decent. The first raid night went horribly. We wiped non stop for three hours.

Again we made the decision to replace a few people for the following week. The top guild on our server had decided to switch to ten man, and only was allowing their officers to raid, so we were again lucky enough to soak some of their players in. We switched our comp around and a few people changed specs or even toons so that we could bring in some players that i felt would help with our progression.

The next night that we raided we downed magmaw on our first attempt, but moved on to hours of wiping on omnitron. The next night we had our holy priest (He's off speced in shadow. We run three healers to make things easier.) not show up and a melee dps decide that he couldn't handle the pressure of raiding at this time and say he only wanted to be casual.

So now we're again stuck in the position of having to replace people and call raids for the week. Our raiders are beginning to get frustrated not only with all of the wipes and lack of kills, but also with all of the calls we've had to make. We've gotten off to a really rough start, and now i feel like we're sort of stuck.

With only 1/12 bosses killed, and no progression as a guild in previous expansions it's extremely hard to get the quality players that we desperately need. The players that we do have right now are some of the most skilled players on the server, but it's the ones that we don't and keep losing that are holding us back. I'm not sure how to go about convincing people to spend their money to xfer over to a server and join a guild with no progression. I know what we are capable of with the right group, but why should anyone take my word for it when there's plenty of other guilds who are already close to heroics that they could join first?

Another thing i would like to mention is that i made a decision not to recruit people as benches and stick to a strict roster of ten people who maintain 100% attendance. So far eight of us have had no problem with this and they plan other things accordingly so that they don't miss a raid. Someone brought it to my attention today, however, that it would be easier if we recruited at least two of everything that we needed and then decide who is the best and sit the others. I really don't want to do this and don't think it's fair to ask someone to switch servers only to sit and do nothing and i'd really like to avoid resorting to this if at all possible.

So basically i have until next monday to find us another dps and Holy/Shadow priest. I'm really worried that the guild is going to fall apart. The bosses are not in any way hard, we've just been getting really unlucky with people. If we don't find those last two raiders and start downing bosses next week i have no doubt that people will leave to find a new guild. I want us to live up to what i know we're capable of, but i'm really not sure where to go from here.

Thanks again to anyone who takes the time to read and reply to this, it's a huge help to me.

[Irishboomkin]

Sounds like you are having similar troubles to me... *see post below yours*

Here is some advice that i have just realized... if you havent posted guild recruitment forums on ur servers forum page, MMO and Tankspot (if you are a donor) i suggest doing so... within 4 hours of posting my guild recruitment on my servers forums i had one app and a person in game whisper me for more information about my guild.

I really do suggest getting multiple players for the same roles (2 would suffice) this gives a little competition edge on your core 10 man raiding team... I know its tough "benching people" but if you sit everyone down and explain how you plan on running things most will understand that this is the best way to run things (imo)...

Other then those two things... make sure your not doing everything by yourself... promote another officer or class leader or something. For the beginning of my guild i did everything and now i want to rip my hair out. It is really stressful I know. Also don't be afraid to make other things in your guild to catch peoples eyes. Some raiders in my guild wanted to put together Arena teams and I had people whisper me if we participated in PvP on the side...

Hopefully this will help you... IMO bosses are kinda challanging (atleast compared to Wrath) so for most people it is going to take them a while to get used to it. Give them and yourself some time. I really hope other people respond to this topic for it will help my issue as well... If you have any advice for me please please please read my topic which was right below yours.

Best of Luck!

[Twix]

Here is some advice that i have just realized... if you haven't posted guild recruitment forums on ur servers forum page, MMO and Tankspot (if you are a donor) i suggest doing so... within 4 hours of posting my guild recruitment on my servers forums i had one app and a person in game whisper me for more information about my guild.

I have used various recruitment sites and i have received a few apps from them. We got one or two really exceptional apps, and a bunch that weren't what we were looking for.

I really do suggest getting multiple players for the same roles (2 would suffice) this gives a little competition edge on your core 10 man raiding team... I know its tough "benching people" but if you sit everyone down and explain how you plan on running things most will understand that this is the best way to run things (imo)...

Yeah, i guess if everyone but me agrees this is the best way to do things it probably is and i'm just being stubborn. However, now i have to recruit at least 8 more people who need to be raid ready by next week which is very difficult. Then, i have to decide who raids and who doesn't. I'd love to know how some other guilds handle this.

Other then those two things... make sure your not doing everything by yourself... promote another officer or class leader or something. For the beginning of my guild i did everything and now i want to rip my hair out. It is really stressful I know. Also don't be afraid to make other things in your guild to catch peoples eyes. Some raiders in my guild wanted to put together Arena teams and I had people whisper me if we participated in PvP on the side...

I'm not doing everything myself. The one officer i have is enough in my opinion. He helps me with everything and we pretty much share all of the responsibilities. I think in such a small guild one officer is more than enough.

We do other things together on the side. Almost every member of the guild is an active PvPer. I'm also willing to go back and get any old achievements people want, however right now we've all mostly agreed that we want to stay focused on Cata.

Hopefully this will help you... IMO bosses are kinda challenging (at least compared to Wrath) so for most people it is going to take them a while to get used to it. Give them and yourself some time. I really hope other people respond to this topic for it will help my issue as well... If you have any advice for me please please please read my topic which was right below yours. Best of Luck!

I don't think any of the bosses (other than maybe two or three) are really all that challenging on normal mode. They are very different than wrath, but really if everyone knows what's going on they're not hard at all. I think the problem is that we just need ten solid people instead of seven or eight and then switching in new people every raid.

Thank you so much for your response, i really appreciate it. I replied to your post as well, hopefully i helped.

I'm still looking for any other advice people have to offer. =)

[lument]

Another thing i would like to mention is that i made a decision not to recruit people as benches and stick to a strict roster of ten people who maintain 100% attendance. So far eight of us have had no problem with this and they plan other things accordingly so that they don't miss a raid. Someone brought it to my attention today, however, that it would be easier if we recruited at least two of everything that we needed and then decide who is the best and sit the others. I really don't want to do this and don't think it's fair to ask someone to switch servers only to sit and do nothing and i'd really like to avoid resorting to this if at all possible.

In my experience, this is a fundamental flaw. No one can have 100% attendance. Birthdays, anniversaries, vacation, holiday, stay late for work, death in the family, unexpected emergency, significant other requires attention, etc.

Instead, maintaining a roster of 15 people (being a 10m guild) means that you are always able to raid. What do you do when all 15 people are online? Rotate. You say your guild is capable of getting any boss down so when you've got the numbers and have 6+ bosses down, you rotate one person per fight. Everyone still gets to do 90% of the fights which is more than enough to keep everyone engaged. It adds a little bit of a management task to you as the guild/raid leader but in the end you have the numbers you need to always raid, everyone stays engaged, and you have some flexibility in options to help on progression fights. Using this method of rotating has been a revolutionary step for my own guild that helps us continue to raid through the normally low-attendance summer months and winter holidays.

edit: typos doh!

[Nicolin]

never been a gm my self have tried several different guild types thou and been officer in a few in my own opinion people have good days and bad days so recruiting more people for the guild would be a good idea or you might have some burn out from the pressure.

an idea is to get as they said higher up a good number do some rotations can be from week to week or fight to fight as said and make sure people who are not focused get replaced let them know before hand that it is okay to ask to be replaced if they feel they can't do the job 100%

make sure to have people on reserve for each raid reward them while they wait they wont mind (dkp /points /repair gold/ possibility's are many) have them be on your voice communication during raid so you can quickly get them in if needed.

seen this used in a few serious raiding guilds and it seems to work and it also seems to keep people happy ofc if someone simply fails every night you might want to replace them in the guild entirely or have a chat with them on what could be wrong this way you would seem like a caring guild leader that will help if needed

you might want to make 2 officer spots 1 officer with only one goal recruitment 1 for sorting the raid list/ rotations and you might want one to sort loot during raids so the raid leader can concentrate on the instructions they give.

sorry think im straying off topic here but i would suggest getting more people and rotate reward the ones on reserve/ bench