Raid Spot Rotation

[Miehkki]

Hello everyone,

Since the release of Cataclysm I've been leading a 10-man only guild, focused on raiding on a 3-day schedule at most. Unfortunately, since it's both 10 man and only 3 days, we're having a bit of trouble fairly rotating spots. Of course we can't rely on just 10 people, so I felt it was necessary to recruit more people, but now we're having trouble making up a fair system to rotate players.

For example, trying to focus on an optimal setup with good players when we started progress on Al'Akir / Cho'gall, we were rotating out people who had missed 1 or 2 raids before that as well. Naturally, this wasn't making them happier.

The obvious answer might be, if your players aren't good enough for those encounters, consider removing them. However, they are showing great potential and, in my opinion, simply need some more practice and/or gear to do their best, so I'd rather not use this solution.

What should I do?

[PurpleCarp]

Well to start it off, this all depends on what you truly expect your raiders to do. If you have guidelines about raids and expectations, which I hope you do, then they should obviously know them and respect that. If you have a rule about missing a raid, especially if they're someone the group tends to rely on a little more often, they should follow that rule no matter what. If you rotated some people out because they missed a raid or two, then they need to realize that you already rotated them out and they have to work to get that spot back. A lot of raiding guilds have a definitive rule that if you are expected to attend the raid, minus any unforseen circumstances, then you had better be at the raid. If you aren't or are even late, you can't expect to have that spot when you return.

If you have a lot more than 10 people and just plan on focusing on 10-man instances at the moment, then see if you can form 2 raid groups for the instance. That of course allows people to be in the group without having too much of a fuss. On that note, if someone or multiple someones aren't doing too well with a boss, they may be better with another boss, or just need to learn the strategy more, or need more practice. The gear comes with kills, so if they aren't killing the boss, they need more practice. Once that happens and the gear starts to come in, they'll be able to handle bosses a little easier in the sense of taking damage. But overall, they need to respect you as the GM and need to respect the rules you have laid down, and if they don't, then too bad.

[Miehkki]

Thanks for you reply, it was very helpful. We've decided to take your advice and make the rules and guidelines a bit clearer and more strict. A problem we've been running into where we wanted to give people a second chance, but we had to choose to either take them on a progress fight, where good setup/players were needed, or on a farm raid, where the bosses are 'easier' but our core raiders need gear from. For now, we'll just be a bit more strict and rotate in where possible.

Thanks again!

[junialum]

During the progression phase you do want to keep your main 10 together and have them geared. Spreading loot around slows progression down.
Again it depends on the nature of the guild. Is seeing some content more important than pushing content? Keeping everyone happy more important than guild progression? These priorities must be thought through, set and very clearly put forward so guildies have the right expectations.

[penpen002]

Just keep in mind, you can't make everyone happy.

[Skarrzog]

Sorry my post was meant for another thread.

[Noridapriest]

I personally want to make a raid guild and my idea like the guy above was have multiple groups, and then each group have a few alternates.