Raid leading as the tank....

[Loganisis]

I know a lot of raid leaders are tank, but I'm finding this transition very difficult. I'm already trying to focus on several things, CDs, placements, unexpectedly large hits, threat (for the first 20 seconds), and a complete lack of understanding healers outside the obvious when people die.

Are there any tips, hints, or suggestions people have for managing a raid, mid-fight, when you're trying to keep the boss punching you in the face, but not through your face?

[uglie]

I Rl as MT and find it helpful even in 10m to have back up Rl if you will that just help in general. But i've seperated mentally the healers and the dps. If someone is dying repeatedly i'm looking as the death count thru recount and asking the "healing officer". I also try to not micro manage throughout the and will switch my focus throughout the fight. When it's heavy tank dmg i'm concentrating on cd's not where dps are standing (hint if they can't move out of fire on their own /wave good bye which you know logan). If externals are needed the healers will communicate between themselves. I have my timer caller that backs me up, my mages and shammy know when they should pop lust before we pull. Just little things to be handled by another.

It's a very high stress job for sure. Like herding cats with a gun to your head and if a cat runs off the trigger is pulled. Anyone taking this job needs to seek mental help soon.

[Quinafoi]

Any role will have it's pros and cons to leading because of awareness and what their role involves.

Calling out things like tank swaps or repositioning of mobs is something best suited for a tank because they are the ones doing it and its their job naturally so they are more aware of it. For example, if traps are spawned in an inconvenient place to be used, a tank is the ideal one to call out if the entire raid should shift on the Shannox encounter in order to align them closer to the traps they intend to use (assuming using the trap Riplimb method of reseting debuff stacks).

Calling out things like raid wide cooldowns for damage mitigation and healing cooldowns is best suited to healers simply because they are the ones most closely monitoring the status of the raid and the rate at which damage is being taken. For example, a healer would likely be effective for calling out cooldown rotations on Beth'tilac phase two.

Calling out target swaps or a reallocation of damage is best done by a damage dealing class because they are directly concerned with not just dealing damage but how that damage is distributed. For example, a damage dealer would likely be effective for calling out steering shifts on Lord Rhyolith in phase one.

Naturally a raid leader isn't going to be aware of everything but with practice and understanding of the other roles they can become a little better at it. However never feel like you are required to do something simply because you are the leader. If someone else is better suited to the particular task, let them do it instead. I listed three examples where all three of the roles, based specifically on what they are doing they would be the ideal person to call out orders.

Don't be afraid to delegate. At the same time, if you can do better, don't be afraid to take charge either...

[artie]

Our MT is also our raid lead. Planning is key. Officer prep meetings to cover strats and calls (and who makes them) before encounters helps to relieve pressure off the already stressful job of MT. They don't need be long. Just enough to get everyone on the same page before laying it down for the team. As was mentioned before, sharing and delegating of responsibility in a guild, in all aspects, makes things easier on everyone.

For issues during learning, the officers have an active log handy to check for obvious issues and discuss between pulls to adjust.

After the raid, a post meeting to discuss the issues, if any, and how to resolve them as a follow up helps for the next raid night. We usually have ours the next day to gain objectivity but still retain freshness (unless there is an immediate glaring issue).

Every encounter is different and having everyone properly communicate before, during, and after contributes greatly to success in all of our raids.

[Prucilak]

As a 10m group, we can have anywhere from 3-4 people making calls. This is what we were doing in T11, T12 is slightly different.

One melee/tank leader (me), I make the calls as to what the tanks and MDPS should be doing. Im watching myself and the other tank. I can also keep an eye on melee since theyre right next to me and its a role I know. I call out taunts and tanking related commands.

One healing leader, in our case hes the RL/GM. He makes the decisions on changes to healers, usually watching fight cooldowns and calling them out.

One Ranged/Melee DPS leader. He follows what the ranged and doing, offers input to the RL and myself so we can decide on what changes need to be made.

You got to have people in place you know can perform and you can trust. If they make bad decisions, do the wrong thing, change a strategy for the worse youre going to have problems. The 2-3 others that are there making the calls and helping are people Ive raided with since wrath. While players come and go, these are the guys I know that are around and I can trust them to help us succeed.

[Volitaire]

Myself as MT and our Lead heals handle all the raid calling. If there is something that we can't really cover easily we have one of our lead dps handle those calls. In the end if something isn't called anybody can call it but usually between myself and the heals we cover everything 99% of the time.

[Aggathon]

I'm lazy and didn't read what everyone else said, so if I'm repetitive, sorry. But I'm actually going through the exact opposite transition. The last time I was raid leading 25s I was a tank, and now raid leading 25s I'm doing it as a DPS, and ho-ly-cow is it harder. As a dps I have so many more things to focus on. As a tank, addons can help you what whatever you need and keeping a solid rotation isn't that important. As a DPS, I feel like I need to validate myself to the others by putting out top quality DPS, but I'm also watching raid frames, paying attention to mana levels, watching where the raid is. As a tank I pretty much just spammed my buttons not caring about the specific rotation and had a heads up display in addition to a red glow-screen effect that went off when I was low on health and well placed player frames that allowed me to still watch the raid and my status without much effort. As a DPS with a very exacting and sometimes clunky rotation, it is a lot lot LOT harder to raid lead.

[Quinafoi]

Aggathon, I believe what you are describing is more a function of the player than the role. For your personal experience you find tanking easier, allowing you more attention to be spent on other general awareness. For another player it may be a different story. For example if I were tanking I wouldn't have a clue about what else is going on because I'd have to focus more heavily on my own role because it is more outside of my comfort zone. Healing or DPS is second nature for me and I can do that while watching what else is going on.

[Airowird]

Having lead raids as about any role now, I'ld say tank leads is the 'easiest', closely followed by being healer.
As tank you can afford a bit of slack watching raid frames etc, you always got the boss targetted for seeing who he casts the random stuff on...
As healer, you're healing pretty intensively, but you need to know everything anyway. You should be watching raid frames and with debuffs enabled you shouldn't be missing out who to yell at to run away faster or stop standing in fires, you need to anticipate AoEs etc anyway, so you should be able to call those out,... so it's the least extra, but as healer you are really stressing out sometimes already, so I'ld pick a tank leader first.