Don’t give us none of your aggravation
We had it with your discipline
Saturday night’s alright for fighting
Get a little action inGet about as oiled as a diesel train
Gonna set this dance alight
‘Cause Saturday night’s the night I like
Saturday night’s alright, alright, alright-Elton John Saturday Night’s Alright (for fighting
You worked all week, or went to class and now it is raid night! Oh yeah you are going to get your Raid Boss Punch In The Face on. But wait a second, there are twelve signups and you guys run ten mans. Here is the problem with being a raid leader sometimes, you need to ask some people who want to raid, not to because you don’t have the spots. So how do you tackle this problem?
In Eff the Ineffable we have hit an important milestone about two months ago, we have more raiders than raid spots and that means as a raid leader I realized we needed a system in place to make sure that everyone is treated fairly. The system I devised with input was to do a “most recent to sit is guaranteed a spot” on content they are ready for. So to put it another way the longer you haven’t had to sit, the more likely you will sit.
The Benefits
If you are in a raid setting where you have conflicting schedules and more participants than spots it is important to make sure that any ten people who form a viable raid are prepared on fight mechanics and have had ample chances to gear up. But to do that you need to spread the love.
In ICC before we switched servers we hit a point where we couldn’t bring new people because we needed to blow through the first half in one night, but that also meant people couldn’t get the gear and experience they needed to make sure they could blow through the first half in one night.
By having as much as possible the “who sits” question shared among everyone you get a larger pool of qualified raiders when you start hitting harder and harder content. Obviously raid viability is paramount so if you need a healer take a healer, or if a certain raid night would not be possible without a class who can do a certain ability take that, but by and large you should strive to have attendance by role approximately equal.
That even includes raid leaders. Over the two months Alas and I have both sat on nights we are available to raid because it is the fair thing to do. This has the added benefit of helping to train more people who are capable of leading raids.
The Takeaway
When I look at Eff the Ineffable’s raid team I don’t see 10 raiders, I see 17 at the moment. I know that not everybody is going to be available for every raid, but I have an obligation to make sure that none of the 17 raiders are left behind if they are willing and able to attend raids. Sharing bench time is just as important as sharing raid time. It makes people have to adjust to new class compositions, which makes them understand the fights in better detail. It makes raiders appreciate the raid time they do have that much more and I think we get better results from it. So if you are leading a program remember to rotate your raiders out and build up your raiding depth as a result.
After a seriously bad period where we were cancelling 2-3 raids a week due to lack of bodies I’m back to dealing with the “too many raiders”. A problem I would much prefer to have. Currently I’ve got 20 on the roster to pick from however with the differing sign rates we effectively have 12 raiders once the four week sign rate is looked at.
The way I’m addressing “who sits” is to have the spreadsheet of doom, on which signs, cancels, standby etc etc is all tracked and except where we’re pushing a particularly hard boss (Cho’gall fell this week) I will aim to spread the standby slots around the different roles and ensure that no one sits two raids in a row and where possible everyone who signs gets to raid at least once a week.
It’s a juggling act, pretty colours and spreadsheets help
We keep a sit out spreadsheet as well. Too many raiders for too few spots is preferred to not enough raiders. There have been some grumbles here and there, but by and large I think everyone realizes it is the fairest approach.
We have 13 for a 10 man team, and we run a “bench list” – if you’re signed up, online and ready to go at raid time and you volunteer or lose a roll-off to sit for the night, you go onto the bench list – and you don’t bench again until everyone has benched. We use a dualspecced tank/dps and a dualspecced healer/dps to cover for nights when someone in one of those roles have to bench. It works ok most of the time.
I like having the bench list because otherwise the DPS are generally the ones losing out every week – this way it forces us to bench the tanks and healers. And it gives the backup tank, healers and raid leader a chance to practice
Yeah we bench tanks and healers in order – as we can. Sometimes we can’t do it on schedule because we just don’t have enough tanks and healers signed up for that night.
Ooh, I like this concept of the bench list. We’ve just managed to recruit up to the point where we’re sitting somebody every night instead of failing to raid because we only have 8 or 9 online. While I much prefer to benching to not raiding, I’m going to have to work out a way where the pain gets shared. My raid leader will have his own opinions about the team he wants when we’re pushing new heroic bosses, but I’m going to have to balance it out somehow.
I wish more raid leaders followed this idea. One of my biggest gripes with raids that have too many people is that the officers, not just raid leaders but officers, were always GUARANTEED a spot. I have left every guild I’ve ever been in that has done this. You can’t afford to clique with a team of officers like that.
If you have 10 people for 10 spots and everyone shows up every week, then yes, you can guarantee spots. But people who want to be able to skip a raid whenever real life calls (like all NORMAL people) cannot then come in and demand guaranteed spots for every time that they DO show up. You can ONLY have guaranteed spots with guaranteed attendance.
You bench by raid? By lock? Or by week?
I have chosen the weekly option, but tbh I fear that is too long and cause some bad blood.
Would like to hear from someone with experience on this subject, hard one to tackle in the beggining.
Thanks in advance
We bench by raid, and we currently do 3 raids a week, so being benched for 3 raids would be a lot. Having said that, being “strict on schedule” is not wise when you have people of differing gear levels and differing needs. We try to be “smart” about it, and make sure people who need gear get to go on farm nights, even if it is their turn to sit, and then they take their turn to sit later in the week. Often, people who do not need something on farm night will volunteer to sit out and take their bench turn, and that will solve that.
I couldn’t agree with Jaedia more! I recently left a guild for that reason alone. 2 10s merged because some folks had to leave for rl issues and there were only 3 non-officer spots left. I called bullshit on that right then and there!