Apparently, there’s a bit of a semantic problem many raid leaders are having. It seems that some raid members are unaware that when a raid leader notes that everyone needs to execute task X, that means…each individual member of the raid. That’s right. ALL members of the raid. Even if you think you know better. Even if you don’t want to do it, THIS MEANS YOU!
I’ve been bumping up against the THIS MEANS YOU monster a lot lately.
The place wherein this seems to be happening most consistently, and most annoyingly, is in raid fights that require DPS to switch their focus from the boss to the bone spikes/beasts/whatever or to interrupt or cleanse targets.
It’s not a lack of awareness on the part of the raid members.
When you say over vent, the expectation is all players need to swap to target X when it pops up, that is pretty clear. When you see said targets pop up and you remind folks over Vent and in raid to DPS those targets, at a certain point it becomes evident that some of your raid members have decided their meter humping is more important than executing the strat the rest of the team is performing.
And when you see a DPS raid member standing right next to a fellow player who is spiked, and not landing even a single blow to help break them out, you’d need to be Mother Teresa to not be seeing some red. Because at that point, that player’s disregard has become rudeness/lack of respect for the rest of the raid.
So why does this happen?
Because, quite simply, some raid members seem to feel their personal performance, as measured by the shiny numbers on the DPS meters, are more important than being a team player. The reasons I’ve recently heard for why folks won’t switch targets have included:
- It’s too hard to maintain DPS in my spec if I swap out targets
- My spec is AOE based, and thus I can’t help being on the boss the whole time
- I’m on the phone/have someone here/am otherwise multitasking and it’s too difficult for me to switch
- I forgot
- I didn’t hear you
The problem with the above excuses is they are complete rot. And they all show a lack of respect and courtesy for the other 9/24 people in your raid.
Debunking the Excuses
It’s too hard to maintain DPS in my spec if I swap out targets
Please do not cry to me that your DPS suffers if you swap targets. I am a shadow priest. My primary damage involves stacking up DoTs to do damage over time. My DoTs don’t have much time to tick on adds. Thus I usually mind flay as much as I can ‘til they die. P.S. Taking a look at my 10-man logs last night, somehow, I was able to swap to bone spikes and adds and still come out on top for overall damage and DPS. Above even folks who decided to stay on the boss despite being asked to switch. Remember this is a team effort—your DPS dipping for a few seconds isn’t going to cost us a farm boss. I promise. You leaving a healer bone spiked just might.
My spec is AOE based, and thus I can’t help being on the boss the whole time
Wouldn’t that mean you’d do some damage at all to the adds right next to the boss? See also the raid team doesn’t care if your DPS dips for a few seconds for you to do your job.
I’m on the phone/have someone here/am otherwise multitasking and it’s too difficult for me to switch
If you are too distracted by what’s going on IRL you should not be in a raid.
I forgot. I didn’t hear you.
I lump these two together as they are both incredibly lame. Your first time here? OK, I will cut you some slack. But do realize that to be prepared for a raid, you should have read up on the strat and asked questions to ensure you knew the expectations. If you didn’t hear me the four times I reiterated that everyone needed to do X, either your Vent client/speakers are not working or you have some wax to dig out of your ears. Or you are doing something else while playing.
How Can You Tell that Folks Aren’t Doing Their Jobs?
Did you know that when I or anyone else in the raid looks at the logs after the raid, or skada/recount I can see:
- What you DPSd and how much (you see this on mouseover on recount making it clear when someone is not switching at all)
- How much activity you had on each target/with each spell (i.e. they did low DPS but casted on it a sufficient amount of times)
- Who interrupted or dispelled, and how many times
This is how we can tell when folks are not doing their assigned task.
What’s a Raid Leader to Do?
Hold your raiders accountable.
You can start with polite Vent strat reminders mid-fight. If it continues, make yourself a RW macro that says “EVERYONE needs to switch to the adds. This means YOU %t”.
If, after those reminders, you still have someone not doing their assigned task, remind everyone in raid warnings before the pull of the expectation everyone must swap to target X. After the fight is over, call out the folks who did not execute the strat, and ask them to explain to you and the raid why they did not. Do not fill the silence gap if they don’t initially answer. Ask again if necessary. And be ready to boot them from the raid if they refuse to comply.
Raiding is a team effort. No one cares how well you do on the DPS meters. Especially if as a result you have people dying, or everyone else picking up the slack of whatever task it is that you would prefer not to do.
Well Nexxi, it depends.
* Leading a pug.
Me over vent: “Hey %t are you deaf or just plain stupid”
* Guild run.
Me whispering raid leader: How more wipes do we have to endure before calling %t out for not doing what he’s supposed to?
That’s what I love about pugs, I can be as nasty as I want.
Oh, Luli.
🙂
I always try to be civil. And I do appreciate receiving whispers from the raid members if someone is doing something (or not doing something). Ultimately, it is the raid leader’s job to call things out, but we don’t always see everything that’s going on.
As the OT, I’m usually tanking the adds which HAVE TO DIE. This post is near and dear to my heart. (cough ANUB ADDS OMG KILL THOSE FUCKERS WHAT ARE YOU DOINGGGG)
I know precisely who is actually helping me and who’s not. I got into the habit of looking up add dps on every WOL report because then I knew who to blame when adds didn’t die fast enough and kicked my butt!
I dislike calling people out because I like to let the raid leader lead without backseat driving. I do point things out to him when I notice them though, since I know I’m sometimes doing something totally different.
Instead of bothering him with whispers, I got into the habit of being talkative in party chat. Our group 1 is usually 3 tanks, a healer (the gm) and a top dps (an officer) – so Group 1 party chat is a great place to talk about what’s happening.
That way he can ignore me if I’m saying something he already knows – or he can thank me for pointing out something he had no way of seeing 😀
But Shadow Priests have no burst! 😛
Spikes are supposed to be down in 6 secs – On 10 man I might get two ticks of a channel spell, or am able to cast one mindblast ( if it’s on cd) One SWD ( which I do try and save for the spike) I do ok on the Spikes though because everyone else is slow so I get more time to do damage. On 25 I Sear Marrow and hit all 3 spikes for at least 2 ticks so I do better then. Even with lack of bursts things like target macros/aware of better spells for that particular target do help in getting the intended target down and if a Sp can do it, any class can.
Leading a pug and talking to random people like that reflects really poorly on your guild tag. I think it’s best to always be polite, no matter what the situation.
Heh, your comment reminded me of a VoA 25 pug I dpsed on my priest…we wiped because none of the ranged but a hunter and me switched to the orbs. I actually said the same thing to the raid – “If a spriest can switch the orbs, the rest of you can too!” Although, I think the main reason none of the ranged switched was because of the raid leader declaring, “If we wipe, I’m kicking the lowest three dps!”
I was amused that his comment actually led to our wiping, as people were so afraid of being kicked, they focused on only their personal dps, rather than what actually needed to be done to down the boss.
Totally. I have to watch that I don’t step over the backseat raid leader line when I am in raids I am not running. I usually say something in /o or /p so it can be dealt with efficiently. When I am running the raid, I want to know if someone is not playing nice, and totally appreciate the heads up.
EXACTLY! If you and I can do it, I don’t want to hear from any whiners about how it is too much of a burden for them to DPS adds like the rest of us!
It is so ridiculous when folks pull that “Kicking lowest 3 DPS” business. SOMEONE has to be at the bottom. Even if everyone does great DPS. There aren’t any ties when reading a meter. Doing good HPS/DPS is totally important. But so is DPSing adds, and cleansing/decursing, moving out of crap/etc.
And you made me grin when I read what you said to them. SP Power!
I have a hard time understanding the logic behind people not switching to adds that need to be killed in order to down the boss. No one cares about your dps on a wipe due to not switching targets! In fact, your dps is only going to piss people off when they see you never switched. Clean boss kill > higher personal dps due to ignoring fight mechanics
DPSers, please, take this post to heart. Being called out is embarrassing and not something (most) raid leaders enjoy doing…but if you keep ignoring fight mechanics, they are left with little choice.
He was a perfect example of a very bad raid leader, even if all his threats turned out to be empty ones. The next attempt, he said he would kick the lowest healer. When he didn’t get bloodlust right when he called for it, “If I don’t get a bloodlust right now, I’m kicking all the shammies in the raid!”
^signed
^co-signed! Totally agree with Naie’s comment and all of this post, Nexi.
Very well said, I like the idea of calling out the people who don’t do what they’re supposed to and make the accountable to the raid.
I have raided with people like this (that especially used the “but my DPS will go down”) excuse for not switching targets. I think the raid would have benefited had the leader called them out on it in front of the entire group.
I’m exaggerating Moober.
Naie can vouch for me, she was an officer when I was GM / raid leader. I never lose my temper or treat others poorly; actually most people found that the way I explained or approached wipes in a calm tone helped a ton. Though some said it was due to my accent.
Anyway, For the almost year and a half of raiding in WotLK. When I invite ppl to the pugs I do, if you told me you know the fights up to X, then watching you not switching to bone-spikes will make me kick you without much thought. I don’t mind inviting people with no experience, I’ve done it, I just don’t tolerate when they lie to me to get invited.
As a healer 99% of the time I know what’s going on and what failed on a wipe.
Truth be told, I’ve lost my temper once or twice, on such occasions, and that’s rare enough, so yea it was deserved.
Naie-Paie.
You must be the one that knows me best on raid leading duty.
Your unbiased thoughts??
I’ve never heard you actually lose your temper with anyone – there might have been some complaining in /o, but you kept it there. You were actually the best to lead raids, especially when there were mistakes, because the other raid leaders would sometimes lost their temper a lot with people.
/nods
I’ve even kept my calm with chatty alcohol happy raiders
*looks at Naie knowingly*
Guilds and guild leaders who comment on DPS numbers bring this problem on themselves. If you make your players think that their DPS is being scrutinized, then they won’t switch targets period. If they think that they will lose a raid spot because their number isn’t high enough, they will work to inflate that number. Even at the cost of a failed raid.
Meters are ruining this game.
You should also realize what limitations exist for classes, ranged just don’t seem to understand what melee has to deal with, you can be a turret, melee can’t.
Warriors should switch, they have peerless mobility and can start dps immediately.
DK’s should switch, they have no mobility, but can IT on the way to the mob and either blow it up single disease or open with PS.
Ret and feral are least likely to switch, ret requires 8-10s on target before SoV is fully stacked and feral rotations are so stupidly complex they had to make an addon for it. Now combine more “STAY ON TARGET” than Luke’s trench run on the Death Star with mostly crap mobility (ferals only get one charge, compared to charge/intercept/intervene or just death grip it over here, ret gets a speed buff only noticable when running back) and some dumb ranged (90% are) raid lead (90% of these are dumb too) who thinks that it’s ok for a target-leashed melee to walk to the other side of the area only to have what they were walking to die right as they arrive and have to walk back to the boss with all the debuffs they worked for gone.
Switching to a target in melee range (notstupid people getting spiked, prof parked by oozes) isn’t a problem but you will still see most high-end melee still not switch. This is because many times it will be dead before his swing timer/GCD lets him attack or WW/DS/Swipe/Pest/HC will get it
I think that’s an interesting POV, that it’s the guild’s fault that people meter hump. But that hasn’t been my experience.
Rather, in casual guild settings, such as the ones I’ve been in for the past 2 years, it seems that you have folks who are there to have a good time, and other folks whose enjoyment of the evening is directly correlated with being the top name on that DPS meter.
My guild doesn’t kick folks from raids due to low DPS (we do have reasonable minimums to be given priority). Yet we have over time had people who have absolutely refused to tow the line and swap over to other targets. And it’s typically been folks doing better DPS with that behavior, not those closer to the bottom.
I am totally aware we all have various liabilities on various bosses. As noted in this post, I’m a shadow priest. If I try to DoT a pop-up mob, it would be dead before I got my third DoT up.
As a raid leader, I don’t care if you get in a tiny bit less DPS. I do care if my team wipes on an easy boss because everyone thought their hot DPS was too important to swap to the blood beast or bone strike right in front of them.
I don’t expect melee to be super awesome DPS on fights that give them liabilities any more than I expect puking ranged DPS on Festergut to be my top DPS. We also try to have positioning that keeps those long melee walks from happening (i.e. we stack ranged on Marrowgar’s butt to keep bone spikes close at hand, other than our hunters.)
As a raid team member, it is your obligation to follow your raid leader’s strat. And if you are running with raid leaders you think are 90% incompetent, it is your obligation to yourself to find a guild whose strats and raid leading you agree with more to go raid with. Or better yet, if you know more/better, you should put together and lead a raid yourself! It might change your POV.
I dont let things escalate to the name calling/calling out stage, I just /boot or leave group myself. sooner or later they will get the picture or they will stop trying.
I personally think calling someone out by name as needing to please get with the strat, rather than just booting them for it gives them the opportunity to shape up. I try to give folks the ebenfit of the doubt — at the point the raid leader has asked someone by name to please change their behavior, they can’t claim to be unaware. If a person is just booted without being talked to directly, one can then complain about the mean raid leader who kicked them out, etc., without actually taking away from it that their actions were directly at fault. I’ve unfortunately seen first hand that many people don’t get the picture until/unless they are told directly to knock it off.