

newbie raiding guild help

#1CowologyPosted 1/30/2008 6:09:16 AM
Aight, so my guild has just started Kara but pretty much everybody (including the officers) are new to raiding. We're fairly casual (only going twice a week) and so far have only taken down Attunmen, Moroes & Maiden. We have 20+ lvl 70's who are keyed up, so far and are just now reaching the point where we have to start turning some people away when we go in. We're still kinda short on healers, but good on tanks & dps generally speaking.

What I wanna know is, how do most guilds handle the organizational aspect and decide who goes? I'm talking about after making sure all the required roles are filled. Seniority? Who shows up first? A rotation? I've heard somebody mention some addon that allows people to sign up, what's the name of that?

Also, do Raid Leaders typically set it to Master Looter just on bosses or have it that way all the time? Right now our Raid Leader does a random 1-10 roll to decide who gets the greens, is that normal or is there a better way to do it?

Basically I'm looking for some very basic tips or pointers on the best way to try and organize this thing or if there is a good guide or website I can read up on it that would be great. I've found a few good sites on boss strategies and think we're OK there. Hopefully lol

Entering into a guild where nobody really knows what they're doing may not have been the smartest move, but I'm here and plan to make the best of it. A lil help?
#2rhombencephalonPosted 1/30/2008 6:26:35 AM
If you're in the zone with potions, oils/stones, and flasks (because your guild is going to need them in KZ) at invite time you get priority. There is no substitute for being properly prepared and its never to early to start good habits.

As the GM for a guild that was built from the ground up after TBC and moved through that period you went through, I can tell you that its never easy and you will lose people. Just stick to your guns and move on.

As to Master Looting, you can set the threshold higher. Make it so only superior (blue) quality items and above are master looted and the rest is FFA. I actually ran it with group loot on. We rolled greed on all the greens and blues and everyone passed on the epics. We sorted it out as we went. If you don't have any tools in your guild, that can work.
-Al Maguire on Kentucky basketball tradition
#3Cowology(Topic Creator)Posted 1/30/2008 6:31:57 AM
Awesome reply. Thanks so much for taking the time to read that big ass post of mine and give a constructive response. Much appreciated. Hopefully I can get a few more people to weigh in in similar fashion.
#4abigservePosted 1/30/2008 6:38:06 AM
if you've got more than 20 people - reliable people - look at the makeup and get a second team going through kara. It's pretty much the only way to progress.

level 70 Human Warrior
level 70 Draenei Mage
#5Cowology(Topic Creator)Posted 1/30/2008 6:52:01 AM

The problem there is scheduling conflicts. It was hard for us just to settle on the dates we did due to work, school, etc. Basically we picked the times we could get the most tanks & healers to show up for.

But I could use a bit of clarity here - when you say a 2nd team are you talking about 2 groups of people working from the same ID and basically taking turns w/ progression or two simultaneous (so to speak) raids taking place? Because we definitely don't have enough healers to support two separate groups and are already PuGing priests at times (although we've managed to hook up w/ 2 dudes not in our guild who join us semi-regularly so there is some familiarity).
#6rhombencephalonPosted 1/30/2008 7:05:53 AM
Yeah, he's talking about a second simultaneous team. I do not recommend that at all for your guild.

Sure it sounds easy; get 20 people run two KZ's... but you've already hit the nail on the head, scheduling is a pain. Additionally, there's nothing worse than sitting in Deadwind Pass with 18 people and neither group can go because everyone is saved to a different instance.

I don't recommend trying to run a second KZ until you have at least 30-35 people in the guild who are active and available. We ran three KZ's routinely for about 6 weeks and it was a logistical nightmare.
-Al Maguire on Kentucky basketball tradition
#7frberPosted 1/30/2008 7:25:53 AM
One of the add-ons you can use to sign for raids is Guild Event Manager (GEM):

Its actually really nice but since it stores information locally on peoples computers (can't store info server side sadly) it has issues with people who sign and then log-off and don't log back on until just before the raid. If your guild has an OOC channel for instance that always has at least a few people in it then GEM works well enough.

Nice to have a tool in game for scheduling heroic runs on odd hours as well.

GEM only solves the signup problem though. Not if you have to turn people away. I guess its a sad part of raiding and the raid ID lock though. Its tricky to just start a group and go kill something. If some people do that on their own it might mess up the guilds ability to do raids until next week.

Generally if raiding is supposed to be fun as a challenge its best if the same team goes all the time and no rotation takes place. But thats not fun either if you get cut out.

Best is probably to take your best group always at first; and as soon as a fairly large chunk of Karazhan is beaten by the 'elite' group you can swap people in for the initial bosses. So raiding might be

Day 1: Newbie group does first 1-3+ bosses.
Day 2: Mixed group does 3-5+ bosses.
Day 3 : Elite group tries to do some new bosses.

So you would essentially have two teams working on the same instance. And people swapped in for earlier bosses as soon as people from the first group has the loot off them.
#8Cowology(Topic Creator)Posted 1/30/2008 8:06:06 AM
^Gotcha. I actually like that idea a lot. My only concern would be losing people while they wait for the "elite" to advance. But it seems very workable once you get the ball rolling and is something I'll have to discuss with the other officers.

I think I got some really nice feedback so far. Thanks again to everybody who's replied, it's been very helpful. If anybody else has anything they'd like to add it's certainly welcome, too. I'll check back later tonight. Peace.
#9hailkingmonPosted 1/30/2008 8:10:48 AM
Man, I need a good Kara guild that can fit me in... thats not already overrun with hunters...

Or would actually like a Hunter who isnt retarded in some way.
The gaming world is coming to an end....