World of Warcraft®

Posting on an alt for reasons id rather not name. I started a guild a week after dragon soul came out. A bunch of friends and (Fiancee) made a core and we have had some trouble with "progression".

I am the type of person who would love to hit heroics. I want to be a progression guild as we do raid 3 nights a week, 4 hours a night, 12 hours a week. The start of our little core we had trouble getting people to raid consistently. We are a newer guild and have not raided with each other (together as a whole) and a couple of people we have has only raided back in BC/Wrath (but used to be realm firsts)

Last week we finally hit deathwing. Due to errors and glitches we werent able to down him. Glitches such as getting him down to 4% and he reset with people still alive. I fear that was the only time we would see death wing as this week already we are stuck on warmaster.

Is this normal? Does newer guilds have trouble getting to heroic progression? Am i stressing because I am stuck in a hard place? Making the mistake of bringing friends and having trouble telling them no they cant raid?

Make no mistake, we research on our days off and try to progress on our raid days, but its frustrating. I am also a dps so calling out stupid stuff like.. hour of twilight pop your buttons... fading light on X and Y pop your buttons kills my dps. I could easily be doing 35k+ but instead i am only doing 25k while having to pay attention to meters. I should not be the voice of DBM. It is hugely frustrating because well.. I am a competitor ... Being last is not an option for me... I hate it and the more i go into raids the more I get burnt out...

Wipes can be a teaching lesson.. but consistently doing things over and over is heartbreaking. It seems I am at a low point. I am the GM and raid leader of a guild whose main goal was to progress... That went down the drain and I hate it...

It's little things on each different boss. Some have weakness's like switching from target to target (Warmaster). Should i switch the low dps out on that boss? Would that be cruel or unfair?

What sucks is they are trying.. I see it.. Constantly reforging to get their dps up to par.. Constantly searching for things on elitist jerks even though one says they dont understand it..

I find myself doing most of the help.. Finding warlocks to help our warlock.. Comparing the top guilds world of logs with ours to better help.. If i dont understand their class or know it by heart i research it even though i have never played it i find myself knowing their rotation more than they should... but that comes easy to me i am a number cruncher.. i can visualize things and make sense of it without having to actually do it.. should i feel bad for not wanting to do their job for them? I don't mind helping but its time consuming

I would like to get my new mage some pvp so i can start rbgs with the guild.. but i find myself spending my free time helping those that need help.. Which is fine i knew that this came with the job GM/RL.. but .......

7 hours i spend on here each day (because of how i work)... My days off? 12 to 14 hours... Spending on here just talking to people telling them to research.. comparing data and logs taking people through lfr.. at least 5 times a day ... HOt's.. Heroics...

I just don't understand what to do.. Yes i can remove them from group and live with them being upset forever.. But sadly without the achievement of downing deathwing as a guild.. Noone with skill will join the guild. The fact that we almost had him last week numerous of times was heartbreaking. The guild did it and we almost had that achievement of satisfactory .. our pain .. our sacrifice .. our glory .. gone ..

I am ranting because if i dont vent now I will probably just break down and cry :\ weeks after weeks after weeks.. constantly wiping.. I even leveled up 2 alts in 1 week on each character for the guild so we can progress.. Healer and a DPS (Was a tank)..

Am i being selfish? How do i take my friendship aside and be the hardass? How do i choose who should come and who shouldnt when they are trying? How do i tell them that their trying is just not good enough? I want to raid with these guys but its becoming problematic.

Blah.. Recruiting, Telling people how to play their class, Farming making sure we have flasks in the guild for cauldron.. getting ppl to fish so we have seafood.. im doing everything
I find myself even doing world of logs and comparing other peoples stats to better help them.. You need more of this.. this % should be this %.. I have to research their classes

The warlock... god i love the warlock shes a kind hearted person but when i asked her to explain to me her dps she said... i spam 8888888888 and then i press 1 and then i press 3 and .. ugh.. its just what do i say to that.. i had to go afk ... i could of just yelled and bantered and just went all dramatic but i held my cool said brb researched some more and came back with a positive attitude...

Fact is the raid leader who left us for his heroic progression guild.. said she could come after i repeatedly said shes not fit for dragon soul just yet.. he left the guild after telling her she could come.. she was so excited.. So i spend most of my time just helping her.. being that great guy who helps..

We Increased her dps by 10k.. but still its not good enough for maddness.... theres 3 ppl that do worst in warmaster...

My top dps doesnt know how to soak and my 2 ranged isnt the fastest switchers... its problematic and... im going from A to B to Z back to A.. repeating myself in this post lol.. ill stop ranting maybe someone can break this down for me as I have gone mentally insane ... and its only been how many months and yet we are level 15 with nothing to show forth as a progression guild.. No achievements to recruit skilled players... no FL 7/7.. No 8/8 DS .. and I am ... just tired ... I know to me achievements shouldnt be what the guild is about but to get the people i want... it is sadly.. it is

Everyone plays differently its tough on you but im sure people who are kind hearted and helpful will pick up on some of the things your doing yourself in the future. As for raids some people either A dont have the motivation to do better learn their class or improve in general and B some people just need a chance to learn the content even if you have to recruit sub par players. I hate how everyone judges guilds/players on achievements theses day when recruiting or joining a PUG or guild Hardmode its all stat slapping and minmaxing and running away from fire its not like your computing pie while curing cancer its a raid and some people need a chance to shine wipe a few times and see if it improves take a deep breath relax remember its just a game and have fun!

... You haven't done heroics before.. obviously and you don't have a clue what it takes to make it. Just because you slap on.. 3 nights of raiding doesn't mean that your group will full clear ds and in a few weeks be ready for heroics. In this day an age. ITs actually better to have just 2 nights of raiding. Condense it down.. keep the stress down.

I have 3 raid teams in my guild who have full cleared ds. They all run 2 nights. Now they can single clear Ds in one evening. RAiding 12 hours doesn't mean your going to get better.
IT just means your going to burn out your members faster. And if you don't understand lock mechanics.. as a player.. ...How can you raid lead? I am not saying you have to be an expert in every class in the game... but you need to have an actual interest in what other classes do.. so that way as a raid leader.. you can utilize what all your players can do to make those fights better.

I have always had 2 tanks.. but I learned early on I had to learn about all the other classes because they all have abilities to help me in my role. So why not learn about it.

I see many small guilds like this... inexperienced overcondfident folks who think its easy to just slap together a team and set this really high goal for themselves and then boom when the reality of the challenge sets in.. they get crushed on their own self pressure.

Focus on your raid team having fun.. and Downing bosses. And I Think your overall enjoyment plus the raid teams overall enjoyment will increase dramatically.

Note my Teams do plan on getting into heroics but they dont' plan on rushing into it.. they have logical goals..they can achieve. As in learning to walk.. via normal.. then confidently striding into heroics when they are battle tested and geared properly for it.

Worry about your team getting ds down week after week..when you guys can 1 shot it.. week after week.. in 1 night.. then you can start thinking about heroics.

It's definitely stressful leading a guild. There's a lot of things that factor into the downfall of a guild that aren't even related to World of Warcraft. A good example is the classic "We have our one or two guys that are the best people in this guild, they do the most damage or healing and we rely on them heavily, but than they quit the game / guild and we can't replace them."
I've seen perfectly good capable guilds get flushed down the toilet over power struggles between officers; random members "Falling in love with each other" only to lead to internal drama; you name it.
It's bad enough to deal with all the things that come from managing a gaming community and than on top of that have the game itself totally screw you over now and than (We don't see this much nowadays, but in burning crusade, having your core 10 people that could clear Karazhan, but than being forced to recruit over double that number in strangers to move on totally messed with your guild community)

It's one of the reasons I've taken to leading guilds myself, as I can usually deal with all that stuff, know who to appoint in charge of what, deal with people pulling low dps, etc etc. Personally we're doing pretty good, we're working on heroic dragonsoul, we've been together a long time, had our ups and downs but it's been a generally good experience.

I can say tell you this though, the success I've had with my current guild comes mostly from me not making certain mistakes in how it was founded. I'd been in so many guilds previously that I knew what sort of people to avoid if I didn't want to have awkward "oh you don't do enough damage..." later on.
Lately though, I tend to have a lot of the old problems. I remember working on heroic Yor'sahj, and dps would really need to be pushing it as hard as they can, than you have a mage standing in the back just not doing enough. You know he's a good player, he's done it before, what do you do? I brought it up to him and he had an excuse that he's moving to much to sustain good numbers. Where personally I know that shouldn't be a problem on a fight like yorsahj, I don't play a mage, I can't call him out on that properly without someone else to help me.

Telling someone off for not being good enough is something I'm not used to having to do, and there's definitely a fine art to it, and takes certain kinds of people.
But If you're going to run anything, weather it be a small business, a club, a WoW guild, really anything with more than 5 people and a common goal in mind, you HAVE to learn to be the bad guy sometimes.
You HAVE to realize "Well, this one guy is a great guy and he's really trying, but crap, these other 9-24 other people are also giving it their all and they gotta wait on this one person to pick it up..."
You gotta know that if you're not the first person to bring up a problem, or bring down someone for not doing their job, someone else will do it for you. They may not do it in front of your face, but they'll be thinking about it, and it'll come out in other ways, ways that may not be productive towards your party.

That's the thing with running guilds is that it's about efficiency. All of your members have to pull their weight in some way, or the entire thing won't work. If you end up doing all the helping, than what happens if you one day just can't?
It's a fine line to walk, but I guess that's life. I can't really offer any better advice, and I know it's a bitter realization, but I got it for what it's worth.

What spec is your warlock?

We definitely do not have an 8888888813 rotation and there's obviously an issue there.

What numbers does she pull up?

There's a lot of little tweaks that warlocks can do to improve their DPS (and I'm going to assume she needs some pretty big ones). Also, add ons, add ons, add ons. The number one friend to any warlock. If she's dealing with few add ons and/or a bad UI, that will hurt.

Sounds like you are shouldering too many responsiblities, which is understandably very stressful.

This is exactly the kind of thing a good officer core can help you out with. Promote your good players to officers and demote the ones who aren't top notch (even if they are RL friends).

With this new core delegate responsibilities, one can be in charge of making sure mats are farmed (maybe someone with a collection professions alt, or someone who can organize other collectors in the guild). Have another research fights and post strats/videos on your forums and make people read it before going into a fight, watching a video really helps a lot more than having someone explain it on vent before a pull. Maybe even give someone else the responsibility to lead raids, you can always chime in and help out but this way you can focus on your own dps more.


Having a good officer core and delegating duties will solve 80% of your problems. Do NOT do everything by yourself.


Now, with regards to subpar performances from RL friends... you're doing the right thing, most people in your position would not have had the patience to deal with them in a positive manner. Set up a list of expectations you have from each role or even class in your raids. Healers should be within a certain percentage of each other, DPS should be above a certain number on certain fights (use World of Logs to find averages for acceptable DPS). Once you have expectations in place and make it clear to your raiders, they will have a goal to work towards and if they don't, you have something to fall back on when benching them.

You should try spamming a recruit macro in trade chat, you'll be surprised how well it works. There are a lot of skilled players out there who are just waiting for a chance. It's not hard to get geared up and be competitive enough to join a progression guild via LFR. Just invite people on a trial basis and go from there.

These steps might feel like you are taking a step back for a week or two, but I guarantee you it will dramatically improve not just your raids, but also reduce your stress levels.

Good luck!

Hey hey OP,

You're not the only one in your current situation, the anxiety, the stress, the frustration - the feeling is all mutual.

Allow me to be honest and give you a quick & simple answer to your main issue: YES, this is a common problem faced by small, newly-established, 10-man guild with only ONE raid team.

Let me share with you our own examples so you could better appreciate the above conclusion.

In our guild, we have enough guildies & raiders to make 3 separate 10-man DS raids.

i) Team 1 raids 2-nights/week, 2.5 hours each night; started the Tuesday night DS was released; raided every week and only full cleared DS last week.
ii) Team 2 also raids 2-nights/week, 3-hours each night; also started the week DS was out; raided every week and only downed Ultraxion this week.
iii) Team 3 raids 1-night/week for 3 hours; started after the New Year's, and on 1/8 HM.

Now Team 3 is probably the raiding team you desire. But it is only made possible because our guild has more members. It doesn't mean we have better raiders, it only means we have a larger pool of people to draw from.

Team 3 raid leader can pick & choose the better quality ppl from the Guild roster without angering other raid teams. This is possible because of different raiding times.

My point is, when your guild has only 1 raid team and the guild was founded on the basis of a single 10-man raid, you are limited by availability and selection. Besides, even if you 10 solid players, you would still run into roster issues from time to time when real life affairs flare up. And if you have 5 extra ppl on the sideline waiting for raid rotation, it'd be tough to keep them waiting on the side week after week.

"Hey guys, just run a 5-man heroic this week or the next while we try to fit you in ..." That ain't gonna work for long.

**NOTE** Our own Guild Master was also a raid leader had a similar if not EXACT experience you described above -- he was so burned out that he quit the game. What you typed above fit the story he mentioned much later.

Ok would you believe me if I said I know exactly how you feel? Lets start from the beginning and try to help you a little bit. My guild started about the time ToC was going to be released. We did dungeon grinds and the like to get to raid by the time we were ready ICC was out. We did dungeon grinds again in order to start raiding. Our problems were people were unaware of how to raid. We tried to help it just did not work at all.

We had different types of ppl in our raid. Some, like you and I, look at everything, try to understand all mechanics, learn every way a class can react to said mechanics, etc. Other ppl cant even get their heads out of their asses to even learn the bosses name. When cata first came out it was a nightmare we couldn't even get the first tier down till the nerf bat. After a falling apart of a few ppl we had to recruit.

We did a little more grinding and were on our way to firelands. We had decent progression through firelands, but again we couldn't do it until the nerf bat. Now in DS my raid knows each other. We have now killed deathwing and will start our heroic progression soon.

Tips: 1) I know that you like everyone who you raid with, and it seems cruel to sit someone out when they are trying hard. Some people just aren't and never will be raiders. Everyone needs to have the same want and desire as you. That means research on classes, mechanics, etc. You knowing the fight doesn't help your friend who doesn't understand it at all.
2) Don't be a raid leader and a guild master. My gm keeps the guild happy and deals with problems. I lead the raid tell ppl what to do, when to do it. The Gm and I work together great, and we distribute loot together. !@#$ rolling for gear RNG rolls don't help progression.
2.5) Don't be afraid to assign people to call certain things out. Example: on ultraxion i have a dps say when to pop buttons because healing gets intense on that fight at some points and we need to pay attention. Having ppl assigned to call things out does a couple things, it requires said person to learn the fight and to pay attention.
2.5.5) Stick to the classes you know. If someone in your guild is awesome at their class make them a "class leader." example: hunterA is amazing so hunterB shall ask him hunter questions.
3) Don't be afraid to let a little frustration out. If someone is messing up repeatedly call them out on it. Sweeping it under the rug does nothing, if they can't bother to raid properly don't bother to bring them to the raid.

Honestly, the toughest bit is finding out what your identity is as a guild/raid, often it is not what you thought it was. With Deathwing down, you can at least toy with a few of the easier heroics, just don't have any high expectations, take it as it comes. I have experienced this in the past with previous guilds, you can only progress as far as people want to, you end up with 3 or 4 players who are unbelieveably good, another 2 or 3 that wouldn't hold you back, and the rest who aren't the greatest players, but you love them to death, you kind of can't imagine killing stuff without them, but they could also be holding you back.

Some players, like yourself are progression first, I'm sure your talent backs that up, and like most progression first players, you want to bang it out before it's trivialised in a new expansion.

Most players however, are not progression first, they are loot first, as in they are keen to raid and progress as far as the loot takes them, they work hard in raids, but could work harder, and you might find now that DW is down, their main concern is clearing DS each week until they are head-to-toe 397, at which point they'll be ready for the new content to roll in. They'll give the Heroics a nudge, but if it doesn't come off quickly, they'd just as soon faceroll normal, that sit there and wipe repeatedly on a guy they'd already killed.

There is also a group who are just there for the experience, the loot is of little consequence, they just want to raid with some good friends, get some kills and have a good time.

I'm a bit like yourself in that I pride myself in being able to do the thing without being told/warned, one mistake is one too many as I see it. But what I've come to realise is that in spite of these traits, I'm not prepared to run with different group of people to try to do so. When the time came to choose progress over friendship, I chose the friendship, it was totally sentimental, but when all is said and done, there are very few games you can play with 10 (or more) other friends simultaneously.

From what I've heard, in order to get all those heroic kills, you need to be ruthless. You don't want to try do this with friends, you want to do this with strangers, because when that boss is punishing that one minor mistake and you've wiped for the 20th time that night, you want to get angry at someone, and when you do, you know that the person you blew out at is just as angry at themselves because they are hyper competitive too. I'd read somewhere that the guilds chasing the world firsts were averaging over 100 wipes per kill, I'm sure that number has dwindled witht he nerfs etc. but if you're getting mad on wipe number 4 or 5 with good friends who aren't great players, imagine how frustrating it would be on wipe number 20 or 30 with great players, irrespective of your friendship with them.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with any of these three groups, nor your desire to be in any one of them, but ability within each group can vary greatly, and unless everybody is determined to go 8/8 in Hard Mode and potentially wipe 50 or more times on each boss before a kill, you are kind of banging your head into a brick wall. I say accept your friends as they are, really enjoy the time you spend raiding together, and maybe look around and see if you can get your main into a hard core progression guild, and run with your friends on an alt, you do enjoy running with them I am certain.

If you can find a guild that is pushing hard for progression, what you will also find is that those runs with your friends, become all that more enjoyable, because the pressure is off, you are seeing the content you crave elsewhere, you can really appreciate a relaxed raiding environment.

Long story short, don't fret, there are plenty of guilds that are going through this, but if you can work out what your identity as a guild/raid is, then it will become easier to differentiate between what you want from the end game, and what your raid can achieve, and once you've worked this out, you can really start to relax and enjoy the ride.