Rebel's 25M Thread

[Rebelogic]

I hope to address as many points as possible within this thread, so forgive the length of this first post

[Berms]

At long last! About time to try to return to the 25 man scene.

I don

[Mythosaur]

I am all about getting into 25 mans, just the pulling more of the guild together into one group increasing bonds is worth it alone. I am sure with all the dedicated raiders we have pulling off this feat will be of no issue.

[Lyntha]

I would like to help out where I can rebel, even if it's small stuff like coordinating trash pulls or tanking assignments. Let me know if I can help.

Regarding loot: I don't care what loot system you guys decide on as I raid for the fun, not the purps, but I do have to point out that I think that doing a loot council with random non-officers involved sounds like a terrible idea. In all of the high end guilds I've been in, they've all used an officer loot council and its always worked great because the ones deciding the loot are, well, officers. They have the advancement of the guild as their number one priority and gear people appropriately. When assigning gear, you have to make hard choices like "yeah our 100% attendance awesome healer just got 4 pieces of loot recently and the 66% guy didn't get shit but what's more efficient for the raids progression, gearing the guy who will be there when we need him/her most or gearing the guy who won't". Same thing with dps, are you gonna gear up the guy who consistently tops meters, or the guy who consistently stinks it up (class equality issues aside of course). I don't foresee some non-officers making these choices correctly in the battle of Equity vs. Efficiency. If there ever is an issue where an officer is showing favoritism regarding loot, it should be quickly fixed by the other officers. That's why its a loot COUNCIL and not a loot dictatorship

Another thing, don't go with some silly totem pole system or something, go with something that will gear the raid in the most efficient way possible imo.

[Rebelogic]

I would really prefer the idea of doing a loot council. In the past, the only drawback of this system has been the time it takes to make the decisions. Imo, it should be done quick so we can move on to the next boss. I am leaning towards a group of 3-4 people per run who do the council. From what Thrai said, it would be nice to keep it just between officers. However, the loot that everyone gets should be pubilcly displayed in some form on the site so everyone knows who has gotten what on whichever day. This will keep people more honest and ultimately help the loot council make decisions faster. Also, to Berms's point, do not wait for loot to be distributed, keep pulling trash so we can get to the next boss faster. This speaks to the point I made earlier about delegating people to mark/pull and do other duties.

[Boredman]

This is a bad idea at this time, In the the middle of content you want to halt progression to experiment with new people and people we all remember from ICC as not being the greatest. Also your mixing two struggling groups with bad attendanve in hopes of getting what exaclty? Maybe this would work better in 4.2 but for now I feel this is a waste of time.

[Lyntha]

This is a bad idea at this time, In the the middle of content you want to halt progression to experiment with new people and people we all remember from ICC as not being the greatest. Also your mixing two struggling groups with bad attendanve in hopes of getting what exaclty? Maybe this would work better in 4.2 but for now I feel this is a waste of time.

Read rebel's words here:

Now, for the last couple months, we have seen some steady progression with the three ten man groups. However, there have been a few setbacks as well. For one, we have become a little fragmented within the groups. We are usually looking for someone to fill some spot on different days and often we have to gear some new people which cause experienced raiders to have to sit, etc. As a whole, it puts a strain on the groups because the new guy is a mystery as to whether he is going to pan out or not. On the other side, we have a lot of people who are fully capable of raiding, but we don't have the space for them in a 10M group format. Those players get frustrated and don't show up enough because they know they won't get spots. The perception of such raiders begins to unfairly decline and we end up not being able to count on them for filler spots when necessary. Ultimately, everyone loses out. Another drawback to our current system is that the input a new or experienced player gets in a 10M more often than not is limited to the members of the 10M group they ran with. If group 3 gets a new player and asks how he can improve after a trial raid, only 10 people are there to give input because some intangible things can only be commented on if seen within the raid environment. That player can ask advice to someone in another group who plays his class but that player never saw him in action.

It would be one thing if we had 10 or 11 100% attendance raiders but right now we don't and having two or three people different every night is going to impact a 25M raid (2/25 = 8% of your raid) a lot less than a 10M raid (20% of your raid). I don't know which would be best but I see Rebel's logic. I'll personally be raiding and there 100% regardless of what is decided

I would really prefer the idea of doing a loot council. In the past, the only drawback of this system has been the time it takes to make the decisions. Imo, it should be done quick so we can move on to the next boss. I am leaning towards a group of 3-4 people per run who do the council. From what Thrai said, it would be nice to keep it just between officers. However, the loot that everyone gets should be pubilcly displayed in some form on the site so everyone knows who has gotten what on whichever day. This will keep people more honest and ultimately help the loot council make decisions faster. Also, to Berms's point, do not wait for loot to be distributed, keep pulling trash so we can get to the next boss faster. This speaks to the point I made earlier about delegating people to mark/pull and do other duties.

This forum ate one of my posts! I wouldn't mind helping out by running the raid through trash-clearing as I said so that the officers can focus on gear decisions.

To speed up loot council, make sure who can use the upgrade first. One of my old guilds would prompt everyone who could USE an upgrade (Regardless of other factors) and the officers decided who got the item. So for example:

"/rw MS Roll [Awesome sword of Awesome]

The people who could use it roll then the officers decide in O chat or whatever who gets it. If nobody wants it for MS, they go:

"/rw OS Roll [Awesome sword of Awesome]

The people who could use it roll then the officers decide who get it. This also guarantees that your raiders who raid in multiple roles (Like a DPS who heals on healer-heavy fights or a tank who dps's on single-tank fights) get geared up before your raiders who only play 1 role, as this will help the guild progress faster.

[Rebelogic]

As I mentioned in the concerns section of my original post, a big fear of mine is the progression halting. However, trying it out for a day should be a good chance for us to get some farm bosses out of the way so that the 10M groups can come together on later fights. The idea is an experiment at first and if it works, it will work very well. The key is to have an open forum with people. Currently, we don't have the capacity to say, "Hey, you are messing up, we are going to sit you.", eventually however, we will develop that ability. It is true that some of the members of group 2 and 3 have been coasting a little, but in a 25M format, we have to set a new standard otherwise it just won't work. It is all about giving it a shot and seeing how things go. I kind of feel weird writing this as a response to Boredman's post considering he was more excited than anyone else when I mentioned the possibility of doing 25M. As it stands, we do have some new people we will be forced to go through, but as we have proven with the Server First Realm 25, we have the group mentality to get tasks like this done. Now we just have to focus on getting people to live up to their expectation.

[Boredman]

I was excited but then I had flash backs of ICC and the content wasnt't anything like it is now and we struggled, I just hope the leadership is strong enough to handle sitting people, and being a little mean for the good of the group.

[Nyrdy]

I am all about getting into 25 mans, just the pulling more of the guild together into one group increasing bonds is worth it alone. I am sure with all the dedicated raiders we have pulling off this feat will be of no issue.

This is my sentiment, pretty much.

Firstly, Rebel, your first post is really well thought out. I think it shows a lot about how much you'd like to see this happen and how much you're willing to put into it that you took so much time to explain and go over a lot of material. I hope it inspires that dedication in everyone else.

Secondly, I haven't been able to raid with you guys as much as I'd like to, but every time I get into a 10 man it's always a good time, and things get done. That, to me, is what raiding in this game is really about, and while there are off nights, even those are a good time. Thanks for making raiding enjoyable for the first time since Vanilla.

[Polished]

25 man is poop. Takes too much time. People waste time that are in the raid because they are no following simple directions. People pay attention to meters in reality they are a joke. People are overlooked only because they don't call attention to themselves and act like an ass. In conclusion, 25 doens't ever go smooth because rules are not followed, exceptions are made and the system kills itself.

[Guest Memer]

It all looks like good stuff to me. I'd like 25mans more if i didn't get the little bit of lag, and it's less personal. I know you'll want to know everyone in the groups strengths but i mean... It is 25 people. I agree with there being a 25man for this guild to gear out some of the awesome people we have that don't raid and bring the guild together maybe, but I personally luv my 10mans and all of the pew pew glory they rein down upon the enemy npcs

[Pwnzi]

People are funny. If you give 25s an honest, thorough chance I can almost guarantee the guild will benefit as a whole. If you're expecting to go in there and not wipe on farm bosses, you're mistaken. Keep in mind you haven't raided as a 25 man (woman) unit in some time. It'll take time to adjust to the differences in the 25m format. There are numerous reasons why the vast majority of successful guilds (something I assume ATR is vying for) run 25s rather than 10s... ATR will benefit from these same reasons. Give it a shot, go at it with an open mind, and don't be afraid to fail initially.

[Likesitruff]

Domitor better be on the roster

[Varibash]

Gonna agree with pwnzi

[Unholy]

[quote name='Phobi

[Berms]

Domitor better be on the roster

Only raid he'll show up for is BT.

[Viledead]

I think it's a great idea - wish I was active to join in!!

Couple quick tips - all generally based on what makes a 25m successful and fun for all:

- schedule breaks - and keep it on schedule. Helps a lot of people who have kids, smoke, bio, etc etc. Without scheduled breaks, random AFK`s are constant. Chain AFK`s really hurt 25 mans. Recover fast - wiping shouldn`t result in AFK`s.

- what was said earlier - sitting people for lag, making the raid wait, low performance, bad attitude (no matter what the performance is) is very important.

- have clear raid leaders on vent. In 10 mans, often the raid is "led by committee"...can't happen in 25 man. Having 6-10 people all talk about revising boss strats constantly leads to 20 minutes between wipes

- for the raiders - don't constantly /w the raid leaders. Save it for out-of-raid - but do help them if there is a tweak to strategy that will help or you notice someone else doing something wrong that they haven't realized. If you correct that person directly and are not a raid leader, you'll usually get an unfavorable response.

- if you have a choice between two people - and you have to sit one, sit the person with lower attendance generally (except for massive skill differences). There are alts in the guild who can only make occasional raids - it's not good for the guild to prioritize them. Take them if you have a really poor performer - someone who is actively causing wipes repeatedly.

Good luck and I really hope 25 mans work out!!

[Rebelogic]

I really appreciate everyone's response to this thread. Tuesday is probably patch day so I will be hoping for the best when it comes to actual raid time. In recent patches however, with smaller content releases per patch, giant server lag and/or late maintenance hasn't happened, so I am hopeful.

Keep the suggestions coming. As much as possible, even when we start the actual 25M, I will try to keep up to date with an official 25M thread on the forums. It is here that we can actively discuss things that are going on and how we can constantly improve, etc. It should be open and Un-PC. However, I do ask that you be objective and positive when you post (people have been good about that so far). Say things like, "I noticed the mages don't use ________, this post from EJ _______ mentioned it is a good idea, maybe it could help on this boss ________, etc. A post like that is much more effective than, "Man, that Wili keeps trying to hide from a blind dragon." Haha, I think we beat that joke to death.