Well, so it looks like our guild leader might be quitting WoW soon. Maybe not quitting for good, but he did say he won't be able to put as much time into leading raids.
This doesn't bode well for us, as evidenced by the guild's horrible performance the other night.
The night started out good, we cleared some easy quick bosses without wiping, everyone was happy and ready to move onto the next challange. But the guild leader had to log off, putting another officer in charge. Things just went downhill from there. People were confused and the guy in charge was equally clueless. The worst part was the long, long downtime between fights which frustrated everyone, including myself whose dinner grew cold (well it was a sandwich so it was cold anyways) while I waited and waited for the long-winded and rambling explanation to be over with. After a few pathetic attempts we called it a night.
My first thought was, "I could've run that raid a lot better", with my reasoning being that I knew the fight. I had done it several times before, I'd watched the videos to study up on it. I grumbled about the temporary raid leader's incompetence.
But then it dawned on me that if I were in his place, I'd probably be equally incompetent. Because he was the tank, whose job is probably the most important and most demanding, especially for complicated fights where adds are spawning left and right and you need to kite the boss back and forth. My job is to DPS the boss and dodge whatever I shouldn't be hit by. I have never tanked before, I just know what the strategy is based on wowwiki and youtube. Actual execution, I imagine, is much more difficult.
On top of that as raid leader/tank you need to be on top of everything. You need to call out the adds, call out who's taking too many hits, who gets heal priority, who needs a dispel, all the while keeping threat on multiple mobs everyone is trying to nuke and moving them around specific locations. I don't know if I could handle all that.
What I think I could've done, was to explain the fight more concisely and make decisions with more confidence - sometimes you just have to say, "Ok you tank the adds and you assist me with part" instead of saying "do you think you can off-tank or should I do it? Who can assist me with the dispels?" Democracy is nice, but it takes twice as long and people just end up frustrated after long debates. The temp raid leader was totally lacking in that. By the last attempt I was ready to throw my headset at someone.
I have a lot of appreciation now for our guild leader. He can tank, he knows the fights, and he delegates. And he's patient (at least until 3 wipes or so) with people who aren't listening or just don't have a clue. When he's no longer available to lead raids for us, I'm not sure what will happen. Best case scenario, someone equally competent will take his place, but looking around at the people in the guild I don't see that being likely.
Could I do it? Probably. Do I want all that responsibility and general headache? Not in a million years. I might just have to find another guild and make some new friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment