I've been following discussions on these forums for quite some time, and usually found information on anything I felt I needed to know nicely laid out for me and analyzed into oblivion - just the way I like it However, there's one problem myself and a few guildies have been faced with lately moreso than before - a general lack of eagerness to use consumables.

As a little setting for our particular situation: having started MC and BWL fairly late, and being very forthcoming toward gearing up alts and such, my guild never really got to take advantage of the days of selling epic MC/BWL/AQ40 drops, or capitalizing on having an abundance of cores/ores etc. We basically used anything and everything as it dropped. This brought us to minor issues in Naxx (in which we cleared Spider/Abom wing, and were working on Loatheb, aswell as obviously having Razuvious down.) - supplying flasks for tanks on consumable-intensive fights such as Patchwerk or Loatheb was a pain. Low bankroll in the guild bank = no consumables supplied. You get the idea. We outplayed it in the end, for the most part.

In our Karazhan groups, we haven't had any problems getting people to bring consumables - the groups are fairly tightly knit and as such the "shame" would be pretty big for not performing at your best, I suppose.

Fast forward from Karazhan to Gruul - no consumables. I mean none. Except for obviously on the two tanks (we supply our own consumables since our guild bank is at this stage basically inexistent), and the odd shadow priest, and 1-2 mages that feel like showing off. I'm talking good attempts here (16%), where we end up sitting at 18-19 growths in the end, and people just won't take the consumable hit. Replacement is not an option, they're the best players we have, and re-learning an encounter for people on an encounter we don't even know 100% yet is out of the question. I'm not an officer, so it's not even like I have any kind of power in enforcing consumable use, but as you can imagine, frustration is growing in those that do use consumables deliberately, because they are now feeling like it's a waste, since nobody else "pulls their weight."

A lot of people still seem to be under the impression that gear improvements will alleviate this need for consumables - to my understanding, they are sadly mistaken.

So now, rather than being asked to go in there night after night with near-futile attempts, what can I do to explain the need for consumables to them in irrefutable, simply understood terms? Keep in mind, I'm not complaining about the fact that there's a need for consumables here at all, I don't mind using them - I love seeing small numbers when I'm tanking, and huge ones when I'm dpsing, I just fell for this min/max game I guess (though it's definitely getting a little out of hand) - but alot of guildies just seem somewhat apethetic.

I guess what I'm asking for is a concise way of explaining to them why it's imperative they use consumables. I'm also hoping to god that we're not the only guild running into such issues, that would just make this all feel all the more shortbus. /sigh

Pardon if this may have come across as rant-y at times, just trying to make sure I get all facets involved in this across. And yeah, tl;dr, I know.

As far as motivating people to using consumables and actually urging them to farm for themselves, seems to me like the wrong way to go about it. I'm not sure what type of DKP system your guild offers or uses, but our guild has weekly "DKP Turnins" that are a big hit and help keep the guild bank full. The guild bank is stocked with all of the different types of flasks and most all of the dps pots that we will need for any given raid, which are handed out to the class leaders and then distributed down to the rest of the raid members. Maybe some type of incentive in the form of DKP would help to motivate your guildies to farm, so at least they get something to show for them, other than a little more AP/spellpower.

The fact that you got Gruul to 16% yet people refuse to use consumables is absolutely mind-boggling, is there some kind of Officer override being given out here? Surely they see that with consumables you would have a corpse, and if that isn't enough motive for your raiders then there's something seriously wrong with them O.o.

Point to that situation, and pound it into their heads that Gruul would be dead if they used consumables is the best thing I can come up with atm.

Tanth, we used to have a positive-sum dkp system, which resulted in atrocious dkp inflation and dkp hoarding - so with the arrival of TBC, we went with zero-sum. The GL and I have been discussing ways of working such a weekly turnin into a zero-sum system (i.e. top 3 people turning stuff in get X amounts of dkp etc. etc.) - but we keep running into issues with abuse of such a turnin system, or general lack of interest in it after a while. Believe me, this is a stubborn bunch we're talking about here. :/

Edit: we also tried the "bring consumables, or don't raid" approach .. but yeah, if a whole class decides to not bring consumables, it doesn't leave you much of a choice. Sending in consumables without reward? "Well ... I could be selling them" - obviously.

Pyrul - you're speaking my mind exactly, hearing me on vent after that wipe once I realized noone had popped consumables even though we had called for them to be used previously couldn't possibly have been fun. And believe me, I've been trying my very best to convince them, but on the nights when we do burn consumables, there's always someone that decides to ride the shortbus at excessive speed on the oncoming traffic lane, after which noone pots up anymore because .. well .. we might wipe again, right? Right? You see the dilemma I'm sure.

I think the people in your guild should use consumables.

Now you can go to your guild and say "The people on the Elitist Jerks forums said we should be using consumables".

Beyond that, I'm not sure there's much we can do. There's plenty of data on this board about the value of consumables and their role in the raid game, but your issue sounds more like a problem dealing with the particular politics of your guild. Keep emphasizing the importance of consumables, keep trying new ways to make your point, and good luck.

Perhaps the others in the guild have seen consumables for the rat race they are?

I dunno, I just find it kind of weird that in half a dozen threads we have people crying out for comsumables to be toned down or even abolished, all beating their heads on the brick wall of having to farm for twice as long as you raid, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET US OFF THIS TREADMILL...

... and in this thread we have someone wondering how they can best feed their friends and companions into the same meat grinder.

Takes all sorts.

I think it would be best to start off explaining to every person in your guild why consumeables are such a huge difference. Post on your guild forums with the right numbers of how much blue -> epic gear increases their damage, and how much consumeables increase their damage, afterall they might not even KNOW how big of a difference it is.

If that doesn't work, I think Bekah's idea is fairly good. Make it mandatory to have x elixers with you, else you dont get into the raid. Need those people? cancel the raid due to shortage of people with elixers. It sounds harsh and it is harsh, especially for those who did farm, but this way the pressure on the people without elixers is ALOT higher. Right now they just get told to bring consumeables, but if they dont nothing happens. When the entire guild becomes pissed because you are the reason a raid is canceled, I suspect there will be a slight difference in attitude.

some steps we did in change for burning crusade was:
- buff pots are your business farm them and bring them, only thing was a reference list per class given for orientation on available buffs
- bank supplies tank pots
- if the bank is low -> ALL boss gold goes to the bank until certain level is reached again
- on good performance boss gold is spread to the raid
- if you dont buff when the raid-leader anounced to buff you forfeit your chance on loot for the night (trust me, once you disenchanted an epic this really works out)
- Loot-Council instead of dkp

on another hand, you could mathematically point out the economical plus on using buffs.
- you safe 2g+ / wipe on the repair bill
- you safe time
- you safe buffs, sounds strange but if you buff after the 2 "wipe to get awake and recall how the encounter works" tries the chance to win an encounter is far higher with buffs then without

especially the new flasks are a great gain/investment as long you do more then 8 tries in 2 hours. not even talking about old flask (titans/supreme power) which are ridiculously easy to farm now that all ppl run around outlands. can you say 6 black lotus in 2 hours?

I think the solution to this problem depends very much on the type of guild you're in. In Juggernaut we make it very clear what is expected of our members. My guildmates are usually rabid enough about it that I don't even really have to enforce consumable use, but if I had someone that just refused to use any on a difficult progression boss, I'd verbally rip them a new asshole, drop them from all attendance, and swap them for someone that is going to pull their own weight. If they don't like it or they don't get the picture, they can find a new guild. We've made it clear that Juggernaut is a guild for people that want to treat raiding competitively. If you don't want to treat it competitively, clearly you don't want to be in the guild.

Obviously I would never react this way to someone that simply did not have enough free time to farm consumables on a given week. We just expect people to put the guild ahead of their in-game character, and do what they can with the time they have available to play WoW. But if someone is intentionally choosing to sell needed consumable materials on the AH over using them so the guild can progress... Yeah, they're going to get an earful.

Now that is the harsh, Sebudai-brand of consumable enforcement. My "leadership skillz" have been a little e-infamous in the past, and I understand that it is not for everyone and there are other ways of getting people to do what you want them to do. To me this really comes down to your guilds leadership and what type of guild they intend for you to be.

If you're a serious raiding guild, your options are very clear to me. You need members that are serious about raiding and are going to do what it takes to be a serious raiding guild. If that's what your guild has decided to be, then your members either need to be serious about raiding, become serious, or you simply need new members. Raiding is a team game to me, and there is absolutely no room for selfishness. I will not put up with the online version of Terrell Owens on my raids. Everyone is expendable, including myself.

If you've decided you're going to be a little less hardcore about the raid game, my best advice is to work something into your attendance tracking/loot distribution system that rewards people for donating materials for consumables. There are a lot of advantages to being less rabid about raiding, but there are drawbacks too. Having trouble getting people to use consumables on raids is one of them.

Whichever type of guild your guild has decided to be is fine, aslong as you make it perfectly clear to your members what is expected of them. If a member isn't meeting the guilds expectations, perhaps there is another guild out there that is more suited to their style of play.

EDIT:
Yeah, I'd say the first step, regardless of which type of guild yours has decided to be, is to make sure your members understand just how overpowered consumables are right now.

I think the biggest irony in this thread is the title. How exactly is forcing people to accept that they've hit the top and will never progress in raiding without spending lots of time doing other boring stuff supposed to *improve* morale?

"Grats guys! We've beaten everything that's possible without mass consumables. Now let's all agree to double our online time for the rest of our playing lives, so we can continue to progress. By the way, you'll need to keep farming for pots long after we've defeated the encounter and got bored of it"

Real booster there, makes you feel all fuzzy inside. The prospect of willingly entering the situation where you have to farm consumables just to stand still in terms of progression is anathema to any sane individual.

I'm sure people will now look me up on the Armory and demonstrate that my group's not beyond the first part of Karazhan. So what? I've seen the state of TBC 25-man and I want none of it - you should ask your guildies whether they feel the same. I'd be willing to bet that in the majority of cases it's not an unwillingness to farm: it's an unwillingness to farm *when they know in advance that they'll never be able to stop*. Big difference.

On a general note: I feel the same way about this thread as I do about the "how to go hardcore" thread. You're taking a very selfish attitude - guildies are friends, not sheep to he herded into doing X, Y or Z.

The answer to the question "How do I make people do <foo>?" is always "You don't."

There is nothing wrong with not wanting to farm consumables, you just can't expect the rewards gained by doing so. Currently those rewards very often include raid progression.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly, but the point at which we're all just farming the same thing every week and waiting for new content so that we can progress again is a long, long ways away. There isn't a single guild in the world that doesn't have any progress to make raid-wise right now, and there won't be for many months atleast.

Right now, if a really good group takes lots and lots of potions, they can kill Gruul. By all accounts, in three months time of farming Gruul every week and making progress in SSC, the same group will still need to farm pots in order to kill Gruul. If they don't pot up, they'll wipe, no matter that they've been farming him for quarter of a year.

So the consumable requirement isn't a temporary thing, it's permanent. Signing up to *permanent* farming in order to be able to kill bosses you mastered the strat for three months ago? Count me out.

As I said in another thread, I think a sane baseline is: "Once your group puts an instance on farm status (i.e. you regularly kill all bosses in it), that instance should be defeatable with vendor consumables only". We're so far from that baseline that you can't even see it from here.

Killing Gruul does not give you the necessary stuff to kill Gruul. That's the problem. With the early instances, once it was on farm status you could do it without consumables. i.e. half the raid in Tier 1, and you can clear MC without pots (other than health and mana pots). Half the raid in Tier 2, you can kill Nefarian without pots (other than health and mana pots).

Any instance that doesn't hold to that is a place I just don't want to go. Farming not only for progression, but also simply to stand still is soul-destroying.

That is not true at all. People are already killing Gruul with minimal consumable use. Better gear will absolutely make Gruul easier. Outside of just learning how to run away from people, the whole encounter is a dps and max hitpoint test. Both of which are directly improved by better gear.

The only problem with Gruul is his place in the raid progression scheme. There is absolutely no reason a guild that can kill Gruul now will have to use consumables to keep killing him 3 months from now.

Raid Leading 101? <---I seriously read that image at least once a month because it never cease to make laugh.

My old guild had a consumables list that was required for each class. The list would included DPS pots, health, mana, and buff foods etc and if you didn't bring those items you were kicked from the raid. It sounds like you just need to start actually checking people for consumables and kicking them from the raid if they don't have it. And if that means you don't raid as a guild that night, so be it. And as Bekah said, go easy on them at first as to which items are required.

You seem to have a lot of issues that don't really relate to the discussion here.

Consumables are not overly fun, we pretty much all want them to be fixed in some way. Blizzard is aware of this and is looking at ways.

But the fact here is this guys is in a guild, a different guild to yours, that IS trying to kill Gruul. They are not currently able to do this because some of the members wont use consumables.

The guild needs to get all the members to use consumables if it want to get Gruul down at this stage. That's the way it is. If they are not happy with this they have to adjust their goals for the time being. They can wait for consumables to be fixed, wait for the encounters to be tuned lower. But they cannot expect to kill Gruul now. And the members that want to progress, and the members who are using consumables, cannot expect to be happy with this.

So they need to find a way to get people using consumables, for the time being at least. And he's asking for suggestion on that topic.

I don't know what to suggest really. It sounds like you have a lot of established members who wont use consumables. You need to wait it out and hope for changes, or accept that the guild wants to move in a direction that can't accommodate these people anymore. And you need to make that clear to them so they can decide whether they want to start using consumables or find another guild.

Choices:

Find another Guild
Find another Game
Find another Encounter


There you go.

If you are absolutely determined to kill gruul week in and week out in his current state - it's going to require 25 vaguely competent people, in level 70 gear, with their two tiers of consumable "gear" stapled on before the pull. You're also going to engage in a strategy that does not in any way feel intended. That means you need to find 25 people willing to meet those requirements, either in your current guild, or elsewhere. That means finding another guild, even if you "find" it by having your current guild change. At the moment your guild isn't willing to do it.

If you don't like or can't stand this, then you have two alternatives.

You can quit. Wow is a game, and it's not even the best game out there - there's other stuff that's far more rewarding in many ways than wow. Shocking, I know.

You can focus on the parts of wow that are not retarded (personal oppinion regarding two tiers of disposable buffs in a competitive endeavor) and see the incredibly well polished leveling side - if you haven't rolled horde/alliance, there's literally no reason not to - the draenei/belf zones are amazing. You could focus on the 5v5 arena - where you'll get gear similiar to the raid gear, potentially a very snazzy epic mount, and the same level of elitist nonsense found elsewhere without the two tiers of consumable gear.

That's your choices. Pick the one that applies to you.

You're not going to be able to "force" the other people to play your way though - so make your decision based on what you will be doing, not on "how can I get them to do what I want".

The main issue your guild is presumeably having is that they fear potting up and having someone fuck up will waste their resources.

So I suggest you stick a raid on the planner with the following notice:
"everyone bring flasks. Serpentshrine after, Screw Grull"

...why don't you ask specific people why they aren't using consumables?

Nothing, except for the fact that this guild is trying to kill Gruul, and thus I assume they want to be a more cutting edge raiding guild. Which currently requires consumables. And the fact he mentioned that it's a topic that he's discussed with the Guild Master, a person who is reasonably significant in determining what the focus of the guild is.

Of course if it's just him he should consider:

A: Giving up aspirations to kill Gruul at this time.
B: Finding another guild.

The problem is that his guild isn't behaving rationally. There are many, many guilds out there that have killed Maulgar and cleared Kara, and are just sitting around waiting for 2.1.0 to bother with Gruul and Mag. They want no part of flasking a raid or potting up, either out of principle or because they know that a lot their guildmembers wouldn't follow through with it.

Other guilds are using pots (not necessarily raidwide flasking for Gruul, but definitely some heavy pot use, etc.) and are progressing.

Right now it simply irrational to keep wiping to Gruul after 18-19 growths without using consumables. Either they should use consumables, OR they should give up on Gruul for now and wait for him (and consumables) to be retuned in 2.1.0.

If nothing else I'd try to strike a compromise and convince a few people to make gold donations, buy the mats you'd need for the potions and try to down Gruul at least so you aren't forced to play catch up if potions/flasking/etc... ever become reasonable and can just step right into SSC instead of having to spend 3 weeks on gruul playing catch up.

It's not like he drops any gear worth really farming. Can get comparable shit via Arena's.

I've found that people are far more willing to part with 50 gold which you just pool into buying herbs, rather then getting them to actually farm the stuff.