Zifna

Hello,

My name is Zifna. I'm the guild leader of Resurgence Theory, a guild that got into Hyjal/BT about three weeks ago. We raid 5 nights a week for about 4 hours a night. We've been doing very well, 3/5 Hyjal & 5/9 BT, but I know that much of what we have cleared thus far is the "easy stuff." So, all's good so far, but with a number of our raiders cutting back their schedules to make room for classes as college starts up again, we've found that we need to recruit new members.

Unfortunately, the recruitment pool right now is shallow to say the least. We've been bumping our recruitment thread for some time on the WoW Guild Recruitment forums. I would think that we'd be fairly attractive with our progress in Hyjal/BT, but there are so many guilds looking for players right now relative to the amount of players looking for guilds that we haven't had nearly the response we had a few months ago when we were just another SSC guild attempting Vashj. Of the few people who have approached us, I think perhaps one is in a guild progressed enough to have killed Vashj, or has killed more than Void Reaver in Tempest Keep.

In addition to this problem of scarce and undergeared/inexperienced players, we add the extremely poorly ideated Hyjal/BT attunement process. In order to spend any time on new content we have found that we can run only one of the two T5 instances a week, so we've been alternating SSC/TK. This means it takes a long time after we recruit a probationary member before we can see them in a real raid... not only does this make the pinch of scarce members even harsher, I worry that it puts pressure on us to accept members that are not quite at the caliber we'd accept otherwise.


Judging by the flood of posts by BT/Hyjal guilds on the front of the WoW Guild Recruitment forums (I see 17 BT/Hyjal guilds recruiting on the first 2 pages) I can't imagine that we're alone in being frustrated by this situation. How have you guys dealt with the question of how to acquire and attune trial members while still leaving time for progression?

 

Stormheart

Overrecruit

Basically, what we did was recruited 6-7 people who we thought could perform, took one week and attuned all of them at once, and then stopped doing SSC/TK.

That allowed us basically to have 30-35 people on every night and now we make solid progress and are working on mother.

Basically, people have to be willing to sit in a high end guild. Fights like gurtogg and reliquary and mother just require so much raid stacking compared to the other stuff, that you need extras. Your going from a 3 tank 9 healer fight to a 1 tank 6 healer fight to a 3 tank 10 healer fight.

Basically that means you need at least 12 healers and 21 dps, if you assume 10% absences. So in otherwards, recruit several very good unattuned apps, attune them all at once, and then try only to recruit attuned people.

 

Skulli

Just recruit people with "ok" gear and push them through t5 content.
If you are done with that then they can get almost every loot.
Like i wrote in another topic, we raided ssc/tk every week since first kill and only missed 1 kt kill the week we killed illidan. It wasnt that bad for us to recruit people then.
But we also raided 6 days a week and sometimes we extended the raidtime by 2-3hrs.
Usually 19-24 and sometimes 2-3hrs more.

 

• Shifft

It's tough. We've had barely enough people on for raids from the beginning of BT through Illidan. If any of your members have friends, now's the time to get them over. Post threads on guild recruitment and world of raids, but generally the apps you'll get will be....less than stellar. It also depends what classes you're looking for. I don't know how it is on horde-side, but for alliance you're just not going to find a shaman unless you poach them from another guild. Druids are incredibly hard to find too, as are decent warlocks and shadow priests.

The best advice I can give is pick people up no matter what class they are if your raids are shorthanded. Raiding with 25 sub-optimal classes is vastly superior to raiding with 22, so don't be afraid to bring in funky raid makeups.

 

Calgar

That's about your best bet...is grab 6-7 people of various classes, take 2 nights 1 week and get them all attuned, and pray they are good enough/show up enough to hold you over.

 

james

Read the thread on finding another guild x-realm for some good places to advertise.

Attunement is a real problem - but here are some recommendations. Get instances off other guilds - there's several on my server who just haven't killed Vashj or Kael yet, and are happy to give us their semi-cleared instances late on a Tuesday night, right before the reset.

Alternatively, organise "joint" runs with other BT/Hyjal guilds on non-raid days. My guild couldn't get a raid going on a Saturday, but between several guilds (and their alts), you'll probably be able to get a run going.

It's funny, as stopped doing SSC/TK, we started taking people who weren't even in our guild to get attuned. Just on the off chance. It's worked so far - but 6-8 weeks later, we're a lot trimmer.

Sometimes it's not just about numbers - sometimes it's about balance - having 4-5 people on standby and not being able to get together an optimised raid because a tank isn't online. Salvation for us has been Resto druids getting tank gear. In the past we relied on alts for raid flexibility but doubt this will be possible again until Zul Aman.

 

Lumines

Same thing with us Zifna. Lately we've been relying on our core members to show up for raids as some people had to quit for RL stuff since fall is here. Also there hasn't really been any decent apps lately even though we've lowered our expectations and took out the Vashj's vial requirement on the guild recruitment forums. I recommend doing SSC/TK every other week when you get a nice batch of apps despite your members hating those 2(90% of my member does). Keep reminding them that it's for progression and should be worth it in the long run

Traek for Moonkin '08!

 

Metrosexuelf

You vastly overstate the difference gear makes between players who have only been farming BT/Hyjal for three weeks and people who are working on SSC and TK. In terms of seeing people in 'real raids,' there is no reason you can't evaluate a player's ability on Tier 5 content especially when Vashj and Kael are arguably harder than early BT/Hyjal.

If you are having trouble with numbers, then yes, you will have to lower your standards and make yourself more attractive than the other guilds that are recruiting. By that I mean don't have exceedingly long application periods. Two or three weeks is sufficient to see how a person handles themselves in a raid. Don't have oppresively skewed DKP systems that block out applicants for months and months like I know some guilds have.

My old guild, Indomitable, collapsed with 3/5 Hyjal (and Azgalor at 4%) and 4/9 Black Temple around two months ago because the core of players was simply too small to sustain raiding. Don't let your position lull yourself into a false sense of security. Progression guilds need a solid base of players to draw from to form raids. Ease your requirements, make yourself more applicant friendly, and slowly separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

◊ EllTrain

The recruiting pool is definitely bad right now.

What helped us was downing azgalor and gurtogg. Now our recruitment post says something like, "Recruting for Reliquary and Archimonde" -- which is a pretty appealing prospect for newcomers.

Updating our recruitment post with this information brought a swarm of apps our way.

 

Exigent

Sometimes you have to take a step back before you can move forward. As the other posters have stated, I'd suggest picking up a handful of exceptional applicants regardless of their attunement status and power them through the process. Use your judgment, of course, and don't try killing Lady Vashj or Kael'Thelas with 10 new recruits all at once as that sort of punishment for your current members isn't worth the reward in my opinion. We had success with keying 3-4 new players per SSC/TK each week when we were recruiting more actively.

Congratulations, you guys are in Hyjal and Black Temple. Unless something unexpected occurs, you're basically a few weeks away from beating all of the content currently in game. While it might seem critical to put all your efforts into plowing new content in the two zones, remember that it's only a matter of time before you're farming the zone and you have extra raid days to mill about or clear older content like SSC/TK more freely. I'd suggest not trying to limp through BT/Hyjal and focus instead on bolstering your raid force. In the long run you'll be better off.

 

• Playered

Find Progressing guilds on your server who are not doing Vashj or Kael, steal their instances where possible to get the last boss only, makes attunement easier.

 

songster

Well, ask nicely and buy rather than steal, but that's certainly one way of speeding things up

 

civatateo

We've used other guilds instances before with their permission. Typically we use the 2 nethers we get from Vashj or Kael to make a belt for that guild, and sometimes one of their raid leaders asks to come along to see how the fight is done. It works out pretty well.

 

Zandig

This is something Zifna has been trying to set up with other guilds from our server, with limited success. Bloodscalp's raiding population and environment are a bit behind other servers. There is only one other horde guild (or alliance guild for that matter) that has downed Vashj, and they are currently spending all 4 out of 5 nights a week in TK. They raid similar hours to us, so being able to get TK instance from them cleared to Kael would likely be quite the challenge, since most of our raiders' bedtimes coincide with the end of our raids. Vashj is more likely, as there are several horde guilds with 3-5 bosses down in SSC.

I think this is a fantastic idea, but as per above, our server progression keeps this from being a possibility, at least for the time being.

This is also an interesting idea, that I feel is limited by our server progression/raid interest. We've more or less given up on recruiting from our own server, as we get few to no applicants when we try.

I completely agree here. In fact, we have done this on numerous occasions since the release of TBC. Our first Magtheridon kill, for example, had an alt warlock in it. Unfortunately, as you stated, bringing alts to Hyjal/BT is not as much an option as it is to bring them to the earlier instances, both due to gear related issues and the issue of keying. The other point you hit on that is very relevant is that there are certain classes that are simply more "necessary" than others. Last night was the first night since going into BT/Hyjal that we had to simply cancel raid, and not due to numbers, but due to composition. Doing the Gorefiend trash, or ANY trash really in Hyjal, with no mages would have been something of a nightmare, not to mention doing those bosses with healer heavy raids.

Anyhow, I'm getting a little rambling and off topic. Thanks to all of the suggestions so far! It's nice to hear that it's not an issue only for us

 

Zifna

Thank you to everyone who has responded so far.

Well, buy or borrow rather than steal, of course... And this is something we've been looking into... Bloodscalp doesn't have a lot of opportunity for this but we may end up purchasing Ludicrous Speed's (Yes, the WowJutsu guys! <3) Vashj if they can't get her down. Various things have caused this not to come to fruition as of yet but it is a possibility we're pursuing.




And indeed, if the applicants we were finding were in the sort of guilds that were working on Vashj and Kael I'd be pretty pleased. But while there isn't much of a gear gap between Kael and 3 wks into Black Temple, there's a pretty big gear gap between "My guild kills Void Reaver" and Black Temple. So perhaps I misrepresented the quality of applicants that we were seeing... most have, at best, been 2-3 bosses into SSC + Void Reaver.

I'd agree that players' performance in Tier 5 can demonstrate their knowledge of a class... but if we've just run it for the week when they transfer over, they're going to end up sitting around for 6 days before we run it, or tagging along on unofficial activities like PuG Gruul, and then do so again before we run the other instance they need for a key. If they transfer over on a TK week from a guild that never got to Karathress it's going to be TK > SSC > TK+Hyjal before they can really raid with us full-time. We like to evaluate players not only on skill but also on attendance. It's all very well to be an awesome warlock, but if you only make it to raids once a week your contribution to the guild isn't going to be very large.

Our application post doesn't even have requirements at this point... simply a statement that having part of your keying process complete is a major plus in an applicant's favor.

To those who suggest getting a double-handful of applicants and trying to key them all at once... How would you go about this? Simply not run any T5 until you have 'enough' to bother with it, and then go for it? Simply have the applicants hang out on your roster but not be able to attend raids until you have reached your predetermined quota? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything, simply trying to see how what you are suggesting would work logistically. I don't think I could find 6-9 people and have them transfer over simultaneously, unless perhaps I happened across a recently disbanded guild and found them all in the same place... Which I suppose is possible, just not something I can plan on. ^_^;

 

Edghar

This could actually be very convenient. We don't raid Mondays, so if we don't have Vashj down by then, it would be a waste to not hand over the raid ID to you folks.

We're currently also looking into cross-realm recruitment as it seems Bloodscalp is starting to run dry on available PvE players. I think with some recruitment effort from multiple guilds on our server we could strengthen the PvE player base overall. Win-win for all of us.

 

kaib

I would just do the tk/ssc stuff if I was you . You will have bt//hyjal well on farm a long time before sunwell hits, so no reason to try and be exceptionally speedy atm. If you have several new guys, you want to see them perform anyway. Vashj and Kael are nice 'do you understand assignments' checks.
You should have no problem doing ssc/tk and your hyjal/bt farm in three raid evenings, which leaves you two progression raids.
Pushing too aggressive for progression is imho a bad idea if you do not have an intact raiding roster, which you don't seem to have atm. Keep going and do a bit of progress, if you push now, you risk that you do not succeed. Then 1-2 more guys slow down, you can not fill raids due to not having people attuned, more people will quit and the whole thing breaks apart.

 

Masq

Lucky! We've been trying to pickup a healer or two (We're on Illidan) for a few weeks now, we just havent had any luck with half decent apps.

Must be your guild name

http://www.aftermathlb.com

 

Lymmel

I think that you are a bit screwed at the moment and you propably just have to survive through a period of shit raids with low attendance/options. The worse part for us was having only 1 shaman during the summer and trying to find new ones, but in the end we found someone even if some of our raids were hurting to the lack of them.

If you want my opinion in general though as someone who handles recruitment for another bt/hyjal guild, when you get the chance, overrecruit. My original guild died to the unwillingness of the officers to recruit and so have a lot of others. Unless you are a bleeding edge guild and sort of famous so applicants swarm your site, you should always aim for more than you need for each raid. I always get the question 'but we only take 2 mages (or class x) to raids and we have 100% attendance, why do we need to recruit?'. But it's bollocks most of the time honestly, because someone will always quit, someone will have to go out and in the end a shortage of one class can usually be compensated by adding someone of another class. Overrecruiting has huge advantages from my perspective, as you always get full and balanced raids at the right time and not when the last guy decides to log in, you can go through difficult times (summer, college exams) without feeling much pressure on canceling raids, and finally when your members feel the need to not play for a night there's no pressure on them not to do so. On the downside, loot is spread out to more people so you need to spend more time until everyone is at an acceptable gear level and kills take longer to repeat (and obviously attunements take a while too) as you constantly need the ones who were on standby last week to learn them. Putting certain bosses on 'farm' took us longer than I would like to, but I doubt we would be doing them at the first place if we didn't have the luxury of using 5 warlocks on our first mag kill, 7 aoe on our first kael kill and so on and on. The worse thing you can do even if it sounds a bit cynical is have the illusion that you can rely on your raidforce. They will announce their 3-month trip to Korea at the most inappropriate times, that's for sure

Only thing that I can think that would help you right now is to lower your standards on gear as other people said. In the end the gear gap in tbc isn't that huge and it's easier to gear someone up too. If they can type somewhat properly and seem to know a few things about the game, it's propably worth giving them a trial.

 

Stormheart

Yes, exactly. Spend 1 week gathering up your 6-7 apps and then do the attunements all at once. If you are alternating weeks, its not like your going to get them attuned quickly anyway. This way is vastly more efficient and allows you more time to move forward.

 

Igniter

We just had a group of 5 or so transfer. Our goal is to have 30 competent raiders, people who are good enough to be subbed in at ANY point, so instead of saying "oh my god we're sitting our best rogue" to "oh cool x person is here". Nothing makes me more irritated (well I think some things might top it) than consistent raiders who get topped in damage by 20% every boss; they should ask themselves why thats happening and correct it.

 

Ralask

This is one of the worst possible times of the year to recruit and the time of the year where attendence problems are the worst. Give it a couple of weeks once school has been in session and dont stop trying to recruit. We had attendence issues around the same point as you. Got some good recruits (thankfully) and pushed and killed Illidan 2 weeks later. Dont stop recruiting is probably my best advice for you and just because someone doesnt have full tier 5 doesnt mean they suck.

 

Trouble

This is close to the topic but not exact, so I'm posting it here. Our guild currently has a very solid roster and so far no one has given any warnings that school may be impacting their play schedule and no one has given any indication that they are quitting. We've killed Illidan 3 times now so we're just beginning our "beat the game" farm phase. This is a new thing for most of the people in the guild, and a new thing for us in the leadership. I am apprehensive because of the horror stories I've heard of guilds who "beat the game" in the past and subsequently fell apart.

An example is we have someone in the guild who was in Illumination. Before the expansion they were among the top level of guilds and had an early Kel'thuzad kill. After that, over the lull of the winter holidays and the lead-up to the expansion they lost a lot of their core players. Through the early expansion (around when guilds were first killing Magtheridon) they lost most of the remainder of their good players and the guild essentially died.

The person I know who was in the guild said that they received many many top notch applications due to their place as a top guild, but they also had a lot of people at the time and mostly declined to recruit. He says in retrospect it was a mistake to not recruit because so many people ultimately ended up leaving.

We are now in a similar position, though not exactly the same. The end of Naxx and then the winter holidays were hell for everyone with the expansion coming up, so I know that probably added even more pressure. Specifically, my question is does anyone have advice for recruiting into a very solid roster ahead of expected attrition? More generally, I'm curious how guilds have fared in the past after "beating the game". Guilds that had early clears on MC, BWL, AQ40, and Naxx have been through similar times before. Perhaps there is insight to be gleaned from these past experiences.

 

Sinuous

Hmm, I dont think your situation is unique. Many guilds are constantly struggling to fill our their roster.

At one point while we had no resto druids in the guild and we were on archimonde... so yeah that created a problem lol.

You're in a good spot for xfer recruits. Just have to be smart about interviewing. When we interviewed we always asked about school and if it would interfere once school started again.

You're well on your way. It's ok to go back and attune some people. your guild will only get more gear. you'll get to Illidan eventually.

We had similar problems and we just got to Illidan for the first time last night so it's very possible.

 

Metrosexuelf

If you're really in dire straits or think you might be rapidly approaching that point it's probably best to bite the bullet and make it a point to clear both SSC and TK in a week and try to get 3-4 promising applicants keyed.

Currently in your progression you're at the meat of BT and Hyjal. Both Reliquary and Azgalor are going to take a decent amount of work to get past and once you do you have the even bigger hills of Archimonde and Mother Shahraz to climb (which you're going to need a copious amount of SR gear for anyway). So, while it's possible you could push past Az and Reliquary with 7-8 extra hours of attempts, you should know that Archimonde and Shahraz are going to push your membership to the limit. Both can potentially be very frustrating and demoralizing encounters. However, they did recently hotfix Archimonde and Shahraz should be much much easier if 2.2.... FINALLY... comes out this Tuesday (knock wood).

As I believe someone else pointed out above, although it's good to want to push forward in BT and Hyjal, you're going to be much better off in the long-run by taking an extra week to bolster your roster with promising applicants.