This is one of my favorite experiences in WoW, and probably the reason I still play. Hearing nothing in vent for 3 to 4 minutes because suddenly, magically, all 40 people in the raid just -get it-.

To get back on topic, the advice in this thread is invaluable. Prior to just recently, I'd never led a 40-man raid. My first experience was a PUG MC run I got together for our guild's alts, and anyone else who wanted to fill slots. Constant, positive communication is absolutely key. Delegation is also a huge saving grace. I have enough trouble trying to manage free (or more often over-booked) raid slots, class balance, and group organization. On top of that, my alt's a priest that usually ends up as a DPS or OT healer (and my apologies to those I've let die.)

One of our guild's most experienced tanks handles pulls and tank assignments, one of our best healers organizes the healing end, I have another guy who's awesome at handling trash & master-looting on bosses, and there are always 10 to 15 guildies that I can rely on to help explain things to first-timers. My job when the raid starts is little more than putting out the occasional "/rw Nice work!" or making sure I know who got what loot, so I can link it on our guild's website.

The end result is a a while bunch of people with shiny new purple gear, some extra mats for our guild bank. It's never the fastest run (~5 hours, Rag attempts inclusive) but it goes pretty smoothly.

I'll agree with this completely. Out of the fights that I feel I don't pay as much attention to while leading the raid, Chromaggus (if I'm one of the hunters tranqing) is probably the worst. Generally, I can just plant my feet, get into the zone, and DPS/FD until the boss is dead and go about checking on the rest of the raid, but when I have to worry about other things (tranq shot order, misses/resists, etc.), I can't focus as much on the rest of the raid. Thankfully, I've got a backup raid leader (a mage) who runs things during that fight.

I was playing a friend's resto druid through MC/Onyxia last week for fun and I pretty much handed off all responsibility for raid leading (not that I really do much on those anyways), but healing was taking up way too much time, I was so focused on health bars that I didn't pay any attention to the boss. For instance, when we were doing Onyxia, all I knew was that we were in phase 3. I was still tossing out heals, watching to innervate priests, and seeing if anyone needed a combat rez when all of a sudden I noticed we weren't in combat anymore. I'm sure dedicated healers can split their attention better, but if you're just learning raid healing like I was - it's stressful. :)

Imagine all us maintank, raidleader, guildleader people tring to talk people through encounters like nef while as the tank a mistake on the fear would kill the raid :)

I've been a raid leader since around June 2005, I quit pve due to not having the amount of time I wanted to devote to it in the end of June this year, so my experience as a raid leader only goes as far as Maexxna when it comes to Naxxramas.
Most of my oppinions and views have allready been stated by various posters in this topic, but I figured I'd write down my thoughts with my own words.

When I first started leading raids I was new to the whole mmorpg thing and the only things I've been leading previously was the team I played football on where I was the captain.
I started out as the rough guy often telling people on their mistakes, and keeping everyone in a short string. That being said though, the guild I was in at that time had alot of cliques (sp?) and looking back I actually think this way of leading was quite necessary when handling large groups of IRL friends that had a tendency of allways backing eachother up regardless of how retarded one had acted.
Around September 2005 I migrated to another server and joined another guild straight after migrated and quickly ended up being the Guild Master and raid leader. The guild was more "hardcore" (hate that word) and more focused on pve progress than my previous guild. I only knew like 4 people in the guild which meant that I was very impartial, which was a very good thing due to most of them having played together for a long time and thus they had a tendency of looking out for eachother, and also the officers had a tendency of favouring some members over others which had been the cause for quite alot of problems and whine in the guild.

What I feel is most important as a raid leader is to allways stay positive like it's been stated alot of times here allready.
Never let wipes or fuckups get to you. If you have a bad day, I'd rather suggest asking someone else to lead the raid than risking going mental on some innocent guy over a tiny mistake. It's very important that the members of the raid never feel treated unfairly.
When raiding with a guild focused on endgame content everyone should be able to know when they make a mistake, and it's my philosophy never to remind people of their mistakes. I simply see no reason to rub it in their faces if I'm certain that they're aware that they made the mistake.
It really depends on the person though. Some players (often the younger in my experience) needs to be told when they make a mistake, and it's actually often a good idea to publically expose them, like saying "x stop dieing to dark glare all the time".
It's often the case with the older players though, that they absolutely hate being scolded publically over a mistake. They usually tend to have the mentality that "it's a game, I play it for fun, and some guy sure as hell shouldn't be telling me what to do and what not to do".
This might have something to do with my age though, since I'm "only" 20 and most of the players in my guild are older than me. I guess people just feel like they've been stepped over their toes when someone younger than themself is telling them what to do.

Whats most important though is never loose your cool. You should allways be the person who sees the big picture, the one with the big overview. You should be the one who allways stays calm and who's allways at the top of his game, because if the raid leader is slacking, nothing is keeping the raid members from slacking.

Constantly talking, giving out order, informing people what to do, is generally a very good idea. Although it may seem stupid to sit on vt saying "dps, dps, dps" or "decurse" when you're well aware that the players are allready doing it, it really helps in my experience.
When the raid members allways have the raid leaders voice in their ears keeping them up to date with whats going on, reminding them of things they may have forgotten etc. the raid is generally alot more smooth.
It's very important though, that it's done in a positive and friendly voice.
I know what varries alot from raid leader to raid leader, but I don't believe in the whole idea of yelling and screaming at people. I'm of the oppinion that everyone in the raid is adult people and that they don't need some guy whom they barely know yelling at them when things go wrong or someone fucks up.
I've allways managed to stay calm, keep a calm tone in my voice and I believe thats alot better than someone yelling and screaming. Even after the 20th wipe on C'Thun due to people dieing in phase 1 I didn't get pissed and started yelling on ventrilo, and allthough some may have wanted me to, I think that although some yelling might have improved the next try it would very likely kill the mood of the raid and ruin the rest of the night.

That being said though, I think it really depends on the players in the guild aswell. Some players respond alot better when they're being yelled at, and they actually perform a whole lot better, whilst others perform worse when being yelled at.
I'm just of the belief that when it's adult people I'm "working" with, the majority will respond better to constructive and calm talking then yelling. I may be wrong though, but the feedback on the way I lead raids has purely been positive, so I hope I'm right :p

Hope some of this made sense, and that me repeating myself (which I believe I did quite a few times) and potential spelling errors doesn't ruin the understanding of the post.

I'm trying to take some of these suggestions to heart, but I think I lack the proper personality for raid leading.

There are some people who are engaging, have a high energy level, and naturally take the spotlight at a party. I'm not one of them, and I think it hampers my ability to lead, because this is a video game and people need entertainment to stay engaged. Historically, our guild has done better and progressed further with a raid leader that has a strong personality and cracks jokes along the way. People comment that I sound too serious, which is funny because my friends in real life say that I'm laid back. I know this is a tough question to address, but what can I do to make my style more productive to raid leading?

I've led organizations before, but my relatively low-key personality was not an issue there because I wasn't really expected to make things entertaining.

Oh, and I have to agree with previous comments that playing a healer and leading a raid is challenging.

As an aside, I wish we could hire a raid leader like companies hire managers...Our current raid leader's computer is out of commission. Our backup raid leader xferred servers to a guild that isn't stuck at Patch. Our ex-raid leader is moving. We ended up in AQ40 this week with nobody who had led an AQ40 raid, so I stepped up. Unfortunately, our guild is the most progressed on the server, so getting a raid leader with the right experience would be impossible.

I don't think sounding serious is a problem really.
You need to sound like you're relaxed though, which may be what they're referring to. If you sound like you're tense and nervous chances are that the raid members will feel the same way.
I think it's most important that you find your own way of leading raids. Everyone has their own style and a way they prefer doing things, and I don't think anyone can expect you to perform perfectly as a raid leader in the first raid you're leading. The one thing I don't think you should do is trying to copy the previous raid leader, since I just think it'll end up sounding and feeling weird.
If you enjoy leading and are having fun raiding, the raid the raid members will feel it and will have an easier time following you in my oppinion. If you feel that it isn't quite your thing to be leading, or feel insecure about it you might just be better off stepping down and letting another guy who's more "energetic" (dno if thats a word) step up and lead.

Heh, this is funny. A year ago or so, towards the beginning of BWL, one of our 2 raid leaders moved to UK to study and stopped playing. This left us with only 1 raid leader, so we needed another, and someone had to step up. I never thought I'd ever be able to lead anything because I'm a pretty quiet and a bit shy person IRL, and hate being in the centre of attention, I far rather just observe from the side and maybe provide advice if that's wanted of me. But since no one else stood up, I said I could try. Fast forward a year, I've lead the majority of our raids since then and developed a ton as a leader, as a player and I like to think as a person too.

To be honest, I think that you really do not need to be the type who likes to be in the spotlight, I think it's actually better if you aren't. If you know that you have some other qualitites such as objectiveness, impartiality and such, and there is a need for a raid leader in your guild, don't let your doubts over your own personality stop you, and don't let all the talk in this thread overwhelm you.

Raid leading is something you learn by doing, and by doing it you will develop your own style and way to do it. Just go for it, a few months down the line you might be surprised at all you've learned yourself. All you need is patience, the will to learn and to develop and a load of spare free time.

It's funny how when you are leading in vent you're commanding 39 other people to do something. Most of us don't get the chance to publicly speak to 39 or more people, much less order them around.

yeah 'cause it's always ok for me to die :<

I talk quite a lot during raids, to the point where I now remember to grab the full liter of water + peppermints before hand.

Leading a raid is interesting - you want to do whatever it takes to help people focus on their job, while keeping them performing well. That means saying trivial "dark glare due soon, pay attention" type stuff, as well as the more managerial "full rebuffs please, you have 20 seconds" type stuff. There's definitely some fights where all you really need to say is the occasional "pay attention. You're doing well, keep going" type stuff. The most important thing as a raidleader is finding a good way to "see" what's going on. Either by delegating each class to class leaders, or having officers spread out, or what have you. The first step to fixing strategy is realizing where your break down occured. It can be surprisingly difficult to figure it out sometimes. The fog of war on some fights is much higher than others.

I'm a healer, but there's very few fights where it's difficult for me to both lead and heal well. The only one that springs to mind is c'thun, bane of raidleading healers. I imagine Ouro would suck as a raid leading MT. Gothik is probably rough on rogues. I really appreciate having a few options for "raid leader" among the classes, because it lets you divide the burden in fights that really suck for your class to be leading. (We usually have a mage calling eye spawns in c'thun for instance)

The only thing I haven't seen mentioned here is that one of the biggest parts of leading a raid is realizing what you want your raid to do, and defining it for your raid.

If the goal is to learn what abilities work on this mob, and what abilities he has - then you need to say so before the pull.
If the goal is to last until the enrage - say so.
etc.

Quite a bit of that requires you to really understand how the game works. I wouldn't recomend raid leading to anyone who doesn't have a very firm grasp of what is going on, mechanicly, with the game. If you can't list, off the top of your head, the ways to interrupt a spell, then how do you know to check them all? etc.

I think this is why raid leaders that are successful tend to be interested in theorycrafting. There's a lot of learning about the game you do to be good at raid leading, and that naturally leads you to the theorycrafting.

I totally agree on that mid-fight Vent silence being one of the best things about leading raids. As a leader myself it's so rewarding when you can just feel people concentrating and there's really nothing that needs to be said. Or when someone else starts finding their own timing, "10 seconds 'til teleport," out of the blue and you can just focus on your job or watch the little things.

A lot of great advice here. The general consensus I was getting from everyone is the raid leader's attitude is perhaps the absolute most important thing about leading raids. The leaders attitude can set the tempo of the whole raid. The demeanor you treat raid members and handle problems or missteps can determine how well the raid performs.

Reinforce people when they do things good. Point out to the whole raid when someone does something out of the norm, or better than their usual performance.

Don't call out mistakes mid encounter unless it really needs to be fixed immediately. If a mistake was made that causes something unrecoverable, bring it up with solutions, not just what went wrong. Most people know when they made a mistake and will easily admit to it. No need to call them out on it. Especially during a fight. Fix mistakes with solutions, not blame.

The following quote is from Gurg, a couple months ago in another thread. It's something that really lasted with me and generally applies to be helpful:

Coaching. Regardless of how much a fight is on farm, friendly reminders mid fight are always helpful. Communication of what goes on during each fight is vastly superior to assuming things will get done. A small reminder, even if it is repetetive is never bad in the long run. No matter how small or trivial, if it prevents a wipe, it was useful.

Keep a steady pace. This does not just mean speed pulls. Keeping the raid informed of what's next, what the plans are will go a long way. Keep them entertained during boring parts. Keep them focused during touchy parts. Push wipe recovery heavy. Get the raid back on its feet as fast as possible. The quicker the raid is killing stuff again, the longer they will stick with encounters.

Success vs. Failure. Obviously a successful raid is a happy raid, but there's no way around it, wipes will happen. The raid will make a mistake, or even you personally will. It's not the end of the world. Frustrations are inevitable, but the more communication that goes on about what went wrong and more importantly how it can be fixed is important. Don't be too hard on yourself, but on the same note, blame yourself before others. Being down to earth with the rest of the raid will go a long way to keeping them happy.

Oh, I can.

So I just dropped off a date who I suspected was into me, yet culminated in nothing, leaving me in a state of frothing twitterpation. "Cindy" calls me as I'm driving home and asks if I'd like to join her for a beer at the James Joyce, on her tab. Why yes, yes I would.

Cindy is very intelligent, articulate, and depraved. Unfortunately, she is not skinny. In the the heyday of her former crystal meth addiction, she was an attractive and svelt 110 pounds. Curses unto whatever 12-step program lifted her out from that hell, because stretch marks aren't good for the libido.

Predictably, she feeds me guinness after guinness, nursing my pain. It nears closing time when I ask if I can sleep on her couch, being in no condition to drive. She shakes her head and tells me I can just sleep in her bed because it's cold, but I have to understand that we are NOT HAVING SEX. Which is really gamespeak for "Of course we're going to fuck, but I don't want to feel whorish about it."

Thirty minutes later, we're having sex and in a moment of drunken inspiration I gingerly lift her leopard skin cowboy hat off her bed post and put it on, doing my best Clint Eastwood impression in her closet mirror while she bangs her head into the wall, frightening off whatever small woodland mammals may dwell in those nether regions. I guess they're right; it is like riding a scooter.

I wake up in a panic some hours later, now sober enough to realize the consequences of what I've done. She's draped her turkey arms around me and probably anticipating breakfast ere the dawn. Sensing I'm awake, she rolls over and asks if I want to fuck again.

"No, no, oh god, my head..."

"What's wrong, baby?" she asks.

"I get.... migraines."

"Migraines? I have some vicodin in my bathroom! That will help!"

"NO! I have to .... go home. Medication. Yes, I have to go now."

So yes, there have been several occasions when raiding was better than sex.

this is pretty much spot on IMO. it's important that raids are enjoyable, but it's also important that people do their jobs, because if people are constantly fucking up, raids stop being fun pretty fast. it's also important to understand your raiders and know who responds to different types of criticism in what way. some people respond best to being called out and told "hey, don't fuck up again", while for others that sort of exposure is just more likely to make them fuck up in the future. but be sure to keep it in good humor - we have one officer who goes on tilt yelling now and then, but he does it so often that it's funny and people don't take it too harshly. now, if i were to suddenly start screaming at people, it'd have a much different effect :-P

I can promise this. If I'm in the middle of a raid, and my wife walks in naked and says she's good to go, I'm hitting alt-F4 without batting an eye.

I'd have some serious questions for you if you didn't.

Although, a certain guildmate, who shall remain nameless, skipped his senior prom this year to work on our first c'thun attempts. Now that, friends, is dedication.

I didn't go to prom because I knew it would suck! (Oh and did it!)

Regardless, my techniques for leading a raid are rather... questionable. Generally people shift me with farm instances for bullshit clears, last night I came out with the best 6g repair bill of my life. It's best to find good ways to keep the mental health of your guild good, my favorite activity ever was just having Infernal wars with another Warlock in ZG back on Maelstrom, or trying to find innovative ways to commit suicide. It's great to fuck around whenever you get the chance, because that's basically what I play WoW for, and there are some great and intresting ways to have fun.

You find out which members are actually female. Take it how you may.

What an excellent thread.

There is so much written here both good and bad that I recognize myself in. I will definetly keep a lot of the points raised in mind leading any raids in the future.

I guess I can add in what I've found work for me as a raidleader or for any new raidleader. The first raids you lead will be mentally exhausting most probably, way back when I started out as a raidleader I was beginning to regret my choice of ever becoming one because it felt like raiding would never feel as relaxed as before. Over time it became less exhausting and a lot more fun and today I cannot imagine myself raiding without either leading the raid or helping out in some other way.

Raising an atmosphere where everyone in the raid appreiciates good performance out of all raidroles is very nice, Ie. Healers notice when your rogues are really pushing it and vice versa. Instead of your melee-dps whining for lack of heals, its a lot better when they commend the healers for an awesome job when its due.

I've noticed praise in private tells can do a lot for your guildmembers morale as well. If you notice a good choice by a player that just saved you from a wipe or very smooth play by your tanks or healers or if your dps is really on target and above for the evening, send a whisper telling them they did a great job. It will go a long way and I prefer dealing out good remarks and praise via whispers than doing some /rw Good job _insertname_! since it can make other players feel like they arent recognized or left out. If I wanna praise in public via voicecom or /raid or /guild, I target the entire group: Good job healers/tanks/casters/melee-dps.

If you utilize different chatchannels for different tasks like a healing channel, tanking channel etc. Make sure you are in them reading what people write. I've noticed that when we've had a bad raid where things just dont go our way, the bad mood and bitching usually doesnt happen over vent or guildchat as much as it can burst out in the raidrole specific channels, Be in there and clear up any differences people may have or pointless arguing because people are tired and get them back on the right track.

And I dont know if its been mentioned yet but be consequent ( sp? ) in all your actions, treat all your raidmembers the same when they screw up. You usually want to keep your best raidmembers in a good mood but in no way should it mean that you should ignore it when they do the same mistake as the guy that only plays on weekends.

Since I play a warlock I'm a bit harder on the mage/lock group in the raid than the others, I expect a bit more from them since I know much more in depth what they are capable of doing/not doing. When we started naxx I noticed a couple of locks and a few mages that never really kept pace in sustained dps or damage done with the rest, even falling behind as much as 80-100k+. I added some friendly competition in the form of me handing out a couple of Elixir of Shadow power or Firepower to the top-dpsing mages/locks. Not punishing the guy ending up last but rewarding the ones that push the limit. It worked wonders for us atleast. Forumthreads on your guildforums with active feedback and constructive discussion on raidperformance works great as well.

And as a final point that has really helped me out especially in the start: Never assume you know everything about every class. If you are unsure of what exactly the classes in your raid can do at certain times, ask them. It really hurts the raid when a raidleader yells "FIX THE HEALING NOW!!!" when all the healers in the raid know the raidleader has no clue what is causing the wipe probably or what would be wrong with the healing.

This thread could quickly take an interesting turn, namely dealing with all the stories of when raiding would be better than sex...

A really nice thread indeed.

I will just find the ways with a fast question;
How do you handle those "what the hell" situations? Where you just keep wiping on an encounter wich should be on farm or you just keep wiping without any progression at all. As a raidleader you really fail to see how this can be improved, either there are errors all over the place or you cant really see whats going wrong. You ask yourself simply "we have to overlooking something?", "aint we just not skilled enough for this encounter?", "do we just suck today?" or "whats wrong with this raid?".

When you sit with this kind of situation, how do you handle the situation? A heavy rant? A 15min break? Call it the night, make some silly excuse? Try to find some other encounter we can switch to? Or just stay as positive humanly possible and keep banging that head to the wall until mechanics in the head starts ticking again?

Situations like theese are really those I fear most as a raidleader.

15 minute breaks work sometimes if it's farm content stuff. When you get started again, make sure everyone knows this next attempt is the kill, rather than just another in the streak of wipes. When it's learning new stuff, that's a lot harder. You need to find out whether your strategy or execution is flawed. If it's the strategy, try a new one. If it's the execution, practice is pretty much it.

*grin*, especially in a farm instance, jokes abound. :P I remember a raid where I needed to make a portal for someone who was leaving. (And just came in for 1 boss, so no HS.), and 3 others. (2 rogues and a warrior) also entered the portal. Never had another single raid without me conjuring up portals in the middle of the raid without warning.

A trick I like to pull at times is a double portal. Basically, you get 2 magi of the same race and preferably gender too and both cast a portal in the same direction. 1 to IF/Org, the other to Darn/UC. Just don't stand within 20 yds of anyone who might have Spellalert, or they'll give it away.