Raiding Restructure

[Priest]

I haven't really raided this xpac, so I'm not going to make this too long or go too in depth. That said, this topic has pretty much come up within every xpac since I joined the guild. Grievance has been one of the best guilds about trying to get everyone into all of the content in which the guild participates. That said, raiding requires a certain amount of commitment, from learning your class to learning the mechanics of fights (which also includes learning the differences between normal and heroic). The way Blizzard has designed raiding, and it's been this way for ages, there are breakpoints (HPS and DPS) that if you can't meet then you can't down content. Logs provide the tools so the officers can see where the difficulties lie, but logs can be used by anyone. If you're struggling, ask for help. Don't keep showing up thinking it's suddenly going to get better. Every raider should be reviewing their logs and looking for ways to improve, not just the raid leads and officers. Not to toot my own horn, but I know a hell of a lot about all of the classes in this game, and can play most of them at the top level. I may not play as much anymore, but you cal always ask me for help if and when I'm on and I'd be glad to spend some time talking. At the end of the day, while it's great to be inclusive and try to get everyone through every fight, it's also unfair for those that put in the effort to have to carry people who choose not to.

Just remember, raid leads and officers are walking a tight rope, trying to keep everyone happy (this is a game after all) and downing content before the next tier. It's a thankless job for the most part.

[Skye]

Well said Priest!

[Avasti]

How do the new raid rules improve on our current raid rules, and what is the motivation driving the move to this (new) set of rules?

I feel relegating a group of members to "normal and farm only" when we already have a method, used regularly, to bench underperforming individuals seems like an attempt to move towards a more hardcore approach to raiding. Are we trying to clear raids sooner? Preparing to push mythic? ( i know, it's been nixed, but what else do we do if we clear with 10 weeks left on the raid tier? )

I don't understand the loss we take by bringing people in for progression when the first few pulls ( and sometimes first hour ) is taken up by ironing out tank mechanics, healing CD rotations, visualizing what the given prog.boss is doing, and dealing with raid placements. Hell, we had a couple days working on not getting melee autoattacked by avatar!

Obviously I completely agree with raid toxicity, leadership decisions and the lot, but I don't understand how Scarlet Lettering people, and being under the threat of the Scarlet Letter is conducive with an Accomplished Casual Raid when we already sit individuals as we close in on a Prog.Boss kill.

[Cataclysm]

Thanks all for the positive.. negative.. and everything in between. This is the main reason I like to bring things up prior.

I have been liking all of the comments. Nothing is never write in stone and can be changed. I hope you all know that we.. the officers of the wow alliance guild try our hardest to make sure we do our best we have all your interests at heart.

Again thanks too all our raiders and members for the comments it means alot to us.

[JioFreed]

Yes we are all learning. I do believe that raiding with your guild generally provides the best results. However at the same time you should also raid outside if you end up in that situation to learn more about how things are done outside the guild. It can help improve the raider, and that raider can bring back knowledge for the rest of the guild to use (sometimes first hand experience can provide more than the guides and videos online.) I'm not saying go join another raid down the bosses and not come back to raid with the guild but if we are having problems then we need to get more experience outside of the raid times this provides us with more practice and allows us to use our time more efficiently.

I am not implying to go down all the bosses outside of the raid group and then not showing up for raid just because you already did them outside of it, but rather come back with more knowledge and experience. There are plenty of raids I have participated in even after I had downed the bosses to raid with the guild and help the guild progress. I know of some within the first week took time out and ran in pugs to try to learn the fights ahead of time so that by the time we as a guild arrived we would have the knowledge and experience to share with the guild. I am also positive that as we go through with this the kinks will get worked out and there will be changes after it is implemented. I enjoy raiding with the guild and everyone in it but spending 1-2 days on the same boss that we have downed as a guild before isn't ideal and does upset some people.

The guild isn't trying to brand anyone as "bad" or not good enough to raid its like being benched and eventually you come back into the game. I have used hundreds of tomes through ToS trying to tweak my gear and talents to see what works best in each fight and some fights have resulted with a better outcome from different talents and builds. These changes don't necessarily brand the raid as hardcore. I've been with hardcore groups in the past where if you are off for 1 fight you are out sometimes not just of the raid but the guild. I don't see that being the case here. A large portion of the information here is actually the same and I look forward to see how it works and to future changes along the way.

I just want to see everyone stick together and look at the whole picture these changes weren't made to benefit just one person but us as a whole.

New Raid Tier
When a new raid tier comes upon us these above rules are void due to LFR is not fully out as well as we wont have full clear on normal during the first 1-4 weeks of raiding. After 1 month of the new raid tier coming out the above rules will come into full affect with no exceptions. After 2 weeks after the last LFR tier as been released all rules will come into effect.

Know your class role on a raid
Some of you are new to raiding and some of you have been asked by the guild to switch to another class/spec that you may not be used to playing. Learn your role pertaining to raiding and what is expected of you. DonÔÇÖt wait until raid time to figure it out! If you have any questions at all, get with the Raid Leader/Raid Leader Assistant as soon as possible during a non-raiding time.

Help your self
Please don't expect the guild to bend over backwards to gear you up, we'll help gear your main via raids, but also do what you can through crafting, Dungeons (Normal/Heroic/Mythic), Looking for Raids, etc. Ask the guild if they can assist with crafting components or running Dungeons/raids.


Members Raiding outside of Grievance
When a member wishes to raid out side of grievance they can do so on the principle that they follow all of our rules as well as the other guilds rules for etiquette. You must attend all of our raids and not skip out to raid with the alternate guild or guilds. If caught doing so you will be removed from the raider rank and not raid with us for a duration period.

I apologize if I am overstepping in any way but it seems that some things have been missed when people don't read fully or just skim through.

Just my 2 cents.
Look forward to raiding! I'll be absent possibly Friday and definitely Saturday. Friday depends on how closing my apartment goes and the 4 hour drive.

[Torvi]

I agree with Avasti on this one. I have always enjoyed the raids in Grievance.. and as I have stated before it seems to me like our progression is pretty decent and the teams really, from what I see, get along well. I don't know what goes on in pms so maybe the cutting people on progression was a bit more complicated than what I see and this was an attempt to alleviate that?

I will go with the new outline though- as much as I am dreading LFR and kil'jaeden this weekend

[drfunk]

The way I read it, and I agree with portions of both Avasti, Priest, and Jio, this was an attempt to give raid leaders justification to sit people who met the previous requirement, which was only be ilvl 900 and be gemmed and enchanted, to a heroic raid. Now, that old requirement is totally fine for a boss where everyone else can pull a new raider through. That is good. We have an obligation to bring as many people to every boss. However, because of new people joining, which is a good thing long term, and the reshuffles, the whole post read to me like a way to give the raid leaders something to point at when, if they sat someone for a non-farm boss, this post could be pointed to so they didn't get grief in PMs or otherwise for making their best judgement.

My view is we need to bring as many people as possible to farm and progression bosses. This post would not have been made if we were policing ourselves as individuals. This change is our fault as individuals because we don't sit ourselves, me included, when we are having an off night, not playing as well as the encounter demands, pugging in our off time, etc. I agree with Brain and Avasti, we should bring people to see the new things. But, let's be honest, we treat the raid leads like dumpsters for our petty failings as players and grief them when they make decisions to try to make the big bad things dead.

For newer or slower learners or less mechanically adept players, you have it good here. You get to heroic raid with people who want you to be in the raid for kills as much as possible, including progression wiping like Avasti pointed out. But at the same time, we are still wiping on stuff and failing mechanics that we learned 8-9 weeks ago. Again, this is our fault.

For faster learners, you have it good here too. A convivial environment with people who want to play well, but not stress out or be mean. Plus, no mythic raiding, which is just cancerous. I did mythic EN, no more. Its horrid. I quit if we ever go near that style of play.

Brain, you are not going to be kicked to the curb. If you're excluded from raid, I'll quit raiding. Your post conveyed your anger, and you admit you're a slow learner. I get that. I am a slow learner too. I went out and pugged heroic before our raids so I could heal you better. Its awesome to know our limitations, but the key thing is, we are doing this all together. What are you doing to overcome your flaws? As I mentioned, I go out and pug new content, because I like the challenge and its hard for me to learn raids unless I am in them and feel them out. I do that because I respect your time and I want to be successful myself.

That kind of brings me full circle to this is our fault. It's our fault as individuals failing to prepare, execute, treat our raid leaders with the patience that they show us tolerating our failure to a degree in heroic raiding that is unheard of in guilds that are attempting to progress. I don't like several aspects of the restructure, but some I do. I'm done typing. I'll discuss it in Teamspeak more if anyone wants to, but ultimately, it's Cata's guild and I like the people and mentality of Grievance, so I'm in for the long haul.

[rutilusnex]

well this topic has exploded! it really shows how everyone (marked with n or h) is committed to our team's performance and desire to have fun destroying pixels together! this is an interesting issue since none of us "work" here. no one's job is on the line. in fact, we all pay to be here! there's already so many great comments for and against the specific points but i would like to jump in here and point out the obvious effort that the guild leadership has put into this restructure and that we need to keep in mind that they are people/players too and are wanting to do what is best for everyone. so we need to keep an open mind about how the implementation in game will look. the initial post seemed be include levels of flexibility and cata has already replied about things not being set in stone.

[Zahgore]

I demand that my H be turned into a Z!

All in all, I think the restructure looks good on paper. I think some tweaking may still need be looked at. Implementation and consistency of following the new changes is where the real challenge will be.
I look forward to seeing how this will play out.

Z

[Jackburton]

I'm going to jump in here to touch on one of the aspects of the new rules that hasn't really concerned anyone who has posted so far. All of the comments concerning existing members have been very good and I think the discussion is going well. As to Torvi's concern that you have to go complete LFR or your going to get kicked, the normal kills supercede the need for you to go clear LFR. For people who have been raiding for months, when a new tier comes out, we will clear normal long before the final tier of LFR is released. You will not have to then go clear LFR.

Many of the new rules are designed as a starting point for new raiders. While our old rules covered most of the topics already, they really only established a base gear level for new raiders. Since we really like new members and especially new raiders what happened was is we pretty much threw new members to the wolves. They would sign up and then come Tuesday, here they are alongside of us trying to slog through Heroic mechanics, many of which are very challenging. Some had experience but many hadn't. So while we have been killing bosses for weeks, this is the first or second time they have seen it.

While the members who are familiar with the fight may feel frustration watching people fail mechanics, think how those people must feel. They are expected to know mechanics they just saw and pull competitive numbers even if they are just getting back into the game with lower ilvl gear. Even if you are ilvl 920 or something for many classes like melee, weapon level has a huge impact on your dps and relics are hard to come by. We simply did not have an established raid structure in place to deal with new members coming in.

These rules give new members an avenue to work themselves back into raiding in a positive and successful manner. I know recently we had some new members join, and this very situation arose. They were asked to sit and it felt like failure for them. They were in no way equipped to be doing even the heroic farm bosses. Under the new structure they would have been eased back in and hopefully become happy and successful members of our heroic raid. Unfortunately, coming in then instantly feeling failure meant our guild probably felt no different than the thousands of other guilds out there that have no patience for new members. They ended up quitting the guild right away, which sucks.

Our goal is to feel different from other guilds. We help people. We progress people but not in a cutthroat environment. We don't flame people for not being MLG pros. The ultimate goal here is to get as many raiders as possible as many kills as possible. If we get to 7.3.5 and we have not gotten everyone that wants heroic KJ that kill, it bums me out. This raid tier is very punishing, and it might not happen, but that is what we are working for. I felt we accomplished that in Nighthold and I was very proud of us for that.

Keep working and stick together and we will get there.