Category Archives: Guild Leading

Two Weeks!

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Not only has it been two weeks since I’ve last posted, I’ve also got two weeks before I start a new full time job!  Merry Christmas to me!  Woo!

However, this does mean that my posts will be fewer in number, and very much less focused on healing unfortunately.  While healing is still the thing I enjoy most in game, I have been playing as Guardian/Boomkin since Pandaria launched (other than a few times healing while we had a healer on vacation).

I’m still very much planning to heal on my Shaman and Priest and possibly a Pally and Monk, I just don’t know how much time I’m going to have to focus any energy on them specifically while running the guild and keeping my main character raid ready.

That being said, I will still be here and maintaining the blog!  I just may post more about generalized stuff than healing specific things.  If any of you readers would like to guest post, please drop me an email at eluna @ mydomain.com  ;-)

Guild Leader Perspective: Elder Charms

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This weeks Guild Leader Perspective is short and sweet!  Be sure to check out the archives for more guild leading and raid leading related posts!

As a raiding guild, we are starting to amass our Elder Charm of Good Fortune currency.  The charms work as an extra roll for the *chance* at extra loot on any raid boss in Mists of Pandaria, including the Sha of Anger and Looking for Raid version of all of the raids.  You amass them by doing the weekly quest Elder Charms of Good Fortune offered in the lower level of the two capital cities in Pandaria.

As a guild leader, I do expect my raiders to be collecting their charms, and hopefully the folks who step in as casual and do raid finder with us as well!  How they are used, is entirely up to the raider.  While it would be nice to see them used wisely, they are entirely rng based, and they have no effect on our loot system (which is a hybrid of loot counsel and /roll).  As a raider myself, I will probably use them to help my chances at a tier token.

How is your guild handling the Elder Charms?  Do you have a system that you’ll be using?

Guild Leader Perspective: The forums and you

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The guild forums are a wonderful tool that can help busy guilds stay organized.  They can also be a pain in the ass to get people to use.  Some guilds actually have a post requirement, others are much more lax.  In Angry Gingers, we are more lax, but we post quite a bit of information there.

For our guild, the forums are the official source of information…all policies, updates, news, strategies and guides are posted to the guild forums.  We do have a Facebook group where we post links and such as well, but we consider that unofficial.  Mainly because we don’t want to require people to be on Facebook to get information.  It’s not surprising that not everyone wants to associate their real-life selves with their in-game counterpart.

Why is it so important then to use the guild forums?  Well first, you can share as little or as much info as you prefer while signing up.  Second, it gives one designated place to look for information and/or guidance to the guild policies, strategies, and more.  Third, it gives the leaders a place to get organized and to verify that information is available to the correct users.

While our guild is made up mostly of friends and friends of friends, some guilds are made up of complete strangers.  Most people are wary of giving out too much personal information over the internet.  Guild sites allow you to register under an alias and release as little or as much information as you prefer.  This allows for most people to be comfortable enough to register and at least read the forums (and apply to the guild!).

By having one place that is the “official” source of information regarding the guild and its policies, ect. players have a clear idea of how the guild is ran, where to go for information and where to post questions and requests.  How confusing would it be to join a guild and have no idea of its direction or how to get in touch with anyone other than guild channels like whispers, guild chat and in game mail?  The idea scares me, because my memory is a little shady at best!

As leaders, sometimes we have a lot on our plates.  Most of us have full time responsibilities outside of the game, along with families and jobs and school and well…life!   Between all of that, we have the game we love to play, so we like to have a good place to get organized between busy and differing schedules.  If you utilize the forums, it makes it easier for the leadership to organize the needs, wants and goals and keep the guild running smoothly!

Ready to Raid Ding 90 Edition

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So, you’ve hit level 90 and you’ve been doing your daily quests…all the quests!  You’ve started acquiring gear and you’ve even ran a heroic or two!  Whether it’s for raid finder or regular raids, there’s a few things to do to be ready to start raiding.  Level cap and hitting the magical gear score are only a couple of steps along the way.

Daily Quests:

Yes, I know we just talked about how you’ve started doing those, however, you need to make sure you’re getting your Lesser Charm of Good Fortune tokens.  You can turn 90 of those into Elder Charms of Good Fortune which allows you to have a bonus roll at boss loot if you want.  This bonus roll is good in raid finder, regular and heroic versions of the raids.

Gems and Enchants:

You need to gem and enchant your gear with the best stuff you can afford, even if it’s gear you intend on replacing.  Now I’m not saying to go out and put the BEST weapon enchant on your weapon you got while questing.  But you can put on a viable enchant that isn’t best in slot.  Check out your character over on Ask Mr Robot and it’s going to show you what it calculates as the best in everything to go on your gear if you aren’t sure what to look for.  If you are like me and you aren’t going to spend 3k on a belt buckle for a green belt because your guild can’t make them yet, don’t sweat it.  But do put on what you can afford.  Gem quality should at least match the quality of the gear (though I don’t think epic gems are out yet!) if possible.  You can always check out your character on Wow Heroes too, as they will show different enchanting options when you click on the suggested one.

Food and Consumables:

You are going to need food.  The good news is, you can’t really buy any food (except maybe mage conjured food) that doesn’t have SOME sort of stat on it.   If you aren’t a cook, and can’t find someone to cook for you, go to the Pandaria vendors and you’ll find food with a lower level buff (please don’t always use that food, cooking is super easy now if you go to Halfhill and talk to the trainer there).  If you aren’t comfortable with your regen you’ve had in heroics, get the best spirit food you can buy, if you ARE comfortable with your spirit, intellect is likely going to be your best stat food.

I wouldn’t focus too much on elixirs, but grab some flasks, don’t skimp on these.  Get spirit or intellect depending on which one you need.  I usually recommend to my raiders to carry 2 per night of raiding since we raid about 2.5 hours a night.  These are likely going to be expensive, but are worth the price if you can’t make them yourself.  Potions are important too, I would look for both regular mana potions and the kind that put you into a sleep.  If you work with your fellow healers, you can usually find a few seconds to get the extra mana out of a concentration type potion.

Attitude

The last thing to remember to bring is a good attitude and an excellent sense of humor.  We are at the beginning of an expansion and in new content.  True some people can read a strategy and know what to do perfectly every time, not everyone can.  Mistakes are going to happen and wipes will happen.  Having a nasty attitude about it will only result in a bad time all around.  If you can’t keep the negativity to yourself, excuse yourself from the raid.

Now, go raid my little minions   And for Elune’s sake, don’t stand in the bad stuff.

 

Guild Leader Perspective: Flexible Leadership

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When it comes to leading a guild, it can be a hard process.  You have to have rules, you have to have vision, and you also have to have flexibility.  But not only that, you have to have flexible people in your leadership roles.  Typically our guild has ran as a sort of Monarchy, as in, Kurby (my spouse) and I run it, and we make the majority of the decisions to steer the guild in the direction of our goals.  While we aren’t a true Monarchy, we have officers that we have picked to represent our goals also, and we often consult the officers before we make any decision.  We also try to discuss our goals with the guild, and we value their input.  However, we do sometimes make decisions that some folks don’t agree with.

But most of all, we do try to be flexible.  When I first met Kurby, and was a member of his guild, he had a large officer team, but…in general, he did everything, an he didn’t change anything (including the guild site) from the previous leadership.  He was (and sometimes still is) a control freak, though he’s gotten somewhat better.  This was a problem, because though there was a guild charter, it wasn’t exactly current..and therefore didn’t really mean anything.  His goals for the guild, didn’t really mesh with some of the other folks’ goals and it often left him frustrated come raid time.  Once I became officer, I asked him why he didn’t delegate to the other officers more often (this was before we started dating…in fact, guild and raid talk is how we got to chatting outside of raid time!) and..well…at that time he didn’t really know how to delegate.  I offered to help by taking over the guild bank and revamping the guild site.   Both were things I’d done in previous guilds where I’d been an officer so they were things I was interested in doing.  Eventually over the course of a year or so, he started delegating things out to other people.

Don't be so bull~headed Kurby!

full size Tauren on baby-spiced Stag = Funny!

The most important thing we learned through this process, was the stepping stones for building the guild we are now in, that we lead together.  Though I wear the Guild Leader tag, and I do make some decisions without him, most decisions we discuss and decide on as a team.  The inability to be flexible can hurt a guild more than anything else, including the dreaded drama.  Officers must also be flexible, sometimes taking on more responsibility than they were originally asked at time, in order to keep things running smoothly.  Policy sometimes has to be changed to fit the needs of the guild.  And, well, quite frankly, shit happens, and you can’t control it…if you are not flexible, you can’t adjust and keep things in order.

What kind of guild leadership do you prefer?  Monarchy?  Dictatorship?  Republic?

Change is a Good Thing?

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When I started this blog, I had been a healing main in the game since I re-rolled Alliance (and reached max level).  First I leveled a Priest, who after a couple of race changes went from Zorine the Draenei (while on Terokkar in the first place) to Caresse , to Caressea the Dwarf (on Blackhand).  I leveled her as holy (lol*wand*spec) and then about half way through tier 7, I swapped her to Discipline because I didn’t perform at my best as Holy.  When our resident Pally decided he’d rather tank or not raid, I pulled my alt Pally to Holy…her name was Sheralyn, but later became Sherbear after a server transfer forced me to rename her and I played a Holy Pally all through tier 10.

Towards the end of tier 10, we left behind that guild and migrated to Terokkar, my husband wanted more out of raiding than the previous guild wanted to commit to, and I had friends on Terokkar (though I’ve yet to meet any of them in real life..so far), so that’s where we headed first.  He joined the server’s top Alliance raiding guild, and I shadowed…I didn’t feel very welcome there, and thus Elunamakata was born in Brae’s guild.  While he raided, I played around on my druid, eventually getting her to level 80 about a week or two before the launch of Cataclysm.

During this time, the raiding guild that Kurby had joined, decided they weren’t raiding for Cataclysm and advised their raiders to find new homes.  After much searching on the server, we couldn’t find a raiding guild with the same mindset and time frame we preferred to raid in, so we created the Angry Gingers.  (At that time it was Cake Eaters–Mighty Duck reference ftw!).  A lot of folks from Brae’s guild (including Brae) decided to raid with us, Leaving us with either two priests and a pally or two pallys and a priest, so Eluna became my main.

Now, however, it is time to change again.  Our guild needs an off-tank, and I’ve had more people offer to heal than I have tank, so Elunamakata is becoming a…bear.

However, never fear, she’s still going to be offspec resto, and my “main alt” that I level will very much likely be my Shaman as resto.  So I will remain one of the voices behind Healing Mains!  I will (hopefully) have my two guild mates who have picked up the healing badge join us from time to time with their thoughts!  And who knows, I may not tank for long!

Guild Leader Perspective: Our version of Serious

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Since the casual vs hardcore vs serious debate is like stale as hell, I just feel like defining our version of serious.  We’re a small guild (according to /ginfo we have 80 individual accounts but I’m sure about 45 to 50 of those are friends who’ve made alts in our guild).  Our version of serious is not easy to define, to be honest.  Because out of our 10 to 13 raiders, it’s different for each person.  However, when it comes to the guild expectations, we are pretty standard.

For the most part, we expect people to play the game.  Gearing is something people should be doing, and not just raiding for…because the best in slot item you want may never ever drop.  Showing up on time and consistently, is something that is a common courtesy to the whole guild.  Having your own buff food and consumables (or helping make sure there are guild mats to provide them) shows you actually care about the outcome of the raid night, as does gemming and enchanting your gear.  Watching a raid video and reading the short break down makes it somewhat easier for the raid leader to express what their goal is for the night.

It’s the level of focus, in my opinion, that makes for a serious or casual raid.  With all due respect to folks, showing up to a raid at a specific time and with the stuff you should be doing, doesn’t make a serious raider.  Showing up ready to listen and stay focused on the raid (not external distractions) is vital in successful raiding.  It doesn’t matter if 10 people show up ready to go if 2 are debating the finer points of a good rum and a third person is afk getting a beer within 10 minutes of the night starting.  So, all in all, I’d say our version of serious would be focused players doing the things to be ready to raid.  What’s your version of serious?  :-)

Guild Leader Perspective: Burning Bridges

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As a guild leader, which isn’t the easiest hat to wear in the first place, you have to deal with the majority of the player relations too.  But what do you do when you have a player who suddenly G-quits?  Well, for our guild, we tend to treat this as a burned bridge.  By that, I mean, they’ve decided to leave and we aren’t going to go follow and beg them to reconsider.

Usually, when you look at the situation as a whole, the person had an unresolved issue, but didn’t come to the proper person with it, or didn’t want to hear the explanation.  Sometimes it’s suspected that they are using the unresolved issue as an excuse to jump ship.  Other times, it’s truly miss-communication at it’s finest.  The person who left may have taken something out of context, or felt like they weren’t being valued.

How do you fix this?  For the most part, you can’t fix how other people perceive things.  You can try to explain it in a different way, but sometimes the feelings have already settled in.  Having a guild charter helps, because you can clarify a policy if it was unclear, and direct the person to the policy if they feel you aren’t being fair.

Some people will still find that a /gquit is their only option to be heard.  This is problematic though, because at this point, burned bridges leave the impression of drama.  I see an out of the blue, unexplained gquit as a dramatic answer to a simple problem, and as such, it leaves me to believe that the person who left will continue to be dramatic if they come back.  Sort of like the kid who threatens to run away because mom makes him eat his peas.  This kid isn’t going to change his attitude about the peas, he just wants his mommy back.

If the person is leaving the guild and comes to us though, and leaves on a good note, usually they are welcomed back if they decide to rejoin at a later time.  Situations change, some people will want to be more hardcore than we are, some will want to be more casual than we are, and others, just may want to try a different server/faction/guild with their friends.  The bottom line is, if you’re going to leave, leave on a GOOD note.

How does your guild handle burned bridges? 

 

Guild Leader Perspective: Alts

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Some days, even the most stoic Guild Leaders (either Guild Masters, or the Officer team) need time off from responsibility.  Though we grumble sometimes when someone wants to bring a fourth alt into a raid to gear it up, we do understand.  Sometimes we do this in guild (like my second druid) or like so:

Officers gone Wild

That would be Kurby’s Goblin, my Blood Elf Mage and also his Tauren.  Though our real ID friends knew where we were playing, it is nice sometimes to just log off and go elsewhere.  This is really important if you like to play a lot, but feel like you can’t have your own time to do what you feel like doing.

I don’t have this problem so much now as I used to, but I used to level altslike crazy (seriously I have  7 Characters at level 85, and 8 Characters that are above level 60, as of this writing!), because if I were online in the guild, people expected me to heal for them.  It doesn’t matter that I needed to farm herbs for my raiding flasks!  This was prior to the formation of my current guild, and is no reflection of my current guild mates!  Many times I would level in secret until someone figured out my alt, then join the guild on it.  Eluna was actually an escape character on a different server than my mains for a while.  

About the only time Alternate Characters become an issue is when you spend more time working on them, while letting your main character show up to raids unprepared.  That is a big no-no, whether you are in a leadership position or if you are just an altoholic like me, you should always make sure your raiding character is raid ready so that you aren’t handicapping the group!  What do you like to do to get away from it all in game?

Guild Leader Perspective: The Charter and You

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Does your guild have a charter?  Do you know what it says?  If you answered I don’t know to those two questions, stop here, and go check then come back.  I’ll wait…ok
maybe I won’t because I’m an impatient person.  The charter is one of the most important aspects about a guild.  A good one will state the rules, expectations and what will happen if they aren’t met clearly.

This is important to you because its the first indicator of how a guild is ran.  If you are looking for a new guild and they sound really great but their charter isn’t laid out to you or they don’t have a set of rules and expectations?  Skip them.  Seriously.  Would you want to be a member of a club where the rules aren’t laid out?  If you are in a guild that doesn’t currently have a charter, you might mention to your guild leader that having one is favorable.

What things should be in said charter?  Member expectations should be clearly laid out, if there is a raid team, their expectations should also be clearly laid out.  Consequences should also be laid out for your guild to see.  In our charter, I also included loot rules and a break down of what bank privileges various ranks have.  I also find it important to list the the main characters of the GM, Raid Leader and Officers by name in case someone would like to contact us.

While my charter is not anything special, I put a lot of work into it to make it as clear as I could.  This is pretty vital, as any confusion over intent can lead to guild drama.  I hate guild drama.  See for me, gaming is an escape from real life, and in real life?  I’m a mom to three kids who are all just now getting into the angst filled tween stage.  I don’t want to deal with adults who are there too!

What things do you look for in a guild charter?  Are there things you steer away from?

You can find all the Guild Leader/Raid Leader Perspective posts archived here if you’d liked to read some of our other discussions!