Being RL

I have just been given the opportunity to stary Leading 25man Raids. I am comfortable in Kara and 5 mans with markings etc, but i am a bit worried about 25 mans.

Are there any addons or advice people of the boards have for RL'ing

Also i am a bit worried as i will normally be tanking and i would like to be able to see the raid as a whole to see whats going on. as you all know when tanking you are normally looking at some monsters crotch. Is there anything you do to help give you an idea of what is going on?
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Have someone else "help" you. Officers that play healers or DPS are fine.

I sometimes "RL", i'm not afraid to ask which mobs should be sheeper and which not if i'm not sure, there's nothing wrong in that
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We do raid leading as a group, as I was raid leader when we were doing the early 25man content we started to realise that, whilst I was a great raid leader when I was holy, I don't have a great view of the raid from under the stomach of some fat pitlord, so..
These days I organise strats others implement/manage them.
Having a raid leader is fine but as you move into content you have to realise that most people can't afford to be 'raid led' - A lot of T6 content, if you're waiting for someone to tell you what to do on vent, or worse, in raid warning - you're already dead.
Anything pre-combat can be done by anyone.

Proper unit-frames with health and mana bars, cooldown (raid important) timers for other people, boss mods, something similar to CTRa (oRA2 works great), should be enough.
If you wanna raid lead as a tank you really have to have a sixth sense for it, it's doable but you have to take in so much extra information whilst doing the only job (normally) that above all else can't afford to be screwed up.


Edit:
My typical raid leading demeanour is relaxed and messing around is fine - pretty much with the exclusion of when we have important stuff to be getting on with that raid (new boss(es)/attunements in one night, etc).

- Get GRID ( www.wowace.com )
- Get GRIDmanabars
- Get XRS ( www.wowace.com )
- Get BigBrother ( announces who broke sheeps and /slaps them )
- Make everyone raid assist and let THEM mark their own mobs.
- Assign 2 mages to sheeping duty ( let them use SHEEP only , NO DPS!!)
- Ban damagemeters from raid chat, /kick from raid if someone posts em
- Assign 1 lock to COE , 2 locks to COT
- Ask a healer to assign ALL the healer assignments.
- Make a clear kill order : Skull THEN Cross THEN Orange THEN the rest
- Tanks mark skull + cross + orange always. CC uses the other icons
- Don't allow people to go /afk without telling it in raid chat
- Don't explain trashmob pulls and mob abilities ( expect them to know )
- Don't explain boss tactics ( they should read bosskillers.com )
- Everyone needs to be on Teamspeak / Ventrilo or /kick them from raid ( no exceptions )
- Everyone needs Bigwigs ( or bosskillers )
- SolarianAlarm addon on Solarian
- VoidReaverAlarm addon on Void Reaver
- any other addons for specific bosses should be installed
- Every paladin should have Pallypower addon ( no exceptions )

I raid lead quite a lot , and I still don't know ( I don't care ! ) what can be sheeped and what can't be CoT'd etc... the responsible people know, and that's all that's needed. when all mobs in the next pull are marked up , then everyone knows you can pull and the tanks all pull.

The moment you stop explaining boss tactics and trash tactics : your progress will skyrocket and your raid leading will be SO much easier.
Focus on important things, don't focus on things that everyone can read on www.bosskillers.com.

Be honest and fair to your raid members : If someone screws up : tell them in teamspeak , so everyone knows who screwed up and why. If they see this as a personal attack , then /gkick them and recruit 20+ mature members. If they see this as positive critics from which they can learn, then you're on your way. Also , if you screw up : admit it. Tell them if you were tanking in healing gear : it's good for a laugh. ( hell I tanked in healing gear many times. I body pulled mobs because I didn't wear a shield ( fishing pole ) and went closer and closer wondering why my avenger shield was greyed out until I body-pulled.
Everyone makes mistakes : Let them have the freedom to learn from their mistakes. It's ok to make mistakes , but if they're slacking ( that's something else than a mistake ) then you should consider /kick from the raid.

How do you identify slacking members :
- They don't have pots / bandages / flasks / food / weapon oils ( use bigbrother a few times and report into the raid chat to identify these )
- They are always low on mana or out of mana ( they don't want to spend mana pots on raids -> /gkick these , they are no good and are always loot whores ( usually pvp specced too )
- They are pvp specced in raids ( /gkick ! no excuses for thsi slacking )
- They don't mark their targets ( they're not prepared ). Tell them in raid chat to read tactics next time.
- They don't have a clue on what to do on bossfights. Same thing : tell them to read up on bosskillers.com or else they will not be invited to raids.
- They don't have money to repair ( /kick from raid, /gkick next time )
- They leave during the middle of the raid ( they should have told you in the beginning of the raid. If you get this reply : "but you didn't ask me if I would stay the whole raid !" -> they're 14 years old -> /gkick )

If you have a mature serious guild, you prolly will have very low amount of slackers.

Once you're past the kiddie-kicking, and your people all know what to do in raids, and they are all marking their targets without asking stupid questions, you will have an easy time raid leading and from that moment on you can really raid lead instead of babysitting

-Puss
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I don't use any add-ons to help raid leading specifically, beyond the normal CTRA/oRA type thingamebobs.

As for leading, try to keep it fun and focussed. Keep the mood light without things getting frivilous and if an attempt fails, try to find out what caused it without pointing fingers. No-one likes a witchhunt.

Don't be afraid to delegate the micromanagement of tanking/healing assignments to a senior member of that group (a class officer if your guild has them). Chances are they know the relative strengths and weakness of the team better than you and it leaves you free to deal with the overall management of the fight.

Try to guage when people's enthusiasm is waning as well. If folks are getting tired, a five-minute biobreak can do wonders, as long as you're not running a timer. If you're making repeated attempts on a boss with no noticeable progress then it might be an idea to look into either reassigning roles or calling it a night. A right spent with a suboptimal group on a progression kill is akin to banging your head off a brick wall.
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Me Cray, you Abacus.

gonna pull some real life knowledge into this:

'a good NCO listens to his squad'

meaning...you should ask for advice...you dont have to take it, but all advice is good
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Thanks for the posts, they were really helpful.

Unfortunately a number of our members are still in the baby training stages and need to be told what to do for every pull. If i kicked them for the stuff that puss put down i would halve our raiding members.

I will definately use bigbrother as a lot of the members have a tendancy not to use pots/flask/elixers etc which really annoys me. How reliable is this addon as i dont want to start complaining at people and then be proved wrong.

Being an ex holy pala i have Grid and stuff like that so keeing an eye on the raid is fine. it was more the positioning of people etc, but i guess the other officers would be able to give me feedback on that.
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promote the CCers and tanks, tell them to mark their targets and let the raid run itself for the most part =P

Make sure everyone knows what they are doing and people who don't get someone who is doing the same or similar job to them to walk them through it.
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You know you want it! Ooorah /dance

I'm pretty sure I would leave you're raid Puss. That's about as nazi as it gets...lol. I agree with Ulu, keep it light but still focused. The difference between farm content and progression is a big one though. People can do whatever they like on farm content as long as it doesn't a) wipe the raid b) piss other people off. As for progression content, I like to keep a business type atmosphere. Talking only with important info and such. This is raiding, not real life war. The most important thing, I think, is that there is a point where everyone pretty much gives up on a failing situation. You need to be good at realizing that to continue will just make things worse. When to call it and when to push one more go is a very important decision.

Other than Hitler up there, I pretty much agree with the rest of the advice.
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http://theorycraftingforlosers.wordpress.com/

mmm... Puss...

- Get GRID ( www.wowace.com )
- Get GRIDmanabars
- Get XRS ( www.wowace.com )
- Get BigBrother ( announces who broke sheeps and /slaps them )

I've never heard of any of those mods. I personally hate reliance on mods to do your job.

- Make everyone raid assist and let THEM mark their own mobs.

Much easier and less confusing to do it yourself and call it out; your way people just start marking/CC'ing/killing whatever they want. That's like, communist raid leading. Yes.

- Assign 2 mages to sheeping duty ( let them use SHEEP only , NO DPS!!)

Assign as few or many mages as you need. If they don't know how to keep their target sheep'd and dps, they should not be assigned to sheeping.

- Ban damagemeters from raid chat, /kick from raid if someone posts em

I do agree with this. Everyone knows that no meter posting is allowed unless it's in whispers, so I don't have to worry about kicking.

- Assign 1 lock to COE , 2 locks to COT

Like sheeps, assigning locks is situational. I typically let CLs decide how to manage their classes as they know them better than I do.

- Ask a healer to assign ALL the healer assignments.
- Make a clear kill order

Agreed.

- Tanks mark skull + cross + orange always. CC uses the other icons

Again, situational. lol, pulls are not always the same you know.

- Don't allow people to go /afk without telling it in raid chat

Agreed.

- Don't explain trashmob pulls and mob abilities ( expect them to know )

"Expect them to know?" That's just bad leading. For most trash, I don't need to explain things, but when there's enough new people I still do.

- Don't explain boss tactics ( they should read bosskillers.com )

That's even worse. When in doubt, explain. And be sure to let people know that if they have a question, ASK!

- Everyone needs to be on Teamspeak / Ventrilo or /kick them from raid ( no exceptions )

Agreed.

- Everyone needs Bigwigs ( or bosskillers )

lol.

- SolarianAlarm addon on Solarian
- VoidReaverAlarm addon on Void Reaver
- any other addons for specific bosses should be installed
- Every paladin should have Pallypower addon ( no exceptions )

Again, reliance on mods. Mods help, make no mistake. But the only mod I REQUIRE is Omen/KTM.

- The moment you stop explaining boss tactics and trash tactics : your progress will skyrocket and your raid leading will be SO much easier.
Focus on important things, don't focus on things that everyone can read on www.bosskillers.com.

This is assuming your raid knows what they're doing. If they're still learning, and you're not explaining things? That's your fault.

The rest of the post focuses on making sure you have mature players in your guild, which is always good. A bit triggerhappy on the /gkick and /kicking, but some guilds are less casual than mine too.
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