Stormrage Social Contract for Tal's Raids

[Tal]

Last night's run on UBRS was exceedingly successful. We got three members of the Avarice Alliance blooded for more healing/dps in Onyxia. We also obtained another means of fear ward for Onyxia phase three which is VERY good.

But honestly I'm surprised that we managed to drop the General with the way that people in raid one were playing. Oh this isn't to say that I had no confidence in the healers or my offtank Dragoon. They all did their job to perfection. I certainly couldn't have pullled nearly as well without Quark's scouting and excellent use of distract. The big problem is that people were not paying ANY attention to raid chat.

Mistakes happen in this game. That is a certainty. But when the raid leader says "Stay back until we call you forward." The expectation is that folks will stay back. I shouldn't at that point be staring at anyone's back with the exception of the people designated for the pull. When someone runs forward to intercept a mob that is incoming you are not doing your job. Whats more is when you start to take damage early on the healers will heal you, possibly drawing aggro before I can even lock down the mobs. As a result the priest ends up face down damn quick and I'm left to scramble with Dragoon to lock mobs down.

I realize that many of us have been to UBRS so often that we can run it in our sleep. I also realize that folks like to have fun in UBRS so spirits run high. But not at the expense of doing our jobs. I shouldn't have to spend the entirety of the run seething in anger just so people in the raid can goof off. I view it as a personal failing if someone dies on my raids because I feel I let them down as a tank. Its all the more frustrating when you're the raid leader and that person died because people weren't following the raid instructions.

I titled my thread "Social Contract" for a reason. In exchange for members of the raid doing the following:

Let me designate a puller or be the puller.
Let me call for what CC I want - I'm starting to see the value of hibernate/traps and to be able to work with them. But its still something I'm learning and isn't needed for every pull.
Listen to instructions in raid chat.

I promise I will:
Distribute loot fairly and evenly across the board.
Treat you with respect and fairness - no yelling.
Speak with you privately if there are things you are doing that are contrary to instructions in raid chat.

I will make every effort to communicate issues with members of the raid. People that continually ignore instructions, however, will be removed from the raid.

Thanks.

[Arethor]

/signed

[Garrin]

::hopes he wasn't one of the above mentioned::

::jots down his john hancock::

[Sabra]

Agreed 100%

[Tuftears]

Signed.

Even if someone disagrees with the raid leader, it's better to PM the leader and ask about a change in plans, and if the raid leader wants to try something... Maybe it will work, give it a chance.

Raid discpline gets more and more important, the farther up the chain we go. So does attention to what's going on... And that includes raid chat as well as the fighting on the screen.

[WildFire]

/signed

Less bickering and disagreeing with the raid leaders would be nice

[Bolty]

When someone runs forward to intercept a mob that is incoming you are not doing your job. Whats more is when you start to take damage early on the healers will heal you, possibly drawing aggro before I can even lock down the mobs. As a result the priest ends up face down damn quick and I'm left to scramble with Dragoon to lock mobs down.[right][snapback]92298[/snapback][/right]

After the first run that night, we did a second one which you did not attend. This second time, we weren't so lucky. With too much of this behavior going on, one of our priests ended up face down, oh, 3 times that I recall. Possibly 4. Why?

Because every time people get antsy and not let the tank establish aggro, us healers have to heal your butts. This brings every other mob on us. It was pretty sad - encounter after encounter the other priest and I were playing Fade ping-pong and there were a few occasions when I went into turtle mode and spammed Flash Heal on myself to stay alive (this is the absolute worst thing for a Priest to do, and usually means things have completely gone to *expletive deleted*). It's a miracle Tal was able to hold the first raid fairly solvent. Because we didn't wipe, a lot of it got swept under the rug. But bad habits in UBRS translate into wipes in Molten Core. These are training raids!

Playing in a raid means submerging a little of your "action" for the good of the whole. Constantly ignoring orders and doing things that hurt the raid means you're placing your fun above the fun of every other player there. That's not what teamplay is about. Listen to Tal and listen to your main tank and stop getting people killed. If you were rushing ahead of the tanks, breaking CC (once is a mistake, over and over means you should be booted), not waiting when told, etc, you know who you are.

Good post, Tal. :)

-Bolty

[Zippyy]

I promise I will:
Distribute loot fairly and evenly across the board.
Treat you with respect and fairness - no yelling.
Molest Bolty excessively.
Speak with you privately if there are things you are doing that are contrary to instructions in raid chat.

[Darian]

Because every time people get antsy and not let the tank establish aggro, us healers have to heal your butts.
[right][snapback]92370[/snapback][/right]

Or, as you (correctly) noted when I snapped at everyone... let them die. For most people, being allowed to die repeatedly rather than having their asses pulled out of the fire when they screw up is a great training exercise.

However, the larger problem is, indeed, that most of the people on these runs are used to psychotic 1-hour UBRS runs where there's virtually no risk of a wipe, and they're failing to get that there are people who are (1) still unfamiliar with the instance, like you or (2) may be getting their first experiences in a raiding environment with a new class, like I was on the first run.

You can blast through an instance and still do things properly. The things we're complaining about here are not a function of tiptoeing through the instance afraid of multiple pulls. The thing that bit us in the ass on both raids is something I have yelled at everyone about on virtually every UBRS run I've ever led, and people still don't freakin' get it: in that upstairs room just before the Beast, everyone has to stay in the back half of the room and let the pullers pull the mobs back into the center. Rushing forward to clog the entrance to the ramp has nothing to do with saving time on the instance, and everything to do with people being too damned impatient to hit something.

I've caught a lot of good-natured hell in the past because when I'd lead a 10-15 man raid on a level 60 instance, I'd be a little "too" careful... but I'm starting to think it's more that I was being a little too disciplined for a herd of cats to want to cope with. And while Onyxia is farmable, and parts of MC are becoming downright trivial, unless we practice discipline in places like UBRS, we're going to get omgwtfpwned in BWL. This game is designed so that you can't just throw more ammo at a problem, at least not until you've quit trying to throw more ammo at it and gotten the routine down.

(Whee! My 300th post!)

[Tal]

I promise I will:
Distribute loot fairly and evenly across the board.
Treat you with respect and fairness - no yelling.
Molest Bolty excessively.
Speak with you privately if there are things you are doing that are contrary to instructions in raid chat.
[right][snapback]92372[/snapback][/right]

I realize and appreciate that you're trying to keep things on a light tone but I'm afraid I'm going to have to step in and ask folks to please be serious in reviewing this topic. :)

[martini]

Speak with you privately if there are things you are doing that are contrary to instructions in raid chat.

I will make every effort to communicate issues with members of the raid. People that continually ignore instructions, however, will be removed from the raid. [right][snapback]92298[/snapback][/right]

I think that bringing up concerns with specific individuals is the most important thing we can do to improve our raid pool as a whole. It's also a difficult thing, so it doesn't always get done. I know that at times, I've neglected making specific comments to people who were repeatedly doing things I was telling them not to do on one of my runs, because I didn't want to deal with possible conflict, and I'll try to remedy that in the future.

Every thing that one of our members learns makes us stronger as a group, so let's try to teach each other all that we know.

[Lissa]

Last night's run on UBRS was exceedingly successful. We got three members of the Avarice Alliance blooded for more healing/dps in Onyxia. We also obtained another means of fear ward for Onyxia phase three which is VERY good.

But honestly I'm surprised that we managed to drop the General with the way that people in raid one were playing. Oh this isn't to say that I had no confidence in the healers or my offtank Dragoon. They all did their job to perfection. I certainly couldn't have pullled nearly as well without Quark's scouting and excellent use of distract. The big problem is that people were not paying ANY attention to raid chat.

Mistakes happen in this game. That is a certainty. But when the raid leader says "Stay back until we call you forward." The expectation is that folks will stay back. I shouldn't at that point be staring at anyone's back with the exception of the people designated for the pull. When someone runs forward to intercept a mob that is incoming you are not doing your job. Whats more is when you start to take damage early on the healers will heal you, possibly drawing aggro before I can even lock down the mobs. As a result the priest ends up face down damn quick and I'm left to scramble with Dragoon to lock mobs down.

I realize that many of us have been to UBRS so often that we can run it in our sleep. I also realize that folks like to have fun in UBRS so spirits run high. But not at the expense of doing our jobs. I shouldn't have to spend the entirety of the run seething in anger just so people in the raid can goof off. I view it as a personal failing if someone dies on my raids because I feel I let them down as a tank. Its all the more frustrating when you're the raid leader and that person died because people weren't following the raid instructions.

I titled my thread "Social Contract" for a reason. In exchange for members of the raid doing the following:

Let me designate a puller or be the puller.
Let me call for what CC I want - I'm starting to see the value of hibernate/traps and to be able to work with them. But its still something I'm learning and isn't needed for every pull.
Listen to instructions in raid chat.

I promise I will:
Distribute loot fairly and evenly across the board.
Treat you with respect and fairness - no yelling.
Speak with you privately if there are things you are doing that are contrary to instructions in raid chat.

I will make every effort to communicate issues with members of the raid. People that continually ignore instructions, however, will be removed from the raid.

Thanks.
[right][snapback]92298[/snapback][/right]

No problem, but I do want to make one comment. Too much CC is better than too little. With CC you can pick and choose what you want to break and fight and I would rather have us blowing apart one or two mobs at a time when we do have people that are new (the main reason I was going trap happy) then dealing with too many and new people getting swamped. Likewise, after Rend's room, Freeze Trap is the only safe CC that works on everything, but the Beast and Drakisath. Both Poly and Sap are limited to humanoids and the most dangerous mobs after Rend's room are the dragonkin, especially the females with their AoE fire novas and freeze trap is the only CC that will work (Dragonkin after Rend's room are immune to hibernate).

[anadrol]

Last night's run on UBRS was exceedingly successful. We got three members of the Avarice Alliance blooded for more healing/dps in Onyxia. We also obtained another means of fear ward for Onyxia phase three which is VERY good.

But honestly I'm surprised that we managed to drop the General with the way that people in raid one were playing. Oh this isn't to say that I had no confidence in the healers or my offtank Dragoon. They all did their job to perfection. I certainly couldn't have pullled nearly as well without Quark's scouting and excellent use of distract. The big problem is that people were not paying ANY attention to raid chat.

Mistakes happen in this game. That is a certainty. But when the raid leader says "Stay back until we call you forward." The expectation is that folks will stay back. I shouldn't at that point be staring at anyone's back with the exception of the people designated for the pull. When someone runs forward to intercept a mob that is incoming you are not doing your job. Whats more is when you start to take damage early on the healers will heal you, possibly drawing aggro before I can even lock down the mobs. As a result the priest ends up face down damn quick and I'm left to scramble with Dragoon to lock mobs down.

I realize that many of us have been to UBRS so often that we can run it in our sleep. I also realize that folks like to have fun in UBRS so spirits run high. But not at the expense of doing our jobs. I shouldn't have to spend the entirety of the run seething in anger just so people in the raid can goof off. I view it as a personal failing if someone dies on my raids because I feel I let them down as a tank. Its all the more frustrating when you're the raid leader and that person died because people weren't following the raid instructions.

I titled my thread "Social Contract" for a reason. In exchange for members of the raid doing the following:

Let me designate a puller or be the puller.
Let me call for what CC I want - I'm starting to see the value of hibernate/traps and to be able to work with them. But its still something I'm learning and isn't needed for every pull.
Listen to instructions in raid chat.

I promise I will:
Distribute loot fairly and evenly across the board.
Treat you with respect and fairness - no yelling.
Speak with you privately if there are things you are doing that are contrary to instructions in raid chat.

I will make every effort to communicate issues with members of the raid. People that continually ignore instructions, however, will be removed from the raid.

Thanks.
[right][snapback]92298[/snapback][/right]

I just want to apologize for rushing new folks through ubrs when I was MT ing the other night, when we have more new people I will try to explain each section or go a little easier.

[Yuen]

After the first run that night, we did a second one which you did not attend. This second time, we weren't so lucky. With too much of this behavior going on, one of our priests ended up face down, oh, 3 times that I recall. Possibly 4. Why?

Because every time people get antsy and not let the tank establish aggro, us healers have to heal your butts. This brings every other mob on us.

I dont disagree with your statement. And although you mention breaking CC later in your post, I feel no one has actually emphasised its importance.

That particular avarice UBRS run went worse than a lot of pick up groups (with our squishies dieing multiple times) - and if you had to name the *single* *largest* contributing factor to that - it would have been the continual breaking of CC.

I think it is relevant to emphasise that breaking CC was the most important factor because (1) it makes sure you focus on it and act to change it and (2) when the sh*t hits the fan its important not only to realise what is the right and wrong thing to do, but also what is the highest priority and the lowest priority action your team should be focussed on.

Everyone should have been assisting the Main Assist. That one singular change would have made the whole run 100% smoother. CC would have remained unbroken. Total monster damage output would have been reduced most of the time by 1/2 or 2/3. And more importantly - for the warriors - trying to hold aggro on a single monster vs 3 monsters (2 of which are beating the crap out of cloth wearers) would have been the difference between night and day.

People have made a lot of good points for improvement in this thread, but I dont think anyone really stressed what was the single largest problem with that raid. And since we had new people there and we are trying to make a learning exercise from this - I felt it was necessary to state the blatantly obvious (ie this post).

[Olon97]

Perhaps an apology is in order? ;)