3.40. Seven Hours With a Backseat Raid Leader

The 25-Man progression raid moves into position
to begin work on Illidan the Betrayer,
Black Temple

Poker Face

"Got a minute?"

"Yeah, sure. What's up?"

"I'm having a bit of a problem. I need your help. Specifically, your expertise in the area of the warrior class."

"Ok...what kind of problem?"

I pause and take a deep breath as I consider how to phrase it with a bit of dignity and tact.

"Omaric, how do you feel about Kurst?"

"Good guy. I like him. He's super friendly."

"Yeah, he is a good guy."

An awkward silence follows. Omaric breaks it.

"If this is about me not being able to get in for Illidan, I realize that I still need to work my way into the rotations…"

"Oh no, no it's...it's nothing like that at all. You're great. We're working on getting you into Black Temple as soon as we can."

"Nice. Thanks."

Silence.

"I realize you're new here and still trying to make a name for yourself so I'm going to go out on a limb and ask you to be brutally honest with me."

"Ok…"

"What do you think of Kurst's...ability as a tank?"

A pause.

"Personally? I dunno. I mean...he's obviously competent. Right? I mean, he knows what he's doing..."

I push him.

"...but do you feel like he's a leader? Is he someone you strive to emulate? Are you rushing out and gemming like him, changing your rotation to be more like his…"

Omaric chuckles.

"Heh, no...not quite ready to make those changes yet."

I press further.

"Now why is that?"

This time, Omaric takes the deep breath.

"Um...I don't know that his gemming strategy is necessarily right for him, or for us."

"Explain."

Another deep breath.

"A lot of world first, server first type tanks are gemming full stamina like that. Bru for one."

I stay silent to see if he gives me more.

"Look. Healers like predictable amounts of damage. When a warrior gems stamina like that, they're giving healers a solid buffer of constant, predictable damage to heal through. But these are also server first type healers, right?"

They manage their mana.

"I mean, there's a cost to that server-first style."

"And that is?"

"Well for the tank, a loss in threat generation, usually. Maybe not a huge issue..."

"...unless you're a tank that already struggles to keep threat."

"...yeah."

"So, you feel like he's maybe doing a disservice to our healers and himself with this gemming strategy?"

I can tell in these long pauses he doesn't want to say the wrong thing and do himself in. We're not a world first guild, don't have world first healers. Tanks that temper stamina with mitigation and avoidance stats give more casual healers a chance to catch their breath, granting them some breathing room during streaks of dodges and parries. He doesn't want to throw his new officer under the bus. He wants to be diplomatic, respectful.

Traits that will come in handy later.

"Maybe it's not the best for him, no."

"Omaric, say no more. You've been very helpful. I really appreciate you giving me a few minutes this evening. With this attention to detail, I promise you that you'll be seeing raids very shortly."

General Vezax is slain along side the Saronite Animus, earning
the raid "I Love The Smell of Saronite in the Morning (25 Player)",
Ulduar

A Series of Unnecessary Hoops

The longest stretch of road between Williston, North Dakota and Denver, Colorado has to be the 260 miles that sit between Watford City and Sturgis. It is a painfully long and uneventful stretch of asphalt that provides a long-distance driver with very little to focus on. I was fine without the distractions, since I had plenty on my mind. One month after the nightmarish breakdown, the Civic's transmission had finally been replaced. Driving it home was the final loose end that had to be tied up in real life, yet loose ends were still plaguing the guild in the virtual world. Cheeseus had made it clear that his raid leading days were fast coming to an end, and I needed to decide on his replacement. My mental game of Guess Who? pointed me to Omaric as the next logical choice to step into his shoes, but I had concerns to weigh. Which was perfect, considering I had nothing else to do for the next ten hours.

In the fifteen months since joining Descendants of Draenor, Omaric had continually been representative of that cream that rose to the top. He was the sort of player you didn't hesitate in bringing along when it was time to get shit done, tackling content with the finesse of an expert player. He wasn't terribly egotistical, but cheered with pride just as hard as some of the old-school vanilla players when content got smashed into the ground. He shared my love of voice impressions and managed to get Vent laughing on many occasions, especially when doing the Movie Guy:

In a world. Where one keyboard turner. Leads one guild. To victory. Now. More than ever. They have what it takes to clean up the Deathwing server. Descendants of Draenor. Starts Friday in a theater near you.

My "Deckard Cain" couldn't compete with that. Omaric nailed his voice impressions just as easily as he nailed warrior tanking. Which is why I gambled on taking him aside one evening and asking him to spill the beans on Kurst, just to confirm my own suspicions that things weren't being led as well as I had hoped. Omaric was honest with me that day, even amid the threat that word could get back to Kurst and make his life in DoD miserable. He wanted to lay his hand completely face up but used a bit of discretion instead, which meant he cared about the persona he projected. The prospect of appointing him my next raid leader grew alongside the tick of the odometer.

The loose ends were still daunting. Omaric had a tendency to get riled up during raids, especially in the face of repeated wipes. He was one of the first players to bring the strategy into question if we weren't making noticeable progress with each try. Why don't we do it this way? I don't understand why we don't just do this. Why do we have to go through the extra effort of doing these things? It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to have people do these things here when they can have their attention focused over there instead. When my raiders challenged the raid leader's strategy, I was at my most vulnerable. I could do nothing but sit back and watch, hoping the raid leader would give birth to a rational, logical explanation while I pressed my face up against the glass, practicing my breathing exercises. As if that would help the labor at all.

Backseat raid leading was something that had plagued both Blain and Cheeseus. Both rogues had proven themselves perfectly viable, knowledgeable raid leaders. Yet both suffered the same fate: both had to face the wrath of random players who felt they knew better -- and couldn't understand why these rogues were making us jump through a lot of unnecessary hoops. But my expertise wasn't in raid strategy, which is exactly why I delegated that role to Blain and Cheese. I didn't have the tools to defend the reasons why they ran the show the way that they did; it was up to them to fight their own battles. Unfortunately, they rarely did. And the contempt built up silently inside them instead.

I stared at the miles of road stretching out into the distance, disappearing over the horizon, and tried to shuffle these variables around in my head. Perhaps if Omaric was in the role of raid leader, then this issue would be moot. He would no longer be challenging the raid leader's strategy because he'd be responsible for dictating it himself. But how would he respond to others backseat raid leading with him in the driver's seat? Would he stand up for himself and defend his reasoning? Or would he go silent like the rogues before him, letting the rage bar build up inside until it was time to execute.

And of course, there was still the issue of how to handle Shadowmourne…

Steelbreaker is the last to die during an attempt on The Assembly
of Iron, earning the raid "I Choose You, Steelbreaker (25 Player)",
Ulduar

That Wonderfully Awkward Vibe

One weekend had already gone into The General's hard mode. All attempts had been close, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades. The kick rotation was particularly unforgiving, yet essential for a win, so any missed interrupt on Vezax's Searing Flames would spiral the attempt out of control. My own ace in the hole for this part was a Quartz focus cast bar married to a Strangulate macro. This allowed me to see the incoming casts Vezax wound up while I had the Animus on me, and was still able to silence him before the damage was done. Patience and practice would ultimately win the day as we transitioned into the Animus, picking him up and keeping him held down tightly while DPS burned him as fast as possible. Finally, we transitioned back to Vezax for the kill. The "I Love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning (25 Player)" achievement spammed our chat windows, and we looted, preparing to head to Yogg. Cheeseus intervened.

"Hold up," said the rogue, "head back to the Antechamber."

I shot Cheeseus a /tell, "Changing things up, eh? You're full of surprises."

"Keeps 'em on their toes," he replied, "we have work to do."

Easy and Medium difficulties were already ancient history; Brundir and Molgeim both had their moment in the spotlight to be killed last by the 25-Man progression team. The task before us now was to defeat Steelbreaker last, a mode that would be devastating to his tank for multiple reasons. Steelbreaker's Fusion Punch would grow in power as his council members fell, to the point that tank cooldowns wouldn't be enough to survive; it demanded an additional protective rotation from the healers. But the real gimmick here was Overwhelming Power.

In the final burn on Steelbreaker, he would debuff his current tank, a time-bomb now ticking which would annihilate the tank and everyone around him after half a minute. Cheeseus had very specific instructions for Bretthew and I in regards to this debuff: Mature eats the brunt of the damage, Bretthew taunts to receive the debuff, then takes it away from the group and dies, to be battle rezzed and rejoin for the last few percent. Crystal clear in its description, a bit more challenging to pull off in reality. Steelbreaker hit like a truck. I measured my cooldown usage carefully; Unbreakable Armor, Icebound Fortitude, Bone Shield, Anti-Magic Shell. In Wrath, Death Knights had plenty of tools to mitigate damage, and I used every one I had at my disposal. But Steelbreaker broke me multiple times, and we fell short by only a few percent on each successive attempt. Close. But still not close enough.

As we ran back between wipes, the balloon finally burst, right on schedule.

"I don't understand why we don't just put Taba on Steelbreaker instead of Mature. Hello, paladin? He can bubble and dispel himself."

Angered enveloped me. We don't change strategy mid-raid. I was losing Cheeseus to backseat raid leading (among other things), and the very person I was considering as his replacement was the one doing the damage. I raged.

"Because that isn't the raid leader's strat, Omaric. This isn't a fucking democracy. If you want to be the raid leader, let me know. Got it? Until then, Cheese is running the show. And what he says...is what we do."

The awkward vibe of a pissed-off guild leader blanketed Vent into silence. I regained composure.

"Now, Cheese, if you will...please continue."

It wasn't my place to fight the raid leader's battles for him. I needed to make a deal with myself that I wouldn't lose my shit again -- but whomever ended up replacing Cheeseus was going to have to stand their ground. They were going to need a backbone. Enough of one to even tell me when to shut the hell up.

3.27. Eating What You Order

Hanzo channels Jesse Pinkman as DoD wraps
up their first kill of General Vezax,
Ulduar

Abdominal Distention

May was a full plate, both in real life in and in WoW. On the tangible side of the screen, I had a handful of events to plan for. Both my wife and son would celebrate their birthday this month, sandwiched between the festivities of a Mother's Day and a High School reunion stretched over the Memorial Day long weekend. On top of these family related-events, a trip to Texas had been penciled in, as my company's team in the Dallas area was due for more training on our app. Two years ago it would have been far too much to digest. Late nights of doing too much in-game, ignoring my family back in the real world. In order to manage the guild and my time effectively, I had to be a picky eater. Not every situation or individual demanded hours of care and upkeep. The right tools allowed me to use my time efficiently, whether they were streamlining my raid signups, or keeping raiders honest in-game. The days of ordering everything on the menu were behind me.

Yogg-Saron was in the crosshairs, a complex nightmarish encounter that would have to be diced up into bite-sized chunks. Before him, however, we had to defeat General Vezax. The faceless one that guarded the entrance to Yogg was next on our list, and his ability to suppress mana regeneration was sure to give our healers some headaches. Again, Cheeseus called upon the (over) power of the Death Knight and put me to work tanking Vezax. Some raiding guilds had strategized around Surge of Darkness by kiting, but Cheeseus never once optioned the tactic. I stood and ate the entire Surge, thanks to Icebound Fortitude and a ridiculous amount of self-heals via Death Strike. Execution ultimately came down to mastering the Searing Flame interrupt, my Mind Freeze rotation quickly becoming muscle memory. It was on the Mother's Day weekend that we completed the Vezax encounter, and dove into his loot table for dessert.

The roster maintained a steady flow of Raiders and Elites throughout May. Week after week, they signed up, entered the queue, and I managed their rotations. Raiders would back out, their empty spots being filled by new folks waiting in the queue. This had been my intention from the start -- a new world order, free of stress and demanding only minutes of my attention a day. Thanks to our web-based signup sheet, phpRaider, I was able to prepare the rotations for the weekend in the same amount of time it took to get a cup of coffee. It was a proactive system, rather than a reactive one, enabling me to deal with players that had a tough time being consistent. So when Ben missed the Mother’s Day raid sign-up, it was inconvenient but manageable; it wasn't the end of the world. No more frantic last-minute fills, no more late nights in-game to the detriment of my family...because the tooling was right.

Unless, of course, the tools themselves were broken.

oRA2 returning a durability check

phpFailure

"She like the iPhone?"

"Oh yeah, fuckin' loved it." I typed back to Cheeseus, "Totally flipped out, had no idea she was getting one for her birthday."

"Nice. I assume we're going with oRA2 now that we're pushing for Yogg?"

I concurred. RDX had served us well, but it was time to retire the old beast. Over time it had grown cumbersome; the add-on had always been top-heavy, eating into the CPU cycles of our lesser equipped players in the computer hardware department. Cheeseus and I found oRA2 and were looking to use it as a replacement. We needed something to report back to us the status of players and their flasks, durability, etc. Sure, I could blindly trust players, but why give them an opportunity to lie, just to sate me? It was no longer appropriate to just take their word. Far better to just implement the right tool to deliver the truth, and deal with table scraps as they surfaced.

"Forget to finish the rotations?" Cheese asked.

"What? No! Who is missing?"

"Looks like Turtleman cancelled again."

Annoyed, I alt-tabbed over to phpRaider. But he was rotated in yesterday morning...I remember confirming after dinner. We had the roster accounted for by the time we were in our 24-hour lockout window. I hovered over the little note next to Turtleman's name, the place where players left their reason...their excuse...for cutting and running:

(Sorry, had a family dinner. Nothing I could do about it)

One of the changes I introduced in Wrath disallowed players from cancelling when there were less than 24 hours before a raid. It was a gentleman's handshake, an extension of good faith: I'll give you the flexibility of coming and going as you pleased, and in return, you needed to commit when the clock ticked down to the final day before the raid. Only emergencies would get you out at the 11th hour, and that required you to phone or text me (or an officer). If you could manage it, I wanted the name of the person who was replacing you. It wasn't the officers' jobs to play Mommy and Daddy to spoiled brats wanting to change their schedules on a whim. If you left us high-and-dry, it was your responsibility to find a replacement. Failure to do so would ensure reduced rotations.

Outside of the 24 hour window, you were free to queue and de-queue as you pleased. I agreed to eat that. I would perform rotations as late as possible (generally Thursday morning), and even let you sign up weeks in advance. As long as it was a day before the raid, you could still change your sign-up.

This Friday morning, hours before the raid, someone had found a loophole and exploited it.

"This wasn't an emergency," I typed back to Cheeseus.

"So what happened?"

"He cancelled inside the window. There's a bug in phpRaider. I'm going to have to fix it before more people think this is allowed."

So while Turtleman enjoyed his family dinner and evening off, I took care of business. I made the calls that day. I got his replacement. After going through the motions of working on Yogg-Saron, I stayed up late and fixed phpRaider. And long after my wife and kids where already asleep, I climbed upstairs, and went to bed.

And dreamed of standing in fire.

Mature earns "Heroic: In His House He Waits
Dreaming" during an attempt on Yogg-Saron,
Ulduar

Peoplecraft

"I'll let you answer his PM," said Cheeseus.

Divineseal had sent a message to myself, Cheeseus, and Dalans, asking how he could start bringing his Druid. I took it off of their hands. People management was starting to get a little easier for me, no doubt as a result of the practice I was getting. The early days of Ekasra and Wyse were warm-ups, and Kurst's harsh truths gave me the basic foundation to work with. Thanks to a more balanced schedule, I could make quicker assessments -- a huge win during this packed month. If it wasn't worth the effort, they'd get the short-and-sweet answer. You're not working out. Sorry. I no longer had the time to cater to everyone. And that was OK. Not everyone is savable.

"7th place overall, with only 66% of a DISC priest, and on Freya placing 9th, BARELY beating the PROT pali, while losing to the enhance and elemental shammy?"

I winced.

"Yeah...not the greatest coverage in the book."

Cheeseus was clearly not a fan of Divineseal. I thought it would be reasonable to give him a shot, even after the warning, the speech...how I specifically detailed to him the fact that he was quoted in the red flag forum post. He knew all eyes would be on him and that this would be his opportunity to improve. I suggested healing as a role only because I knew he had been healing in an arena team. That was the deal: don't tell people how to spec just to get them on the roster. I told myself this would fly because he was already a healer in another capacity.

When your roster is comprised of half casual, half hardcore raiders, catering to both, you'll come to discover that some players will be unable to play any role well. It's a sad fact. I looked at my newly fixed phpRaider, saw Divineseal signed up well into the months ahead, and sighed.

Paladins were going to be the death of me.

"I'll be watching Ben tonight to make sure he's doing what he needs to. He wasn't switching off of Hodir again last week."

Ah yes, Ben. Rarely a day went by that Cheeseus didn't bring up this distaste. Since as far back as The Burning Crusade, Ben had driven me to the brink of madness, a mini-Yogg stealing sanity stacks as his random drunken outbursts and failure to show up left a crater in our progression team. It would be so much easier to just pop the guild roster open, scroll to the priests, and boot the entry named "Aeden" from the guild. My finger hovered over the guild kick button. But I didn't press it. Empathy and ownership bled out. Maybe I could work with him, teach him how to be more respectful of the other players' time -- more amenable to raid direction. But why not simply kick him to the curb? This would be so much easier. Because he was a good player. He was popular.

I was still having a tough time making unpopular decisions.

The good of the guild is what rung in my ears when I reached for that "Remove Member" button. The biggest impact Ben had on us was that he was friends with Neps, my newest second-in-command -- the same one accumulating Fragments of Val'anyr. Neps brought too much to the table to risk sacrificing over an occasional drunken rant from Ben. I could manage this. Neps was one of the most valuable players and officers in the guild. Jeopardizing him would be like standing in Ominous Clouds while guardians tore us apart in madness. No, it wasn't worth it. Far better for me to take Ben on as a personal responsibility than to cut him and lose Neps in the process.

"If he keeps that shit up, can you talk to him or remove him from raids?"

"Yeah", I replied, "I'll look after Ben."

---

I came to a stop at a red light in Flagstaff, the long weekend coming to a close. Julie turned to me and stared a moment; she had that look a person gets when something isn't quite right. The kids in the back of the Civic poked and prodded each other, giggling. She cut them off as she tried to listen, turning the radio down.

"What?" I asked.

"...there's something wrong with your transmission."

I tried to pinpoint the sound she was referring to. The light turned green and I pressed on the gas. There. 

"You hear that?"

"Yeah...I did." For a brief moment, I caught the sound of a light vibration, as if two gears were grinding together.