Short and Sweet Raid Leading

Explaining how we will tackle a boss needs to be succinct. No one can retain more than a few pieces of new information at a time. Its meaningless for someone who is seeing a boss for the 1st time to prattle off a long list of things for them that they have to remember. Likewise, if we launch into a lenghty dialogue of information we will loose them.

Expect them to have done the research. True, most of us only get so much out of it, but it does set the foundation for learning the fight. As raid leaders, our job is to direct how this particular class-mix of raiders will tackle this fight, not explain the whole thing from scratch.

Consider what is the single most important thing they must remember. Limit extra information. Try to avoid including information that's only relevant to a few, eg. tanks or healers, while explaining to the whole group. Try typing info for healers/tanks in party chat.

If seeing a boss for the first time, expect a couple of wipes. For the 1st time they see the boss, tell them the single most important thing, and go right in so they get their head around that. If possible, give short info on the fly eg. 'get out of that fire' as it happens. Our raiders are experienced, getting out of fire isn't hard, and telling them as it happens will make the intro shorter.

Also, if you stand around too long at the start, the best moment can pass. Pregnant pauses need to be avoided when you have everyone captured, standing around ready to go. It's like having athletes poised on those starter blocks ready for a running race, they are just waiting for the starter gun. If you make them wait too long it can wear thin on the athletes nerves and the best moment to strike can be lost, or erroded.

It is about finding the balance between just rushing in with no thought and standing around contemplating the upcoming fight for too long. Our raiding should be measured, but also swift and sure.

* the above is an excerpt from a post I wrote for our officer forum, Bloodlust of Nagrand
http://www.bloodlustofnagrand.com/index.php?topic=352.0