Right before bed, I logged on to Amava to take one stab at the daily BG. AV. Went horribly. I received, and this is no joke, a total of 29 honor. I have absolutely no idea how this happened. But whatever.
As soon as I logged in, I got 8 or 9 whispers immediately.
Gold sellers? Power levelling services? Offers of cheap pills to make my noodle a little more al dente?
Nah. Guildies. Guildies in panic. We're talkin' Drums of Panic kind of panic.
Ok, so not quite that bad, but keeping track of 9 simultaneous conversations is rough.
See, Team 2 is scheduled to start to raid in parallel with Team 1 this week.
And they're nervous. Its cute, actually. I remember being pretty nervous too.
We're deliberately NOT including any veterans from Team 1 on the run. Our goal is not to rush into 25-man stuff, but rather allow the team to forge themselves into a salty bunch of 10-man raiders first.
Perhaps a mistake, or perhaps will turn out to be the best thing we ever did. Only time will tell.
They've got a drop of an advantage over when Team 1 started up. Each member has been in kara before on mixed veteran/new guy runs. A few of them have killed each boss in the dungeon, so knowledge of the boss fights will help tremendously. They've all got a scattering of epics from their experimental runs, so while not outgearing the content, they are in a little better starting position. And they've also got guildies around to ask for strategy and ideas.
I see two obstacles that will need to be overcome for the team to be a success:
- Expectations for Progress - On their experimental runs with veteran raiders from Team 1, the new guys cleared many bosses. The most recent mixed run that was 50/50 blend, they one-shot everybody up to and including Shade of Aran on their first night. To contrast, on our first night in Team 1, we 3-shot Attumen, and then got lost trying to find Moroes. Members of Team 2 will need to have realistic expectations, and not become jaded if they only take out Attumen or maybe Moroes early on.
- Expectations of Loot - During experimental runs, new raiders more or less get all the loot they can get their hands on, since half the team already has it, so there's no competition for loot. One guy got 5 epics that were all appropriate for his class/spec in a single night. In a raid full of relatively new raiders, there will be the normal amount of loot competition, so they're going to need to have realistic expectations for getting loot.
- Expectations of Leadership - This one is the trickiest. The person who has been assigned Raid Leader for T2 is brand new to 10-man raid leading. He's competent with 5-man stuff, and I'm sure will do an excellent job with Karazhan. For him and the raid to be successful, the other 9 players will need to be patient and understanding as he discovers a whole new level of class interactions, party composition, marking, the more complex environment of multiple tanks and healers.
So I got bombarded by whispers and called the team together, gave my pep speech about expectations. I think it calmed them down, although there were a few too many requests for splitting the teams in half so we end up with two teams of of veteran/newbie raiders.
Nope. When we hit progression content in 25-man raids, should we ever decide to go that route, I want to know that the people around me understand the struggles of progression raiding, and are not accustomed to waltzing through content, overpowered and looting like fiends.
Stay tuned, as I'm sure the saga shall continue.
No comments:
Post a Comment