Leading a Raid
Epatrick — Fri, 02/22/2008 - 17:41
As you all (those reading this) know, I have a very large dislike for actually talking on vent. Last night we wiped in the last %s (one time at a painful 1%) on Zul'Jin after some rather odd behavior with threat on omen (jas getting aggro after being dead for half the final phase was very very weird).
My question : can a raid leader "lead" while not using their mic? I would like to believe so, but last night that confidence was rocked when nuit stepped out and i was left in de facto charge of Lava Crab for the last two bosses. My instructions and warnings were unheeded or lost, and small catfights broke out after the second wipe. Would this have been avoided if I had actually used my microphone and steered things in a more positive/controlled direction? I don't know. I find it very hard to use my push to talk button while actively using both hands to tank, and I've never ever ever been a fan of leaving my mic open or on sound activate, as somehow or other you'd all get blasted with very un-epatricklike venting of swear words.
My ideal raid is one in which vent is quiet, controlled, and only used for actual necessary commands (the cores on vashj, the tank positions for RoS) ( I don't view bloodboils as being vent necessary, because honestly, if you can't count to three and know which group you're in, fail)
Vent to me has become a cluttered mess of jumbled unfocused stories, random chatter and a smattering of necessary commands/informative suggestions. the cleanest kill I've ever seen was weds teron, where vent was actually SILENT. that's right, nobody talked, we all focused and 24 man'd a BT raid boss. If vent and our raid attitude were like that every night, I feel like we'd be a lot more progressed, but where does the line between excelling at this game by being focused and having fun shooting the shit with your e-friends on vent get drawn? Can you do both? no idea.
Epatrick
When raid leaders are silent
garreth — Tue, 02/26/2008 - 14:54When raid leaders are silent on vent, it leaves gaps for Coretwo to give drunken boss strats. You don't want that.
Pat, your question was
Karli — Tue, 02/26/2008 - 14:40Pat, your question was "Can a raid leader 'lead' while not using their mic?". My honest answer to this is no. It's not so much that you HAVE to use your mike, but you need to be able to use it when the situation deems it worthy. In a nutshell, there are simply moments when things need to be dealt with immediately, directly from the leader, in order for a raid to function and therefore progress.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with a leader setting a tone of focusing on the goals at hand by using vent at a bare minimum, but the reality is that /rw and /ra isn't always going to cut it for communication. In between several channels of text and momentary distractions, written communication is going to inevitably get lost in the mix. It's all too easy to miss something in raid chat because your cat just jumped on your counter, you are spamming your "omg don't let me die holy shit" button, you were trying to fix a mod, or w/e. It's a lot harder to miss a voice on vent.
Minimal verbal communication certainly helps keep people focused; zero verbal communication can leave people feeling like they aren't really being lead and cause them to miss otherwise important information.
I find that it's hard to be
Shihli — Mon, 02/25/2008 - 17:15I find that it's hard to be a silent leader, simply because people won't abide by someone that won't make them listen. It's true in the real world and it's true in WoW - if your voice isn't heard by the people you lead, they won't follow you.
It's not to say that it has to be an angry, death-from-above I'll-smite-you sort of voice (although that's how I tend to come across, I'm sure). It's simply to say this - most people don't know your voice Epat :( And not everyone has a G15 that tells them who is talking on vent on a nice little LCD display.
Oh, and I'd love to hear who was getting into catfights over two wipes on a difficult boss.
Yes, we'd be more
garreth — Fri, 02/22/2008 - 18:05Yes, we'd be more progressed. However, we wouldn't be Downfall. Not saying I necessarily LIKE all the bullshit on vent on any given pull, but it's a small price to pay for community.
As to raid leading and vent: You know me. People don't catch text during a boss fight. Leave vent on sensitivity-pick-up and just talk really damn loud when you want to be heard.
What annoys me more than anything are not people that chitter chatter. It's people that talk but have FUCKING FEEDBACK. A) Turn your damn speakers down and B) make sure that vent is recording across your microphone audo line NOT your fucking stereo audio line or C) DON'T TALK.