At the end of March I posted an article detailing my opposition to extend a raid lockout of Icecrown Citadel 10 man with just the Lich King alive. My argument was that if we are having little to no problem getting TO the Lich King each week and still have plenty of time in our raid schedule to put attempts on the boss, I didnt see a reason why extending the lockout would help.
A commenter by the name of “LePeR” noted that maybe extending the lockout wasnt such a bad idea. After all, once you kill the Lich King you open up heroic mode, making a Lich king kill that much sweeter. The funny thing is that I think I agree with the guy!
I know…I just said that extending was bad, but not I am saying that it is good…whats going on here?
Well, let me clarify what I mean because I believe both of us are correct. Ultimtiely there needs to be a balance between clearing content and gearing your raiders.
Why Strike a Balance?
Honestly, its no fun to bang your head against the wall for hours on end while you wipe to a boss over and over again. Then again there is little fun in becoming so overpowered that a raid boss no longer becomes a challenge. Balance is the key to having fun when raiding and an often overlooked job of the raid leader.
Each side of the raid balance scale has its perks and consequences if the scale dips too low. Lets take a look at each side so we know what to look for when trying to strike that precious balance.
Focus on Progression:
Pros:
- Better Loot-This is an easy one. With every hard mode that you complete you gain improved loot. Better loot means an easier time killing more bosses and obtaining even better loot. An endless cycle but your raiders will love you for it.
- Feeling of Accomplishment-Anyone who has stepped into a room with 9 or 24 (or even 39) of your friends and successfully defeated a boss knows the feeling. Doing all of this on a difficulty that some refer to as “hard mode” makes victory that much sweeter.
- Overall Improvement to your guilds reputation on the server-When you are running around capital cities sporting the heroic tag on your gear, those inspecting you will be impressed. Word spreads quickly about guilds that are able to get the job done and which ones cannot. Defeating heroic content means word spreads that your guild is hot shit.
Cons:
- Growing Frustration with every wipe-We have seen it. The first time you wipe someone may fess up and admit that they hit the wrong button or that they stood in fire too long. A few wipes later people start pointing fingers at everyone else, assuming that it was another case of “standing in fire” or “lag” or whatever other scapegoat they can come up with.
- Possibility of never defeating the encounter-It is quite possible to spend an entire weeks worth of raiding on one encounter and never succeed. That feeling of frustration mentioned above will continue to grow and it may become difficult to talk raiders into joining a raid because they are worried about wasting time on an encounter that they may not defeat.
Focusing on Easy Content
Pros:
- Improvement to team building-Less frustration and burden of performing perfectly on an encounter means more time enjoying guild members. Vent servers may liven up and jokes and casual conversations may be exchanged. People are having fun and this is a good thing.
- Easy to gear up new people-Whether its the guy that just came back from an extended break, or the alt who is now the main and needs gear; clearing the easy content means people get geared out much easier. Essentially a large portion of the raid group is carrying a few people in order to get everyone up to the same level of gear.
Cons:
- Guild members will cap out-It may not happen to every guild member but there are those that will get to the top with your guild and decide to move on. These players will realize that they may be stuck doing the same content without a chance to challenge themselves with heroic modes and decide that their best bet is to find the next guild that is pushing progression.
Like I said before, the key isnt to focus on one or the other. If you are a guild that is comfortable with the easy stuff, or is fine with banging your head against the wall for several hours, days or weeks to complete that heroic mode then good on you. The rest of us require a balance, lets clear the easy stuff until we know its the easy stuff and then start working on the harder modes for each encounter. Striking that balance between obtaining purple pixels and having fun will, when all is said and done, great a better guild.
Oh, and to LePeR and all the other commenters I have recieved. Thank you! While a wise man (BigRedKitty) once said “Blog for yourself” it is nice to know that someone reads the crap I put down.