Tuesday was a hard day for me. We went in to Flex wing 3 and got kicked around my Malkorak. A lot. I was already irritated that the raid seemed to have started a bit later then intended (about 20+ minutes by my count.) and was fighting a bad case of the grumps. It didn't help that it felt like along with skill the raid had regressed to several people calling out ideas at once and folks were calling each other out on mistakes even though it wasn't our policy. I was a horrible raid leader that night and just let things happen as I honestly was feeling to irritable to jump in and start what would have been a tirade of frustration and yelling. By the end of the night we did manage to down Malkorak, and Spoils of Pandaria. Thok ultimately killed us, but we will be back.
Wednesday was much better. We went straight to Blackfuse, and once again pull by pull things felt like they were getting better mechanic wise. The whole mood of the raid seemed more positive then the night before and it showed. We ended tweaking stategies and our roles a couple of times and on the last pull of the night we got Blackfuse down for the first time. That means next week we should be fighting Paragons. Yay progress.
I have been doing a lot of thinking after Tuesdays raid this week. The mood had gotten toxic enough that my wife turned off vent part way into the raid. She eventually came back on but later told me she feels the team has lost the laid back feeling and happiness that we used to embrace. After taking a 9 month break, and then stepping back in she hasn't been here for all the changes in the raid team and probably has one of the best views to see this.
Honestly Wednesday morning I sat at work thinking through different ways to address the team and the problems that may have developed over this period of time. I had speeches in my head that involved Hellfire. Others that were kind and guiding. I had gone over rants, rage quitting in the middle of pulls, and logging off in a foul and swearing manner for effect. There were debates of starting progression over, rage quitting the team, or even rage quitting WoW for a while. I was in a tumble of dark places and irritation.
I was going over the issues we are facing. People calling people out in front of the raid. (There is a difference between chastising someone after a pull and saying "Hey Lag, Step out of the fire" in the middle of a fight.) We have two many Chiefs not enough Indians complex where several voices are stepping in and trying to lead things. We have people who get piss poor attitudes and get ornery with everyone else when things go wrong. We have DPS who have hit that goal of 125k and instead of progressing further have regressed down to lower numbers. There are these things and more going on right now.
Then, as I was realizing all the issues, going over all these speeches and rants one thing occurred to me. There is one consistent, one issue that needed fixing above all these things.
And that was me.
All these issues exist because I have allowed them. I have been very non-aggressive lately in my approach of raid leading. I have been very bare minimum on the strategies and watching videos before a pull/fight but I haven't been thinking them through. I have let other step in, make calls etc.. without me O.K.ing that as their roll or assigning them to that job. I have allowed all these problems to exist because I have allowed my heart and passion to wander away from the team.
So now it's time for some critical thinking.
I am going to start working hard to gain that passion back. I want to be the one who is leading the team. I want to be aggressive when needed, and gently guide when it is not. I want to walk into each fighting already thinking about who I want for what role, and where the best use of our assets are. I want to be the one to make the calls, good and bad when we are fighting a boss. I am going to make mistakes, but they will be honest mistakes. I am going to try and be the person I was a year ago who could have told you the mechanics of the vast majority of classes and specs. I want to get things to a point where they feel right and good.
Here is my challenge to the team. Do some critical thinking. Where are you as far as the raid team goes? Are you working on improving or are you just scraping the bare minimum. Are you watching the boss fights before the raid, or are you just hoping that the strategy will make sense when someone explains it without any context to work from. What are you doing to build the team. Honestly, a team is better when most of it's people are taking ownership of that little part that is theirs. Whether that is blowing up DPS charts, healing your butt off, or successfully tanking it doesn't matter. 1/10th to 1/25 of that raid is yours depending on how many folks show. If you own and work on that part that is yours, we are all stronger for it.
So get some critical thinking done, and lets blow up some Paragons next week.
Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.
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