Raid Policies

Overview

In the Grim Legion, our goal is to experience all of the WoW content and to conquer all of the bosses and encounters.

We are, and intend to remain a family end-game guild, which is a bit of an uncommon guild type. What that means is we are fun, encouraging, play to make friends, and enjoy ourselves. When we raid, however, we are "temporarily hardcore" — we work hard to conquer the content while still trying to maintain a familial atmosphere. So, if you screw up, we may harass, tease, and laugh, but we won’t kick you out. We will simply pick ourselves up, fix what went wrong, and move on.

Raid Scheduling

Our schedule is designed to accommodate not only players in the Kirin Tor time zone (CST) but players in all four USA time zones. We typically play between 8:00 PM and 11:00 PM. Our schedule is as follows:

* - These nights are more open-ended to address a wide variety of interests and needs

On raid nights, we will dynamically choose our location based upon the raiders available and their gear and experiences. The goal will always be to go to the most current content that the assembled raid is qualified to do.

Raid Composition

Raid composition begins 15 minutes before the raid start time. Praetorians have priority for slots, within the limits of required class/role mixes for the raids, e.g., enough Tanks, Healers, etc. and ideally at least one of each class. Our typical goal is:

• 3 Tanks
• 6 Healers
• 16 DPS (no more than 5-6 Melee)

If there is an abundance of raiders, some will be asked to roll to sit out, typically those who are in a class or role that is more abundant than others. Praetorians* that are asked to sit out will be given a Red Lumberjack Shirt made by a guild Tailor as a rain check. These shirts can be used automatically win a roll to sit out, even after the roll..

* - non-Praetorians (not fully raid qualified) do not get red shirts when they sit out

If there is a shortage of raiders, we will do our best to fill the gaps without sabotaging the success of the raid. We may opt to take Legionnaires or Guest Raiders as the raid requires.

On subsequent raid nights, Praetorians that attended previous nights have priority for slots, e.g., if 25 Praetorians showed up the first night and the same 25 showed up on time the next night, they would not need to roll to sit out (barring inappropriate class/role mixes that need correcting). For such Praetorians, if they are going to be a few minutes late and notify an officer, we may hold your spot, but there are no guarantees that we will hold it or for how long.

Praetorian Responsibilities

You have your gear, you passed the test, and you made it to Praetorian. Congratulations! Now you can raid with us—but you need to know your responsibilities and obligations. You are expected to pull your own weight, and be as prepared as possible. We are very protective of the our guild members' time, so you have to be even more prepared than hard-core or progression guilds.

Maintain Your Gear

Before you could become a Praetorian, you had to properly enchant, inscribe, glyph, and gem your gear. That is an ongoing responsibility. As you obtain new gear, you will be expected to get it enchanted, inscribed, glyphed, and/or gemmed quickly so that you can put it into use the next time you raid.

Be on Time

Show up at least 15 minutes early or you may lose your spot. If we have 25 Praetorians at 8:00 PM, then there will be no spot for you*. If we are using fillers, e.g., Legionnaires, you may have a few minutes to spare as we clear to the first boss for the night, but after that, their spot is locked and we will not ask them to step out for you.

* - Unless we can't proceed without you (e.g., you are a Tank and we don't have enough Tanks).

With the summoning stones, you can get away with getting a summon most of the time, but you should occasionally show up early to help summon folks. Failing to show with no notice will affect future invites to all raids. Emergencies and internet issues are forgiven, of course, but not if they're habitual.

Note: Please put an MIA post in the forums if you will be MIA.

Be Prepared

You need to show up fully stocked, repaired, and ready. That means enough consumables for at least four hours of raiding, with wipes, e.g., a stack of food, not just a handful.

If you’ve been told to bring resistance gear, make sure you have it, or your spot will be given away.

Some sample consumables:

• Flasks (enough for 4 hours) OR Battle Elixirs & Guardian Elixirs (a stack of each is advisable)
• Buff food
• Potions
• Scrolls
• Bandages

Be Ready To Do Your Job

In any given situation, you will be expected to fulfill your role and utilize your class abilities effectively without micromanagement. Be proactive, adaptable, and dynamic — think ahead.

Be In A Raiding Mindset

In addition to preparing your character, you should prepare yourself mentally. Not only might you die many, many times, but you need to resist the urge to complain or hurt the atmosphere. Complaints should always have a proposed solution and be presented positively, generally in whispers to the raid leader. You should learn the fight strategies (WoWWiki, BossKillers, etc. are all good sources of information) and your role in these fights BEFORE you ever see the fight.

Most importantly, you should continue learning during the fights, how to make them better and more successful.

Know What Loot You Want

Pondering loot can bring a raid to a screeching halt. In a raid like Naxxramas, which drops over 60 pieces of loot, it can cost the raid hours if it takes a minute or two for each piece. Before you show up, have a good understanding of what loot your character needs so that you can, at a glance, know if a piece of loot is good for you.

Be Ready For The Long Haul

With 25 people in a raid, we all need to take extra care to be considerate of their time and do our best to time our breaks to occur when the raid takes a break. Emergencies will come up, of course, but please consult/notify the raid leader before any extended break. Ask the raid leader before you:

• Go AFK for more than a few seconds
• Use your hearthstone to return to the city for any reason
• Run out to repair

When you do go AFK, please give an estimate of how long you will be gone, e.g. "AFK 3 minutes."

When folks leave a raid early, they sabotage it to one degree or another; sometimes, the raid is forced to end. You MUST notify the raid leader *before you join the raid* if you will need to depart early that night. Out of respect for everyone's time, preference will generally be given to those that can stay the entire time.

Don't Automatically Release

Raid members should not release their spirits when they die without consulting the raid leader first. If there is any uncertainty, simply ask in Ventrilo, Raid chat, or via a Whisper.

If The Rezzers Release, So Do You

If the raid leader calls for people to release and rez, please do so immediately. We will not be able to get going again until the last person gets back, so please respond in a timely fashion to such instructions.

Raid Operations

Addons

We currently use the following addons:

• Omen
• Deadly Boss Mods
• oRA2
• Grid (you must have this when you heal)
• SmartBuff/Debuff (for Debuffers)

Voice Chat Capability is Required

Raiders are expected to use Ventrilo, using a headset with a working microphone. If you must use speakers, please insure that you will not produce feedback into your microphone. Ideally, all raiders would strive to use a headset with voice-activation.

Note: Establishing effective voice-activation typically involves simply tweaking your "Sensitivity" setting in Ventrilo setup, using the "Monitor" and "Test" functions to guide you. If you are having difficulty with setting up voice activation via Ventrilo, please contact an officer for assistance.

Know Your Enemy

Try to be familiar with the various boss fights and ask more veteran members if you have questions based upon your research.

Raid Loot Policy

This is quite detailed and will be covered in a dedicated page.

Summary

Remember that we are here to have fun. Although we're a family end-game guild, it's not fun for 25 people to wipe continually because half of them were too cheap to enchant their gear, and it's not fun for 24 people to be waiting for someone to get back from being AFK or for his spirit rez timer to expire. We pay attention to everything that's done in raids for post-mortem analysis. So, do your part and take raiding seriously. We allow people to spec as desired and are casual about many things, but we still expect people to be serious about helping the raid succeed.