In the first week, there was quite a difference in the performance between people. The first day there were a few people who were very obviously slow learners, who would simply not react to things quickly. By the second or third day we had already been able to replace them, and by the fourth and last raid day, we we were able to ensure that everyone in the group was a decently fast learner. However, performance in WoW isn’t just based on whether or not one can learn to react to raid mechanics quickly, it is often also based on numbers. Each spell you cast will do a certain amount of healing, damage, or defense. The defense is rarely tracked (so it is not easy to measure how well a tank performs), but healing and damage are usually tracked by every single raider. Each spell you cast can take a certain amount of time and do a certain number of damage or healing. The damage takes away boss health, while healing increases the health of the raiders. Each of these things have numerical values, so there is always competition between dps, or between healers.

Week 0 (9/20~26), when we were still doing split runs on heroic, and barely had enough people, there was a huge disparity in the damage meters. In part, some people were on alts, and they had not put in enough effort to make their alts strong enough. In part, though, some people were simply not doing well despite being on mains. For the ones who did poorly on mains, some of them were weaker because they had divvied up their efforts into both their mains and their alts; some others, however, were simply weaker players. The stark difference in people’s numbers can be seen in damage meters recorded in combat logs for kills we had in heroic on the first two days.

This sort of numerical competition between players within a group permeates all aspects of WoW raiding. It can affect morale (players with high damage feel they are “carrying” low damage players, and it causes discontent). It plays a major factor in who gets recruited, and it is a raid leader’s job to be aware of people’s numerical outputs, as sometimes higher numbers can mean we can skip mechanics, while lower numbers can mean some bosses are nearly impossible to kill. It also affects power structures within guilds: raiders respect players who do high numbers, and look down on players who do low numbers. A good raid leader knows that good numbers are only one part of what makes a raider strong, but as it is an easy metric to use, most raiders rely entirely on numbers to judge the strength of a player.

By the first day of the week 1 (9/27), when mythic opened, we were doing much better. The day before, Sunstep and Tranquility had quit the guild (queue drum sound!): Sunstep had already previously told me that all good players should leave because we frankly suck, while Tranquility (who was Allie’s friend) left because he was unhappy with the way I talked (“don’t want anymore monologues”), and because we had 3 holy paladins week 0 (despite the fact that one of them did not heal, and also despite the fact that Tranquility was not a paladin and it would not have affected his performance). This new week, we had decided to still do heroic on our first raid night, to get more gear. It was a smooth farm night, we killed all the bosses with very few wipes. Below are the damage logs of the exact same two fights for that second week we did it. This time there were no alts, only mains. Many of the names were new, because remember by this time we had recruited several new raiders. That the recruits were strong really showed. We now had a much larger number of people who could do very  high numbers. Unfortunately, the guild leadership were all doing low numbers. The fact that my numbers were mid-low was not that big of an issue, because a raid leader is usually not expected to be able to do as high numbers. Regrettably though, the two officers I had at the time, Amber and Noci, were consistently among the lowest numbers (with no visible improvement from week 0), and their weak performance would not be as easily tolerated. This was hugely problematic, as raiders in WoW looking down on officers of the guild was a prime way to cause discontent and chaos, and foster a lack of trust in guild leadership.

I implemented a couple methods to maintain (or restore) confidence in guild leadership. My go-to method had been, and would always be, to write some things in a text channel in discord that was only available for guild members to see, called guildstuffs. I wanted to express how the guild leadership worked through things to allow us to end week 0 well. I also wanted to publicly express gratitude to Amber for her advice (despite feeling that she treated me as someone who would be a poor guild leader without her guidance and forced me into a corner to do what her clique wanted, I was also aware that her advice had its merits, and if we had not stopped splits her clique really would have left and we really would have fallen apart). This public showing of gratitude was to accomplish a variety of purposes: show Amber I would always appreciate her advice (remember I had apologized earlier for not trusting her enough); show Amber’s clique that their assessment was recognized and endorsed; show the rest of the guild that despite doing low numbers, its leadership was doing things that benefited the guild as a whole; and raise morale.

Another method was to create more officers. During week 0, people had seen me work extremely hard recruiting to make sure the guild could continue and have enough people to do mythic. At the time, Isam, another one of Amber’s clique, reached out to me and advised I create another set of officers who dealt with raid-related issues, as in a tank officer, a healer officer, and some dps officers. I had never needed anything of the sort before, when I raid led PUGs, but as I was so inexperienced in leading a raiding guild, I was more than willing to listen to others who gave me advice that sounded reasonable and designed to help the guild as a whole. Just as importantly, I realized, it would also allow me to take some heat off Amber and Jacl for doing low numbers. I could make clear that I was going to have two types of officers: guild officers and raid officers. Guild officers were Amber and Jacl, who dealt with guild stuff like recruitment, guild atmosphere, general guild direction, and bank stuff (in truth it was mainly Amber, Jacl was expected only to do bank stuff). Raid officers would manage raiders as regards their raid performance, and be people whom raiders would look up to as strong players. I decided to choose the officers and to make the announcement at the beginning of week 1, when mythic opened. The writing in guildstuffs channel, the recruitment and obvious improvement in raider quality, added with the hoopla in restructuring management all happening within the same day or two, was designed to give people a feeling that tangible improvements were being made, and there was good reason for them to feel hopeful about the guild and its leadership. I have always been very aware of the effect of optics on morale.

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I ran the idea past my guild officers, and with their ok, I reached out to the first four people I would choose as raid officers. These raid officers would get to know their players and report to me if there are any problems with any players related to raid (performance or otherwise). They were also to study the gear needs of their players and be a part of the decision for who gets what pieces of loot. Below is the cast.

Asterix – Tank officer. Job description: manage the tanks and ensure they do what they need to stay alive and position the boss well. Though there was some friction between him and Amber’s clique (which, as far as I’m aware, was purely single-sided. Asterix likely had no idea he had done anything at all to annoy that clique), there was no doubt in my mind I wanted Asterix as tank officer. At the time the other tanks were either weaker or new/potential recruits. Also, though Asterix can at times perhaps rub some people the wrong way, as far as I could see those annoyed at him were ones who thrived on being annoyed at others and talking them down. For the most part, in the two years or so I had already known Asterix, I had felt he was always really nice, fun, cooperative, supportive, and certainly enormously strong as a raider. Furthermore, he had previously, with another player called Xanort, created a guide for Emerald Nightmare for the guild. Asking him to be officer was a no brainer.

Ultraheals – Healer officer. Job description: manage the healers and ensure they perform well. Study the fights and figure out if healing cooldowns need to be used at specific times, and set up the order for these healing cooldowns. In my mind, none of my healers at the time were strong. Out of perhaps the 2 or 3 slightly stronger ones, only Ultra had been with me for an extended amount of time, in my PUGs. He was also a very agreeable person who got along well with everyone. Ideally I wanted a healing officer who was really strong, as healers can often make or break a raid, which meant I was planning on continuing to recruit healers until we got much stronger ones. But I was not going to leave just the healing officer spot empty while creating other raid officers, and Ultra was the best option out of the bunch. He was aware of this too, as when I asked him to be officer he also told me he didn’t think he would be great, but I probably had no other viable option. In truth, his being an agreeable person was more important than he knew. I have had officers over the years who were far less cooperative, and their unwillingness to work with me have torn down both myself and my guild far more than anyone can know. Of course, Ultra’s desire to be good buddies with everyone also ended up creating issues down the road, when others used it to create cliques and play at being mean girls.

Judy – Melee officer. Job description: manage all melee dps and ensure they perform well. Judy/Viuda had always been very supportive of me, despite being in Amber’s clique. Looking back through our conversations at the time, she seemed to be much taken with how enthusiastic and positive I was, despite setbacks, and how hard I was willing to work. Despite her clique constantly bad-mouthing me, she seemed to not think I was a terrible leader, and would often talk to me in a supportive manner. She had also been recruiting extremely hard for us (it was mainly to help Amber at first, but gradually she seemed to be happy that it was helping me too), and eventually brought in a few really strong players who were nice and positive too (a holy grail in WoW recruitment). She also was usually near the top of the damage meters, even when she was on her alt in week 0. She had a bad computer at the time, so sometimes she would have issues with being able to perform well, but for the most part it did not seem to affect her, and most knew that there were top world guilds that wanted her, so everyone viewed her as very strong as well. With her strength as a melee player, the time and effort she had already put into helping the guild (she recruited way more aggressively than Amber did, to tell the truth), and the fact that she was so supportive and willing to work with me, choosing her as a melee officer was also a no brainer. I asked her in a chat, and below is what I wrote:

Isam – Ranged officer. Manage all ranged dps and ensure they perform well. During week 0, Isam stood out not only as someone who was supportive of the guild, but also someone who was actively giving me ideas of how to make things better. During that time, out of my entire guild, maybe only he and Judy were trying to find ways to help me succeed. Most of those who had been with me for a long time perhaps did not realize how close we were to falling apart, and they mainly just did their own thing and kind of assumed things would go fine. Amber’s clique was constantly griping about how much I and the guild sucked, and contemplating leaving, so Judy and Isam were likely more aware that they needed to help me if things were to work out between them and us. On top of Isam’s support, he was one of the players with higher numbers that week (sadly, most of the ranged players who knew me well were doing weak numbers). Furthermore, he had previously been a guild master, which meant he understood what leadership in WoW entailed. All these factors came together to make me feel Isam was the best choice at the time. I also asked him in a chat:

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On top of my above-stated reasons for asking these four to be my raid officers, actively including members of Amber’s clique in my officer group was also a big consideration for me. For one, most others who had been with me for a long time, and were following me, had little to no experience in top tier raiding guilds, so working closely people who did have such experience would be beneficial. But just as importantly, I wanted to tackle the only real divide in my guild at the time: that between Amber’s clique and the rest of the guild, and the hope was that in allowing members of her clique to invest more in the guild, that divide would gradually be bridged. Little did I know I underestimated the divisiveness of Amber’s clique: instead of bonding with the rest of the guild because their members were invested, they would gradually start excluding Judy and Isam, forming a clique within their clique.

One way or another though, Syzygy now had a new management structure, one that would continue for most of the time I lead the guild. This new management structure would also prove to work out well, as the days and weeks passed and we started doing better and better, working our way towards becoming a top guild.