Each person may want different things from their raid leader. And there is no perfect raid leader out there, each person will have their own faults and weaknesses. And WoW mythic raiding will amplify these faults, because of the constant need for close interaction for long hours in high-stress situations. But there are certain things I would want from my own raid leader, and for the most part shandare checks these boxes.

Some raid leaders’ faults may be that they are unwilling or unable to put in a lot of time for prep work. Some may have trouble managing their emotions, and when they feel bad, may let negative emotions affect the raid. Some may swear a lot when frustrated. Some may refuse to consider making changes in any situation. Some may have obvious favoritism and allow their biases to dictate their actions. Some may be flaky. Some may not be able to handle interpersonal issues between people. Some may, like me, be unable to take constant criticism. Some may, like shandare, sometimes speak in a way that makes people feel their points of view weren’t taken into account enough. Some may simply be bad at raid leading and not be able to make good callouts or decisions mid-pull. Just to name a few obvious and common faults any raid leader can have, since they are common faults any human can have, only amplified when they are put into a raid leader’s position.

Now, to look at shandare. He works hard and preps for the bosses, understands as best as he can all the mechanics, and does the research needed to find decent strategies, even if this requires him to spend tens of hours every week studying, discussing, thinking. He makes good, consistent callouts, and because of his immense preparation work, pretty good decisions mid-raid. He is extremely objective, and never allows personal feelings and favoritism to affect any of his leadership decisions, always making decisions based on what would be best, long term, for the raid. He is constantly trying to do well by each person in the raid, also spending lots of time each week taking in the needs of 25+ people when making comp lists, which he makes ahead of raid time to waste as little of the raid’s time as possible during official raid hours.

He stays calm no matter how he feels, and works hard to avoid letting his own negative emotions affect the raid, succeeding the vast majority of the time. Indeed, the last time I saw him feeling particularly low, he acted extremely positive and improved group morale when we were struggling on farm bosses. He talks to people respectfully, never stooping to personal attacks or insults or snark no matter how provoked or annoyed he is. He makes time to address all issues that people mention (if A is upset at B, and this spills out into the raid, he finds time on top of everything else to talk to these people to deal with the issues). He personally conducts 1-hour voice interviews with each potential recruit, discussing both before and after these interviews as much as he can to vet people for our guild, vetting both performance and personality/attitude. He respects the desires and needs of every single guild member, and tries to accommodate them as best he can, for example letting kittiez swap from shaman to dh, despite him strongly preferring not to because we knew it would leave us with not enough shamans and too many dhs, but because she had such a strong desire to swap, he made it happen as soon as he could (in the short time after progression ended for the last tier and started for this tier). He is more open than most people to personal feedback, creating opportunities for people to tell him what they wanted him to improve on at the end of the last tier, then actually acting on the feedback given at the time (to spend less time during raid discussing strategy stuff).

On top of that, he often does almost all the officer work. When I came back, I was shocked by how he was single handedly doing all raid leader stuff + recruitment + figuring out roster every raid night. When I left, I chose a leadership team of at least 3 people per raid team because all that stuff is too much for one person to do. That is a big reason why after I came back, I ended up doing as much of the administrative stuff as possible (recruitment, figuring out roster, etc.), because I saw how big his load was. He also makes time to provide outside of raid activities for the guild. When the guild wanted to do rbgs, he made 100% of them even when he didn’t want to (and as everyone else gradually flaked out). Knowing that many raiders want extra raids outside of raid time so they don’t need to pug, he set aside the time and makes 99.99% of it (he missed 1 hour one time in the years I’ve known him, because he overslept). Knowing that many raiders did not want to spend as much raid time discussing strategies, yet other raiders wanted time to input their ideas, he set aside time for strategy meetings and makes 100% of those even when no one else is showing up, on the off chance people trickle in late and have ideas they want to input. And, I have seen him struggle with a variety of things in the past, but no matter what, he would stay resilient for the guild. There was a time when much of the raid, led by the guild master, all rose up mid-raid to tell him they thought he was a dictator or something like that, and there were times I saw him exhausted because of the non-stop recruitment he had to do on top of the hours of work, and times I saw him at the end of his tether because of roster concerns and needing to keep morale up despite the roster problems. No matter what, he stayed strong and resilient and continued to lead the guild and work hard for it.

And, to top it all off, I think he’s a great human being too. He knows I have struggled and have been retraumatized recently. He has been a victim of my pain, in that I had to withdraw a good portion of my help and support because I can barely bring myself to enter the game now. What this means is that he has to shoulder even more of the burdens right when he was receiving even more negativity than I was. But despite this, he has assured me multiple times that he supports my doing whatever I need to take care of myself, and that he can and will stay strong for the guild, so my taking a step back does not have to mean the guild will fall apart. It is because of this regular assurance that I was able to recover as much as I have. Without this, I would not be able to laugh freely right now, I would not be able to move forward. I know, because when this type of stuff happened to me in the past, I was suicidal every single day for over a year.

He is not without his faults. I have at times felt uncomfortable because I felt he too quickly dismissed my perspective when assessing situations in game. I have also disagreed with conclusions he came to after having considered my input, and have felt strongly that if only we did things my way it would’ve been better! Indeed, there are some basic philosophical approaches to raid leading on which he and I differ. But of these negatives, only the first one could be deemed a true fault, and that one is not a deal-breaker for me, especially when I know he never thinks about me (or anyone else) with any disrespect or intent to dismiss, since he is always willing to discuss these things afterwards. And the rest of it is stuff is what-if stuff: maybe it would have been better to approach things my way, but maybe not, groups I have led have wiped too. And he has also shown that he can lead groups to great progression for the short amount of raid hours he has to work with. Just because I think my way is good or even better at times does not guarantee it is, and he has enough successful raid leading under his belt to, imo, deserve my trust even if we have some different approaches to raid leading. (This is not to say I haven’t tried to slowly win him over to my way of thinking, with some, gradual, success lol)

So, on balance, for me, Shandare is not only a good raid leader, he is an amazing one. Maybe this balance is not the same for everyone, maybe for some people they find it so upsetting to feel their concerns are not given the appropriate consideration at the times they are mentioned, that it is a deal breaker for them. Just like in the past, there were people who felt my inability to deal with a lot of negativity put too much pressure on them to need to be on their best behavior, and was a deal breaker for them. As I said, each raid leader has their own strengths and weaknesses and these particular strengths and weaknesses will be weighed differently by each person. But for me, whether as a raid leader or a human being, I think shandare has gone above and beyond for me and for my guild, and all this makes him a good raid leader for me. So, I am happy to do all I can, within my mental constraints, to help and support him.