Overview:

Synthesize is a Mythic raiding guild established with the intentions of being  Cutting Edge while competing with the 6 hour teams (like Occasional Excellence, Synthesis weekend, Hypnotic, Impetus, etc). Requirements of the guild in order to meet this goal:

• Efficient use of raid time.
• Showing up on time.
• Knowing the encounters before the raid leader explains.
• Players that understand their class and how to play them.

Officer Roles:

There should be a total of two acting “officers” per raid team in the guild.

• Raid leader
• Assistant leader

What exactly IS a raid leader?

Raid leader is basically the head of the team. The person that everyone respects and wants to follow. Raid teams put a lot of faith into a raid leader to ensure that they make the appropriate decisions that best benefits the group as a whole. They need  to be good at communicating, confident, approachable and positive.

If that was it, anyone could be a raid leader, but it’s a much more complex role than just that. Things raid leaders need to do that a lot of people struggle with:

• Devising strategies that work before the raid as well as on the fly adjustments.
• Class knowledge of what everyone brings to the table in order to best set the strategies and know where people are making mistakes that shouldn’t be made.
• Personal ability to do what they are asking of others while raid leading. You won’t really earn any respect if you’re the one being carried. You don’t have to be the best, but don’t be the worst.
• Ability to appropriately delegate tasks, ie healing assignments, feasts, cauldrons, etc. People asked to handle these don’t need to be officers just knowledgeable or responsible raiders.
• Reading logs in a manner that mistakes can be determined and remedied during the raid itself. This falls in line with the strategies and on the fly adjustments, but you can’t be as good at the first part without some ability in this category.
• Sit people and/or make cuts to the roster. People generally have to be sat if they are causing problems in an encounter (dying too often to the same mechanic, slow to pick up the fight, wrong talents/use of abilities, etc). Warnings generally occur so the players can fix it, but often times this can lead to a person needing to be replaced.
• Listen to everyone’s complaints and objectively act upon them. The goal is to better the team in every decision.

So what does the assistant leader do?

This job varies significantly by what the raid leader would like to task the person with. Generally, this person is the second pair of eyes for the raid leader. They often catch things the raid leader might miss as well as share some of the tasks required to maintain the raid. Examples of tasks:

• Setting the sit list. During progression the raid leader will be setting the composition for encounters, but once encounters are on farm, you have to rotate people in. It’s not fun and raid leaders have other things to worry about so this is an important job that needs to be handled by someone else. Usually there are basic guidelines for a fight like x tanks, x healers, x ranged, x melee or class specific (needs x warlocks, x dh, etc) that have to be followed. This is generally free reign by what people need and who is willing to sit.
• Reading logs & gauging performance. While the raid leader will also do this, often times the assistant will have these open as well during an encounter to try and determine what is happening. Tank always dying? Why? This isn’t a specifically assistant job, but having extra eyes helps a lot.
• Passing out bank items or collecting BoEs. The raid leader will generally be explaining stuff so this should be handled while they do that. It’s less important and can usually be handled at the start of raids.
• Raid invites. This is optional as well. Depends on if the raid leader prefers to start or not. In Synthesis, anyone starts the raid and passes lead off. It’s not super important, but it has to happen with enough time before raid starts to make sure the boss is being pulled on time.
• Organizing groups. This actually goes with the sit list swapping. Messaging people to come in or hearth out is actually something the assist should do and not the raid leader. The leader just asks if everyone who should be in is in and then quickly sets assignments.

Now that the main roles for the raid team are laid out, other roles that can literally be filled by any non-officers but reliable, trustworthy raiders are as follows:

• Flasks
• Cauldrons
• Live logging
• Raid invites
• Vantus Runes
• Recruiting
• Sales