How do you run your guild's Heroic Raid?

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TommySitt
1690 posts Member
We've done eight heroics so far, the next one starts tonight. We've kept changing the raid rules based on member complaints, concerns, and feigned ignorance of the current rules. Our member's time zones run from West Coast USA to Western Europe, a 9 hr spread IIRC. We used mercs for our first few raids (Thanks Team Synergy and Gun Down!), and were borderline, but now we finish comfortably if we are disciplined and follow the rules.

We've tried to establish rules such as pig slayers going one at a time, going one at a time when the phase is less than 25% health, waiting for final zerg until most players have gone (44/50 in a guild of 48 + 2 alts for currency insurance), or a certain time has been reached, which has varied. No matter what we do, someone always tries to say that they aren't available later, they need to zerg now, or they quit because they missed a raid altogether.

We've also considered going to a model where every raid, ten players get full zerg rights from the start, and each raid it's a different ten, alphabetical order to keep it fair, but haven't gone to it yet. What we won't do is restrict dmg totals. You shouldn't be penalized for having a strong squad and a deep bench, and that's also a fantastic way to lose your strongest players.

We've copied a top guild's model, where the raids last 8 hrs (theirs go 6 hrs), first one opens 0600, the next opens 1200, the third opens 1800, followed by a midnight opening. When the raid opens we go full zerg until 20% health left in phase 3, then all raiding stops until final zerg, exactly 8 hrs from the opening time. We allow "false starts" where you do a "Leeeeeroy Jenkins" and use one garbage toon just to establish yourself in case you miss the raid. Spending three minutes to do this out of 480 possible minutes is reasonable, IMO, and if you still miss the raid entirely then I don't know what to tell you.

With this model, some start times are advantageous, whereas others are horrendous. I feel this evens out, and is fair to everyone. The kraken and people from a certain time one can't have their cake and eat it too, every time. My only concern, until we get stronger, is players overkilling phases indiscriminately, and having little left for phase 4.

This is our first trial of this method, 1800 EST.

Thoughts/comments?


Also, we have two open spots atm, no krakens, just up-and-coming whakes/dolphins/F2P with seven or less 7* toons, looking to improve rapidly. We raid heroics consistently 3x/wk, with "extra opportunites" if interested. We're sitting at 1750 guild points, 1950 after this raid.

We can also help with T6/heroic raid if you're stuck, and have even helped with T5's on occasion.

Replies

  • Xenith
    267 posts Member
    I wanna see an awnser to this so i ll just Bump it ;) GL we re starting our heroic raid next week so it will be helpfull knowing a plan or 2 btw how many 7* do your guild have?
  • I see similarities to synergy's raid model here. It is very difficult to police people to stop at 20% left in phase 3. There is damage carry overs and we are sure there are multiple players starting their last battle with under 20% left in phase 3. Regardless, we have not been able to figure out a better/fairer way of doing this. A lot of the difficulty lies in the strength of our guild. If we full zerged, the raid may not last 15 minutes. Last raid, 900k did not break the top 10. We make an effort to get in as many as we can and usually have 90-95% participation in all raids. The false start model was voted against because of the fast Zerg and the fact the pigs seem more aggressive at the start of a second turn. I am also interested in seeing other ideas here.

    Good luck tommy and thank you for allowing us to participate in your raids! We are glad to hear that we helped your guild become self sufficient in completing your own heroics!
  • EM650
    1120 posts Member
    edited June 2016
    For my guild, we are still fairly flexible. We allow everyone to only get 1 attack the first 8-12 hours and everyone gets to chose their phase in which they want to attack. We usually end around midway of P4 when most people have attacked. Our guild has the perspective that it is more important that everyone gets to hit rather than placement since T7 rewards are good for everyone. We have not had the issue of finishing the raid before most people have attacked yet.

    When 2nd attack is green lit, we usually kill Rancor within 5 minutes.
  • Xenith
    267 posts Member
    TommySitt wrote: »
    Pnut, I've also suggested that the first player to hit 20% phase three announce it, and l other players need to withdraw, meanwhile take an immediate screenshot to enforce it, but the idea was shot down as being too extreme.

    So the general idea is to let a few guys do phase 1? Then everyone uses 1 team in phase 2&3? But when theirs 20% left in phase 2&3 someone who can finish that 20% using one team will have a go at it am i being correct?(then phase 4 free for all)
  • Kabbes
    430 posts Member
    Everybody has one and only one attack whenever they like. 24 hours after the start (at which point the Rancor is always in p4), we begin a free for all to finish it off.
  • We just do one hit only each for the first twelve hours and then a free for all at the 12 hour mark
  • Kabbes
    430 posts Member
    We also have rolling start times. 8am, 1pm, 8pm every two days. Hence the 24 hour free for all, to stick to the same start time. That way everybody gets their preferred time one a three raid cycle.
  • chrischaos
    179 posts Member
    edited June 2016
    Required ****. of final p3 battle-start and finish. No one is supposed to start p3 when rancor is 20% or less. 20% damage on p3 rancor at that level is very hard to obtain. So a ****. showing the team and damage done will quickly show who's cheating, if the team moves into p4. Likewise if the team hits for 70 k and the rancor is at 3%-no way they started at 20%. The biggest thing really is maintaining the integrity of the P4 Zerg phase for members who haven't had a chance yet. Regarding revolving start times-it's simply the fairest way. I will miss the start of our next raid and will only get my Zerg phase hits. However, I'll be good on the next one. It always is inconvenient for someone unless you run a single time zone guild.
  • We use three different starting times, rotating 8hours - Like you, we do this create some kind of fairness towards a large span of timezones.

    1 attack during first 12hours (screenshot into Line as proof, although they are mostly used as inspiration for squads by now).
    At the 12hour mark its free for all, usually a 2minute zerg of the last 30-50% of P4.

    We waste millions of overkill damage, but after some time of raiding thats not really an issue.
  • TommySitt wrote: »
    Pnut, I've also suggested that the first player to hit 20% phase three announce it, and l other players need to withdraw, meanwhile take an immediate screenshot to enforce it, but the idea was shot down as being too extreme.

    Yes it's extreme. We thought there is no way we could enforce this without players getting salty and leaving. There are certain boundaries even with the most dedicated and loyal players that is hard to predict. It was safer to steer clear of this.
  • Mazurka
    961 posts Member
    Hey I'm the leader of Bad Motivator, took us awhile to get a system in place, might not work for everyone but it works for us. We have a set start time 7:30 PST, we allow one attack per phase, and as many as you like on the last. We finish raids in about 30 minutes, if you miss it, too bad. we raid every other day, and it is the time that suits the majority of our guild. We've tried holds, and other things, but it's annoying policing everyone who just wants to battle
  • I see a lot of long wait times for completion of raids here. 12-24 hours. We have impatient members lol it's probably relative to how quickly we could destroy a t7. We actually wait 6 hours to finish the raid. As a guild, the majority deemed 6 hours to be a fair amount of time to make everyone wait. When we first started, we made sure everyone got on board before finishing. That was getting ridiculous waiting for one person for 10 hours or so sometimes.

    Again, we have dedicated members and we strive to get most, if not all, on board. We usually have 90-95% participation. Those who did not get on in 6 hours mostly understand it was a fair amount of time. Because we have so many rotations on our raid schedule, most people are able to have 3/4 advantageous start times.
  • Riggin12
    129 posts Member
    We allow everyone one attack in the first 24 hours. This gets us into P4 without completing it. Then we Zerg to finish it off at the end of that 24hrs, which takes less than a minute. It's worked pretty well for us so far.
  • Kabbes
    430 posts Member
    What's the rush? You can only raid every other day anyway. We like the fact that there is something raid related for us to do every day. And 24 hours to FFA gives everyone a chance to get on the board if they have a 12 hour shift or something, plus makes it easier to remember when to go next.
  • Greg1920
    1777 posts Member
    We have rotating start times 6 hrs apart.
    We do a 12 hr tap phase where you can send in your Leroy Jenkins for damage

    During this phase you can prefight to get good RNG on phase 1. Just not log your damage until Zerg o'clock.

    Then we Zerg the whole thing at the 12hr mark.

    Goals for out guild
    - everyone gets a prize
    - The best players and largest rosters have the opportunity to use their rosters to maximize damage.

    12hr tap phase followed by Zerg accomplishes this.
  • We've been tweaking our raid schedule since we started doing them about two weeks ago. We've got a system now that works well so far for our guild. We've got members from around the world so time zones spread -12hr/+12hr. We rotate guild start time from 12am EST one week to 12pm EST next week. To avoid time zone confusion, once the raid starts we all follow the countdown timer.

    We have also broken all 50 members into 3 groups (we call them squadrons) that rotate which gets the 1st window of attacks.

    We do "4 Windows" of 12hrs each as follows
    1st Window 2 days - 1 day 13hrs remaining: Group A get one attack each. At 25% of damage in P1 they must attempt retreating all players and auto battle those who fail to escape

    2nd Window 1 day 12hrs - 1 day 1hr remaining: All who have not yet attacked get one attack each

    3rd Window 24hrs - 13hrs remaining: All members get a second attack

    4th Window 12hrs - 0hrs remaining: Free-for-all (if needed)

    Since you can't do more than one T7 every 48hrs there is no need to rush through the raids. Also since P1/P2 is the highest chance of massive damage, by rotating who gets the first shot at it you rotate those with the best chance for top 5 finish. In addition, by limiting the damage in P1 to 25% max per person you keep from too much damage coming off the board.

    We also have a graphic of the raid schedule and a FAQ posted in our guild chat. So far that's been working well for us. In almost every single T7 we've had 100% of our members get damage in. I'm sure we will have to tweak it more in the future, but for us it's working well so far.
  • minkywinkster
    219 posts Member
    edited June 2016
    We're mostly from the time zone so it's easier to co-ordinate. A raid schedule is published prior to each raid and a raid leader will direct all attacks. It takes us abut three hours to nail one. We have no whales in our guild, some dolphins though
    Ally code 797-111-992
  • EM650 wrote: »
    For my guild, we are still fairly flexible. We allow everyone to only get 1 attack the first 8-12 hours and everyone gets to chose their phase in which they want to attack. We usually end around midway of P4 when most people have attacked. Our guild has the perspective that it is more important that everyone gets to hit rather than placement since T7 rewards are good for everyone. We have not had the issue of finishing the raid before most people have attacked yet.

    When 2nd attack is green lit, we usually kill Rancor within 5 minutes.

    We're the same, 1 attack whenever you want till Zerg time. I think we've had 100% participation.

    My thought process is to keep it simple. We will take screen shots of any suspected cheaters and boot them. So far it's been minimal work. It did take a week or so to get there.

  • EM650 wrote: »
    For my guild, we are still fairly flexible. We allow everyone to only get 1 attack the first 8-12 hours and everyone gets to chose their phase in which they want to attack. We usually end around midway of P4 when most people have attacked. Our guild has the perspective that it is more important that everyone gets to hit rather than placement since T7 rewards are good for everyone. We have not had the issue of finishing the raid before most people have attacked yet.

    When 2nd attack is green lit, we usually kill Rancor within 5 minutes.

    We do this as well. Except we try to waste as much damage as possible in phase 1 at least. Meaning we try to get at least 20 members to attack at once, otherwise the phase will be over with only 5 attacks or so. This allows most players to participate in phase 1-3.
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  • We have tried to stage raids and stagger attacks but found that having raid cops and co-ordinating attacks just too onerous. Our Heroic raids last 20-30 minutes, so it's pretty much full zerg.

    We open a raid and registering attacks isn't allowed for 24 hours. This allows people who can't actually contribute to the raid to sacrifice a toon against the pig guards. This registers a score of zero but will provide a raid reward to those guys.

    People typically pre-load Phase 1 attacks so Phase 1 is over in seconds once the 24 hours is up. Pre-loading means starting the battle vs. the pigs before the allotted start time, but not finishing it until that time has ticked over. Phase 1 needs something like 1.87m points to be completed but our guys achieve this score many times over. Its of no consequence because we have the ability to complete the raid. People who false start are penalised by not being allowed to participate for the rest of the raid.

    There's no limits on the next phases - 2 and 3 generally last 2-3 minutes each and then Phase 4 lasts about 10-20 minutes, depending upon how many happen to be on at the time.

    We might limit our members who 7* Scoundrel Han to Phase 4 only when the time comes to help accelerate rewards and Han shards for those who don't normally rank high.
  • We do you can attack once at phases 1-3 and phase 4 is ffa. Works great. You get booted if caught attacking multiple times before phase 4
  • Naecabon
    1243 posts Member
    GO GO GO DIE DIE DIE RANCOR DIE ZERG KILL KILL KILL GO EAT HIM DIE
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