Guildleader chores - Culling in Flex for Garrosh

I"ve written a lot about the joys of Flex raiding and how I love being able to get people to see the content in a guild environment, but it is inevitable that when we get to Garrosh we have to remove people.

I hate that part of it. I don't like asking people to leave.  People feel bad. I feel bad!  They've put in the hours to get here and then get told they have to go?  That hardly seems fair.  How are they going to learn?  And how are we going to get everyone to see Garrosh if we don't take some of the lower geared people in?

Mataoka said, and I totally understand, that she likes Flex because it's a safe learning place and you won't get asked to leave.  For the most part, that is true.  Garrosh is the only boss in Flex who is still about the same difficulty as one of the earlier bosses in a normal raid, which means you still have to follow the mechanics and steps and every loss of a raid member to a death makes it that much harder for everyone else.

Last night, we had to drop down to 13-14 people, and Garrosh had 167 million health.  When we had 17 people, his health was 203 million or so.  Reading around, I saw that at the minimum you probably need to pull about 140k dps or so for Garrosh to not be a dead weight.  And most of the time we haven't had an issue, because we had our normal and heroic raiders bringing their mains along for the Garrosh kill.  So if you have a few people pulling 300+k dps then you can get away with people DPSing at 100k and so it evens out.

The other thing about last night was that we only had 2 mainspec DPS there - Lushen and Luxy, who of course, did great DPS, as expected.  But we had a lot of people doing under 150k dps, and some that were under 100.  Without a lot of high end DPS to counter that, the encounter was a lot more difficult that it needed to be.  Aza, our to DPS Warlock, was on his hunter, who probably did half the DPS of his main but that's still a nice solid 170k+. Morz was DPSing but that was because we had too many healers - we already had 3 resto druids and a paladin - and I definitely didn't need any more healing.

There are so many things to consider here. Is it fair to ask someone who doesn't need anything on their main to come and help DPS so others can get loot, and then they miss out on loot on their alt?  Is it fair that someone who hasn't put in time in LFR multiple times to get a feel for the fight turns up on a boss fight and never seen it ever before and then wipes the group a few times trying to learn it? 

I give up my time and energy to run flex for my guildies, their friends and other pugs, so they can get loot.  I don't need anything.  Kyxyn doesn't need anything.  A consistent main healer and main tank helps a lot when it comes to doing Flex Garrosh, and that way I feel at least we have a nice routine and plan to follow that is easy to execute .  A lot of people probably don't want to help out on the harder wings on their mains because "What's in it for me?"  If you're not going to get loot for your alt or Valour, then what's the point, right?  As the guildleader, I just want to make sure that people are learning and experiencing the fight, and it would be perfect if they mastered the boss and got loot!  But if you are not performing to the minimum standard we expect (and the standard we set is lower than most other people I think) then I don't you shouldn't expect that we can teach you to run when you've only just learned to walk. And you should recognise that, if your DPS is low.  DPS is not like healing - when you are around other DPS your DPS shouldn't get lowered (unless of course the mobs are dead before you can hit them) because you're all doing damage.  Healing on the other hand is damned annoying because my heals get negated by Disc priest absorbs and I look like I'm not doing anything! So lower geared healers may get the artificial low heals because all the healing is sniped by the others, so they look worse than they are, but as I said, DPS shouldn't have that effect.

We do make it clear at the start of each raid that if we find ourselves struggling with a DPS check then the lower performing players need to be dropped so that the health gain the boss gets from adding players can be negated.  I don't think people should be upset by that.  They should know they are not geared for the encounter yet. If people get upset when I tell them that, then I often think those sorts of people are not the people I want to be flexing with in the first place. "How are we going to learn," they lament, "if we're not allowed to go?"  Well, you won't be learning anything if your health is so low that you can't live through an iron star in phase 1.  And I don't think it's too much to ask to ask you to follow the group if you don't know what you're doing in the other phases. Perhaps I should be more vocal when calling it out so people are more aware! Anyway, here's hoping my next flex will still have well geared people so I can help pull some of the lower DPS through so they can learn.

Kyxyn gets annoyed because of people who come to Flex to learn.  I actually don't see a problem with that. I have done LFR and I learned nothing from doing the bosses because it's so chaotic and people tend not communicate well.  LFR at least gives me an idea of what mechanics the boss uses and what things are bad to stand in, but real strategy is learned in Flex.

I am not the only one with this dilemma.  I was reading someone else's post in forums and other people have the same issues.  They, like me, don't want to kick people and wonder if there is anything that can make Phase 3 easier, which is where the DPS really matters.  Empowered whirls which hurt a lot, Empowered Touch of Y'shaarj that I can't interrupt unless I use Fae silence, and the Empowered Gripping Despair which kills the tanks all make the last phase the DPS race.  I don't know if there is an easy way to deal with it except that every player has to be on the ball with interrupts and DPSing down the MCs.  Man, I've done the fight a few times and I STILL feel overwhelmed during that phase! So I guess, a reassuring thing is that I'm not the only one who tries to run their Flex the way I do, and I think everyone shouldn't think I'm giving them a hard go of it.

I rely on the goodwill of my officers and geared raiders to make the Flex runs work. There are a few pugs who are really amazing and supportive when it comes to helping out with their toons to meet whatever our flex raid requires.  Sometimes I worry about what will happen if those people I rely on are no longer there to help out with Flex. Or if I break all my officers because I make such high demands of them. Ooh, now that's fodder for another post.

But here is my other guilt - I have had to sit out guildies to get a kill.  I don't like having to do that, I want our guildies to get the first go.  I don't want outsiders to be in the raid when guildies aren't!  But the weird thing is, after raiding with the same players week after week in Flex, I think of some of the outsiders as guildies almost.  Those Barthilas friends of Luxy's are so nice and are the first to drop if they think we need a health decrease in the boss, and Rip and Jurlok are always ready to switch to whatever toons we need (even tanks) just to help us get a kill.  They're regulars, and reliably attend, so I think of them as honourary Frostwolves, in a way.

So just to let everyone know what's going through my head every time we hit Garrosh. You might feel bad because I've had to remove you from a Garrosh fight, but I guarantee you that I have spent a lot of time thinking about it, and feeling bad about it and trying to organise everyone else to get it down. My goal is to get everyone a kill.  And hopefully if you work hard and we work hard, we can get there.