Day 7 - Raid make-ups

So in one of the last blogs I talked about recruitment, well once you have recruited and have enough for a raid team, you need to make sure that the team you send in is capable of dropping fights. A major part of this is sending in the right makeup. Now it is nice to have every single buff out there available. However as my guild have found no matter how many people you have available, there are only rare times that you have every buff available to you. Once thing to remember is that you can get the scrolls of intellect and drums of the wild and drums of forgotten kings. These are all valid choices if you are looking for that extra edge and have nobody in the raid to buff them.
After a long discussion, (yes I set up a team of around 4 raid leaders so it was a loooong discussion,) my raid leading team came up with what we call a basic and an optimum team build. For a basic build we look to have one paladin one druid and a priest, possibly a mage as well. (Obviously this is for a 10 man raid.) For the rest of the buffs you can use the drums and scrolls available. For an optimum build we decided on 2 paladins, one to do kings and the other to do wisdom or might, 2 druids, one for mark of the wild and one for the moonkin buff, 1 priest, stam and spirit buffs, 1 mage, intellect and focus magic, 1 shaman, totem buffs and of course what everyone knows why shammies were really brought into the game.... Heroism :p, 1 death knight, will give either a melle or ranged buff, 1 hunter, true shot aura and a warlock depending what spec he is will give various buffs.
Now as I said it is only on rare occasions that we can have the optimal build so most of the time we settle for something in between. Obviously in 25 man raids it should be rare that you don't have every buff known to man. but when you have that point... go in anyway, its fun :p.
Sometimes you will have the perfect team buff-wise, however before you send the team in the call has to be made if the people that are in the team can cope with the boss fights they are going to do. There is absolutely no point in sending people in to ICC if they are only geared for lower raids, so each guild must be flexible. Having a team of raid leaders helps as each one will be able to input opinions and build a larger picture.
Having said all this to be successful buffs are not everything, you will find people that are more flexible than others, and there will always be those that need longer to get used to a fight than others. Sometimes it is necessary to leave people out, not because they are bad players but because there are other people that suit the fight better. It may be that one person do's a huge amount of dps for instance, but they cant move as well as someone that do's lower dps. As a raid leader you have to weigh up the pro's and con's.
Thanks to my team we have been able to balance our teams well and have players in the guild that are always trying to improve. Bear in mind that everything I have said in my blog so far comes from seeing how the people in the guild have meshed and have supported myself and the officer team to make this possible. Those that get left out of a team don't mind as they understand that we are doing everything for the guilds sake and not our own.
That is one of the most important points in WOW. If you want a strong guild, you need a balanced team, individuals play a huge part, but as long as everyone works together you will succeed.
Thanks for listening to my ramblings again see you next time :)