In a game that's full of antisocial people and generally encourages soloing I'm really happy there are people willing to take on the unpaid manager of a bunch of loot whores into a raid and getting them to do their damn jobs properly in a nice friendly voice without losing it to every screw up or slacker.
Been raid leading as tank for 4 years. Just switched at 7/10m to "21 man" and it's night and day. The amount of focus and information I can pass to the raid is extremely more efficient, coherent and organized. Also I'm alot more cool, calm and collected while before I would get agitated, whiney and borderline toxic towards fails, affecting the group. I can even say I appreciate the game more now and feel more impactful and helpful towards my teammates.
I find the problem with trying to lead as a healer is that when DPS start making mistakes, the healer's workload skyrockets. Whereas leading from a DPS perspective nothing really changes if people are messing up.
3 года назад+15
I agree. Also since you are almost guaranteed to perform worse mechanically as a result of RLing I prefer the dps role. I'd rather have 1 out of 14 dps playing sub-par than 1 out of 4 healers.
Melee DPS is also very braindead to play in general, giving you free mentally and physically to make calls and keep eyes on the raid itself. Most raid mechanics only apply to ranged and healers who also have cast bars to manage, leaving melee to focus mashing instant cast abilities and just standing next to boss and avoiding badzones.
@@cattysplat Just going to go over each boss checking how many mechanics each one has that are more melee vs. more ranged (heroic only, not mythic) Shriekwing -- Echoing shriek is more melee, earsplitting shriek is more melee, echolocation is more melee (they lose more resources and have to consider movespeed options to reach boss again faster), *no* mechanics are more ranged Huntsman -- Most mechanics are identical, CCing the dogs is more ranged so this is more ranged. Hungering -- All mechanics are similar, with expunge being slightly more melee since they have to get back to boss to keep dps Inerva -- Canisters are ranged, most soaks are ranged, add circles are more difficult for ranged, this boss is significantly more mechanic heavy for ranged Sun King -- Both are the same Artificer -- Both are roughly the same, slightly harder for melee since leaving boss to do mechanics in any phase costs more dps Council -- Dark recital is harder on melee, stavros' lunge is harder on melee, the dancers are harder on melee, the dance requires more movespeed on melee to reach boss to take advantage of buff ASAP. This fight is ranged favored. Sludgefist -- Chain slam is ranged only, stacking is *far* more precise for ranged while melee can kind of mess around, stomp is melee only (but now trivial due to nerf). Charge is more melee, roughly even. Stone Legion Generals -- More demanding on melee for the same reason as artificer, particularly since wicked blades can't return until they're physically hit by the blade or they can drag it into group. Sire -- Hand of destruction is easier for melee since they can stack on denath and not be pulled, massacre is easier on ranged since they can spread more, crescendo is easier on ranged, all of phase three is significantly easier on ranged. I disagree, most raid mechanics actually apply more to melee than ranged. That being said, melee can move better and many ranged classes (looking at you Shadow priest) have a lot more to their rotation than melee (ret paladin).
I enjoyed RL’ing as a healer (holy priest specifically) because I could pinpoint the dps who were slacking after enough pulls were done and we could work on our weakest link. I jokingly said “if I’ve life gripped you and it wasn’t part of the strat, you’re doing it wron.” Heh.
@@cattysplat This was written by someone who hasnt played melee this expansion. Melee has it so bad in raid and m+ right now. Many mechanics just fuck over melee.
I am a former raid leader who also was a former top 10 US level healer once upon a time ago. Many people thought I was insane for trying to heal and also raid lead for many years, even at that level of play. Which is surprising, I would say. I always maintained your exact position however. From my POV, and my responsibilities, I am already thinking about the things that I would need to be calling out for most of the raid through my role interactions. So, it always felt more fluid to me as opposed to when I swapped to melee dps or ranged dps. Good to see you have the same thought process. Now I can reference this video when people tell me I am sub-optimal. Your videos are always insightful and refreshing man. Keep it up.
@@axl4394 There are a ton of examples where i think that isn't true, for example leading as a tank on hungering destroyer is rough, I can't see anything the raid is doing.
@@Shivana246 I don’t mythic raid, but leading on hungering is easy, you just call out beams and when to run out, the tank swap is probably the easiest in the raid too
You deserve this sub my man as a 10 + year wow player thanks for the free form convo content it’s the shit I would hang in discord for hours after raid just talking with my guildies about.
As some one who has been raid leading as a tank since BC, not at a world first level mind you, I can't stress how important delegation is. It might be the number one key to success. Also helps to play other roles in alt raids just to experience the fight from those POVs.
As someone who has been a raid leader since ToT while switching between tank and dps (and now even heal) depending on the needs of the raid, I can't really take seriously people that argue that tank is the best role for raidleading. Thanks for putting it in such a nice and comprehensive way.
I lead as tank for a long time, and I couldn't count how many times someone has asked me a question and I've just completely blanked them because I'm focusing on surviving, then reply way too late, or I've helped them and been clapped by a tank mechanic/missed a taunt. It's still fine to do most of the time but when it's a new boss you're progression its so hard.
The best raid leaders I had were a feral druid and an affliction warlock, and they both managed to call everything while often also being top in the meters (both were in Cutting Edge guilds).
I love the move in general to playing what you are best at/most comfortable with. It makes the game more fun, so it is nice that it is also the best play for almost all guilds.
I wasn't by any means part of a world first guild, or anything but I did a decent amount of progressive raiding. Back when I was a raid leader we had 3 raid leaders the main raid leader was our tank. The second and third raid leaders were one of the range dps and the other was a healer. Our 2nd and 3rd raid leaders called out mechanics, and any mistakes so our tank or tanks could adjust the boss if needed.
Currently 8/10: My preferred PoV is one of my boomies that will flex to heal if necessary and does a good bit of M+ healing, so it's ranged DPS with a healing UI. If he's out I swap to a different healer that also has nice frames much like you pointed out. So far they haven't both been out simultaneously. Swapping to a new PoV and UI is definitely a little rough for a few pulls. Typically I play mage and I flub my CDs a lot trying to RL everything, so I stay out for progression. I love the more behind the scenes-esque content you're doing lately. I think it's helping my guild via me a good bit.
The comfortability factor is the most significant for RLs within a raid; I would add to it, in a vacuum, the best idea is to play a spec with lots of built in downtime; by this I do not necessarily "easy to play", but specs that are not driven in their performance by GCD-intensive gameplay. This includes a few factors, which might be summarized as follows: 1. Not heavily haste-scaled; i.e. 3 to 4 of the main abilities with a cooldown affected by Haste or a class that values a lower GCD. Think Fury Warrior or Holy Paladin as big offenders. The logic here is that performance tied to high haste/shorter GCD suffers when the RL is unable to maintain the fast-paced APM required due to their attention being drawn to other things in the raid. 2. Not heavily rotational; i.e. the order of the spell casts needs to have limited relevance. Fire Mage Combustion requires a very specific order to be effective, and this is a potential detriment for a RL who may need to pay attention to callouts during the special rotational portions of their spec. Burst specs are easier to manage in this regard because the specific sequence generally doesn't extend past 10-15 seconds; if your spec constantly requires a specific order of abilities to be effective (Elemental Shaman weaving Lava Burst, for example), it puts more strain on the RL duties. 3. Positionally "loud"; i.e. not punished by the need to remain still to effectively produce throughput. Arcane Mage is a good example of both #2 and #3. The logic is straightforward here; Raid Leaders will naturally have their attention divided and have a slower response to mechanics. This makes Melee DPS a much more valuable starting point for a RL because they need to think far less about finding a specific spot to plant themselves for each mechanic in a raid. 4. Not proc/RNG-focused; i.e. not given to a lot of random effects that alter their throughput priorities (Enhance Shaman Stormstrike procs, Outlaw Rogue Roll the Bones, Fistweaver Monk). Some proc-based classes, like Demo Warlock/Arms Warrior/Frost Mage, are far more rotational or have built in lenience, so that consuming the proc immediately is not a serious throughput issue or the player can anticipate the regularity of the RNG with high accuracy. But asking the brain to RL while also looking for adjusting priorities due to random occurrences adds another layer of strain on the RL. Recommendations for consideration by Role: Tank: Guardian Druid Healer: Resto Shaman (necrolord), Resto Druid (night fae) Ranged: BM Hunter, Balance Druid (night fae) Melee: Assassination Rogue, Arms Warrior
I find doing callouts as a healer to be extremely difficult. If i'm ever calling stuff, my healing goes down. Granted I"m no world first raider- (heroic) still I found your tank raid leader reasoning truly interesting. Most of my raid leaders have been tanks but when I did run mythics, our raid leader was a hunter (marks) and he was probably one of the best raid leaders I've ever had.
yep. i always try to give each role what things they need to be calling because they're always doing it. such as jumps called by healers for council etc.
In the guild I did progression raids with we had 4 officers dedicated to making calls. It's rare that there are more than 2 things to say at once if your communication is efficient. Our raid leader was a dps.
I've raid leaded as a healer before. I also raid leaded as a dps as well for a tier. I much rather raid lead as a healer. Having to make quick judgements and call outs and all that workload I love. It makes me more excited for raided and makes me enjoy it more.
Personally caster dps is the best role for me as a RL. I can focus slightly less on my individual performance to focus on my RLing compared to when Im healing. The pro with being a healer is that youre always having full focus on your entire raid naturally.
I find it much easier to raid lead as ranged over healing. When healing my raid leading suffers as I have to give more focus to healing, but as dps I can autopilot my character and focus on leading.
awesome video, awesome show of perspective. maybe a video explaining the loot system and assignment? we recently had and issue with this and i'd love to watch how the pros solve and manage this
I've been raid leading (pugs) as a tank since forever and it's a pain sometimes because there are instances where all you see is the boss's Crotch and have no visibility on what's going on behind him. I would say Ranged is always the best role for a RL, I just have to do it out of necessity and for the most part I do fine, but definitely not optimal.
MW monk (pepega spec) but you press "essence font" and you run around and watch what your raid is doing - so imho its easiest class for raid leading :P
As someone who's Raid led pug groups in every expansion in my personal experience its always been easiest as a healer as like you mention you're kind of forced to deal with in some fashion or another anyways. Whether it be healing damage caused by or decursing or watching to Sac/Fur/ Guardian a player targeted mechanic. Most importantly the better a fight goes mechanically the less you're forced to heal which puts you in a strategic mind set already. Most dps just wanna blast the meter. Healers do too but any good healer knows that's through intelligent use of cooldowns in the correct pressure situations.
Intensely spooky timing. Just got out of an after raid chat with my Raid Leader about my current progress learning to raid lead. Being the GM I want to be able to do it should he need a day off or some emergency happen. What we've figured out very quickly is I need to switch roles away from healing - Because bosses like Hungering Mythic are very intense to raid lead as a healer - Theres a lot of moving parts afterall. This was a really helpful video, and sort of confirms what we've been chatting about. Appriciate it, love the content and cant wait for more! You mentioned in one of your early videos about how to handle cliques in your guild - Will that one be coming soon?
Is that really what Max said though? The take I got from the video is that you should play what you're best at/enjoy the most. If anything, I would say of all four roles, healer is the best to RL hungering because RLing that fight is all about managing soaks for the raid and as a healer you will be intensely aware of who has misama.
@@deathbower The issue I've got is that I struggle super hard to remember to talk and call things out when I'm healing such intense things, whereas when I play boomer on the clear bosses (I basically raid lead all of HC now apart from Sire) I have no issues remembering call outs and am much more comfortable. So what I mean by confirming what we had chatted about is that healing is too intense for me to do and raid lead at the same time and I need to move to what comfortable with :)
@@lewismassey9312 Honestly it's just a hard fight to lead, but I ask you this - if you're struggling to lead the fight on a healer you're familiar/comfortable with, do you honestly think you'll do better swapping to another class or spec?
@@deathbower 100%. Both me and my raid leader are in agreement of this. Even he has admitted he wouldn't want to raid lead and heal Hungering Mythic as it looks a nightmare to do. Maybe its just how my monke brain works, but swapping to a ranged DPS would is just much more comfortable for me to raid lead from. I can still be intensely aware of who has miasma, still intensely aware of the boss mechanics and how they work. I wouldn't say it's a hard fight to lead, but healing is such an intense role on it. Sire HC was the same vein for me too. We've spoke about it a lot, it's the right call.
So a question to add to this topic. Do you feel that being a raid leader playing whatever your best class/role is, effects your performance? So lets say beast master hunter or Marksman as an example. Would raid leading as a range dps effect their dps numbers than not raid leading. So you can focus more on your cooldowns/rotations? I guess you could say it depends on the player. But lets just say its hypothetical, compare it to a casual raider to a pro raider. Would a pro raid leader still have similar issues as a casual raid leader? Let's just say both know their classes well.
He has already said it in multiple videos but, yeah, if you're not playing your character worse while raid leading, you're not raid leading properly, basically. (Either that or you're a god.)
the more things that you occupy your brain with the less effective you are at any one thing, you can still perform optimally as a dps while leading but it is harder and more likely your dps will fall abit, however that dps decrease is more than made up for with the benefits of a good leader
Sweet tips and amazing breakdown, thanks! One remark tho, Method got Eternal Palace WF, recleared the raid and got world second, and then Limit got its kill. When in a two horse race you finish 3rd, thats not barely losing, gotta give credit where credit is due. Amazing to see Limit improve and take the WF tier after.
Remember the good old days when I raided last time with a guild. That was in Black Temple/Mount Hyjal back in TBC. Our raid leader was..resto druid xD He was pretty pissed at the paladin tank when we couldn't kill Illidan :D
Healing can be so frustrating when your raid isn't listening, performing or doing correct strats. Better tanking and DPS can make a huge difference but better heals generally just paper over problems that other players have.
i started raidleading this expension, i'm an affliction warlock ( and i'm not a blockhead btw ) , sometimes i struggle with bosses like stone legion xD and already at 2/10 MM with 5 players who started the game this expension :D
I've never been a raidleader but if i would be one in the future i would think of playing fire mage. rotation is pretty straight forward which u dont need to focus on at all (outside of combust) and only needing to focus every one and a half minute or so (idk the exact cd cause of shifting powers and kindling its probably always different right?) and on top of that having 2x blink and NF Blink which give u more time to play mechanics you somehow may missed and iceblock as a panic button (if immunitys are not required in the strat of course)
The splitting of work load is great. We tend to have one tank taking the lead on the tank and melee specific part, but we leave the ranged/heals call. But I am far from a top level raider.
I get the world first argument; but on farm/non world first guilds where the fight is "solved" and its assumed people know what to do and just essentially need timer calls on when to do it, tanks have the lowest skill floor and are basically the best role to have played at skill floor, so you taking away your own bandwidth matters the least. It "costs" less on ranged/healers, but a larger cost matters less on a tank. I dont think you'll argue tanks are the easiest role to basically be mediocre/outright dogshit at and still kill bosses, sub world first. Dogshit meaning dogshit at optimizing class gameplay, even if they're a fine mechanical player. Which is I think WHY its so common.
for most cases by simple math raid lead should be a dps player, a raid lead has more to think and say during the encounter which will in the long run cause more wipes depending on the role, so if a tank fucks up more frequently you probably wipe quite a bit on that, if a healer fucks up more frequently you´ll wipe not as much to it but still a decent bit, if the lead is a dps player his impact on the outcome of the fight is extreamly lower than if he was a heal or tank, he is 1 out of 12 dudes doing the same thing, if it´s only 11 dudes doing the same thing and one kinda hanging behind that is fine opposed to having only 3 1/2 healers or a tank messing up more. Yes a lot what Max is saying can be used to justify Raidleads in other roles, but statisticly the optimal choice is dps, if meele or ranged, idk.
making call outs felt okay as a healer however trying to figure out what needs adjusting felt difficult, that is at least when i raid lead a heroic guild but now im at the CE level and just a healer in a guild and i do feel the same. like i wouldnt be able to call out what people need to be doing just how to manage the damage taken and stuff
Way back in the BC days, I took over raid leading when our guild had a l33t meltdown and we lost half our raid group. Within a week we were back in progression. Why? because the old raid leader tried to "do it all" and did not understand the power of delegation, teamwork, and trust. (Control freak). My method was simple. I'm NOT the best player in the group. I'm good, yes, but I'm still part of a TEAM. Teamwork requires trust. First thing I did was to "eliminate" elite thinking from the group. Trust your team. Delegate to those that are close to the mechanic. Most importantly, DO NOT blame the players, solve the problem. Most wipes are not due to "people messing up" as much as they are a missed counter to a mechanic. I would break down wipes by working back to the missed mechanic. Next pull, Boss down. Simple. Therefore, we always had fun, and no shortage of players wanting to raid. It was amazing to play with that team, as there was always a free flow of information, no acrimony, and lots of creativity when people do not fear "being called out".
My problem with raid leaders is "they" try to play your toon for you and when asked to you have a high level "whatever" they invariably say "yeah, I got that class" with NO DAMN IDEA of how to raid with that class. Your "job" is to call out big hits and EXPECT that player to do the damn mechanic WITHOUT you, the lead, telling them WHERE to move or how to get there. Maybe it's just my raid leader(s); his wife is always jumping in there without being raid lead at all. I have " defenses" that allow me to NOT have to move and get back to dps much, much faster. I'm not number 2 because i have a boomkin. I'm skilled and have kept solid with every damn change blizzard makes to my class. Meh, I'm just bitching where i KNOW they won't look. My raid leader(s) will NEVER come here looking to be better. I, HOWEVER, am damn well looking where ever I can to improve my guilds performance; SO THANK YOU!!! Sorry bout the bitchin' ;)
Sounds to me like you just have a RL that micro manages too much, while not having the class knowledge to do it. This is not a general "Raidleader" thing. I deffo, as a raidlead, dont micro that much.
@@christianbendixmau7348 wow did u nail that one. I admit i generalized to much; I'v had RL in the past on cutting edge raiding that were very hands off but MECHANICS on. I like that, I need that a bit, since as a dps i can get tunnel vision.
There are a lot of "raid leads" that sack doing callouts because they are focused on their own dps/rotation. I prefer raid leads that sack their own dps so the group can succeed. If you can top dps and raid lead then honestly, you are an absolute monster player.
This. My raid lead is in the bottom 5 in dps because of call outs. Unless its heroic sludge then he is always top 2 because the only call puts are "range left. Range right."
I raid lead as a rogue for a heroic/some mythic content and I find it very challenging. Mainly because when you're not a top end guild you have to be the person to spot out mistakes. Thus I'm trying to watch ranged/healer/ melee mistakes while keeping up with my rotation. Even though I only parse between 40-70 normally when I raid lead I parse 10-30. However, max you've said before you can carry as raid lead. And I'm the one doing the most soaks sire p3, double eruption soaks on generals multiple times, calling everything when it's coming up...etc. I rarely make a mechanical error but my dps is shit because of this focus on everything else.
Personally I really prefer raid leading as a ranged or even melee DPS (not 21st-manning) to a healer. I found myself way too focused on raid frames and not noticing timers when I was healing. I feel most engaged in a fight as a DPS
Thank you for your videos as always. I’ve been meaning to ask but, wasn’t sure how to. How do you get into high end raiding guilds? Currently I’m the RL for my guild on OCE servers as I’m stationed in Japan atm but, I’ve been planning to get very serious once I’m back in the states. How does one go about getting the attention of a guild to be a raider for them? I have about 2 years until then so I am trying to work on anything I can do to achieve that dream in the future. Thank you. And if anyone else has any tips, I’m happy to hear them as well. Have a good one!
Honestly get good heroic logs and many lower end CE guilds will at least look at your application. Make sure your logs show you do mechanics properly and you understand your class well and not just that you can get gold parses
@@user-qu8wh7pp6e cheers! Thank you for the insight. My parses 82.8 with only one orange parse. I’ve been raid leading for about 3 years now, mechanics have usually always been my strong suit. First tier being a dps as I’ve been a main tank for a while.
Without seeing the video yet I can assume that healers are best for raid leading because they already need to pay attention to people's health and (sorta) position
I love the comments: *raid leading is easier as a tank 100%*, then people give mythic examples where that is not the case and the reply is almost all the time: *well I lead heroic*, you are not leading you are calling out 1 or 2 basic mechanics that your entire raid should be able to do for themself and if you are so over geared that you have no stress as a tank then yeah there is no competition, raid leading is hard on progress when your tanks are taking damage and have to cycle through deffensives and external cds, when your healers are struggling to keep everyone alive and an additional fuck up just tips them over the edge and they can't maintain or they have to use a cds that was needed further in the fight and dps who are trying to minmax as much damage on the correct targets without padding (even though let's be real you will always have the fuckwit who just pads on adds that de-spawn or have no reason to be dpsed and then gloat how amazing his parses are). 1 Raid leader will never be able to check every dps/healer/tank mechanic and correctly call it out, you need a collective of people who are being affected by a certain mechanic and to call it out of the majority of people usually they are seasoned guild members or officers of the guild. If you sit on your ass and complain that you did not get a correct call out, do it yourself actually help the raid rather than pout like a baby that you did not get your hand carried by someone else.
BM Hunter would like to know your location. With a weak aura to track one of thrill of the hunt/barbed shot/frenzy (since they all have the same duration, and are all refreshed by using barbed shot), you're literally just refreshing it when the timer gets low, pressing cooldowns when they're up, and then kill commanding/cobra shotting when able. It's even easier than Summoner in FF14.
Naw dude if you’re raid leading well you’re def def def sub optimal at healing hands down, unless you’re an AI. Never seen a raid leader out perform me on healing never will. 99.9% of your viewers should never heal and lead.
There is not a single fight this raid tier that is more difficult as ranged lmfao. Ranged is a complete joke mechanically this raid compared to Merle. Miss me with that shit.
@@hushpuppi3 I mean he has a point. Mythic is designed for 20 people. If u got a guy screensharing and a guy from the outside is commanding that's basically 21 people's work. The only reason it's allowed is because Blizzard can't stop it but it's basically cheating lmao.
@@yoshtheknife erm, why would it be cheating? there are coaches in top esport games as well, such as CS. So all top teams are cheating? Cuz the game is designed for 5v5, not for 6v6. your logic is so wrong
@@hushpuppi3 Max is an excellent player as well as raid leader. I would rather see Max lead the raid whilst being a player in the raid. I do not like the "21st man", my opinion - which last time I checked I am entitled to have no matter what the internet says.
@@akosbarabas22 Not to take a stand in the question, but your own example literally goes STRAIGHT against your point and actually proves the opposite. CS coaches are NOT allowed to speak to the players mid game, only before & after games or during the limited time-outs.
Respect to anyone in any Role taking the task on being a RL. Without you guys we wouldnt be able to kill bosses. Thanks! Great content Max.
In a game that's full of antisocial people and generally encourages soloing I'm really happy there are people willing to take on the unpaid manager of a bunch of loot whores into a raid and getting them to do their damn jobs properly in a nice friendly voice without losing it to every screw up or slacker.
Nah, rl is needed only when you first encounter a boss. After a few tries you should have mastered it
@@VbrSoronope. Doesn't make any sense. Do you think people who play sports don't need a coach after some matches?
also every boss is different
Been raid leading as tank for 4 years. Just switched at 7/10m to "21 man" and it's night and day. The amount of focus and information I can pass to the raid is extremely more efficient, coherent and organized. Also I'm alot more cool, calm and collected while before I would get agitated, whiney and borderline toxic towards fails, affecting the group. I can even say I appreciate the game more now and feel more impactful and helpful towards my teammates.
I find the problem with trying to lead as a healer is that when DPS start making mistakes, the healer's workload skyrockets. Whereas leading from a DPS perspective nothing really changes if people are messing up.
I agree. Also since you are almost guaranteed to perform worse mechanically as a result of RLing I prefer the dps role. I'd rather have 1 out of 14 dps playing sub-par than 1 out of 4 healers.
Melee DPS is also very braindead to play in general, giving you free mentally and physically to make calls and keep eyes on the raid itself. Most raid mechanics only apply to ranged and healers who also have cast bars to manage, leaving melee to focus mashing instant cast abilities and just standing next to boss and avoiding badzones.
@@cattysplat
Just going to go over each boss checking how many mechanics each one has that are more melee vs. more ranged (heroic only, not mythic)
Shriekwing -- Echoing shriek is more melee, earsplitting shriek is more melee, echolocation is more melee (they lose more resources and have to consider movespeed options to reach boss again faster), *no* mechanics are more ranged
Huntsman -- Most mechanics are identical, CCing the dogs is more ranged so this is more ranged.
Hungering -- All mechanics are similar, with expunge being slightly more melee since they have to get back to boss to keep dps
Inerva -- Canisters are ranged, most soaks are ranged, add circles are more difficult for ranged, this boss is significantly more mechanic heavy for ranged
Sun King -- Both are the same
Artificer -- Both are roughly the same, slightly harder for melee since leaving boss to do mechanics in any phase costs more dps
Council -- Dark recital is harder on melee, stavros' lunge is harder on melee, the dancers are harder on melee, the dance requires more movespeed on melee to reach boss to take advantage of buff ASAP. This fight is ranged favored.
Sludgefist -- Chain slam is ranged only, stacking is *far* more precise for ranged while melee can kind of mess around, stomp is melee only (but now trivial due to nerf). Charge is more melee, roughly even.
Stone Legion Generals -- More demanding on melee for the same reason as artificer, particularly since wicked blades can't return until they're physically hit by the blade or they can drag it into group.
Sire -- Hand of destruction is easier for melee since they can stack on denath and not be pulled, massacre is easier on ranged since they can spread more, crescendo is easier on ranged, all of phase three is significantly easier on ranged.
I disagree, most raid mechanics actually apply more to melee than ranged. That being said, melee can move better and many ranged classes (looking at you Shadow priest) have a lot more to their rotation than melee (ret paladin).
I enjoyed RL’ing as a healer (holy priest specifically) because I could pinpoint the dps who were slacking after enough pulls were done and we could work on our weakest link. I jokingly said “if I’ve life gripped you and it wasn’t part of the strat, you’re doing it wron.” Heh.
@@cattysplat This was written by someone who hasnt played melee this expansion. Melee has it so bad in raid and m+ right now. Many mechanics just fuck over melee.
I am a former raid leader who also was a former top 10 US level healer once upon a time ago. Many people thought I was insane for trying to heal and also raid lead for many years, even at that level of play. Which is surprising, I would say. I always maintained your exact position however. From my POV, and my responsibilities, I am already thinking about the things that I would need to be calling out for most of the raid through my role interactions. So, it always felt more fluid to me as opposed to when I swapped to melee dps or ranged dps. Good to see you have the same thought process. Now I can reference this video when people tell me I am sub-optimal. Your videos are always insightful and refreshing man. Keep it up.
Respect for the tank raid leaders.
I am one.
@@Shivana246 respect
I’ve raid led as a tank and dps this tier, and I think raid leading as a tank is much easier
@@axl4394 There are a ton of examples where i think that isn't true, for example leading as a tank on hungering destroyer is rough, I can't see anything the raid is doing.
@@Shivana246 I don’t mythic raid, but leading on hungering is easy, you just call out beams and when to run out, the tank swap is probably the easiest in the raid too
You deserve this sub my man as a 10 + year wow player thanks for the free form convo content it’s the shit I would hang in discord for hours after raid just talking with my guildies about.
Love the theory behind this.. it's soooo difficult to get dps to think like a healer and stop dying so much.
As some one who has been raid leading as a tank since BC, not at a world first level mind you, I can't stress how important delegation is. It might be the number one key to success. Also helps to play other roles in alt raids just to experience the fight from those POVs.
As someone who has been a raid leader since ToT while switching between tank and dps (and now even heal) depending on the needs of the raid, I can't really take seriously people that argue that tank is the best role for raidleading. Thanks for putting it in such a nice and comprehensive way.
I lead as tank for a long time, and I couldn't count how many times someone has asked me a question and I've just completely blanked them because I'm focusing on surviving, then reply way too late, or I've helped them and been clapped by a tank mechanic/missed a taunt. It's still fine to do most of the time but when it's a new boss you're progression its so hard.
The best raid leaders I had were a feral druid and an affliction warlock, and they both managed to call everything while often also being top in the meters (both were in Cutting Edge guilds).
I've been raid leading as tank for about 4 years now. Thanks for the pat on the back. :')
I love the move in general to playing what you are best at/most comfortable with. It makes the game more fun, so it is nice that it is also the best play for almost all guilds.
I wasn't by any means part of a world first guild, or anything but I did a decent amount of progressive raiding. Back when I was a raid leader we had 3 raid leaders the main raid leader was our tank. The second and third raid leaders were one of the range dps and the other was a healer. Our 2nd and 3rd raid leaders called out mechanics, and any mistakes so our tank or tanks could adjust the boss if needed.
Currently 8/10: My preferred PoV is one of my boomies that will flex to heal if necessary and does a good bit of M+ healing, so it's ranged DPS with a healing UI. If he's out I swap to a different healer that also has nice frames much like you pointed out. So far they haven't both been out simultaneously. Swapping to a new PoV and UI is definitely a little rough for a few pulls. Typically I play mage and I flub my CDs a lot trying to RL everything, so I stay out for progression. I love the more behind the scenes-esque content you're doing lately. I think it's helping my guild via me a good bit.
The comfortability factor is the most significant for RLs within a raid; I would add to it, in a vacuum, the best idea is to play a spec with lots of built in downtime; by this I do not necessarily "easy to play", but specs that are not driven in their performance by GCD-intensive gameplay. This includes a few factors, which might be summarized as follows:
1. Not heavily haste-scaled; i.e. 3 to 4 of the main abilities with a cooldown affected by Haste or a class that values a lower GCD. Think Fury Warrior or Holy Paladin as big offenders. The logic here is that performance tied to high haste/shorter GCD suffers when the RL is unable to maintain the fast-paced APM required due to their attention being drawn to other things in the raid.
2. Not heavily rotational; i.e. the order of the spell casts needs to have limited relevance. Fire Mage Combustion requires a very specific order to be effective, and this is a potential detriment for a RL who may need to pay attention to callouts during the special rotational portions of their spec. Burst specs are easier to manage in this regard because the specific sequence generally doesn't extend past 10-15 seconds; if your spec constantly requires a specific order of abilities to be effective (Elemental Shaman weaving Lava Burst, for example), it puts more strain on the RL duties.
3. Positionally "loud"; i.e. not punished by the need to remain still to effectively produce throughput. Arcane Mage is a good example of both #2 and #3. The logic is straightforward here; Raid Leaders will naturally have their attention divided and have a slower response to mechanics. This makes Melee DPS a much more valuable starting point for a RL because they need to think far less about finding a specific spot to plant themselves for each mechanic in a raid.
4. Not proc/RNG-focused; i.e. not given to a lot of random effects that alter their throughput priorities (Enhance Shaman Stormstrike procs, Outlaw Rogue Roll the Bones, Fistweaver Monk). Some proc-based classes, like Demo Warlock/Arms Warrior/Frost Mage, are far more rotational or have built in lenience, so that consuming the proc immediately is not a serious throughput issue or the player can anticipate the regularity of the RNG with high accuracy. But asking the brain to RL while also looking for adjusting priorities due to random occurrences adds another layer of strain on the RL.
Recommendations for consideration by Role:
Tank: Guardian Druid
Healer: Resto Shaman (necrolord), Resto Druid (night fae)
Ranged: BM Hunter, Balance Druid (night fae)
Melee: Assassination Rogue, Arms Warrior
I guardian tank raid lead because I have so much downtime, I can spend like 95 percent of the fight watching other players positioning.
I find doing callouts as a healer to be extremely difficult. If i'm ever calling stuff, my healing goes down. Granted I"m no world first raider- (heroic) still I found your tank raid leader reasoning truly interesting. Most of my raid leaders have been tanks but when I did run mythics, our raid leader was a hunter (marks) and he was probably one of the best raid leaders I've ever had.
yep. i always try to give each role what things they need to be calling because they're always doing it.
such as jumps called by healers for council etc.
In the guild I did progression raids with we had 4 officers dedicated to making calls. It's rare that there are more than 2 things to say at once if your communication is efficient. Our raid leader was a dps.
I remember tanking HC mannoroth in WoD, only thing you'd ever see was his beer belly against your face.
I've raid leaded as a healer before. I also raid leaded as a dps as well for a tier. I much rather raid lead as a healer. Having to make quick judgements and call outs and all that workload I love. It makes me more excited for raided and makes me enjoy it more.
I'm loving this content Max! Please keep it up!
Personally caster dps is the best role for me as a RL. I can focus slightly less on my individual performance to focus on my RLing compared to when Im healing.
The pro with being a healer is that youre always having full focus on your entire raid naturally.
I find it much easier to raid lead as ranged over healing.
When healing my raid leading suffers as I have to give more focus to healing, but as dps I can autopilot my character and focus on leading.
Hello, can we expect a denatrius guide with all the pitfalls in the near future?) Your guides very helpfully for me as new rl.
awesome video, awesome show of perspective. maybe a video explaining the loot system and assignment? we recently had and issue with this and i'd love to watch how the pros solve and manage this
I've been raid leading (pugs) as a tank since forever and it's a pain sometimes because there are instances where all you see is the boss's Crotch and have no visibility on what's going on behind him. I would say Ranged is always the best role for a RL, I just have to do it out of necessity and for the most part I do fine, but definitely not optimal.
MW monk (pepega spec) but you press "essence font" and you run around and watch what your raid is doing - so imho its easiest class for raid leading :P
As someone who's Raid led pug groups in every expansion in my personal experience its always been easiest as a healer as like you mention you're kind of forced to deal with in some fashion or another anyways. Whether it be healing damage caused by or decursing or watching to Sac/Fur/ Guardian a player targeted mechanic. Most importantly the better a fight goes mechanically the less you're forced to heal which puts you in a strategic mind set already. Most dps just wanna blast the meter. Healers do too but any good healer knows that's through intelligent use of cooldowns in the correct pressure situations.
Intensely spooky timing. Just got out of an after raid chat with my Raid Leader about my current progress learning to raid lead. Being the GM I want to be able to do it should he need a day off or some emergency happen. What we've figured out very quickly is I need to switch roles away from healing - Because bosses like Hungering Mythic are very intense to raid lead as a healer - Theres a lot of moving parts afterall.
This was a really helpful video, and sort of confirms what we've been chatting about. Appriciate it, love the content and cant wait for more! You mentioned in one of your early videos about how to handle cliques in your guild - Will that one be coming soon?
Is that really what Max said though? The take I got from the video is that you should play what you're best at/enjoy the most.
If anything, I would say of all four roles, healer is the best to RL hungering because RLing that fight is all about managing soaks for the raid and as a healer you will be intensely aware of who has misama.
Dude, I am struggling Raid Leading Hungering Destroyer as a healer. And I've been GM and RL since Legion.
@@deathbower The issue I've got is that I struggle super hard to remember to talk and call things out when I'm healing such intense things, whereas when I play boomer on the clear bosses (I basically raid lead all of HC now apart from Sire) I have no issues remembering call outs and am much more comfortable.
So what I mean by confirming what we had chatted about is that healing is too intense for me to do and raid lead at the same time and I need to move to what comfortable with :)
@@lewismassey9312 Honestly it's just a hard fight to lead, but I ask you this - if you're struggling to lead the fight on a healer you're familiar/comfortable with, do you honestly think you'll do better swapping to another class or spec?
@@deathbower 100%. Both me and my raid leader are in agreement of this. Even he has admitted he wouldn't want to raid lead and heal Hungering Mythic as it looks a nightmare to do. Maybe its just how my monke brain works, but swapping to a ranged DPS would is just much more comfortable for me to raid lead from. I can still be intensely aware of who has miasma, still intensely aware of the boss mechanics and how they work. I wouldn't say it's a hard fight to lead, but healing is such an intense role on it. Sire HC was the same vein for me too.
We've spoke about it a lot, it's the right call.
So a question to add to this topic. Do you feel that being a raid leader playing whatever your best class/role is, effects your performance? So lets say beast master hunter or Marksman as an example. Would raid leading as a range dps effect their dps numbers than not raid leading. So you can focus more on your cooldowns/rotations? I guess you could say it depends on the player. But lets just say its hypothetical, compare it to a casual raider to a pro raider. Would a pro raid leader still have similar issues as a casual raid leader? Let's just say both know their classes well.
He has already said it in multiple videos but, yeah, if you're not playing your character worse while raid leading, you're not raid leading properly, basically. (Either that or you're a god.)
the more things that you occupy your brain with the less effective you are at any one thing, you can still perform optimally as a dps while leading but it is harder and more likely your dps will fall abit, however that dps decrease is more than made up for with the benefits of a good leader
Sweet tips and amazing breakdown, thanks! One remark tho, Method got Eternal Palace WF, recleared the raid and got world second, and then Limit got its kill. When in a two horse race you finish 3rd, thats not barely losing, gotta give credit where credit is due. Amazing to see Limit improve and take the WF tier after.
Remember the good old days when I raided last time with a guild. That was in Black Temple/Mount Hyjal back in TBC. Our raid leader was..resto druid xD He was pretty pissed at the paladin tank when we couldn't kill Illidan :D
Healing can be so frustrating when your raid isn't listening, performing or doing correct strats. Better tanking and DPS can make a huge difference but better heals generally just paper over problems that other players have.
RDruid clickin and spittin 🔥
i started raidleading this expension, i'm an affliction warlock ( and i'm not a blockhead btw ) , sometimes i struggle with bosses like stone legion xD
and already at 2/10 MM with 5 players who started the game this expension :D
THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR
It's what we've wanted all along!
you waiting for 15 years for this?
i dont even raidlead i just like watching max
I've never been a raidleader but if i would be one in the future i would think of playing fire mage. rotation is pretty straight forward which u dont need to focus on at all (outside of combust) and only needing to focus every one and a half minute or so (idk the exact cd cause of shifting powers and kindling its probably always different right?) and on top of that having 2x blink and NF Blink which give u more time to play mechanics you somehow may missed and iceblock as a panic button (if immunitys are not required in the strat of course)
The splitting of work load is great. We tend to have one tank taking the lead on the tank and melee specific part, but we leave the ranged/heals call. But I am far from a top level raider.
I get the world first argument; but on farm/non world first guilds where the fight is "solved" and its assumed people know what to do and just essentially need timer calls on when to do it, tanks have the lowest skill floor and are basically the best role to have played at skill floor, so you taking away your own bandwidth matters the least.
It "costs" less on ranged/healers, but a larger cost matters less on a tank.
I dont think you'll argue tanks are the easiest role to basically be mediocre/outright dogshit at and still kill bosses, sub world first. Dogshit meaning dogshit at optimizing class gameplay, even if they're a fine mechanical player. Which is I think WHY its so common.
Been waiting for this one!! Stoked!
Hi Max,
I am curious, what headset are you using? It looks really nice
for most cases by simple math raid lead should be a dps player, a raid lead has more to think and say during the encounter which will in the long run cause more wipes depending on the role, so if a tank fucks up more frequently you probably wipe quite a bit on that, if a healer fucks up more frequently you´ll wipe not as much to it but still a decent bit, if the lead is a dps player his impact on the outcome of the fight is extreamly lower than if he was a heal or tank, he is 1 out of 12 dudes doing the same thing, if it´s only 11 dudes doing the same thing and one kinda hanging behind that is fine opposed to having only 3 1/2 healers or a tank messing up more. Yes a lot what Max is saying can be used to justify Raidleads in other roles, but statisticly the optimal choice is dps, if meele or ranged, idk.
banger
Love the content!
making call outs felt okay as a healer however trying to figure out what needs adjusting felt difficult, that is at least when i raid lead a heroic guild but now im at the CE level and just a healer in a guild and i do feel the same. like i wouldnt be able to call out what people need to be doing just how to manage the damage taken and stuff
Way back in the BC days, I took over raid leading when our guild had a l33t meltdown and we lost half our raid group. Within a week we were back in progression. Why? because the old raid leader tried to "do it all" and did not understand the power of delegation, teamwork, and trust. (Control freak). My method was simple. I'm NOT the best player in the group. I'm good, yes, but I'm still part of a TEAM. Teamwork requires trust. First thing I did was to "eliminate" elite thinking from the group. Trust your team. Delegate to those that are close to the mechanic. Most importantly, DO NOT blame the players, solve the problem. Most wipes are not due to "people messing up" as much as they are a missed counter to a mechanic. I would break down wipes by working back to the missed mechanic. Next pull, Boss down. Simple. Therefore, we always had fun, and no shortage of players wanting to raid. It was amazing to play with that team, as there was always a free flow of information, no acrimony, and lots of creativity when people do not fear "being called out".
My problem with raid leaders is "they" try to play your toon for you and when asked to you have a high level "whatever" they invariably say "yeah, I got that class" with NO DAMN IDEA of how to raid with that class. Your "job" is to call out big hits and EXPECT that player to do the damn mechanic WITHOUT you, the lead, telling them WHERE to move or how to get there. Maybe it's just my raid leader(s); his wife is always jumping in there without being raid lead at all. I have " defenses" that allow me to NOT have to move and get back to dps much, much faster. I'm not number 2 because i have a boomkin. I'm skilled and have kept solid with every damn change blizzard makes to my class. Meh, I'm just bitching where i KNOW they won't look. My raid leader(s) will NEVER come here looking to be better. I, HOWEVER, am damn well looking where ever I can to improve my guilds performance; SO THANK YOU!!! Sorry bout the bitchin' ;)
Sounds to me like you just have a RL that micro manages too much, while not having the class knowledge to do it. This is not a general "Raidleader" thing. I deffo, as a raidlead, dont micro that much.
@@christianbendixmau7348 wow did u nail that one. I admit i generalized to much; I'v had RL in the past on cutting edge raiding that were very hands off but MECHANICS on. I like that, I need that a bit, since as a dps i can get tunnel vision.
Is that a tower next to a dog bed eating fur all day?
I love your dogs and your beard, also respect on the video
There are a lot of "raid leads" that sack doing callouts because they are focused on their own dps/rotation. I prefer raid leads that sack their own dps so the group can succeed. If you can top dps and raid lead then honestly, you are an absolute monster player.
This...my dps is halved as a rogue raid lead. But I do every mechanic/callout but my dps is dog and it feels awful to read parses.
This. My raid lead is in the bottom 5 in dps because of call outs. Unless its heroic sludge then he is always top 2 because the only call puts are "range left. Range right."
@@jmastersam still dude respect for that. i know that feeling and at the end of the day i felt half accomplished.
@@MichaSennin That's where it's nice to have more people who can do the calls, so you can say "dude, i want to focus on DPS can you do the next?". :D
I raid lead as a rogue for a heroic/some mythic content and I find it very challenging. Mainly because when you're not a top end guild you have to be the person to spot out mistakes. Thus I'm trying to watch ranged/healer/ melee mistakes while keeping up with my rotation. Even though I only parse between 40-70 normally when I raid lead I parse 10-30. However, max you've said before you can carry as raid lead. And I'm the one doing the most soaks sire p3, double eruption soaks on generals multiple times, calling everything when it's coming up...etc. I rarely make a mechanical error but my dps is shit because of this focus on everything else.
And this is why I play only 1 class. Mage
Personally I really prefer raid leading as a ranged or even melee DPS (not 21st-manning) to a healer. I found myself way too focused on raid frames and not noticing timers when I was healing. I feel most engaged in a fight as a DPS
Thank you for your videos as always. I’ve been meaning to ask but, wasn’t sure how to. How do you get into high end raiding guilds? Currently I’m the RL for my guild on OCE servers as I’m stationed in Japan atm but, I’ve been planning to get very serious once I’m back in the states. How does one go about getting the attention of a guild to be a raider for them? I have about 2 years until then so I am trying to work on anything I can do to achieve that dream in the future. Thank you. And if anyone else has any tips, I’m happy to hear them as well. Have a good one!
Honestly get good heroic logs and many lower end CE guilds will at least look at your application. Make sure your logs show you do mechanics properly and you understand your class well and not just that you can get gold parses
Oh, and make sure you are listed as looking for guild on wowprogress
@@user-qu8wh7pp6e cheers! Thank you for the insight. My parses 82.8 with only one orange parse. I’ve been raid leading for about 3 years now, mechanics have usually always been my strong suit. First tier being a dps as I’ve been a main tank for a while.
@@Masuwuta no problem. that honestly seems fine to get into a mythic guild so i wish you luck!!
I RL as Disc this tier, it's a really good class for this (for me).
BM hunter
M Stone Legion + Denath guides please :D
what is his outro music?
Without seeing the video yet I can assume that healers are best for raid leading because they already need to pay attention to people's health and (sorta) position
true
Pog
pogchampu
I love the comments:
*raid leading is easier as a tank 100%*,
then people give mythic examples where that is not the case and the reply is almost all the time:
*well I lead heroic*,
you are not leading you are calling out 1 or 2 basic mechanics that your entire raid should be able to do for themself and if you are so over geared that you have no stress as a tank then yeah there is no competition, raid leading is hard on progress when your tanks are taking damage and have to cycle through deffensives and external cds, when your healers are struggling to keep everyone alive and an additional fuck up just tips them over the edge and they can't maintain or they have to use a cds that was needed further in the fight and dps who are trying to minmax as much damage on the correct targets without padding (even though let's be real you will always have the fuckwit who just pads on adds that de-spawn or have no reason to be dpsed and then gloat how amazing his parses are).
1 Raid leader will never be able to check every dps/healer/tank mechanic and correctly call it out, you need a collective of people who are being affected by a certain mechanic and to call it out of the majority of people usually they are seasoned guild members or officers of the guild.
If you sit on your ass and complain that you did not get a correct call out, do it yourself actually help the raid rather than pout like a baby that you did not get your hand carried by someone else.
Best role for raid leading: watching live stream LUL
No thoughts on coach raid leading? Come on Max you can do better.
yo
Just here for the algortihm
Twitch chat says hi
Healing is always they hardest role no question
Easiest: mm hunter, literally the simplest rotation, enough free brain space to do other stuff
BM Hunter would like to know your location.
With a weak aura to track one of thrill of the hunt/barbed shot/frenzy (since they all have the same duration, and are all refreshed by using barbed shot), you're literally just refreshing it when the timer gets low, pressing cooldowns when they're up, and then kill commanding/cobra shotting when able. It's even easier than Summoner in FF14.
Bm hunter not MM
Naw dude if you’re raid leading well you’re def def def sub optimal at healing hands down, unless you’re an AI. Never seen a raid leader out perform me on healing never will. 99.9% of your viewers should never heal and lead.
nice twitch stream
anyone else think he looks like Dan Reynolds
First!!!
Let me save you 12min of your life you’ll never get back - he has no idea, play what you like.
There is not a single fight this raid tier that is more difficult as ranged lmfao. Ranged is a complete joke mechanically this raid compared to Merle. Miss me with that shit.
raid leader should be a player in the raid, spectator raid leading is meh.
Great opinion! I'm sure you know more about raiding leading than the raid leader of the #1 raiding guild in the world :)
@@hushpuppi3 I mean he has a point. Mythic is designed for 20 people. If u got a guy screensharing and a guy from the outside is commanding that's basically 21 people's work. The only reason it's allowed is because Blizzard can't stop it but it's basically cheating lmao.
@@yoshtheknife erm, why would it be cheating? there are coaches in top esport games as well, such as CS. So all top teams are cheating? Cuz the game is designed for 5v5, not for 6v6. your logic is so wrong
@@hushpuppi3 Max is an excellent player as well as raid leader. I would rather see Max lead the raid whilst being a player in the raid. I do not like the "21st man", my opinion - which last time I checked I am entitled to have no matter what the internet says.
@@akosbarabas22 Not to take a stand in the question, but your own example literally goes STRAIGHT against your point and actually proves the opposite. CS coaches are NOT allowed to speak to the players mid game, only before & after games or during the limited time-outs.
"my opinion of WoW is ultimate truth"