Overruling players, especially in a DKP system when the choice is both valid and an upgrade always feels wrong to me, and I believe that you really need to respect and acknowledge your players, in a bidding DKP system the price paid reflects how much you really want an item given unlimited DKP. In a recent roll on Myrmidon’s Treads (a really nice pair of warrior boots, or a really nice pair of avoidance boots for a paladin) I went with a fairly mid bid for my DKP, the warrior that was interested decided to bid under his current DKP minimum assuming I wouldn’t roll on them because they were “warrior” loot. Of course he could have used the boots as well, however they are on part of my path, and apparently I valued them higher than he did (we have had single bids of > 1,000 DKP when the next highest bid was 20 offspec, people are encouraged to bid what they believe the item is worth rather than trying to skim it for very little, DKP is easy to get and easy to spend).

By overruling a player, especially if the item is on their progression list (if its a warrior needing on healing cloth feel free to smack him down imo, looting should at least be sensible and generally mainspec > off spec > if its going to de > I like void crystal), you set a trend that player’s decisions cannot be trusted, and indeed its impossible for a player to guarantee their own progression within the guild. This has happened to one of my friends, she has had the highest DKP for a long time now, and was looking for the T6 gear from Archimonde (its a huge upgrade for her), a new priest to the guild is brought in and given priority over her because its an even bigger upgrade (think blues -> T6), now potentially this is the right choice, upgrading someone horribly undergeared, however in doing so they devalued her attendance, her commitment and her trust in the fairness of DKP, she was led to believe that barring required upgrades for progression (so if one of their tanks drops out the replacement would get speed geared to an appropriate level and then placed back in normal DKP) she would get a fair shot at gear. It has been resolved, but for a while she was horribly upset, and really not trusting in the system, and feelings like that can undermine and erode a guild. We play and trust our master looters, we require 24 other people to raid with us, if we don’t have trust then the system breaks down, and at that point your guild risks going under.

Sorry for the late response. The 4th of July weekend had me pretty busy.

I think you’ll find talking to your raiders easier than your fear would suggest. The more you keep your lines of communication open, the easier it becomes.

As far as overruling players goes, I don’t think you should ever do it unless you use a loot council system, or set up the condition far in advance. Otherwise, I agree with you on that one.

I’ve found coordination to be a very difficult beast to tackle. The mutability in how gearing plays out requires people to constantly shift and adjust their plans. For example, it might be decided in advance that X should get Z before Y. But if X suddenly has 10 pieces of loot drop in a week, Y begins to think it’s a bit unfair for X to loot Z first. And that’s why I never explicitly say, “Okay, X, you’re next on that piece of loot.” And I cringe when one of my fellow loot council makes that sort of promise. So while you want to encourage people to come up with loot plans, there’s a limit to what you can do.

Anyway, I’m glad I could offer you my perspective. Good luck in finding the courage to address these issues as you progress further into your leadership career!

–Lume

For my guild, we’re usually a “try to keep the same group as much as possible for content.” This leads to a few bruised egos I’m sure, but most understand it; plus, we do occassionally slot in other healers when one of the ones who was working on the current content is out, and I try to keep the “content” raiders mixed up, so it’s never always the same people. However, I think many get a sort of “coop syndrome,” which is leading to the current issues. As I said in my response over at Chick GM, I can definitely improve in my discussions with my members – as that is nearly nil right now, because I’ve always been scared to. I think I’m slowly realizing that I’m in this position for a reason, I’m not bad at the technical half, and I really need to step it up on the personal relations side of it. Which is weird, because I don’t think I’ve -ever- had an issue talking. However, my previous guild never had very much leading beyond the GM, so this is all very new for me.

On the same note though, we definitely do need all of our healers, and they are all valued, and so I think that discussing it all over with them will be the first step in helping them to realize that. I hate seeing them feeling undervalued, and if I can help it, then they won’t!

Next, about the looting. Perhaps I should speak specifically with my fellow priest about looting and take it more from her angle, on that note; however, her shadow set did come in handy for Mu’ru, that’s for sure. And I have no problem with healers taking offgear, provided a main spec doesn’t need it of course. I’m terrible at shadow myself, so I’ve let my shadow set lack (I’d really rather not take up a slot with my terrible DPS) however I pick up items that would be sharded as I go just in case. As I said in my response to Auz’s, my guild doesn’t allow for overruling on loot unless it’s a truly terrible decision (which we’ve never had happen that I can remember), so that isn’t an option for me, nor would I really feel comfortable doing it, as I know what I think isn’t always right.

As for the druid: that was just a very recent example, and while I do agree that haste is a good stat for druids, I was a little soured that it didn’t go to one of the shaman who’s using a very poor shield and who is already lacking in some haste (he came in late to the raiding game, but is downright AMAZING). The druid however had a very nice offhand from what I knew. Now, I -am- glad that the druid got an upgrade that he can use, but my wish was simply that the healers would be more aware of what was going on in the core =/ However, I definitely see what you mean, and that too is something I can work on. I’d love to foster more coordination among the healers with the forum in this regard, so maybe things like this could be discussed openly. Plus, I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed getting this particular section from a druid! It really helped me to understand where my particular druid was coming from.

As for three, thanks :) I’ve read your blog several times and right now I’m beaming that you took the time out to help me, and getting it from two experienced perspectives is great. It’s definitely given me new drive to do my best at this all, and to hopefully correct any mistakes I’ve made along the way.