The Spirit Realm

Hey gang! I am a SHM in a family-oriented Anguish guild and am (lately) frequently the only shaman for much or all of a raid. Sometimes we have 2, rarely 4 or more for 40+ people on the raid. To keep raiding fun I am considering posting this request on my guild forums to alleviate a lot of stress. Please let me know if I'm out of line, or if this is reasonable, so that I may adjust my perspective accordingly...

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Buff Protocols
Before requesting any buff(s), do a /who [SHM NAME] to see if that person is even in zone.

If one of us “/gu LFG” at raid time, that does not mean spam us for buff /tells. You sending us /tells that you need buffs at raid start and after a wipe tells us you have no confidence in our ability to play our class, and therefore no respect for the person driving that toon. It also says a lot about your capacity for professionalism as a player. We know our job very well. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have some in the top players on the server no matter how you look at it.

When raid buffing, it may be that we solicit group leaders to /tell us when all the group is there if we’ve moved, zoned, or are fragmented (wipe recovery) so we aren’t buffing same groups while others are not buffed for the next encounter.

You will not be buffed upon engagement. If you’re late, say “sorry, just got here” and u’ll likely get HP buffs already loaded for buffing the battle-rezzed, if convenient to do so.

If you die and we’re hurting for ur class at that instant and u just got rezzed, we’re aware of your death and rezz from healer channel spam. If we have an abundance of SHM then you will be buffed as u r rezzed and as we can get to you.

We have many channels to monitor – SHM raid channel, Healer channels, cure channels, /rs, /gu, as well as pertinent engagement messages and emotes. You adding buff request spam does not help, and detracts from web-surfing (jk).

Also, how you ask means a world of difference in how we view you as our consumer. I will tacitly ignore requests such as “Champ” or “Focus, Fort, Foresight”. Conversely, “I need Fort please” or “Time for champ?” get you a long way toward getting that buff. As a buffing class, we are there to serve the guild and raid for the greater good, so in a way buff classes are servants of the guild. How you treat your servants… the janitor, the busboy/girl, the valet or doorman, and even ur raid-buffer speaks volumes about your character that your typing does not.

Bottom line is, do you really want us to filter out all your /tells wholesale? That’s what is happening much of the time, with many shaman in other guilds that I am social with, possibly even your own. Or would you rather raiding be frustrating and un-fun, and we just not log on unless there’s a chance at a drop we’re after? I have a hard time with that behavior and commitment level and don’t agree with it at all, but for many players it cuts down on the rudeness and spam they have to deal with.

We try to be professional and diligent in playing our class. We ask you to be professional in return, and not act like a newbie raiding in a social guild. We’re definitely a top server guild. Let’s demonstrate that to each other on raids.

Ps – if you bring a shaman alt on a raid as your champ/heal/buff-ho', be prepared to contribute to the entire raid unless we have a plethora of main SHM on the raid.
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RANT is now *OFF*
You've gotten better at flaming! (23)

With new OOC regen I can buff entire raid of 54 people or so in well under 10 mins with Dire Focus, Fort, and Foresight without Necro feeds, adding PR/DR resists and a champ or 2 in there. I love my class and my job. I don't love other people making it frustrating to play.

Let me know if I"m outta line or in-line with this, and how you handle situations like this if any are in a similar situation.

Yours Aye,
Ruaraidh Mhor

Need to add to that list:

If you have rank other than rank 1 buffs on get rid of them as a matter of course before asking for that buff refresh or risk not having it land. Not everyone has rank 2 of buffage so be warned. Refresh of buffage shouldnt happen during an engagement as people players should be capable of running through their buff timers accordingly.

My way to see if a group is all their for group buffs is to open raid (ALT-R)
and click on each name in that group if they show up in target then they are close enough.
I even do that for my group becasue if you use your group window you can target someone not in range.

hardest part is raid leader moveing peeps around after you starting buffing groups but not done doing group buffs yet. - hate that.

See i would educate them. Back when i raided it was in the days before overcap. And a lot of us didnt max stamina without the buff. Therefore i buffed focus and stamina.

People who asked for agility got told no, and id explain to them why it added next to nothing. I buff agility to a few people who ... well were my friends and it was jsut easier =)

But what im saying is tell them simply NO

We typically have 3 shamans on our raids. When we start, each of us calls out which buff we cover, Focus Fort or Foresight. We cover the initial buffing, and we cover the battle-rezzed and buff requests.
Easier to just call 'Frank needs Focus' or 'Bob needs Everything' in the shaman channel and hit him with what you have up if that's what he asks for, than to go swapping out to mem all the buffs, then swapping back once done. Especially during clears, it's usually trivial to just leave the buff memmed so there's no swapping spells at all.

Course, we've still got every pally in the raid begging for Champion 15 seconds before we engage Maggotmiser, but we keep the major buff covered and there's never been any hassle with it.