There are many posts out there about what it takes to be a valued member of a raid, most of which help direct people into preparing for a raid via flasks, reagents, knowing the fights and heck even being on time! But what about when you are in a raid? Are there certain rules to follow? Ways to act? Let’s take a look at some things to know during a raid.

1.  If you are not the raid leader, please don’t act like one. This is one of the things my raid leaders complain about the most. There are always certain people in the raid that think they know everything there is to know about a boss and they need to tell you all the tips and tricks they know, or remind people of common facts before the pull, even if you have had this boss on farm for weeks. Ever heard that sentence that starts “Well in my old guild…” Yeah that one makes a raid leader want to pull their hair out. Now if you are wiping over and over and you know a trick that might help, go ahead and bring it up. But if you are doing it to show off your knowledge base, realize most of the time no one really cares.

2. Leave the talking over vent to the raid leaders during a boss fight. Have you ever been fighting a boss and everyone is calling out bone spikes yet because of vent lag and redundancy all you hear is “BBOOBONEBIONE GAH SPIKEHAHAKBONSPIKE OMGWTF BBQ!” or some semblance of messed up jarble? Yeah… that is loud and half the time no one knows what is being said anyway. Let’s leave it to the leaders to call out DBM warnings and other mishaps.  Tanks are usually the only exception here, since they need to communicate to the group and each other about the fight. Or if you are a healer that has aggro, then a call out is warranted. If you see something important or you die, go ahead and say something, but don’t start yelling out everything.

3. Don’t try to be Big Daddy! If you think things are out of hand in either chat or vent, tell a raid leader. Saying things like “Shh focus” or calling people out can just create unnecessary raid drama. If you have a problem, let the leaders handle it. That is what they are there for.

4. Do not point the finger openly. Close with number 3, after a wipe it is rude to get over vent and go “*SIGH* why did I get no heals,” especially if you are a DPS. the same goes for “*SIGH* why where the tanks not taunting” or “*UGH* why is dps so low.” Fact is, if you noticed it, so did the raid leaders. If you think they did not, then send them a tell. Calling things out like this will usually get the tanks to not taunt off you, the healers to not save you, and the DPS to laugh as you die!

5. Timing is everything. Not only should you be on time to a raid, but if you are going to be leaving early, when is the best time to tell the raid leader? A) 5 minutes before you need to log out. B) Right when raid is being formed. C) Never! Just log! Do I really need to go into what is the right answer? I know RL things come up, and they cannot be planned for. But when you tell your raid group that since you have school tomorrow you need to leave right now…well that could have been told to everyone at the beginning of the raid and could have been better planned.

6. Breaks! These are necessary in a raid. Usually everyone can use a potty break every now and then. But what happens when it becomes excessive? Taking 10-15 minutes to recover after each boss wipe is crazy and a huge waste of time. (This is common in my guild when everyone takes a smoke break after each wipe.)  When a raid leader calls a break, take that time to stand up and stretch your legs, take a bathroom break, or get some water. Now, emergencies can and will happen: power outages, disconnections, kids, anything can happen and these are all understandable (last night I had to leave raid for 10 minutes and all I could say over vent was “Emergency,” I gave everyone a scare but they understood when I told them my dogs were fighting and I had to break them up)

7. Don’t stroke you own ego. You did 10k dps on Saurfang? Good job!  But posting meters is unnecessary and so is stating it 50 times in vent. After a while it is not cool to show your numbers, but annoying!

These are just a few things to keep in mind when raiding. Not only will it help keep your raid leaders sanity in check, but also the other raiders.

Any other things you could add to this list?