Responsibilities for Non-Raiders

Benefits

You have a smaller daily guild repair limit, because you, unlike the raiding players, can use it whenever you want, however you want.

Obligations

Don’t be a jerk.

Responsibilities for All Raiders

Calendar

• ALWAYS hit accept, decline, or tentative on the in-game calendar. Send a message to the raid leads if you’ll be late. Mark yourself as tentative if you’ll be late. “Accept” means you’ll be there on time.
• Showing up to raids without marking any of the options is bad. “Tentative” is there for a reason, kids!

Guild Bank Benefits and Obligations

• Guild bank repairs are only for repairing guild raid damage. Yes, we can see the money log showing when you use it on other days. Yes, we will send you a bill.
• The first and second tabs of the guild bank are there for you to withdraw raid stuff from, either because you want it or in case you forgot it. Note that you only get to withdraw two stacks from each tab. Only pull from it on raiding days.
• There’s an enchants tab that will have gems and enchants in it so you can stick stuff on your fresh lootz mid-raid so you’re not bothering with enchanting gear mid-raid. REPLACE what you take after the raid.

Add-ons

• BigWigs is currently the only required addon for Hot Mess raiders.

Preparation

You should also go through the pre-raid checklist and make sure you’ve gotten all your stuff ready.

Bringing Friends

If you’re bringing a friend, encourage them to read the first timer’s page and that you’ve given them the Mumble password and had them test out and log into the Mumble server.

Responsibilities for Casual Raiders

Benefits

• You have the same guild bank repair limit as the progression raiders, which means you can only use it for guild raids. You’re expected to repair before the raid starts with your own money.
• At least one raid night per week will be open to all casual raiders.
• You can join for sections of the progression nights, for parts where we aren’t drilling into the progression content. But once it’s in the hard stuff, you’ll have to bail.

Obligations

• Raid as little or as much as you want to, but you will need to meet the instance’s minimum recommended ilevel to join. (This is typically 15 ilevels below what the bosses drop.)
• You’ll notice that on progression nights, we may pug people who are not you because they have the gear to handle the instance. Them’s the breaks. It’s not because we hate you. If we hate you, we’ll tell you we hate you.

Responsibilities for Progression Raiders

Benefits

Come on any raiding day. You’re a progression raider!

Obligations

• To qualify as a progression raider in Hot Mess means you are AVERAGING two nights per week of raiding. You know, the kind of raiding that gets gear. That’s not LFR, that’s the real-deal.
• You don’t have to be averaging two nights a week with Hot Mess–you can raid with us one night a week, and pug your other night.
• You also must max out your crafted slots.
• We have real lives. That’s why we say average.

Tanks

For tanks, there’s an unavoidable practical reality of running raids with more tanks than tank slots; this means that ALL tanks need to be able to DPS as an off-spec and put out a decent level of damage. Unfortunately, this may mean learning a new rotation, getting another set of gear, etc. On the upside, it means you can come to every raid; on the downside, it means a little bit more prep time. You may switch in and out of tanking for individual fights both for strategy and for variety’s sake. (Getting switched does not mean that you’re doing a poor job, just that we’re giving every tank time to have funsies and learn each fight.)

DPS

All DPS need to master their self/off-heals. Although we look at the DPS counter, we also add your off-heals to your DPS counter, and adjust for whatever utility jobs you’re performing.

This includes knowing how to set focus targets, and setting up mouseover macros so that you can quickly re-CC and stun. For off-heals, this means target of target macros or mouseover macros.

You need to know what your good secondary stats are and why, and also know what makes for an ideal rotation. You should also know what “snapshotting” is and how to take advantage of it on your character.

You DON’T have to be good at it. In fact, you can suck at it. But you should still be trying, and being unfamiliar with these concepts would indicate that you’re not trying.

Healers

We have never had a healer who was bad. It’s our impression that people just don’t continue healing unless they’re really good at it. We’re not entirely sure why.