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I joined TP years ago at the suggestion of a friend of mine because they were a serious mythic progression guild that provided an open and welcoming environment. I spent 4 weeks as a trial falling on my face with mythic mechanics doing 3rd to last DPS with nothing but encouragement from Kuanii, Peach and Kat. Eventually I worked my way up to being one of our top DPS. Not because Kuanii was scolding me for missing mechanics, or complaining about a lack of DPS but because people felt a personal need to bring their best so they did not let everyone else down. We would spend dozens, if not hundreds of pulls progressing on bosses without leadership acting like a dick to ANYONE. Because everyone knows it’s bad when they screw something up. Nobody needs their leader to smack them while they’re down. I did not miss a single pull from a single raid back then, because I wanted to be there, no matter how bad we were doing. Never would I have ever been able to comprehend the idea of leaving the raid 4 pulls into a boss because of how people were acting. Never mind how our raid leader was acting.

A good raid leader is both a drill sergeant and a cheerleader. They know when to be stern and blunt, but also direct and constructive. They have the situational awareness to call out individual people screwing up mechanics and redirect them in a productive manner. They have the confidence in the fight and their group to know what to do at any given moment. They are receptive to ideas that may conflict with their view of the fight and talk through it whether they’re good or bad. They actually go through logs, see why and how people died, who was out of position, etc and address things individually. In contrast to this, more often than not they are the guild’s “hype man”. It’s their job to get people excited about a kill, encouraging people when we’re making progress. Getting people excited about progressing and the prospects of learning a new boss. 

What they do NOT do is bitch and moan every single time someone screws up a mechanic. Giving people shit about people releasing when we’re doing loot and taking a break.  They don’t start whining on a kill about how we’d have killed it sooner if we had more dps when you refuse to rez them. They lead by example, not telling people “I know what i’m doing” while demonstrating the exact wrong thing to do.. They don’t scold people when a boss we’re progging on is at <1% HP. They don’t sit there and make up complete bs like “tons of guilds hold lust for 10s on pull” just because they can’t comprehend being wrong. They don’t get tilted by the 10th pull on a boss to the point where our kill feels like a fucking funeral afterwards. Even if they are going to do all of this, they certainly don’t say “Uh, idk” for 30 seconds straight when asked who to brez. You are the raid LEADER. The buck stops with you. Literally anyone in the raid could complain after someone dies and go “uh i don’t know” when they’re relied on to make a split second decision. The only time I get the impression you actually embrace that title is when someone else has a suggestion you want to shut down without any thought.
Reece, Ein, Sassy,  I’m sorry. I know you guys are trying your ass off, but this is not it. I get that Ash is new at raid leading, but that is even more of a reason to be humble and open to what people are saying. Not less. Autism certainly isn’t an excuse. We’re playing World of Warcraft, we’re all on the spectrum.

At the end of the day, raiding with TP has been miserable since I came back. I’m writing this doing pulls with an brazilian raid leader in a random pug and the environment is a breath of fresh air. Which is totally absurd. I know TP is going through a rough time. Being on its 4th or 5th Raid/Guild leader in the last few years but I knew this before I came back. I spent my entire time with TP also helping out a struggling guild to progress through heroic. I don’t mind starting over from scratch and going through the struggle but acting like this isn’t helping anything. In fact it’s doing the opposite, you’re encouraging other people in the guild to start acting like assholes too.