Raid leading

Raid leading is the most visible job in the guild and the one most likely to burn someone out. The reference case in the research is a guild master who wrote “I lose sleep at night… after most raids, people come to me with comments” until 2 am. verified This playbook exists so the raid leader runs a checklist, not a personality. It applies to Barrow Deeps (10), Hyjal Summit (20), and Onyxia (40) alike; only the number of people sharing the job changes. See Raids overview for the raids themselves.

Roles

One person can hold all of these at 10. At 40 they should be three or more people.

Role	Owns
Raid Leader (RL)	Calls pulls, calls wipes, owns the clock, decides the time-box
Assignments Lead	Interrupts, tanks per boss, healing assignments, cooldown order. Posts assignments in the boss thread before raid
Loot Master / Council Chair	Runs the loot tool, posts the history. See Loot rules
Logs Owner	Uploads logs, posts the review thread within 24 hours
Bench Marshal (40 only)	Keeps benched players warm in voice and swaps them in

Raid leaders rotate off every tier. That is the burnout policy from the Officer handbook, not a demotion.

T-24h to T-0

When	What
T-24h	Roster posted from Raid-Helper: who is in, who is benched, who is tentative. Absences reconciled. Soft reserves closed (SR system)
T-2h	Consumables check thread: each raider reacts when stocked. Summons plan posted (which warlock, which stone). World-buff routes only if world buffs turn out to work in raids; a streamer report says they do not, and we plan as if that is true unverified
T-15m	Voice open, invites go out, ready check, MOTD updated with the night’s target (“full clear” or “boss 4, six pulls”)
T-0	First pull at :15. Publish it and mean it. Late is late; three lates in a month is a private conversation

Pull protocol

RL says “pulling in 5” and nobody else speaks until the pull. The pull timer addon does the countdown; see Addons for what works on the Forever API.
One voice for calls. The Assignments Lead speaks only for their mechanic. Everyone else is muted or on push-to-talk during progression pulls.
The wipe call is a single word: “wipe.” Then everyone dies fast to save time.
On farm, pulls chain. On progression, every pull has one stated change (see below).

Wipe protocol

Cheap and repeatable. Pin it.

Ten seconds of silence. Nobody explains, nobody blames.
RL asks the Logs Owner or a designated watcher: “what killed us?” One answer.
One change per pull. Not three. If you change three things you learn nothing.
Time-box the boss. “We give this six pulls tonight, then farm.” Announce the box before the first pull, not after the fourth wipe.
On early progression, every 45 to 60 minutes rotate benched players in so everyone learns the fight, then lock the kill comp. verified
After the box: farm, end early, or call it. All three are fine. Grinding a wall past the box is how a raid night turns into a resignation.

Voice etiquette

Push-to-talk during pulls. Open mic is fine between pulls.
No backseat calling. Feedback goes in the review thread, not over voice mid-fight.
No hot-mic rage. One “let’s go again” is fine. A 30-second rant is a demotion conversation.
Kids, pets, and partners exist. A quick “afk 60s” is respectful; silent disappearance is not.
Listening without talking is fine. Some people have no mic. They are still raiding.
No public performance numbers in voice. Parses are private per the charter.
End on time. The best guilds end early on a kill and end on time on a wipe.

Bench

Bench is a status, not a punishment. The detail:

Benched players get attendance credit. They are available on Discord for the full window and count as attended.
Rotation rule, written down before the tier: (a) on farm, whoever needs nothing from the next boss sits first; (b) on progression, a fixed rotation order once the kill comp is locked; (c) never the same person two weeks running unless they ask.
The bench is named in the T-24h roster post. Surprise benching is the single biggest loot-adjacent drama source in the research, and one guild in the source thread that preferred not telling people in advance is the example of what not to do. verified
The bench does something. Bench players run the 10 while the 20 progresses, or a dungeon night in the same voice server. A guild in the research runs a second, easier raid for its bench on the same night so “they don’t have to just sit.” verified
Performance benching is a private conversation first: “we are sitting you for the next two weeks, here is what to work on, here is who will help.” Attendance continues to count. verified
Signup target: 110 to 130 percent of spots. Under 100 means pugs; over 150 means the bench is too big and a second team should form. Forever raids have no flex sizing, so this matters more than in retail. verified

Absence policy

Absence is a status, not a DM. Post in the absences channel or set the Absence status on the Raid-Helper event. Never DM the raid leader unless it is happening in the next hour.
Deadlines: 24 hours before start when a bench swap is needed, and 2 hours before start at the absolute latest. Posted in time is excused, no reason required.
Rolling window: attendance is a rolling four weeks, so a bad month does not follow you all tier. Newer raiders are measured over their own raids, not buried by history. verified
Late is signed up and not present within 10 minutes of first pull. Three lates in a month is a private conversation.
No-show with no post is the ladder-removal path on the charter, starting with a conversation.
Declared breaks of 2 to 4 weeks are always fine and never cost rank.

Attendance tracking

Definitions, written once:

Scheduled raid: any event with the Raid template on the calendar.
Attended: signed up and present within 10 minutes of first pull, or benched and available for the full window.
Excused: absence posted before the deadline.

Tools, in order of effort: Raid-Helper /attendance (free, measures signups), a manual sheet from the raid leader’s /raid roster screenshot at first and last pull (lowest tech, most honest), and an addon export if one proves to work on Forever. We do the first two from raid one. verified The full tool comparison is on Guild tools.

After the raid

Logs Owner posts the review thread within 24 hours: kills, wipes, one thing that went well, one thing to fix, the loot list. Warcraft Logs support for Forever is unconfirmed; until it exists, the review thread is written from memory and the raid leader’s notes. unverified
RL writes a five-line raid diary entry. These become the kill wall and the lore document for free.
First kills get a screenshot in the kill-wall channel with the date, who was there, and one paragraph.
No post-raid DM debriefs. Feedback goes in the review thread with a 24-hour reply window. This is the single rule that protects the raid leader’s evenings.

Unknown as of 2026-09-24

Whether world buffs work inside Forever raids. Streamer report says no; no blue post. We plan as if they do not.
Whether master loot exists, which decides how the Loot Master’s job works mechanically.
Warcraft Logs support for Forever. Raidify’s integration is waiting on it.
Which pull-timer and boss-mod addons load on the Forever API. See Addons.
Raid unlock dates. December 9 for Barrow Deeps and Hyjal per the strongest source; Onyxia contested.