Building YOUR perfect raid team

.

You don’t “find” a team, you build one. 

Great teams don't happen, You have to build them and it takes a whole lot of work. Hopefully this article helps you a bit in your work. You don’t have to be the smartest or the most talented X to be successful.. you just have to out-work all your competition :)

I’m over-articulating the “you build” point for a reason. I think, like anyone who’s dreamed of being a professional athlete/popstart/etc, most people imagine these folks are “discovered” when in fact it’s mostly drive, relationship building, and pure hard work that gets these folks to the top



Building your team is step #2 in this process. Step 1 is actually defining what you want in your team. Here’s what I wanted when I built my latest raid team.

Frontallobe’s ideal raid reqs.
1. Friendly
2. Adults (22yo min)
3. Mature but silly
4. Like to raid for the puzzle not the loot (ie: enjoy wipe nights)
5. Hardcore mentality with a casual schedule
6. Similar skill and research effort
7. The desire to try new non-video-cookie-cutter strats
8. Has preferably raided seriously in the past

I think a definition of successful is in order before I continue as I’ll be using it a lot as a measuring stick pushing forward. Success :: Progressing through content while enjoying the journey.

Notice, I have nothing in my list about gear requirements, achievements, or classes. If you want a successful team you need to get the right people on the bus FIRST. You can decide where everyone sits and their roles later. I’d much rather have people that meet my above metrics than say an immature, loot whoring, raging 7/7 HM bear tank. You don’t want a win fast / lose fast team. You want a team that’s in it for the long run. The only way to fill a team like that is finding 10 (or 25) people with a few things in common:

Your team needs a few things in common to be successful in the long run.

1. Attendance
2. Attitude
3. Skill
4. Goals
5. Class/Spec

Keep in mind that world 1st type guilds need to have a different priority list. This guide is for the rest of us. 

Here’s what to look for in each by priority.

Attendance: Without getting the same team together each night you spend an unnecessary amount of time teaching new people. No matter how good someone is, attendance is pretty clutch. If they can’t make 90% of the nights then you need to move on and recruit someone else or possibly change your raid nights. I can’t express how much faster you down content with the same people logging in each night. You start knowing who’s gonna do what when and that’s hard to quantify its importance but it’s huge. This being said if your goals are a bit more relaxed than mine then a rotating team can be successful as well. Drama-filled most times but successful. 

Attitude: Someone who wants to learn, doesn’t mind feedback, listens on vent, rarely goes afk, does his/her own research, comes prepared by watching videos, embraces wipe nights, enjoys challenges, doesn’t get personal with other’s faults. Someone that enjoys the journey, not just the loot. Look for people that share the same frustration levels and seriousness levels. I personally enjoy being silly on farm bosses and getting a-game serious on progression bosses. I expect the same from my team.

Skill: This is so clutch. If you get a guy that’s leagues better than everyone he’s going to get frustrated. The inverse is true as well. You can only keep 9 people happy about carrying your girlfriend’s kid brother for so long. It’s not about finding the most skilled players. It’s about finding like-skilled players.

Goals: Another pretty obvious metric that is often overlooked until you gear someone who leaves to “upgrade” to a more progression minded raid team. You have to make sure your entire team is on board with your goals. Is your goal to clear regular mode raids about the time the new tier is coming out? Is it that all HMs will be down by this time? Is it something in the middle? Is it even more casual? You have to all be on the same page or someone’s going to feel too pressure or under-challenged. I like to talk to my team when a new tier comes out. “Ok guys, how we feeling? We burnt out or are we gonna crush and try to 7/7 HM this bitch?” I get their feelings and come up with a center line approach and voice the team’s goals in a concise way. “Ok in FL, our goal is to clear reg mode quickly as possible and then work on HMs until next tier almost assuming we will not clear it all in time. All on board?”

Class/Spec: I begrudgingly listed this on my metrics list out of matter of pragmatism. In short, you could have the greatest tank buddy in the world apping to your team but if you already have two tanks and no one wants to swap roles then you really can’t take him/her. At some point you basically need 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 dps. That being said, I will get good people to swap specs, alts, etc before I ever fill their position because they aren’t X class/spec. Get people who want to be on the team regardless of role and this becomes much less of an issue.

A note on composition: A raids comp is what classes you “need” to bring to be successful. This used to be a much bigger concern in previous patches but now with many overlapping buffs, skills, and evening out of class roles you can be much more lax (see: homogenizing of classes). Example: We successfully ran 3 mages in the early parts of cataclysm because the above three metrics were there (attendance, personality, and skill) but this does mean it’s going to take longer for people to gear up. You have 60% of your DPS team and 33% of your heal team rolling on the same cloth stuff while you shard all the leather and dps plate. It’s just going to take a bit longer but if you have the right people on the bus you’re enjoying the journey so who cares? Unless you’re in a top X guild then you’re not racing anyone but your own goals. So take a breath and do what’s fun. A diversified comp is nice, but not necessary anymore. See what buffs your proposed team brings with this calculator: http://raidcomp.mmo-champion.com/

A note on gear: Gear is by far last on my mind. You can gear a great person and player up but it’s quite difficult to teach someone social skills, maturity, and attendance. With all the craftable epics, rep rewards, and easy heroics gear is a non-issue. The above metrics are much more difficult to attain. Anyone can get carried and have amazing gear with little to no knowledge of the raids, their class, or basic social skills. Look at their gear last. When you love the above 4 simply tell them they need to get cracking on gear and have xxx iLVL minimum by raid time. Easily attained by heroics, troll heroics, Baradin Hold, valor points,  and boe epic drops on AH.

What loot system should you use?

X

The best thing you can do about loot is get raiders that aren’t obsessed with it. That being said, you’re going to need a system that works for your specific team of raiders. I’ve heard so many people pitch why their system is the best for X or Y reason but a loot system should be about 1 thing: Fairness. Everything else is secondary.

  

Any loot system should consider the following…
Fairness: This is the #1. Does Mr. NewGuy get to come in and scoop the heroic token his first night on the team? If so, your system has failed to reward the work, patience, and dedication your other raiders have put in. Also, you have just geared up someone that you’re not even sure is going to fit and or stay with your team.

Ease of use: If you need a webinar or a 30m vent conversation explaining how to use the mods, websites, and user/passwords involving your loot system then it’s a bit too complicated. Not all great raid leaders are amazing geeks or have the time for some of the overhead involved in these loot systems. Make sure the system is usable by someone when you’re not around. No person can guarantee 100% attendance. Make sure loot can still be handed out fairly even if you get hit by bus.

Efficiency: Can you link the loot and figure out who it goes to in 2m or less per piece of loot? I would say it needs to be much faster but 2m has to be a ceiling considering the amount of pieces that drop. You don’t want a 15m break after each boss to figure out loot. Losing momentum in a raid can happen quickly. If folks know loot takes forever they feel the need to fit in dinner and a dog walk while you’re trying to distro the loot. Keep it fair, keep it quick.

Transparency: If you are doing a secret ballot or officer loot council make sure your raiders trust that you or the folks involved are going to do what’s best for the team regardless of favorites or anatomical parts. (See: guys go goo goo for breasts)

History: I love this one but it has almost a direct correlation to efficiency. If you have a system that tracks a full history of who looted what, when then it’s most likely a database with a learning curve and upload times. While this is great to have it can be laborious to keep up to date. The moment the data isn’t accurate all of your time and historical data is crap.

Loot Systems Explored

Officer Loot Council: The guild officers who are also in the raid decide who gets the loot. I’ve done this system in a US 300-ish guild back in BC. As an officer I always got to see how thoughtful and labored each decision was but the raiders never got to see this. Inevitably the officers would get tells from the raiders they were close with asking why X raider got Y loot over A or B player. I would spend so much time explaining all the thought that went into the decision and making the person feel better about being “cheated” than playing the damn game. Another artifact is that we officers were always passing to others to ensure that we were always seen as fair. This really hurts the team as your gearing up your least dedicated players before the most dedicated. In short, I’ve seen it work but I’m no fan.

DKP: Dragon Kill Points was invented back in 1999 by <Afterlife> in EverQuest to handle loot from the very first end-game dragon bosses. [DKP: a history of] Each time you kill a boss you earn points that you can eventually spend on loot. Those with enough points then get to roll or bid or some other variation of point spending on the loot. I really liked this system back in vanilla and BC but I feel that raid sizes (40 down to 25/10) really don’t need  a system with as much tracking overhead or the learning curve required to manage DKP properly online. Some variations include attendance which I do like for the following case: JudyDragonSlapper comes back to the raid team after leaving for 3 months. StaffoftheIncredible drops and Judy scoops it from everyone because she had points built up from the last xpac. The attendance provision ensures that each raider needs x% attendance to even spend points. If you’re looking at DKP I highly recommend using the attendance variable to filter out the JudyDragonSlappers in the world from scooping face.

Random Roll: This is by far the most efficient system. You ask everyone to roll and whoever rolls the highest for their main-spec wins. This one really fails on the fairness front. It allows too many new guys to scoop highly sought after pieces from dedicated and long-time raid members. This is great for pick up groups but simply a crap system for an established raid team.

[After using all of these for various content patches I believe the one I’m about to describe is the least amount of management while allowing for the loot to be distributed most fairly. This system requires non-assbags in the raid though. In the end use a system that works for your team.]

TLC: Team Loot Council. This is something we started doing now that our raid team is 10m. Everyone on the team is on the loot council. If you want the item that drops you simply link what you’re replacing in raid chat. Everyone then sends a tell to you, the raid leader, with a persons name or a vote to “roll.” For a team just starting out or to ensure everything remains fair, if you are rolling on an item, designate another raid member to tally the votes. It lets your team decide who needs it most and is most deserving. The reason I like this is because it allows you to consider variables that are impossible to quantify in a points based system. Effort? Skill? Attendance? Attitude? Loot scooping history? Best for which class? So if you have great people with rational brains, this system is clutch. I’ve seen this used without players being properly informed though. They just kept giving the loot to the person with the worst piece regardless of all the fun variables above. In that use, it’s a complete fail.

 [Keep in mind all of these systems work at varying levels for different groups. Find one that works for your team. These are just my experiences with the systems. Your mileage will vary. ]

Handling BOEs
Taking BOEs for the guild bank: Since guilds are now expected to pay for feasts, flasks, repairs, and even sometimes enchants & craftables it only makes sense to make sure the coffers have enough gold to keep up. Here’s something we did to ensure the guild bank always had enough gold. If a BOE drops and a raider needs for MS they get it via our TLC system. If not, we pocket it and sell on the AH for the gbank. When we get to about a sustained 250k in a raiding tier we start offering the BOEs to non-raiding guildies for 1/2 the current AH prices as long as they equip the item.

Recruiting in Trade - it can work

There are many ways to recruit for your team. Within the guild is a great place to start. Websites such as Wowprogress.com, ElitistJerks.com, etc all have recruiting portions. Having some server 1st or 2nds will get the quality raiders flocking to you instead of you searching for them. This is not a guide on the above methods.

This is a guide on using Trade chat as effectively as possible. Is this the absolute best way to get new raiding recruits? No, but is it something most raiding teams eventually do? Yes.

Keep in mind this guide is not for the top 3 guilds on your realm or the world first guilds. It is for everyone else trying to fill in a spot here or there on their raid team.

Any person on a raid team shares these 4 metrics within a certain tolerance: schedule, culture, goals, skill. Your job with your macro is to articulate all of this in an interesting way in 255 characters or less :/ Here’s how:

What does your team offer?
If you have 8 people who love what you’re doing then finding an additional body or two isn’t going to be laborious but you have to make sure they know what you’re offering. Here are some examples that may help paint the picture of what your team is like without extensive Q&A with each applicant.

Do you have more experience than your team currently? (RL has 5/7 HM exp.)
Family friendly? (no cursing etc)
History? (same team together since BC)
Culture? (laid back atmosphere – personality > skill)
Do you have a niche? (All adults? All teens? All from vanilla days? All new and hoping to learn with others? Saturday nights only? No voice chat required?)

Goals:
Learning to raid with others who would like to learn?
Clearing regular content and giving a shot at some hard modes?
Clearing reg ASAP and moving onto hard modes?
Out to have fun, if bosses die that’s a bonus?
Last tier content and maybe some current tier if we’re up to it
Only HMs and expect apps to have the same exp and drive?

Days/Times:
This is probably the number 1 question you’ll be asked. A lot of people are quite flexible on the goals, experience, etc. They just want to be on a team they know are going to show up and raid at a time/day that works for them. Make sure this is in your macro to save yourself lots of time.

Progression:
Depending on the goals you’ve set you may want to peak the channels interest by saying what you’ve already accomplished on your team before needing to fill this spot. Even if it’s last tier be up front and honest so you don’t get “mr. fancypants” feeling as though you’ve done the bait and switch. You’ll have more fun if you’re with like-skilled and minded players any how.

Summarizing:
Now that you’ve made a quick list of your goals, progression, culture, and schedule it’s time to put that all into a < 255 character macro. Here are some common abbreviations used to make this happen. (As i’m writing this the latest tier is Firelands so that will be in my examples)

LFM: Looking for member

rDPS: Ranged damage class

mDPS: Melee damage class 

shieldTank: shield tank means not a dk or druid. 

x/y [instance name]: 3/7 means 3 of the raid's 7 bosses are on farm in ____ instance

Patience:
Keep in mind you’re going to get lots of tells. It’s on you to armory them, ask the personality questions that matter, maybe even age if that’s a determining factor for you. Don’t just ginvite and hope for the best. Do your homework on each person. Why did they leave the last raiding team? What kind of progression are they hoping for in this team? Drill them and make sure it’s a good fit for you and for them.

Some macro examples that may work for you:

<Guild Name> LFM 2 rDPS for weekend raiding team(6/7HM). Please have HM exp and great class research. Sat/Sun 6pm server. Be patient, calm, and love wiping. PST for interview

<Guild Name> LFM 1 tank for start up raiding team. We’re just learning and having fun and expect the same. Tue/Thur @ 11pm server. Have vent, mic, and want to collaborate. No experience needed! PST for interview

<Guild Name> LFM resto Druid/Sham for 7/7 team looking to go HM this week. We take the content seriously and expect the same. Must have 95% attendance. Mon-Thur @ 4pm server. RL has 7/7 HM exp. PST for interview.

Etiquette:

Spamming is like posting a job classified (yep, just dated myself) it should be easy to understand, properly formatted, and not abrasive. With these things in mind:

No CAPS – IT ACTUALLY MAKES YOUR SPAM HARDER TO READ IF IT’S ALL IN CAPS

No misspellings – Misspelling things just makes you a quick target for trolls and someone easy to ignore for your applicants.

Grammar – yeah yeah, Nazi blah blah. Make sure you use the right There, Their, They’re, Your, You’re, To, Too, Two and people will take you a bit more seriously. (great grammar in this sentence right? right guys? right?)

Spamming + Patience:
Put your spam in one channel, most likely you’ll be using trade chat. Do not spam it twice in a succession. Just spread out your macro evenly when you think your prospective raiders will be on and likely to be viewing the channel. It can take a while to find that perfect fit for your team but keep at it and don’t despair. Getting 10 or 25 people with the same goals, skill, schedule, and culture is no easy task. It’s why we, the raid leaders, are so sought after. We make the show happen no matter what. Slow and steady wins the race.

Raid Leading Addons - our picks

Addons are an important component of raiding in general, but this is doubly true for those of us leading the raids.  They can make managing cooldowns, marking mobs, and getting information on the raid’s performance much easier than using the standard UI.

Much of the information that you can get from an addon is either difficult to get due to human error or embarrassment, or would simply cause more Vent clutter than is necessary, leading to important callouts being missed.

Administrative

EPGPLootmaster:  For those of you that use EPGP, EPGPLootmaster is a graphical way to streamline the loot process without having to maintain a detailed spreadsheet.  It provides windows for the raiders (giving them a box that looks more like the Need/Greed system they’re familiar with) and a window for the master looter showing who bid what, what each person is wearing in that slot, and automatically sorts their names by available EP.  Raiders don’t have to install EPGPLootmaster to use the system, but they do need to install it if they want to see the graphical interface.  Otherwise, they will have to whisper the master looter with their choice and the master looter portion of the addon behaves as normal according to what was whispered.

RaidInviteOrganizer:  This will allow you to automate some parts of forming a raid.  You can automatically invite people via a checklist and click “Mass Invite”, which invites them all and automatically converts to a raid, or you can choose the Keyword Invite, which allows them to basically ask for an invite by whispering you a particular keyword.  If you choose the Keyword invite, once you’re whispered that keyword, the addon will automatically invite that person, convert to raid, and so on.

Buffs, Debuffs, and Cooldowns

One of the most important components in defeating an encounter is keeping track of things like cooldown usage and who’s buffed. See this post about consumables to be reminded why buffing does matter.

RaidBuffStatus: It’s always important to see who’s slacking on their buffs, who isn’t fed, and who forgot to use their flask.  RaidBuffStatus can report in /raid, /party, or on a dashboard only you can see what’s missing on whom.  It reports more than just food and flasks; it can report on missing auras and seals, who’s AFK, and even provide tank taunt warnings during the encounter.

It is ready to use with no configuration necessary, and will only detect buffs missing when the composition has it available (for instance, it won’t check for Blessing of Might if there’s no Paladin in the raid).

Hermes:  A personal favorite; this is a cooldown or “raid wall” tracker.  Sometimes it’s hard to coordinate whose cooldown is up when in Vent, and it causes a lot of Vent clutter, especially when one person uses it too early or too late.  Hermes can help you keep track of everything, even if your raiders don’t have Hermes installed.  It has several methods of display: it can show cooldowns both available and unavailable and their cooldown duration if unavailable, it can show only what’s available (cooldown is ready, in range, not dead or DCed), or it can show only what’s unavailable and how long until it is ready.  It can show you in the form of sleek bars (which I use) or it can show icons.  It can be put anywhere on the screen and resized/recolored to your liking.  It can track any spell, and it can even be set up to track things like trinkets or other custom cooldowns.

Since I began raid leading, I found Hermes to be incredibly helpful in cooldown management, especially for planning cooldown rotations or for when cooldowns aren’t used quite as planned (someone dies, DCs, uses it at the wrong time, etc).  It also saves me from having to memorize the cooldown duration of each ability and which raider is bringing which cooldown.  This is especially handy for cooldowns that you must spec into, as Hermes will scan talent trees for those abilities.

Decursive:  Debuff tracking and removal.  As a raid leader, you have enough to worry about, so if you’re also tasked with dispels, this addon can come in handy.  It takes up an extremely small portion of screen real estate and can also help with CCing mind-controlled raid members as well, allowing for easy targeting and choosing the appropriate CC for the class.

Boss Mods

Boss mods: our favorite get-out-of-the-bad addons.  I require DBM or its equivalent in my raids, and I strongly suggest that you require it from your raiders.  I don’t care if the rest is stock UI; with the complexity of encounters nowadays having timers is an extremely strong edge in competitive raiding.

Deadly Boss Mods: The de facto standard of boss mods.  Deadly Boss Mods (known better as simply DBM) provides boss ability timers, warning messages and sounds to get out of the bad quickly or OMG INTERRUPT THIS NOW NOOB, and screen flashes to get your attention to important events.  It is very customizable and can even be used to create custom timers (called “pizza timers”) which can be viewed either by yourself or shared with the entire raid—handy for break timers.

GTFO:  This is a “don’t stand in the bad” addon that lives up to its name and provides obvious sounds and visual aids to get out of the fire (or lava, or void zone, or death glare).  In most cases, you’ll be warned before you start taking damage.  This addon is best suited to newer raiders whose situational awareness isn’t that stellar, or for people whose computer graphics are turned lower, as some stuff to avoid isn’t always visible or clearly visible for these people.  GTFO can be used as a complement to DBM or BigWigs.

BigWigs:  This is a direct competitor to DBM.  Like DBM, it has sound and visual warnings, ability timers, screen shake (as opposed to flash), and things of this nature.  It, too, has pizza timers, so don’t let that awesome ability sway your decision on which addon to use.  Personally, I haven’t encountered a large enough difference between BigWigs and DBM for me to suggest one over the other and it’s largely personal preference in appearance and configuration at this point.

TargetCharms:  This is a lightweight addon that eliminates the need for that annoying little Blizzard raid panel on the side of your UI.  It gives you quick access to world markers (those glowy beams you place on the floor), ready check and raid marks (skull, X, square, etc).  It can be resized and reshaped to fit into almost any custom UI.

Who Stood in the Fire?

A crucial part of leading a successful raid is performance evaluation.  Luckily for us, there are a few addons to give us the information we need to make informed decisions on how to improve the raid’s performance.

Recount: Performance addon that monitors an extremely wide variety of things related to raid combat: damage done and to whom, healing done and to whom, absorbs, dispels, deaths, damage taken, interrupts and so on.   It can tell you how much of a player’s damage is coming from its pet, step-by-step breakdown of exactly how a player died and the healing they did or didn’t receive before their death, how much of someone’s healing is coming from X ability, and so on.

In Wrath, Recount used to have an issue with showing absorbs due to the way the combat log displayed them, leading Discipline priests to appear much lower on the healing charts relative to other classes.  This has since been fixed and all absorbs now properly show both under Healing Done and the special Absorbs menu.Please see this guide for details on how to use Recount to its fullest as a raid leader.

Skada:  A direct competitor to Recount and performs almost all of the same functionality.  Unlike Recount, however, Skada uses a lot of separate modules that need to be installed individually rather than having the whole package at once.  This is both good and bad; it’s good for memory, because it’s only recording the components you need, but it’s a fair bit of addon maintenance having to manually install and update every module within Skada.  A lot of comments I hear about Skada rave about its memory efficiency (and to be fair, Recount can be a hog) and its visual appeal.  It has a more streamlined look to it than Recount.

EnsidiaFails:  This addon gives messages in raid or party chat when someone fails a mechanic.  This can be anything from standing in the bad, to failing to interrupt, to not moving from a mechanic, and so on.  It has three methods of reporting: during combat only, after combat only, or both during and after combat.  The default method of reporting is both during and after combat.  It will report both fatal (see: Engulfing Flames on Ragnaros) and non-fatal (see: Brushfire on Alysrazor) failures.

I hesitated to install this for a long time, but now that I have, I’ve noticed my raiders despise being mocked by an addon and correct the problem much more quickly than having me manually notice each fail.  It is also helpful in those instances where the situation ends up being ‘wtf he died in 2 seconds’.

Fatality:  This mod is similar to EnsidiaFails; however, it only reports what people died to.  This is suitable for people who want EnsidiaFails style functionality, but with less spam.  It can be configured for use with almost any channel, and will report the very last hit someone received before they died.

Healing Addons: Not Just for Healers Anymore

Raid frames should be a core part of a raid leader’s UI.  They allow you to see who’s alive and who’s not, what the average health of the raid is at (and therefore if any cooldowns are needed) and things like that.  However, while the current Blizzard raid frames are certainly an improvement over their former incarnation, I find the default frames to be woefully lacking in resizability, customizability, and buff/debuff tracking.

Therefore, it’s time to break out the healing mods.  The mods I suggest are intended to replace the standard Blizzard frames, not to be used side-by-side (see my rant about UI below).

‘Healing addons?  But I’m a DPS!’ you may think.  The reason why I suggest healing addons is largely because of customizability.  All major healing addons allow you to see debuffs related to the encounter or the player, any buffs that you’ve opted to show, current health, incoming heals if enabled, personal cooldown usage (such as Shield Wall) if enabled, and things of this nature.  They are highly configurable, flexible, and can have their appearance altered to fit well in almost any UI.

Some even allow the use of DPS abilities and debuff-cleansing functionalities similar to Decursive through them.  For instance, Healbot will allow you to use Misdirection or Righteous Defense through its frames in the same manner as if you were casting a heal on that person.

The three major healing addons currently out there are Grid, Healbot and Vuhdo.  Which one is better is often hotly contested among healers and subject to lots of personal opinion, so I’ll try to keep my rundown of the different addons brief.

Grid: This addon presents its raid frames in neat little squares, and usually shows the frames black when the target is at full health, with their class color showing the deficit.  Grid is much like Skada in that a lot of functionality comes in individual modules which have to be installed separately.

Healbot:  This addon is what I personally use for healing.  It is simple to configure, makes buff/debuff tracking easy, and can be adjusted for use on almost any character (see the earlier example of DPS and tanking abilities).  It can also track raid buffs, and allow you to apply them to the raid via the frames if you enable it.

VuhDo:  This displays raid frames similar to either Healbot or Grid depending on how you configure it.  It is ridiculously customizable; in fact, the addon authors added a wizard to simplify the process for new users because initial set-up was overwhelming.

A Side Note About Your UI

Part of the job of the raid leader is to be aware of as much of what’s going on during a raid as humanly possible.  Therefore, if your UI looks like this: 

…chances are good that you’re not really seeing everything that you could or should be seeing.

Instead, now that you’ve installed 50 new addons, try to arrange your UI so that you have as much screen room as you can manage, like this:

Notice how you can still see everything important, and yet you have much more visibility as to what’s actually happening in the raid.

You will have to make special considerations, of course, if you don’t have a widescreen monitor.  My first suggestion is to play at the highest screen resolution you can comfortably view.  Then, zoom your camera out to get a good view of the raid, and finally, try to resize your addons so that they take up the smallest amount of room possible while still doing the job they were installed for.  A raid frame addon does you no good if the entire thing is 100×100 pixels wide and you can’t read anything on it.

I hope this guide—although lengthy, I admit!—has proven useful to you.  Thanks for reading! -eternal