N W L

Sherpas

Raid sherpas are people who "sherpa", i.e. guide, people through raids. Whether you're a new player who has never player a raid before, or an experienced player who wants to learn new roles, here's where to start!

Introduction

Hello and welcome! If I or someone linked you this page, you (or someone you know) are probably in need of someone to show you around a raid. I am a so-called raid sherpa, which means I act as a teacher and guide for people who need to learn raid mechanics or roles. I am available to teach all raids currently available in Destiny 2.

This document seems like a long thing to read if you just want to learn a raid, but it serves two purposes:

  1. Sometimes people who are – quite frankly – assholes will try to join sherpa runs because they expect to be carried through the raid. By setting clear boundaries, I will make sure every learner has a great experience.
  2. Some learners are hesitant to learn raids because they might think they are too bad for a raid or because people will blame them if they mess up. By outlining my philosophy about sherpa work, I hope to ease their minds a little.

Let's begin!

Page last updated: 2023-03-17

Contents

How does a sherpa work?

Procedure

So, you want to learn a raid. Great! I'm Nick, because nwL gets hard to pronounce after a while. I live in Germany and I started playing Destiny in 2020. Since then, I have accumulated three contest mode raid completions and a good understanding of how people view raids in Destiny.

What is a raid?

A raid is a 6-player activity. Every raid is divided into encounters in which the six players work together to achieve a certain goal. Sometimes it's defeating a boss, sometimes it's just opening a door by activating mechanisms. If they fail the encounter, they wipe, killing all 6 players and then restarting the encounter. There is no limit to the amount of attempts.

Once you succeed in an encounter – we call this clearing an encounter – you can move on to the next one. A single encounter, if done correctly, takes between 5 and 25 minutes. Depending on the raid chosen, a raid consists of around four to six encounters.

How long does a raid take?

If you sum up the numbers above, you might arrive at the conclusion that it's about an hour. This is wrong. A raid, even if done by an experienced team, consists of planning the encounters, assigning roles, then failing a few times before succeeding.

Therefore, a raid takes as long as a raid takes.

Okay, but how much time should I plan? – This is a really hard question to answer as will become evident when you read my sherpa philosophy below. It all depends on your level of experience, how many players are new, and how well things are understood. A rule of thumb is to plan around an hour per encounter.

What do I need to do?

Additionally, please review the prerequisites below – they should all be obvious, but it never hurts to check. Other than that, you should obviously know how to control your character and which buttons to press.

Then, when you have decided to learn, contact me via the profiles listed on the main page, or via Discord if you know how.

Basic information

Prerequisites

While I am willing to sherpa everyone, I have a few requirements to make life easier.

  1. Each player must have a microphone and be able to join a Discord call.
    • This does not mean you have to be social, but I need you to hear me when I explain things and I need you to give raid callouts.
  2. You must be able to understand and speak English.
    • If everybody on the team speaks German, this can also be German.
  3. You must be willing to learn.
    • I will not carry you through the raid. I will teach you the raid.
  4. You must understand that raid sherpas can take several hours.
  5. You must adhere to a certain level of maturity.
    • This does not mean "you must be 18". Just try to act like an adult.
    • Review Unacceptable Behavior below as well.
  6. There are certain requirements on a per-raid basis. Please read them below.
  7. Sherpas will not be done on Master versions.
  8. Sherpas can include challenges and triumphs. If their completion is desired, please tell me during initial planning.
  9. I have the right to end sherpa runs or exclude players when deemed necessary.
    • For more information, see Unacceptable Behavior below.

Raid-specific prerequisites

Garden of Salvation
Please tell me if the run is supposed to be a Divinity run. Divinity runs cannot be continued from a checkpoint. When abandoned, the entire raid needs to be re-run. Therefore, it is advised that a normal Garden sherpa is done first.
Root of Nightmares
The minimum required player power level is 1800.

My sherpa philosophy

Sherpas are often the people you need to rely on to guide and tech you, for multiple hours, in a difficult and challenging activity. This can often lead to complications when players are unhappy with each other. Here is how I run sherpas.

1. The goal is understanding.

After learning a raid, you will have a lot of opportunities to run it with friends or other people, and farm all the loot you need. In a sherpa raid, you will learn all the basics to do so. If we wipe and wipe and wipe, even if we have to restart right before finishing the boss, then that's not a failure.

Let me repeat:

2. You are encouraged to ask questions.

Everyone started not knowing things. There are a lot of things that other players assume you to know, but how should you without ever asking? Here are some questions that are some examples of this:

No question is too stupid to ask, as long as you care about the answer. I will never criticize honestly asked questions.

3. You are encouraged to fail.

Your job is not succeeding, it's learning. If you learn, you made progress. I do not want you succeeding in an encounter while not knowing why you succeeded.

If you are in a high-pressure situation and the entire team relies on you, then ask, don't guess. If we fail, then we do it again, but this time you know what to do.

Here is an example scenario: You are the person designated to press buttons, otherwise the team will wipe. Someone tells you to press button 1 and 3. You completely forget which button is 1 and which one is 3. If that happens, it is okay to say "I don't know which button is which", even if it leads to a wipe.

4. You are encouraged to be wrong.

If we fail, someone did something wrong. Now, no one likes to be the person who made the mistake. But ask yourself: Why don't you want to be that person? The answer is because you don't want to be holding the team back.

But just like Philosophy 1 told you: The goal is understanding. Therefore, by admitting your fault, you are actually advancing the team: Our goal is not to get the loot, it is to understand, and knowing what you did wrong is part of that.

Unacceptable behavior

While I am willing to sherpa anyone, there is some behavior that is unacceptable. Here is a list of it.

Negative Energy

I am not a "good vibes only" person. We all fail, it gets frustrating, and the game is hard. You are allowed to complain. You are allowed to be frustrated. You are allowed to quit. However, there are some things that I treat as negative energy.

Examples
Nihilism:
"We'll never make this." "This is way too hard." "There is no way we will ever get enough damage." "What is the issue that people are having?" "NewPlayer, what are you using for damage? You can instead use [better weapon]."
Blaming the game:
"This is a bullshit fucking encounter." "This is the worst raid of all of them, I hate it." "I just want to get this over with." "I'm having the issue that [...], how can we address this?"

Destructive criticism

Yes, some action lead to us not killing the boss, each time. But that's the whole point, and talking down on people won't suddenly make them understand things.

Examples
Blaming:
"NewPlayer didn't pick up a bomb again, so we wiped" "We were so close, but NewPlayer failed their task" "Hey, once Taniks drops all the bombs, remember to pick one up. If not all bombs are picked up, they expire and blow up." "Are you understanding why we failed this attempt? Do you need another explanation?"
Survivability:
"We would have made it if NewPlayer hadn't died" "Can you stop fucking dying?" "You seem to have issues with survivability, what is your biggest problem?"
Insults:
"You just gotta focus, you idiot." "Shut up." "Why are you not understanding this?"

Discomfort

We are all human, and all that matters is your behavior. You make people uncomfortable, you'll be out faster than Louis XVI. Things that will get you removed immediately are as follows.

Examples
Discrimination:
Slurs – the "n-word", discriminatory terms like "f*ggot", "tr*nny", "tr*p", and so on. Associating negative connotations with an alternative lifestyle – a popular example is using "This is gay" to imply a negative thing.
Purposeful misunderstanding:
"Oh, you're gay? Don't get so close to me then, hahaha." "I dislike TransGirl1, he failed again" (repeatedly) "I misunderstood TransGirl1's identity and will try to gender her correctly now." This is a sherpa raid, so the goal is to learn – the same applies to gender identities! No one will get angry because of an honest mistake.
Making people uncomfortable:
"I just think it's really cool that girls play Destiny, did your boyfriend show you? Do you have one?" "Oh, yeah, I come from [country], they finally just banned abortion there." We're all Guardians under the Traveler, and we all escape into the world of Destiny together.

P.S.

This was a lot of text, hm? If you're a normal person reading this you might think "this guy has to be really strict! Will we even enjoy ourselves?"

If that's the case, feel free to re-read the rules and imagine whether you'd break them even if you didn't know them. Chances are, you already follow all of these automatically if you're a decent human being. And that's all I want: To have decent human beings around me.

See you in the raid!