How I Build a Raid Team?

Putting together a raid team is no easy task, the first thing to decide is not who are your tanks, healers and DPS, but rather how many of each you want to carry. My 10 man raid team has 3 tanks, 3 healers, 3 mêlée, 3 ranged and 3 off-healers that was an "easy" choice, knowing who to fill those roles with was not so easy as there are a number of things to consider.

The first thing to consider is that my raid team is a progression focused group in a social guild. We raid 6 hours a week over 2 nights so we're not the type to switch people in on fights or demand a super high attendance. However, we do expect full effort on fights both in and out of game.

Some spots were obvious choices as they are long time raiders with the guild, some players are just too awesome to leave out and sometimes that has meant juggling the team to accommodate all the people worthy. As an example I have 3 awesome healers I raid with meaning I am 1 of 4 healers in a 10 man that is a bit excessive but we get round that by using rotation and I accept the fact that I can't heal all the time so get lumped into the off -healer group.

Another factor to consider is availability, I have crappy shifts that prevent me raiding for 3 weeks straight every 8 weeks, one of my ranged DPS can only raid every other week and one of my healers has seemingly erratic shifts which at times causes issues if it clashes with one of my 3 weeks and a random absence by another healer. Thankfully despite all these challenges, our raid team has got off the blocks every week this expansion and things look to be staying that way as we are now a quarter of the way through the the second year of the expansion.

Performance is another key factor in deciding who you use to fill those spots and here performance becomes very subjective, DPS players always assume that the only thing that maters are the raw DPS output figures. In an ideal world this would be true and in many top end guilds that ideal is a reality. However, I prefer to take dependable people who can get the job done, by which I mean I prefer to take someone that does competitive DPS and does things right than a DPS king that has bad positional sense, stands in the fire, dies too quickly and consumes the one battle res I have available, doesn't listen on TS/Vent/Mumble, doesn't read strats, shows up late (or worse, not at all) and in general causes me a crap ton of stress.

The last thing I consider is possibly the most important which is their personality. I want to raid with people I can depend on. I need them to be there when the team needs them to be there, someone that promises to be there then doesn't show up is not someone I want to raid with, I need them to do the job assigned to them, I need them to fit in with the other members of the team. That doesn't mean I have to consider everyone I raid with to be my best friend (although that is always a goal) but I do need to be able to respect them as a person and a player. Thankfully everyone I have on my raid team scores VERY highly on this at the minute.

If you raid lead or have a say in who is in the your raid team, how do you choose your team? If you're not able to choose your raid team mates, how would you choose them if you could? I'd love to know your thoughts.