Matticus

Matticus is the founder of World of Matticus, a World of Warcraft blog.

How to Run Raid Orientation

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Welcome to the new tier, everybody! We’re starting to kick off our raid this week. This is a great time to run raid orientation for the raid group, especially if you have many new players or if the raid team was on a break leading up to this point. For us it was mandatory because over half the team was new stemming from some major turnover. In this case, boss GM set up a preliminary officer meeting to go over the agenda for orientation and what to cover. I’ll dive into that one in a bit. Ultimately, he made some adjustments to an existing slidedeck that was created by one of the other raid teams in our community and co-opted some of those elements. I don’t really agree with some of the design choices, but I bit my tongue on that one.

If you want to watch DJ’s raid orientation, our GM did stream it, and you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1975224736?t=00h16m06s

What is Raid Orientation?

It’s exactly what it sounds like. You can liken it to your experiences when attending school for the first time.

Raid orientation is a crucial process where members of a guild come together to discuss, plan, and prepare for the challenges that lie ahead in a new raid tier. It’s the foundation upon which a successful raiding experience is built. This is where new members get to know each other, understand the guild’s strategies, and set their expectations with the goals.

This can be hosted in Discord and having your GM share their screen. They could also stream it and have it saved for anyone that missed out on it.

Benefits of Raid Orientation

But why?

  • Enhances Team Cohesion: It brings players together, fostering a sense of community and teamwork. For a bonus, you can add some icebreaker games at the end.
  • Aligns Goals: This helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding the guild’s objectives.
  • Preparation: Provides an opportunity to discuss strategies and requirements, reducing confusion during actual raids. We’d rather get this done now or during the week before we set foot into the instance.
  • Resource Management: This helps in efficiently setting aside resources like consumables and loot. It also covers where players can find resources like assignments and strategy on Discord. In our case, we hold tier tokens until the end of the night to see what we have before distributing it all.

What Does Orientation Typically Include?

Player Expectations

This segment focuses on what the guild expects from each player. It includes commitment levels, understanding of class roles, our community code of conduct, and basic raiding etiquette. We expect our players to complete 4 keys weekly. They don’t need to be 20s, but if they can eventually strive to hit 16s to 18s consistently within the first few weeks, it’ll set our team up for success. This also means how to handle attendance issues and who their raid mentors are. Basically, the GM is covering policy.

Raid Expectations

Here, we delve into the specifics of the raid content. This covers some strategies, boss mechanics, and the roles and responsibilities of each raid member. This means showing up on time. This means having the required WeakAuras installed and addons updated. It also means knowing their role and how to respond to mechanics in encounters while surviving. This could be its own night, though as we plan to have a film review on a different day before our raid night where we go over every encounter.

Consumables Expectations

Raiders need to come prepared with the necessary consumables. This part of the orientation covers the types of consumables required and how they contribute to the raid’s success, especially with the new health potions and other augments. Speaking of augments, there’s also the new reusable rune. Depending on your guild’s focus, that might be worth mentioning.

Loot Council

A key part of raiding is the distribution of loot. This section explains how the loot council operates and guides members on setting up their loot wish lists to make the process effective. We’ve also taken the liberty of requesting volunteers for the loot council. This is a call for members who wish to contribute more directly to the guild’s decision-making process with the resources and sims we have in place.

Goals and Pacing for the Tier from a Progression Standpoint

Setting realistic and achievable goals for the raid tier is critical. This includes discussing the pacing of the raid progression and what the guild aims to achieve each week. Even though we finished US 300 in Aberrus, we’re aiming for the US 400 mark this time at a slower pace. Think of this piece like setting the road map for the tier, including when raid extensions would begin.

Icebreakers

Think of some fun games you can play especially to help get newer members accustomed to the team. Sometimes we’d ask icebreaker questions but tell our players to type their answers in chat, but only press enter after a countdown hits 0.

Definitely consider running orientation at the start of a new raid tier! It’s a fun way to reconnect with your team if there’s been some time off between raids or a bunch of new players coming in. It helps set the tone for the rest of the tier and gets everyone primed as to what expectations will be like.

Lastly, I don’t know how I feel about the slides and how they were designed. I sure wish we had more Warcraft related looking assets in them though!

BlizzCon 2023 Reactions

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Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend BlizzCon this year, but a large group of the DJ’s contingent was there to represent. I fully intend to make a comeback next year. Everyone was expecting one expansion announcement and we were all blown away by the fact Blizzard took the time to announce three. I guess the leak and fantasy expansion idea communities will be taking a break for the next few years until this upcoming story arc concludes. It feels nice to see Anduin again as he enters his Chris Pine phase.

Let’s talk about some of the announcements, shall we?

  • Warbands: Good! This might be the system I look forward to the most, especially with the way alts are handled. I’ve got something like 7 competitive alts and it’s time consuming to keep them all rep relevant when all I really want to do is jump into dungeons and raids with them. Shared bank and shared reputation are much needed, and it will ultimately free up time for us players to do other things that we enjoy more.
  • Delves: Okay! I’m going to hold off on weighing in decisively until I see it in action. It’s a neat concept and it brings back all th e scenario and island (BFA) type content we’ve had before in the past. No role specific queues? That’s okay too. It does seem like it’s building upon the escape room type content we’ve had this expansion with the Sniffen digs.
  • World content vault: Good! Sorry PvP bros. This one’s a good change ut at least you get extra currency to buy armor pieces now.
  • Hero talents: Good! Another way to help further distinguish classes from each other. I do wonder if there’s intent to mess around with existing talent trees or if the dev team is satisfied with it’s overall look.
  • Transmog cross armor: Good! I love going on transmog farm runs on my Priest, but our groups bring one of each type so we can freely trade, but with this change I don’t have to feel sad about vendoring armor items my class can’t use anymore that no one wants.
  • Cross-realm guilds: Good! This is going to impact our guild philosophy going forward since we normally expect trials to transfer over, but this is a barrier that’s lifted where there is no financial burden to players right away and if they enjoy our atmosphere, they can pop over.
  • Dynamic flight: Okay! More cosmetic than anything else and it’s neat that we can enjoy the new Dragonflying mechanics while zipping around on other flying mounts.

Of all the BlizzCons to miss, maybe this was the one that was worth missing out on. I heard there were so many problems with the seating issues and lack of activations (or activities) inside the con. I wonder how much of that was due to time. Normally, Blizzard starts planning BlizzCon in January but since there were still some partial health restrictions in place. Maybe that affected the work of their event team and shortened that time line. Still, I hope they learn from their lessons here. Ultimately, I don’t really go to BlizzCon for the stuff to do there and I continue to maintain that your BlizzCon experience is what you make of it. For me, it was always about meeting up with my friends and enjoying their company.

It’s like a family reunion you actually want to go to, and that’s where that appeal was for me.

State of the Jesters

Roster is currently sitting at 26 players. Our immediate needs continue to be a Rogue and a Warrior. We’re standing pat on range, but would accept another Shadow Priest. We have raid orientation coming up this weekend (future post) which will set expectations and foundations for our team heading into the tier. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to rest because I’ve been on a recruiting blitz for the past 8 weeks. I’ve held as many as 8 interviews in a week.

Next thing for me is setting up our defensive usages before our raid week begins. I get a chance to jump into the raid early with my third Priest to get an early look at some of the bosses and how to handle them.

State of the Jesters: Entering the Emerald Dream

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It’s official, raiding has been suspended until the next raid tier. I tried my best to keep it going but with turnover higher than normal and the constant wipes on Zskarn, it was felt we were doing more harm than good. A few players ended their trial and a few of our veterans wanted to take some time to play other games for a bit before returning for Emerald Dream. It sucks because we only killed Sark once and those of us who patiently waited on the sideline won’t have a crack at it. We’re currently at a roster of 22 , and I’ve been diligently looking for players. I have to be honest and transparent with them during our trial conversations about where we’re at raidwise. Many of them understood the situation we were in. Since I’m recruiting specifically for the next raid instead of for right now, this opens up the recruiting pool significantly. The recruiting communities seem to be a little more subdued at the moment with not as much activity going on, but I suspect that’ll ramp up in the next few weeks as players are looking to return. This feels like the precursor to Season 1 Vault of the Incarnate all over again. The plan is to bolster our ranks back up to 27 to 30 players or so. We finished US 300 in Aberrus, but my projection is that we’re going to drop down to US 400 – 500 range for the next tier. If you’re looking for a raid team (or community), come check us out!

In a change of pace, we did schedule one of our raid nights to step into the PTR though. There was a weekend where normal Emerald Dream was available and we all had good looks at some of the boss abilities and our own class changes in a raid environment. Without anyone around to take that mantle internally, I’ve had to start designing the raid playbook for all of the bosses. I’ve got the movement and major abilities diagrammed and what the overall strategy is. The next step is to put together a draft of healing and raid defensives but we can’t do that just yet until Viserio’s comes out with a new sheet. We have around 6 or so weeks to prepare and get as much information put together. Once that’s done, we schedule one of our raid nights for a film review day where we sit in Discord and go through all of the encounters with PTR footage, maps, and other important parts for the briefing. We started doing this back in Vault and Aberrus and felt that it was effective with player preparation. They still have the ability to go through raid material individually, but some players tend to learn well in a group environment on a Discord call and it lets us all ask each other questions or highlight key moments in an encounter that need to be more thoroughly explained.

Aside from that, there’s still a lot more housekeeping we have to do.

  • Raiding road map: This usually falls on the GMs shoulders here. We have a better idea of this after the first week where we lay out what nights are for normal, to heroic, and when we start mythic raiding along with when reclears should occur and when we start raid extensions.
  • Loot council: Right now, it’s a loot dictatorship and it’s all me! But I’m not smart enough to figure that out on my own which means appointing new members. We can’t do this without…
  • Loot wish lists: We use Readycheck.io for this but it isn’t updated for Emerald Dream quite yet.
  • Raid Plan: Where I’ve been doing the bulk of our playbook design. About halfway there, but still missing some information.
  • Defensive CDs: One of our trials volunteered to take a crack at this once it’s released.

Guild administration is challenging stuff but satisfying when it works. I wish I could clone myself a few times to help with everything that needs to be done.

The Crucial Skill Separating CE Players from Mythic Players

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“I’m so dead.”

Three magic words.

That’s all it takes for every player in the raid to overwhelm that raider with defensives and support to help them stay alive. It’s almost always a tank too! Here’s the sequence of events that inevitably follows.

  • Holy Priests casts Guardian Spirit
  • Paladin casts Hand of Sacrifice
  • Evoker casts Time Dilation
  • Resto Druid casts Barksin
  • Enhancement Shaman casts Ancestral Guidance
  • Demon Hunter burns Darkness
  • Warrior Intervenes
  • Rogue… uses a bandage (okay, this one’s not realistic)

But really, this is the technique that tanks tend to use when they absolutely need something because they’ve run out of tools to survive. The best tanks use an addon like OmniCD which shows what defensives are available and displays them all under the player frame or somewhere else readable so they can specifically call for it. To me, that’s the mark of a reliable tank who knows how to layer not just their own defensives but those of other players around them.

What about non-tanks? Surely DPS and healers can exhibit this behaviour as well. If you haven’t realized it yet, it’s called communication. It’s practically expected for CE players to have mics of their own and to actually use them.

Back when we were progressing on Echo of Neltharion, I vividly remember one play that stood out to me. Our Shadow Priest had to traverse from oneside of the room to the other. His feather charges were all gone and he was seconds away from getting lethaled by a Volcanic Heart. Warlock gate chages were already used. He said, “Help! Liszt* needs a grip now!”

*Not his real name.

One of our Evokers managed to swoop in and lift him to safety keeping the pull going and sparing a much needed Battle Res for phase 3. This was learned behaviour because he ran into this same situation early on in previous pulls and ran out of solutions from his own toolkit. The coaching takeaway during the post-wipe review was that he needed to prepare for this situation in the future and ask for a lift if he didn’t have any remaining movement speed abilities left.

I’ll give you another story.

On Zskarn, we hit one of the overlaps where bombs spawned right before a knockback. One of our raiders was unable to evade it fast enough which pushed him into a bomb. He recognized it early and managed to use a defensive right before impact to slow it down, but he was also quick enough to ask for help and managed to survive the subsequent damage with a Hand of Sacrifice and focused healing until it wore off. Had he not said anything, he most likely would’ve taken lethal damage.

Here’s a story of a player error and what the coaching remedy looked like.

This is the same boss fight on Zskarn and one of our hunters was assigned to bomb duty. In this situation, a Tactical Destruction had gone off and the bombs were located within the Tactical Destruction affected area. Unfortunately, the Hunter had no way to safely get it. We ended up wiping and during the post-wipe discussion, we dissected the cause. When we found out it was due to blown Hunter coverage and a lack of personal immunity, we asked what could’ve been done differently and he didn’t know. I was upset at that remark but I kept that to myself. Our raid composition happened to include a pair of Paladins (one Protection, one Holy). He could have asked for a Hand of Protection and safely gone in for the bomb. Failing that, he could have also said, “Help! Can’t get bombs, need backup in Tactical”. This indicates the urgency of the situation that he’s not in a position to absorb a bomb hit and that someone else needs to do it right away. The Holy Paladin could’ve bubbled and used their movement speed horse or cast Blessing of Protection to get in there and neutralize the bomb. In that situation, no one is going to ask Hunter, “Well why can’t you get the bomb?”. That would be ridiculous.

The lesson I want to impart here is that when you’re caught in a situation with a blown assignment, it’s okay to ask for help and backup. Raid leaders will mostly have built this into the plan ahead of time. If they didn’t, they will now. Delicate parts of an encounter tend to be things like soaks or interrupts, and there will be times on progression where you as a player will miss it because you’re dead or you accidentally used an ability at the wrong time or you’re completely out of range and out of position. That is okay. CE Players have to be comfortable asking for help backup. Someone else will bail you out to keep the pull going because that’s what needs to happen. There are 20 players in the raid and chances are someone can step in to cover you. If they can’t, then the raid leader needs to find a solution in case that situation happens again.

However, you don’t want to make this a habit of missing a mechanic repeatedly or you might get viewed as unreliable.

In other words:

  • If you’re going to miss an interrupt, ask for help.
  • If you’re going to miss a soak, ask for help.
  • If you think you’re about to die from big damage, ask for help.
  • If you think you’re not fast enough to get safety, ask for help.

There’s no reason to hesitate in these situations whether you’re a trial or a veteran raider.  Can’t always expect to do everything on your own. Learn to rely on your team.

 

Rebooting the Team

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We’ve had a lot of turnover recently since our first Mythic Sarkareth kill. This is the first week where we got to see the full force of our trials enter into our system and see what they can do against a battery of raid bosses. We did get a good look at all of them and finished the weekend at Zskarn. Lots of close wipes under 10% but for a significant number, it was progression (myself included since I wasn’t there for the kill). Truth be told, those were my expectations. With that big of a brain drain, I knew it was going to be a struggle and that there would be no way we would end up in front of Sarkareth or Echo in the span of a reset. Still, things look promising. Every boss from here on out is going to be new for me since I stepped aside for the sake of progression early on and knowing that I wasn’t the best healer for it then.

I’m beginning to regret that decision now knowing how hard of an uphill battle it’s going to be just to secure that reclear. I was pretty pissed at the number of players looking to move on right away. There were even some who cowardly left without so much as saying goodbye to everyone which left me both disappointed and furious. If you’re going to leave a raid team after being with them for multiple tiers, don’t just ghost everyone. It’s a complete bush league move.

There are other departures underway and thankfully they gave us notice ahead of time. I’ve got at least a few weeks to look for additional replacements but that clock is already ticking. I’m not too worried. I’ve helped assemble raid teams before in the past. This expansion was no different. I helped upgrade the roster from Shadowlands when we were satisfied with AotC and mid-mythic and converted the team to a CE-level raid group and I can do it again. What saddens me the most is all the players that planned to bail right away. I wish they all could’ve stayed a bit longer to help those of us on the sideline secure CE before checking out (y’know, like me). Some want to move up and push rankings right away, others can’t sustain the weekend schedule anymore. It sucks, I get it. There isn’t even a date announced for season 3 raids and people want to quit and leave? It sucks but all I can really do is move forward. Can’t fault them for wanting to move on and push their rankings higher up but I don’t quite see the rush to do so right now since it’s not like the next raid tier’s going to come out in a few weeks and they need to get situated fast. In any case, it’s their decision and I hope everyone lands where they want to be.

To compound matters further, the GM has announced that he’ll be scaling back his raid involvement. He’ll still be around to help and hopefully be a body, but organizationally will hand off a lot of his duties. That means things like attendance, loot council, recruiting, raid calling, and strategy design be off the plate. I can take care of and hustle on the recruiting side of things. We have a few players stepping in to handle raid calling and defensives. Attendance and groups are easy to put together. The biggest gap is strategy design and that is something that needs to be solidified for season 3. We can get by with our current polaybook for the reason of season 2.

This must be what Bill felt like when Brady left for Tampa and when his offensive coaches left for other positions. Lots of pieces to pick up and put together.

My list right now:

  • Augmentation Evoker
  • DPS Warrior
  • Ret Paladin
  • Resto Druid (or a Disc Priest)
  • Preservation Evoker
  • Holy Paladin
  • Mages

We still have the personnel to raid this week and extend on Zskarn. There’s a marginal benefit to doing a reclear and just isn’t worth the time. We have open spots so come check us out.