Matticus

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

Mythic Raszageth Defeated!

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It’s official! Death Jesters is now 8/8 Mythic and we’ve achieved our first Cutting Edge since Ny’alotha. It feels great to be back on top again. The final series of nerfs was enough to push through that finish line.

Here’s the kill clip.

Here’s the notebook for the week.

  • The final pull count is 188: Depending on who you ask, it actually was 208. Apparently, the 20 or so pulls we had while the GM happened to be away that one night didn’t count, so we’re going by his as the official.
  • Phase 3 clinch: Victory was just about assured the moment we entered phase 3 with everyone alive. I didn’t think it was that close. We only had 3 total looks into the third phase before Rasz fell on that final attempt.
  • Pre-pull briefing: Before raid started, we all watched a short 5 minute video together that outlined how to approach the second intermission. The different groups were laid out and their priority targets were assigned. There are three big storm elementals in this phase and we couldn’t let three small groups of storm ads reach any of the big ads (lest they heal them). Every stun and snare had to be planned and the movements had to be choreographed. I would say this saved about 20 pulls and I hope this is a practice that continues more in future tiers. Sometimes there are questions you don’t think about when you’re watching a video on your own which might pop up when you’re watching together as a group.
  • Second intermission woes: Lots to unpack in this phase. Everyone had to be precise in their crowd control. It took a lot of coordination from everyone to successfully get through it.
  • The reclear: Not sure if we’re going to be able to get everyone their CE titles (myself included). There’s only three or so weeks left in this raid tier. The biggest bottle necks are going to be Dathea and Broodkeeper respectively
  • The roster: We knew this ahead of time, but our tank was going to retire the moment we defeated Rasz. We have a stop gap measure for now with one of the melee DPS switching to and gearing a tank but who knows if they can get acclimated in that time frame. From a roster position, I’ve been asked to keep a lookout for a tank, a Death knight (DPS), ranged DPS, and a healer to help provide us with flexibility heading into the summer.

Our raid group was vastly different at the end of Shadowlands compared to what we have now that killed Rasz. Stepping into the expansion, the leadership group decided that CE was going to be the eventual goal. We didn’t know how long it would take. In my experience, it would take at least 2 or 3 tiers to go from an AotC roster to make the jump to a CE roster. I didn’t think early on that we would be able to get there. It wasn’t until we defeated Broodkeeper that I felt we had a chance. Constant recruiting on the forums, in the WoW Discord recruitment servers, and Raider IO paid off as that’s where I was able to locate players and have them apply if I felt that matched what we were looking for. We must’ve gone through something like 30 players over the course of the tier (between trials that were accepted who succeeded and those who did not pass) out of maybe 110 or so applicants.

So what’s next?

We’re getting some new players who we accepted but haven’t had an opportunity to shine yet. They’ll participate in the reclear. We’ll try to get another Raszageth clear but I’ll rest easy even if I’m not able to get it this time around. Any players entertaining the idea of character switches or role changes have to alert the leadership so we can see what our roster looks like and what we can accommodate. Work has begun on planning out a strategy for the next raid bosses, then we’ll start sprinting right out of the gate. We finish this tier at US 363. Not bad at all.

Healing Mythic Kurog

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Initial Setup

For talents, I recommend running something like this one. 

BEQA16pR6xQxvK1VWhXk+w0/GQDAAAAAAAQhoFSSiESJkk0okQJAAAAAkkWokkDAlISEEUKBJJkCA

Divine Star’s a must here just due to the positioning of the raid. You’ll get the most out of it with your whole raid grouped the way it is.

Recommended WeakAuras

Left Right: https://wago.io/rlubMIWq5

The Fight Overview

Our plan involves starting on fire and going to full energy before entering intermission and activating both the fire and storm elementals. After that, we enter earth before the second intermission involving the earth and frost elementals. We finish in frost and hope Kurog is defeated before the enrage begins. Stay well clear of the storm altar.

Figure out your soak group immunities in advance for the fire altar. Paladins, Rogues, and Hunters are great for this.

Phase 1 – Fire Altar

Here’s the route that we end up with. The ranged group and the melee group are quite close to each other (about 2 pandas apart). Try to squeeze as much damage as you can here. I like to let Prayer of Mending do the bulk of the lifting. I drop Divine Word buffed Holy Word: Sanctify in such a way that it can capture both the range and melee groups.

For progression’s sake, practice moving as pixel-perfect as possible. The range group wants to drop the fires on top of each other as close as possible to allow for easy soaking of the Raging Infernos.

On the second Searing Carnage, I’ll move to safety and then fire off a Divine Hymn during that stage. Once Searing Carnage ends, I’ll race back to the group stack and immediately cast Holy Word: Salvation (there should be enough time before the Raging Inferno lands.

At this point, the first intermission should begin.

First Intermission

Immediately Hymn of Hope, then dodge any damaging AoE and start chugging a Potion of Frozen Focus until you’re back up to full (or near full).

A Note About Lethal Current
The Thundering Ravager seems to target then teleport to a healer. Our healers stay near the Blazing Fiend to try to bait the Thundering Ravager to teleport over near the fire ad. Then the healer runs out, the tank then intercepts Lethal Current (because it channels that spell into the closest player). The tank then runs the Lethal Current out allowing DPS and healers to continue.

When Blazing Fiend casts Searing Carnage, anyone not targeted by the ad moves toward the center of the room (but not dead center, just to an edge). Anyone that is targeted with Searing Carnage is going to slowly move their way to that same area and survive. Once again, this allows the Thundering Ravager to teleport to that center area allowing for maximum cleave on both ads.

Upon this initial searing carnage, everyone moves towards the circle taking care to avoid fire.

This also has the added benefit of setting up the raid in the best possible position to soak the Thunder Strike circles. Ranged should soak any far ones, melee can step into any that are close to the two ads. Healers should not soak in any unless there’s no other option.

Your raid’s damage is in a great spot if the Thundering Ravager gets defeated before the Blazing Fiend casts its next Searing Carnage.

Your raid’s damage is lacking if the Thundering Ravager casts a second Thunder Strike (in which case, it’s a wipe).

Phase 2 – Earth Altar

Now we get to the real healing intensive part of the encounter.

If you have the raid glows Weak Aura, it’ll highlight the players affected by Enveloping Earth (the thick healing absorb). Prioritize your single target spells on those players to remove it. If a tank happens to catch it and they’re not at full, I would hit them with Guardian Spirit right away.

This is the tricky part. There will come a moment where Kurog casts Erupting Bedrock, and then the Earthwrought Smasher will also cast Erupting Bedrock. Dodge the one from Kurog, then the one from the Smasher, and plant yourself in a safe spot for a Divine Hymn. I’ll wait a few seconds and by now my Holy Word: Salvation should be off cooldown. I’ll cast it again here to help us get to the end of this phase. This is the definitive healing check.

Second Intermission

In this intermission phase, we will tackle the Frozen Destroyer and the Tectonic Crusher. Initial DPS should be focused on the Frozen Destroyer. Like Heroic, run the earth circles outside of the group and drop them off.

Important: Identify the players with immunities (Ice Blocks, Paladin Bubbles, Hunter Turtles, etc). When the Frozen Destroyer casts Absolute Zero, those players should stay out of the first one. When the Destroyer casts Absolute Zero a second time, it should target the players that didn’t stand in it the first time thereby allowing them to immune the second Absolute Zero and take the circles outside of the group.

I have time to cast Hymn of Hope and take another Potion of Frozen Focus towards the end of this phase (usually when one ad is dead so that the healing is a little less intensive).

Phase 3 – Frost Altar

There should be two groups set up here: One for melee and one for ranged. Both groups will be soaking the first set of Absolute Zeros. Great spot for a damage reduction or a Rallying Cry. On the second set, you’ll want to sacrifice the two players that get them.

This is the final push to get the boss defeated here and if you run into the enrage, it’s a quick wipe. Dodge the orbs from both Kurog and the Frostwrought Dominator.

Now you get to move onwards to Dathea!

Matt’s Notebook: Mythic Raszageth, Week 2

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Finished our second week on Raszageth!

  • Primordial Stones: It’s a good thing we raid later in the week. While starting out severely undertuned and dismissed, the rapid series of buffs and balances quickly propelled their usage up. It gave our team enough time to acquire the necessary stones and get them leveled up for our weekend raid progression. Even though I didn’t expect to be in, I had an Annulet loadout which included a Wild Spirit Stone, Exuding Steam Stone, and a Deluging Water Stone strictly for raid and the healing that might be needed. For Mythic dungeons, I have a Desirous Blood Stone, Prophetic Twilight Stone, and a Pestilent Plague Stone.
  • More progress: Not only did we advance into phase 2, we also had some excellent looks at intermission 2 with the three big elemental ads! Next areas of focus is solidifying and reinforcing mechanical play during phase 2 and getting more repetitions on intermission 2. If we can stabilize that, we move onto the final platform!

That’s it. That’s the only update. We’re pretty close. Our pull count is at about 114.

 

Matt’s Notebook: Mythic Raszageth, Week 1

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We’ve officially started Raszageth’s progression! Technically it’s been after 3 days of pulls with solid, notable progress. A few of the highlights involved getting looks at the first intermission with everyone alive. The nerfs from the previous week made a world of difference. We’re dialed in now. There will be no more reclears until Rasz is defeated so our only upgrades will come from weekly caches.

  • Credit to our tanks: One of the more challenging parts here is maneuvering this giant freight train of a boss into the correct position and maximizing available space for the pushback. Our newest healer offered a method that worked out productively and Rasz has consistent positioning at the start now. I daresay this saved us a few pulls.
  • Evoker necessity: Rescue and Time Dilation are crucial. It’s actually why I’m the odd Panda out due to lack of movement. I can’t afford the race change to a Void elf for the gate (even with the sale). Which means I get to sit on the sideline drinking a mojito as I watch the stream.
  • Damage: Speaking of consistency, we started out getting five sets of pushbacks. Ideally, we want to phase just after four, but at least we can plan for five. With sparks coming up immediately after the fifth, we have to drop them off in the middle instead of at the edge like we normally do.
  • Survivability: Absolutely a must. The DPS checks are simply too valuable. Can’t afford any deaths in phase one. I’ve been told by friends that this is the hardest part of the entire encounter and it gets easier from there. It’s absolutely distressing to me when players jeoporize their survivability to eke out extra damage when healers are stressed enough as is and not even able to make a play to save them. Things like beams, spark damage, or bomb drops in the right spot all seem little but they all add up. Have to reinforice general usage of health potions and healthstones just to live in the first phase and not be greedy
  • Intermission: The focus on the next few raid nights is load balancing intermission groups to distribute damage. I wish we had some extra grief torches lying around to help. But already, we’ve made some changes to both sides and switching player spots around.
  • Roster needs: I’m looking to add a Death Knight (priority), Hunter, and a healer to our roster. It’s unlikely that any would see time on Rasz right now unless they had experience and pulls. But at this point of the tier, we would be looking to augment and reinforce our roster for season 2. Check out more information on our Raider IO page, or apply now.

For now, it’s back to stone farming. Many of them have been buffed recently (multiple times). I haven’t quite figured out the setup I want to get on my Priest just yet.

How to be an Effective 21st Raider

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What exactly is the 21st Raider? Mythic raid sizes only go up to 20! Think of the 21st raider as a coach. No doubt you’ve heard of some of the top end guilds utilizing the position of a 21st raider to help with encounters. We use this extensively in DJs and it’s been beneficial for us. An orchestral conductor will often cue various sections during key entries (like the brass in Raiders March from Indiana Jones) even though they should already know this if they’re keeping time. That emphasis helps ensure that everyone is in sync. Likewise, the 21st raider can function the same way and help remind the raid what’s about to happen and how they should respond. It’s one less mental load that raiders need to keep at the forefront. I remember back during Shadowlands when we were progressing on Stone Legion Generals that there was often confusion between the big shared soak versus the individual solo soak (that involved running out and dropping circles). Having a reminder would have helped cut down on the number of pulls until we had it ingrained.

What you’re not there to do is to tell each player how to play their class unless it’s an integral part of the encounter (like Warlock gates or reminding them of defensive CDs). The big advantage of this is that it removes some of the thinking required for players and allows them to fully focus and commit to their rotation while staying alive. They still have to do some of the mechanics (because you’re not in there to do it for them), but a prompt or a reminder can go a long way, especially when progressing on a new boss. Encounters are getting increasingly complex, especially at the Mythic level.

So what does it take to be effective in that role?

Before we start that, we need to over the setup. Someone needs to stream their perspective to you so that you can see what’s going on.

How to Stream a Point of View Efficiently

Make sure the selected raider has a fast and stable internet connection with a great upload speed. This will allow them to stream at a high quality. They’ll want to stream at least in 1080 or higher with 60 FPS if possible. We use Discord for this.

Screenshot of a UI showing raid timers, ability bars, and available CDs.
  • Have Raid Notes Displayed: Your MRT window with the note should be displayed on the side somewhere. I like to position mine on the far left portion of my screen.
  • Show Raid Cooldowns: The raid caller will need to see who has what available in case they need to audible a defensive in the event a player dies or boss ability timing changes partway through the encounter. With MRT, it has the ability to display raid cooldowns. I personally use a combination of Weak Auras for this with Zen Tracker (Zera DF Update), and the ZT Front-End Textual. I can never remember what raid icons correspond with what abilities and I prefer having the names of both players and abilities.
  • Boss Ability Timers: This one’s obvious. In order for the raid caller to do their job, they need to see what’s about to happen. Place your Bigwigs or DBM bars somewhere prominent. I prefer using the Raid Ability Timeline Weak Aura which condenses all the abilities into a timeline view but it can still be done with bars.

What information is important to call?

As the group progresses through the fight, the 21st raider’s responsibilities might change from phase to phase or as the group gets more progressed in the encounter. Balance important and relevant information with minimalism. Brad Pitt once told Matt Damon to not use seven words when four will do. So channel your inner Brad Pitt!

Critical abilities: Figure out what’s important and what isn’t. As the group first learns about the encounter, certain abilities have to be highlighted to remind the raid what’s about to happen and how to respond. But as they get more familiar, these types of calls can be reduced because of the ingrained muscle memory. After 4 or so pulls, you don’t need to remind people to line up pillars on Terros or to always drop puddles behind Eranog.

Examples

Terros: “Stack for soak, line up pillars”
Eranog: “Puddles behind boss.”

Upcoming cooldowns: As your players start learning the damage patterns, it helps to reinforce which players are using raid cooldowns next. All it takes is a gentle reminder. Name the player and the spell so that they know. You may have to be prepared to call an audible in case that healer isn’t able to commit their defensive cooldown to it. Maybe they died early or you phased ahead of schedule and the spell isn’t available yet. Get creative. It’s not just cooldowns here because consumables play a part and even at this level, players often forget they have it available or choose not to use it (I call this the Megalixir effect).

Examples

Council: “Next Fire Axe is an Aura Mastery.”

Raszageth: “First shield in 3, this is DPS potions and Matt’s Divine Hymn.”

Terros: “This tank slam is a Health Potion.”

Raid movement: Another good one to mention is for upcoming player movements. You’re directing traffic and reminding the team where to go to drop off any important debuffs. This might also involve instructing when Warlock gates need to be used. Not just that, but this is great for any stacking or spread-out motions. On specific fights, you can wave off the group from soaking (like Kurog if a Mage has the frost bomb that they can Ice Block).

Examples

Sennarth: “Wait for Chilling, then take gate up the stairs.”

Kurog: “Freezing Tempest, stack in now.”

Dathea (Mythic): “NO MORE dunks on blue, all dunks on green.”

DPS Priority Targets: This one’s an easy one to miss especially for melee players. There are going to be bosses where adds will appear and they can show up in a part of the map that isn’t quite so obvious. On the flip side, it’s also necessary to issue stop DPS instructions in case you want to slow down damage so that you don’t enter a phase you’re not quite equipped for yet.

Examples

Sennarth: “Spider spawn in 3, get ready.”

Dathea: “Need to move Infuser, all stop DPS.”

Battle Res: Not every player that dies has to get resurrected right away. When the group progress is getting close to a kill, it might be better served to hold one in reserve just in case a more critical player dies (like a tank or a healer). This also applies for Shamans because they might have died in a bad spot and they can’t use their own self resurrection. If there are multiple players dead with a limited number of resurrects, it’s time to decide who will be more valuable alive. Maybe you don’t need the extra healer on their feet but you have to have extra DPS instead to help with the final push. Or there’s two DPS players down but one has offensive CDs available and the other does not. Lastly, not only do you want to control who takes the res but also when they should take the res. I’ve seen instances where the res is cast in a bad position or there’s an ability about to occur that makes it unsafe. Be prepared to say wait!

All that being said, work with the raid group to see what information is and isn’t necessary anymore. I hope this helps you become better at helping your raid. Players might find as they’re getting better that specific calls are getting redundant and don’t need to be mentioned. You’re there to function as a guide and to help reduce some of that mental load until it becomes second nature.