Matticus

This has been another productive week for both teams as we continue to make a strong progression push.

• Death Jesters manages to clear out Stix. The first set of pulls is frustrating just due to trash ball management but we had to really reiterate the responsibility of everyone playing in their zone and trying to roll up the add trash. Communication is also critical here in case a player is unable to build up enough trash to get their bomb.
• Sprocket feels like a much more conceptually easy boss as we already know the moves that have to happen while simultaneously managing the red and blue separation required. Our best Sprocket pull was 49% on the first day.
• We’re still looking to add a sixth healer to the team to help round out the roster. A Disc Priest, a Resto Druid, or an Evoker would be ideal. You can apply here!
• Last Call jumps back into Mythic after missing last week and gets a kill on Vexie again and a new kill on Cauldron. I opted to sit myself on that one because I have a concert coming up in a few weeks and my Mondays have been commandeered for final rehearsal purposes. As opposed to coming in for an hour rather than leaving, I felt it was better to give the extra reps to someone else who might be here to land the kill. Now our focus is tuned to Rik Reverb. Our best pull managed to get him down to 49% but we were using a 3 tank strategy for this. However, I’m not sure if it’s going to be as viable continuing forward since the tank debuff will continue to climb and we’re short the required damage to destroy all the bomb.
• Two trials have ended, and we continue to look at adding a Warlock or some other range DPS. We’re also lacking a Rogue debuff. Apply to Last Call here!

Don’t really have any other thoughts this week. Just need to continue preparing the team and scout out for additional players to add to the rosters for the next set of bosses coming up. Onwards!

In both DJs and Last Call, I handle the recruiting. Even though there are a few players who help with the outreach or bring certain players to my attention, I’m usually the guy who does the outward messaging to invite them to apply. One of my raiders recently questioned me about my recruiting process. Specifically, they took issue with one of the questions I ask during interviews: “How many progression bosses would you be comfortable sitting out for?”

If we’re working through a 10-boss raid, what’s the threshold for stepping aside when necessary?

To them, this question sends the wrong message. They argued that any serious Cutting Edge CE applicant should answer with “none.” They should want to be in for every fight if they’re dedicated enough. Otherwise, we’re attracting the wrong type of player (someone who’s willing to bench themselves rather than push for a spot).

I disagree.

Why It Matters

Progression raiding isn’t just about personal skill. It’s about the team. A CE focused raid group isn’t just 20 players! A solid roster is anywhere between 23 to 26, all working toward the same goal. While every player in that roster is talented, not every class, spec, or player skill set fits every boss encounter. Some fights require different tools, and it’s the raid leader’s job to optimize for success.

A great raider understands that. They recognize that their contribution isn’t just about their uptime on a boss but about what’s best for the kill. They don’t see sitting as a punishment; they see it as part of the bigger picture.

The “Me” vs “We” Mindset

A player who answers “I wouldn’t sit for any bosses” might think they’re showing dedication, but what they’re really signaling is inflexibility. Maybe they don’t trust leadership to make the right calls. Maybe they put their playtime above the raid’s progress. Either way, that mindset is dangerous in a progression guild.

On the flip side, any player who says, “I’d prefer to be in every fight, but I trust the leadership to make the best decision for the team” is exactly the kind of person we want. That response shows commitment, trust, and awareness, which are player aspects that are just as valuable as mechanical play and damage.

Building a Stronger Roster

The best rosters have depth. They have players who are not only willing to step in when needed but also willing to step out when it benefits the team. Having a few players who can confidently say, “I’d be okay sitting if it makes the fight easier for the raid” means we have a mature, team-focused group that won’t fall apart over a bench decision.

Regarding that roster construction, I don’t want players who want to sit. I want players who understand why sometimes they need to. That’s the difference between a good raider and a great one. There’s no real wrong answer to the question, as it just indicates the player’s preference. Sometimes a player wants to be in all the time as much as possible, and that’s okay if it can be justified.

It was a close one this week for both teams. Some big success with Last Call, while Death Jesters came up just slightly short.

• Death Jesters recleared all of our farm in one day. We’ve essentially removed the front half of normal difficulty from the raid schedule. This week we’re dropping normal entirely and focusing on the remaining back portion of Heroic in order to allocate more time for Mythic progression. Our second day of raid was spent entirely on Stix Bunkjunker. I wasn’t in on this one, but I watched our team here. Some of the key differences are that the ads seem more numerous, and now there are pylons around the room that zap players. Scrapmasters have been upgraded to where they can inflict lethal damage. We’re still looking to add a strong Disc Priest to the team, along with both a ranged and melee DPS. Come apply!
• Over at Last Call, we cleared two new progression bosses with Mug’zee and now Gallywix defeated. We spent all of day 2 on Gallywix. It was a bit of a rough start than I liked. There were some raid calling and positioning issues, but we were able to get that settled, and once we started grooving, the rest of it came together quite nicely, with the kill happening on the last pull of the night.
• Our raid preparation needs work and it’s frustrating to me the calibre of questions I’m having to field when we’re inside the instance and at the boss. More on this topic another time.
• The unfortunate side effect of the kill taking place at the end meant that no Mythic progress was made at all this week. We had to make a decision part way through the night. We were reaching a point where we had the option to continue with Gallywix or pivot to Mythic. I made the call to continue with Gallywix as I felt opening up the vault was more valuable in the long run as opposed to killing one boss in Mythic and not getting a mythic vault slot anyway since we hadn’t prepared anything for Cauldron of Carnage.
• I’m starting to feel some fatigue. There’s a lot of decision-making that needs to be done in addition to a lot of preparation that needs to be handled during the week before the raid. I don’t feel as I’m getting the support and help I need at times either at the leadership level or the raider level. When I agreed to join the team in a leadership capacity, I agreed to take on the raid leading side with strategy, assignments, and cooldowns. I also agreed to manage the recruiting and outreach for potential players to join the team. But, I would not want any involvement in setting the weekly roster, managing trial feedback and evaluation, raid disciplinary action, or loot management (like loot council decisions). If asked, I can weigh in on those aspects, though I did not want to be in any decision-making or action-taking capacity. It’s starting to feel like those boundaries are beginning to get encroached and that the leadership team is reluctant or unwilling to take decisive action when it’s needed, so I have to do it in a few of the cases. I’ll have to continue to reaffirm boundaries or try to get some additional help somewhere. In the mean time, I’m looking to add a Warlock, a DPS Monk, and a Rogue. Feel free to apply to this team as well!

That was quite a surprise for us and completely unexpected. We entered this week with our goals being an AotC Heroic clear followed by Cauldron attempts. Let’s get into it, shall we?

• First up with Death Jesters, we made a massive progression jump this past week. We were just short of getting Mug’zee down the previous week and with the first week of vaults and more set bonuses complete, we made another run at him again. After we made relatively quick work of Heroic Mug’zee (about four pulls), we stormed into Gallywix’s chambers and crushed him as well. We used 6 healers there, and it was an incredibly intensive healing encounter. It did feel cyclical towards the end. Once we got the moves down between going into melee to help soak and stepping back out to avoid large explosions, it became straightforward. With Gallywix down, we still had time left, and now, the real work was about to begin, and Mythic Undermine was looming. Vexie was picked apart quite handily, and I admit I could’ve done a better job trying to work with oils and dunking them. I was so focused in on healing (because we dropped down to 4 healers instead of our first week of 5) that I just didn’t bother trying for them. I caught an oil barrel at the end of the fight and I didn’t even notice it. We moved upwards to Cauldron of Carnage afterward. There were some learning pulls involved there and I had to work with one of our Evokers to help ferry me over to safety during intermission a few times so I could safely plant and fire out a quick Divine Hymn to keep players alive. Overall, it was a bit of a dirty kill with many of the team on the ground. With a little over an hour left, we moved on to Rik Reverb to try to get a few pulls in there and get accustomed to the positioning and placement of amplifiers. Went down to 3 healers here to try to push for the extra damage. The first few pulls went great, and Rik was dropped down to the 30% range early on. On our kill attempt, Rik had around 400 million left, and our raid leader made the call just to focus Rik down instead and ignore whatever adds and… it worked! Again, we limped into that kill with most of the raid down, but we did it. We end the week at 3/9 Mythic. We’ve got to temper our expectations, though, because I don’t know if we’ll able to make those kinds of gains again this week and get Stix to fall over like that either. We’re at the point now where we can safely take most of normal off of our raid schedule. A lockout was obtained for just the last 3 bosses. This will give us more time to work on the progression stuff.
• That being said, there were some Mythic raid nerfs that were applied to both Stix and Sprocketmonger with this reset which might make it more accessible.
• We experienced some serious roster setbacks this week with three members departing, which means we’ve got some major openings. There is an immediate priority need for a Disc Priest. After that, we’re looking to add a Balance Druid and some other melee class (perhaps a Death Knight or a Windwalker Monk) to help round out our DPS there. With five healers on the roster, it will be perilous, especially as summer is only a few short months away. If you’re interested, drop us an application!
• Not to be entirely outdone, Last Call entered Mythic for the first time this season as well. We did some short work on Vexie, but we still couldn’t get over the wall that is Mug’zee. We came close, though, with around 20% left. I had some trouble deciding where to go because we entered the final hour of our raid, and we knew early on in the week that we could get through Mythic Vexie. The decision came down to either continuing shots on Mug’zee or pivoting over to Vexie and I felt we had a better chance of getting that one down.
• For our Mug’zee attempts next week, I can do a better job of redrawing up our soak orders. We started with an even group 1 and group 2 split for rockets. In hindsight, I should’ve gone down the immunity strategy path instead which would’ve made it a little easier for us on that 3rd rocket overlap (with the 3rd said of jails).
• My recruiting needs for Last Call continue to be for a Warlock, a Windwalker Monk, a Rogue, and some caster DPS (Balance Druid or another Mage). You can apply to that team here. We raid Sunday and Monday from 5 – 8 PM Pacific.
• Blizzard introduced some dungeon nerfs and buffs! I managed to time a 10 Priory this week with the extended timer for that portal, but I’m sad I missed obtaining the Darkflame portal before they nerfed those timings. However, they also made changes to that Corridor Creeper with the dispel, which also makes it more manageable, and that’s a tradeoff I will take.

We’ll see what this week holds!

What a solid start to the week with the new raid and everything that comes with it. Both of my teams took and hit the ground harder than most. I’ve some quick notes about our progression followed by other thoughts. Wasn’t an entirely smooth week though with some server hiccups earlier in the week, but it hasn’t affected our weekend teams.

• Death Jesters exits the week at 1/8 Mythic and 6/8 Heroic. This was a strong opening start to our raid progression. There is so much damn trash in the instance that we resorted to using non-car mounts to get to each boss. We burned it all down real fast or died then resurrected with the trash resetting behind us. Our normal raid was cleared in 65 minutes from end to end. On heroic, we were able to push up to Mugzee before we simply ran out of time, but we also allotted some pulls for Mythic Vexie (which we felt was easier than Heroic Mugzee or Gallywix). They have since made some nerfs to Mugzee, so it should be substantially easier on this go around.
• On the other side, Last Call had some new faces and a slightly larger roster (including a new tank). We cleared 5/8 Heroic and ended up short 3% for One Armed Bandit before enrage. So far, the team seems to be working well but it needs a bit more polish. I feel a little more alone here at the leadership level, and I wish I had some more help with CD planning and other raid assignments. I originally recruited an Aug Evoker, who switched to an Ele Shaman, before settling on a Shadow Priest. It was definitely irritating to start because they were recruited to do one thing, and it impacted my recruiting strategy with the class changes, but he’s performed well since then. Speaking of recruiting, I’m looking to add a Warlock, a Windwalker, and a Balance Druid to help the team. If you know any, send us some!
• Illnesses did wash over the team slightly. One of our priests succumbed and could not raid on day one, which set us back, but I was able to pull a friend in to help heal and take over. I’m a bit annoyed about the at because I did insist that they rest earlier in the week and not stay up too late trying to do keys. We really need to coach players to take care of themselves or something. I can handle a few early days of missed keys, but grinding those keys at the cost of burning out of being able to raid is even worse in my mind.
• I don’t have any clearcut favourite bosses yet in the new raid, as most of them seem pretty fun. Stix took a bit of time for our team to get though but once the trash balls were figured out, it made it much easier. I’ve prepared the Last Call team as best as possible with video clips of key mechanics and how to respond to them along with raid plans, but there’s still a lack of awareness or preparation of how to respond to certain things. Even so, most of the team did their homework ahead of time, which affected our progress in a good way.
• The dungeon grind has been surprisingly much smoother. I timed my first 10+ key earlier this week. It feels nice early on to sit at the 6 to 8 key range and get Hero gear and gilded crests without having to fight to slam 8s to 10s.
• The ilvl gap between top to bottom in Last Call is quite wide, and I’ve been trying to help people with their keys at the lower range (in 6s and 7s) and teaching through all the mechanics (both bosses and trash pulls). I want to set these guys up for success so they don’t have to be as reliant on me or the other dungeon veterans.

Yup, this is an exciting week.