All Stories

Every story, article, column, piece, and so forth on World of Matticus ever published.

Everyone’s Talking, No One’s Listening

by

There’s this thing that happens sometimes during our Last Call raid nights, especially on progression when the boss is just about to die.

We panic.

Not in the “we’re going to wipe” kind of way, but in the “everyone suddenly starts calling all at once” kind of way. You hear someone yelling about a mechanic, someone else calling a cooldown that was already used, another person shouting “just nuke it!” and suddenly Discord turn into a blender of noise.

I get it.

Emotions run high.

That boss is at 3%, your hands are sweating, and everyone wants to be the one who helps secure the kill. But more often than not, what actually happens is the opposite: confusion, overlapping calls, panicked misplays, and sometimes… the wipe at 0.5%.

That’s the “too many cooks” problem.

Where It Hurts Most

In high-stress moments, clarity is everything. But if three different people are shouting over each other, you get:

  • Duplicate cooldowns (because two healers panicked and popped externals)
  • Missed mechanics (no one heard the actual callout in the noise)
  • Players zoning out (because comms became overwhelming or contradictory)

It’s one of the sneakiest ways a raid loses coordination, especially on a team like ours that only raids twice a week for six hours and needs every pull to count. Just focus on playing the game.

How We’re Tackling It in Last Call

This season, I’ve started experimenting with a more structured approach:

Assigned callers

Every major mechanic has a designated voice. One for healing cooldowns (if it isn’t already assigned). One for raid movement or “soaks.”

Calmness over volume

We’ve talked a lot about tone. You can be urgent without yelling. A calm voice cuts through better than panic. If our leaders stay composed, people are less likely to panic when the boss hits 5%.

“If You’re Not Assigned, Don’t Speak” Moments

Especially near the end of a fight, we’ve had to remind players to stay focused in the final phase unless there is a need to say something critical (like a death or emergency CD). This has helped us immensely in pushing clean kills.

Pre-Pull Prep

Sometimes the panic happens because people aren’t sure what’s happening next. So, before pulls, we quickly run down what is expected to happen so it’s fresh in everyone’s mind. The more we prepare, the fewer mid-pull panics we endure. This is useful when seeing new phases for the first time. It also emphasizes what players are supposed to do in given situtations so they can drill for it.

It’s About Trust

Letting go of the need to call everything takes trust. You need to believe your designated caller will handle it. You need to believe your healers know when their defensives are up. You need to trust the process. Most importantly, the team needs to be quiet. It’s so frustrating to me when the cacophony of voices starts erupting. Just play the game.

When the comms are clean and the team is focused, then the boss goes down without this frantic chaos.

That’s the hope.

Behind the Scenes of Progression Raid Preparation

by

Progression raiding isn’t just showing up and pulling the boss until it dies. There’s an entire apparatus working behind the scenes, especially if you’re trying to clear content at a competitive level or with limited time each week.

I currently raid on two separate Mythic teams: Death Jesters and Last Call. DJs typically clears bosses earlier, so I get a front-row seat to all the chaotic pain points and key moments before taking it all back to Last Call.

It’s given me a pretty sweet vantage point from the leadership seat and from the player seat.

Here’s what real raid preparation looks like from both angles.

From the Leadership Perspective

As a raid leader, my job starts way before the raid does.

Scout the Encounter

Each week, I’ll review my own footage, either from our Death Jesters kills or select YouTube videos. DJ’s progression becomes valuable intel for Last Call. I can record our pulls and share edited clips or full kills with commentary. I use Warcraft Recorder extensively for this.

Tip
Before we pull a new boss, I’ll often do a live screen share on Discord with the team and narrate key moments from a boss kill video.
I fast-forward through the slower or easy phases and break down:

  • What to watch out for
  • Where people usually die
  • Where movement, positioning, and cooldowns must line up

This gives the team a better understanding of the flow of the fight and avoids info overload from a wall of text. They may not be able to experience it themselves, but it’s the second-best thing, as they can see what is supposed to happen. I find that doing so tends to shave off some of the pull count. However, the raid team still needs to be able to execute it.

Sharing Key Moments

In Discord, I maintain dedicated boss threads with:

  • Quick-hit video clips or screenshots
  • Critical phases or transitions
  • Key reminders (“Only the immune group is soaking”)

It’s open to everyone, though. I encourage the team to contribute and share their own class-specific videos, ask questions on how to handle certain mechanics, or Weak Auras that might be useful.

Tools & Planning

  • I use Viserios on Wowutils for early boss planning and cooldown organization.
  • I do prepare raid notes using Method Raid Tools to make sure all assignments are visible in-game for everyone.

Cooldown coverage? Already mapped for each boss.
Power Infusions? Pre-assigned.
Group splits and gaol duty on Mug’zee? Handled earlier in the week.

Building the Framework

Everything gets built ahead of time:

  • Defensive CD rotations (wish I could offload this more)
  • Interrupt assignments
  • Movement pairings or group stacks (like the ol’ big red rocket)
  • Loot Council decisions on key items

The goal is to remove decision-making points before the pull timer even starts. This is all stuff that can be done earlier in the week before the raid night. Just get it done ahead of time, and you can save it as a note in MRT ahead of time.

Same thing with loot drops.

You can select certain rare items and pre-decide who it will go to ahead of time like Mr. Pick Me Ups, or House of Cards, or Moxie Jugs. This does hinge on everyone submitting their WoW Audit lists ahead of time.

From the Raider Perspective

On the flipside, as a raider (especially in DJs), you’re expected to show up ready to go. That means preparation is non-negotiable.

Know the Mechanics (Really Know Them)

It’s not enough to kinda know the fight. Everyone should already understand:

  • When to throw bombs on Gallywix (and where)
  • How to drive trash balls on Stix
  • The correct taunt swaps as tanks
  • Sprocketmonger mine orders
  • When and where your personal defensive CDs should be committed (Sometimes we install them for players during key parts, but the rest of the time, they are free to use them)

Positional and Assignment Awareness

You should walk in knowing:

  • What group you’re in (or at least, what to do based on the group)
  • What platforms or Gaols you’re assigned to
  • Who you’re soaking or baiting bombs with
  • Where (and when) to stack or spread

And tanks, please don’t ask when to taunt during pull #4. Know it beforehand.

Role-Specific Preparation

If you’re a healer, tank, or utility-heavy DPS, watch class POV videos.

Know your role in the dance. Understand why your cooldown matters (like your Wind Rush Totems).

No one should be guessing what to do when the boss hits 40% and things get spicy.

My Thursday AotC raid group would often panic entering the last phase of Mug’zee with the Jail and Big Rocket overlaps because I didn’t do a good enough job preparing them, despite my efforts. I still have to figure out how to communicate information to the team in a way that makes it digestible and easy to manage, but I realize now that despite all the screenshots or video clips, experience still triumphs. Sometimes you have to put your finger in boiling hot water to know that it’s hot even though you can see steam coming out of it.

The Dual-Team Advantage

Here’s the real secret sauce: I get to see strats live with DJs, then optimize them for Last Call. Think of it as PTR testing with actual stakes.

Every time DJ wipes or pulls off a kill, I extract the lesson and convert it into something practical:

  • “We wiped because we didn’t rotate externals here.”
  • “You can actually ignore this mechanic with proper movement.”
  • “Save your knockback for this timing, not earlier.”

It’s a luxury not every raid leader gets, and it makes me better at both playing and planning.

Final Thoughts

Bosses don’t just die. We make them die.

Every pull is built on preparation:

  • Leaders set the stage with vision, structure, and clarity.
  • Raiders show up locked in, mechanically and mentally.

The better your prep, the fewer pulls it takes to kill the boss. That’s the magic of progression! The next step is to apply it to Sprocketmonger!

Matt’s Notebook: Dunking the Bunkjunker

by

We’re approaching the halfway point of our raid season, and it’s been a most productive week for both teams. Death Jesters has been hard at work progressing through Mug’zee, and we had our first few sub 15% looks. Alright, let’s move on to the notes and observations from this week.

  • Mug’zee continues to be painful progression as there are so many things going on. We have a 20 page raid plan put together that tackles precision movements on each stage of the encounter. The team’s buoyed, and they expect to Mug’zee down this weekend. After that, we’re moving onto Gallywix. I’ve still been on the sideline this whole time. Although I was offered the chance to come in for Mug’zee progression, it makes more sense to roll the best possible players right now.
  • Revisiting our One Armed Bandit progression, we had an interesting incident between the players involving blown assignments. We had a range player who was assigned to kick the melee add second, even though they were still told to DPS the range add. However, the player took it upon themselves to shift damage to the melee add anyway. This resulted in a DPS imbalance which led to inconsistency in bringing the adds down. Somehow, this led to an hour-long discussion after that raid because they simply could not understand why it was that big of a deal. Eventually, our raid leaders were able to get through to him. It’s more impactful if he stays DPSing on the assigned target. We can easily stick another player to interrupt the melee add instead. It was a particular situation that had a chance of escalating. I can see how irritating it could’ve been had they not completely understood what was happening.
  • Death Jesters is still sitting at 5 healers. We did try out a healer, but he didn’t last longer than a day after he decided this wasn’t the right type of environment for him (Basically got called out by the raid leader and didn’t enjoy it).
  • Last Call conquers Stix Bunkjunker after 85 pulls. Things were getting dicier at the end and the pulls aren’t as clean as I’d like them to be. The team was still periodically missing Scrapmasters and running into bombshells. There’s a great Discord resource where you can run your log through it, and it’ll output which players committed errors. This will help your team diagnose any missed assignments and help with learning.
  • We moved on to Sprocket with an hour left in raid, and it was painfully clear which players did not do their preparation ahead of time. Even as something as foundational as how mines operated and how to tackle colours was missed. Our team had shared a few videos and a raid plan ahead of time that went over it. I don’t expect perfection or memorization of the entire sequence, but I was hoping that the basic concepts were there. I could’ve done better here by warning the team in the previous week to start looking at Sprocket information ahead of time. Doing the pre-planning and self-study ahead of time is the only way we’re going to be able to secure CE, since we have around 12 weeks left, if the rumoured raid patch is accurate. It cannot be expected for the team to have their hands held. We can share our resources, assignments, and everything ahead of time, but the team needs to meet us in the middle and start proactively learning. The clock is looming, and that gives us around 3 weeks per boss, assuming the timeline is correct.
  • Another question is how we plan our activities next week, as we have a few new players to trial. We can go back and secure some farm kills, but every minute spent on previous bosses is time not spent on progression. We’ll have to see and decide how we balance our time.
  • Speaking of obstacles, we’re in the process of recruiting a new tank. One of our current tanks is unable to commit to the schedule any longer and has opted to switch to DPS so as not to be detrimental to the team’s progression. This is a significant setback because having to recruit and work with a new tank midway through a tier is not a great position to be in.
  • This past weekend, we had 3 out of 6 healers call out. We had to pull in a healer from one of the other teams to help keep us going. Without his help, we wouldnt’ve been able to get our new progression kills. Naturally, this also necessitated recruiting another healer who happens to be a Mistweaver Monk. This gives us a crowded field since we now have 3 Monks healing. I can’t think of a world where we would bring in all 3, except maybe Mug’zee.

Let’s have a good week. Lots to do!

Is it worth practicing Mythic tactics on Heroic?

by

This comes up every so often when we’re working on a Heroic boss for the first time, especially early on during a raid season. Some smartass in raid makes the suggestion that we should plan and implement Mythic mechanics for abilities that may not exist on Heroic because it’ll help prepare us for it later on when we get there.

Is it actually worth it?

From an efficiency standpoint, the answer is mostly no. As a team, our goal in Heroic is to progress quickly, secure the gear, and then move on to Mythic at a fast pace. While practicing Mythic mechanics during Heroic encounters might seem like a good way to prepare, the reality is that Heroic often doesn’t provide the right conditions (or challenge) to make that stuff meaningful in any way.

The Disconnect Between Heroic and Mythic

Heroic encounters are designed to be more forgiving. It’s true that there are some movement patterns or group assignments that can carry over to Mythic. Unfortunately, many key differences make Heroic an unreliable training ground:

  • Missing Mechanics: Some Mythic-only mechanics fundamentally change how a fight plays out. Practicing without them can create bad habits or a false sense of security. Rik Reverb is a great example of this with the Sound Cannon.
  • Lower Damage and Healing Requirements: Heroic fights often don’t demand the same level of execution. Players might handle mechanics sloppily in Heroic and assume they’ll be fine on Mythic, only to struggle when the margin for error disappears.
  • Different Raid Comp Needs: Mythic encounters frequently require different raid compositions or specific utility that isn’t necessary in Heroic, making the experience less applicable.

When Does It Make Sense to Practice Mythic Tactics on Heroic?

That’s not to say Heroic has no value in preparing for Mythic. There are some cases where it can be helpful:

  • Refining Group Assignments: If Mythic requires specific positioning or assigned roles (such as soakers or debuff management), setting up those habits in Heroic can make the transition smoother.
  • Movement Practice: While some Mythic mechanics don’t exist in Heroic, movement-heavy fights can still be useful for practicing dodging patterns or positioning awareness.
  • Building Team Coordination: Heroic can be a low-pressure environment to practice communication and callouts before stepping into Mythic intensity.

The Risk of Overthinking It

Forcing Mythic strategies into Heroic can sometimes cause more harm than good. It can lead to unnecessary confusion, overcomplicating fights that should be quick clears. Worse, it might make players underestimate Mythic mechanics, assuming they’ve “seen it before” when in reality, they haven’t experienced them at full intensity.

Heroic is a stepping stone, but it isn’t a perfect simulation of Mythic. The best approach is to use it wisely. Practice what makes sense, but don’t waste time trying to force every Mythic detail into a Heroic fight. Efficiency matters, and the best preparation for Mythic is getting there as quickly as possible with a strong, well-geared team ready to take on the real challenge.

New Dinar System Falls Short (Again)

by

Blizzard has finally released details on the Dinar system. It’s called Puzzling Cartel Chips for Season 2, and if you’re a fan of flexible gearing, you might want to cool your excitement. While the Dinar-style token system was a welcome addition in previous seasons, this new version comes loaded with restrictions that feel needlessly punishing, especially for those of us with alt armies or who are more invested in Mythic+ than Mythic raiding. We’re getting enough Chips to purchase two three items of our choice (this was updated recently).

What’s Wrong Here?

To get to the point: the requirement to kill a specific boss before you can buy their loot with Chips defeats the entire spirit of what the system is supposed to be.

The Dinar system is meant to be a catch-up mechanic. It helps players who aren’t part of cutting-edge Mythic raid teams access trinkets, weapons, and key items. Tying these purchases to boss kills means only players already progressing in raids get the benefit. It leaves out Mythic+ mains, casual raiders, and punishes alt-heavy players like myself.

And by the time Chips become available, which is weeks into the season, the top guilds are already done progressing. They don’t need the help. This doesn’t protect their prestige. It just delays everyone else’s ability to gear up.

Not only that, but if I spend a Chip on a Heroic-track Jastor’s Diamond, do I need to spend another Chip on the Mythic version later after we down Gallywix? That doesn’t seem right. And if I hold onto the Chip and wait, I’m holding back potential gear that could help our team progress now. Either way, it’s a bad tradeoff.

What About Alts?

Alts are getting the short end of the stick here. If I kill a boss on my main, why shouldn’t that unlock the ability to purchase that loot on my alt? At the very least, make the unlock account-wide or warbound. I want to enjoy gearing different characters, not grind the same raid on three toons hoping for RNG drops just to be allowed to buy something.

This System Favors Boosting

Let’s not pretend this won’t be monetized. Locking loot behind boss kills gives boosting communities a perfect business model. Need a specific trinket? Pay for a carry. This design directly incentivizes selling runs rather than rewarding honest progression or effort.

Blizzard’s Rationale

To their credit, Blizzard responded quickly to the backlash. The feedback was instant and, for once, unified. Reddit, forums—you name it. Everyone was saying the same thing.

They posted an update, and this part stood out to me:

“The middle of The War Within Season 2, however, presents a very different situation. Puzzling Cartel Chips were designed primarily as bad luck protection, allowing players who’ve been chasing specific raid items without success to have a guaranteed path to earning them. They also provide a path for players who have only done the Normal version of the raid to get a few guaranteed Hero items, without undermining a core motivation for the challenge and coordination required in Mythic raid progression. We also need to be mindful of how we will transition into the next season. Giving players who don’t normally engage in high-end content access to Item Level 680+ trinkets would essentially obsolete those slots for Season 3.”

My Take on This

If the concern is that 680+ trinkets will be obsolete next season, then address that through item tuning. Blizzard has nerfed plenty of overperforming trinkets between seasons. We even have a certain ring equipped that was designed to be used into this season that saw multiple adjustments.

This feels like gatekeeping. It’s an artificial limiter meant to preserve progression prestige instead of empowering players. If the worry is that the item is too strong, let’s cap the upgrade track. Let people buy it, but only allow them to upgrade it to 6 out of 8 until they’ve killed the boss. Simple.

What I’d Change

Let’s fix this. Here’s how:

  • Remove the boss kill requirement, or at the very least, make it account-wide. If I’ve killed it once, that should be enough.
  • Cap the upgrade level if you’re worried about power. As mentioned, let the item go to 6/8 until the boss is cleared.
  • Add Mythic+ and Delve items to the vendor. These are just as important as raid gear and deserve a place in the system.

The Puzzling Cartel Chip system could be something amazing. It could be one of the most player-friendly systems Blizzard has added in recent years.

But right now? It just feels like a missed opportunity.