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Matt’s Notebook: We’re on to Gallywix!

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This is it! We’re on the final door step now. Gallywix is all that’s left standing, which is great news since we’re on the verge of entering the summer months soon. This means we’ll be entering farm mode! In the first exciting news, I’ve ordered a new PC finally. It’s much needed considering my current PC has lasted me since just prior to Covid so it’s definitely aging and I’ve been running into some performance issues in raid (especially with a full 30). Anyway, let’s jump into the notes.

  • Death Jesters is now on Gallywix. Mug’zee reached a point where any pull could be the kill if everyone was able to stay alive and committed. Phase 1 is certainly a hot mess as we’re planning our bombs and getting a feel of the start of the encounter. We are looking to recruit another healer to add to our lineup such as Resto Druid, a Mistweaver, or a Preservation Evoker. Come check us out here!
  • Last Call is now on Sprocketmonger, and we’re starting to consistently make it past the first intermission here with more players alive. I’m disappointed though as we lost one of our long time raiders. He was struggling with using Liquid’s Weak Auras pack and got so frustrated that he just decided to step down from the team altogether. One of our tanks, a Demon Hunter, has opted to switch to DPS due to inconsistent work schedules. We did recruit a new Protection Warrior, so I hope he will work out. Lastly, one of our Mistweavers has been occupied with things going on outside of the game that they also had to step away. On this team, we’re looking to add a hybrid healer (Windwalker/Mistweaver or Devastation/Preservation or Shadow/Holy Priest). Our application form can be found here.
  • Crest cap lifts this week! Rejoice! We’re going to need around 400 crests or so (assuming you’ve been capped out).
  • Our first set of Dinars become available this week! I have no idea what to buy! My Priest doesn’t need anything out of Heroic and I’m limited in what I can purchase from Mythic since I haven’t killed any of the bosses after the first two.

Ugh, back to work. Have a good week!

The Art of the Post-Raid Debrief

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The other day, I was chatting with one of the other raid leaders from a different team in our community. We got onto the topic of raid feedback after the raid ends.

Their team uses a system where they post individual debrief threads in Discord sorted by date. People dig into logs, break down their performance, and share what they’ve learned or where they messed up. It’s super detailed, and honestly, it works for them. Especially for the log-savvy folks who live in Warcraft Logs and can extract key information from a night.

Our approach in Last Call is a little different.

We keep it mostly team-focused. When we review fights, we share insights with the whole squad. Once in a while, if there’s something that needs to be addressed, such as a key mechanic someone consistently missed, we’ll mention it if it’s a learning point for everyone. We don’t want to turn our review into a firing squad. The point isn’t to shame people on their class rotation or anything. If I missed one Ancestral Swiftness, that’s not really going to move the needle (but I’m still going to file that information away because I could’ve played that Shaman better).

It’s to improve as a group.

Debriefing After Stix: A Real Example

Let me give you a recent case. We were working on Stix, and during our post-raid breakdown, we pulled a bunch of things out of the logs:

  • Defensive cooldown usage: Who popped a defensive when they were supposed to? Who forgot? Who panicked and overlapped three cooldowns on the same hit?
  • Trash ball behaviour: Did players avoid the crab shells? Did they accidentally miss a Scrapmaster and turn into a small ball instead of a medium or large one? Every little bit of damage helps on Stix, and that includes how well you manage those ball mechanics.
  • Interrupts: This is huge. Did we have full coverage on Scrapmasters?

Even on wipes, every pull gives you data. And the more you learn from that data, the faster you kill the boss. We shared a table with player information that showed who missed Scrapmasters or rolled into Bombshells. In this situation, we had to spotlight players who were making errors. Either they weren’t seeing information, or they weren’t responding to it and these are both things we have to correct one by one. Over time, the team did improve as a whole, and the number of mistakes went down as everyone became more familiar with what to look for and what to avoid. Without having waded into the weeds of the information, we would not have realized that the Scrapmaster in the Purple Diamond section (the one near the wall) was the one that frequently got overlooked.

Our coaching point then was if you are assigned diamond, specifically look for the Scrapmaster that’s near the wall because chances are you balled right by it or it happens to blend in with the wall that it’s just missed.

The Debrief Toolkit: What We Look For

Here’s what we usually include in our team debriefs:

  • Positioning: Anyone consistently getting hit by frontals or mechanics they should’ve dodged?
  • Cooldown assignments: Were healing CDs used where they were planned? Were any wasted? Was anyone holding a CD too long out of fear? The flipside holds true as maybe we used a raid wide ability somewhere that didn’t warrant it.
  • DPS optimization: Were people using potions and cooldowns on time? Did they get value out of their major windows? Are they targeting the right ads including Scrapmasters?
  • Death analysis: Were deaths avoidable? Did they come from mechanics, poor healing coverage, or missed externals?

You don’t have to go full detective mode. Even picking two or three key points per night can make a big difference.

Tools We Use

  • Warcraft Logs: The core of any good debrief. Parses, cooldown usage, deaths, damage taken—you name it.
  • Viscerio’s Combat Replay: Great for showing positional data and understanding how the raid moved during a fight.
  • Method Raid Tools Logs: Super helpful for tracking planned cooldowns vs. actual usage.
  • Warcraft Recorder: This one’s a game-changer if you’re not already using it. It captures in-game footage automatically, making it easy to review exact moments, callouts, and spatial awareness issues. Bonus: It’s great for training, clip sharing, or spotting issues that don’t show up in logs.

Tone Matters More Than You Think

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a raid leader, it’s that tone makes or breaks your debriefs.

You could have the most accurate breakdown in the world, but if it comes across like a scolding session, no one’s going to internalize it. Worse, they’ll tune out or even resent it.

We try to keep things constructive. We highlight the good stuff. “Great use of Pain Suppression on that 2nd phase soak.” “We handled the adds way better this pull.” Stuff like that. Wins get celebrated just as much as fails get analyzed.

Final Thoughts

A raid doesn’t end when the boss dies or wipes your raid group. It ends when you understand why it went the way it did.

Debriefs help bridge the gap between one raid night and the next. They’re how you carry lessons forward. And the better your team reviews together, the stronger you’ll be on the next pull.

Start small. Pick one fight. Pick one thing. Talk about it. You might be surprised how much smoother your next raid night goes.

Everyone’s Talking, No One’s Listening

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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

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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

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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!