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Like many of you, I continue to be frustrated at the state of Mythic+. Healing continues to be not fun. Last week was not exception because it was supposed to be a healer affix depending on who you ask. Never mind talenting into Cleanse or Decurse or something as DPS players, right?

But that’s not it.

There’s also the state of tanks who like to pull everything and then decide to blame you when they go splat because they overestimate their own capabilities now compared to season 4 when they could just buy all the trinkets and stuff they wanted. The more mobile ones especially just like to run ahead of everyone before collapsing when we’re all trying to catch up to help them.

But no, that’s not it either.

For me, it’s far more irritating.

It’s the players who sign up for a key, then promptly get invited, and summoned, and on the ready check say, “Hang on, brb” followed by some variation of:

• Making a coffee
• Need to use bathroom
• Cooking mac and cheese
• Need to finish my taxes
• Have to fix my hair

Buddy, could you not have done all of this before queueing up for my key? We are all here, literally ready to go! Why couldn’t you do all that bullshit before looking and applying for keys? That’s what that break was for! We would’ve absolutely taken someone else and you could use that time to get all your stuff done! There’s been times I’ve let my coffee sit cold and I have a microwave to reheat it again if I need to. I’ve waited for a cut scene before sneaking to the bathroom real fast. My mac and cheese can hold out on the counter! It’s not even tax season! And no one’s even looking at you right now to comment on your hair!

Look, some of us have a limited time to play, and we need to squeeze every ounce of key time in as possible to chase those GIlded Crests so we can upgrade our loot so that our raid leader doesn’t give us the death stare!

I’m asking you from the bottom of my ice cold heart, and please go do all of your pre-dungeon tasks before applying for a key so we can minimize waiting and blast keys that much faster and so that my food, flasks, and mana oils don’t tick because I really don’t want to prop up the Pausing Pylon cartel.

This was another great week for both raid teams! Our pulls on Broodtwister and on Queen had as much variance as the weather in Vancouver. A series of nerfs were announced specifically on Queen which will go a long way to help out teams who still have consistency issues on that phase 1. We’re something like four weeks into the raid season now, and everything’s moving forward as expected.

• Broodtwister Progression: My efforts here continued to be stymied by performance related issues and FPS loss. This mostly happens during egg pops when my frame rate drops so much and it’s a wonder I didn’t die as often considering I was top 5 in swirly damage taken (but I didn’t die). I had to play around that by pre-moving and applying defensives early on to buy myself as much time as possible while casting what Heal bombs I can. We did make some serious progression through the 2.1 egg set. The first eggs in the second part of the room always gave us a lot of trouble because we couldn’t keep the raid sustained through it but we had a few strong attempts where we moved some cooldowns around to help. I delayed my Apotheosis to that set as well, and made sure Halo was ready to go around then too. I took over our Evoker’s Time Spiral for Divine Hymn so I could continue moving around while casting. We were rewarded with a couple of looks into phase 3. We’re at the point now where Broodtwister is now in kill range for this week.
• Lightweaver: Speaking of struggles, this Lightweaver style of healing continues to be a problem. I’m not satisfied with my ratio of Flash Heal to Heal. I installed some Weak Auras to help. My partner Holy Priest on the team got so fed up that she installed an Air Horn Weakaura that blasts out her speakers whenever she’s sequencing her spells incorrectly. I’m not there yet because I’m not prepared to give up my sanity. Even with the empowered, and sped up Heal, I think my haste is too low (about 6%) so it seems like I can’t get those spells out enough which means I’m defaulting to Flash Heal because of the perception that I need to get faster healing out to wipe as many absorbs as possible.
• Last Call Progression: For the Last Call club, we made some big strides. Our raid team on the weekend was at around 22 players and we didn’t have a Warlock. We’re still looking for one of those, but the team was determined to not let that stop them. Our second time entering phase 3 on Queen Ansurek saw us wipe at 5% and it was then we knew that we had it in the bag. The next few pulls we moved a few raid cooldowns back (like Spirit Link) so we had to get accustomed to that new configuration but it helped greatly on certain ability combinations on phase 2. Sure enough, a few pulls later, the Queen was defeated and we squeaked in a kill on our 50th pull securing AotC. We had 30 minutes left in raid and we could’ve called it early, but I wanted the team to get a few looks on Mythic. We quickly zoned out and back in while I sat myself and watched the stream. My intent here was to get the team used to the soaks since we have to split the group in 2. Ideally, we’d have Warlock gates deployed here to help with that, but we don’t, so we will need to scheme up a Warlock-less strategy which is absolutely possible. We also need to review and look at talent changes to help address AoE during intermission since those bugs are tough and didn’t seem like they were going down much at all.
• Expectation setting: We’ve modified and changed up our expectations since a good portion of the team is still missing enchants and sockets. Some of them aren’t even aware that Jewelcrafter’s Magnificent Settings are even a thing, much less that two of them can be equipped per jewellery item. I’ve given the team a week to start making progress towards that. Starting next week, we’re also going to begin mandating at least one Mythic 10 key to help progress their vault options. Since we’re on a limited schedule, we also need to plan out what bosses to clear on normal and heroic. We’re still scheduling the last two bosses on normal, but we’re at the point where we can start phasing that out soon. Even some of the heroic bosses aren’t as necessary anymore, but will still maintain that for the next week at least while we continue to evaluate.
• Preparation and Time: I need to make a better effort on time management with the team. We didn’t start our first pull this week until 20 minutes into our raid time. The first few minutes had people struggling on getting th eir loot wishlists in place and installed on WoW Audit. We’ve had the whole week for players to get their lists in, so I’m quite irritated that players waited until the very last minute into raid to ask these questions and get them in. That being said, I could’ve done a better job reviewing the list and manually harassing players to get their submissions in ahead of time if their names were missing.

All that said, solid week for both teams and we’re moving forward onwards and upwards. No recruiting needs for DJs at this time, but we’re still looking for a few players on Last Call (Change that dropdown to Last Call).

On Sunday night, we encountered some turbulence during our Broodtwister reclear. While it’s not a difficult fight, it’s still a delicate encounter where small mistakes can snowball into wipes. My Weakauras were acting up due to a combination of Heroic and Mythic markers targeting me (think two different sets of markers), but I managed to troubleshoot and resolve the issue the next day. During the raid, I had to quickly identify my mark and move to it, which wasn’t a big problem since I instructed the team to get to their markers first, and I’d fill in the remaining spot as a Ret Paladin with plenty of mobility. Still, we had a few wipes due to miscommunication and panic, despite having previously killed the boss twice.

The main issue arose during the second canister break. Our original strategy called for breaking four eggs (two worms and two parasites). However, we found it challenging to manage interrupts on worms and handle parasites at the same time due to our group composition lacking enough knockbacks and grouping abilities. To address this, we adjusted our strategy to break only three eggs (two worms and one parasite), which was far more manageable and had worked for us since.

Unfortunately, one player decided to freelance during that egg break, opting to go for the fourth egg instead of following the plan and standing off to the side.

Fortunately, our raiders were skilled enough to adapt, and we managed to destroy the worms and quickly rotate to the parasites, finishing the encounter successfully. I think the adrenaline and focus fueled by the unexpected change helped us power through. However, despite the success of that pull, I immediately addressed the freelancing issue after the fight, instructing the player to never deviate from the agreed-upon plan again.

The player pushed back, arguing that their actions had “saved” the pull, which resulted in us killing the boss, so what was the issue? The problem was not the outcome—it was the process. The team simply played better during that pull, and their freelancing did not solve the core issue. Deviating from the strategy causes unnecessary chaos and confusion. A raid plan is not just about what can work once; it’s about creating a repeatable structure where everyone knows their role and can execute reliably, week after week so that it becomes routine. As a musician, I know that when things get committed to memory repeatedly, it becomes a habit and your mind can focus on other things.

When running a raid, I don’t need players going off on their own. If there’s a flaw in the strategy, I’m open to feedback, and I can make adjustments—outside of raid time or in between pulls. What I can’t tolerate is someone deciding mid-encounter to abandon the plan. This isn’t just about that one pull; it’s about building trust. If I can’t rely on someone to follow instructions in a Heroic fight, how can I trust them during a high-stakes Mythic encounter?

This isn’t about punishing mistakes, but about understanding why we have a strategy in the first place. Strategies are designed to minimize risk, keep the raid organized, and ensure that everyone is on the same page. Freelancing in the middle of a boss fight puts that at risk and can throw off players who are following the plan. Just because it worked once doesn’t mean it will work again, and it’s not a sustainable approach to raid progression.

I always encourage open discussion and strategy tweaks—just not in the middle of a pull. If anyone has questions or suggestions, bring them up outside of raid time, or in between pulls when we have time to pause and discuss as a group. These discussions help refine our approach and build a better raid team, but sudden changes mid-fight only cause confusion.

Yes, Cutting Edge players can adapt to on-the-fly changes, but we are not there yet as a team. It takes time to develop that level of synergy and trust, and we’ll get there. For now, the key to our success is consistency, following the game plan, and building the foundations of reliable execution.

After the raid, I reiterated that we can always discuss strategy changes. However, we can’t afford to improvise during live encounters. If we can’t trust everyone to stick to the plan on Heroic, it will be impossible to progress in Mythic. My ultimate goal for this group is to push into mid-tier Mythic content, but we need the right foundation and teamwork to get there.

For anyone interested, Last Call is looking to add a Warlock and a Holy/Disc Priest to our roster. We raid Sundays and Mondays from 5-8 PM Pacific. Feel free to check us out here on Guilds of WoW.

Welcome back to a new week! It’s been Pumpkin Spice Panda season for a while now and we’re into October which means I need to figure out what kind of scary transmog look to run for raids. Not a lot of big news other than the previously announced class tuning changes. We do have a drop date for the 20th anniversary content that’s coming out later this month.

• DJs Broodtwister Progression: Big leap here our first real night on Brood was getting used to assignments and cooldown usages. By the end of the night, we were getting to the 2nd container break and 1st ad set before we would shortly wipe thereafter. Think we need to modify some cooldowns here to help with sustainability. I wasn’t in initially, but I got drafted in on the second half of the night and we ran a double Holy Priest, and Resto Shaman setup. That’s not the final composition as we’re experimenting with other 3 healer setups. It might be Holy Priest, Disc Priest, and Shaman, or a Holy Paladin, Disc Priest, and Shaman. Alternatively, with the raid buff next week, that allows us to open with 4 healers instead. In the meantime, we focus on tackling each set of egg breaks and spawns.
• Last Call Progression: Day 1 was a normal and a heroic clear up to Queen and day 2 started with us seeing some meaningful progression as we continued ironing out the phase 1 elements. Now, we’re starting to enter intermission with a few platform views. We’ve almost caught up to some of the other raid teams. Since it’s a newly formed team, our goals are quite tempered. We have a good shot of just getting through to 4/8 Mythic for the season. Aside from that though, most of my time here is going to be on developing foundations and building a strong process for how we do things. I’ve got to implement some organizational system and eventually get some extra help on management. It’s been a while since I’ve sat in the Captain’s chair here. I’ll have to write a future blog post about the checklist and what it takes to start a team from scratch though. It’s much more different now than it was years ago. In the meantime, for recruiting needs, I’d like to snag another Warlock, a Holy Priest, and a Devastation (or Preservation) Evoker. Our mana here is progress, not perfection. You can find us over here on Guilds of WoW under the Last Call raid team.
• Ulduar Time Walking: Ugh, I forgot how much of a slog the first part of Ulduar is. Also, in half my runs, someone inevitably activates hard mode and then the group just splits and falls apart because we can’t defeat it. Ended up getting a helm with a socket for my Paladin which replaces the unsocketed helm so I suppose that’s something.
• Diablo 4: There’s also a new expansion out! I’ve only played all of an hour so far. So much to do! I am digging the Spiritborn class so far. It really does remind me a little of the Monk. I’ll do my best to squeeze in what leveling I can, but it’s going to be a challenge while maintaining multiple raid characters.
• Upcoming Post Ideas: I’ve got so many ideas for posts right now that are just marinating still. I wanted to put together a more in-depth guide for Queen Ansurek plus a few of the earlier Mythic bosses. As mentioned earlier, I also wanted to add one on my experience on bootstrapping a new raid team and things to consider now. And how does a recruiter handle friends of already established raiders applying?

Tomorrow is a new day!