Notebook

We threw everything we had at Midnight Falls this last week. Extra hours, an extra day, and on Monday we got Lura down to phase 4 more than once. Our best pull took her to 14%. We didn’t get the kill.

It’s the closest thing I can compare to a Game 7 loss in overtime. We did everything right to get there. We gave it our best shot when it mattered most. And it still wasn’t enough.

By the time we called it, we’d logged 560 pulls on Midnight Falls. For comparison, Death Jesters killed the same boss in 404 pulls. That gap tells its own story about how this season went for Last Call, and it’s worth sitting with before I get into the why.

A Season of Constant Turnover

Over the course of our Lura progression alone, we cycled through roughly 32 different characters. Not 32 pulls with a few swaps here and there. Thirty-two different characters who sat in a raid slot at some point during that fight. One of our locks switched to a Disc Priest because we were down a healer. A Hunter couldn’t make it, so we had to pull in a hunter alt from DJs. A crystal carrier had power issues, so I had to ask for someone else to get it while we grabbed a Ret Paladin.

We never had back-to-back weeks with the same roster walking in the door. Every single time I had to sub a new player in, it cost us about 20 minutes of problem-solving just to get phases 2 and 3 re-assigned and moving again. That’s not a one-time tax. That’s a recurring tax we paid over and over, week after week, on top of actually learning the fight.

I’m genuinely proud of the team we had. But it’s hard to build momentum on a fight that demands precision when you’re constantly rebuilding the roster around it.

Where We Excelled, and Where We Didn’t

Progression-wise, this team is really good at fights that reward preparation. Crown of Cosmos went down in a reasonable number of pulls because that’s the kind of encounter where our strengths show up: strict timelines, scripted assignments, everyone knowing exactly where to be and when.

Beloren was a different animal. That fight demands individual accountability in a way our other kills didn’t. Ball soaks, quill soaks, interrupts, all resting on players managing their own responsibilities in real time instead of following a script. It exposed the skill ceiling of some of our newer mythic raiders, several of whom were tackling serious mythic progression for the first time in their raiding career. We got through it, but it took longer than I wanted, and it was the first real sign of what was waiting for us in Midnight Falls.

The GM Introspection

This is the part of the postmortem that’s less about the boss and more about me.

Every season, it comes back to personnel. Did I have the right players in the right roles? Did I hold onto players too long instead of cutting and evaluating quickly enough? Those are the questions I ask myself every time a season wraps, and this one is no exception.

Recruiting doesn’t make this easier. We raid Sunday and Monday, the last two days of the week, which is not exactly a popular slot for players shopping around for a new guild. It narrows the pool right when we need it widest.

On top of the roster churn, we lost one of our top healers right before Midnight Falls progression started. I also changed my own class mid-season, moving from Shaman to Evoker. Any one of those changes on its own is manageable. Stacked together in the same season, they added up.

A handful of our weaker performers joined midway or late into Season 1. They’ll get another look in Season 2, but with expectations set clearly from the start this time. That’s on me too. Clear expectations from day one would have saved us some of the harder conversations we had later.

Heading Into Season 2

Here’s the strange part: I’m much more optimistic heading into Season 2 than I probably should be after a season like this.

We’ve parted ways with a number of players and brought in some new faces. Some of the new additions are what I’d call project players, people who’ve historically capped out around mid-mythic and are looking to push past that ceiling. That’s exactly the kind of mentality this team needs more of.

Our systems and strategies are already in place. We know how we prepare, how we assign, how we approach a new tier. What’s left is execution. Season 1 taught us where the cracks are. Season 2 is about not letting the same ones open back up.

We fell short of Midnight Falls. But a Game 7 loss doesn’t mean the team is broken. It means you know exactly what to fix before next season starts.

It’s finally over! Death Jesters has cleared Midnight Falls and finished the tier at US 324. That’s a big drop from our previous tier (Manaforge Omega), when we were in the US 190 range.

What a relief to finally get it done and over with. In the end, it took us exactly 404 pulls. We can jump into the details below.

• Our Raid Leader didn’t have internet. He tried to play by hotspotting his phone, but the connection was too slow, so we had to sit him. Poor guy missed the very first interrupt. Raid calling duties were split.
• Roster boss was real for this last boss. I firmly believe if we had a consistent 20 (or even 22), we would’ve killed it earlier. We went through two Evokers before mine was brought in. I’m fortunate enough to have had crystal reps earlier on when we were learning the fight. Might even make the Evoker a change for me next season. Less emphasis on keeping damage up, so I can just focus on buffing the raid and addressing mechanical needs that the encounter demands.
• With this week, we have some players that will be stepping down and moving on. Some are looking to pursue higher ranks, and others are retiring from raiding altogether. Ultimately, this will be the largest roster turnover we’ve had in quite a few years. We’re looking to recruit a Warrior, a DPS Death Knight, and some any ranged DPS or healers. Come apply here!
• Over in Last Call, we too have been struggling on a week-to-week basis playing roster roulette. It’s not fun. Every single substitution leads to around 30 minutes of additional work. It means positions changed, new interrupt macros need to be made, and other cascading effects that lead into intermission, phase 2, and phase 3. Even something as minor as switching a range DPS for a melee DPS throws things off. Now I have to move a healer back from the inner ring on intermission to the outer ring so that the melee DPS can take that spot over.
• The overall raid preparation has been okay, but I’m a little frustrated with some of the individual aspects. We had a healer who kept scooping up crystals on phase 2 when the crystals were deliberately dropped in the middle after I previously emphasized that players (non-crystal holders) had to fight the pull-in to not accidentally pick them up. Over the span of 8 pulls, it was picked up 5 times by the same player. Naturally, this led to unnecessary splashes that needed to be soaked. But still, I can’t help but be annoyed. It’s no longer enough for CE players to have an intimate understanding of what they need to do at an individual level, but they have to have a larger comprehension of what is happening at a phase-by-phase level. A bigger picture, if you will. Even if they’re not assigned a crystal, they need a fundamental understanding of why and when crystals are dropped so they don’t put themselves in positions where they won’t get it. This is an area of comprehension that separates mid-level mythic players and CE players.
• I haven’t started deep diving into the next season’s roster yet, but by all accounts the next tier is rumoured to come out in early August. We’re going to have some turnover ourselves in Last Call with some players whose schedules are changing and others who also want to move up. I’m planning to open recruiting for another healer, some extra ranged DPS, and maybe one more melee. But I’ll need to schedule end-of-tier talks with everyone to determine their intentions.
• It’s too early to say right now, but if I were to do a post-mortem, Bel’oren is where we lost some time and progress overall. I benched myself for the first few nights because of my damage (or lack of). I wanted to give more reps to the others that were there, and I focused more on the 21st man side of things, calling the raid. I can’t help but wonder if we would’ve killed it faster if I was in there instead. Ultimately, the raid buffs and other things pushed character power to the point that we had to fundamentally change our start. We used to hold 2 minutes for the first egg phase, which felt really bad. Instead, we decided to go with lust on the 2nd egg phase instead (and just use CDs as they came up). We found that we struggled a lot if we got to the third dive on the second phase 1.

Normal PTR testing will be starting up this weekend, and we’ll be stepping into it. Can’t wait to give it a go!

I can’t believe it’s May already. This last week just flew right by. Between the Diablo 4 expansion and Heroes of Might and Magic early access, there was so much for me to do. I didn’t even play any Battlefield this past week. It was another solid progression week, though. Let’s dive into it, shall we?

• Death Jesters just started working on Crown of the Cosmos this week. We had one look into phase 3, which is the furthest we’ve gotten. There are a few scary overlaps, but with the upcoming nerf this week, we’ll most likely defeat it and start work on the big firebird soon.
• Last Call makes some big strides this week and overcomes the dragons, putting us officially at 5/9 Mythic, and we’re over halfway to our goal of getting that CE for this opening tier. I felt that we should’ve killed it earlier. We came close to it a few times on Sunday night, but had some consistency issues. There are a few players who need to work on just general game sense and survivability. Having the awareness that not only is a fear breath coming and they have to get it out of the raid, but they have to find a spot to safely get to where they can be dispelled within range of healers. Our gloom positionings were great, and even if we had players go down, we were able to audible with backup players stepping in to help with those soaks.
• We’re on to Paladins now, and we spent the better part of our second raid night just working on taunt swaps, positioning, and getting a feel for dispels. Our best pull was about 40%. Logs are showing that about a third of the kills here use six healers, while the rest are done with five healers. I’m a bit torn as to which way to go. We don’t have a dedicated sixth healer, and if we were to do that, I would have to step in and switch specs on my Shaman (who doesn’t have the stats or the trinkets to really go healing). My damage is fairly low here, so I’m just thinking about it. I don’t need to play at the absolute best, but if I can manage to help stay on top of dispels while contributing healing, that might be enough. I also wanted to give some well-deserved flowers to our bait team. They did a commendable job baiting out the charges once they got into a rhythm. There were a few charges that were missed, but they got the idea.
• Now, the next question is at what point should we start considering raid extensions? I don’t know if we’re quite there yet. There’s still some lucrative gear. We didn’t even get any trinkets from Dragons today, even with all the bonus rolls that were used, which was disappointing. Maybe once we clear Paladins, we can start doing lockout extensions.
• In Diablo 4, I made a Spiritborn. Campaign was great, probably one of the better storylines I’ve played in a long time. The end game is much more enjoyable. My only struggle is in finding a build that I like playing. I might switch classes and reroll to a Paladin or something instead.
• Last thing I want to touch upon is Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. Reminds me of when I was a kid again playing Heroes 3. Such a fun game and this new version is a lot of fun. Highly recommend it if you’ve played it before. The early access grants six factions.

I’m still looking to add some Aug Evokers to the team!

It’s really hard to lead and call a raid when you’re sick, you know? I’ve been coughing non-stop for over a week on a diet of lozanges, tea, and Buckley’s. Not sure if people outside of Canada are aware of it, but it’s a cough syrup that tastes really awful, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t effective and relieves symptoms for a while. Alright, lets get to it shall we?

• Death Jesters clears Vanguard. I was in for progression as relief a few times. This is a boss where it’s more ideal to play Farseer instead of Stormbringer. Ultimately, I wasn’t in on the kill but I did gain some first hand experience on it.
• Last Call crushes Midnight Falls on heroic, and we get that coveted Ahead of the Curve achievement. We’re basically done with Heroic for the tier and can now strictly focus on Mythic from here on out.
• After Midnight Falls, we popped back over to Voidspire Mythic to start working on Dragons. It’s much simpler than I expected it to be. Our best pull so dragons go down to about 23%. DJs killed it the first time within 13 pulls. I didn’t think we’d be as fortunate.
• We had a spirited discussion on dispels on Imperator. I didn’t think they were a problem, but one of my healers was disgruntled about it. I looked into it further. We get six debuffs, but only four need to be cleared (two on the first add, and two on the second add). I can’t see any consequence to leaving up the final two or even delaying removing them. Whenever the player gets dispelled, there’s a 10-second dot debuff that gets applied anyway. In my mind, it’s okay to leave the final 2 dispels up and stagger them a bit to spread out the incoming damage anyway. No real resolution here, and it only came up because I was trying to trim from 4 healers to 3 healers in order to accelerate out of that fight quicker. The next dispel heavy fight with Paladins at least has a Weakaura (or M33kauras) that can assign and dictate dispels accordingly for people, thank goodness for that. But if this discussion keeps up, a definite attitude check is going to be in order here.
• We’re going to need a second healing Monk for Vanguard. We’re fortunate that one of our healers is also quite alt-driven and happens to have a 280+ Monk lying around just waiting.

This is going to be a rough week for me. The new Diablo 4 expansion just came out last night. Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era debuts later this week. Not only that, there’s a new Two Point Museum DLC that’s releasing soon! There goes my time!!