Guild Topics

Can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. Guild topics for your perusing.

The Crucial Skill Separating CE Players from Mythic Players

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“I’m so dead.”

Three magic words.

That’s all it takes for every player in the raid to overwhelm that raider with defensives and support to help them stay alive. It’s almost always a tank too! Here’s the sequence of events that inevitably follows.

  • Holy Priests casts Guardian Spirit
  • Paladin casts Hand of Sacrifice
  • Evoker casts Time Dilation
  • Resto Druid casts Barksin
  • Enhancement Shaman casts Ancestral Guidance
  • Demon Hunter burns Darkness
  • Warrior Intervenes
  • Rogue… uses a bandage (okay, this one’s not realistic)

But really, this is the technique that tanks tend to use when they absolutely need something because they’ve run out of tools to survive. The best tanks use an addon like OmniCD which shows what defensives are available and displays them all under the player frame or somewhere else readable so they can specifically call for it. To me, that’s the mark of a reliable tank who knows how to layer not just their own defensives but those of other players around them.

What about non-tanks? Surely DPS and healers can exhibit this behaviour as well. If you haven’t realized it yet, it’s called communication. It’s practically expected for CE players to have mics of their own and to actually use them.

Back when we were progressing on Echo of Neltharion, I vividly remember one play that stood out to me. Our Shadow Priest had to traverse from oneside of the room to the other. His feather charges were all gone and he was seconds away from getting lethaled by a Volcanic Heart. Warlock gate chages were already used. He said, “Help! Liszt* needs a grip now!”

*Not his real name.

One of our Evokers managed to swoop in and lift him to safety keeping the pull going and sparing a much needed Battle Res for phase 3. This was learned behaviour because he ran into this same situation early on in previous pulls and ran out of solutions from his own toolkit. The coaching takeaway during the post-wipe review was that he needed to prepare for this situation in the future and ask for a lift if he didn’t have any remaining movement speed abilities left.

I’ll give you another story.

On Zskarn, we hit one of the overlaps where bombs spawned right before a knockback. One of our raiders was unable to evade it fast enough which pushed him into a bomb. He recognized it early and managed to use a defensive right before impact to slow it down, but he was also quick enough to ask for help and managed to survive the subsequent damage with a Hand of Sacrifice and focused healing until it wore off. Had he not said anything, he most likely would’ve taken lethal damage.

Here’s a story of a player error and what the coaching remedy looked like.

This is the same boss fight on Zskarn and one of our hunters was assigned to bomb duty. In this situation, a Tactical Destruction had gone off and the bombs were located within the Tactical Destruction affected area. Unfortunately, the Hunter had no way to safely get it. We ended up wiping and during the post-wipe discussion, we dissected the cause. When we found out it was due to blown Hunter coverage and a lack of personal immunity, we asked what could’ve been done differently and he didn’t know. I was upset at that remark but I kept that to myself. Our raid composition happened to include a pair of Paladins (one Protection, one Holy). He could have asked for a Hand of Protection and safely gone in for the bomb. Failing that, he could have also said, “Help! Can’t get bombs, need backup in Tactical”. This indicates the urgency of the situation that he’s not in a position to absorb a bomb hit and that someone else needs to do it right away. The Holy Paladin could’ve bubbled and used their movement speed horse or cast Blessing of Protection to get in there and neutralize the bomb. In that situation, no one is going to ask Hunter, “Well why can’t you get the bomb?”. That would be ridiculous.

The lesson I want to impart here is that when you’re caught in a situation with a blown assignment, it’s okay to ask for help and backup. Raid leaders will mostly have built this into the plan ahead of time. If they didn’t, they will now. Delicate parts of an encounter tend to be things like soaks or interrupts, and there will be times on progression where you as a player will miss it because you’re dead or you accidentally used an ability at the wrong time or you’re completely out of range and out of position. That is okay. CE Players have to be comfortable asking for help backup. Someone else will bail you out to keep the pull going because that’s what needs to happen. There are 20 players in the raid and chances are someone can step in to cover you. If they can’t, then the raid leader needs to find a solution in case that situation happens again.

However, you don’t want to make this a habit of missing a mechanic repeatedly or you might get viewed as unreliable.

In other words:

  • If you’re going to miss an interrupt, ask for help.
  • If you’re going to miss a soak, ask for help.
  • If you think you’re about to die from big damage, ask for help.
  • If you think you’re not fast enough to get safety, ask for help.

There’s no reason to hesitate in these situations whether you’re a trial or a veteran raider.  Can’t always expect to do everything on your own. Learn to rely on your team.

 

How to Recruit the Right Players at the Right Time

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Building an elite raid guild can either be super exciting or a massive headache? I want to dive into the world of guild recruitment and explore how different player types can fit into your team. It’s not just about recruiting the right player, it’s about recruiting the right player at the right time. You don’t want to pick up someone who is starting the gearing process when you’re halfway through Mythic. Conversely, it’s a bad fit to pick up someone who’s on the verge of clearing the whole instance when you’re also halfway through Mythic (they’re going to get impatient fast).

Let me highlight some of the player types I’ve come across and help you determine if they’re the right fit.

The Project Player

Think of Project Players as the potential future of your guild. These are the players who aren’t necessarily in a rush and are all about long-term gains for the team. They’re ready to put in the work, learn the ropes, and become a force to be reckoned with. They might have hidden talents that, once unleashed, can totally transform your raid even though they’ve never set foot in a serious progression raid before. Spotting these gems takes a sharp eye and a knack for mentoring. They could be a player who is new to a specific class (even though they’ve raided at a high level before on another class). An example I’ve seen is someone who played a Mage for the longest time but no longer enjoyed the class and decided to switch to something more satisfying like a Ret Paladin. Range and melee often have slightly different areas of focus (like cleaves and frontals)! Another good example of this is a player who just started playing World of Warcraft and stepped foot into a Normal raid, but wants that dopamine hit of Heroic (or even Mythic).

The best time to pick up a player like this is when your raid is preparing for the next raid season. When activities are slow or your raid is working on reclears, and progression has stopped, they can be brought in on farm stuff. To provide context, for a CE guild, this would be a player who’s done some low-end Mythic raid content currently (like 2 or 3 bosses in) or has done some CE raiding before in previous expansions (instead of previous tiers) and is just coming back to the game after a break. For an entry Mythic guild or a mid-level Mythic guild, this would be a player who’s earned Ahead of the Curve or just shy of it. It’s certainly possible to pick up someone who’s completely fresh to the Mythic environment, and the team will learn fast if that player fits in (or conversely, if that player enjoys it).

The Win Now Player

These are junkies who thrive on progression now and progression fast. They have a wealth of experience and are all about achieving their raid goals immediately. Having these players on board can fast-track your guild’s progress, but it can also bring in some high-pressure situations. Gearing is not a problem because they’ve already acquired most of their gear from dungeons or raids. Maybe a small handful of upgrades are wanted but not necessarily required. They already have their trinkets and weapons but want to start finishing out the rest of the tier.

Look for these players when you’re deep into progression. You want someone who’s at or near your progression level. For example, since DJs is working on Sark, we need someone who can immediately step in right away. That means someone who has Sark experience, but not necessarily the kill. Maybe they’ve seen phase 2 a small number of times but have clean phase 1 pulls. That’s something the group can work with. If I’m in a guild that’s working on Rashok, I’d also want someone who’s done a few pulls on it, has defeated it, or has at least cleared Amalgamation and Experiments.

The Depth Player

These players are your rock, always dependable and keeping things steady. The depth player is a class you don’t necessarily need. Maybe your raid team has an abundance of melee and you don’t need another Rogue but their raid history is too strong to pass up. A player like this can easily fill in for someone else if they’re playing poorly or if you’re running into attendance problems (like the summer months). Someone like this has great experience in the current expansion but didn’t quite accomplish their raid goals and are looking for another opportunity somewhere.

An example type is a player who didn’t quite get CE in Vault of the Incarnates but got Broodkeeper down. Perhaps their guild collapsed or something came up and they had to stop raiding for a while. Their raiding knowledge and gameplay sense is recent enough because it’s still the current expansion, but for various reasons, they took a break and stopped raiding only to try to make a comeback. They’re okay taking a back seat on progression and are happy to get rotated in until they’re comfortable again. This is the player who’s still skilled at the game and isn’t as new or as unfamiliar as the Project Player, but they’re also not fluent in current content to help the team immediately.

Exploring Other Player Types

But wait, there’s more! Aside from Project, Win Now, and Depth Players, there are other hidden gems you don’t want to miss:

  • The Innovator: These players bring a fresh breeze of strategies and creative solutions to make your raid that much more efficient.
  • The Mentor: Need someone who’s all about sharing knowledge? They’re your mentors who function like a walking WoWHead because their class and raid knowledge is just unsurpassed.
  • The Officer: Former GMs or former officers. They’ve done what you’ve done before and they need a break from it. These are potential future raid leaders, but right now they just want to press buttons and kill bosses.

Each of these player types adds a different flavor to your guild’s dynamics, making your raid team even more stronger. They’re not exactly people who reveal themselves right away on the Recruiting forums or other communities, but as you get to know them, you might find interesting information about them as they contribute to your raid’s goals.

Talk to the rest of your raid leadership when looking to address roster needs. Figure out what your immediate goals are so you can start picking up players that can help out with that.

Matt’s Misplays: The Substitute Raid Leader Edition

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It’s been a few weeks since the last one, but welcome back to Matt’s Misplays! We’ve just gotten to Sark this week and progression has begun. Due to a certain GM being absent, I got called up to step in and heal. Like a good on-call raid leader, I walked in with nary a clue! Our Mistweaver Monk was supposed to be running the show but work kept him late so it fell on me and I had to wing it. Even though I didn’t do many of the calls, I still had to make a few of the decisions since I was the ranking officer in the raid. That meant things like roster swaps, setting break times, battle res calls, confirming wipe calls, and so on. Thank goodness our other Holy Priest was in there to help with playcalling. It’s different running the raid on a new progression boss compared to a farm boss, because when you’re on farm you know exactly how things are supposed to go, but when you’re on progression there’s much more ambiguity and uncertainty.

For example, one common situation is determining what to do with four players dead: Do you keep going or call an immediate wipe?

Sometimes we choose to keep the pull going so we can gain more information or gain more familiarity for those that are alive. Other times we snap-call a wipe to get back in and try again. I can’t remember if I touched upon this topic here before or not, but it’s worth revisiting on its own.

In other news, I’m sad to say that Nomi’s (my Sunday and Monday raid team) have decided to stop raiding. The leaders are all changing schedules and it was no longer tenable to keep that raid group going. I would have considered taking it over but I don’t have the patience or the desire to run and orchestrate a raid team again. There are so many things that need to happen and finding the necessary staff to keep it going. I work better when I can help out in certain areas. With so many characters and alts I want to play and raid on, the time to commit just isn’t there. I just want to raid, man!

Anyway, let’s get to it! I’m sure you’re all excited to see some of the fun and exciting differences. Remember, we’re here to find new ways to die!

One of the first mechanics we encounter in the transition is these holes! When you’re in the intermission phase, you’ll drop a hole that stays both down in the shadow realm and up top in the main platform so it’s crucial to stack them all together in a tidy spot so it doesn’t impact positioning on the main platform. Of course, if you’re too slow like this Panda, you fall right through to your death. Position and timing are crucial. I’m actually surprised I even fit through the hole as a Panda.

Do you know why slippers are sold in pairs? So we can throw one each at these two absolute Fluffernutters who did not drop their circle on the Moon stack! We just established this previously. Those circles have to be stacked together and that’s what our Moon marker is for. In this case, we had what appears to be a Demon Hunter drop their circle away from the Moon and I wasn’t able to accurately determine the other class. Of all the mechanics I wanted to emphasize to the raid team and iron out, this was it. I know for a fact that when the teacher comes back from vacation and people are still farting this mechanic up, someone’s going to get a magazine to the back of the head and I don’t want that to happen. I did my best to dial in and get these mistakes fixed and it worked out as no one ended up to the side in all of the later pulls.

This one’s a Heroic mechanic that should not have happened. Our Demon Hunter gets debuffed with the Infinite Duress and flies out except his angle is off. He should be placed further back because our ranged group wants to be knocked right along the rim of the platform. Instead, some of us get knocked off of the platform altogether. Whoops!

I’ve been guilty of this one. Sark does do a sweeping breath attack periodically and if you don’t move fast enough, you get cut off on the wrong side. In this case, our precious Evoker was a little too greedy and tries to leap but ends up falling short and taking lethal damage. Some things are worth greeding, but this isn’t one of them.

Ultimately, we did end up getting pretty far this weekend. Seeing phase 3 a few times was huge. Now we just need to clean up our phase 2 and get everyone alive. In this second intermission phase, we’re dropping our pools in the middle of the circles except we stayed still too long. What we should be doing is moving forward so that we don’t end up in a potential hole that spawns.

Undoubtedly the misplay of the week, this one’s a Greek tragedy for our resident Shadow Priest. Here we have a Warlock gate established for one of the Infinite Duress knockbacks. The plan is to get knocked to the side and immediately hop the gate back to our starting position. However, what happened here was we had an errant Warlock gate that was online from phase 1 that didn’t get removed. Our Shadow Priest ends up taking the wrong gate and falling to his doom.

This one has my vote. It’s going into the end of year blooper reel.

Thanks for reading, that’s all for this week! By the way, DJ’s is recruiting for the end of tier and heading into the next season. Come check us out!

Traits of an Effective Healing Officer

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I swear I wrote about this topic somewhere over a decade ago on a different publication but I felt it was time to revisit it. I can’t find it as it might well be lost to the bowels of the internet. There is more to being a healing lead than simply setting cooldowns on a spreadsheet and setting it in advance. After having played in multiple raids with established healing officers, I’ve been so dissatisfied with how they’re running their healers. It often feels disappointing when I’m DPSing during Echo of Neltharion during a raid and then we all wipe to Umbral Annihilation as I glance over and see that we still had 5 raid defensives that could’ve been used. Situations like this turn a surefire progression kill into a well-deserved wipe. It got to the point where I had to step in and just audible raid defensives for the team just so we could get past and move on to Scalecommander Sarkareth. It’s not something I really wanted to do and I regret stepping on the healing lead’s toes like that because I don’t have that authority. They’re a good group but lack the organizational discipline to really advance.

The healing lead serves as the primary point of contact between the raid and the healers. Their role is to establish cooldown usages in advance and make any corrections during progression. Any healer feedback ought to get channeled through them especially if raiders aren’t able to communicate well (because, y’know, no tact).

After years of calling raid defensives and observing other healing leaders, I’ve compiled a list of what traits and styles they all share.

Say something

Communication is key. As a healing leader, step up and start issuing instructions especially early on in progression. Healers are getting used to damage patterns coming in and helping the raid recover from various abilities. Not only that, much of their brain power is going to be spent on just moving around and surviving! They benefit from audio reminders just like everyone else until the encounter becomes so ingrained that it’s no longer necessary.

  • Give specific instructions: Call out player names, then the spell you want them to use. If there’s a time component, tell them to count to 3 then use a Salvation. If it’s ability based, you can say something like, “Handel, on the next Scouring Eternity, use a Rallying Cry.” That will help prime a player to know what to look for and when to use something.
  • Highlight debuffed players: Be prepared to flag individual players with a big debuff or a ticking dot ability on them. Ideally, every healer in the raid should run a glow that flashes players in the raid frames who have been targeted by something. Call it out and remind the healers to target them and for the affected players to use a defensive or a healthstone. After a few pulls, this won’t be necessary.

It’s possible for the raid leader to double up on this and take over cooldowns in addition to other raid duties, but I recommend splitting it up for the sake of mental bandwidth.

Go Off Script

No good healer spreadsheet survives first contact with any raid boss. You never know what your players will do or how they’ll react to situations they haven’t seen before. I was once assigned to cast Divine Hymn during a certain part of the encounter but we phased it ahead of schedule which negated my part, so I banked it for a future unforeseen situation. To make sure it wasn’t a fluke, we were able to replicate that DPS and it allowed us to move certain cooldowns around knowing it was no longer needed in that step.

  • Keep assessing: Pay close attention to raid health, debuffs, and other mechanics. When things get intense, adjust your healing strategy on the fly because you may find that you need extra defensives due to underestimating damage coming in. This might cause you to use a pre-assigned cooldown earlier than expected and will cause a cascade where everything on the list gets moved up one to help compensate.
  • It’s okay to be wrong: Expect to make bad calls. Live with the decision. It’s better to make a swift decision and communicate it to the team as opposed to not saying anything at all when a change has to be made. Give clear instructions about changes, assignments, or positioning. If you end up being wrong, you’ll know what not to do when you’re in this situation again later.

Fluent with Warcraft Logs

I don’t need to go into too much detail here, but being able to review healing logs of yourself, other healers, and the raid is a big benefit. You’re trying to isolate information that could be destroying your raid and players at various moments in an encounter.

Understand Your Tools

Raid defensives are no longer a healer-exclusive domain. Even the DPS has to step in to contribute! To be an amazing healing leader, you need to understand the strengths of the tools at your disposal and know when to use what. There is a time to use Tranquility and Healing Tide Totem versus Power Word: Barrier and Rallying Cry. Even Darkness has an ideal usage. If the raid group is stacked together, a Spirit Link Totem will do the job. Is the raid spaced out and unable to group up? A Salvation might do the trick.

Organize with Viserio’s and MRT

Much of the healing preparation needs to happen outside of raid. Your best weapons here are Viserio’s cooldown spreadsheets (which can be found on Discord) and Method Raid Tools.  Cooldowns are your secret sauce for maximum healing impact. Once you have them planned out, you can incorporate them as a note into MRT:

  • Know the Encounter: Study the raid encounters and understand when the big damage moments are coming. Herolust counts as a defensive cooldown so if it’s being used on the pull, you do have the 40 seconds of extra cast time to help get you through certain abilities. This lets you delay defensives for later on in the encounter.
  • Incorporate other healers: Pick the brains of your healers if you’re not sure how to react to a given ability. Some have an easier time dealing with certain types of attacks than others.
  • Personals and potions: You can assign personal player defensives and potions or healthstones if the situation calls for something and raid defensives are committed elsewhere.

There are even Weakauras that will ping you when it’s your turn to use an ability.

Don’t Stress About Tanks

More on this another time, but the best tanks I’ve raided with take their own destiny into their hands. They know how to call for and sequence single target cooldowns on their own so that healing leaders don’t have to do it for them.

One of the common tank UIs that I’ve seen has them incorporate single-target defensive timers under their player frames so they can quickly glance at what’s available to them.

Troubleshoot Deaths Like a Pro

Even the greatest healing leaders face deaths on their watch. This will take up a big part of wipes. I like to have a dedicated Deaths Details window in addition to damage and healing.

  • Analyze Deaths: You can’t address player deaths without knowing what killed them. Was the player just being bad or did a healer fumble somewhere? I often take a cursory look at the death log in Details but if I need a more in-depth look, I’ll check death logs on Warcraft Logs along with the replay and time step. I’ll even review video footage I have to add some context. Maybe it was an innocuous positional blunder that resulted in a raider falling over. I’ve been this player before.
  • Give Constructive Feedback: State the facts and list exactly what happened. The point is to not find fault, it’s to find solutions. This might mean the affected player needs to stop being greedy and reposition in advance to prepare for an ability. Or maybe they need a dedicated healer or cooldown to get them through a certain part of the fight. There are multiple ways to solve these situations. But share what you’ve learned with the raid group in a supportive manner. Encourage an open discussion and offer suggestions for improvement. Shut down any attempts at player blame or faults lest it devolves into wasted time arguing which serves no one.
  • Missed assignment needs to be reviewed: Once is okay, but frequent misses are a problem and need to get fixed. During Rashok progression early on, I found myself missing the 2nd cast of Divine Hymn. After looking back, I noticed it occurred because my attention was focused on dodging lava waves and then I would simply forget. I made a more conscious effort to watch the timers and remain more aware of how much time I had left on the cooldown of Divine Hymn so I could prepare myself to channel it when needed.

Stay Objective

As a healing leader, maintaining objectivity is your secret weapon. It’s all about making fair decisions and fostering a positive raiding vibe. Here’s the game plan:

  • Stay focused: That’s ice cold water running through your veins. Stay cool, even when things get intense. Stay focused on the task at hand and make rational decisions without getting carried away by emotions. Tackle one problem at a time and then move on to the next one over the course of several wipes. Sometimes healers have to compensate for bad mechanical play until the raid gets a better handle on how to get through it.
  • Address conflicts: If conflicts arise, tackle them proactively. Be the mediator and promote open communication. Sometimes a deeper analysis and review can only happen once the raid is over. Don’t let any fights start in the middle of a raid. If things get even more heated, the raid leader might have to step in and tell the player to exit the raid and go for a walk.

Handling the Parse Lords

This will come up once in a while especially with newer healers. They feel left out and want to feel like they contributed. That’s fine if you have the ability to reposition their cooldowns to be more effective (you can even front load them earlier in the encounter). As players get more gear, the raid damage gets higher which also means less opportunity to do any healing. The only way to address this is to reduce the number of healers in the raid. If you have healers that care about that sort of thing, you can plan for it and rotate a healer out or have them play in an offspec role instead.

If it’s on progression, you can hear them out but put your foot down if you’ve already determined the best place to position cooldowns. We have to stick to the healing script to get through troublesome parts of the boss and it builds up that consistency. This does mean that some healers may not rank as high as others but hey, as long as it leads to a boss defeat.

Of all the officerial roles in a guild, being the raid’s defacto healing coordinator is one of the toughest. Expect to work closely with the raid leader when working on strategy together to see what coverage is available at any given point of an encounter. Not only that, prepare to rapidly iterate or change things up after a few pulls once you discover that what you had planned didn’t quite work.

As much as I hate to add this last part, ego management is real. Raiders might often get annoyed or pick on healers who they perceive as not pulling their weight because of a quick glance at healing meters. It’s your job to figure out and pick apart what’s real and what isn’t. Maybe they are slacking. Find out why and what can be done about it. HPS is often fluid and will vary at different parts of the fight. Unlike DPS, healer’s don’t often burn their CDs at the start of an encounter during Herolust.

Good luck out there!

Matt’s Misplays: The Rashok is dead edition

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We got ’em! Rashok has been defeated and that puts us in the 5/9 Mythic club. The first pull of the night was oddly quite close to a kill before we ran out of time (and alive players). It would be another 6 pulls before Rashok fell over. I played my worst that night. An upset stomach throws off your game and focus. This is on top of all the other things Rashok throws at you. As a healer, you have to completely manage your cooldowns. You must remain environmentally aware of the lava waves coming at you and prepare for the big purple cone of death that can crush you. High healing throughput is a requirement with all the absorbs going on. Fade is almost always going to be used on cooldown because there’s almost no wrong time to use it like on a leap or a soak or whatever. It’s a fun encounter to heal but it stretches the synaptic limit of a healer. Credit to the DPS as we were short damage checks on the previous week but we were able to meet and exceed them during the kill week.

  • Join us: Looking for some strong DPS here including Death Knights and Warriors to help us through the summer. Check us out!

Next on our list is Zskarn (and the Z is silent because I was pronouncing it as Zuh-Karn). I’m sitting on the sideline for this one but sheesh if Rashok was bad, this looks infinitely worse.

Only a few misplays made the cut this week, but they’re both me!

This one’s a little sus for me. I thought I cleared the big ol’ cleave, but I didn’t. This has been slowed to 50% speed. But the funnier part is our Windwalker Monk who advanced into it. That was funny. I have to do a better job of stopping my cast and moving closer to Rashok right after that third leap because I know that he’s going to drop that AoE cone somewhere. The best place to be when that goes out is near Rashok since you can simply run through him to get clear of the ability. If there’s one thing FF 14 gets right, it’s the clear lines on where abilities end. Still, this is on me for not anticipating the play earlier and getting into position.

On this play, there was a clearly missed smaller soak on the side here. I saw it too late but I don’t have the jets to get there early enough. Maybe the only thing I could’ve really done was spread out further away from the group before the smaller soaks came out.

That’s all I got. Best of luck in raid, team!