Raiding

Matt’s Misplays: The Vault Farewell Tour

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Happy May, everybody!

Welcome to this edition of Matt’s Misplays. This week, we say farewell to Vault of the Incarnates. Not a bad introductory raid for Dragonflight, wouldn’t you say?

But hey, it’s official! I’ve officially received my 8/8 Mythic Vault of the Incarnates achievement. I insisted that really it was no big deal if I didn’t get Dathea down on Mythic. I could always come back to it in 3 expansions. But no, no, no, the raid couldn’t have that. They practically voluntold me in there even though I felt Dathea was worse than Rasz.

Let’s start at Terros.

In hindsight, this grip may not have been necessary. Broccoli over here looked like they were close enough to the portal, but Panda didn’t want to leave it to chance. There’s plenty time before the Annihilation where there isn’t a lot of action going on and range players have to get close and be prepared to hit the portal. Otherwise you run into situations like this where we have stragglers.

In this situation, an all in play has been called. The tanks have been instructed to NOT blow up the pillars because there may not be any defensives left to use and the concern is that Terros gets defeated before the pillar damage overwhelms the group. Unfortunately, this carries a risk. A slam is about to happen and the melee group is trapped. To their right is a wall of pillars. In front of them is a giant hole. To the left is a sea of brown dirt. The only safe move is behind them into that little sliver of safe zone goodness. Good players identify this fast and can move into there the moment the circle appears. Risky players pop a defensive and dodge left before returning to safety.

And then you have Paladins who just don’t care and pop bubble while shrugging off the damage anyway.

Moving on to Sennarth is another set of problems as there’s a greater focus on positional play.

The run up the stairs from platform to platform is often one of the trickier ones. On the first set of stairs, it’s possible for the spider grip to come out and snatch people to their doom. Great Priests knows to look behind and camp at the top of the stairs just to help catch any stragglers. A common Life Grip technique is to target a player ahead of time if you think they’re going to need it. In this example, I managed to fish out the Shaman behind the cyclone and then grip them to safety after they crossed my screen from right to left. If I grip earlier, I run the risk of pulling the Shaman into the cyclone.

Here’s another example but from the perspective of the gripped target. I actually think what happened is that the Paladin was pulled through the cyclone which launched them into the air. But Taurens are huuuuuge! It was easy to pick out a big, jumbo Tauren Paladin in mid-air as they go flying from one side of the monitor to the other. Not that I think they’re too large or anything, but they could afford to cut down on the boba tea.

I’m more amazed about this play myself. The hunter manages to disengage back on, but it might’ve been a touch too early or they disengaged into that tornado. It slowed them enough to fall into the abyss, but this Panda was able to target them quick enough to get them back to safety. I credit thousands of hours playing CS:GO and Call of Duty. Who knew clicking heads could translate to raid, right? Now had that player been a Gnome-sized model, they would not have had a chance.

A Priest who’s able to make player-saving plays like that consistently is going to be an asset on your raid team.

However, any raid leader worth their salt would be disappointed. The most important point my GM has ever drilled into anyone on the roster is to always be in the right position. A great raider knows to never be in such a vulnerable spot to begin with. The Warlock gate placed there is near the inside track close to Sennarth. With timers, players should be aware that there is a pull-in coming soon. Either accelerate your movement so that you’re safe ahead of time or if you don’t think you can make it up the stairs, quickly move laterally towards the outside to buy as much time as possible to fight the pull-in. Staying inside while applying boss damage up the stairs is extremely risky unless you have an out (such as an Alter Time) and can be punishing.

Can’t stop stressing movement fundamentals no matter what boss you’re working on. Players will periodically drop webs. In this example, the Evoker commits an error and just drops webs that cover the narrow portion of the bridge slowing people that need to cross (like our resident Panda). We instruct our players to try to handle this in one of three ways:

  1. Use a defensive and drop it in the same spot
  2. Make a small circle with it so you’re still moving and not taking as much damage
  3. Move in an east-west pattern (facing Sennarth)

What you don’t want to do is move north-south (from the back of the room towards Sennarth), because now you’ve slowed down and cut off the path for anyone looking to advance across the room. Expect more of these types of mechanics in future raids. It’s not enough to ensure survivability when dropping pools of danger. You have to consider how your pools will impact your team. Don’t be the guy that messes with the team and loses them boba tea privileges because you screwed up.

This is a look at the first phase of Kurog where we handle the fire altar. What we’re trying to do is stack together and bait all the fire pools in one area then move. We have just finished recovering from a Searing Carnage and you can see a Warlock coming in from the right desperately trying to get back with the group. Unfortunately, they were a touch too slow and you can see a fire pool does target them. Not exactly optimal for the soak person because now they have to run into that orb after they soak the neatly stacked orbs.

Another big no-no moment is you can see a player taking an early lead off (keep your eye on the range group and watch the left side) and moving to the left before the fire pools actually spawn. We get away with one here because we’re lucky they didn’t get a pool spawn and cutting off the range team. Our Panda should have held left strafe key, but was anticipating a pool drop on the left just in case and responded with a screen rotationg to the right, then strafe right for maximum speed to safety before rejoining the team after. This is the kind of thing raiders can get smacked with a rolled-up magazine over. Do not cheat and pre-move in order to bait puddles because you can screw up the raid. Had we been punished, it would’ve resulted in no boba tea for anyone.

With any kind of soak mechanic, we have a standing instruction. The first player that’s in the soak takes it unless told otherwise. Here we see a lightning pool spawn on Panda and a hunter coming in from right to left. There’s a thought process where the Hunter can take Panda’s pool, and then Panda can shuffle left and take that pool. Luckily, a Warlock sneaks up and soaks that one then it’s a simple step back for our Panda to soak lightning again. Early on in progression, healers were asked to never soak lightning pools because it ran the risk of the Thunder ad teleporting over to it and taking it out of cleave range. But with gear upgrades, that is no longer a factor as the Thundering ad will die before it gets another teleport off.

The double donut during the earth altar is where most groups tend to lose ground. It often boils down to tank spacing and tank timing. Our tanks are able to split the Earth ad and Kurog apart to give the raid optimal space to work with. One donut goes off first, then the other donut. Inexperienced raiders can panic as they attempt to try to process dealing with two donuts at the same time. However, a veteran raider will know to only deal with them one by one. In this sequence, Panda commits to the right side donut and allows that one to wash over before sidestepping into the second donut. Be patient, take these slow, and deal with it as it comes. Trying to do both at the same time is extremely risky and often unnecessary. But credit to the tanks for peeling away from each other and giving the raid maximum space and time to work with.

Intermission 2 ads are straightforward. With the earth circles, Panda made the mistake of going in the same direction as the other two. When dealing with circle drop mechanics like this, and with no better option, try to park in the… uh, crack of the other two so that you don’t risk overlapping. What a heads-up play to get gripped back into the group though (I don’t know who snatched the Panda, but good job). It’s nice to get gripped and panda handled once in a while. Wasn’t expecting that otherwise would have gripped another player who had the earth soak on the outside back in as well.

Okay, last misplay here on Broodkeeper. I actually don’t know what happened here. Evoker just … dashed into a lightning circle?

Hello?!

Evokerbrain?!

Anyway, I thought that was kinda funny so I just had to include it.

That’s it for this week! No raiding for us as we take the week off and prepare for Aberrus. For you raid leaders, there are some new resources to check out.

 

When is a Good Time to Change Your WoW Main?

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I’m sure many of you have experienced the feeling of becoming bored with your main character. I can’t say I understand though since I’ve been playing a Holy Priest since the game came out. Anyway, it’s easy to see the allure of switching to your alt for raids, which is sitting at a lower item level but has the potential to become raid-ready with upgrades.

Or maybe you’re simply not enjoying playing your main anymore because it feels like it’s in desperate need of buffs (or tuning), and you’re not hitting as hard as you used to.

As an officer and a raider, I can understand why players might want to switch their main character in the middle of a raid tier. But damn, it is frustrating for the rest of the raid because gear has already been awarded, and loot council has set aside upgrades for that specific player. When a player decides to switch to a new character, investments made in them will have to be made again. It could compromise the raid’s progression, especially if the new character is significantly behind the one being replaced.

Ideally, there are three appropriate times to request a main change that will have the least impact on your raid group.

Before a raid tier

Since we’re a few short weeks away from 10.1’s Aberrus, this is a fantastic time to make the move. For example, during the opening weeks of an expansion, we have a player (let’s name him Debussy) who might initially commit to playing a Shadow Priest, but after a week or so of playing, Debussy felt that it would be too difficult for them to play for too little performance gain. After that, Debussy reverted back to a Mage instead. In this situation, the player has only lost a week’s worth of grinding Mythic +0 gear, but at least it’s still before a raid opens.

Early stage raiding

After that, you have early-stage raiding which is also an appropriate time for a main change. During the first two to three weeks of raiding, the player in question might fall out of love with their class or have difficulty doing consistent damage or surviving. It is still early on in the raiding season to accommodate a main change. Most guilds are working their way through normal or early heroic bosses, and the initial gear that has been lost will realistically be replaced on the road to heroic or mythic anyway.

Farm stage raiding

Lastly, farm status raiding is the next best time to carry a new main. Progression has ended, and goals have been achieved, the only thing left to do is to fill out any remaining slots for gear or trinkets that might be of value to the next raid tier. During this time, loot can be funneled in, and even if that player’s character cannot survive any unavoidable attacks, the rest of the raid is in a position to defeat the boss short-handed.

Progression stage raiding

Switching mains in the middle of a progression raid is the worst time to do it. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth because it means that mythic-quality loot and weekly Great Vault gear are being cast aside. Now the player has to go through the process of rebuilding their new character and either get funneled loot from heroic raids (if the raid still even runs it) or hopes that no one in the raid needs any loot from any of the earlier mythic bosses. It is best to wait until progression stops before considering a main change. It’s almost impossible at this point if the raid group has decided to do raid lockout extensions. We started our lockout extensions after we killed Dathea. Our goals were focused on Broodkeeper and Raszageth and it was about 6 weeks until we started our reclears. Anyone that wanted to change during that window would not have been able to get raid gear unless they decided to find their own groups or source gear from Mythic .

That being said, I understand that there may be certain situations where main changes (and role changes) are necessary. For instance, a player may need to fill an important position in the raid right away, such as a tank or a healer. Although it’s understandable, it’s still better to look inside the existing raid to find a temporary band-aid solution rather than trying to recruit, which takes time. By keeping the composition of the raid the same, the raid only needs to find one replacement. By having a main change, the raid will not only need to find a replacement for the player who is main changing but also re-gear them at the same time. Players have the right to play whatever class and spec they want, but the raid leader gets final say on who to invite for composition reasons.

Changing your character once during a raid tier is understandable. Twice? Now that just seems greedy.

Matt’s Misplays: Mythic Rasz Edition

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I read sports news site The Athletic regularly and one of my favourite post segments is when they do game recaps with gifs that highlight key moments. I want to experiment with that type of format periodically as we step into Aberrus next patch. Think of it as an educational exercise for aspiring raiders out there about what to do and what not to do.

We have some good news and bad news! The good news is I was successful in securing my Rasz CE kill! The bad news is that there is no stream footage of my side of the platforms where I accrued all of my deaths so I have no comical clips to share of the different ways I went down. Then again, if you review my deaths, there’s a common thread:

Ouch. Not exactly my best showing. It’s out of character for me to die to either of those breaths.

For someone who prides themselves in having generally strong movement and awareness, that was not a good day. I haven’t been in any of the Rasz attempts since our first week of progression but I’ve been watching some of the streams. I felt confident with phase 1, phase 2, intermission 2, and phase 3. My suspicion was that intermission 1 would be the challenge. For the substitution, I replaced our Mistweaver Monk. On Intermission 1 platforms (blue side), Monks have this dedicated Divine Hymn sniping ability called Revival that allows them to clear off any healing absorb shields because if that absorb isn’t healed off in time, it detonates.

  • First attempt: Didn’t have Divine Hymn available (it was 15 seconds away because it was used earlier in phase 1)
  • Later attempt: Banked Divine Hymn for Intermission and cast it right when absorbs appeared only to die to a breath
  • Subsequent attempt: Kept one charge of Holy Word: Sanctuary to help spike the absorb and followed up with Divine Hymn. Died to a breath.
  • Follow-up attempt: Kept two charges of Holy Word: Sanctuary then followed up with Divine Hymn. Died to a breath.

On the successful kill attempt, I repositioned to dodge breath, then cast Holy Word: Sanctuary and Divine Hymn. The result? I did not die to breath! Hooray! We moved on to phase 2 and I navigated through the winds, the static charges, and all of the usual stuff. Even intermission 2 went well! I stayed with the group as we moved around to dodge orbs and kept them alive. All the Storm ads died and I was about to be home free!

… Or so I thought.

So much for the attempt at an Undying pull! This Panda has a penchant for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Right when I let my guard down, Rasz just appeared behind me and said, “We’re not quite done with you yet!” and proceeded to exhale a blast of Lightning Spearmint breath down the middle. You can see Guardian Spirit trigger once I stopped moving before the red Priest icon appears indicating death. I practically buried my face in my hands because it looked clear in every direction except the one place I didn’t look — Behind me.

That’s alright . All of our Battle Res’s were still available. Once I teleported over to the phase 3 platform, I was resurrected and then we killed Rasz! Yay!

After that, it was time to backtrack and reclear the other bosses. Why don’t we take a look at our old friend Terros? He’s the third boss in Vault progression (usually). A giant rotating rock with allegedly no legs, right? We’ve killed this guy many times and one would think that the mythic debuff clear would have been ingrained already. But not today! Our intrepid hero who normally stands at range (because we typically did 14-6 split) is in melee (my first time with a 16-4 split).

Watch what happens.

Did you catch the mistake?

You’ll notice the incredibly handsome Panda had the mythic debuff and didn’t have anyone to clear with. He failed to recognize that there was no one else to clear with. He should have run out to range for a clear instead of standing in melee, like a dumpling. This is why I prefer playing out in range.

Let’s move over to Primal Council! The spotlight’s going to be on one of our mages.

It’s risky playing in melee range of any boss especially when there’s a whole bunch of effects and abilities going on. Sometimes the tanks have to do something unpredictable like point a boss to the side and then you end up in their line of fire which is exactly what happened here. At the same time, I want to commend the initiative in moving closer and giving the Shaman behind him a path to help clear the storm circle on the pillar. In most situations, melee real estate is already at a premium and if there’s no reason to get up close, don’t get up close. The learning here is to take the safer option and drop back or look for space elsewhere even if it costs you a few seconds of damage time to reposition. Otherwise, the alternative is you just get blasted.

For us, it’s one more week or reclears then we’re off raid for a week before we set foot into Aberrus. How has your guild started preparing for the new raid instance? What steps have your raid leaders (and you individually) taken?

How to Advance from an AotC player to a CE Player

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This is a two part series on advancing from being an AotC player to a CE (Cutting Edge) player from both the player and guild perspective. Today, we look at the player side and what are commonly valued traits.

DJ’s recently killed Mythic Raszageth. The guild had a bit of a slowdown during Shadowlands and went more casual in terms of time and attitude. During our end of expansion survey and post-mortem, the majority of the team answered that they wanted to make a push to being a Cutting Edge team again heading into Dragonflight. Normally, making the jump from an AotC guild to a CE guild takes time. By my experience, it happens gradually over the course of maybe 2 or 3 raid tiers on average. For some guilds, it never happens because they break up or run into a boss wall that can’t be overcome.

I received a question on Twitter from someone who was interested in making that leap. I’ve also received questions along these lines from a few of the other players in the community who had considered applying to DJs but felt they were lacking the experience.

Any suggestions for a AOTC playing looking to take it to the next level and join a CE guild for next tier?

Let’s start with a general foundation. You have your Normal and Heroic guilds. Above that, you have your Ahead of the Curve guild. As that guild decides to push harder and make a play for better loot or a challenge, they might evolve into a Mythic Raiding guild that knocks off a few bosses here and there but gets stonewalled by the remaining final bosses. That’s where most guilds stop. The ones that get over the hump of guild killers end up turning into a Cutting Edge guild. The elusive Hall of Fame guild is generally reserved for the top 100 guilds in both Horde and Alliance, however heading into patch 10.1, it is being amalgamated into the top 200 guilds (regardless of faction). I don’t have experience at that level so I can’t really say anything about it with confidence. In my mind, it’s incredibly rare for someone to go directly from an AotC guild straight to a CE guild. The typical path starts from AotC to a Mythic Raiding environment in order to get eased in before it ramps up (either that same Mythic guild evolves into a CE guild or the player looks for one).

Commitment

Being in a CE guild is a commitment. You can’t take breaks in the middle of a raid tier and expect to come back and waltz into a Cutting Edge achievement. Expect to maintain a high level of attendance. That being said, I’m a big believer in taking a raid night off or two once in a while if you need that small reset and if the raid group can spare it. Commitment is more than just the raid nights. You still have to find the time to help progress your character in other ways. As much as I dislike it, the Mythic+ system is the other way to help fill out your gear and address any weaknesses there. Players try to aim for 8 dungeons complete to maximize their vault. In the early stages of progression, this is ideal. Later on in the tier, it isn’t as important. Nowadays, I stick to getting at least 1 box out of my vault. Sometimes the stats from the gear drops may not be the most optimized for you, but having that extra bit of health can help you survive lethal attacks. When you’re looking to progress on a boss, your own survival is paramount. Your performance will naturally improve later as you get more comfortable (and with gradual gear improvement).

Consistency

Everything you do from your opener to your cooldown usage, to the positioning should all be as consistent as possible. If the raid leader makes a change because there isn’t enough DPS on a platform ad and it’s because you forgot to use a potion or a cooldown, then that change was made for nothing and further imbalances the player assignments. Be the player that everyone can expect and depend upon. I will value a player who consistently hits the 85th percentile over someone who swings from 75th to 95th. Sure their ceiling might be higher, but at least I know what I’ll get out of 85 over the course of 30 pulls. This might be harder to do for healing since that type of performance is contingent on damage coming in, but you can still maintain a degree of predictability of your position and where your major cooldowns will be although this is typically assigned in advance. Expect your raid leaders to direct where major defensive cooldowns will be committed.

Skill

This topic could be its own separate post. It boils down to being good at what you do. Stay alive and push damage while doing the required mechanics. Stay on top of your consumables and execute as best as you can. Stop dying to the same things repeatedly. I’d rather have players learn something new and creative to die from as opposed to not being able to figure out and solve the same thing causing lethal damage over and over. Any player movement needs to be on point. Can’t miss your interrupts. Any target switches have to be quick. It goes on and on. Be up to date with any class or spec changes that you have to account for. Flexibility in spec changing is valued but it isn’t necessarily a deal breaker (I mean, I’ve been a Holy Priest main since the game practically launched).

Lastly, do big numbers when it’s warranted.

Endurance

Mental fortitude is critical! Raszageth took us around 186 wipes (or 206 depending on who you ask). We started working on Rasz on March 17th and kept extending until we got her down on April 8th. But that’s nothing compared to some of the earlier encounters from previous expansions. When you’re progressing on bosses such as Kil’Jaeden in Tomb of Sargeras or Uu’nat in Crucible of the Storms, expect to wipe often and for any kind of progress to be measured in weeks. Hopefully, bosses like that won’t be designed again anytime soon. There are some days when you may choose to sit and not come in because you need a mental reset and this is where a sizeable bench of players comes in handy.

Self-Reflection

Have the wherewithal to look at your own performance and see where improvements can be made. Too often, I see players immediately raid log. The ones that catch my attention stay behind after raid to decompress and discuss shortcomings. Granted, we also raid fairly late for east coast players so sometimes they need to check out and pass out. Even so, during the week, there’s healthy discussion in Discord and the willingness to ask hard questions like, “I died to this and I can’t figure out how to address it.” During our first few pulls on Mythic Terros, I kept taking lethal damage repeatedly. I was simply too slow and any attempts to cast spells were often interrupted because I had to move or risk death. I started off in melee and voiced my concerns before I got the go-ahead to switch with a player at range which made a massive difference.

Communication

You might not need to speak that often to the rest of the team during the middle of a pull but be prepared to talk if the situation comes down to it. Mistakes are going to happen and you’ll need to say something so that someone else can help cover it such as a missed interrupt or if you’re in a bad position. On Kurog, if two people have Absolute Zero and they’re in the same area, one of them needs to speak up and say what they’re going to do. If a raid leader asks you a question, you need to respond even if the answer is, “I don’t know”. We had players who were trialing with us over the weeks and if they took lethal damage and died, our raid leader would ask, “How did you die?” and the silence was quite deafening. Can’t be shy when it comes to communicating quickly about any type of mechanics change, positioning change, or information relevant to the raid. I can tell how comfortably they are communicating in a raid environment based on Mythic+ play. In Court of Stars, CE players will often call dibs on next interrupts for things like Charging Station or AoE stuns and stops for those annoying Imps in the back half of that instance.

This just about covers everything from the player’s side. There’s other nuances to consider. I haven’t even touched upon UI elements but how information is received and how it’s responded to is another consideration. I remember reviewing a fellow player’s UI and was instantly overwhelmed. In a future post, I’ll illustrate my thoughts about how guild leadership can step up from being an AotC guild to a CE guild as there is a clear contrast in how things are handled both in and out of the raid.

Further reading

How to be an Effective 21st Raider

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What exactly is the 21st Raider? Mythic raid sizes only go up to 20! Think of the 21st raider as a coach. No doubt you’ve heard of some of the top end guilds utilizing the position of a 21st raider to help with encounters. We use this extensively in DJs and it’s been beneficial for us. An orchestral conductor will often cue various sections during key entries (like the brass in Raiders March from Indiana Jones) even though they should already know this if they’re keeping time. That emphasis helps ensure that everyone is in sync. Likewise, the 21st raider can function the same way and help remind the raid what’s about to happen and how they should respond. It’s one less mental load that raiders need to keep at the forefront. I remember back during Shadowlands when we were progressing on Stone Legion Generals that there was often confusion between the big shared soak versus the individual solo soak (that involved running out and dropping circles). Having a reminder would have helped cut down on the number of pulls until we had it ingrained.

What you’re not there to do is to tell each player how to play their class unless it’s an integral part of the encounter (like Warlock gates or reminding them of defensive CDs). The big advantage of this is that it removes some of the thinking required for players and allows them to fully focus and commit to their rotation while staying alive. They still have to do some of the mechanics (because you’re not in there to do it for them), but a prompt or a reminder can go a long way, especially when progressing on a new boss. Encounters are getting increasingly complex, especially at the Mythic level.

So what does it take to be effective in that role?

Before we start that, we need to over the setup. Someone needs to stream their perspective to you so that you can see what’s going on.

How to Stream a Point of View Efficiently

Make sure the selected raider has a fast and stable internet connection with a great upload speed. This will allow them to stream at a high quality. They’ll want to stream at least in 1080 or higher with 60 FPS if possible. We use Discord for this.

Screenshot of a UI showing raid timers, ability bars, and available CDs.
  • Have Raid Notes Displayed: Your MRT window with the note should be displayed on the side somewhere. I like to position mine on the far left portion of my screen.
  • Show Raid Cooldowns: The raid caller will need to see who has what available in case they need to audible a defensive in the event a player dies or boss ability timing changes partway through the encounter. With MRT, it has the ability to display raid cooldowns. I personally use a combination of Weak Auras for this with Zen Tracker (Zera DF Update), and the ZT Front-End Textual. I can never remember what raid icons correspond with what abilities and I prefer having the names of both players and abilities.
  • Boss Ability Timers: This one’s obvious. In order for the raid caller to do their job, they need to see what’s about to happen. Place your Bigwigs or DBM bars somewhere prominent. I prefer using the Raid Ability Timeline Weak Aura which condenses all the abilities into a timeline view but it can still be done with bars.

What information is important to call?

As the group progresses through the fight, the 21st raider’s responsibilities might change from phase to phase or as the group gets more progressed in the encounter. Balance important and relevant information with minimalism. Brad Pitt once told Matt Damon to not use seven words when four will do. So channel your inner Brad Pitt!

Critical abilities: Figure out what’s important and what isn’t. As the group first learns about the encounter, certain abilities have to be highlighted to remind the raid what’s about to happen and how to respond. But as they get more familiar, these types of calls can be reduced because of the ingrained muscle memory. After 4 or so pulls, you don’t need to remind people to line up pillars on Terros or to always drop puddles behind Eranog.

Examples

Terros: “Stack for soak, line up pillars”
Eranog: “Puddles behind boss.”

Upcoming cooldowns: As your players start learning the damage patterns, it helps to reinforce which players are using raid cooldowns next. All it takes is a gentle reminder. Name the player and the spell so that they know. You may have to be prepared to call an audible in case that healer isn’t able to commit their defensive cooldown to it. Maybe they died early or you phased ahead of schedule and the spell isn’t available yet. Get creative. It’s not just cooldowns here because consumables play a part and even at this level, players often forget they have it available or choose not to use it (I call this the Megalixir effect).

Examples

Council: “Next Fire Axe is an Aura Mastery.”

Raszageth: “First shield in 3, this is DPS potions and Matt’s Divine Hymn.”

Terros: “This tank slam is a Health Potion.”

Raid movement: Another good one to mention is for upcoming player movements. You’re directing traffic and reminding the team where to go to drop off any important debuffs. This might also involve instructing when Warlock gates need to be used. Not just that, but this is great for any stacking or spread-out motions. On specific fights, you can wave off the group from soaking (like Kurog if a Mage has the frost bomb that they can Ice Block).

Examples

Sennarth: “Wait for Chilling, then take gate up the stairs.”

Kurog: “Freezing Tempest, stack in now.”

Dathea (Mythic): “NO MORE dunks on blue, all dunks on green.”

DPS Priority Targets: This one’s an easy one to miss especially for melee players. There are going to be bosses where adds will appear and they can show up in a part of the map that isn’t quite so obvious. On the flip side, it’s also necessary to issue stop DPS instructions in case you want to slow down damage so that you don’t enter a phase you’re not quite equipped for yet.

Examples

Sennarth: “Spider spawn in 3, get ready.”

Dathea: “Need to move Infuser, all stop DPS.”

Battle Res: Not every player that dies has to get resurrected right away. When the group progress is getting close to a kill, it might be better served to hold one in reserve just in case a more critical player dies (like a tank or a healer). This also applies for Shamans because they might have died in a bad spot and they can’t use their own self resurrection. If there are multiple players dead with a limited number of resurrects, it’s time to decide who will be more valuable alive. Maybe you don’t need the extra healer on their feet but you have to have extra DPS instead to help with the final push. Or there’s two DPS players down but one has offensive CDs available and the other does not. Lastly, not only do you want to control who takes the res but also when they should take the res. I’ve seen instances where the res is cast in a bad position or there’s an ability about to occur that makes it unsafe. Be prepared to say wait!

All that being said, work with the raid group to see what information is and isn’t necessary anymore. I hope this helps you become better at helping your raid. Players might find as they’re getting better that specific calls are getting redundant and don’t need to be mentioned. You’re there to function as a guide and to help reduce some of that mental load until it becomes second nature.