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

Mythic Raszageth Defeated!

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It’s official! Death Jesters is now 8/8 Mythic and we’ve achieved our first Cutting Edge since Ny’alotha. It feels great to be back on top again. The final series of nerfs was enough to push through that finish line.

Here’s the kill clip.

Here’s the notebook for the week.

  • The final pull count is 188: Depending on who you ask, it actually was 208. Apparently, the 20 or so pulls we had while the GM happened to be away that one night didn’t count, so we’re going by his as the official.
  • Phase 3 clinch: Victory was just about assured the moment we entered phase 3 with everyone alive. I didn’t think it was that close. We only had 3 total looks into the third phase before Rasz fell on that final attempt.
  • Pre-pull briefing: Before raid started, we all watched a short 5 minute video together that outlined how to approach the second intermission. The different groups were laid out and their priority targets were assigned. There are three big storm elementals in this phase and we couldn’t let three small groups of storm ads reach any of the big ads (lest they heal them). Every stun and snare had to be planned and the movements had to be choreographed. I would say this saved about 20 pulls and I hope this is a practice that continues more in future tiers. Sometimes there are questions you don’t think about when you’re watching a video on your own which might pop up when you’re watching together as a group.
  • Second intermission woes: Lots to unpack in this phase. Everyone had to be precise in their crowd control. It took a lot of coordination from everyone to successfully get through it.
  • The reclear: Not sure if we’re going to be able to get everyone their CE titles (myself included). There’s only three or so weeks left in this raid tier. The biggest bottle necks are going to be Dathea and Broodkeeper respectively
  • The roster: We knew this ahead of time, but our tank was going to retire the moment we defeated Rasz. We have a stop gap measure for now with one of the melee DPS switching to and gearing a tank but who knows if they can get acclimated in that time frame. From a roster position, I’ve been asked to keep a lookout for a tank, a Death knight (DPS), ranged DPS, and a healer to help provide us with flexibility heading into the summer.

Our raid group was vastly different at the end of Shadowlands compared to what we have now that killed Rasz. Stepping into the expansion, the leadership group decided that CE was going to be the eventual goal. We didn’t know how long it would take. In my experience, it would take at least 2 or 3 tiers to go from an AotC roster to make the jump to a CE roster. I didn’t think early on that we would be able to get there. It wasn’t until we defeated Broodkeeper that I felt we had a chance. Constant recruiting on the forums, in the WoW Discord recruitment servers, and Raider IO paid off as that’s where I was able to locate players and have them apply if I felt that matched what we were looking for. We must’ve gone through something like 30 players over the course of the tier (between trials that were accepted who succeeded and those who did not pass) out of maybe 110 or so applicants.

So what’s next?

We’re getting some new players who we accepted but haven’t had an opportunity to shine yet. They’ll participate in the reclear. We’ll try to get another Raszageth clear but I’ll rest easy even if I’m not able to get it this time around. Any players entertaining the idea of character switches or role changes have to alert the leadership so we can see what our roster looks like and what we can accommodate. Work has begun on planning out a strategy for the next raid bosses, then we’ll start sprinting right out of the gate. We finish this tier at US 363. Not bad at all.

Healing Mythic Kurog

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Initial Setup

For talents, I recommend running something like this one. 

BEQA16pR6xQxvK1VWhXk+w0/GQDAAAAAAAQhoFSSiESJkk0okQJAAAAAkkWokkDAlISEEUKBJJkCA

Divine Star’s a must here just due to the positioning of the raid. You’ll get the most out of it with your whole raid grouped the way it is.

Recommended WeakAuras

Left Right: https://wago.io/rlubMIWq5

The Fight Overview

Our plan involves starting on fire and going to full energy before entering intermission and activating both the fire and storm elementals. After that, we enter earth before the second intermission involving the earth and frost elementals. We finish in frost and hope Kurog is defeated before the enrage begins. Stay well clear of the storm altar.

Figure out your soak group immunities in advance for the fire altar. Paladins, Rogues, and Hunters are great for this.

Phase 1 – Fire Altar

Here’s the route that we end up with. The ranged group and the melee group are quite close to each other (about 2 pandas apart). Try to squeeze as much damage as you can here. I like to let Prayer of Mending do the bulk of the lifting. I drop Divine Word buffed Holy Word: Sanctify in such a way that it can capture both the range and melee groups.

For progression’s sake, practice moving as pixel-perfect as possible. The range group wants to drop the fires on top of each other as close as possible to allow for easy soaking of the Raging Infernos.

On the second Searing Carnage, I’ll move to safety and then fire off a Divine Hymn during that stage. Once Searing Carnage ends, I’ll race back to the group stack and immediately cast Holy Word: Salvation (there should be enough time before the Raging Inferno lands.

At this point, the first intermission should begin.

First Intermission

Immediately Hymn of Hope, then dodge any damaging AoE and start chugging a Potion of Frozen Focus until you’re back up to full (or near full).

A Note About Lethal Current
The Thundering Ravager seems to target then teleport to a healer. Our healers stay near the Blazing Fiend to try to bait the Thundering Ravager to teleport over near the fire ad. Then the healer runs out, the tank then intercepts Lethal Current (because it channels that spell into the closest player). The tank then runs the Lethal Current out allowing DPS and healers to continue.

When Blazing Fiend casts Searing Carnage, anyone not targeted by the ad moves toward the center of the room (but not dead center, just to an edge). Anyone that is targeted with Searing Carnage is going to slowly move their way to that same area and survive. Once again, this allows the Thundering Ravager to teleport to that center area allowing for maximum cleave on both ads.

Upon this initial searing carnage, everyone moves towards the circle taking care to avoid fire.

This also has the added benefit of setting up the raid in the best possible position to soak the Thunder Strike circles. Ranged should soak any far ones, melee can step into any that are close to the two ads. Healers should not soak in any unless there’s no other option.

Your raid’s damage is in a great spot if the Thundering Ravager gets defeated before the Blazing Fiend casts its next Searing Carnage.

Your raid’s damage is lacking if the Thundering Ravager casts a second Thunder Strike (in which case, it’s a wipe).

Phase 2 – Earth Altar

Now we get to the real healing intensive part of the encounter.

If you have the raid glows Weak Aura, it’ll highlight the players affected by Enveloping Earth (the thick healing absorb). Prioritize your single target spells on those players to remove it. If a tank happens to catch it and they’re not at full, I would hit them with Guardian Spirit right away.

This is the tricky part. There will come a moment where Kurog casts Erupting Bedrock, and then the Earthwrought Smasher will also cast Erupting Bedrock. Dodge the one from Kurog, then the one from the Smasher, and plant yourself in a safe spot for a Divine Hymn. I’ll wait a few seconds and by now my Holy Word: Salvation should be off cooldown. I’ll cast it again here to help us get to the end of this phase. This is the definitive healing check.

Second Intermission

In this intermission phase, we will tackle the Frozen Destroyer and the Tectonic Crusher. Initial DPS should be focused on the Frozen Destroyer. Like Heroic, run the earth circles outside of the group and drop them off.

Important: Identify the players with immunities (Ice Blocks, Paladin Bubbles, Hunter Turtles, etc). When the Frozen Destroyer casts Absolute Zero, those players should stay out of the first one. When the Destroyer casts Absolute Zero a second time, it should target the players that didn’t stand in it the first time thereby allowing them to immune the second Absolute Zero and take the circles outside of the group.

I have time to cast Hymn of Hope and take another Potion of Frozen Focus towards the end of this phase (usually when one ad is dead so that the healing is a little less intensive).

Phase 3 – Frost Altar

There should be two groups set up here: One for melee and one for ranged. Both groups will be soaking the first set of Absolute Zeros. Great spot for a damage reduction or a Rallying Cry. On the second set, you’ll want to sacrifice the two players that get them.

This is the final push to get the boss defeated here and if you run into the enrage, it’s a quick wipe. Dodge the orbs from both Kurog and the Frostwrought Dominator.

Now you get to move onwards to Dathea!

Matt’s Notebook: Mythic Raszageth, Week 2

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Finished our second week on Raszageth!

  • Primordial Stones: It’s a good thing we raid later in the week. While starting out severely undertuned and dismissed, the rapid series of buffs and balances quickly propelled their usage up. It gave our team enough time to acquire the necessary stones and get them leveled up for our weekend raid progression. Even though I didn’t expect to be in, I had an Annulet loadout which included a Wild Spirit Stone, Exuding Steam Stone, and a Deluging Water Stone strictly for raid and the healing that might be needed. For Mythic dungeons, I have a Desirous Blood Stone, Prophetic Twilight Stone, and a Pestilent Plague Stone.
  • More progress: Not only did we advance into phase 2, we also had some excellent looks at intermission 2 with the three big elemental ads! Next areas of focus is solidifying and reinforcing mechanical play during phase 2 and getting more repetitions on intermission 2. If we can stabilize that, we move onto the final platform!

That’s it. That’s the only update. We’re pretty close. Our pull count is at about 114.

 

Matt’s Notebook: Mythic Raszageth, Week 1

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We’ve officially started Raszageth’s progression! Technically it’s been after 3 days of pulls with solid, notable progress. A few of the highlights involved getting looks at the first intermission with everyone alive. The nerfs from the previous week made a world of difference. We’re dialed in now. There will be no more reclears until Rasz is defeated so our only upgrades will come from weekly caches.

  • Credit to our tanks: One of the more challenging parts here is maneuvering this giant freight train of a boss into the correct position and maximizing available space for the pushback. Our newest healer offered a method that worked out productively and Rasz has consistent positioning at the start now. I daresay this saved us a few pulls.
  • Evoker necessity: Rescue and Time Dilation are crucial. It’s actually why I’m the odd Panda out due to lack of movement. I can’t afford the race change to a Void elf for the gate (even with the sale). Which means I get to sit on the sideline drinking a mojito as I watch the stream.
  • Damage: Speaking of consistency, we started out getting five sets of pushbacks. Ideally, we want to phase just after four, but at least we can plan for five. With sparks coming up immediately after the fifth, we have to drop them off in the middle instead of at the edge like we normally do.
  • Survivability: Absolutely a must. The DPS checks are simply too valuable. Can’t afford any deaths in phase one. I’ve been told by friends that this is the hardest part of the entire encounter and it gets easier from there. It’s absolutely distressing to me when players jeoporize their survivability to eke out extra damage when healers are stressed enough as is and not even able to make a play to save them. Things like beams, spark damage, or bomb drops in the right spot all seem little but they all add up. Have to reinforice general usage of health potions and healthstones just to live in the first phase and not be greedy
  • Intermission: The focus on the next few raid nights is load balancing intermission groups to distribute damage. I wish we had some extra grief torches lying around to help. But already, we’ve made some changes to both sides and switching player spots around.
  • Roster needs: I’m looking to add a Death Knight (priority), Hunter, and a healer to our roster. It’s unlikely that any would see time on Rasz right now unless they had experience and pulls. But at this point of the tier, we would be looking to augment and reinforce our roster for season 2. Check out more information on our Raider IO page, or apply now.

For now, it’s back to stone farming. Many of them have been buffed recently (multiple times). I haven’t quite figured out the setup I want to get on my Priest just yet.