The Matticus Hypothesis

Even if instructions are explained over vent, there will always be someone who claims that they didn’t hear it.

As I write this, it’s a sunny sunday afternoon and we have just finished wipe one of a night that will be full of many wipes, I am sure.

This is what happened 5 minutes ago. The target is Archimonde. Our objective is to survive. Killing him would be nice. But our main goal is to practice airbursts and doomfires. The Guild QB starts speaking:

"If you see Doomfire coming in your direction, run in a straight line behind you. If you’re a healer, make sure other healers know that you’re running so that someone can keep a close eye on Lang. He’s going to be tanking this guy."

Another lead speaks up at this point, "We don’t want doomfires to encircle and isolate the raid and box them in. It is absolutely imperative and important that you run in a straight line behind you. Remember that we’re setting up compass positions for this one and we’re cheating slightly towards the cliff. I’m going to say again. If a doomfire comes towards you, run in a straight line behind you."

"Lang, call the ball."

Our MT then proceeds to pull.

30 odd seconds later, Doomfire appears. The affected run back in a straight line. So far so good, I think to myself. Archimonde is very much a survival fight.

Things suddenly turn from good to bed. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a fire that’s chasing a player who is doing twists and turns throughout the raid. He cuts towards the world tree then back towards the cliff face where we initially started.

I managed to smite Archimonde for a cool 6000 damage before I drop.

The friendly sounding raid QB is gone. His voice changed to that of a stock trader wanting to know why he’s losing money.

"Why was that doomfire chasing someone into the raid? Wait, more importantly, why did that person turn into the raid causing it to cut off players?"

He proceeds to single out one of the players and asks, "Why did you not run in a straight line?"

"I didn’t hear it."

There is stunned silence. It is so quiet that a library basement would have been more noisier.

"Okay then," the raid leader says quietly, "make sure it doesn’t happen again."

Thank goodness the legal drinking age in Canada is 19.

14 thoughts on “The Matticus Hypothesis”

  1. Similar thing happened to us last night except it was our first attempt on Solarian. Our QB had explained what to do if you get the bomb a couple of times and you guessed it, the first person who gets the bomb doesn’t move at all and wipes the raid.

    Downed him on the next try though so it’s all good.

  2. I am not saying it’s good or okay, but I do think it’s darn easy to just sort of zone out to what’s going on in Vent / TS. There’s a lot of unimportant chatter for ten minutes, then one minutes of the raid leader actually saying something you need to know. If you went all glassy-eyed during those first ten minutes, you may not focus back in time to catch what the raid leader said. That puts the onus on you to ask, but still… some people don’t. Or they’re totally AFK and they don’t even realize they’ve missed something. Boo on no chat log of Vent. :/

    Trying not to be Listening Impaired,

  3. I believe that this would be the DPS equivalent to healers telling white lies as in your post:

    I know that when I hear our DPS say that they didn’t hear something on vent, my first reaction is that they should already know the strategy anyways and this is just a friendly reminder.

    I know this is not always realistic with a serious casual guild, so I tend to let it go the first time it happens. Now that one DPS has done it, this excuse is no longer valid for them or any other DPS for that matter since everyone now knows why we wiped.

    Basically, I’ve learned to chalk it up to a white lie to save from embarassment, and then I have to come read some more Healer White Lie comments to remind myself that I’ve been in that situation before, and to let it go (ONCE!). 🙂

  4. It’s just like no matter how many times raiders are asked to look up boss strats and watch videos before attending a raid, there will still be a handful of people who never bothered. *Shrug*

  5. Yup, there’s always going to be a handful who no matter how much we stress the need for them to learn a boss they will have no clue what to expect when they get there. It’s definitely frustrating but unfortunately you have to accept it.

    Archimonde is a fight that folks just need to experience and learn how to not die from the fire/air burst/grip so theres really not a whole lot that yelling and bitching will do. But alcohol does indeed help if you’re trying to keep track of who does what wrong on Archimonde!

  6. Raid Warnings during the strat talk.

    Important stuff like this is always backed up by raid warnings during the strat talk. They’re kind of hard to miss and they’re logged.

  7. Prob a good idea to use ready check… then do a Summary of important things.. at least that way u know their paying attention ( or their cat clicked ready while they were getting a drink.. )

  8. A few things you need to know about Archimonde:

    1. If your raid members cant minimize their fall damage from being air bursted, they will die. Solution: Have the entire raid get their tears and go base jumping (jump off a cliff and correctly use tears to stay alive). It’s not even worth pulling Archi until EVERYONE can consistantly take less than 2k damage from falling. (LAG IS NO EXCUSE, LEARN TO DEAL WITH IT) On a side note, it is HILLARIOUS to watch your GM/Raid leader repeatedly die from fall damage. Additionally, have everyone get their tears at the same time to avoid having to wait for the NPCs to respawn between every pull.

    2. Decurses, absolutely necessary. Mandate that all mages/druids have decursive (or equivolent). Mandate that EVERYONE stay in range of a decurser at all times. (mark decursers with raid icons to make them more visible)

    3. If your raid cant avoid the fires you will fail. This is where you are EASILY able to identify which players in your raid have tunnel vision.
    If its your DPS classes that are having difficulty, try the fight with NO DAMAGE. Try to last until the enrage timer.
    If its the healers that are having issues, they must learn by doing. They need to start conservative and see if the tank stays alive. As they get more familiar with the fight, they can push it a bit more as needed. If they have to eat a flame debuff to get off an essential heal, that’s fine (as long as they are able to keep themself, and the tank alive afterwards).

    4. Fear is the random BS component in this fight. Watching the fear coolown is ESSENTIAL for EVERYONE. Managing cooldowns that can break fear is the key to avoid the ‘I got feared through the flames and died like a noob’. All players (except maybe the MT depending on class) should equip their medallion of the alliance/horde for an extra fear break. If you have 1 or more ways to break fear, stay in and DPS/Heal (but always keep within range of your decurser, and avoid flames as you normally would). When there is 10 seconds left on the fear cooldown and you have no way to break fear, IMMEDIATELY GET AS FAR AWAY FROM THE FIRES AS POSSIBLE.

    5. Stupidity. There are people in your raid who will get you wiped…repeatedly. These people need to be coached into correct behavior, or removed from the raid. Failure to do so will result in much more frustration than its worth. If removal isn’t an option, consider a DKP penalty for repeat ‘first to die’ offenders.

    Analyzing deaths: Know why people died (no excuse for it, but it happens)
    Fall Damage: practice base jumping
    Fire: PAY ATTENTION and run out sooner
    Curse: in range of decurser? (if yes, decurser needs to wake up, if no PAY ATTENTION to positioning)

    This is NOT a DPS race, it is a pure survival fight. Good Luck!


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