Raid guide: How I raid lead Heroic Sire Denathrius

[@ed88455]

My favorite part of this video was pointing out the various wipe spots in phase three. What I was able to take away from it was "If your raid wipes here, this is why and here is how you can prevent it." and I can immediately take that to my raid team who before weren't sure exactly what was going wrong in those spots.

[@olongjohnson3118]

I would enjoy seeing this with an eye tracker to help learn about how you are observing and monitoring information during a fight.

[@watchfighting571]

Great suggestion, that would actually be helpfull in alot of pro play videos like pvp also

[@MrSirZa]

100% ^

[@MisterLepo]

Also add an ear tracker so we know what sounds he's focusing on. /s

[@vqubus8193]

@@MisterLepo nose tracker to know if he farts

[@ShanePsoinos]

@@vqubus8193 lmaooo

[@hunrosan1651]

The format is excellent for this, hearing your calls 'live' and then the breakdown is perfect, really enjoying the content!

[@alexgutjahr5842]

I like how you touch upon what each segment of the raid should be doing at certain times, rather than just giving just a tank's perspective, etc. It's cool to see how they all intertwine

[@Ranxior55]

Sorry for spamming comments on every video. This is next level. I've learned how to raid lead by watching your streams but having trouble helping my group through this fight while tanking it. Thanks Max

[@jaydunn904]

Knowing the "why" is always helpful, really cements it in my memory personally.

[@mycloudisnameddoug]

I'm loving the raid leader perspective of raid fights.

[@Tensooni]

This was the best breakdown I could ask for. Amazing format and pacing. More like this please.

[@jakewright1932]

The pause breakdowns are a huge plus for me. Understanding mechanics is easy, understanding how the mechanics interact with each other takes experience. I think our tanks could benefit from this, 3rd phase positioning has been a problem.

[@Caiphex]

Specific items that have been very helpful: letting your play call roll to hear you and THEN have the break down. The reiteration of phase 3 and noting that shot-calling was more important than personally playing well. This really helped me take my guild through this.

[@niholas6694]

I raid led a pug on week 2 by watching your heroic denanthrius kill on second week splits when you took in pugs to trade items, and copied your movement and calls by watching the video 4-5 times til it was memorised. Im currently doing the same with your coaching on Slightly Tilted using the vod of those raids with my guild. Just having access to that kind of content is an amazing resource

[@TheCrazypuggy]

This content is so refreshing, in depth explanations of not only the tactic, but why to do it. Excellent!

[@richardmathes4383]

I'm new to watching your videos, and I fucking love this. What a perfect tone and volume for shot calling. Very clear, quick to correct, but in a way that doesn't create stress. Amazing.

[@benmstewie]

Just to reaffirm what other have been saying, absolutely LOVE the content on your channel so far especially this type of stuff. It's definitely very unique and extremely helpful for learning these fights at a more detailed level. I've learned so much more from your videos about CN than the other videos I've watched. It helps that you are very good at explaining the important and key concepts instead of essentially just reading the dungeon journal during the video like most other "guides" do.

[@Devutrix]

This is fantastic. The P3 order and methodology is amazing. This makes it way easier to understand than the boss guides out there.

[@kappazor]

I loved this! Hope to see more videos with this format: hearing your calls within the VOD and then the breakdown

[@jordanphillips4201]

Just imagining the differences for other bosses would be an incredibly valuable resource for raid leaders progressing. Great content imo

[@Cruzkilla88]

"calling it pizza sauce is a huge dps increase" lmao I love it.

[@astarix8835]

Giving the effects stupid names works really well for my guild. You say the name of an effect and they have to go through their mental index of what effect you just named. If I say "sky poop, watch your feet" they know exactly what that is.

[@johnvandervest3200]

This was 100x more useful to me than the normal boss guide videos. Loved the P3 breakdown.

[@spicykorean]

The little tips and details help so much instead of it being a general guide.

[@frankdaviel1347]

Phase 3 Walkthough was my favorite part. Breaking down what people could use is very helpful.

[@nabstarrr9624]

This is the best walk through strat video out there. I have been playing for 16 years and Fatboss, wowhead, etc. does not come close to this. A++++++ THANK YOU

[@ayoxwow]

Had like 90 wipes on sire. Showed this video yesterday to my raid leader and today we killed it in 8 pulls. Problems we had: P2 timings; P3 seeds placement. Me and a couple other raiders made sugestions about timings but ultimately it was raid leader's call. And today he came up with a strategy. I sugested simple changes to it and in a couple pulls it died. Also he got a better understanding on what raid leading is and even started using markers mid-fight. Thanks for the great videos.

[@SpawnOfJenova]

Dude, your videos have taught me so much about raid leading. My guild has gone from struggling on bosses, to farming the raid, and moving on to progressing the next difficulty.

[@banaatti]

I think you breaking down smaller details causing wipes and how to prevent them, is a really good part of these. With normal boss guides they rarely address those

[@hanabee76]

I love this video, this is helping me as a new raid leader so much! I learn from the best, and it's almost like having a class about raid leading. Amazing content and thank you so much!

[@yauyox912]

dude i'm having so much struggle to clear sire on heroic, and your videos really help to improve and understand the encounter , please continue doing this work cuz it's amazing m8, truly amazing.

[@matthewshort2315]

This is the kind of detail that I want from guides. Explaining everything in detail and showing the entire fight is way better than a summary overview on these mechanic heavy fights like Heroic Sire. Bringing up the importance of the tank positioning and listing these details really makes this information invaluable. I look forward to checking out some of your other videos. Great job, I hope our raid lead will copy the term Pizza Sauce!

[@myopiniondoesntmatter7068]

This really helped my guild. We were getting into P3 with everyone up and full healer mana, dealing with the double seeds fine after a few attempts. But the second ravage seemed to screw us every time. We knew we needed to be knocked back out of it, but he would ravage different spots each time regardless of where the raid was stacked and where he was. Having the exact positions for the entire of the fight seemed to fix this problem and we killed him. (We're a really casual timewise guild, so it took us ~3 weeks to get the 41 attempts in)

[@koufeman]

This is extremely helpful. Thanks for taking the time to put something like this together for the rest of us.

[@stevensalter9697]

This is really well done. The community this type of content. Please provide it as often as you are able too.

[@CuTTsLaYeR]

Even as a non RL this was very helpful. I like the format of not having good players to show a more realistic scenario for the "normal" raider. Really good that you slowed it down and went in to detail/explained every call at phase 3, since thats the hard phase. Good shit 10/10

[@alexanderlinderson2655]

Your format was pretty much perfect! Really good commentary over the vod, as well as spots of in game chat to actually show us how that sounds as well

[@andrewdriscoll5829]

I

[@tnaro]

Really enjoy the style of video where we first watch you raid lead and then you explain the reasoning and thought process behind it.

[@LowGoSlow]

It was nice as a dps in a casual guild to see how the boss works from the raidlead side, and get a more "why" not just "what" on the calls

[@Silverddragn]

This was super helpful. As a ffxiv player that just started wow and downed heroic sire in 2.5 weeks, super big thank you.

[@dudramar]

Great video. I find the details like "dps the range add to 30% and hold to the next phase BECAUSE...." very helpful. all those tips in P3 with positioning and WHY, amazing. thanks for the videos, bring us more!

[@MrSanman0707]

This content is invaluable to the inexperienced player or even just new raid leaders. Thank you!

[@Senen33]

I have been raid leading since MoP and it's SO valuable to see how one of the best RL in the world handle all of those. Thank you. :)

[@Karkesis]

In my experience that third hand in P3 is the most common wipe point for pugs so it was cool to see how you were able to completely carry the group through it with some simple early callouts.

[@marekzezula4823]

Man.. I can't tell you other options to do Denathrius, but I can tell you... I got CHILLS many times from how proffesionally you managed your raid and took into consideration skills of ppl in your raid! Great work, hope you keep it up!

[@stewie_]

Love your vids and streams. I see them as not only an example on how to be a great raid leader but as a leader in general. Keep it up Max!

[@nickkakuska6719]

Max. You are a master at your craft. Doing call outs during a boss is so important and to have your raid respond to your calls. It's amazing watching you play and raid lead. This video is definitely worth sharing so others can learn from you and help their guild progress. Please more videos.

[@LimitMaximum]

Thanks!

[@darkensus]

Studied this video intensely and it got us our aotc clear a few weeks back. Forgot I never commented a huge thank you for the strats and cd management.

[@Hellsfool]

Loved the part when you talk through the fight after showing your calls. Best RL/boss vids going at the moment easily.

[@kuzkal]

I am actually so happy to see your videos, you are a huge inspiration to me as a raid leader. Seeing you raid lead Heroic denathrius (which by now should be less of a mistery or "challenge" for most of the lower ranked guilds like mine) is actually so good for us raid leaders in my opinion, because we can actually SEE and not IMAGINE what to get better at ! (Sorry if my English is not perfect, i m French ^^'). I hope Limit stays at the top for a long time, i feel like you deserve it more than anyone else !

[@Zartan11]

Really nice. I especially appreciate the explanations for *why* the raid (or specific people) need to do certain things. Also, comparing the soaks to the Azshara fight instant helped me "get it," where no previous explanation of the soaks was as clear. I'm now going to read up on Alter Time, since that's an ability I rarely use as a mage and don't quite understand. :-)

[@ellas94]

Perhaps not the most helpful feedback, but I think everything in this video was great. This type of content going over more specific and detailed aspects of raid encounters is something I've only really seen Preach do (in a very different way) occasionally and I think content like this is incredibly educating for the average WoW player. And like you said, I also think it's very important that you do take your time so you can reach a broader audience.

[@extrem-gx]

I really liked this video, especially phase 3 since this is the phase, a lot of people struggle. very informative, thx max! I enjoyed

[@Jigarita]

This was great for the fact that it is heroic and you have the varied group size and ability. I loved some of the tricks you mentioned (dk/shammy) and having the druid get all stacks off.. Plus the one about if the tank dies instant pushback. I am sure that will save some frustration. So yeah more heroic guides with varied size and skill level would be amazing!!

[@Kman1435345]

I honestly love the video, doing it with Pugs/coaching of other guilds helps me understand how my guild will do do it. showing the kill then a walk-through at the end with they whys and hows help!

[@iNicklen]

I appreciate the small gameplay tips and tricks you explain, please don't assume we know them all already - nice vid!

[@cathbadh1320]

Max, going over the calls, especially at the points where wipes are likely is super helpful. Also the little tips/tricks like the druid roar on Cleansing Pain that Echo did is great to cover. None of my druids had thought of that one or read about it.

[@gaminhelp101]

This structure is extremely helpful and great to watch, along with learning new insights as a raid leader in general

[@MasterJoEJG]

I think its insane how he is like: " i just call out seeds and ...." and he literally micros everything including raid cds. Really just shows how much overview and knowledge you have man! Really makes ppl put up 100% of their Skill to the board when needed bcs you just help so much

[@09austin09]

Great video Max! I'm new to RL this tier and stuff like this really helps with what I should be focusing on calling out - I'm constantly reminded information overload is bad, simplicity and specificity are good

[@BirdmanG07]

Best/most clear for tank positioning on P3 - thank you.

[@mintrisanato]

this breakdown of live calls in critical parts is gold!

[@keving1376]

After my guild raid group fell apart early in the expansion (at 5/8 HC) i've just been putting off getting the Sire HC kill through pugging because i would feel so much pressure about positioning as a tank. This vid helps

[@faithmothergoddess7055]

Thank you so much max xxxx fingers crossed for tonight! 🤞

[@hellfireminis6873]

Max, as a raid lead I appreciate your ability to lead and your willingness to help the rest of us that are not at that level. Thanks a lot!

[@eraticusresto9247]

This vid helped my guild immensely with our kill. Huge thank you Max.

[@zen_rage]

We just got AOTC tonight (late in the tier) but this video would have been amazing 3 weeks ago! Glad I finally found it

[@jankyboislim272]

this is fantastic content, i was able to take away a lot from this and look forward to seeing this style for other fights in the future. definitely earned the sub, thanks for the good work man!

[@PowerChowder]

This is a great series! I'd love to see a video explaining your raid leading add-ons and how you set them up so they're clear and easy to ascertain the info you need. You're videos are amazing, thanks for doing these! Sub for life

[@Shotgunz999]

this is very interesting, actually went through your vods to watch a hc sire pug to see how you did it and how i can improve and i landed on this exact same vod haha, very helpful!

[@ansamerch]

Absolutely fantastic, the part talking about tank positioning is awesome! More like that please

[@pilp5259]

I loved the wipe part! Great video all around

[@Kungpowchickn]

Love this! Breakdown is awesome, please do more!

[@simonouellette3204]

Hey Max, just a quick question, since you did this on your DK At 8:38 you can see your ghoul standing there doing nothing for a couple of seconds. I have the same problem, basically i spam my petattack macro when switching mirroir, is there any way to avoid it, or is it just bad game design and there's nothing left for me but to spam my petattack macro ? Btw awesome videos, I know a couple RL who should watch this series. GL on WFR for next tier !

[@lioxle5350]

Hi, I just wanted to leave a quick feedback here: I do raidlead in a starting mythic guild. What I really like about this format is that I can actually leverage your knowledge of the fight which is way deeper compared to mine. One example of this fight: When the double debuff set is coming I tell my people to lay them down close to the boss (not cleaving the group though) in a triangle to be able to spirit link / use areas affects to affect all 3 spots and then let the next set be placed further away / around the soaking spots so we can easily get to the next set after we soaked. Our strategy works for us but now that I have seen your approach, I understand that we can improve it to make our life a bit easier. I also understand a little bit more about how to design a strategy for fights in general, what to look out for and I can grab a couple of nuggets from each of your videos. That is what makes them really valuable to me. Have fun and thank you for your content!

[@nathanconrad5756]

Where can I get your weakauras you use? I am assuming its a varient of the Adriox elvui and WA profiles, but slightly different for UH DK. I have been hunting. Do you have a link?

[@mariusxeno4454]

Amazing and incredibly helpful content! Thank you!

[@alastairetaru]

Excited for the launch of your channel, as a raid leader I really relate to your style and general philosophies a lot. This is some great content, oh and I smashed the like button for you.

[@lilmissnorti]

Guides and 'how to' videos are not as in depth as this...Thank You! I learn by doing (as does a lot of our Guild*) so having someone say "this is the ability, it does damage, you can soak this, blah blah blah" it is not as useful as being there and going "ok well this immunity works, but this one doesn't" or "we can cheese this part by doing X". I usually end up pugging a lot of bosses for practice or just to see other strategies for testing in our own groups. (I was raiding 8-9 times a week regularly throughout Eternal Palace just to lock in that muscle memory for Azshara). I am a relative noob player as well (I only started playing WoW at the start of BfA). I enjoyed this video and hearing the *very* clean calls, as well as the explanation to the reasoning behind said calls. Fatboss will just say "drop seeds away from group and soak" you at least offer insight into where damage on boss can be sacrificed for mechanics and why. Thank you again...keep it up! *We are a small casual chill group in OCE who raids twice a week (on Heroic with a smaller 3rd night for strategy building) - currently 8/10H and #20 (for Horde) on our server cluster.

[@wiljosabre]

Really liked the idea of making videos with Pugs or "lower ranked guilds" as we can see issues that we commonly see in our pulls. And the markers calling for movement explaining was amazing. How did you bind them on tho?

[@MisterLepo]

Loved this video, very useful to see the fights through a raid leaders eyes because most guides don't cover the callouts/timings on these mechanics and common mistakes of the raid that you should watch for. I've noticed that the group was very comfortable with DPS throughout the fight. I wonder what is your take on groups that struggle with pushing out enough DPS to make the fight easier/have time to slow dps and focus only on mechanics. I.e our group can't push to P3 before 3rd wave of adds, is something like this a clear sign that we should focus on gearing everybody instead of pushing on progression? Ty

[@charliemiddleton6321]

Hey Max, nice work, huge fan. This video helped our guild kill Sire a couple days ago. One suggestion: identify not just the common 'here's where guilds can wipe' spots, but also why and how to prevent wiping there. E.g. you really need to have a CD on the tank here, or have the tank topped here, or have the debuffed people spot healed here, or be stacked or be spread or whatever. Looking forward to the mythic videos as my guild is progressing now.

[@nenus4585]

Why you're doing things is the most important thing for me, with that i can manage how to do X mechanic

[@seanforan8737]

Got a lot from this, thanks for taking the time to put it up

[@RageK1T]

One thing I would wonder is about preparation as a raid lead, comp, things to look at in logs, how to approach certain things you're unsure, and how to look for mistakes. Those are things that are easily learned through time, but could be the difference between a wasted raid night and not. What would a much faster approach be? Maybe talk a little about time during a regular raid night that should be taken to analyze what you're doing and how to improve.

[@CrimsonCobra1]

Hey Max, first off, love the content so far and I'm really looking forward to all of it as I'm slowly getting the ropes on how to raid lead. I'd really like to see what goes into the decision making process on what raid cooldowns go where on any given fight. Obviously I'm sure some of it comes with doing the fight on PTR or learning as the fight goes, where the big damage is coming from, but I'd also like to see how that kind of thing is decided on and maybe what the difference in using one CD over another might be on a given mechanic

[@mathiaslyngs9028]

Hey Max. Just been notificied by a guildie on this video - it is lovely. I am about to take over RLing in my guild and I would love to see how u how lead in mythic so that I can learn. My guild is on Hungering Destroyer mythic atm so I am looking forward to that video! Best of luck in the next world first raid!

[@RZethusE]

All around great video! I'm no RL but I def took away some good info from this. My guild is close to 3/10M and we have yet to still kill H-Sire /w over 100 attempts and every instance where you mention common wipe/mistakes, we're hitting those moments frequently.

[@thetigervirus]

something you didnt really mention, or maybe i missed it cuz i havent watched the whole video yet. How do you go about picking pugs to fill your raid? whats the selection process like? checking .io/logs?

[@Lpr2hawkar]

Great content. I really like it. I feel like i am doing the fight on slow motion and step by step. I like how you dont cover every mechanic and more assume we know the fight. Allows to focus more on the positionning, movement, timings etc. Keep em coming

[@LimitMaximum]

Ya that’s the goal. There are 100 videos that tell you all the mechanics and stuff, these videos are made with all of that assumed and it’s just the important stuff. That said they can be lengthy but I’d like people leaving with a clear way of killing the boss

[@Lpr2hawkar]

@@LimitMaximum if it saves us 3 wipes on fight the time is well made up.

[@KeithMDuncan]

This is a great guide for Raid Leaders. Thanks! You said early on in the video that you would share the macro for placing markers on the fly, but I don' t think you got around to sharing it. Do you mind sharing that macro/addon? Cheers!

[@NicoleDeLuca]

It’s through exorsus raid tools, you set it up through the key binding menu

[@BGivo]

One of the problems you might run into if you try to do this with a real pug group is that 3-5 people will die to puddles for the first 20 pulls, then once you get past that, at least 10 people will not be able to follow what "go to square" means in real time and will get thrown off the edge even if you call out the Shattering Pain frontal.

[@alastairetaru]

If you get a group of people who are willing to use comms and follow direction I would find this generally isn't true. In Legion I didn't have time for a guild and made pugs to get all of my AOTC achievements, and while difficult, I was able to do it, even as someone who was himself getting AOTC for the first time in those groups. Strong raid leading makes a very big difference.

[@kalenesharstrom9562]

Super helpful video! Thank you and please do more!

[@daniel85mg]

"Dude taunt please" -

[@sparky-qk3kt]

How is max creating markers so quick? Is it a key bind? And is he choosing what markers go down or is it just a cycle?

[@brimzw]

At the start of the video you mentioned the raid marker macros and that you'd include them at the end but never did. Is it just the normal marker macro that cycles or do you dedicate multiple keybinds to them?

[@LimitMaximum]

Ya I totally forgot probably a being new thing. Download Exorsus raid tools and then in your key bindings menu there will be an extra option to straight up keybind them

[@brimzw]

The videos so far all own, and I am sure the ones in the future will be as well so keep at it man.

[@chrcz8346]

very good video, loved it and its a lot of value for people like me that do RL in pugs sometimes. the last part was very valuable and especially the intricacies that are obvious to someone like you like shaman totem for the first grip in p3, placements, options for positionings. like you talked about the general setting and the resulting possible strategies. like you didnt give a linear way how to do it per se, but you mentioned the variables and a few ways to deal with them. i think the combination of hearing/seeing you raidlead and then explaining some of the details incl. important spells/classes, etc. btw, you didnt mention how to do the marker thing (like binding world markers to hotkeys). id suggest that you keep a notepad or something so you dont forget. i wouldve loved this info. but ill just google it instead. thanks for the videos and keep it up please, its very entertaining and valuable to ppl like me!

[@mierkablue]

Really excellent explanations, super usefull. (Yes we are in hc dena right now. :)

[@nelsonjarod93]

Hey Max, these videos are great! My irl friends came back for SLands and decided I should be GM/RL for our new guild. All of this perspective has been very helpful. One thing we’re struggling with and I would appreciate ideas on is recruiting. We’re 8/10 on heroic right now and pulling the lever in LFG every week is challenging.

[@Gingivits]

A bit late. Love this video. I love hearing how to raid lead fights. Would love to see a video on which role is easiest to raid lead from and why. I am a healer and feel as if my group may be getting screwed over some fights due to poorer healing from me. I am thinking of switching to dps but I am the only paladin healer and devo aura is too good to lose.

[@LazyMonkey24]

Personally I like going over it, it’s nice to have the vod but I like hearing what you think are the most dangerous parts. Guides go over the mechanics, and you can duplicate the call outs from a vod but getting an understanding of what to be worried about is what takes time and wipe after wipe to build up, and a small “idk why but tanks die here and it causes wipes” could save so much time. We don’t gotta wait for it to happen every few pulls to figure out that it’s worth a cd to make sure they live.

[@lucilfer-n1y]

Holy shit it’s all coming out

[@westonwright5029]

Dude please keep doing these videos. Maybe even guild progress video reviews or raid leading critique!

[@grahamvandyke]

For reference of how insanely good his raid leading is, I got AOTC only 15 days before this from pugging the entire of heroic and had a LOT of wipes on Sire and he's raid leading around 15 people who have never even seen the fight to victory.... bananas.