Right and Wrong ways to Communicate in Raid

“Matticus, why do you want us to be less polite in raid?”

Maybe some context is needed. In raids, there’s often lots of back and forth communication flying around.

Tanks are orchestrating where bosses are being pulled.

Raid leader needs to call for any kind of stack or spread out.

The Survival Hunter has to say, “Oops. I missed my interrupt. Again. Can someone cover next?”

Discord (or whatever voice comms you use) needs to be kept clear. A player might get stuck with corruption and need a grip out. Perhaps they’ve been afflicted with some type of crippling debuff that needs to be dispelled off. Maybe they got revived in mid combat and need quick buffs.

If that’s you, keep it short and keep it succinct.

Don’t use Seven words when Four will do

This scene from Ocean’s 11 comes to mind. Rusty (Brad Pitt) is coaching Linus (Matt Damon) on how to speak and not be memorable. The part where Rusty says, “Don’t use seven words when four will do”, translates over to raid as well.

As a Canadian, I get it. You want to be polite. You want to say your please and thank you’s. But being polite might get someone in raid killed!

Scenario: You died and you’ve been revived, but need buffs

Right: Need Fort.

Wrong: Hi, um, Priests, hey could you please kindly buff Power Word: Fortitude on me? I’m a demon Hunter. Thank you very much.

Fort is raid-wide. We don’t even need to click on you to buff you directly. Back in Classic, it was true that Prayer Word: Fortitude (the raid wide spell) required the Priest to learn it from a dropped item and required a Holy Candle for it to be cast. It also lasted for a full hour instead of Power Word: Fortitude’s 30 minutes.

Say it, and we’ll spare a GCD — Just for you. Because we care about you.

Scenario: You’re stuck in a bad place and you need an immediate way out

Right: Grip Taylor

Wrong: See below tweet.

This actually happens much more often than you think. Typically, when a grip is called for it’s for one of two things:

  • You want to get to a certain area.
  • You want to get out of a certain area.

In this case, we operate under the assumption that you’re in imminent danger and need a fast extraction. Had the affected player simply said “Grip <name>”, then one of the Priests in range would be expected to yank them out right away resulting in them living to DPS more.

Bonus: Say your name

Don’t assume your voice is that distinctive. Those of us that have in-game sounds on (or Weak Aura air horns blasting on every other lethal ability) might’ve actually missed your call. So if you need a Life Grip, a Dispel, or a defensive CD, then mention your name.

Unless you have a voice that can do movie trailer voice-overs or your name is James Hong, your voice might not get recognized.

Heck, I still get the voices of our Monks in raid confused.

Still feeling rude for not saying please or thank you? You can make it up to us after and cover our repair bill. That’ll more than makeup for it.

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