Field manual · Classic raid design

Cheng Raid School

Lessons from Wyatt Cheng (@candlesan) boss-design shorts — Skeram, Razuvious, Anubisath Sentinels, Loatheb, Patchwerk — plus an original worked encounter. No invented quotations.

01

Five lesson plates

Prophet Skeram

Intellectual prankster · mind control + illusions

  • First MC test: healers healed through the ally — fixed with a huge damage buff so CC (or killing) became the answer; loved polymorph (also heals); scaled the MC’d player for the big sheep joke.
  • Timer minions snowball when overgeared → splits at 75 / 50 / 25% for execution regardless of DPS.
  • Intended tell: copies at half health, call the fast-dying pair on Vent. Wrong call → five Skerams, wipe.
  • Failed: “Pet of Skeram” labels, UI mods, creature IDs, localization; shipped still beaten by hunter pet lock or Mana Burn (copies full mana).

Endorsed: real bug/exploit → fix it. Players outsmarting the designer is history, not a hotfix.

Instructor Razuvious

Spotlight a neglected class verb

  • Loves unique abilities finding a raid home: Hunter Tranq on Magmadar, rogues disarming BWL traps; Twin Emperors tuned for warlock tank (Searing Pain threat).
  • Bosses usually MC-immune — he inverted that. Four students; priests MC them to tank.
  • Unbalancing Strike (huge hit + defense down) forces the verb — you can’t main-tank long-term. Shield Wall / Evasion / Deterrence are temporary heroics, not the strat.
  • Blind PTR: tank dies instantly; later a priest finds MC. Grateful he could build a whole fight around one ability on one class; modern 13-class WoW can’t fairly require that.

Also: YT description — he designed six Naxx bosses: Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Loatheb, Razuvious, Gothik, Four Horsemen.

Anubisath Sentinels

“Set monster” · entrance pack, not a boss

  • Blizzard North / Diablo 3: set items → set monster? Pack size gain/loss = nonsense. Prototype: four enemies, one ability each, grant on death — failed (AoE all, unread icons, no voice, kill order irrelevant).
  • North shut down → Irvine. First WoW job: AQ20/AQ40 bosses and trash. Same idea worked: readable buffs, Vent/TS, single-target order.
  • Eight abilities in pairs (melee/caster, early/late, fire/frost reflect, close/far). Each picks on pull; raid reads, repositions, picks kill order.

Explicit: an idea isn’t good or bad on its own. It needs the right context.

Loatheb

Can healers be called to DPS?

  • Naive disable healing → healers benched, not converted.
  • Stacking heal-reduce on tank → panic, everyone heals harder.
  • Stacking DR on caster after heal (100/80/60…) → un-fun; doing nothing wrong, healing digs a hole.
  • Shipped: hard cap, one heal per healer per minute — heal stays coveted; after cast, DPS.
  • Second-order: less healing → tanks may lack rage/threat → Spores for damage without threat. Consumable tax accepted as wing-final (he didn’t love it).

After ship: Loatheb is an anagram of healbot. Unintentional. Appropriate.

Patchwerk

EverQuest Avatar of War theory in WoW

  • ~4000 HP tanks vs healable ~4000 hits → rotate across main + off-tanks.
  • Assigned heal spam tedious → Hateful Strike (temp name shipped): autos on MT; big hits among top-3 hate; pick off-tank with most health for lag reaction.
  • Exploit: 30 healers, slow DPS → first aggressive enrage as explicit DPS check.
  • No World of Logs: internal dummy-parses every class, then +30% HP pad for extras serious raiders find.

Goal: fully strain tanks, healers, and DPS before ship.

02

Cheng rules

Cross-cutting rules a designer can reuse. Tight and specific — not generic mush. Cite by number in dossiers and worksheets.

Rule 01

Force the verb, don’t suggest it

Unbalancing Strike makes main-tanking unsustainable. Temporary heroics are not the strategy.

Rule 02

Execution beats overgear snowballs

Prefer % health phase gates (75/50/25) over timer minions when pressure must stay constant across gear.

Rule 03

Assume tools will leak identity

Pets, mods, IDs, localization, Mana Burn spoiled Skeram’s tell. Don’t bet the fight on “spot the fake” — or treat outsmarting as history (bugs still get fixed).

Rule 04

Ideas need context

Set-monster failed in Diablo, worked in AQ40 trash. Same idea; different medium (readable buffs, voice, single-target order).

Rule 05

Paired on-pull modifiers from a small pool

Eight abilities in opposing pairs. Raid reads, repositions, chooses kill/control order.

Rule 06

Hard-cap rare valuable actions; don’t bench

Disable benches. Soft reduce causes panic. Self-DR digs a hole. One heal per window keeps it coveted and converts idle time to DPS.

Rule 07

Fix second-order systems

Heal cap starved rage/threat → Spores for damage without threat. Ask what breaks when you throttle a primary resource.

Rule 08

Strain every role, then pad

Rotate lethal hits → interesting healer reaction → aggressive enrage → parse → +30% HP. Tanks, healers, and DPS all strained before ship.

Rule 09

Spotlight neglected support verbs

Razuvious, Twin Emps warlock tanks, Magmadar Tranq, BWL disarms. Modern multi-class rosters make hard requirements unfair — design for the era you ship.

Rule 10

Prototype until the panic response dies

Watch what players do under stress. Change the incentive, not the flavor text. Ladder: naive → panic test → hard cap → second-order → pad.

03

Proctor Vellum — dossier

Original encounter · dying exam-master Uses rules 1–10 · clones none of the five fights

Vellum grades the raid mid-fight. He does not clone or illusion the boss identity puzzle — he examines. Spotlight verb: Inkstrip (purge / spellsteal / enemy dispel) as a raid job.

Anubisath · Rule 05

Grading Rubrics on pull

Four Margins; each draws one of eight abilities in opposing pairs (melee/caster, early/late, fire/frost reflect, close/far). Readable buffs. Call order on voice.

Razuvious · Rules 01 · 09

Inkstrip or Failing Grade

Certified Correct stacks on Vellum. At 5, Failing Grade: raid cleave + tank mitigation collapse. Heroic CDs are panic only — not the strat.

Skeram · Rules 02 · 03

Essay Windows at 75/50/25%

Not “spot the real Prompt” (tools leak). Match the channel school to the script hurting the raid. Wrong match → Collective Fail + Inkstrip lockout.

Loatheb · Rules 06 · 07

One Illumination / window

Hard-cap coveted heal. Else Inkstrip, soak, burn Margins. Quiet Quill from Prompt kills: damage/Inkstrip without threat.

Patchwerk · Rule 08

Margin Lash · Final Bell · +30%

Big hits among top hate, prefer most-HP offtarget for lag. Aggressive enrage. Pad HP after internal parses.

Full ability card

Pull → Inkstrip cadence → % Essay → Illumination economy → Quiet Quill → Lash / Bell / pad

See proctor-vellum.md for the complete designer card, fiction, and tabletop rules.

Failed prototype ladder (rejected)
  1. “Spot the authentic Essay Prompt” — pets/mods/IDs leak (Rule 03). Replaced with channel-to-script matching.
  2. Stacking fatigue heal-reduce on the graded target — panic dump heals. Replaced with hard-cap Illumination.
  3. Timer-spawned extra Margins — snowballs with gear. Replaced with % health Essay Windows.

5-player tabletop (no client)

Roles: Tank, Healer, Inkstripper, Caller, Striker. Boss 20 HP (26 with +30% pad); two face-up Rubric Margins; Certified Correct tokens; Essay Windows at 15/10/5 HP with Script match; Final Bell after 12 rounds. Full round structure in proctor-vellum.md.

04

Prototype worksheet

One page. Fill every blank. Do not skip a rung because flavor feels finished. Full version with lines in failed-prototypes.md.

A · Naive version

Design question:

Naive answer / benched role:

B · Panic test

What do testers do under stress? Does it increase the behavior you wanted to reduce?

Incentive change:

C · Hard cap? (Loatheb)

Soft penalties tried / why they failed:

Hard cap (who / window) + other job after:

D · Second-order systems

What breaks downstream? Companion system:

E · Tool-leak check (Skeram)

Leak vectors / different check / bug vs outsmarting:

F · Context (Anubisath) · G · Force the verb (Razuvious)

Where idea failed before / why readable here / paired modifiers:

Support verb + punishment if normal pattern + heroics that must not be the strat:

H · Role strain + pad (Patchwerk) · I · Ship

Tank / healer / enrage / parse / +30% pad applied?

Three rejected versions + why shipped survives panic + leak tests:

Cheng method in one line: watch the panic response → change incentives → hard-cap rare actions → fix second-order breaks → assume tools leak → pad 30%.

05

Attribution & pack map

Lessons and facts: Wyatt Cheng (@candlesan), from his boss-design shorts (transcripts and YouTube descriptions). Pack structure and the original Proctor Vellum encounter: this artifact pack. Do not invent quotes beyond what appears in the source facts.

README.md · lessons.md · failed-prototypes.md · proctor-vellum.md · index.html