New Unreal is a an all around miserable experience.

[hagare]

Conversely, learning a fight without callouts at all can sometimes mean reading it as 'I go clockwise' and then dying, and someone just immediately starts the countdown again without any discussion after the wipe. Did you read it wrong? Did someone else read it wrong and kill you? Did the server just say 'nope', because this game's netcode is at best haunted and possibly outright cursed by some forgotten dark god? WHO KNOWS!

at that point, I either consult the guide or I ask around NN or my LSs.
My first assumption is that I did something wrong. And if after reviewing stuff it turned out that it was someone else's I just shrugged and carry on.
And even after I do it right, I still find ways to refine and do it better without hindering other people.
Like when you stack to bait fists and go to your spot, Instead of sprinting, if I'm on RPR I use Hell's ingress, on DRG I turn and use elusive. That way, I get to the end quickly and there's less chance of clipping.
This also works for wall + circle aoe in EX4 because despite macro, people tend to stack a bit too close and would clip you after AoE so being able to port back instantly is a godsent. And the purple gate staying around also helps tell people where you'll port to

[Packetdancer]

at that point, I either consult the guide or I ask around NN or my LSs.
My first assumption is that I did something wrong. And if after reviewing stuff it turned out that it was someone else's I just shrugged and carry on.

Sure, and I approach things similarly. And once you have that foundation of confidence, finding ways to optimize things -- be it your healing/mitigation strategy, or how to move most effectively for a given mechanic -- is half the fun of endgame content, for me.

But if I look back to when I was a brand new shiny fresh-out-of-box raider who could barely find her ass in this game's endgame content with both hands and a map, I definitely know that at that time I lacked the confidence that I'd even be asking the right questions, much less that I'd necessarily be able to effectively make use of the answers. So as I took my first hesitant steps into savage (and often got immediately flattened), I know that I found callouts really useful as they gave me some added sanity-check on whether or not I was reading stuff correctly.

[hagare]

Sure, and I approach things similarly. And once you have that foundation of confidence, finding ways to optimize things -- be it your healing/mitigation strategy, or how to move most effectively for a given mechanic -- is half the fun of endgame content, for me.

But if I look back to when I was a brand new shiny fresh-out-of-box raider who could barely find her ass in this game's endgame content with both hands and a map, I definitely know that at that time I lacked the confidence that I'd even be asking the right questions, much less that I'd necessarily be able to effectively make use of the answers. So as I took my first hesitant steps into savage (and often got immediately flattened), I know that I found callouts really useful as they gave me some added sanity-check on whether or not I was reading stuff correctly.

which is why I die practice die practice repeat ad infinitum.
But you gotta be willing to take the first step and accept that you will fail a lot of times.
and confidence, I still fear messing up when I do it xD