[0:00] Let's [ __ ] go. WE
[0:03] GO.
[0:04] COME ON.
[0:05] COME ON.
[0:07] >> [screaming]
[0:10] >> LET'S [ __ ] GO. LIQUID
[0:14] HAS DONE IT. THIS IS THE RACE TO world
[0:15] first, an event that garners hundreds of
[0:17] thousands of concurrent viewers each and
[0:20] every single season to watch top guilds
[0:21] in the world progress the brand new raid
[0:24] and the newest patch inside of World of
[0:26] Warcraft. But it always wasn't like this
[0:28] though. The analysts, outside raid
[0:30] leaders, theory crafters, add-on
[0:32] developers, casters, organizations with
[0:34] their private chefs, those are all brand
[0:36] new additions. Race to world first, it's
[0:39] always been about the glory of downing
[0:40] the boss before competition. Weeks and
[0:43] days of 16 hours a day of non-stop
[0:45] gameplay.
[0:47] How do we get here though? Well, this is
[0:49] the history of the race to world first.
[0:52] And so for this video, we're going to be
[0:53] talking about the race to world first
[0:55] event, not just all of world first
[0:58] rating inside of World of Warcraft. And
[1:00] with that being the case, we need to
[1:01] start by talking about how the race to
[1:03] world first even got started. So to get
[1:05] context about how it was formed, we have
[1:07] to go back to the pre-race to world
[1:09] first era. And as long as there have
[1:11] been raid bosses, there has been world
[1:13] first rating. From vanilla all the way
[1:15] up through Legion, there was world first
[1:17] rating, but there wasn't really eyes on
[1:19] the event itself. And if anything, it
[1:21] was more like taboo to even stream raid
[1:24] progression. Very infrequently
[1:26] did you even have guilds within the top
[1:28] 50 streaming raid progression at all. Uh
[1:31] this kind of ended up changing very late
[1:32] in the Legion through two guilds. The
[1:34] first one, they were Future. After the
[1:36] world second guild Serenity blew up in
[1:38] Nighthold, basically a lot of the
[1:39] players from this guild ended up forming
[1:41] Future. Some of the most well-known
[1:42] players that you probably know are like
[1:44] Nagura Sloot Naowh Wolfdisco Kush
[1:47] DoctorJ, Viklund, just to kind of name a
[1:49] few.
[1:50] And the plan for Future, it was fairly
[1:52] simple. They wanted to stream
[1:54] progression on an evening raid schedule
[1:56] and I kind of enjoy it for what it was.
[1:58] And for a lot of high-end content
[2:00] creators, this was, you know, a pretty
[2:02] good opportunity for them because they
[2:04] had previously been locked away into
[2:06] higher ranking guilds, but now they have
[2:08] an opportunity to stream. And this
[2:09] guild, they ended up having a pretty
[2:10] good performance in Tomb of Sargeras, uh
[2:12] getting world 12th Fallen Avatar. They
[2:14] ended up taking a break on KJ, letting
[2:16] their rank slide a little bit, and ToS
[2:18] they ended up getting world 23rd. So,
[2:19] this guild, they're very good. And like
[2:21] I said earlier, no guild within like
[2:23] really the top 50 had actually been
[2:25] streaming progression up until this
[2:27] point. The other guild that ended up
[2:28] kind of breaking away from this mold
[2:31] ended up being the world fourth guild,
[2:33] Alpha. So, they really busted down the
[2:35] barriers for top-end raiding, showing
[2:36] the secret phase on Argus where he gets
[2:38] really big and red and glows, and this
[2:40] kind of changed everybody's perspective
[2:41] for what high-end raiding could be.
[2:44] And historically, you know, raiding had
[2:46] a lot of old-school norms holding it
[2:47] back. Similar to the no streaming thing,
[2:49] there was norms where guilds wouldn't
[2:51] release the first kill video until five
[2:53] guilds had killed a boss. I also
[2:54] remember when the term video guild
[2:55] actually became popular in Legion where
[2:57] basically if you progged a boss with
[2:59] ample amounts of world first videos out,
[3:01] you were a video guild. Needless to say,
[3:03] there were a lot of norms in 2017 and
[3:05] prior to that, that kind of made the
[3:06] world first scene what it was, but at
[3:08] the same time it set us up for the race
[3:10] to world first era.
[3:13] So, Battle for Azeroth. We move into
[3:15] Battle for Azeroth and we have some
[3:16] pretty exciting news. The defending race
[3:18] world first champions, Method, have
[3:19] decided that they are going to stream
[3:20] progression during Battle for Azeroth's
[3:22] first raid, Uldir. They ended up having
[3:24] three players that would be live from
[3:25] the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London,
[3:27] UK. Those players were Sco, Ginji, and
[3:29] Nakkiles. This would kind of be the
[3:30] first look under the hood of world first
[3:32] raiding and what it really could be. And
[3:34] taking kind of a look out at the
[3:35] landscape of what the world first scene
[3:37] really looks like, it looked kind of
[3:39] bleak going into Battle for Azeroth.
[3:41] Paragon, they had died. Exorsus had
[3:44] taken a pretty significant step back in
[3:45] terms of their roster post-Antorus.
[3:47] Serenity, like I said earlier, they were
[3:48] dead. And so, it kind of looked like it
[3:51] was just ripe for the taking for Method
[3:53] that they were going to have pretty much
[3:54] no competition. What's changed? Like
[3:56] what made it possible now all these
[3:58] years later? Um I guess you could start
[4:00] with saying the first one is that in
[4:02] general there isn't as much competition
[4:05] in the rating scene as there was in the
[4:06] past. That's obviously a big one.
[4:08] And Method at this time they were also
[4:09] going pretty hardcore for the expansion
[4:11] launch. They were requiring three
[4:12] characters minimum for splits, but a lot
[4:15] of players were maintaining a fourth alt
[4:16] for splits. This is probably funny if
[4:18] you're kind of looking at how players
[4:20] are running 15 characters in 2026, but
[4:22] having that many characters leveled and
[4:23] geared in 2018 is a big deal. Another
[4:25] thing that's kind of important to know
[4:26] about the Race World First event is that
[4:28] Method is going to be streaming without
[4:30] comms. This is going to end up changing
[4:32] in the future, but for the first few
[4:34] tiers that we're going to be talking
[4:35] about the Race World First, just know
[4:37] that no comms is going to be the norm.
[4:39] Voice communications not the, you know,
[4:41] fully shown. Like obviously we're going
[4:43] to be chatting in private what we should
[4:46] do cuz okay, you can still watch the
[4:48] stream, you can still see the weak
[4:50] auras but
[4:52] you don't understand fully everything. I
[4:54] think that's from that.
[4:56] >> [laughter]
[4:57] >> So with all of that set up, the
[4:59] self-named World First Race begins.
[5:01] It's about as expected. Method looks
[5:03] dominant and there is no other
[5:05] competition realistically.
[5:07] And that's kind of a lie on multiple
[5:09] fronts.
[5:10] First off,
[5:11] the fifth boss of the instance, Fetid
[5:13] Devourer, ends up being literally
[5:15] unkillable. Corpuscular adds on this
[5:17] fight just had way too much HP. Perfect
[5:19] play wouldn't really allow you to have
[5:21] enough DPS to kill them in time. It was
[5:23] very clearly overtuned and it was not
[5:25] particularly close. And the second lie
[5:27] is that there wasn't really competition.
[5:29] And at this time a relatively unknown
[5:31] North American guild named Limit had
[5:33] decided that they wanted to go a little
[5:34] bit harder in Uldir than they had in the
[5:36] past. They'd been US First for a while
[5:38] now, but they were raiding evenings
[5:39] only.
[5:40] However, it looks like their schedule
[5:43] has changed and they're doing a full day
[5:45] raid schedule. But at the same time
[5:47] they're notably not streaming. Nobody
[5:48] really knows a bunch about Limit at this
[5:50] time, nor is it known how long they're
[5:52] going to be able to keep up with Method.
[5:54] But, both of the guilds were deadlocked
[5:56] onto Fetid Devourer, and with two nerfs
[5:58] to Fetid Devourer, both Method and Limit
[6:01] are finally able to down the dog after
[6:02] 133 attempts and move further on into
[6:05] Uldir.
[6:13] Then, Method and Limit are trading blows
[6:14] where Method downs Zul with a world
[6:16] first nice five sub rogue strategy.
[6:19] Limit ends up killing the penultimate
[6:20] boss Mythrax world first on a Saturday
[6:22] with some really cheeky intermission
[6:24] strategies where they force spawn the
[6:26] ads on a rock, proving that not
[6:28] streaming actually has a lot of
[6:29] advantages. And that ends up being the
[6:31] strategy that Method ends up adopting
[6:32] and killing the boss later with.
[6:34] However, while Limit did end up killing
[6:36] Mythrax first, that is just the
[6:37] penultimate fight. And [music]
[6:39] at this time, the first to the moon
[6:41] first to G'huun meme is born. Uh NA
[6:43] basically at this point had not had a
[6:45] world first in boss kill since the heart
[6:46] of fear in Mists of Pandaria, and at the
[6:48] same time, a lot is kind of on the line
[6:50] for Method here. This was the first time
[6:52] streaming world first progression. If
[6:54] Method ends up losing, there is a high
[6:55] degree of likelihood that we just kind
[6:57] of end up going back into the shadows
[6:59] where world first progression may never
[7:01] be streamed again. It kind of depends on
[7:03] what ends up happening with sponsors and
[7:05] how successful this event ends up being.
[7:07] So, yeah, Sunday comes and goes, and we
[7:08] finally get two more guilds killing
[7:09] Mythrax with Exorsus and Method.
[7:11] Vanquisher's Runes also at this time had
[7:13] been used basically for all the race
[7:15] world first contending So,
[7:18] Vanquisher's Runes at this point were
[7:19] also criminally overpowered. They were
[7:20] 5% versatility, aka 5% increased damage
[7:24] dealt and 2 and 1/2% damage reductions.
[7:26] Most of these Vanquisher's were not
[7:28] saved for G'huun, instead being opted to
[7:30] use on the wall, which was Fetid
[7:32] Devourer all those days earlier.
[7:34] But, realistically, with the Mythrax
[7:36] kills, it's only kind of a two-horse
[7:38] race between Method and Limit. And we're
[7:39] kind of in the dark for how leading
[7:41] guild Limit is doing on G'huun. However,
[7:43] we do see what Method is up to. Four
[7:46] warlocks were basically required on that
[7:47] fight, and progression is steady.
[7:48] Unfortunately though for Method, it
[7:50] seems like there may be a snag in the
[7:51] plans.
[7:53] G'huun
[7:54] is hard. And Method, their best attempt
[7:56] pre-reset is 4%, and this is the first
[8:00] time this ends up happening in a realms
[8:02] notably have their resets lockout 16
[8:05] hours prior to European realms, meaning
[8:08] that something crazy can happen where
[8:10] Limit can enter the raid on Tuesday,
[8:12] get their Vantus Runes unlocked, get
[8:15] their
[8:16] chests that you have in BfA, and get the
[8:19] additional gear from the previous
[8:21] re-clear. And we saw that Method earlier
[8:24] had a 4% wipe. This means that honestly
[8:27] if Method is able to actually use their
[8:28] Vantus Runes on G'huun, then G'huun
[8:30] would have already previously died. And
[8:32] if the North American guild is at the
[8:33] exact same point,
[8:35] you know, this is like a near guaranteed
[8:37] world first for the upstart guild.
[8:39] And this is a situation where if Limit
[8:42] is anywhere near where Method are, this
[8:44] should be a near guaranteed world first
[8:47] in their first tier of trying to push
[8:49] for this. That is until the extend
[8:52] incident.
[8:56] All right, so explain to me the extend
[8:59] incident all the way back in the day on
[9:01] G'huun. What exactly happened? So
[9:03] basically, they got G'huun like really
[9:06] really low. Yeah, it was extremely close
[9:08] on G'huun, and they just knew if we
[9:10] extend or not extend this, if we kill
[9:12] this we get world first, first time in
[9:15] NA in forever. The lockout comes up,
[9:17] they can either re-clear, they know
[9:19] Method is really close, or they can do a
[9:22] little risky
[9:23] extending of the lockout, which means
[9:25] they don't have to re-clear. In that
[9:27] time, Blizzard made some changes to the
[9:30] Vantus Runes. They made changes to that
[9:32] so you didn't get as much versatility,
[9:34] and basically made the fight just like
[9:38] a percent 2% harder and that was kind of
[9:41] the difference between killing it right
[9:44] after the extension or or not. So as you
[9:47] can probably tell
[9:48] Method ends up winning on stream. They
[9:50] down G'huun after 285 attempts. They end
[9:52] up having north of 150,000 viewers
[9:54] watching them kill G'huun and the pilot
[9:57] for the Race to World First is
[9:58] green-lit, springboarding us forward
[10:00] into the future.
[10:01] >> [screaming]
[10:06] [screaming]
[10:09] >> IN OTHER GOOD NEWS, LIMIT'S GM AT THE
[10:10] TIME, MAX announces on Twitter that
[10:12] they're going to be going whole hog for
[10:14] the next year meaning that there was
[10:15] going to be good competition for
[10:17] back-to-back-to-back
[10:18] World First Race champions, Method.
[10:23] And now moving into the next season,
[10:24] everything is bigger and better with the
[10:25] Race to World First. The competition's
[10:27] more fierce with both Limit and Method
[10:29] committed to going hard versus one
[10:30] another. Method is also dedicating to
[10:32] putting on a larger-scale production
[10:34] with bigger sponsors. They're also going
[10:35] to have more casters, more players at
[10:37] the venue, and even renamed the event to
[10:39] the Race to World First. Which honestly,
[10:41] this has a better sound than the World
[10:43] First Race, admittedly. On top of that,
[10:44] there's even me casting the event.
[10:47] Anyway, talking about the landscape of
[10:49] the race a little bit post G'huun.
[10:51] Limit's still going to be raiding off
[10:52] stream but dedicated to pushing for
[10:54] World First once more. We also kind of
[10:56] know that they already had the promise
[10:57] and potential to win given all the drama
[10:59] surrounding G'huun.
[11:00] But Method has the experience and that
[11:03] has to play into the thought process
[11:05] between, you know, both of the guilds.
[11:07] World First Race rating, it kind of
[11:09] comes down to who can kill the final
[11:11] boss as fast as possible and it's always
[11:13] about doing everything you can,
[11:15] asterisk, that's not an exploit, double
[11:18] asterisk, sometimes it's an exploit,
[11:20] we'll talk about that later. This is
[11:21] also very involved prior to the release
[11:23] of Battle of Dazar'alor as both guilds
[11:25] were going harder on farm and split
[11:26] characters. Additionally, there was also
[11:28] a cheeky piece of heroic gear that could
[11:30] be available to NA Alliance from a quest
[11:33] through the gated content of war mode
[11:35] PvP. And obviously Limit at the time
[11:37] took this opportunity to throw down
[11:38] $1,500 worth of gold for one piece of
[11:42] Heroic tier on 51 characters.
[11:44] And European fans at the time, they were
[11:46] pretty salty. Uh they stated that this
[11:48] is just another
[11:49] disadvantage on top of the 16 hours that
[11:52] EU has, and this would never allow them
[11:54] to win or something.
[11:56] Basically, it was just free gear after
[11:58] all, and that's where the picture of the
[11:59] fame guild this game is bad comes from.
[12:03] So, this is kind of all the setup that
[12:04] we need for pre-BOD. Once Battle of
[12:06] Dazar'alor comes out, it's all pretty
[12:07] clear that the raid is quite a bit
[12:09] easier than Uldir was with no mid-tier
[12:11] walls at all. Method ends up waking up,
[12:13] and Limit, they're already on the
[12:14] penultimate fight in Stormwall Blockade.
[12:16] Everybody kind of assumed that
[12:17] Mekkatorque and Ra'wani were going to be
[12:19] very challenging due to lore
[12:20] implications that kind of came out prior
[12:23] to this raid. At the same time, Ra'wani
[12:25] ended up having a cheese strat for the
[12:27] intermission, and Mekkatorque, well,
[12:29] Mekkatorque was actually hard. It ended
[12:31] up having a pretty insane amount of heal
[12:33] checks and pass-fail mechanics due to
[12:34] bombs and LOS. Method ended up stinking
[12:37] it up on Mekkatorque, and ended up
[12:39] taking 8 hours for an encounter that
[12:41] only took Limit at the time three. In
[12:42] modern race to world first,
[12:45] this would likely be race-losing,
[12:46] especially for a fairly trivial boss.
[12:53] It's all good though, as we have a
[12:55] pretty hard penultimate encounter,
[12:56] right?
[12:58] Well, that was also wrong. Stormwall
[12:59] Blockade was actually quite a bit easier
[13:01] than Mythrax from the previous season,
[13:02] and by the time Method had reached
[13:04] Stormwall Blockade, Limit had already
[13:06] killed it.
[13:09] >> [screaming]
[13:12] >> And so now, guilds end up making it onto
[13:14] the end boss, Jaina Proudmoore. And with
[13:16] Limit raiding in the dark, reaching the
[13:18] boss far earlier, they should have a
[13:19] very significant advantage.
[13:22] There was kind of one weird thing that
[13:23] caught guilds off guard with Jaina
[13:25] Proudmoore though. So, previously, you
[13:26] could actually use one singular immunity
[13:29] ice block in order to be able to remove
[13:31] her chilling touch debuff. Uh this is
[13:34] like the main source of raw damage
[13:35] throughout the entirety of the
[13:36] encounter. This meant that mages were
[13:38] going to be incredibly powerful on Jaina
[13:39] and worth gearing throughout your mythic
[13:41] progression. However, uh during mythic
[13:43] week, Blizzard ended up slamming down a
[13:45] hotfix to how how ice block worked on
[13:48] that chilling touch debuff on Jaina,
[13:50] meaning that all the gear that both
[13:51] Method and Limit that ended up giving to
[13:53] mages, it was completely irrelevant.
[13:55] Mages aren't like the worst DPS in the
[13:57] game this season, but you would probably
[13:59] not have prioritized them for year. And
[14:01] both Limit and Method are not happy
[14:04] about this. They have made pretty
[14:04] drastic uh comp allocations due to this.
[14:08] At same time, it's pretty even playing
[14:10] field and Jaina, well, she was really
[14:12] hard. She also ended up having a quirk
[14:13] where bloodlusting her would end up
[14:15] causing her to ice block herself during
[14:17] the duration of bloodlust, meaning that
[14:19] there's only one time that you can
[14:20] actually lust on her during the fight.
[14:22] Her intermissions, those were brutal and
[14:24] they actually took days of real time to
[14:26] actually progress as the technical
[14:28] nuance of getting to these intermissions
[14:29] and dealing with these intermissions was
[14:31] pretty high. And so, all of this for
[14:33] Jaina Proudmoore is to say hard boss.
[14:35] Uh for progression purposes, Stormwall
[14:36] Blockade died like Wednesday for Limit,
[14:39] Thursday for Method, and we continue to
[14:42] push on into the reset. Monday, it rolls
[14:45] around and Jaina Proudmoore, she's still
[14:46] alive. Method 300 pulls in, Limit's
[14:49] unknown as to like where they are, how
[14:51] deep into the fight they are, and
[14:53] publicly Method is actually trying to
[14:55] progress the end of the fight. The
[14:56] damage check, it looks absolutely
[14:59] insane. You're supposed to kill off this
[15:00] stupid water ele and have this
[15:02] controlled burn at the end of the fight
[15:04] where players are getting ice blocked at
[15:05] the same time. The amount of raid-wide
[15:07] damage is is insane. So, you're on a
[15:10] timer for when you need the boss to
[15:12] actually die.
[15:13] Uh we were faced with quite a big
[15:15] dilemma.
[15:16] Do we kill the water elemental or do we
[15:18] leave it up?
[15:19] And do we get people ice blocked
[15:21] intentionally to break them out, or do
[15:22] we just nuke the boss?
[15:24] These were probably the biggest choices
[15:26] we had to make, and ultimately what
[15:28] enabled us to get world first. I think
[15:29] it was making the right choice.
[15:31] We decided to leave the water early up
[15:33] and just have people that were debuffed
[15:34] with heart of frost move out of the
[15:36] raid, and we decided to just burn the
[15:38] boss rather than doing some sort of
[15:40] control strategy with the ice blocks.
[15:42] So, the best defense for something like
[15:43] this is obviously just kill the boss as
[15:44] fast as possible. And the burn strategy,
[15:46] like you heard Chris Potter talking
[15:47] about there, is the one that Method
[15:48] ended up opting for.
[15:50] And at this point in time, it's still
[15:52] relatively unknown if the burn strategy
[15:54] is even possible. So, yeah, Monday
[15:56] morning rolls around, and all of Method
[15:59] shows up to the raid, and they're troll.
[16:01] And I'm not talking about their players,
[16:02] I'm talking about the race. They're
[16:04] trolls. And this, it was due to the
[16:06] pretty unknown racial ability, the
[16:08] voodoo shuffle, which reads that it
[16:10] reduces the duration of all movement
[16:12] impairing effects by 20%. And this ended
[16:14] up working on chilling touch. So,
[16:16] chilling touch, it had a slow component
[16:18] to it, and by having the voodoo shuffle,
[16:21] it allows you to drop stacks of the dot
[16:22] two ticks earlier. At this moment in
[16:24] time, this is just classic Method. Come
[16:26] up with a new innovative strategy, and
[16:28] have some of the absolute weirdest tech
[16:29] ever.
[16:30] So, with this marquee troll strategy,
[16:32] and the boss is already really low,
[16:34] Method doesn't kill the boss. And
[16:36] unfortunately, Monday comes and goes,
[16:38] and there's still no kill for Method.
[16:40] What is their best attempt at this point
[16:41] though? It's 7%. Boss notably dies a
[16:44] little bit higher than normal bosses. It
[16:45] dies at 5.5%, which it doesn't really
[16:47] die, but not really relevant.
[16:49] And the damage check, it just kind of
[16:51] seems like it's not there for Method.
[16:54] And we're running into the same problem
[16:55] that we had last year. Limit, they have
[16:57] a few more hours in the reset before the
[16:59] re-clear happens, and Limit inevitably
[17:01] wins off the back of 16-hour head start.
[17:04] And this is what I would say,
[17:06] except for the fact that Method woke up
[17:08] Tuesday morning and had an absolutely
[17:10] miraculous kill of Jaina Proudmoore.
[17:16] >> [screaming]
[17:18] >> LET'S [ __ ] GO.
[17:21] Method like we saw earlier,
[17:23] they basically all land on a burn
[17:24] strategy with things like battle
[17:26] restoration shaman and double disc
[17:28] priest and committed to try to just
[17:29] doing as much damage as possible to beat
[17:31] all of the mechanics on the fight. This
[17:33] is an incredibly risky strategy that
[17:35] could have lost them the race. However,
[17:37] this was the only way of actually
[17:38] killing the boss on week one and in
[17:40] hindsight, Limit, well, they opted
[17:43] actually for a safer strategy that
[17:44] required more HPS and less DPS.
[17:47] And Method, they are dominant and
[17:49] continue to prove why they're just so
[17:50] damn good. And that's basically the end
[17:52] of Bot. There was a surprising lack of
[17:54] drama post here. Limit seemed more
[17:56] committed now more than ever before to
[17:58] continue to push forward in the race
[17:59] world first scene. And Method, well,
[18:01] they've won four races in a row, so
[18:03] they're really cementing like a legacy
[18:04] level performance here, proving that
[18:06] they are the best.
[18:11] How were the vibes coming out of Battle
[18:13] of Dazar'alor? Were things like really
[18:14] down in the dumps after two tiers of
[18:16] like, you know, not streaming, like like
[18:18] fully committing to getting trying to
[18:19] get race to world first? Like how were
[18:21] the vibes after that tier? Yeah, that
[18:22] was a rough. That was very rough. Um
[18:27] the the one good thing was it kind of
[18:29] was like, "Here's a bunch of things we
[18:32] know we can improve on."
[18:33] Cuz like same with the extension, it was
[18:35] like, "Okay, never do that again." Like
[18:37] at least you know like
[18:39] how to do better, but
[18:41] yeah, Battle of Dazar'alor, there was
[18:43] some math on Jaina with what to do, how
[18:46] many healers to use, where to use the
[18:47] lust and stuff like that. So at least
[18:50] like we had something to work off of,
[18:51] but I remember it being pretty rough cuz
[18:54] I mean, every one of these tiers, it's
[18:56] like, "This is the one. We're going to
[18:57] do it." And then we fell flat and I
[18:59] mean, Eternal Palace
[19:01] I think was much worse on the vibes, but
[19:05] maybe that was just uh
[19:07] I don't know. That At least for me,
[19:09] Eternal Palace is the worst one, but
[19:10] Battle of Dazar'alor was pretty rough
[19:12] cuz like we thought we had it. We were
[19:14] so far ahead and then
[19:16] you know, you just hit that I mean, the
[19:17] wall literally on Jaina.
[19:20] BOD wraps up and there's a mini raid
[19:22] that contains two bosses. It's not
[19:25] especially relevant to the story of the
[19:27] Race to World First as it's one, not an
[19:29] end-tier boss, and two, Limit and Method
[19:30] both end up not throwing too many
[19:32] attempts at it in any real manner. Limit
[19:34] does end up doing two days of
[19:35] progression. Method did a few days worth
[19:37] of prog in total. This raid ends up
[19:40] overlapping with the MDI and many
[19:41] players from both Limit and Method are
[19:42] competing in said MDI. And so, the end
[19:45] boss of Crucible of Storms, it's Uu'nat.
[19:48] This ends up actually being one of the
[19:49] hardest end bosses of all time. It ends
[19:50] up eclipsing 700 attempts prior to the
[19:52] first kill. And most of the time I
[19:55] probably would have ignored this, but
[19:56] there's some context that's actually
[19:57] relevant with this raid that sets us up
[19:59] for future tiers. Method ends up killing
[20:01] the boss world second.
[20:03] Limit ends up killing it like world
[20:04] 25th, so weeks later.
[20:07] And this may lead you to wonder, who
[20:08] killed this boss world first? And so,
[20:10] that is where the next contender,
[20:12] Pieces, shows up. Where Pieces, this is
[20:14] a brand new guild that is brand new to
[20:16] the Race to World First scene. They're
[20:18] previously an evening raiding team that
[20:20] normally raids 5 to 6 hours a night, 7
[20:22] days a week. They've decided to actually
[20:24] participate in the Race to World First
[20:26] in both Crucible of Storms and moving on
[20:28] into the future. And downing Uu'nat,
[20:30] this is actually a really powerful first
[20:32] statement for them. Taking 730 attempts
[20:35] for an end boss, that's no small feat.
[20:37] That's largely regarded as one of the
[20:38] hardest end bosses of all time. I think
[20:40] that goes down in history as the the
[20:41] most attempts that have ever been taken
[20:43] on a boss. Unfortunately for them,
[20:45] Crucible of Storms not really seen as a
[20:46] real world first due to it not being the
[20:48] end boss of a tier. However, everybody's
[20:50] kind of on alert that Pieces could be a
[20:52] real contender moving into Azshara's
[20:53] Eternal Palace, making this a
[20:55] three-horse race.
[20:57] Now, here comes the drama. It's not
[20:58] really relevant to the story of the Race
[21:00] to World First,
[21:01] but it's still pretty fun drama. So,
[21:03] previously Method had actually been
[21:04] doing their Race to World First events
[21:06] in the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London,
[21:08] UK. Red Bull was giving them the venue,
[21:10] running the production for the event as
[21:12] what I would describe as a production
[21:14] partner for Method. So, Red Bull, they
[21:16] decide that they want the Race World
[21:18] First product larger and under one
[21:20] umbrella. This makes sense. Basically,
[21:22] what the pitch was is that they want to
[21:23] migrate the Method stream onto the Red
[21:25] Bull Gaming stream, pick up additional
[21:27] guilds to make the World First race a
[21:30] cumulative product. Basically, putting
[21:32] all of the guilds that would participate
[21:34] in the Race World First on one channel.
[21:36] They also wanted to get all guilds
[21:37] involved in one singular location. This
[21:39] sounds really cool, right? However,
[21:42] Method, they don't really want this.
[21:44] They continue to want ownership to their
[21:45] product. This is just standard business
[21:47] stuff that normally people don't hear
[21:49] about. So, Red Bull and Method, they're
[21:51] parting ways. Not really dramatic,
[21:53] right? This is until Sco just slammed
[21:57] down a TwitLonger, airs all of this out,
[21:59] tries to pin the blame solely on Red
[22:01] Bull, he ends up stating that a
[22:02] third-party corporation tried to steal
[22:04] away the community event from the
[22:05] community. The irony is not lost here.
[22:07] And then he announced that Pieces and
[22:08] Limit are going to be streaming the Race
[22:10] World First at the Red Bull Gaming
[22:11] Sphere. For obvious reasons, leaking
[22:14] your competition's event and, you know,
[22:17] claiming that the corporate an evil
[22:18] corporation's trying to take your event
[22:20] from you is a little bit weird.
[22:22] Unfortunately, Red Bull ends up never
[22:23] working in WoW again after Eternal
[22:25] Palace for obvious reasons, and nobody's
[22:27] really happy about this entire
[22:29] situation.
[22:30] But good news, there's a three-horse
[22:31] race.
[22:33] We're also blessed by some equally as
[22:34] exciting news. We're going to be able to
[22:36] see both Pieces and Limit raid on
[22:38] broadcast for the first time at the Red
[22:39] Bull Gaming Sphere. And Method, well,
[22:41] they found a new venue in Krefeld,
[22:42] Germany, so everybody's got a broadcast.
[22:45] All right, drama's out of the way. We
[22:46] set the stage. Now, Azshara's Eternal
[22:48] Palace. This raid comes out, and the
[22:50] raid kind of goes pretty much as
[22:52] expected. That is, however, until Limit
[22:54] encounters the buzzsaw that is probably
[22:56] the most difficult fourth boss in
[22:58] history, Lady Ashvane. So, she ended up
[23:01] requiring a stupid amount of healing if
[23:03] the strategy of the boss was done the
[23:04] intended way. Guilds eventually opted to
[23:06] three tank this boss and more or less
[23:08] ease the most difficult part of the
[23:10] fight and turning it into mostly a
[23:12] damage check instead of a staunch heal
[23:14] check. And now, Limit, they end up
[23:15] killing it, but it's not until their
[23:18] second day. And Method, they on the
[23:20] other hand end up downing Lady Ashvane
[23:22] world first in 35 attempts after seeing
[23:24] Limit swap to a three tanking strategy
[23:26] late into their first day. And this this
[23:28] is actually the earliest I've ever
[23:30] actually seen a European guild get a
[23:33] world first. And something that I end up
[23:35] mentioning earlier, and that's common
[23:37] trope that we're going to have to keep
[23:38] watching out for into the future, is
[23:39] that if Method ever ends up killing a
[23:41] boss ahead of Limit, they win the race
[23:43] to world first outright. Uh is that
[23:45] going to stay true on something like a
[23:46] fourth boss with pretty minimal stakes?
[23:49] I guess we're going to have to see. Now,
[23:50] with these minimal stakes here, Limit,
[23:52] they come back and they end up downing
[23:53] the fifth boss of the raid, Orgozoa,
[23:54] world first. Method fires back, gets
[23:56] Queen's Court world first. And this kind
[23:59] of sets us up where the penultimate
[24:00] encounter of the raid here, Zul, is
[24:03] standing in front of both Method and
[24:04] Limit.
[24:06] As Zul, this is kind of an encounter
[24:07] that relies on a couple individuals to
[24:08] do 90% of the work on the fight. Two
[24:10] sets of three players end up going down
[24:12] into a phase called the Delirium Realm.
[24:14] They need to kill adds in time. There's
[24:15] also an upstairs phase, and they have to
[24:17] kill an add in time as well.
[24:19] Uh
[24:20] there's core people doing very specific
[24:22] jobs and a majority of the work on this
[24:24] fight. And the tank is probably the
[24:26] other most important person there, where
[24:28] tentacles are constantly slamming down
[24:30] alongside, you know, over the course of
[24:32] the entire room, where, you know, it's
[24:34] cutting off and denying space rather
[24:36] quickly. So, the tank positioning the
[24:37] boss effectively is a huge deal.
[24:40] And so, having a tank who could quickly
[24:42] assess and determine where the safe
[24:44] spots in the room are was integral to
[24:46] being able to progress this encounter at
[24:47] all.
[24:48] And so, Limit, they actually end up
[24:49] going on to pioneer this strategy that
[24:51] every guild ends up using for the rest
[24:53] of time on this fight, where they relied
[24:55] on one tanking this encounter with a
[24:57] Brewmaster monk. And so, there's a tank
[25:00] mechanic on this fight that involves the
[25:01] two tanks
[25:03] being tethered together.
[25:05] And apparently, if you just didn't have
[25:07] a second tank, it would go on the
[25:08] nearest DPS. And Limit discovered that
[25:10] they could just put that on their Havoc
[25:11] Demon Hunter. Their Havoc Demon Hunter
[25:13] can leech through all the damage that
[25:14] they're taking from this tether. This
[25:16] allows the DPS checks on this fight that
[25:18] were so hard earlier with the Delirium
[25:20] Realm and the upstairs phase to be met a
[25:23] lot easier than otherwise anticipated.
[25:26] And Limit, honestly, they were just far
[25:28] more consistent on their Delirium
[25:29] Realms. Method is struggling a ton
[25:32] getting their players to be able to kill
[25:33] the ads downstairs without dying.
[25:40] So, we had never actually seen this
[25:43] before. What was it like to take a step
[25:45] out of the raid and have been one
[25:48] tanking Za'qul and like, you know, you
[25:51] pivoting to that outside the raid leader
[25:53] role? Ben, I haven't been asked a
[25:55] question like this in such a long time.
[25:56] Yeah, it was really interesting. I I
[25:58] mean, the way we were doing it is like
[25:59] back then the your raid leader had to be
[26:01] in the raid. It was the only thing you'd
[26:02] ever thought of.
[26:03] So, we actually didn't have Ben in
[26:04] initially. Like when we started solo
[26:06] tanking, I think it was like an hour or
[26:07] two before dinner and I was doing it
[26:10] while raid leading and I'm like,
[26:12] "This is doable. This is fine.
[26:14] It's just like I could just like walk
[26:16] over to your computer,
[26:17] put on your headset, and just like raid
[26:20] lead basically from your mic." And
[26:22] that's what we did. It wasn't like
[26:23] high-tech at all. I literally he
[26:24] couldn't even hear his weak auras going
[26:26] off or anything. Like I was just or
[26:28] comms. He was He had no headset on. I
[26:31] was just raid leading from behind his
[26:33] computer basically for an hour until we
[26:35] figured out a more elegant solution than
[26:37] that.
[26:38] And so, Limit is so far ahead going into
[26:40] Queen Azshara, but we see Limit ahead a
[26:43] lot of the time cuz they're,
[26:44] you know, an NA guild. But, how far
[26:45] ahead were they going into Queen
[26:46] Azshara?
[26:48] 26 hours. Uh so, a 26-hour head start
[26:52] going into the final boss, this is
[26:54] should be race winning. Uh, under almost
[26:56] all circumstances, this should be race
[26:58] winning. Until we saw what Queen Azshara
[27:01] was all about. And Queen Azshara, she
[27:03] had an intermission phase where you
[27:04] needed to kill three of Queen Azshara's
[27:06] minions, uh, these ads
[27:08] frankly just had way too much HP. The
[27:10] phase was not completable in time, and
[27:12] for Limit they were just waiting.
[27:13] Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
[27:16] pulls deep into the boss,
[27:17] there is no end in sight. This boss is
[27:19] actually just not killable. And whenever
[27:21] something like this happens, this is
[27:22] actually perfect for Method, who they
[27:25] have a 26-hour disadvantage, but the
[27:28] hundreds of pulls on a boss that's not
[27:30] killable for Limit, Method's able to
[27:32] completely catch back up. And both of
[27:33] them are walled at the same phase two
[27:35] intermission. So the guilds, they're
[27:37] kind of sitting there, they're in limbo,
[27:38] and then it happens. The boss is
[27:40] hotfixed.
[27:41] Arcane Vulnerability, which is the main
[27:43] damage source on the entire encounter
[27:45] gets nerfed, but the most notable nerf
[27:48] to the encounter was the intermission
[27:49] that had this impossible possible DPS
[27:50] check, it went from a 2-minute enrage to
[27:53] a 3-minute enrage. And that meant the
[27:55] DPS check was now doable from something
[27:57] that was previously impossible. And
[27:59] Method and Limit, they end up busting
[28:00] through the P2 wall that had walled
[28:02] everybody off fairly quickly. After
[28:04] these hotfixes happened, Method ended up
[28:06] playing a better composition throughout
[28:07] the entirety of progression, and they
[28:09] win the race world first again off of
[28:11] the back of many people would say pretty
[28:13] poorly timed nerfs.
[28:20] The compositional differences basically
[28:21] Method was two healing with double disc
[28:23] priest. They ended up having Maras on a
[28:24] moonkin. He was slamming off heals
[28:26] whenever that was required. And this
[28:28] meant that any other DPS check that was
[28:29] associated with the fight was completely
[28:31] irrelevant. And so coming out of the
[28:33] raid, a lot of the story lines
[28:34] surrounding this raid were about a
[28:36] couple of things. One, Method goated.
[28:39] Downing Queen Azshara in 350 pulls to
[28:41] Limit's 550 pulls is downright
[28:43] impressive. Every tier it feels like
[28:45] Method and Limit are very close, but
[28:47] somehow Method ends up pulling a rabbit
[28:49] out of the hat any point at any time
[28:51] it's necessary. And the other storyline,
[28:53] it involves Limit. Limit really kind of
[28:56] did get robbed here.
[28:58] Um they get robbed for a chance at the
[28:59] Race to World First due to an impossible
[29:01] boss and shitty hotfix timings. If these
[29:04] hotfix timings weren't preferred for
[29:06] Method, you know, we'd probably have a
[29:07] different story where it would be Limit
[29:08] killing the boss ahead and Method's, you
[29:11] know, complaining about hotfix timings
[29:13] at the same time. Limit did get screwed
[29:14] here. There's also a narrative at this
[29:16] time about Limit choking, and this is a
[29:19] hard narrative to ignore since they were
[29:21] ahead on three bosses going into the
[29:22] final boss, and then they lose. And the
[29:25] common kind of sentiment is maybe Method
[29:27] winning these Race to World First is
[29:29] something that's going to be inevitable.
[29:32] So, storyline-wise, we're going into the
[29:33] final raid of Battle for Azeroth.
[29:35] Method, they're basically looking for a
[29:37] sweep. Limit had been on the cusp of
[29:39] winning World First, but Method has just
[29:41] figured it out every single time
[29:42] whenever they needed to. In the final
[29:44] tier of the expansion, this was Method's
[29:45] to lose. Limit also at the time has been
[29:47] making some pretty big moves. They end
[29:48] up inking a deal with Complexity,
[29:49] turning them into Complexity Limit. They
[29:51] also end up committing to streaming
[29:53] pretty much every POV with almost all of
[29:55] their players in person at the GameStop
[29:57] Performance Center, home of Complexity.
[29:59] At the same time, they also end up
[30:00] picking up two outside the raid
[30:02] {quotation marks} helpers in the form of
[30:04] WeakAuras guru Relo and DBM's Mystical
[30:07] OS. And there's also a brand new system
[30:10] for this patch, corruption. Corruption
[30:12] basically made characters very, very
[30:14] overpowered. And corruption could
[30:15] actually be as high as 20% of your
[30:17] damage, and for the Race to World First
[30:18] guilds, uh Echoing Void, I remember that
[30:20] one was super broken. Corruption in
[30:22] general was just turbo OP. I remember at
[30:24] the time as well, Naggie ended up
[30:26] putting on a piece of cloth pants,
[30:29] breaking his uh armor mastery bonus in
[30:31] order to be able to wear more
[30:32] corruption. Absolutely ridiculous. But,
[30:35] how does the corruption equate to the
[30:36] Race to World First? Well, the drops on
[30:38] corruption pieces, they were RNG,
[30:40] kind of. Uh BOEs could actually at the
[30:43] time contain corruption, meaning you had
[30:46] race world first guilds shelling out
[30:48] hundreds of millions of gold in order to
[30:50] outfit their entire team with
[30:51] corruption. And this is where the gold
[30:53] arms race really begins, where there was
[30:55] basically no amount of gold that could
[30:56] be offered up to these guilds that they
[30:58] would decline if it meant that they had
[31:00] an advantage in the race world first.
[31:02] You would spend 100 million gold if you
[31:03] had to. We are gone from the days where
[31:05] swapping factions is taboo. We are
[31:09] emptying the bank.
[31:11] And so now moving on to the raid itself,
[31:13] Ny'alotha is a 12-boss instance, and
[31:15] this is one of the largest raids in
[31:16] history.
[31:17] And everybody's kind of expecting a
[31:18] multi-week affair as you do with 12-boss
[31:20] instances. In the race, it kicks off
[31:22] fairly standard. First few bosses go
[31:24] down easily.
[31:25] There's only a couple of bosses that end
[31:27] up being race world first relevant.
[31:29] First is the seventh boss of the raid,
[31:30] Ra-den. Ra-den was fairly controversial
[31:32] by the community, but not really to race
[31:34] world first guilds. Uh he basically had
[31:36] a fairly quick respawn rate, which
[31:38] allowed guilds to do some I would
[31:40] describe them as creative strategies
[31:41] with things like havoc demon hunters
[31:43] metamorphosis and destro warlocks
[31:45] grimoire of supremacy. Basically,
[31:47] players were stacking buffs over and
[31:48] over again because Ra-den ended up
[31:51] respawning every 20 seconds. Uh this
[31:53] allowed things like havoc demon hunter
[31:54] to have 20 more seconds of demon form up
[31:56] time. Warlocks ended up having 160%
[31:58] damage amp during their first infernals
[32:00] for destruction.
[32:01] Blizzard goes through and eventually
[32:02] fixes this on the reset by having Ra-den
[32:05] respawn 20 seconds later.
[32:08] But it was an integral strategy in both
[32:10] Limit and Method killing Ra-den, where
[32:11] some people called for the banning of
[32:13] the guilds for this.
[32:14] It's kind of laughable, really. Uh you
[32:16] know, these weren't really that big of
[32:17] exploits in the grand scheme of things.
[32:19] Both guilds ended up taking down Ra-den
[32:20] in around 80 pulls. And you know, this
[32:23] is a fairly tough encounter. Even with
[32:25] it being a pretty tough encounter, both
[32:26] Method and Limit roughly kill it at the
[32:28] same time during their second day of
[32:30] raiding, meaning that NA still had the
[32:32] 16-hour advantage.
[32:34] The only other pretty early race world
[32:36] first relevant boss was the eighth boss
[32:38] in Drest'agath. This is an encounter
[32:40] where you just kill ads over and over
[32:42] again. Limit ends up making it to
[32:44] Drest'agath first. They end up killing
[32:45] the boss in 15 pulls. AKA this took them
[32:48] 2 hours. Method on the other hand ended
[32:50] up taking 50 attempts. And when asked
[32:53] about this post race, Max from Limit
[32:55] basically said, "I don't know, we just
[32:56] yolo'd the boss." On a boss that Method
[32:59] literally lost 6 hours to on the
[33:01] encounter compared to Limit.
[33:03] And Limit yolo'd the boss. Impressive.
[33:06] Something else has kind of been
[33:07] happening during this race.
[33:10] The long time raid leader for Limit,
[33:11] Maximum, he has not been in the race
[33:13] almost at all. He was in on Drest'agath
[33:16] as a tank. Otherwise, he's been sitting.
[33:18] Originally, the statement from the crew
[33:20] was that now was tanking in order to
[33:22] just get gear as a tank. And tank gear
[33:24] at this point in time is much less
[33:26] relevant than DPS gear, especially with
[33:28] how personal loot worked. However, at
[33:30] some point everybody just kind of
[33:31] realized Max was going to be 21st
[33:34] manning the entire raid. And this this
[33:36] was Limit's trump card. This is a huge
[33:38] deal for the future of the race world
[33:39] first as bringing your raid leader
[33:41] outside the raid is a massive advantage.
[33:43] Most teams hadn't done this up until
[33:45] this point as it's just frankly less
[33:48] fun. At the same time, all the race
[33:49] world first teams are really pushing the
[33:50] envelope here and getting world first is
[33:53] the only thing that matters.
[33:58] And yeah, I don't know. We we did it
[33:59] there
[34:01] on Zul'jin cool and then obviously in
[34:02] Ny'alotha we went into the tier. We
[34:04] actually had tried to do it previously.
[34:06] We recruited a bunch of tanks. We tried
[34:08] to have Trill tank. We recruited two
[34:10] trial tanks all with the intention of
[34:13] let me do this outside the raid thing.
[34:15] Uh but every time the tanking situation
[34:18] just didn't work and the feedback from
[34:19] the guild was like, "This isn't going
[34:21] like we're going to be worse if we do
[34:22] this." basically cuz the tanking options
[34:24] weren't great. Uh and then we when we
[34:26] recruited now it just made sense and it
[34:28] was uh
[34:30] it was like, "Okay, we finally have
[34:31] someone where this makes sense. Let's
[34:32] send it, and then Ny'alotha obviously
[34:33] was super OP, and then everyone's doing
[34:35] it now.
[34:37] So, we're chugging along. Limited Method
[34:39] both make it to the penultimate
[34:40] encounter in Carapace of N'Zoth. Limit
[34:42] has quietly just been playing straight
[34:44] up better than Method. There's no Lady
[34:45] Ashvane hiccups or anything like that.
[34:47] And then something unexpected happens.
[34:49] Limit kills the Carapace of N'Zoth 24
[34:53] hours ahead of Method. This is the exact
[34:55] same situation that happened with Za'qul
[34:57] in the previous tier. And I said in the
[34:59] previous section, but a 24-hour head
[35:01] start going into the final boss should
[35:03] be unloseable. Again, should be
[35:06] unloseable. However, will Method be able
[35:08] to pull magic out of the hat twice?
[35:10] That's kind of the question that's
[35:11] looming on everybody's mind. Method
[35:12] seems to be able to make magic out of
[35:14] absolutely nothing time and time again.
[35:16] And Method were the undeniable favorites
[35:18] coming into this tier.
[35:20] N'Zoth, well, he's hard. He's not Queen
[35:23] Azshara pre-nerf hard, but he's really
[35:26] tough. There's also a secret phase,
[35:28] allegedly. And the core of the N'Zoth
[35:30] encounter revolves around the sanity
[35:32] mechanic, where if you get too low on
[35:34] sanity, you get mind controlled. That's
[35:36] roughly the core of the fight. There are
[35:38] adds that try to drain your sanity, and
[35:40] you have an extra action button that
[35:41] lets you replenish your sanity, but
[35:43] there's a finite amount of uses of this,
[35:45] and that's what happens, and then we get
[35:47] to the secret phase.
[35:53] How did you feel about the secret phase
[35:55] on N'Zoth? Obviously, the casters were
[35:57] kind of cooking up, you know, maybe
[35:58] Magni and Mother shoot this cannon, and
[36:00] the boss starts taking bonus damage. As
[36:03] somebody who was playing it, you guys
[36:04] get to the boss or get to the secret
[36:06] phase, the boss is 70% HP, and you come
[36:09] out of the secret phase, and it's
[36:10] I guess kind of nothing. What What were
[36:12] kind of the vibes like for you guys with
[36:13] that one?
[36:15] Well, part of it was like, is there I
[36:17] mean, I think everybody in Telepasta was
[36:19] like, is there actually more? And coming
[36:21] out of Eternal Palace with like
[36:24] I know we had such a lead there, and
[36:26] then fumbled it. It was like, "Okay,
[36:28] the boss has to have something else."
[36:29] Like, "What is the thing that's going to
[36:31] hard wall us? Are we hard walled right
[36:32] now and they're going to need to nerf
[36:33] the boss? Are we losing progress?" It's
[36:35] kind of like this weird
[36:38] like, "There's got to be more to this
[36:39] boss.
[36:40] What is going to catch us off guard
[36:42] that's going to let the other guild like
[36:43] kind of leapfrog ahead?" But, luckily,
[36:46] the boss is weird and kind of just
[36:48] incremental progress on a down. But,
[36:50] yeah, that secret phase was
[36:52] kind of meh, but
[36:54] I mean, when you win, it doesn't matter.
[36:56] You [laughter] know what I mean? Yeah.
[36:57] >> Like, it was like, "Okay, cool. Good
[36:59] boss. Good raid.
[37:00] GG." I mean, this is my first race
[37:03] casting it. So, I was really excited to
[37:04] see like what was going to happen.
[37:06] Uh I I mean, I think it was the same as
[37:08] like heroic. You went down and they were
[37:10] just like the orbs you had to soak and
[37:11] you just killed the dude and went
[37:12] upstairs and lasted and the boss died
[37:14] eventually, right? Like, it wasn't a
[37:16] whole lot to it, I don't think. Yeah.
[37:17] So, that's heroic, right?
[37:18] >> The speculation was that it was like
[37:19] supposed to be like a secret mythic
[37:20] phase and it was just
[37:22] a whole lot of nothing.
[37:24] So, the community, they think the secret
[37:26] phase is going to be epic, but it's kind
[37:27] of a nothing burger. Limit makes it
[37:28] their first, but the boss is high, like
[37:30] 75% high. And as you heard from Kalamazi
[37:33] and Cams, we didn't even think the boss
[37:35] was remotely killable or we thought that
[37:37] the boss had to have a damage amp or
[37:39] something. But, as it turns out, the
[37:41] plan was to just kind of kill the boss
[37:43] from that health threshold. First time
[37:45] the enrage was seen by Limit, how
[37:47] healthy was the boss though on the
[37:48] enrage? 40%. Uh this is going to be
[37:51] basically a massive grind. There were
[37:53] murmurs about the boss potentially
[37:54] needing HP key nerf, but if you're a
[37:56] race world first guild, you can't really
[37:57] focus on these things. You really only
[37:59] try to control what you can control.
[38:01] Unfortunately, for the casters, there
[38:03] was no secret Magni damage amp phase,
[38:05] even though we were cooking on one hard.
[38:07] And so then, Limit got to work
[38:09] chipping away at the HP on the boss.
[38:10] They hit the enrage at 35%. Then they
[38:13] hit their enrage at 25%. 15%. Then
[38:16] everybody begins to recognize that the
[38:17] boss is actually killable.
[38:19] Then Limit does the impossible. They
[38:21] have a 5% wipe. The boss, it dies at
[38:24] 2.2%. So, Limit, they've taken the boss
[38:27] from an in-rage at 40% HP where nobody
[38:29] thought the boss was killable, all the
[38:31] way down to 5%. And then they really do
[38:33] the impossible. They actually kill the
[38:35] boss, bringing home the first NA world
[38:37] first since Heart of Fear.
[38:47] >> [screaming]
[38:56] [screaming]
[39:01] [screaming]
[39:02] >> And you may notice that I've only talked
[39:03] about N'Zoth from the lens of Limit. And
[39:05] that might ask
[39:07] where's Method?
[39:09] Well, Method, they've actually had a
[39:11] horrible tier in Ny'alotha. They end up
[39:13] not killing N'Zoth until 2 days after
[39:15] Limit, which is a completely
[39:16] uncharacteristic fumble by this squad.
[39:20] And they had some pretty bad play by
[39:21] them in total. And as a guild that was
[39:23] trying to sweep the entire expansion,
[39:25] this was pretty surprising from Method.
[39:28] Uh and it was really surprising to see
[39:30] Limit look so dominant, where the tier,
[39:32] it wasn't even particularly close.
[39:34] And now we end BFA and things feel
[39:36] great. The race has started out of
[39:37] nowhere. We have two regional
[39:38] contenders, competition spheres, and the
[39:40] landscape of the Race to World First is
[39:42] growing ever more competitive. This is a
[39:45] very, very bright future for the Race to
[39:47] World First.
[39:49] Okay. So, now I got to talk about a part
[39:51] of the video that honestly, I didn't
[39:53] really want to talk about too much.
[39:56] During the period between Battle for
[39:59] Azeroth and Shadowlands, a troubling
[40:02] situation had emerged outside of the
[40:05] realm of the Race to World First. But,
[40:07] at the same time, it pretty much
[40:08] deserves acknowledgement due to how it
[40:10] changes the story.
[40:11] Uh there were serious allegations of
[40:13] sexual misconduct that were levied
[40:15] against a key figure in Method. Evidence
[40:17] of this indicated that the
[40:19] organization's leadership
[40:21] and their ownership, uh not necessarily
[40:23] the rating team itself, had been aware
[40:25] of multiple prior complaints, but they
[40:28] failed to intervene. The person in
[40:30] question had faced a Twitch ban multiple
[40:33] months prior due to similar concerns.
[40:35] This ends up highlighting a pattern that
[40:36] was not addressed by upper management
[40:39] from Method. In fact, it was actually
[40:41] shown that Method was actually trying to
[40:43] help this person instead of the victims.
[40:46] And now the members of the Method raid
[40:48] team, they felt like Method leadership
[40:50] had acted inappropriately this time, and
[40:52] they decided to break off from Method in
[40:55] order to form their own guild. That is
[40:57] how Echo is formed, and you know,
[41:00] fortunately enough, we don't really ever
[41:02] have to discuss Method again.
[41:05] With all that turmoil in the landscape
[41:07] of the Race to World First scene,
[41:08] everybody is kind of preparing for a
[41:11] Limit sweep of the Shadowlands
[41:12] expansion.
[41:13] That's kind of what's to be expected,
[41:15] right? The fragments of Method ended up
[41:17] forming Echo,
[41:18] and
[41:20] they look like they're probably going to
[41:21] be behind in Castle Nathria progression.
[41:24] Uh Method ends up trying to revive as a
[41:25] new guild, but they're nowhere near as
[41:27] good on a roster level as the previous
[41:29] Method. Maybe Pieces can kind of step up
[41:32] similar to where they were in BFA.
[41:35] BDG is an NA guild, and you know,
[41:38] they're starting to compete for the Race
[41:39] to World First. Maybe NA can have the
[41:41] top two spots. Also, at the same time,
[41:43] the COVID-19 pandemic is also in a full
[41:45] swing at this moment in time, and people
[41:47] are still in lockdown at their homes.
[41:49] This creates this weird dynamic where
[41:50] the Race to World First broadcast and
[41:51] productions are all going to be remote.
[41:53] Maybe this ends up being a new era for
[41:55] the productions themselves. Everything
[41:57] was kind of in turmoil, but one thing
[41:58] was pretty consistent. Everybody
[42:00] expected Limit to be super dominant. And
[42:03] another thing is certain here. This is
[42:04] actually the largest amount of
[42:05] contenders that we will ever have for
[42:07] the Race to World First at the same
[42:08] time.
[42:09] Everybody really was expecting a
[42:10] dominant Limit victory. Again, talking
[42:12] about the 21st manning of the raid. At
[42:15] this point moving forward, every guild's
[42:17] going to be 21st manning. They're all
[42:18] going to have outside raid leading and
[42:20] add-on help. Uh that stuff, you know,
[42:23] from one tier to the next, those were
[42:25] some of the biggest pickups and biggest
[42:26] changes on a structural level. Moving
[42:28] into the raid, the raid kicks off and we
[42:31] have more or less the same stuff
[42:32] happening. The first few bosses in
[42:34] Shriekwing, Huntsman Altimor, Hungering
[42:36] Destroyer, these first couple bosses,
[42:38] they're essentially one-shots. Uh then
[42:39] we end up at the decision point of Lady
[42:41] Inerva Darkvein, Artificer's Imax, and
[42:44] Sun King's Salvation.
[42:45] You know, most of guilds end up going to
[42:46] Sun King's Salvation. At the same time,
[42:48] these are not especially hard bosses.
[42:52] So, all these bosses, they end up dying
[42:54] day one sub 45 cumulative pulls. This is
[42:58] all very typical for the Race to World
[42:59] First. Kill as many bosses as you can on
[43:01] day one of Mythic. So, Limit that kills
[43:03] Imax, like I said earlier, but it was
[43:05] pretty late in the day. They decide to
[43:07] pull a boss, Council of Blood, a couple
[43:09] times off stream to see timings and
[43:11] mechanics and to test a couple of
[43:13] different kill orders of bosses.
[43:15] But, the boss
[43:17] died after 13 attempts
[43:20] off stream. Now, the kill of this fight
[43:22] is locally recorded. But, this is
[43:24] definitely the first time where we ever
[43:26] experience a Race to World First guild,
[43:28] quote unquote, going dark. Uh this
[43:30] unfortunately would not be the last
[43:32] where going dark is essentially where a
[43:34] team decides that is the most
[43:36] definitely in a massive advantage
[43:39] to pull a boss off stream. Where
[43:42] otherwise you would be getting a massive
[43:43] disadvantage if you were to pull it on
[43:45] stream. This tends to be reserved for
[43:48] end bosses or, you you know, you reach a
[43:51] boss at the very end of your raid day,
[43:53] you pull it two times, you turn your
[43:54] stream off, and you go to bed. On top of
[43:56] that as well, it could potentially be to
[43:58] not give up any strategies, weak auras,
[44:00] add-ons, or similar things. And it's
[44:02] something that ends up becoming
[44:03] increasingly common as of late as we'll
[44:05] see being discussed in future tiers, as
[44:07] well.
[44:08] But, the reason it was notable here was
[44:10] first off, this was basically the first
[44:11] time this ends up ever happening, and
[44:13] the viewers were not happy. Uh some
[44:16] would even claim that it was a fake race
[44:17] world first due to this. This ends up
[44:19] being pretty funny considering where we
[44:21] are now, but uh you know, I remember
[44:23] viewers at the time as well calling for
[44:24] sponsors to drop the organization and
[44:27] whatnot. But, viewers and being
[44:28] clueless, name a more iconic duo. But,
[44:30] yeah, Limit kind of weirdly killed
[44:32] Council of Blood off stream, which is
[44:33] which is really, really strange. And the
[44:35] European contenders, they actually end
[44:36] up starting their raid day, and it's
[44:37] pretty apparent that Echo, this is a
[44:39] very real team. Method and Pieces look
[44:42] pretty much like they'll be battling
[44:43] with BDG for third through fifth. We're
[44:45] back to a situation where it's a
[44:46] two-horse race.
[44:47] And we get to the meat of the race,
[44:49] Sludgefist, Stone Legion Generals, and
[44:51] Sire Denathrius. All three very brutal
[44:53] encounters. Sludgefist, this is widely
[44:55] regarded as the best patchwork fight of
[44:57] all time with incredible damage amps,
[44:59] insane healing checks, and just an
[45:01] absolute tightest DPS check of a modern
[45:03] race world first boss. Race world first
[45:05] kills, they end up killing this boss 10
[45:07] seconds post enrage, and the boss like
[45:09] crashing into the wall, all the rubble
[45:11] is crumbling down. Uh Limit ends up
[45:13] killing it first around 15 hours ahead
[45:15] of Echo. However, what happens next ends
[45:17] up halting progression.
[45:24] Tell me about your favorite boss of all
[45:26] time, Stone Legion Generals, and what
[45:27] made that boss just so epic for the race
[45:30] world first?
[45:32] For the race world first? Okay, in the
[45:33] race world first,
[45:35] Stone Legion Generals?
[45:38] Uh it was really cool because there were
[45:41] so much exciting different things that
[45:43] could happen. Like, the boss's abilities
[45:46] could cast in a a different order, and
[45:48] that would really change how you had to
[45:50] play the fight. That was actually kind
[45:52] of cool for the race world first because
[45:54] it required a degree of adaptation. But,
[45:57] it also some combinations were a lot
[45:58] harder than others. There were also a
[46:00] lot of exciting I don't want to call
[46:02] them bugs, but uh little mini features
[46:04] that that fight had. Uh for instance,
[46:07] you had this part of the fight where
[46:09] General Draven was fighting these
[46:11] enemies up in the air, and he would hit
[46:15] them down to like 30% and then they
[46:16] would drop down and you would try and
[46:18] kill them and you try and kill them all
[46:19] around the same time, but he could miss
[46:23] them and they would just stay up in the
[46:25] air for way longer. And he could also
[46:28] crit them and they would drop with like
[46:30] way less health. So, that was really
[46:32] fun.
[46:33] Uh the intermission also, you would have
[46:36] a void walker tank some of the tank hits
[46:41] that General Call would do when she was
[46:42] down because it was too brutal for your
[46:45] tank to actually live that. So, you
[46:47] would have but you'd have to be far
[46:48] enough away that the void walker was the
[46:50] only target because she would target
[46:52] like any player within 30 yards over the
[46:55] void walker in melee. So, you would
[46:57] bring the boss all the way over to
[46:58] Narnia and then you would like double
[47:00] leap away and the void walker would
[47:02] still be there. And you're warlock, so
[47:04] your warlock would get to do this really
[47:05] fun gameplay where they would be
[47:06] re-summoning their void walker and then
[47:09] they would be doing a curse rotation as
[47:10] well. So, of every 60 seconds, like 10
[47:13] of their globals would be summoning pets
[47:15] and casting curses, which they really
[47:17] enjoyed.
[47:19] Um
[47:20] yeah, and then also you would have your
[47:22] priest. You'd use all your your resses.
[47:24] I guess you'd also use ankh totem on
[47:26] your priest. Mass dispelling and just
[47:29] getting themselves killed was this
[47:31] debuff that was like a it was a
[47:33] moderately dangerous dot for 30 seconds.
[47:36] And then when you dispelled it, both the
[47:37] person who got dispelled and the person
[47:39] doing the dispelling got a nasty dot for
[47:41] 6 seconds, but you could just MD it and
[47:43] then just the priest would die and you'd
[47:45] basically delete all of the extra dots
[47:48] and
[47:49] then you'd have them angel form and take
[47:50] the angel form res thing or the
[47:53] ankh totem. So, that was pretty fun as
[47:55] well. And you'd also just get to go
[47:56] healing immune every time you put the
[47:59] any of the gargoyles below 30% health.
[48:01] And the best part was phase one was like
[48:04] one general plus gargoyles. Yeah. Phase
[48:06] two was the other general plus
[48:08] gargoyles. And then phase three was just
[48:10] both generals, but that was way easier
[48:12] than either phase one or phase two
[48:14] because gargoyles were more difficult to
[48:16] deal with than either of the actual
[48:17] bosses. So once you got to phase three,
[48:20] you got there a couple of times and the
[48:21] bosses died which was really fun and
[48:23] satisfying to kill. Worst fight of all
[48:25] time?
[48:27] Yeah. Yeah, not not close.
[48:30] But both guilds they end up being stuck
[48:31] on Stone Legion Generals for multiple
[48:33] days, whole wiping bugs, DPS checks,
[48:35] spell queuing, and just needing to work
[48:36] through every possible overlap. That
[48:38] proved to be a very difficult challenge.
[48:41] As historically, this is where Method
[48:43] won many of their race to world firsts.
[48:45] Whenever the going got tough and
[48:47] progression started to halt for the NA
[48:49] contenders.
[48:51] On a boss that feels impossible to kill,
[48:53] this is where that 16-hour advantage
[48:54] completely gets erased and you can just
[48:56] begin to out strat the other team.
[48:59] And kind of an insane comp stack was
[49:01] required for this boss where you ended
[49:03] up having like three to four Night Fae
[49:04] hunters in order to be able to kill the
[49:06] ads during the intermission. And this is
[49:08] widely regarded as one of the worst
[49:10] bosses of all time due to difficulty
[49:11] bugs and comp stacking that was
[49:13] required.
[49:14] And both Echo and Limit end up killing
[49:17] this boss a day before their reset. So
[49:20] Limit ends up killing it on Monday, Echo
[49:21] ends up killing it on Tuesday.
[49:24] Oh. They go even and we have to get one
[49:26] more eruption soak. One more eruption
[49:27] >> go. Let's go.
[49:28] COME ON.
[49:30] COME ON.
[49:31] YEAH. [screaming]
[49:33] LIMIT ENDS UP PULLING SIRE DENATHRIUS
[49:34] FOR A FEW HOURS ON stream and goes to do
[49:36] some chores and pieces out until the
[49:38] Tuesday reset.
[49:39] Echo ends up killing Stone Legion
[49:40] Generals a bit earlier in their raid
[49:42] day.
[49:44] Um so a bit faster than it took Limit,
[49:45] but it still wasn't enough to be fully
[49:47] catched up on that 16-hour disadvantage.
[49:49] They had end up cutting their 15-hour
[49:51] Sludgefist split down to 9 hours, but
[49:54] we're onto the final boss. This is where
[49:56] you can actually end up making up the
[49:57] most time. I also forgot to mention this
[49:58] at the time,
[49:59] but this is like the 21st of December.
[50:01] People are less than thrilled about the
[50:03] idea of the Race to World First
[50:04] overlapping with Christmas.
[50:06] However, this is the most important week
[50:08] of the year for a lot of these
[50:09] competitors. Christmas, it can wait.
[50:16] What was it like, the decision to go
[50:18] dark on Sire Denathrius? You know, not
[50:21] many guilds had ever raided off stream
[50:23] before. Obviously,
[50:26] uh Limit at the time ended up killing
[50:28] Council of Blood off stream, which was a
[50:30] little bit controversial. But then you
[50:31] guys pushed the envelope and decided to
[50:33] not stream the first beginning
[50:34] progression of Sire Denathrius. What was
[50:36] that decision like? I don't remember
[50:37] 100% if what I'm about to say is
[50:40] accurate. It was already like a little
[50:42] bit later in the day uh when we killed
[50:45] Stone Legion. The idea was that, hey,
[50:48] you know, because we're going to
[50:50] go to bed, we don't want to give too
[50:52] much information out.
[50:55] Um
[50:56] so
[50:57] especially because phase one generally
[51:00] was pretty easy to get through, right?
[51:02] Like one way or another, you could make
[51:03] it to phase two. Try to get some info
[51:06] cook overnight for phase two, but try
[51:09] not to give that out. It was a little
[51:11] bit uncharted territory, I must say as
[51:13] well. It's been so long, so I don't
[51:15] remember the exact thought process, but
[51:17] it was more like maybe it was a reaction
[51:20] to the Council of Blood situation. Uh I
[51:24] would say that's when we started
[51:26] thinking a lot about, you know, like we
[51:28] have like a real competitor because
[51:31] in Ny'alotha, we got a little bit
[51:33] stomped back when, you know, Method was
[51:36] a thing, right? Um Mhm. But uh yeah,
[51:39] coming out of a loss also
[51:42] recently forming Echo, it was a lot of
[51:45] stuff going on in our mind, so
[51:47] I don't know, It was It was not like
[51:49] super like it was not super planned, I
[51:51] would say. It was more like, "Oh, great.
[51:54] We got Stone Legion General."
[51:56] Then we go to Sire Denathrius and we
[51:58] were like,
[51:59] "Okay, we don't want to give too much to
[52:02] you know, give away too much of our
[52:04] advantage here." Yeah, that was it. Now,
[52:06] having said that, okay. [laughter]
[52:09] We failed at doing this. I don't know if
[52:12] you remember because we said, "Okay,
[52:14] guys, we'll just play phase one and I if
[52:17] we manage to reach phase two, like as
[52:19] we're falling down, just turn off the
[52:21] stream, like turn it to black or
[52:22] something, right?" And we thought
[52:24] actually it's going to be a little bit
[52:25] funny as well, right? Like for the
[52:26] audience, like little did we know
[52:29] people would be up in arms about it. But
[52:32] >> Yeah.
[52:33] Yeah, but but one of our the players
[52:37] did not manage this. So, we actually
[52:39] ended up streaming phase two.
[52:42] It really is a pretty significant
[52:44] competitive disadvantage to show some
[52:46] stuff on stream, especially that
[52:48] relating towards the end boss.
[52:50] At the same time, fans are also rightly
[52:52] upset. This is just the natural order of
[52:54] how the Race to World First works. Good
[52:56] news, Denathrius doesn't die off stream.
[52:59] Reset happens, both guilds re-clear, no
[53:01] G'huun incidents. However, when Limit
[53:03] Echo make it back to Denathrius,
[53:05] something interesting happens.
[53:07] Echo turns back on competition mode on
[53:09] Warcraft Logs, and they had previously
[53:10] had a 25.9% wipe prior to the reset.
[53:14] Earlier I had stated that Limit's best
[53:15] pull was around 50%. So, that going dark
[53:18] sentiment, it was actually heavily
[53:20] rewarded. Immediately rewarded. On top
[53:22] of all of this as well, there's also a
[53:23] secret Mythic phase that pretty much
[53:26] everyone had known about. Echo's P2
[53:28] Denathrius strategy ends up being a bit
[53:30] better than where Limit's are. Every
[53:33] other guild in the world ends up copying
[53:34] the Echo P2 strategy, and this is set up
[53:37] in a way where Echo should win in Race
[53:40] to World First. As a brand new
[53:42] organization coming on the race to world
[53:43] first scene, winning would be
[53:44] unbelievable. So, I say
[53:47] should win.
[53:49] Unfortunately, though, Echo actually
[53:51] ends up having an insanely bad time on
[53:53] their Mythic re-clear, while Limit was,
[53:56] I would say, fairly effortless. This
[53:58] includes a one-shot of Stone Legion
[53:59] Generals by Limit.
[54:01] Um this is a huge deal as the additional
[54:03] reset worth of gear for both sides is
[54:05] going to be make or break on an end boss
[54:07] like Sire Denathrius that we see Echo
[54:10] already has it at sub 50%. And so, the
[54:12] time that it ends up taking these guilds
[54:14] to re-clear, this ends up being around 2
[54:16] and 1/2 hours for Limit and over six for
[54:19] Echo. Not a great feeling. And now,
[54:21] Echo, they were still doing heroic
[54:23] splits, and Limit is pulling Sire
[54:26] Denathrius with that 16-hour head start
[54:28] with the a few additional hours that
[54:29] they gained from being able to do their
[54:31] re-clear faster. They've already
[54:32] finished all of their chores, and Echo
[54:35] believes that they want a little bit
[54:36] more gear for the end of Denathrius.
[54:38] However, Limit catapults themselves into
[54:41] the lead and makes it into P3 on
[54:43] Denathrius, basically just busting down
[54:45] that wall, and
[54:47] they forced Echo, I guess is the best
[54:49] way of describing it, to call splits
[54:51] quits early prior to where they wanted
[54:53] to,
[54:54] and then immediately start pulling
[54:56] Denathrius. This put us in a great
[54:58] situation where both Limit and Echo are
[55:01] simultaneously pulling a sub 30% end
[55:03] boss and progging the final phase
[55:05] together.
[55:07] And even though Echo was really far
[55:09] ahead coming out of the reset, the
[55:10] superior play from Limit on the end
[55:12] points of Denathrius, this proved to be
[55:14] instrumental, ends up allowing them to
[55:16] take down Denathrius world first, giving
[55:18] in a a back-to-back champion, and
[55:20] Christmas
[55:21] Christmas was saved.
[55:30] >> [screaming]
[55:33] >> Narratively, Echo looked really good.
[55:36] Even though everybody kind of expected
[55:38] Limit to sweep, Echo actually proved
[55:40] that they didn't need Method. Method
[55:42] needed them. And with a few
[55:44] improvements,
[55:45] everybody kind of expected that we could
[55:47] see Echo winning Race to World First
[55:48] again soon.
[55:50] At the same time, you know, Limit does
[55:52] feel like they're a little bit ahead. If
[55:53] they continue to put their foot on the
[55:54] gas, it's going to be tough for Echo to
[55:56] be able to come back from this.
[55:58] In the wake of Limit's victory over
[56:00] Echo, and Echo honestly having a pretty
[56:01] positive showing in Castle Nathria, the
[56:03] next raid that we have in front of us is
[56:05] the Sanctum of Domination. With this as
[56:07] well, we also have the COVID-19
[56:09] pandemic. It's still raging at this
[56:10] point. And with most of the world
[56:12] sitting inside, the number of eyes on
[56:13] the Race to World First has never been
[56:15] higher. However, unlike Castle Nathria,
[56:17] this raid is not viewed as favorably as
[56:20] Nathria was. Uh this was due to a couple
[56:22] reasons, but probably the most relevant
[56:24] one towards the Race to World First is
[56:25] the Shards of Domination system, where
[56:28] this was supposed to work like tier
[56:29] sets,
[56:30] and they were RNG drops from the raid.
[56:32] The shards themselves, they were gems
[56:34] that you put on gear that you obtained
[56:36] from the raid. But the shards had only a
[56:38] chance to drop once per boss, regardless
[56:40] of difficulty, or from the world boss
[56:42] outside the raid. And the gear that you
[56:44] would end up putting it on, obviously,
[56:46] there was only specific slots that you
[56:47] could put these Shards of Domination in.
[56:49] And for the Race to World First, this is
[56:51] an even bigger emphasis on doing normal
[56:53] and heroic splits. And the difference in
[56:55] splits, it was pretty massive, where
[56:57] between the two main contenders, and
[56:59] Limit and Echo, Echo ends up doing a lot
[57:01] more splits, and they have a one item
[57:03] level advantage throughout the entirety
[57:05] of the Sanctum of Domination Race to
[57:07] World First. So, that is some context
[57:10] just from the Race to World First
[57:11] perspective. You know, this tier wasn't
[57:12] viewed super fondly for other reasons,
[57:13] but that's probably the most Race to
[57:15] World First relevant thing that you need
[57:16] to know.
[57:17] Raid opens. Limit and BDGG start their
[57:19] days doing chores like Korthia farming,
[57:22] Torghast, splits. You you kind of get
[57:24] the the gist of like what's going to be
[57:25] going on. You got to do a bunch of
[57:27] chores. Uh first guild inside the raid
[57:28] is Imperative. They had partnered with
[57:30] esports.org Sonics before this race.
[57:32] Also hoping to join in on competing for
[57:34] the race to world first. We're probably
[57:36] never going to mention them again, but
[57:37] you know, they ended up securing world
[57:38] first on three bosses and then before
[57:40] Limit wakes up, gets world second on the
[57:42] nine overtaking Imperative. Then they
[57:44] get the world first on Remnant of
[57:45] Ner'zhul, the fourth boss in the raid.
[57:47] BDGG was looking pretty promising on the
[57:49] first day taking down the first three
[57:51] bosses at quick pace and even spending
[57:53] less pulls on the second boss Eye of the
[57:54] Jailer than Limit did. However, after
[57:57] killing the third boss, BDGG decided to
[57:59] go to Soul Render instead of towards
[58:01] Remnant of Ner'zhul. And for BDGG, you
[58:03] know, this was pretty costly. Limit goes
[58:05] for Remnant of Ner'zhul, they kill it in
[58:07] a couple hours like I said before moving
[58:08] on to Soul Render. But Soul Render, that
[58:10] was a pretty massive step up in
[58:11] difficulty. BDGG eventually has to
[58:13] backtrack, goes and kills Remnant of
[58:15] Ner'zhul, then comes back to Soul Render
[58:18] Dormazain and you know, everybody's kind
[58:20] of locked on that boss.
[58:22] Limit takes some time and after some
[58:23] 20-odd pulls, Soul Render was getting as
[58:25] low as 20%. They actually decide to
[58:27] pause their mythic progress figuring
[58:30] that this boss could not be killed
[58:31] without snagging some gear upgrades and
[58:33] instead they go and opt to heroic and
[58:35] normal splits. Yes, I said normal
[58:38] splits. Again, like like we were talking
[58:40] about earlier with Shards of Domination,
[58:41] splits were very important in this tier
[58:43] in order to be able to get the unique
[58:44] armor pieces and your Domination's
[58:46] Shards and those Domination Shard slots.
[58:49] And with a few hours of splits, Blizzard
[58:50] decides that Soul Render Dormazain may
[58:52] be a little bit too hard. Uh they end up
[58:54] nerfing it down a little bit and greatly
[58:56] reducing the damage it dealt on mythic
[58:58] difficulty. And after hearing this,
[59:00] Limit walks back into raid, downs Soul
[59:02] Render Dormazain in three pulls, they
[59:04] get the world first on that and then
[59:05] they're on to the fifth boss of the
[59:06] raid. Limit immediately turn off their
[59:08] streams for after Soul Render and it's
[59:10] the end of their raid day. They don't
[59:11] want to reveal any strategies for what's
[59:13] inevitably going to be the first
[59:15] roadblock of the raid, Pain Smith
[59:17] Raznal. Echo on the other hand, after EU
[59:19] reset happens, they wake up, they do a
[59:21] little bit of chores, they step foot in
[59:22] the raid as early as possible. It still
[59:25] does take them a solid eight hours to
[59:26] catch up to limit at the five out of 10
[59:28] bosses mark due to the chores that you
[59:30] have to do with things like Torghast and
[59:32] splits and whatever else that you have
[59:33] to do to be able to participate in the
[59:35] race world first. The other
[59:36] participating European guilds in Method
[59:38] and Pieces, they only end up making it
[59:39] to four out of 10 on their first day
[59:41] while American guilds BDGG and Instant
[59:43] Dollars joined in at the five out of 10
[59:45] mark with only an hour left in the day.
[59:47] So, we're actually seeing competition
[59:49] that is relatively close more so than
[59:51] ever before realistically, but at the
[59:53] same time it still feels like there's a
[59:54] two-horse race only between both Limit
[59:57] and Echo. And after catching up to Limit
[59:59] and reaching the sixth boss, the first
[60:01] real wall of the race presented itself
[60:03] in
[60:05] Uh basically, this is an all-time very
[60:07] cool boss fight. If you talk to a bunch
[60:08] of people from this era, they might cite
[60:10] this as one of their favorite bosses of
[60:11] all time. Everyone is standing on a
[60:13] platform suspended in the air over a
[60:15] pool of lava. It's held up by four
[60:17] chains, one in each corner. The boss had
[60:20] seen some tuning changes during the day
[60:22] before guilds even made it there, but
[60:23] none of those hotfixes end up really
[60:25] affecting the race. So, what's the deal
[60:27] with this boss? Why is it an all-time
[60:28] wall? Well, as the second day comes to a
[60:31] close, the current standings see Echo
[60:32] with a slight lead with less pulls as
[60:34] they go to sleep on Pain Smith reaching
[60:36] 38.5% on that boss after only 48 pulls.
[60:40] Now, the important part about Pain Smith
[60:41] is at the 40% mark since that is around
[60:43] the time that you were making it to the
[60:44] second intermission. During the
[60:45] intermission, several spike balls come
[60:47] hurtling towards you where you have to
[60:49] find gaps in between them while trying
[60:51] to dodge fire on the ground. In some of
[60:53] these sets, the spike balls don't even
[60:55] have a gap to go through. So, players
[60:57] need to find increasingly clever
[60:58] solutions to be able to clear this gap.
[61:00] Things like Venthyr Door of Shadows,
[61:02] Night Fae Soulshape, you know, Demon
[61:03] Hunters could glide and backflip, Goblin
[61:06] Rocket Jump. I remember most of Limit's
[61:07] guild at this time as well. They ended
[61:09] up changing Goblin for this boss to be
[61:10] able to jump off the platform and then
[61:12] rocket jump back onto it. Just an
[61:15] absolutely terrible strategy if you were
[61:17] a poor Disc Priest on this fight. And
[61:19] the very last set of spike balls, the
[61:21] entire raid takes a Demonic Gateway to
[61:23] be able to clear it to drop a cluster of
[61:24] adds that need to be killed within 12
[61:26] seconds, else it is a wipe. All this is
[61:28] just to say it's a bunch of mumbo jumbo
[61:30] to say the fight's really hard. And
[61:31] realistically as well, Painmsith, it is
[61:33] a boss that is phased based on
[61:35] percentages and the need for immediate
[61:38] damage in each intermission. This
[61:39] naturally leads players towards wanting
[61:41] to stop DPS on the boss during the end
[61:43] of each phase in order for him to be
[61:45] able to phase at the correct timer based
[61:47] on both healing and offensive cooldowns.
[61:50] For offensive CDs, this was usually
[61:51] dictated around the balance druid
[61:52] cooldowns as what those were some of the
[61:53] best in the game. However, there's also
[61:55] a difference between guilds here where
[61:57] Echo, they end up having their moonkins
[61:59] playing the night fae covenant where
[62:01] Limit end up going for the venthyr
[62:02] covenant, meaning that the moonkin CDs
[62:05] for Echo, you know, they can do whatever
[62:06] they want. And balance druid, well, it
[62:08] was definitely the stack in this raid
[62:10] where Echo ended up playing four of them
[62:11] and Limit ended up playing three of
[62:13] them. It was just OP.
[62:14] And so to recap, at the end of the
[62:15] second day, both the highest guilds were
[62:17] pretty deep into progression on
[62:18] Painmsith where Limit, they end up
[62:19] ending their day around the 20% marker.
[62:21] So the third day, that starts for Echo
[62:23] and they have the knowledge from Limit's
[62:25] struggles on Painmsith the day before
[62:26] and everyone is thinking that Echo are
[62:28] going to jump into heroic splits to eke
[62:30] out some more power to help them kill
[62:31] the boss. However, this immediately did
[62:33] not happen. Echo just opts to do a few
[62:35] normal splits instead for some socketed
[62:38] gear before going straight back into
[62:40] mythic.
[62:41] Now this turns out to be a really good
[62:42] decision as they would end up taking
[62:43] some pretty advantageous turns during
[62:45] their day.
[62:46] And even though it ends up taking almost
[62:48] their entire day, Echo eventually kills
[62:51] Painmsith securing their first world
[62:53] first for the race and moving into the
[62:54] lead.
[62:58] And fresh off a kill on Painmsith, Echo
[63:00] decides to go to Guardian of the First
[63:01] Ones. Now this boss could was expected
[63:04] to be an all-time banger like
[63:05] Sludgefist. Especially after seeing
[63:07] Painmsith Raznal, I remember the
[63:08] casters, we thought this was going to be
[63:10] Sludgefist 2. It's in a later part of
[63:12] the raid, it's a single target boss with
[63:14] a relatively simple mechanics check. You
[63:17] know, if this fight has some tight
[63:18] tuning, it could end up to be another
[63:20] wall.
[63:21] Unfortunately, well, that didn't happen.
[63:23] Guardian of the First Ones is more like
[63:24] a loot piñata than a real boss.
[63:27] In 24 pulls and over 2 and 1/2 hours,
[63:29] that's all it took for Echo to be able
[63:30] to down this fight.
[63:32] And Echo, they're starting to take a
[63:33] pretty commanding lead. Meanwhile, over
[63:34] on NA, Limit, they start their day by
[63:36] diving into heroic splits, and they
[63:38] don't finish their splits until after
[63:40] Echo had gone to bed. Once Limit has
[63:42] finished their splits, they walk in to
[63:44] Painsmith with a considerable two and a
[63:46] half item level lead over Echo. And with
[63:48] this two and a half item level lead, it
[63:50] was time for them to make some pretty
[63:51] real strides in the race. At least that
[63:53] was the plan. But in reality, it took
[63:55] Limit 6 hours and 40 additional pulls to
[63:58] finally kill Painsmith Raznal with that
[64:00] two and a half item level advantage.
[64:02] Something that's probably not supposed
[64:03] to happen.
[64:04] Now, at least after the horror of
[64:05] Painsmith, Limit could go to Guardian of
[64:08] the First Ones, which dies in around 17
[64:10] pulls in less than 2 hours, and that
[64:12] kind of ends their third raid day. Both
[64:14] guilds are seven out of 10 on the
[64:15] leaderboards. Echo has made some really
[64:17] big strides, bigger so than Limit, but
[64:19] Limit has pulled the eighth boss a few
[64:21] times with Fate Scribe Roh-Kalo being
[64:23] pulled off stream prior to going to bed.
[64:26] Day four, fairly underwhelming. Limit,
[64:28] you know, they're sporting a
[64:29] considerable item level lead over Echo.
[64:32] Echo wakes up, and they head immediately
[64:34] into heroic splits, which they've been
[64:35] putting off since the week started.
[64:37] And they continue with their heroic
[64:38] splits for the entire day. Limit,
[64:40] however, they don't really have any more
[64:41] heroic splits. They put their gear into
[64:42] drive, and they keep going. Fate Scribe,
[64:45] this is a fight that actually not as
[64:47] challenging as you would expect. And
[64:49] Limit gets him down to around 20% a few
[64:51] hours into their day.
[64:53] And Fate Scribe, it's not really a hard
[64:54] wall. Limit ends up getting him down in
[64:56] a pull count of 53 attempts after just a
[64:58] couple of hours because pull count
[65:00] doesn't always reflect exactly how hard
[65:01] a fight is. Fate Scribe was was
[65:03] relatively easy.
[65:05] And Echo, they're still doing heroic
[65:06] splits. So, the fourth day of the race
[65:07] was fairly uneventful, but it's
[65:08] seemingly now all about Limit as they
[65:10] approach the final two bosses of the
[65:12] raid. This is the part of the race where
[65:13] the viewers are at the edge of their
[65:14] seats waiting for any singular point of
[65:17] progression to be able to happen.
[65:18] So, you know, we got the penultimate, we
[65:20] got the final boss. The penultimate boss
[65:21] in this raid is Kel'Thuzad, the very
[65:23] same Lich Lord that players defeated all
[65:26] those years prior in Naxxramas. I don't
[65:27] really know how How many times are we
[65:28] going to kill this guy? Like, do we
[65:30] really have to kill this guy again?
[65:31] Well, in this fight, we actually have to
[65:32] kill him some more times, four to be
[65:34] exact. Yes, the answer is four. We are
[65:36] killing him four more times. And you
[65:38] have to repeat the same phase of killing
[65:39] him over and over and over again and
[65:41] sending players downstairs to kill his
[65:43] remnant. And after securing a Fate
[65:45] Scribe kill and getting into the lead,
[65:47] Limit had felt good about the time that
[65:49] they had left on their day, and they
[65:50] actually started making pretty steady
[65:51] progress onto KT, reaching about 44% on
[65:54] the boss over 64 pulls during their day.
[65:56] The fight does have some pretty annoying
[65:58] adds with some enrages, and there's also
[66:00] some nasty overlaps of copies and the
[66:02] tanks spawning around the room that has
[66:04] to be interrupted fairly quickly,
[66:05] otherwise it can, you know, you can
[66:06] start to cause a problem. But, you know,
[66:09] the phase is pretty much rinse and
[66:11] repeat, which race world first guilds
[66:12] tend to be pretty good at dealing with.
[66:15] So, queue day five.
[66:16] The race is getting exciting now. Echo
[66:18] swiftly kills off Fate Scribe Roh-Kalo
[66:20] at the beginning of their day, and
[66:21] they're heading onto KT.
[66:23] And judging by the day before, it seemed
[66:24] like we were going to see a lot of KT
[66:25] progression in the coming time. However,
[66:27] Echo, they had different plans. They
[66:30] cooked up a strategy overnight using a
[66:32] cheat death trinket that dropped from
[66:34] Fate Scribe itself, and this fight had a
[66:37] I would describe it as UDK interaction
[66:39] where the copies of the tank add
[66:41] whenever they would spawn. And this is
[66:42] the messiest part of the fight. If the
[66:43] tank dies, the adds will also disappear.
[66:47] And since they were now all wearing
[66:49] cheat death trinkets, this meant that
[66:50] you could essentially skip the mechanic.
[66:52] And so, you would put the cheat death
[66:53] trinket on things like your havoc Demon
[66:55] Hunter, your Death Knights, your tanks,
[66:57] just anybody, and they would taunt the
[66:58] boss and kind of cheese these tank adds.
[67:02] According to players, this bug was also
[67:03] reported during PTR testing, but it
[67:05] never ended up getting fixed. Now, this
[67:06] is a little bit unfortunate for viewers
[67:08] of the race, but it was really huge for
[67:09] Echo as this allowed them to spring into
[67:12] the lead and killing Kel'thuzad the
[67:14] penultimate fight in a measly 22 pulls.
[67:17] Echo, they're also completely done with
[67:18] their splits at this time and they have
[67:20] amassed a considerable lead over Limit
[67:21] and Aversion level all things considered
[67:23] that they have a one item level lead
[67:24] like we cited earlier.
[67:26] And Limit, well, they end up adopting
[67:27] the Echo strat for this boss shortly
[67:29] after Echo killed it and a little over
[67:32] an hour after Echo ends up killing it,
[67:34] Limit Limit ends up downing the boss as
[67:35] well.
[67:36] And realistically judging by the pull
[67:38] counts so far in this raid between the
[67:40] two guilds and their average item level,
[67:41] it's pretty clear at this point that
[67:42] Echo is the favorite to win this race.
[67:46] But, we have a final boss ahead of us
[67:48] and I mean we've seen some stuff so far
[67:50] during the history of the Race to World
[67:51] First and here comes the fun part, the
[67:53] final boss, Sylvanas Windrunner.
[67:56] And both guilds they reach it about at
[67:57] the same time and they start pulling
[67:59] almost immediately and it doesn't really
[68:00] take very long for the guilds to reach
[68:02] phase two of Sylvanas Windrunner where
[68:05] you end up walking up this gauntlet to
[68:07] Oribos where Sylvanas' final stand
[68:09] really takes place. Now, on this fight
[68:12] there have actually been mutterings in
[68:13] the community about a secret mythic
[68:15] phase for a while. Um the Sylvanas fight
[68:18] on other difficulties usually ended at
[68:20] 50% HP. Granted, the rumors of a secret
[68:23] mythic phase, they kind of happen every
[68:25] single tier, but there was weird data
[68:28] mining around this time as well where
[68:30] Sylvanas wouldn't trigger or she would
[68:33] trigger something at 45% HP. So, players
[68:36] were kind of wondering like what was
[68:37] this 45% trigger that was actually
[68:39] happening.
[68:40] But, the guilds they actually kind of
[68:41] expected that this was going to be the
[68:43] actual kill percent for the fight as
[68:44] opposed to something like a completely
[68:45] secret mythic phase.
[68:47] And the guilds they can't really focus
[68:48] on this at the same time. All they can
[68:50] really do is control what you can
[68:51] control and they just need to continue
[68:53] to reach the end point of this fight and
[68:55] that's the most important thing on these
[68:56] guilds' minds. So, day five it
[68:58] concludes. KT's gone down for both
[68:59] guilds and uh both of the guilds are
[69:02] reaching pretty deep into Sylvanas.
[69:03] We've actually seen Limit reach into the
[69:05] final phase, phase three, finishing at
[69:07] 70% while Echo, unfortunately, they had
[69:09] not seen the final phase yet, but the
[69:12] moment that they woke up, this wouldn't
[69:13] actually last very long as, you know,
[69:15] day six starts and Echo immediately
[69:16] starts gaming, reaching a 65% marker
[69:19] before Limit is even awake. And this is
[69:21] easily the best part of the race for
[69:23] viewers as Limit and Echo are
[69:24] simultaneously pulling the end boss at
[69:26] the exact same time, racing side by
[69:27] side. This is the part of the race where
[69:29] pretty much everybody tunes in. You got
[69:30] the multi-monitor setup where you're
[69:32] watching both guilds, main monitor
[69:34] content type of beat. And it's truly a
[69:35] special experience if you're a fan of
[69:37] the race for world first. Now, for
[69:38] Limit, they did seem to struggle,
[69:40] however, and they were, you know, kind
[69:42] of stuck more or less at 63% as their
[69:45] best pull while Echo, they were edging
[69:47] ever so closely to that 50% marker,
[69:50] wiping on 50.6% twice. And players, you
[69:53] know, the boss died at 50% on heroic.
[69:55] And for a lot of people, it was still up
[69:57] in the air as to whether or not Sylvanas
[69:58] would die at 50% or not or if you had to
[70:01] push the boss further. But the answer to
[70:03] that was something that Echo would
[70:05] eventually have to find out, much to
[70:06] their own despair.
[70:08] This moment of Echo players seeing the
[70:10] health tick below 50% and the boss not
[70:12] dying and you know, you see the life
[70:15] kind of drain out of their face as they
[70:16] realize that they got to get the boss 5%
[70:18] lower to 45% spawned a ton of memes and,
[70:22] you know, you watch their faces get hit
[70:24] by the reality check of a lifetime was
[70:26] easily the best moment from this entire
[70:28] race.
[70:30] Roger Brown's face is just unbeatable.
[70:33] >> [laughter]
[70:33] >> Like it's such a good clip.
[70:35] So, this is where the news breaks and as
[70:37] the news about the boss dying at 45%
[70:39] breaks to Limit, they actually
[70:41] immediately decide to do something a
[70:42] little bit bold. They go back into
[70:44] heroic splits to try to secure the very
[70:46] last amount of gear and the
[70:48] last amount of upgrades that were
[70:50] possible. There weren't really that many
[70:52] that could be obtained, but there were
[70:53] some.
[70:54] But Limit kind of recognizes at this
[70:55] point as well that gear is going to be a
[70:57] main limiting factor since Echo already
[70:59] had more gear than them and that fight
[71:01] was really hard.
[71:02] Echo on the other hand, they actually
[71:03] take some time off to reassess and they
[71:05] don't pull the boss again for a while
[71:06] since they got to figure out where we're
[71:08] getting 5% boss HP from.
[71:10] Uh it's a huge deal for them. They're
[71:12] just like sitting there trying to math
[71:14] out like what is the cleanest possible
[71:16] phase three where we're able to chunk
[71:18] away as much HP from the boss.
[71:20] And most and while most of the damage
[71:21] optimization should happen in P3, Echo
[71:23] ends up devising a new strategy for
[71:25] phase two.
[71:26] A little bit of a cheese strategy with
[71:28] now on a blood death knight
[71:30] solo tanking one of the sides while
[71:31] everybody else kills the other side of
[71:33] the platform in order to be able to save
[71:35] cool downs for parts of the phase where
[71:36] you can actually damage Sylvanas
[71:38] Windrunner. This would end up making her
[71:40] significantly lower entering phase
[71:41] three.
[71:43] Blizzard was not happy about this and
[71:44] they immediately hot fixed that. You you
[71:46] should not be doing that. Although Echo
[71:48] probably would have killed it with the
[71:48] strategy rather quickly if they didn't.
[71:51] It was a bit more of a flash in the pan
[71:52] than anything weird and the hot fix
[71:53] actually does not end up slowing them
[71:55] down tremendously and Echo continues to
[71:57] dominate on their day ending at a best
[71:59] pull of 46.5%
[72:01] into phase three. They're 1.5% away from
[72:04] the finish line and Echo call it a day
[72:06] on pull 155. Now for Echo,
[72:10] you just got to be terrified. Uh
[72:12] calling an end of day whenever you were
[72:14] this close could be scary as there's no
[72:16] guarantee that you're not going to wake
[72:18] up and already have lost. And with Echo
[72:20] I've gone to sleep, you know, this is
[72:21] pretty much make or break for Limit. For
[72:22] Limit it really seems like Echo can just
[72:24] like wake up and kill the boss anytime
[72:26] they want. Uh you know, 1 and 1/2%
[72:29] that's just some additional crits and
[72:30] that boss ends up going down. Limit did
[72:32] however actually move into the lead
[72:34] eventually and once they did it was pull
[72:36] after pull after pull where you see
[72:37] between 175 and 185 attempts, they were
[72:41] making it all the way into deep P3 as
[72:44] often as possible and their best
[72:46] attempt, what is it at? 45.4%.
[72:49] However, at this point in time Limit,
[72:51] they were really feeling the time crunch
[72:52] as they decided to not end their raid
[72:54] day yet and they just had to keep on
[72:56] pulling the boss.
[72:58] And Limit, they ended up staying up so
[73:00] late in fact that Echo had time to wake
[73:02] up and continue to pull the boss.
[73:08] Talking about the decision to stay up
[73:09] really late and push for a kill on
[73:11] Sylvanas, what kind of factors in to the
[73:15] decision to stay up super late,
[73:16] especially whenever you're up against
[73:18] the reset versus, you know, just going
[73:20] to bed and, you know, waking up,
[73:22] collecting all the loot, and then being
[73:24] able to kill the boss with the extra
[73:25] reset worth of gear? So, Sylvanas was
[73:27] interesting. I I think just in general
[73:29] across all bosses, it's basically never
[73:31] worth it to stay up 1 minute late to
[73:33] kill any boss that isn't the end boss.
[73:35] And I that includes like second-to-last
[73:37] bosses. Uh recently you've seen guilds
[73:40] like stay up to kill those for like
[73:41] better vaults and stuff. I actually
[73:43] think that is still hurting you in the
[73:44] long run unless you kill it like right
[73:46] away, which that's like slippery slope,
[73:48] right? Oh, we'll kill it soon. And an
[73:49] hour goes by, what do you do now, right?
[73:51] Kind of thing. Uh but on Sylvanas,
[73:54] yeah, I mean, we basically knew they
[73:55] were going to kill it really early into
[73:57] their next raid. That whole raid it we'd
[73:59] made a few mistakes up until that point
[74:01] and we were kind of uh especially
[74:03] Kel'Thuzad where we felt like kind of
[74:04] behind and we knew we could kill it. Uh
[74:08] so, we were like, okay, let's stay up
[74:09] and do it because we feel like if we go
[74:11] to bed, they're they're definitely going
[74:12] to kill it. And part of it is
[74:14] we could have gone to bed, woke up as
[74:16] soon as the reset was there. Maybe
[74:17] there's no maintenance. I remember there
[74:18] was some maintenance. And then we could
[74:20] maybe sneak in a kill, open our vaults.
[74:22] And I think I I think literally even
[74:24] after we lost, we one-shotted on the
[74:25] reset if I remember correctly.
[74:26] >> Mhm. Um so, like that could have been
[74:29] our way to winning. But I think that
[74:31] wouldn't have been okay
[74:33] to a lot of us.
[74:34] Like like if if we won the race to world
[74:36] first by getting a reset of gear and
[74:37] one-shotting it
[74:39] and then they killed it in their first
[74:40] reset, we would have literally killed it
[74:42] first, but it wouldn't have felt like we
[74:44] won the race to world first. So, I think
[74:45] there was a lot of pushing because we
[74:47] knew they were definitely going to kill
[74:48] it in the reset.
[74:50] So,
[74:51] we felt like we had to do the same and
[74:52] we basically pulled the boss until we
[74:54] could [music] no longer do it. Uh we had
[74:57] one wipe where I feel like it validated
[74:58] our reason to stay up. We we had our
[75:00] healer DC
[75:01] uh for the entire last phase when we had
[75:03] a 1% lower push than we ever have and
[75:05] this is coming off of
[75:07] like five or six back-to-back [music]
[75:08] seeing to the end of the fights. We were
[75:10] as locked in as humanly possible
[75:12] and that DC
[75:14] would have been the kill. I'm so sure in
[75:16] my mind that it would have it would have
[75:18] died on that pull. And then after it
[75:20] didn't, I feel like the entire guild
[75:22] felt like
[75:23] their entire sails were deflated, you
[75:26] know? Like that it just it took all the
[75:28] wind out of us. We were basically
[75:29] running on fumes at that point but
[75:31] knowing that all of us kind of no one we
[75:33] didn't this wasn't vocalized but I feel
[75:34] like all of us felt like
[75:37] like that would if we're going to kill
[75:38] this boss, that was going to be the
[75:39] kill. And then we like shambled wiped
[75:41] for like an hour and a half, called it
[75:42] and then woke up and lost. Right, so.
[75:44] That was
[75:46] They're not able to get over the finish
[75:47] line in time. You know, with the reset
[75:49] looming, if Echo is unable to kill the
[75:51] boss on reset one, it would have been
[75:54] catastrophic. But unfortunately enough
[75:55] for them, Echo's got that fresh sleep
[75:58] buff. They've already seen everything
[75:59] that Limit has been doing up until this
[76:01] point and Echo are able to take down
[76:04] Sylvanas, claiming that world first for
[76:06] them. And this is the first world first
[76:07] for Echo after their split off from
[76:09] Method. You know, people didn't really
[76:10] know what we were going to expect from
[76:12] this brand new bootstrap up and starting
[76:15] org. But they are not only serious
[76:16] contenders, they are the real deal and
[76:19] you know, they should be favorites to
[76:20] win the race world first or best case
[76:21] scenario, they should at least be 50/50
[76:23] and shown a lot of respect.
[76:32] So, normally we don't talk about
[76:33] downtime between tiers but the 9.1
[76:36] downtime between Sanctum of Domination
[76:38] and Sepulcher of the First Ones, this is
[76:40] a pretty turbulent time for Blizzard.
[76:41] They were still dealing with the after
[76:42] effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and try
[76:44] to get people back in the office. Uh
[76:46] they also had internal lawsuits going on
[76:47] at this time. Um and without going too
[76:50] much into details, the downtime between
[76:51] SOD and Sepulcher of the First Ones was
[76:54] an unprecedented 8 months, making it
[76:57] possibly one of the longest durations of
[76:59] a mid-expansion raid tier we've ever
[77:00] seen.
[77:02] Now, I wouldn't talk about this time if
[77:04] we didn't have something specific to say
[77:05] about the Race to World First. The
[77:07] biggest shakeup actually comes from the
[77:08] team Limit. They originally inked a deal
[77:10] with Complexity to become Complexity
[77:11] Limit all the way back in 2019, and
[77:13] they've been competing for a while.
[77:15] Their contract was set to expire, and
[77:17] they were actively looking for new
[77:18] representation. There was, you know,
[77:20] some bait tweets about who their new
[77:23] team was going to be, and they end up
[77:24] finally announcing that they were going
[77:25] to be partnering with Team Liquid,
[77:27] marking the end of the Limit branding
[77:29] era as they were going to be simply
[77:31] renaming to Liquid. Now, we are just
[77:33] going to simply refer to them as Liquid
[77:34] for the rest of the video. God, I've
[77:36] been trying so hard to not call them
[77:37] Liquid the entire time. I hope I didn't
[77:39] mess it up at some point, but they were
[77:41] Limit, and now they're Liquid.
[77:44] In comes the Sepulcher of the First
[77:45] Ones, and you better strap in as viewer,
[77:46] because this is the longest and most
[77:48] difficult raid that we are ever going to
[77:49] see, and this raid was absolutely
[77:51] bananas. So, during PTR testing for this
[77:54] tier, we saw some differences between
[77:56] this and previous tiers, mostly related
[77:58] towards where PTR testing ended up
[78:00] working. So, the testing for Sepulcher,
[78:03] it stopped after Anduin, which was the
[78:05] eighth boss of the raid of an 11-boss
[78:07] raid tier. This meant that the last
[78:08] three bosses would release without any
[78:10] public testing. The seventh boss,
[78:11] Halondrus, this was a boss that was
[78:14] completely different during raid testing
[78:15] than what ended up being shipped for the
[78:17] raid. We'll see some context for that in
[78:19] a little bit later as to how that turned
[78:21] out.
[78:22] The raid tier also eventually came with
[78:24] the inclusion of double legendaries and
[78:26] the full return of tier sets, meaning
[78:28] there was a large chunk of power that
[78:30] would be backloaded uh that your
[78:31] character would get throughout this
[78:33] raid. The top five guilds were already
[78:35] aware of this during the PTR cycle. The
[78:37] double-edged theory is could release on
[78:39] week five of the patch, meaning the
[78:41] third week of Mythic. We've never seen a
[78:43] raid make it to that long. You know,
[78:45] it's basically been since Hellfire
[78:46] Citadel. So, you know, pre-race world
[78:48] first era, not really a thing that
[78:49] people were planning for, but it could
[78:51] happen. And, you know, maybe if the raid
[78:54] is tuned around it, could be a natural
[78:55] way to nerf the raid. So, with Liquid
[78:57] newly signed and the guild riding the
[78:58] high of new representation, a new venue
[79:00] to play from for the race world first,
[79:02] the raiders are ready for the final tier
[79:05] of Shadowlands. Will this new-found
[79:07] passion be enough to be able to defeat
[79:09] the reigning champions from Europe?
[79:11] So, the raid releases, and for heroic
[79:13] week, you could only kill bosses up to
[79:16] and including Anduin. So, what did this
[79:18] mean for tier sets? As a lot of power
[79:20] were contained in these tier sets, this
[79:22] meant that the world first guilds were
[79:23] doing a ton of splits, trying to get as
[79:26] much tier as humanly possible off of all
[79:28] of the bosses that it was available
[79:30] from. Unfortunately, though, two
[79:32] important pieces of tier were locked
[79:34] behind Lords of Dread and Rygelon,
[79:36] meaning that you could not guarantee the
[79:37] four-piece. The only thing that you
[79:39] could guarantee, even with the most
[79:40] splits possible, were three pieces of
[79:42] tier. And this created the situation
[79:44] where we saw full days of splits, and,
[79:47] you know, these full days of splits
[79:48] become increasingly more common as the
[79:50] race to world first unfolds over the
[79:52] next couple of tiers. Uh doing splits
[79:54] can be tedious and repetitive, so
[79:55] naturally, raiders find any source of
[79:57] entertainment for themselves that they
[79:58] can possibly consume.
[80:01] >> [screaming and cheering]
[80:10] >> This group owns.
[80:13] So, we have the heroic week, Mythic
[80:15] comes out, splits are being done for
[80:16] Lords of Dread and Rygelon, like I said.
[80:18] Day two of Mythic being released, Liquid
[80:21] is the first of the competing guilds to
[80:22] step out of splits and get some
[80:24] progression going. And it goes exactly
[80:26] how you kind of expect, uh especially
[80:27] with whatever we've seen so far from the
[80:29] race to world first. Liquid kills the
[80:30] first four bosses within four hours of
[80:32] stepping into Mythic. They take some
[80:34] pulls on the fifth boss, Prototype
[80:36] Pantheon. They go back to heroic splits,
[80:38] and they decide to return the day after
[80:40] with a little bit more gear. And in
[80:42] typical Race to World First fashion, the
[80:44] NA guild always takes the initial lead
[80:45] before EU gets into gearing, and they
[80:47] start catching up. And this raid was
[80:48] also no different. Liquid ends up also
[80:50] taking the fifth and sixth boss,
[80:51] Prototype Pantheon and Lihuvim, before
[80:53] Echo even steps foot in the raid. Echo
[80:55] follows suit the day after, and for
[80:56] Lihuvim, it was pretty clear that having
[80:58] a good strategy that mattered a lot. And
[81:00] with all the information that they
[81:01] learned, Echo swooped in, took all that
[81:03] information, and killed all the exact
[81:05] same bosses that Liquid did, and, you
[81:06] know, it saved them a lot of
[81:07] troubleshooting on the fight. And this
[81:09] is where things actually start to fall
[81:11] into Echo's favor. As Liquid's waking up
[81:13] for their fourth day after Mythic has
[81:15] released, Echo has already started
[81:17] pulling Halondrus. Let's talk about
[81:18] Halondrus for a bit. This boss
[81:21] is probably the single most mechanically
[81:23] challenging boss that Blizzard has ever
[81:25] released. Uh it ended up amassing a
[81:27] whopping 358
[81:29] pulls before falling, which is very rare
[81:31] considering there's four bosses still
[81:33] left in this raid. Uh you know, we did
[81:35] see something similar to like a mid-tier
[81:37] wall with Painsmith, but it's it's
[81:38] pretty rare. And for viewers though, you
[81:40] know, this was a fairly fun back and
[81:42] forth to witness, as there was always
[81:44] this tension of you could wipe it at any
[81:45] point. And it was a lot of days of
[81:47] progression. Echo ended up stopping
[81:49] their first day on 109 pulls with their
[81:51] best attempt being only 50%, and Liquid
[81:53] eventually ended their first day of prog
[81:56] at 187 pulls with a 41% best. So, I
[82:01] think you could tell that you were just
[82:02] wiping on CD to bombs exploding. There
[82:05] was just 100
[82:07] pass-fail mechanics, a thousand
[82:08] pass-fail mechanics at any point here.
[82:11] And the days, they start to run
[82:12] together. Uh they keep going down the
[82:14] exact same, Liquid and Echo basically
[82:15] just pulling Halondrus, making very slow
[82:17] progression. Somehow they continue to
[82:19] keep finding more split characters to do
[82:20] at any point. It was very strange, and
[82:23] it was pretty clear at this point that
[82:24] it was a two-horse race for Liquid and
[82:26] Echo. 358 pulls and several hot fixes
[82:29] later, the boss got nerfed a couple
[82:30] times. Liquid finally manages to secure
[82:32] the world first on Halondrus on the
[82:33] seventh day of the race with just one
[82:35] day left on the first reset. So, to give
[82:38] some context for the length of this
[82:39] race, previous race tiers guilds were
[82:40] either at the last boss at the time of
[82:42] the reset or the boss was already dead.
[82:44] At minimum, you were at the penultimate
[82:45] fight, but Sepulcher of the First Ones
[82:47] was now nearing the end of the first
[82:49] reset and there's four bosses still left
[82:52] standing including the final boss and
[82:54] the Jailer. By all intents and purposes,
[82:56] this raid is already shaping up to be
[82:58] more of a marathon than a sprint. And
[82:59] then as they're in a reset happens and
[83:02] EU has their final day on the first
[83:03] reset, both Echo and Pieces manage to
[83:05] kill Halondrus. Echo went for a quick
[83:08] look and it took a couple pulls on
[83:09] Anduin. They didn't really commit to
[83:11] anything. They had some chores that they
[83:12] wanted to do on that weekly reset with
[83:15] like Mythic Plus and filling up their
[83:16] vaults and whatnot. So,
[83:18] somehow they just found more splits to
[83:20] do. And after the reset, Echo and Liquid
[83:22] are pretty much doing mostly the same
[83:24] thing where they finish their splits and
[83:26] then they started chipping away at
[83:27] Anduin. For some reason, he also proved
[83:30] to be a very difficult boss. Anduin
[83:32] eventually does end up falling with
[83:34] Liquid taking it down on world first. It
[83:36] was a very thrilling kill with the only
[83:38] man left standing being the Blood Death
[83:40] Knight. This is the kind of kill that
[83:41] players always hope for where
[83:43] everybody's used up all their resources,
[83:45] 19 players are dead, and then the tank
[83:47] is the only person left standing. It is
[83:49] truly one of those hype moments that you
[83:51] can only get in World of Warcraft and
[83:53] it's it's just an example of how cool
[83:55] raiding can truly be. Let him focus.
[84:00] Let's go.
[84:03] Let's go.
[84:07] So, Anduin dies to Liquid and this
[84:09] leaves three bosses still left to go in
[84:11] the race. Echo also eventually kills
[84:13] Anduin four and a half hours after
[84:16] Liquid. So, Echo is catching up
[84:17] dramatically. Even though the reset just
[84:19] happened, Echo is right on the heels of
[84:20] Liquid here. So, we got the final three
[84:22] bosses and you can either choose Lords
[84:24] of Dread or Rygelon. The initial idea
[84:26] from Liquid, since they were there
[84:28] first, was to go to Lords of Dread,
[84:29] which seemed like it was supposed to be
[84:31] the easier of the bosses, where Rygelon
[84:33] was kind of anticipated to be this like
[84:35] patchwork wall, huge gear check type of
[84:37] boss. And whenever you like looked at
[84:39] the amount of HP, it was just
[84:40] ridiculous. Uh Lords of Dread, it seemed
[84:42] like it was supposed to be more of a
[84:43] mechanics check than a damage check.
[84:46] And Liquid, they end up getting there
[84:48] and they get the boss to 40% after seven
[84:50] pulls. Maybe this is the reprieve that
[84:52] we need from Race World First Halondrus,
[84:53] have been just hundreds of pulls on
[84:56] Halondrus, hundreds of pulls on Anduin.
[84:57] Maybe Lords of Dread is going to be a
[84:58] little bit easier. Unfortunately,
[85:00] though, the boss was definitely not as
[85:01] easy as it seemed, as uh very quickly
[85:04] the guilds started to hit the enrage.
[85:06] Liquid hits the enrage and the boss is
[85:08] like nowhere close to being dead. Then,
[85:11] Liquid kind of takes a U-turn. They go
[85:13] to Rygelon. Oh, maybe maybe this boss is
[85:14] a little bit more killable. Uh they also
[85:17] soon realize that Rygelon was not any
[85:19] easier of a boss. And as a viewer, you
[85:21] kind of take a look at this and you're
[85:22] just like, "Oh, oh goodness gracious. We
[85:24] are going to be here for a very long
[85:25] time." So, Liquid now has Rygelon at 70%
[85:29] HP. Lords of Dread is at like 20% HP and
[85:32] they've seen the enrage. And Liquid's
[85:33] done and they called it a day.
[85:36] But if you're Echo here, you've killed
[85:37] Anduin and you're now starting your day
[85:39] and you have all of this information
[85:40] that what Liquid has done. And so, you
[85:42] see that Liquid has not made strides on
[85:44] either Lords of Dread or like Rygelon.
[85:46] So, now Echo has really good information
[85:47] on both of those bosses. What do they
[85:49] do?
[85:50] Well, Echo ends up Lords of Dread and
[85:52] they actually end up killing the boss
[85:53] after only 62 pulls with a raid comp
[85:56] that was stacked with primarily melee
[85:58] specialization and only four ranged DPS
[86:00] or ranged players in general.
[86:02] This makes Lords of Dread one of the
[86:04] first bosses in years without a mage in
[86:05] the comp, as the intellect buff would
[86:07] only be relevant for the healers and the
[86:09] token warlock. So, basically, we didn't
[86:11] need a mage. There was also this
[86:12] narrative at the time where Liquid said
[86:15] that Lords of Dread was mathematically
[86:17] impossible. I'm not actually sure where
[86:19] this narrative came from and while I
[86:21] started doing research for this video,
[86:22] I'm wondering if like Dratnos and I
[86:24] ended up making up this narrative.
[86:27] [laughter]
[86:28] Um like it could it could have been
[86:29] legitimately made up. I'm not even 100%
[86:31] sure, but there was a narrative that
[86:32] Lords of Dread was mathematically
[86:33] impossible because for both Echo and
[86:36] then Liquid whenever they go to kill
[86:37] Lords of Dread, they do this cheeky
[86:39] strategy where they use the Bonesmith
[86:41] cheat death, uh Bonesmith and Army's
[86:43] cheat death on Death Knights in order to
[86:45] extend the boss enrage far, far, far
[86:47] past where it was anticipated to go
[86:49] because like I said earlier, Liquid hit
[86:51] the enrage in the boss at like 15% HP so
[86:53] it looked like it was like, "Oh, okay.
[86:54] This enrage isn't insane." But with
[86:56] cheating it, it was possible. So Liquid
[86:58] yoinks the strategy from Echo, they kill
[87:00] Lords of Dread 3 hours later. Echo ends
[87:02] up going to Ragnaros. Now Liquid's on
[87:04] Ragnaros and we have both guilds
[87:05] simultaneously pulling Ragnaros
[87:08] who has a lot of HP, you know, it is
[87:10] just one of it's going to be one of the
[87:11] hardest patchwork bosses of all time in
[87:13] the hardest raid tier.
[87:15] And by this point in the race, we were
[87:16] in pretty much unprecedented territory.
[87:19] We had the second reset of Mythic week
[87:21] uh slowly approaching. Two bosses are
[87:23] still left standing. At this point,
[87:25] everybody realizes that we're going to
[87:26] the third reset and that double
[87:28] legendaries are on the table meaning
[87:30] that if you were slacking on your
[87:31] reputation to be able to get double
[87:32] legendaries unlocked, you were in
[87:33] trouble. Fortunately enough, all these
[87:34] race for world first guilds have uh
[87:36] people who, let's say, have no life and
[87:39] they were already farming reputation
[87:41] even even though it was very unlikely to
[87:43] get to double legendaries.
[87:45] At the same time, you know, we've been
[87:46] here for a very long time and being
[87:48] fully locked in for that period of time
[87:50] already takes an insane amount of
[87:51] determination, but being away from your
[87:53] family, not sleeping in your own bed,
[87:55] there is a serious mental strain that's
[87:57] being told on all of the players from
[87:59] both of the competing organizations and
[88:01] everybody's starting to feel fatigue
[88:02] setting in. This race seems to kind of
[88:04] be boiling down to a test of endurance
[88:06] and for Echo having killed Lords of
[88:07] Dread before Liquid and establishing a
[88:09] lead of sorts, And kind of get the
[88:11] second win for them as they're now
[88:13] starting to push down the doors of the
[88:15] Jailer.
[88:19] How is the mental strain on a raid tier
[88:22] that ends up being that long? That is
[88:24] like the first raid tier that we've seen
[88:26] in a very long time
[88:27] that went over two resets. Like what is
[88:29] what is the mental strain like on a raid
[88:31] tier like that?
[88:32] I mean, you were there. So, you you also
[88:35] have some some insight into this. I
[88:37] don't know if I felt that
[88:40] big of a difference. Like obviously you
[88:42] do realize some point hey, it's been so
[88:44] many days. Like what's going on? But
[88:47] I don't know, maybe the fact that it was
[88:48] such a good raid. Like I enjoyed the
[88:50] bosses. I don't think that we felt like
[88:54] super exhausted. At least from our side.
[88:58] Um especially after getting ahead like
[89:02] on um
[89:03] the the the Dreadlords.
[89:04] >> Yeah, yeah, Lords of Dread. Yeah, yeah.
[89:06] Yeah, Lords of Dread, yes. Like after
[89:08] getting ahead on Lords of Dread, I think
[89:10] we got kind of like the second wind
[89:12] effect. Like we we started getting hyped
[89:15] again. So, I I would say actually the
[89:17] worst it got was
[89:19] around Halondrus and Anduin.
[89:21] But then when you start getting closer
[89:23] to the end,
[89:25] it almost felt like
[89:26] more excitement. Uh so, yeah. I don't
[89:29] know.
[89:31] Now, the next couple days, they're about
[89:32] Ra'gelon and Echo, they're managing to
[89:35] keep the lead that they had found on
[89:36] Lords of Dread, and they eventually end
[89:37] up killing Ra'gelon on pull 204. Liquid
[89:40] follows suit some hours later tying up
[89:42] the race with only one boss left
[89:43] standing as we're approaching the third
[89:44] week of Mythic. Now, the guilds they
[89:46] reach the Jailer on a Monday right
[89:48] before the third week of Mythic, the
[89:49] week where double legendaries become
[89:51] available. So, we know at this point in
[89:53] time, casters all know this, players all
[89:55] know this, that the boss is going to be
[89:58] killed with double legendaries in some
[89:59] capacity. And so, now all of the guilds
[90:01] are kind of scrambling to make sure that
[90:02] everybody's got enough rep. And with
[90:04] this additional time, both Liquid and
[90:06] Echo do end up pulling the Jailer a
[90:07] little bit, but a lot of this time is
[90:09] honestly just spent trying to recoup,
[90:11] recharge, do any additional chores that
[90:14] are ready for the next reset, and just
[90:16] preparing yourself for the long haul
[90:17] that is the final boss in the Jailer.
[90:20] So, both resets happen. Echo actually
[90:22] gets to see Liquid do a few hours of
[90:24] pulling the Jailer after the re-clear,
[90:25] and at this point, guilds have both seen
[90:27] a little bit of phase three, the final
[90:29] phase of the fight, but they really
[90:30] struggled to get their consistency with
[90:32] both phase one and phase two, and none
[90:33] of the guilds had really put any serious
[90:35] distance on that final phase. And Echo,
[90:37] their re-clear went about as good as it
[90:38] could, and it only ended up taking three
[90:40] pulls. You know, they were able to kill
[90:42] Halondrus rather quickly, something that
[90:44] seemed impossible. And this is where
[90:46] Echo really starts to kind of break away
[90:47] from Liquid. And on the Jailer, Echo
[90:50] start to look like the definitive
[90:52] favorites to be able to win the race to
[90:53] world first, making bigger strides for
[90:55] every raid day, and they're conserving
[90:57] energy, and it looks like they're just
[90:58] kind of getting that second wind.
[91:00] Blizzard does end up pushing kind of a
[91:01] hot fix to Jailer to nerf the fight a
[91:03] little bit while guilds were progressing
[91:05] it. It doesn't really end up, you know,
[91:06] changing realistically the [music]
[91:09] essence of the race to world first. You
[91:10] know, you do see some large nerfs.
[91:12] Basically, what this did was it
[91:13] increased the consistency of guilds for
[91:16] phase three, where it reduced the number
[91:18] of people that needed to be alive in
[91:19] phase three to be able to
[91:20] continue to progress the phase.
[91:22] Initially, you had to have all 20
[91:23] players alive, then it got nerfed down
[91:25] to 17. This meant that, you know, the
[91:27] fight just was easier to continue to see
[91:29] progression on. It wasn't like a a
[91:31] kill-changing kind of nerf.
[91:33] And whenever this nerf came through,
[91:35] this is where the learning process sped
[91:36] up, and Echo really hit the gas.
[91:39] In the days, they were really slow, you
[91:40] know, at some point we had Liquid and
[91:42] Echo at 48 and 41%, then it was like
[91:45] Liquid and Echo at Liquid was at like
[91:48] 35%, and Echo was at 20%, and then it
[91:51] happened. A secret phase.
[91:54] The hardest end boss of all time has a
[91:56] secret phase.
[91:58] Watch out for the file. Don't don't
[92:00] spread the Yeah, if that touches one
[92:01] person, Deep Shades in a little bit of
[92:02] danger there. Lar got also running away.
[92:04] Jailer now at 14% 4 seconds until we all
[92:08] get in a little bit of extra time. All
[92:10] ads are dead. 12 + 2
[92:12] come on and he's walking through the
[92:14] middle of the room. COME ON 11% 11 10 5
[92:18] 10 5
[92:18] 10 5 COME ON HIT THE 10% GUYS 10 10
[92:22] 10 9 WHAT
[92:26] WE SAW
[92:26] >> [screaming]
[92:27] >> LET'S GO
[92:29] WE SAW IT.
[92:31] OKAY, SECRET PHASE THE WIPE HAPPENED
[92:33] BECAUSE THE ETERNITY'S END ALREADY WENT
[92:34] OFF. They have to hit it before. No,
[92:37] man.
[92:38] But we saw it. This 10% IS CONFIRMED.
[92:42] >> [laughter]
[92:44] >> IT'S REAL.
[92:46] It's real. We're going to get to go
[92:47] home.
[92:49] >> [laughter]
[92:49] >> And this is something that you just love
[92:51] to see as a viewer and as a caster just
[92:53] this miraculous secret phase. I remember
[92:56] Dratnos, Ginji, and myself were all
[92:57] casting for Echo at this point in time
[93:00] and
[93:01] >> [laughter]
[93:01] >> just the resonance of we get to go home
[93:04] was like it was the most genuine thing
[93:06] between the three of us. It was like oh
[93:08] my God, the boss is almost dead. Please
[93:10] send us home.
[93:11] And in the liquid camp having seen the
[93:13] secret phase and the liquid continuing
[93:15] to fall further and further behind Echo
[93:17] wakes up on day 19 of this race. Let me
[93:19] let me just say day 19 of this race is
[93:21] insane.
[93:22] And they start to see huge progress and
[93:24] it was evident very early on that this
[93:26] boss was going to be Echo's kill. Echo
[93:28] did not take their foot off the gas just
[93:30] because of this though and they very
[93:31] deservedly took home another world first
[93:34] title as they emerged victorious on the
[93:36] last rate of Shadowlands, the hardest
[93:37] rate of all time. All the buffs up. Get
[93:40] away from there. Get away from there.
[93:42] You're okay. I mean soak the frontal.
[93:44] YEAH.
[93:57] So annoying.
[94:00] >> And this raid it goes down in history as
[94:01] one of the most iconic Race to World
[94:02] First ever. It's just unbelievable how
[94:05] long and how difficult it truly was, and
[94:07] having the pleasure of watching Race to
[94:09] World First guilds compete against the
[94:10] hardest content that WoW has to offer in
[94:12] this manner is truly a pleasure.
[94:17] And as Shadowlands finally comes to an
[94:19] end, we now enter Dragonflight. In the
[94:22] game it saw some pretty big fundamental
[94:24] changes where there were things like new
[94:26] talent trees, no more borrowed power,
[94:29] revamped profession systems. Uh there
[94:31] was like a simultaneous release for
[94:32] heroic and mythic all the time.
[94:34] There was also the inclusion of powerful
[94:36] items that were tagged as very rare. And
[94:38] of course, there was the brand new class
[94:40] Evoker with a healer spec and a DPS
[94:43] spec. And then with all of that, we also
[94:45] have a brand new raid and a brand new
[94:47] Race to World First to talk about in
[94:49] Vault of the Incarnates.
[94:50] Now, the biggest change for Dragonflight
[94:52] concerning the Race to World First was
[94:53] definitely the game moving away from
[94:55] borrowed power systems that had been a
[94:57] staple for three expansions at this
[94:58] point. This would affect the Race to
[95:00] World First pretty uh greatly, honestly,
[95:03] as the value of heroic and normal splits
[95:04] would skyrocket. Then, you'll factor in
[95:07] the very rare tagged items, which have a
[95:10] lower than normal drop rate. And with
[95:12] their power, all 20 players in your raid
[95:14] basically want them. These are very good
[95:16] items to target for all of your 14 mages
[95:19] if you are one of the persons who mains
[95:21] mage.
[95:22] Race to World First at this point as
[95:23] well has also gained a huge audience
[95:25] compared to where it first started. So,
[95:27] the arms race of adding more and more
[95:29] splits was natural for guilds.
[95:31] Optimizing your splits for even like a
[95:33] 2/10 or 3/10 of an item level lead can
[95:35] actually make the difference between a
[95:36] world first and losing the race.
[95:39] This race here also marked the first
[95:40] time that they would actually release
[95:41] all difficulties at the exact same time,
[95:43] meaning that our top two guilds would
[95:45] not step foot into mythic for the first
[95:47] few days while they were basically doing
[95:49] all of their splits. While simultaneous
[95:50] release is going to be the staple going
[95:52] forward, I would say it's not exactly
[95:55] fantastic for viewership, I will admit.
[95:58] So, for the first couple of days after
[95:59] Vault of the Incarnates released,
[96:01] nothing really happened. The guilds were
[96:03] just kind of doing their splits, and it
[96:05] really wasn't until day three of the
[96:07] raid where we finally got some Mythic
[96:09] action just straight across the board.
[96:11] Liquid was the first of the competing
[96:13] guilds to step foot into the raid on
[96:15] Mythic, shocker, I know. The world first
[96:17] kills on the first and the second boss,
[96:19] though, they did come from this really
[96:20] great guild called Vesper, who happened
[96:23] to have this really good Moonkin player
[96:25] on their roster, believe it or not.
[96:26] Little bit of casting experience, little
[96:27] bit of world first experience, you know.
[96:29] With the real race world first aside,
[96:31] Liquid made swift work of the first
[96:32] couple of bosses as they took down both
[96:34] Eranogorr and Primal Council on one
[96:35] pull. Then they went on to bang out
[96:38] Terros in five pulls and Sennarth in 12.
[96:40] Liquid also ends up poking their head
[96:42] onto the Dathea encounter for a couple
[96:44] of hours and choosing to go to there
[96:46] instead of Kurog Grimtotem.
[96:48] And the next day would be fairly similar
[96:50] with Echo still opting to finish up all
[96:52] of their splits while watching Liquid
[96:54] and gathering information, but Liquid,
[96:56] they didn't really waste any time, and
[96:58] after some initial Mythic Plus farming
[96:59] at the very beginning of the day, they
[97:01] went into the raid to continue their
[97:02] Dathea progression. And Dathea, she was
[97:04] a little bit overtuned, and after a 30%
[97:06] wipe on pull 50, Blizzard decided that
[97:08] the boss was way too hard to kill, um
[97:11] and they nerfed the health of the boss
[97:12] by 15%.
[97:14] By the way, just for context, a 15% nerf
[97:17] is massive. Normally people get up in
[97:18] arms about a 5% nerf, but 15 is just
[97:21] crazy. The first pull after this 15%
[97:23] nerf as well, Liquid gets the boss
[97:24] immediately to 7%, and then another
[97:26] seven pulls after that, the boss dies.
[97:28] And Liquid, well, they were five out of
[97:30] eight before Echo even stepped foot into
[97:31] the raid. Then, loaded with all of the
[97:33] gear and all of the information that
[97:34] they normally have, we see Echo finally
[97:37] enter the raid with an attempt to catch
[97:39] up, which they did in almost no time,
[97:41] spending one pull on most of the initial
[97:44] bosses. They ended up spending like five
[97:45] on Terros, another 10 on Sennarth. then
[97:47] they went to Dathia, you know, even
[97:49] though Dathia had been nerfed, you know,
[97:51] it was still a little bit of a tough
[97:52] wall, rough mechanics check. Echo ends
[97:54] up spending 59 pulls on a boss that
[97:56] Liquid had already killed, which is
[97:58] tough. However,
[98:00] you know, Echo does kill it before going
[98:01] to bed, so no harm no foul. Um Liquid on
[98:03] the other hand, they're farming Kurog
[98:05] Grimtotem trying to get him killed, and
[98:07] then eventually they kill him on pull 59
[98:10] after the raid catches another round of
[98:11] nerfs. So, for context, to this raid
[98:13] tier was also very close to Christmas,
[98:15] and the uh Blizzard dev team probably
[98:18] didn't want to work over the holidays, I
[98:19] think is the biggest estimate here. Um
[98:22] and they were sounding the alarms trying
[98:23] to make sure that the race world first
[98:24] did not go over Christmas. So, yeah,
[98:26] Kurog Grimtotem died, and uh honestly,
[98:29] this is kind of notable. This is the
[98:30] first raid boss in modern WoW history to
[98:32] have actually been killed without a
[98:33] warlock present in the world first kill,
[98:35] but just more of a fun fact than
[98:36] anything else. And so, the general story
[98:38] for this race so far has kind of kind of
[98:40] been around nerf timings and splits. Uh
[98:42] really unfun parts of the race world
[98:44] first, admittedly. And more than once
[98:46] now, Liquid has gone to a boss, spent
[98:48] pulls progressing it, seen Blizzard nerf
[98:50] it while they're sitting there, and you
[98:52] know, then moved on to the next boss.
[98:53] Echo on the other hand, they have fully
[98:55] tied it up with Liquid, they secured a
[98:56] world second kill on Kurog Grimtotem,
[98:58] and for the rest of the day, we were
[99:00] going to be seeing both guilds
[99:01] progressing the penultimate encounter,
[99:02] Broodkeeper Diurna, at the exact same
[99:04] time. And by the end of the day, Liquid
[99:06] would still have but as the boss got
[99:07] lower and lower, the differences got
[99:08] smaller and smaller. Then, Liquid
[99:11] finally reached this 10% mark on the
[99:13] boss,
[99:14] and that's kind of where Echo kicked it
[99:16] into gear, ending up their day only 1%
[99:19] behind Liquid. Except, Echo didn't end
[99:22] their day. Even though it was the time
[99:24] that Echo was supposed to be finishing
[99:25] the raid, they decided to stay up a
[99:27] little bit longer to try to secure the
[99:28] Broodkeeper kill. And both guilds were
[99:30] pushing for the final
[99:32] 10% at the exact same time. And for
[99:35] Liquid, they ended up snagging the world
[99:36] first kill on Broodkeeper Diurna, but
[99:38] Echo, they followed suit an hour or so
[99:39] later, so this is a huge deal. And in
[99:41] real time, we're on day seven, and this
[99:43] is due to all the splits. Thus, we're
[99:45] approaching the new reset. Uh we have
[99:47] both guilds progressing the final boss
[99:49] at the exact same time, and both guilds
[99:50] having spent a few pulls on Raszageth
[99:52] phase one, which was an insanely
[99:54] difficult phase, and it straight-up made
[99:56] the new Evoker class mandatory in order
[99:58] for everybody to live through the new
[100:00] phase.
[100:01] I will say though, for Raszageth, the
[100:03] first few pulls of this boss are
[100:04] incredibly iconic as players are just
[100:06] blasted off the platform by
[100:08] hurricane-strength winds. And this
[100:11] fight, it looks very, very tough. Okay,
[100:13] so we made it to the reset, you know,
[100:15] guilds are progressing phase one of
[100:17] Raszageth, and Liquid make gets a start
[100:20] on all their splits and reclears. Echo's
[100:21] taking a chill day to kind of try to fix
[100:23] their sleep schedule, do a couple
[100:24] chores, that kind of thing, getting
[100:27] themselves ready to start heroic splits
[100:29] at their reset time as well. But, even
[100:31] if this was a splits and reclear day, it
[100:33] didn't go without any action, as
[100:35] Blizzard decided that, you know what?
[100:37] Maybe we missed the mark a little bit on
[100:39] the Raszageth tuning, and they reduced
[100:41] the intermission ad HP, and the phase
[100:43] one damage got reduced a little bit.
[100:45] Now, the ad HP, you know, I cited
[100:47] earlier that a 15% health nerf was a
[100:49] lot. The ad HP got nerfed by 50%.
[100:56] Why do you think the tuning of Vault of
[100:58] the Incarnates was such a big miss,
[101:00] particularly Raszageth?
[101:02] Uh do you think it was because of talent
[101:04] trees, or is it, you know, sometimes
[101:06] Blizzard just hits you with the the
[101:08] Queen Azshara Raszageth type of tier? I
[101:11] mean, to be honest, that's a good
[101:11] question. I think in reality, it was the
[101:14] talent trees, and the I'm pretty sure
[101:16] the designer of the boss
[101:19] did not know that you cannot just do AoE
[101:21] and single target at the same time with
[101:23] many classes, right? That was the
[101:24] biggest issue.
[101:25] And then, on top of that, I think there
[101:27] were two issues. One of them was that
[101:29] they thought we can do AoE single target
[101:31] all the time, and it will be fine. And
[101:33] the other thing was that I swear the
[101:34] designer
[101:35] did not think that you go and split up
[101:37] the rate or something. I don't know.
[101:39] Whoever did it half tuning basically,
[101:41] yeah? Because I mean, you could barely
[101:43] kill one side with everyone, which
[101:45] indicated that they knew how much damage
[101:47] we will do, which kind of worked in the
[101:49] previous bosses, right? Yeah. But it was
[101:51] clearly that one side was put over with
[101:53] everyone, so you have to half
[101:54] everything.
[101:55] Which was
[101:56] I mean, it was very questionable. I
[101:58] don't think it had happened again this
[101:59] bad tuning.
[102:01] So, for the EU reset, Echo did wake up
[102:04] at 5:00 a.m. to start their day,
[102:05] and they didn't end their day until
[102:06] 11:00 p.m.
[102:08] And after 18 hours of splits and
[102:09] reclear, they were back to Raszageth.
[102:11] They didn't get a ton of progression on
[102:12] this day, but they got they got
[102:14] time. And since Blizzard had both nerfed
[102:16] phase one damage and the phase one
[102:19] intermission, this allowed both Liquid
[102:21] and Echo to kind of springboard
[102:23] themselves forward and bash their head
[102:25] into the storm surge shield that exists
[102:28] in phase two. Unfortunately, they
[102:30] weren't really making much of a dent in
[102:31] it at the time. That is until Blizzard
[102:35] decided to nerf the boss again.
[102:38] With another hotfix, the boss's health
[102:39] reduced by another 5% and the storm
[102:42] surge shield reduced by a whopping 50%.
[102:45] That's just a tough look at that point.
[102:46] [laughter]
[102:47] And it's been pretty clear so far during
[102:49] this raid that Blizzard has missed their
[102:52] initial tuning target. You know, but at
[102:54] this point, there's not really much you
[102:56] can do.
[102:56] Um we're just kind of hoping that this
[102:58] is the last one for the race. All the
[103:00] casters are like kind of over this
[103:02] entire thing. Because
[103:04] you know, you go back to Eternal Palace
[103:07] and you have this tuning that completely
[103:08] swings the race, it just feels really
[103:10] shitty. At the same time, if there are
[103:12] any new nerfs that are coming, let's
[103:14] pray they kind of ship them on a time
[103:16] that's not detrimental to one guild and
[103:18] beneficial to the other.
[103:21] And now with Christmas only a couple of
[103:22] days away, it's you know, there might be
[103:25] another round of nerfs depending on how
[103:27] hard the end of Raszageth really is.
[103:29] That's just future speculation, maybe.
[103:32] With the phase two shield nerfed, we
[103:33] kind of start to see some really big
[103:35] movement on the boss HP itself. Liquid
[103:38] finally take the boss down to 48% from
[103:40] the 65% that they got hard walled on for
[103:42] forever. Then, you know, we start to see
[103:45] the ninth day of the raid, and this is
[103:47] where things really begin to pick up.
[103:49] Liquid and Echo were, you know, they
[103:51] bust through the storm shield. They
[103:53] actually are making it finally to see
[103:55] phase three and virtually seeing to the
[103:57] end of the fight.
[103:58] And when you reach that point of
[103:59] progression where you know that you've
[104:00] seen the end of the fight, the only
[104:01] thing that matters is optimizing your
[104:02] damage for when you're getting there,
[104:04] while also trying to get there
[104:05] consistently with all 20 players alive.
[104:08] This would actually prove to be pretty
[104:09] difficult since the enrage would come
[104:11] creeping in, and the damage that was
[104:13] taken in the final phase was just really
[104:14] high. Now, Echo, they would have the
[104:16] best attempt at the end of their day,
[104:18] and they would stay in the lead for a
[104:20] pretty extended period of time, reaching
[104:22] 19.6% before ending their day nine.
[104:25] Liquid, during their day nine as well,
[104:28] uh they kept going for a little bit,
[104:29] even though it took them a little bit
[104:30] longer to reach phase three, but they
[104:33] had gotten a taste of that. They began
[104:35] to lock in, and just two pulls after
[104:37] their first introductory introductory
[104:39] pull into phase three, they would
[104:40] overtake Echo for a best of 17%. So,
[104:43] we're seeing some really intense back
[104:44] and forth here.
[104:46] But, this race,
[104:47] as I said, it really revolved around
[104:50] nerf timings.
[104:51] And there would be one final nerf coming
[104:53] out of Blizzard to phase three in
[104:55] particular.
[104:57] Are you kidding me? The timing of this
[104:59] nerf would also fall right at the time
[105:01] that Liquid were waking up, and their
[105:02] players were going over to the venue to
[105:04] start the day. This would result in Echo
[105:06] actually taking down Raszageth like
[105:08] almost before Liquid could even pull the
[105:10] boss, and allowed them to secure their
[105:12] third world first win in a row
[105:15] before Liquid even had the opportunity
[105:17] to pull the boss after the nerfs.
[105:19] And obviously, these nerfs, they left a
[105:22] sour taste in the mouths of the Liquid
[105:24] players.
[105:25] And I remember long-standing tank for
[105:28] liquid Ben. He just announces after this
[105:30] that he's quitting the race and citing
[105:32] that constant Nerf timings being the
[105:34] main issue. There was also a couple
[105:35] tweets from Echo Raiders like now
[105:37] addressing that the Nerf timings aren't
[105:38] fun for any of them.
[105:40] This was a bit of a fiasco. Echo
[105:42] repeated on the positive note, but you
[105:44] know, everybody's kind of watching this
[105:46] feeling like we missed out on the
[105:48] opportunity to have a really cool race
[105:50] to world first. You know, obviously you
[105:52] would hope that the tuning would have
[105:54] been right to begin with. At the same
[105:56] time having tuning timings that are so
[105:59] consequential for the race to world
[106:00] first feels shitty. There's no good way
[106:03] of just kind of tiptoeing around it.
[106:07] So moving forward, you can safely say
[106:09] that between the simultaneous raid
[106:10] difficulties of releasing, the new
[106:12] talent trees, renown, profession
[106:14] systems, whatever else, Dragonflight was
[106:16] basically the expansion of reworks. And
[106:18] heading into the second tier of the
[106:19] expansion, Blizzard completely reworked
[106:21] gear progression.
[106:22] Basically, every single item would be
[106:24] put onto different upgrade tracks and it
[106:26] would allow you to upgrade items with
[106:27] crests that you got from just doing
[106:30] miscellaneous content. For the top race
[106:32] to world first guilds, basically what
[106:34] this ended up meaning meant that you
[106:35] would make big spreadsheets to figure
[106:37] out from the different splits what gear
[106:39] you're getting, where you're going to be
[106:41] spending your crests, what are you going
[106:42] to be crafting on, what classes to use
[106:44] what tier set token on, and what is the
[106:46] optimal way of kind of like spending
[106:48] your crests. Aberrus is also the first
[106:50] race here that had this brand new and
[106:52] successful feature, private auras. Yay!
[106:56] So basically what would happen was some
[106:57] boss abilities were hidden from add-ons.
[106:59] This made it impossible to create weak
[107:01] auras or add-ons that assigned positions
[107:04] or roles based on what players got the
[107:06] debuffs from these privated aura
[107:09] abilities. Now, how did the players
[107:11] respond? Well, they could create some
[107:13] degenerate workarounds like spamming
[107:15] pressing a macro when you got a mechanic
[107:16] to tell your add-on that you have a
[107:18] debuff. Then, that add-on, without
[107:21] reading your debuff, could assign people
[107:23] based on whoever pressed the macro. This
[107:25] tech was specifically useful for the
[107:27] penultimate boss in Aberrus, the Echo of
[107:29] Neltharion. Then we move on to the
[107:30] Incarnates.
[107:31] All raid difficulties are opening at
[107:33] once. This means that there's not a lot
[107:34] of movement during the first couple of
[107:35] days of the race from top guilds. Echo
[107:37] and Liquid are basically just spending
[107:39] all of their possible time doing splits,
[107:41] and they don't enter Mythic until other
[107:43] guilds had killed some bosses, where
[107:45] this time three bosses had died during
[107:48] the first two days of the raid. The
[107:49] fourth boss died while Liquid was
[107:51] starting to clear up the first few
[107:53] bosses. And having racked up 442 heroic
[107:56] and normal boss kills so far, and
[107:58] countless amounts of Mythic Plus runs to
[107:59] optimize their gear, Liquid swiftly
[108:02] overtook all the guilds that had killed
[108:03] the bosses before them. They killed the
[108:05] first four bosses in no time, moving on
[108:07] to Rashok, who is in prime position to
[108:09] be the first wall of the raid. This is a
[108:11] single-target boss with a lot of stuff
[108:12] to dodge, a pretty tight enrage timer,
[108:15] and it was at a similar spot in the raid
[108:16] where Pain Smith was. This ends up
[108:18] meaning that this could be a real test
[108:19] for the guilds, or it could kind of be a
[108:20] pushover. It's hard to really tell.
[108:23] While Echo were still doing splits,
[108:24] Liquid kept pulling Rashok, and they
[108:25] were getting pretty close, repeating
[108:27] wipes at 0.3 and 0.2%. They eventually
[108:30] are able to kill off that boss. Echo, on
[108:32] the other hand, they're finally entering
[108:34] Mythic after dinner on day four of the
[108:37] raid being open. And it's kind of crazy,
[108:39] you know, how many splits and how much
[108:41] time it really takes. Liquid ends up
[108:43] killing Rashok after 20 pulls, and they
[108:44] were heading on to Zskarn. Rashok didn't
[108:46] end up being too much of a wall, but it
[108:48] was definitely the first real challenge
[108:50] of the raid. Even a 20-pull boss for
[108:52] race world first guilds, that means that
[108:53] this boss is actually kind of hard, but
[108:56] uh race world first guilds are kind of
[108:57] built different.
[108:58] And Echo, while they might have a little
[109:00] bit of a time disadvantage, they got the
[109:01] EU buff of learning. They're lifelong
[109:04] learners over there, and they enter the
[109:06] raid, and they pretty much tie up with
[109:07] Liquid almost immediately. They kill
[109:09] Rashok in seven pulls, having basically
[109:11] the entire strategy available to them.
[109:14] And now they are fully caught up with
[109:16] the competition. Echo goes to bed and
[109:18] Liquid is finally starting to get some
[109:20] pulls on the Zskarn. And Liquid doesn't
[109:22] really waste too much time taking down
[109:23] not only Zskarn but also the next boss
[109:25] Magmorax with still 3 hours left in
[109:27] their normal raid day. Magmorax however,
[109:30] this was pretty much a disappointment.
[109:31] Everybody was kind of hoping that this
[109:33] was going to be a well-tuned patchwork
[109:35] single target check. Unfortunately, it
[109:38] only took 17 pulls and like 3 hours for
[109:40] Liquid to get down. After Magmorax dies,
[109:43] uh Liquid basically just breaks for some
[109:45] chores to get some Mythic plus done,
[109:47] maybe potentially get some additional
[109:48] crests. They you know there's probably
[109:50] going to be a couple of pulls of Echo of
[109:52] Neltharion off stream, nothing too
[109:53] intense. We're talking like five pulls
[109:55] just for just to test some strategies,
[109:58] test some potential private aura
[109:59] workarounds, those kind of things. And
[110:01] so the next day for both Echo and
[110:02] Liquid, uh you know, it's pretty
[110:04] similar. Echo wakes up, sees that Liquid
[110:06] have both killed Zskarn and Magmorax. Uh
[110:09] they yoink the strategies, they down
[110:11] Zskarn in 37 pulls, Magmorax Magmorax in
[110:14] 16, and they head towards Echo of
[110:16] Neltharion. And they start pulling Echo
[110:18] of Neltharion first, and even without
[110:19] information from Liquid, Echo begins
[110:21] smashing into Echo of Neltharion in the
[110:23] end of their day five with a 24% best
[110:26] pull.
[110:27] Not not a bad showing by them. And by
[110:29] the time Echo ended up going to bed,
[110:31] Liquid were sitting at a 47% best with
[110:34] some attempts on the boss as well, but
[110:36] less time spent on the boss and almost
[110:38] their whole day left to try to finish
[110:39] the boss. By pull 30 though, Liquid had
[110:42] tied up Echo's lead and it took another
[110:44] eight additional hours before they
[110:46] finally killed the boss. Liquid only had
[110:48] 15 minutes left in their raid day, and
[110:50] you know, at this point in the race
[110:51] world first, you're going to pull
[110:53] Sarkareth, but it's mostly just to get
[110:54] some timers and think about your comp.
[110:56] We're not having some weird Council of
[110:58] Blood thing happen where the boss could
[110:59] potentially die. So where are we at in
[111:01] the race? Liquid has killed Echo of
[111:03] Neltharion, Echo is waking up here soon,
[111:06] and Liquid is at the final boss.
[111:08] Um
[111:09] we're rapidly approaching the part of
[111:10] the race where things get really
[111:11] exciting. We're kind of We kind of call
[111:13] this slingshot season where, you know,
[111:15] you wake up behind and you go to bed
[111:18] ahead. For both Echo and Liquid, this
[111:20] ends up happening. And for Echo, they
[111:21] really didn't disappoint. They end up
[111:23] killing Al'tharix on their 81st pull, 3
[111:25] hours before Liquid got to wake up. And
[111:27] for Echo, they've actually started
[111:29] progressing the boss by the time Liquid
[111:30] wakes up. And this meant that it was
[111:32] time for Liquid to sit back and finally
[111:34] watch from some of Echo's strategies.
[111:37] And for Echo, they had an absolutely
[111:38] phenomenal day. They took down Echo and
[111:40] Al'tharix. They have Sarkareth down to
[111:42] 49% and all eyes are kind of now on
[111:45] Liquid to see how far are they going to
[111:47] be able to shoot that slingshot and are
[111:49] they going to be able to make some real
[111:50] progression onto Sarkareth? And Liquid,
[111:53] they didn't really sit idly by. They
[111:55] kept pulling for a few hours and they
[111:56] eventually ended at 37% by the time of
[111:59] their dinner break.
[112:01] So, there's about 4 hours left in their
[112:02] raid day.
[112:03] Then, something weird happens. There's
[112:05] some discussions and there's some
[112:07] whispers in the Liquid camp during their
[112:08] dinner break. And Liquid basically
[112:11] announces on stream that they're going
[112:12] to be turning off competition mode on
[112:15] Warcraft Logs and turning off all the
[112:16] streams. They're going to be going dark
[112:18] for a couple of hours.
[112:21] I'll check now. I mean, we're we're
[112:22] going to pull for a little bit off
[112:23] stream and get an early night.
[112:26] Uh
[112:28] which I know is going to make some
[112:29] people really mad. But, I want to be
[112:31] 100% clear.
[112:33] I don't give a [ __ ] All I care about is
[112:34] winning. I think everything we do after
[112:36] this point tonight is only going to
[112:38] directly benefit our competition, to be
[112:40] completely honest with you. And that's
[112:42] uh I don't know. That sounds like a
[112:44] really [ __ ] stupid idea. So,
[112:46] uh I'll [ __ ] uh I'll see you guys
[112:49] tomorrow.
[112:50] This was slightly controversial and they
[112:51] did end up getting some backlash. But,
[112:53] as Max said, the most important part is
[112:55] winning. Everything else comes second.
[112:57] If keeping information about the very
[112:59] last parts of the boss secret gives us
[113:00] the biggest chance to win, then that's
[113:02] the correct decision. Going dark
[113:04] honestly also So something that was
[113:06] brand new. Uh it is a little bit weird
[113:08] to take 4 hours on a boss that you're
[113:10] half progressed through. At the same
[113:13] time, it's not the most unprecedented
[113:14] thing ever.
[113:15] Um
[113:16] basically, Liquid needs to be able to
[113:18] convert something like this, though. And
[113:20] so the next day arrives. Echo were a few
[113:22] percent behind Liquid on the graphics,
[113:24] but they're rapidly getting better and
[113:26] better pulls, and they got that Echo
[113:27] buff. And of course, again, we're in
[113:28] slingshot season. So Echo overtake
[113:31] Liquid early on in the day. We're seeing
[113:33] them pretty low at that 28% marker. But
[113:36] then the craziest thing in race world
[113:37] first history happens. Around 3:00 p.m.
[113:40] CEST, so European time, Echo's best pull
[113:43] is at 28%. The Echo players and casters
[113:47] react as the broadcast updates. Liquid
[113:50] has turned on competition mode. And then
[113:53] the craziest thing happened. Liquid
[113:54] shoots up in the standings, revealing
[113:56] that they did an additional 20 pulls off
[113:58] stream the night before, but their best
[114:00] percent was 14.4%. So they were still
[114:03] ahead of Echo's 28%. strategies are
[114:06] known to everyone else. They can take
[114:08] them, change them how they like, use it
[114:09] for the comp that they need.
[114:11] Yeah, and I can't
[114:12] >> Oh.
[114:14] Oh, how much pulling did they do off
[114:16] stream last night? And what had
[114:17] happened, and this is crazy, the Liquid
[114:19] players had woken up at 5:00 a.m. local
[114:21] time and started pulling the boss by
[114:23] 6:00 a.m. I don't know how you got that
[114:25] many gamers awake at 5:00 a.m., but good
[114:27] good on them. And for Echo, it was like,
[114:29] "Oh, [ __ ] we're about to lose." And
[114:30] this struck Echo as they began basically
[114:33] just shotgun pulling the boss. Echo
[114:35] tends to be a little bit more
[114:36] calculated, a little bit slower to pull
[114:38] the boss, but there was no time to
[114:40] analyze because it was like, "Oh my god,
[114:42] we are going to lose." Now fortunately
[114:44] enough for Echo, Liquid didn't kill the
[114:46] boss immediately. Unfortunately enough
[114:47] for Echo, it would still take a couple
[114:49] of hours for the boss to die. I think
[114:50] Liquid were hoping that they could like
[114:52] one-shot the boss as they woke up. Echo
[114:54] did get pretty close with a best attempt
[114:57] of 5.8%. It was a fun back-and-forth for
[114:59] a little bit. This was until Liquid
[115:00] managed to finally finish off the boss
[115:02] and secure their win in Aberrus world
[115:04] first, retaking the spot as the best
[115:06] guild in the world, blocking Echo from
[115:09] winning their fourth race in a row. Just
[115:11] keep the infinite duracell alive. Just
[115:13] external them. I'LL CALL THEIR NAME.
[115:19] >> [screaming]
[115:25] [cheering]
[115:45] >> DRAMA TIME. I THINK WE'VE BEEN DUE.
[115:48] SO, the first thing that actually
[115:50] happens in a mirror still
[115:52] for the race world first is something
[115:54] that happened before the raid was even
[115:56] released. As it tends to, players get
[115:58] bored then they decide that they want to
[115:59] exploit some stuff. Um
[116:01] So, basically what happened as a handful
[116:03] of race world first players ended up
[116:05] doing something that we'd call seed
[116:07] farming for reputation in the brand new
[116:09] zone. Uh they were rolled back on their
[116:11] characters for abusing a bug involving
[116:13] planting seeds and growing flowers. Uh
[116:15] the reputation would end up giving you
[116:17] the infinite augment rune and a free
[116:19] hero track crest. So, getting rolled
[116:21] back wasn't great
[116:22] cuz it cost you additional hero track
[116:24] crest on crafting. It ended up kind of
[116:27] being nothing.
[116:29] But, it was still pretty stupid. I
[116:30] remember, you know, the community was
[116:32] more mad than anybody else realistically
[116:34] was.
[116:35] Uh if you look out for the landscape of
[116:36] the race world first, this hasn't really
[116:37] affect that much. But, anytime people
[116:39] are getting rolled back or banned, we
[116:40] got to talk about it. Additionally, with
[116:42] Aberrus fresh in their memory and all
[116:44] talks of the NA head start and EU is
[116:47] always late, Echo has announced
[116:49] something drastic. They have announced
[116:51] before the release of the raid that they
[116:53] were going to be playing on NA. Now,
[116:55] they didn't actually end up playing the
[116:58] race on NA, but what they had done is
[117:00] they had created characters, geared set
[117:02] characters, made a guild, and then they
[117:04] fought the Amirdrassil bosses on the
[117:06] first night before EU reset. They did
[117:09] end up basically going and getting world
[117:11] first on normal difficulty before going
[117:12] to bed and waking up early for EU
[117:14] splits. This was mostly just a publicity
[117:16] stunt to help the Echo esports
[117:18] broadcast. I thought it was very funny
[117:20] and tongue-in-cheek. I thought it was
[117:22] really cool by Echo to do something like
[117:23] this, very funny. As for the race
[117:25] itself, you know, the first couple of
[117:26] days of the race are going to be similar
[117:27] to what we kind of come to expect at
[117:29] this point. We're doing a lot of splits.
[117:31] At that point, you know, on day three or
[117:33] four, either Liquid or Echo are going to
[117:35] be entering Mythic, and then they're
[117:36] going to mow down the bosses that had
[117:38] not yet been killed, reach a wall, and
[117:40] then we're going to kind of continue to
[117:41] pivot there.
[117:42] For this raid, nothing, you know,
[117:45] dissimilar happens.
[117:47] Liquid goes in after three days of
[117:48] splits. They end up claiming some of the
[117:50] world first kills.
[117:52] Both Echo and Liquid, they end up
[117:53] actually mowing down the first three
[117:54] bosses rather quickly.
[117:55] Echo ends up killing the fourth boss
[117:57] rather quickly, then having trouble on
[117:59] the fifth boss in Larodar, where Liquid
[118:01] was able to mow down Larodar rather
[118:02] quickly. On top of having time to kill
[118:05] off Larodar and Nymue, Liquid also were
[118:08] able to take down Smolderon,
[118:10] which that basically took 56 pulls into
[118:12] what people thought was going to be a
[118:14] pretty big wall. Realistically, this
[118:16] fight was kind of hard, but it wasn't
[118:17] the hardest thing ever.
[118:19] Smolderon was honestly notable for
[118:21] having the first instance of the private
[118:23] aura workaround
[118:27] WeakAuras were able to read macro inputs
[118:29] of players that were targeted by debuffs
[118:31] on Smolderon. It was all just a bunch of
[118:32] nonsense, and I remember at this time as
[118:34] well, people were not happy that
[118:36] Smolderon had been private aura'd and
[118:38] that there was a workaround for it. So,
[118:40] it just made that fight a lot worse.
[118:42] Echo, while having a pretty tough
[118:45] intro to Mythic, they wake up, they dust
[118:47] themselves off, and they finish off the
[118:48] next two bosses. They get to Smolderon
[118:50] before sinking a couple of pulls into
[118:52] him and killing the Fire Lord just in
[118:54] time for Liquid to wake up. Now,
[118:56] basically, Liquid and Echo, they are
[118:58] staring down the penultimate encounter
[119:00] of the raid, Tindral Sageswift.
[119:02] And the guilds, they pretty quickly find
[119:04] out that this version of Tindral
[119:05] Sageswift that they fought in raid
[119:06] testing was very different than the live
[119:09] version that was testable.
[119:11] It's been described as if Blizzard had
[119:12] taken that Tindral Sageswift and then
[119:14] given him permanent Bloodlust.
[119:16] There's a ton of pass-fail mechanics on
[119:18] this boss that was absolutely insane.
[119:20] This was also their first fight where
[119:22] Blizzard incorporated the brand new
[119:23] dragon riding feature that came with the
[119:24] expansion with some players having to
[119:26] mount up during combat and fly above the
[119:28] platform picking up these big fire orbs
[119:30] and slam down on your team to free them
[119:32] from being rooted. I remember a clip of
[119:33] JPC where he's just like completely
[119:35] missing the orb for an extended period
[119:36] of time. It was really funny. But, by
[119:38] far, the hardest part of this fight
[119:39] though was 16 members of your raid
[119:42] needed to soak seeds on the ground at 3
[119:44] seconds. Basically, the boss would
[119:46] summon these seeds on the ground and
[119:48] everybody had to walk over one. If you
[119:50] walked over more than one, your raid
[119:51] instantly exploded. If not all the seeds
[119:53] were soaked within a 3-second window,
[119:55] then your raid exploded. And that
[119:57] created a situation similar to
[119:58] Halondrus' bombs going off where just
[120:02] a thousand pulls were going to be taken
[120:04] before this fight goes down because of
[120:05] just how difficult that one singular
[120:08] mechanic is.
[120:09] And after just one day of guilds pulling
[120:11] the boss, it was pretty clear to anyone
[120:13] watching that this boss could take a
[120:14] couple of days and the race was going
[120:16] over the reset. People had already also
[120:18] started talking about the boss needing
[120:19] to get nerfed where some raiders in both
[120:21] Echo and Liquid begged on Twitter for
[120:23] the boss to not get nerfed.
[120:25] However, Blizzard did not listen and
[120:27] they shipped a 20% HP to the boss, also
[120:30] increasing the time that players had to
[120:32] soak seeds. Now, you might expect this
[120:34] to allow the boss to immediately die.
[120:37] Uh unfortunately,
[120:39] it was not that easy.
[120:41] The boss, as it turns out, even 20% less
[120:43] healthy was still very challenging. And
[120:45] for the final day of the first in a
[120:46] reset, we had some hours of both guilds
[120:49] pulling Tindral at the exact same time.
[120:51] And they were running into issues in
[120:52] phase one and phase two for parts of the
[120:53] day because the fight is legitimately
[120:55] impossible to stay consistent on with
[120:57] just how soaking those seeds
[120:59] realistically worked.
[121:01] And Echo, they finished their day at a
[121:03] 38.6% mark. And like what they proc'd a
[121:05] few good hours of pulls, they went to
[121:07] dinner, and they came back, and they
[121:09] ended up having the boss all the way
[121:10] down to 24%
[121:12] over 387
[121:14] pulls taken for them to have the boss
[121:16] still at 24%.
[121:18] And so we're going into the new reset.
[121:19] New reset comes. For Liquid, it's filled
[121:21] with their re-clear, another rounds of
[121:23] splits. Echo ends up getting some
[121:24] attempts on Tindral during their like
[121:26] half-day window where they're a little
[121:29] bit behind. They end up going to bed a
[121:30] bit early to get an early night to
[121:32] prepare for their 5:00 a.m. reset.
[121:34] Liquid's re-clear was efficient though.
[121:36] They were back on Tindral fairly
[121:37] quickly, and they downed the boss within
[121:40] 30 pulls. Uh all the way up to 426
[121:43] pulls, the boomkin boss fell.
[121:46] Almost overtaken Fallen Avatar for the
[121:47] highest pull count on a penultimate boss
[121:49] ever,
[121:50] but definitely the hardest one uh we've
[121:52] ever seen.
[121:54] Again, just the the pass-fail insta-wipe
[121:56] mechanics
[121:57] make that fight unbelievable.
[122:00] And at this point for Liquid, you down
[122:02] Tindral, you finish your re-clear, you
[122:04] finish your chores, you're pretty late
[122:05] in your day. What are you going to do?
[122:07] Well, you're going to turn your streams
[122:08] off, and you're going to pull Fyrakk
[122:09] like probably 15 attempts before bed,
[122:11] get some weak auras, do some, you know,
[122:13] testing on things that you might think
[122:16] could happen based off of what you've
[122:17] seen from that boss on heroic. And then,
[122:19] you know, for Liquid, you're going to
[122:20] bed. Echo, during their re-clear, kind
[122:22] of a similar story. They wake up at 5:00
[122:23] a.m., they have their resets,
[122:26] and they're back in front of Tindral
[122:27] [clears throat] at 4:00 p.m. local time,
[122:28] 11 hours after their raid started. Not
[122:30] bad.
[122:31] >> [snorts]
[122:31] >> And for Liquid, we saw they took 30
[122:33] pulls to be able to kill the boss.
[122:34] For Echo, you're kind of expecting them
[122:36] to take 3 to 4 hours to be able to get
[122:38] 30 additional pulls.
[122:39] Um you know, so you're kind of expecting
[122:42] Echo to be able to kill the boss rather
[122:43] quickly. And for Echo, they actually
[122:44] have some really good progression pulls
[122:46] early on, getting a 5% attempt within
[122:48] the first hour, but
[122:50] um unfortunately, this is a boss that is
[122:52] impossible to find consistency, and it
[122:54] takes them over 5 hours before they get
[122:56] another 5% wipe. And then at this point
[122:59] in time, their raid had gone on for 17
[123:01] hours, and it was clear that they had
[123:03] not got gotten over the finish line yet.
[123:05] And for Echo, they made the call to end
[123:09] their raid at midnight local time.
[123:12] At this point, it's 11:30.
[123:15] So, they have another 30 minutes to
[123:16] pull. And the next pull after this call
[123:18] is made, they have a 3% wipe. Then
[123:19] another 16% wipe, okay, you know? The
[123:22] end time is creeping up, but they have
[123:23] one more attempt. And in some mythical
[123:25] fashion, Echo always ends up playing
[123:27] their best under pressure, and at the
[123:29] last pull of the night, number 399 in
[123:32] total, after 19 hours of playing,
[123:35] they down the Boomkin.
[123:36] And with that, they could breathe a big
[123:37] sigh of relief, as they were now fully
[123:39] caught up to Liquid. At the same time,
[123:41] you have to be a little bit worried, uh
[123:43] because now Echo is 17 hours behind
[123:46] Liquid. So, Echo is going to have to be
[123:48] in full catch-up mode at this point. And
[123:50] so, after Echo has gone to bed, Liquid,
[123:52] they're here, they're streaming their
[123:53] first real pulls on Fyrakk. They're
[123:55] easily pushing past the phase one
[123:56] intermission in the beginning, but they
[123:58] spent a couple of hours trying to figure
[124:00] out how to deal with the shield while
[124:01] soaking orbs in the intermission.
[124:03] There's also some private aura stuff
[124:04] that makes this fight pretty
[124:05] complicated. And just getting players
[124:08] organized without add-ons and without
[124:10] weak auras is is actually proving to be
[124:12] pretty tough.
[124:13] Then Liquid hits hits around pull 50,
[124:15] they enter P2, they get like a pretty
[124:17] decent attempt on the boss, and with
[124:19] that new information, they zone out of
[124:20] the raid, they go for some mythic plus
[124:22] farming, and they mute their comms. So,
[124:24] whenever they're muting their comms,
[124:25] they're talking about potential comms
[124:27] and strategies for phase two, and they
[124:28] had been muted for like an hour doing
[124:30] chores at this point. Then, they unmute,
[124:33] basically saying that they're going dark
[124:35] to do practice stuff before going to
[124:36] bed. This feels pretty reminiscent of
[124:38] Sarkareth, I have to admit, and
[124:40] everybody's kind of like, "Oh, wait. Is
[124:42] it about to happen again where they're
[124:43] just going to show up tomorrow with the
[124:46] boss at like 5% HP, kill the boss?" It
[124:48] would be a little bit of a buzzkill,
[124:50] admittedly, but, you know, at the same
[124:52] time, winning the Race to World First is
[124:54] honestly more important than showing all
[124:56] of your pulls on stream. And if you're
[124:58] going to put yourself at a severe
[124:59] disadvantage, all of the Race to World
[125:00] First teams will elect to go dark. In
[125:02] retrospect, it's pretty likely that the
[125:03] practice stuff that was mentioned was
[125:05] referring to the ads that spawn in a
[125:07] line across the platform, and figuring
[125:09] out how players could coordinate
[125:11] knockbacks and grips in order to be able
[125:12] to gather the ads. I also heard rumors
[125:14] after the fact that there is potential
[125:16] use of things like Vengeance Demon
[125:17] Hunter and whatnot, trying to see like
[125:18] what was possible for getting these ads
[125:21] gathered as quickly as possible. But for
[125:23] Echo, you know, they can't really let
[125:25] up. The next day, it was slingshot
[125:26] season for Echo, and taking what they
[125:28] had gathered from Liquid, from all of
[125:29] their attempts in phase one and phase
[125:30] two, and spending almost the entire day
[125:32] for Echo, they reached phase three.
[125:35] Unfortunately enough for Echo, though,
[125:37] they go and turn off their streams, pull
[125:38] a few attempts before going to bed a few
[125:40] hours early, and at this point it was
[125:42] getting increasingly common and kind of
[125:44] annoying that any guild that was in
[125:46] first place would immediately turn their
[125:47] stream off to make sure that the other
[125:49] team could not get additional
[125:50] information right as we were reaching a
[125:52] new phase where cool things were
[125:54] happening. So, people were not happy
[125:55] about this.
[125:57] In the middle of all of this happening
[125:58] where we're getting into phase three,
[126:00] we're seeing a new phase, the seed
[126:01] carrying is getting a bit precarious,
[126:03] kind of similar to Tentacle stage with
[126:05] uh uh pass/fail mechanics. Fyrakk also
[126:08] has an integral pass/fail mechanic where
[126:10] you have to carry seeds around.
[126:12] And the boss receives a 4% health nerf.
[126:14] And at this point, both of the guilds
[126:16] are lifting the veil of darkness. Echo
[126:18] was actually in the lead at this point
[126:20] with a 19% PB, and Liquid at a 27% PB.
[126:24] And this is kind of where everybody
[126:26] believes that the race is going to end.
[126:28] 19 and 27% on the final boss, especially
[126:31] after a nerf to the boss HP. Every
[126:34] Everybody's kind of looking forward to
[126:36] the end of the race looming. However,
[126:38] Echo hits a 20-hour raid day and they
[126:41] can't kill the boss and their best is
[126:43] actually 8%. So, as it turns out, the
[126:45] final phase of Fyrakk is just incredibly
[126:47] hard. There's a lot of blaze line and
[126:50] seed carrying management that's pretty
[126:52] difficult and a ton of pass fail
[126:54] mechanics that can wipe you on a
[126:55] moment's notice. In the precise and
[126:57] clutch moments that were needed for
[126:58] phase three of Fyrakk, those were
[126:59] insane. And you were basically carrying
[127:01] this seed around, adopting kind of a
[127:03] similar situation from the hot potato
[127:04] mechanic on Halondrus. The players were
[127:06] juggling the seeds between two different
[127:08] players that were taking damage on them.
[127:10] If the seed gets hit by an ability, it's
[127:11] an instant wipe. If the player gets hit
[127:13] by an ability, it's an instant wipe. Uh
[127:15] if anybody died who was carrying a seed,
[127:18] that was going to be a pretty much a
[127:19] wipe. That was inevitable.
[127:21] Players also had to deal with blaze
[127:22] lines and random swirlies on the floor
[127:24] while making sure their seed didn't get
[127:25] hit by anything.
[127:27] But Echo's day, it was over. 8% and for
[127:30] Liquid, this is the opportunity that
[127:32] they need to be able to finish it off.
[127:34] If Liquid are unable to kill this boss
[127:37] pretty quickly while Echo's sleeping, it
[127:38] is unlikely that they are going to be
[127:40] able to win the race world first.
[127:42] And Liquid end up pushing pretty deep
[127:43] into the night. They do have several
[127:45] late P3 wipes and they push their raid
[127:48] time back a couple of hours and
[127:50] unfortunately, they decide that they're
[127:52] going to be going to bed with the boss
[127:53] at 6% meaning that very, very likely
[127:56] whenever they wake up, Echo is going to
[127:58] have him down boss.
[127:59] However, the craziest [ __ ] happens.
[128:03] Echo starts their raid and you know, the
[128:06] boss is not that much lower whenever
[128:08] Liquid wake up. And then what would
[128:09] happen over the next couple of hours is
[128:11] going to make race to world first
[128:12] history as
[128:14] both guilds, Liquid and Echo, are
[128:16] getting consecutively low wipes down as
[128:18] low as 1% at the exact same time. And
[128:21] whenever you wipe the seeds exploding in
[128:22] phase three, it just kills the raid
[128:24] instantly. This kind of leads to some
[128:26] really weird anticlimactic moments of
[128:28] the boss looking like it's going to die
[128:30] until one small misstep wipes the raid.
[128:32] That's why you can't celebrate on a boss
[128:34] like Fyrakk because there's always the
[128:35] possibility of something going
[128:36] tragically wrong and you wiping at 1%.
[128:39] And Echo, they started their day at 8%
[128:42] at 10:00 p.m. CEST after hours and hours
[128:46] of back and forth, Echo finally are able
[128:48] to secure the kill and take back the
[128:50] throne as the best guild in the world.
[128:53] It took them 340 attempts. They were
[128:55] really far behind coming into Tendril
[128:57] Sage Swift,
[128:59] but they were able to make magic happen.
[129:10] >> [screaming]
[129:13] >> This moves Method into the top four Race
[129:15] to World First pull counts and almost
[129:17] the entirety of this was Tendril Sage
[129:19] Swift and Fyrakk. And oh yeah, you
[129:21] remember whenever I mentioned private
[129:22] auras whenever we were talking about
[129:23] Aberrus earlier? They were a little bit
[129:24] more prevalent on Fyrakk. This boss had
[129:26] two key mechanics that were both private
[129:28] auras making players click macros in
[129:30] order for a weak aura to assign how to
[129:32] deal with that mechanic. While these
[129:33] mechanics were technically possible to
[129:34] do without a weak aura, it was just a
[129:36] lot more consistent to use the weak aura
[129:38] um proving time and time again that
[129:40] private auras are rarely useful since
[129:42] there's always a work around. And that
[129:44] leads us to this insane drama alert. Um
[129:47] so God, first off God this video has a
[129:49] lot of drama, but secondly, you remember
[129:51] those private auras that we were talking
[129:52] about on Fyrakk? Yeah, so there was a
[129:54] program I'm surrounding them and it was
[129:56] called sneak.lua. While it was not known
[129:59] or public during their Method Race to
[130:02] World First, it would get out over like
[130:04] probably 6 months after this that Echo
[130:06] had created a script that would press a
[130:09] macro for you if you were affected by
[130:11] the private aura in question.
[130:14] The script was named sneak.lua. It also
[130:16] had a built-in random delay so that it
[130:19] wouldn't be obvious to any of the Race
[130:20] to World First competitors or viewers
[130:22] that a script was being used to be able
[130:24] to bypass these private auras. This
[130:26] ended up cutting down Echo's pull count
[130:28] on Fyrakk by a significant amount, and
[130:30] Liquid basically suffered probably 50
[130:33] wipes to mistakes related to the macro
[130:35] itself.
[130:36] It's been stated on the record by
[130:37] players that they're pretty sure that
[130:40] Echo loses without sneak.lua. And many
[130:42] people called this cheating, mostly
[130:44] because it was.
[130:45] Uh no action does end up being taken
[130:47] against the members of Echo, and the
[130:49] thing that makes this the most different
[130:50] from tech or clever use of game
[130:52] mechanics was
[130:54] mostly due to concept that private auras
[130:56] are added to the game with the specific
[130:58] reason to not be bypassed, and Echo
[131:02] bypassed them. That's why it was like
[131:04] cheating, right? And this is probably
[131:06] the most controversial thing the Race
[131:08] World First guilds have ever done, and
[131:09] it really has pushed the line for what's
[131:11] allowed and what isn't allowed.
[131:14] And coming off the back of sneak.lua,
[131:17] you know, you thought players, they were
[131:18] going to play it safe.
[131:20] But we got something new, brand new wrap
[131:23] exploits, because we needed more of
[131:24] those. Exploit early, exploit often,
[131:27] they say. Except this time Blizzard
[131:29] ended up banning people.
[131:30] Um good news was that it was only a
[131:32] 4-day ban. Bad news was that it was a
[131:36] couple of players in Echo, and most of
[131:38] the entire Method roster at this point,
[131:40] got caught up in a ban the day before
[131:42] the raid opened. Now, we talked about
[131:43] heroic week going away and how that
[131:45] ended up creating the split culture
[131:47] after Mythic opened, but the good news
[131:49] with this entire situation was that
[131:51] heroic week was back for Nighthold
[131:52] Palace, and this meant that the bans
[131:54] didn't really do anything.
[131:56] But some very mad Redditors wanted a few
[131:59] players' heads for sure. So, you know,
[132:00] drama aside, raid launches, and we are
[132:03] fortunate enough as viewers to have far
[132:04] fewer splits on Mythic since heroic week
[132:07] has returned. This means that we are
[132:08] graced with an A's Liquid downing the
[132:10] first four bosses all in one shots.
[132:12] "Wasn't straight under two?" was a
[132:13] pretty popular question at this point in
[132:14] the race. This was up until we saw what
[132:18] was next for the Race World First
[132:19] guilds. Rotface, Overax, and
[132:21] Nexus-Prince Valanar were the next
[132:22] couple of bosses that you could attempt,
[132:24] and both were just absolutely insane.
[132:26] Overax was an insane coordination check
[132:28] with things like egg breaks, CCing the
[132:30] mites, you needed to land kicks, and
[132:33] those were all like the biggest parts of
[132:35] difficulty on this encounter. The tank
[132:36] damage was also insanely high, and then
[132:39] all of it ended up culminating in guilds
[132:40] just standing in the black blood effect
[132:43] up the on the ground and out healing it
[132:45] with preservation evokers for as long as
[132:46] possible after the enrage was supposed
[132:48] to be over. But, that was just Overax.
[132:50] Valanar, on the other hand, was perhaps
[132:52] the hardest tuned damage check that has
[132:55] ever been killed.
[132:56] Um,
[132:57] he required a strategy which involved
[132:59] one tanking the boss, and you would
[133:01] utilize things such as soul stoning, uh,
[133:04] battle resses, and resto shaman's
[133:06] ancestral protection totem to facilitate
[133:08] a one tank strategy as it reset your
[133:10] debuff. Uh, on top of this, you could
[133:12] also get one shot at any time as a DPS
[133:15] or a healer, immediately ending your
[133:16] pull
[133:17] cuz you're utilizing all of your battle
[133:19] resses on your tank. And so, both of
[133:21] these bosses were just absolutely
[133:22] ridiculous and
[133:24] you know, for the landscape of just
[133:25] raiding in general, they ended up being
[133:26] pretty massive guild killers.
[133:28] And, but they also came after an easy
[133:30] boss in Rashanad.
[133:32] And if you thought we were done with
[133:33] drama, you were wrong. There was
[133:35] actually more drama inside of Naru'bar
[133:37] Palace surrounding the Star Liquid mage
[133:39] I'm Fired Up. Uh, the TLDR on this was
[133:41] he was basically exploiting a spell
[133:43] sling or hero tree interaction by
[133:46] turning all of his abilities into act
[133:48] focus abilities. This ended up giving
[133:50] him what I would describe as slightly
[133:52] more DPS on Valanar than he otherwise
[133:54] would have.
[133:55] And this ended up leading to this tweet
[133:56] by the recently banned Ginji. Fired Up,
[133:58] however, he didn't get any punishment
[134:00] for this beyond public backlash.
[134:02] Blizzard ended up fixing the bug. Um,
[134:04] the bug was also fairly low magnitude in
[134:06] in terms of how much damage it gave you,
[134:08] and Liquid was unable to kill Valanar
[134:10] even with the added damage by their
[134:11] mage.
[134:13] So, fairly low impact on the actual race
[134:15] world first, even though it was still an
[134:16] exploit.
[134:18] But, if Liquid did kill this boss with
[134:20] this exploit, and say Echo was actually
[134:22] unable to kill the boss without using
[134:23] it, it really makes you kind of think
[134:25] how people would have viewed this. But,
[134:27] it was it was kind of whatever.
[134:29] Anyway, when the dust had settled on
[134:31] both of these massive walls, Liquid had
[134:33] killed both the fifth and sixth boss
[134:35] ahead of Echo, but not before taking 120
[134:37] pulls for Brutallus and Overax, and 304
[134:41] for Nexus-Prince Kaveza. And it was
[134:42] pretty clear at this point in time that
[134:44] the race was going to be going to the
[134:45] reset. Uh the penultimate encounter was
[134:48] just started to be attempted in Silken
[134:50] Court, and a lot of people didn't expect
[134:52] Silken Court to go down week one given
[134:53] what we had seen thus far in the raid.
[134:55] People kind of anticipate more linear
[134:57] difficulty, which means we're going to
[134:58] be strapping in for the long haul. But,
[135:00] Silken Court, it was a little bit easier
[135:03] than what linear difficulty would make
[135:05] you assume. Um
[135:07] It was fairly challenging in the sense
[135:09] that there was pretty large intermission
[135:11] shields that had to be broken, but a
[135:12] large part of difficulty of Silken Court
[135:14] was the dance itself. Uh this was like
[135:17] basically making sure all of your
[135:18] players were in the right places at the
[135:19] right time. And race world first guilds
[135:21] tend to be pretty good on encounters
[135:24] that require high consistency. So, this
[135:27] kind of leads us up to the Monday night
[135:28] before the reset, and Liquid is actually
[135:30] very, very close to a Silken Court kill.
[135:32] Echo, at the same time, they're hot on
[135:34] their heels having had had a slightly
[135:36] better raid tier compared to Liquid up
[135:38] until this point. At the same time,
[135:40] Liquid really needs to get Silken Court
[135:41] killed off. Uh they're losing some key
[135:43] pieces of gear if they're not able to
[135:44] kill it. They also made some vault
[135:46] decisions that were with the assumption
[135:48] that Silken Court was going to die on
[135:50] reset one, and so it's a pretty big deal
[135:52] for Liquid to be able to down the boss.
[135:53] And so, the end of the raid night comes
[135:55] for Liquid, and they barely down Silken
[135:57] Court right before immediately going to
[135:58] bed. Race world first, I would they say
[136:01] they have a tendency to have like
[136:02] maker-break moments where the actual
[136:04] impact of these moments is fairly low.
[136:07] So, like Silken Court, all it's really
[136:09] going to yield you is a couple pieces of
[136:10] gear and a couple of vault slots, but
[136:12] the momentum and the morale hit that you
[136:14] get from being able to down Silken Court
[136:16] on reset one versus, you know, you watch
[136:18] Echo kill it on reset one and you're not
[136:20] able to, that that's a really big deal.
[136:22] So, it's more psychological than it is
[136:24] like, you know, the reality warping.
[136:26] But, at the same time, Liquid killed the
[136:27] boss, Echo comes in the next day before
[136:29] their reset, and they clean house on
[136:31] Silken Court as well, killing it around,
[136:32] I would say, 6:00 p.m. local time. And
[136:34] both guilds had killed seven bosses
[136:36] through the first reset. And now we
[136:38] [snorts] are finally on to Ansurek, and
[136:40] Ansurek awaits. In what I can only
[136:42] describe as the hardest boss of all
[136:43] time, Queen Ansurek was just absolutely
[136:45] insane. Uh phase one required you to
[136:47] play near perfect with the reactive
[136:49] frost drops and making sure that you
[136:51] didn't end up hitting two at the exact
[136:52] same time. The P2 intermission was just
[136:55] bananas as the DPS check on the P2
[136:57] intermission on breaking the shield in
[136:59] time was completely otherworldly. P2
[137:02] itself ended up causing both Liquid and
[137:04] Echo hundreds and hundreds of wipes
[137:06] alone. Because the damage check on
[137:08] getting the ads shield broken was also
[137:11] just as stupid as the phase one shield,
[137:13] getting that broken in time. And this
[137:15] was a fight where, similar to Kayveza,
[137:17] if you were down a single player, you
[137:19] would immediately be wiping. Fortunately
[137:20] enough, you did have battle resses on
[137:22] this fight, unlike Kayveza, but you
[137:24] couldn't meet any of the damage checks
[137:26] if you were trying to 19-man it. They
[137:27] would also use what I would describe as
[137:29] progression bloodlusts, both Echo and
[137:31] Liquid did, in order to be able to
[137:32] continue to see progression in the
[137:34] fight. At a moment in time that made the
[137:35] most sense, it was pretty just free form
[137:37] as to when it was going to be used.
[137:39] Early on, a lot of the time it was used
[137:41] on the intermission shield, and later it
[137:43] was used on the P2 ads. Uh the damage
[137:45] check in phase three was pretty unknown
[137:47] at this point. You know, everybody's
[137:49] kind of playing with the assumption that
[137:50] you're going to need it for the phase
[137:51] three push, especially by not having the
[137:54] bloodlust at a very set time. Hard to
[137:56] really say is it going to be required
[137:58] for that P3 push. So, P2 and P1
[138:00] progression, you know, it's not very
[138:02] steady. Uh there's a lot of wipes in
[138:04] phase one even though the guilds were
[138:05] progressing phase two. And this was
[138:07] until both Liquid and Echo broke through
[138:09] to P2 checks at 140 and 132 pulls
[138:12] respectively. And well, P3
[138:15] it's it's also unbelievable. Um you get
[138:17] the mythic mechanic and basically it's
[138:19] the vulnerability associated with
[138:21] carrying orbs across the ring from the
[138:24] acolyte drops.
[138:26] Um and basically you get ever increasing
[138:27] amount of these orbs that drop off these
[138:29] acolytes, meaning that the tanks have to
[138:31] run orbs with a 500% vulnerability at
[138:33] some point in time, creating a crazy
[138:35] situation on this encounter. Uh at this
[138:37] point in time the casters and the
[138:38] players don't even know if it was even
[138:40] possible. However, on day 10, uh we have
[138:43] a real breakthrough in terms of what's
[138:45] actually going on on this fight. Liquid,
[138:47] they find consistency in the
[138:49] inconsistent. They make it to P3 on
[138:51] probably what is 75% of their attempts.
[138:53] And Echo on the other hand, who's
[138:55] historically a more calculated and
[138:56] consistent team, has a terrible day 10
[138:59] where they were not making it to phase
[139:00] three nearly enough, wiping time and
[139:02] time again in both phase one and phase
[139:04] two, which we talked about being very
[139:05] turbulent. So, give it up for day 11.
[139:08] Liquid shows up on day 11 and the boss
[139:10] actually gets nerfed. And when I say it
[139:12] gets nerfed, it's not like a Razageth or
[139:14] Queen Azshara nerf. It's just a very
[139:16] light touch to help you get through
[139:17] parts of the fight that nobody's made it
[139:18] to. It just lowers the damage and take
[139:20] on some of the crazier overlaps. And
[139:22] well, Liquid continues to have an
[139:24] exceptional day for day 11. Uh they end
[139:26] up hitting the enrage on the Queen
[139:28] Azshara encounter at 15%. We're kind of
[139:30] having N'Zoth flashbacks to this point
[139:32] nearly six years ago. How are you
[139:34] supposed to find 15% boss HP? Obviously,
[139:37] there's still optimizations and I would
[139:38] describe it as like comfort damage that
[139:40] happens whenever you're able to make it
[139:42] to a part of the encounter over and over
[139:44] again. Your damage just eventually
[139:46] increases.
[139:48] But everybody's kind of wondering is
[139:49] Blizzard going to need to step in and
[139:50] intervene with like a 5% health inner
[139:52] for something like that. How do you even
[139:54] begin to find 15% boss damage even after
[139:57] you've moved the bloodlust onto the boss
[139:58] itself in P3. Dragnos and I ended up
[140:01] assessing it on a recap at the time, but
[140:03] Echo at this point of the race had
[140:04] basically a 0% chance of killing the
[140:06] boss before Liquid on day 12. Uh Liquid
[140:09] had a chance, but it was basically going
[140:11] to involve elite DPS, and then there was
[140:14] always the chance that the damage check
[140:16] is not makeable at all, and we are in
[140:19] trouble. Good news because day 12 showed
[140:21] up, and Blizzard didn't need to
[140:23] intervene. Liquid was able to down
[140:25] Ansurek world first with Echo grabbing a
[140:26] close second on the hardest end boss of
[140:28] all time, 404 pulls.
[140:41] Crazy. Uh it's just so hard to create a
[140:43] boss if you're Blizzard that is 400
[140:45] pulls, and at the exact same time it's
[140:48] also killable. So, kudos to Blizzard in
[140:50] that regard for creating one of the most
[140:51] interesting end bosses in history.
[140:54] There's also one last shoutout that I
[140:55] want to give for this tier, THD uh on
[140:58] his warlock, he had to have made one of
[140:59] the I would describe it as the craziest
[141:01] plays individually
[141:03] I've ever seen on Liquid's Ansurek kill.
[141:06] Raiding tends to be more of like a team
[141:08] sport than something an individual's
[141:10] plays play an integral role on, but he
[141:13] had one of the craziest warlock gate
[141:15] saving plays I've ever seen, and we are
[141:17] so lucky that we have the race for world
[141:18] first broadcast on a world stage so
[141:20] plays like that can actually be seen.
[141:22] And with over 1,000 cumulative pulls,
[141:24] Ner'zhul Palace cements itself in elite
[141:27] company with only Sepulcher of the First
[141:28] Ones and Tomb of Sargeras as truly one
[141:31] of the hardest raids of all time.
[141:34] Now, coming off the hardest tier ever,
[141:36] nobody really knew what to expect. With
[141:38] insanely hard tiers, Blizzard tends to
[141:40] have a bit of difficulty thresh where
[141:42] things swing back and forth to more easy
[141:45] than they were extremely hard. Uh we've
[141:48] had Amirdrassil into Ner'zhul Palace,
[141:49] which is two insanely difficult raid
[141:50] tiers in a row where people were not
[141:52] happy with just how hard they were.
[141:54] We're probably due for an Aberrus-level
[141:56] tier at this point. Raid opens up, and
[141:58] you kind of know the drill about tiers
[141:59] without heroic week. There's no heroic
[142:01] week in Liberation of the Under mine.
[142:02] We're due for 3 days minimum of splits.
[142:04] Hundreds and hundreds of characters.
[142:06] Very rare loot is probably the most
[142:07] important it ever has been with items
[142:09] like the Jauster Diamond, the Eye of
[142:10] Xanzith, and the House of Cards all
[142:12] being gigabits for pretty much every
[142:14] single spec in the game.
[142:16] This meant that you needed just a god
[142:18] split for your Race to World First
[142:19] character to for it to be playable,
[142:20] where you got all three of these items.
[142:23] And Echo and Liquid at this point, well,
[142:25] they're just running 15 splits a piece.
[142:27] So, the race doesn't really kick off
[142:28] until Friday, 4 days after the raid
[142:30] opens. And let me just say, as a Race to
[142:33] World First viewer and player of the
[142:34] game, I hate this part of raiding.
[142:37] Uh as a Mythic raider, realistically,
[142:40] all you want more than anything is to go
[142:42] into Mythic the moment it opens up.
[142:45] Being straddled with needing to do
[142:46] heroic once, twice, or I guess like Race
[142:48] to World First case, a hundred times, is
[142:50] just a huge vibe killer.
[142:53] My complaining aside, Friday shows up
[142:54] and Race to World First guilds finally
[142:56] into the raid. And the first two bosses,
[142:58] they're cake. Rick Ruberb is a
[142:59] surprisingly difficult damage check for
[143:01] a third boss. And then we have a fourth
[143:03] boss wall. Stokestank Chunker, he's not
[143:06] having it. And this fight, he'll
[143:08] probably go down in history as one of
[143:09] the hardest fourth bosses ever, usurping
[143:12] Lady Ashvane. And the difficulty of why
[143:14] it's hard is really, really stupid. And
[143:17] it's attached to a thousand passive
[143:18] mechanics, which are all really stupid.
[143:20] Whether it be, you know, you didn't run
[143:21] over the Scrap Master in time. You
[143:22] accidentally ran into a crab bomb. Uh
[143:24] you don't have enough DPS to get the
[143:26] bombs out of the ground. You had players
[143:28] selected to get the ball at the wrong
[143:30] time who were going to be propping their
[143:31] offensive CDs. Uh you had a healer get
[143:33] selected at the wrong time. You didn't
[143:35] have the perfectly crafted comp for the
[143:36] fourth boss that wasn't particularly
[143:37] good for anything else in the raid. Who
[143:39] really knows what to say about a fight
[143:41] like this? It's so rare that you
[143:43] actually need a comp stack for a fourth
[143:44] boss, much less balance druids, who were
[143:46] largely not geared by Race World First
[143:48] guilds, since they sucked.
[143:50] So, Sticks took 115 pulls. Echo ends up
[143:53] killing it around 5 hours after Liquid,
[143:55] and the race is incredibly close, even
[143:56] though we're only four bosses in. Sticks
[143:58] died on a Saturday, so we're definitely
[144:00] going to have an Arabar 2.0, and we're
[144:02] not going to have a one-week Race World
[144:04] First.
[144:05] And the reason that this was known was
[144:07] because there was a choice between the
[144:08] guilds. Did you want to go to
[144:10] Bonkertonker?
[144:13] And the fact that the guilds chose
[144:15] Sticks Bonkertonker first meant that
[144:17] Sprocketmonger was not going to be
[144:19] something that you could just walk over.
[144:26] What exactly is the process to kind of
[144:28] follow whenever, especially an early
[144:30] boss like Sticks being the fourth boss
[144:32] in a raid, whenever a boss is that hard?
[144:34] Do you just continue to pull it, or are
[144:36] there more splits to potentially be
[144:39] done? What do you kind of do whenever an
[144:40] early boss is that hard? I mean, I think
[144:43] it's difficult because most of time
[144:45] splits always done beforehand, and
[144:47] you only do splits for certain
[144:49] characters that are
[144:51] random procs, I guess. Let's say Sticks,
[144:53] there was Boomkin procs that you needed,
[144:55] and you just did splits for Boomkin,
[144:57] right?
[144:58] But most of time, I think all Race World
[144:59] First guilds just make a plan that gear
[145:01] like, I don't know, 50 characters for
[145:03] the everyone, like for to cover every
[145:06] base, basically, and every setup
[145:07] possible.
[145:08] And that is in the split plan, and you
[145:10] just run the splits, and you're done.
[145:12] And then there's only last-minute
[145:13] resurrections of some classes, of some
[145:16] players, I guess, potentially, to if
[145:18] some crazy things happen.
[145:20] And I mean, I think with Sticks, the
[145:21] thing was that we I mean, if we had the
[145:23] setup ready, I mean, Liquid had the
[145:24] setup to some degree ready as well, I
[145:26] think.
[145:27] Um like we knew that we wanted to go in
[145:29] with all the range classes and whatever.
[145:31] We obviously didn't expect that the boss
[145:33] would be this crazy OP, I guess, towards
[145:35] us.
[145:36] >> [laughter and gasps]
[145:36] >> But then we did kind of have everything
[145:38] ready, so that was good. There was some
[145:39] misplay on some crafting on one alt or
[145:42] whatever, which was a bit scuffed. But,
[145:44] um I mean, if a early boss is this
[145:46] difficult, the main thing I think that
[145:48] always happens is that you try to gear
[145:51] all the characters while you swap in and
[145:53] out of progress because it's not the end
[145:56] of progress. You're still thinking about
[145:58] all the characters you geared.
[146:00] And you might need to gear, I don't
[146:01] know, the Windwalker for the next boss.
[146:03] Like, you knew Windwalker was OP in that
[146:05] tier, right? So, you gear like the
[146:06] classes that you knew were OP for later
[146:08] bosses as well.
[146:10] And put them on the bench, even if they
[146:11] were maybe okay on the current boss. Put
[146:14] them on the bench, gear them, and I
[146:15] think that's how it often goes if the if
[146:16] the progress is still ongoing for long,
[146:19] right? I think often times it happen
[146:21] happen happens to many guilds as well
[146:22] that if you're on the seventh boss or
[146:24] eighth boss or whatever,
[146:26] I mean, the setup is not changing that
[146:27] much anymore unless there's some secret
[146:29] phase, of course. So, you probably don't
[146:33] care, I guess, and people can do other
[146:34] things that will benefit the guild apart
[146:36] from gear their character. But, if it's
[146:37] early progress,
[146:39] I mean, you'd only do it always, right?
[146:40] And especially with upgrade system and
[146:43] crest save and third series and I don't
[146:46] know, all the shenanigans you can farm
[146:48] many things, I guess. That's always the
[146:50] main main issue as well, right?
[146:52] And Sprocketmonger was next, and now
[146:54] that is a cool boss to make hard. While
[146:56] Six had Fire Ra'kan and Halondrus-esque
[146:57] moments of just raid-wide one-shots that
[146:59] nobody understood, Sprocketmonger is
[147:02] more of a controlled dance with intense
[147:04] micro, a pretty hefty DPS check, and
[147:07] everything kind of culminated in a phase
[147:08] three where all the mechanics were
[147:10] thrown at you at the exact same time,
[147:12] and getting hit by anything wipes the
[147:13] raid. It was really a beautiful
[147:14] encounter, very cool for the race world
[147:16] first whenever you're watching fights
[147:17] like that. And for Liquid and Echo,
[147:19] they're simultaneously pulling the boss,
[147:21] and the reset comes and goes, and
[147:23] Sprocketmonger's still alive.
[147:25] And so, we're strapped in for a really
[147:26] long race. The reset came and went for
[147:29] Liquid. And Echo,
[147:31] somehow, they actually down
[147:33] Sprocketmonger, lock, and stock on their
[147:36] first reset. And without Liquid being
[147:38] able to do it.
[147:39] And this is probably in this video the
[147:42] earliest Limit or Liquid has lost a
[147:44] world first kill since Lady Ashvane.
[147:47] This is one of those kills that doesn't
[147:48] mean much in terms of loot,
[147:50] but it can actually feel incredibly
[147:52] demoralizing, especially when Echo
[147:53] smells blood in the water. A huge
[147:55] momentum shifter for a guild like them,
[147:57] and they were able to do this off of
[147:59] utterly ridiculous chain P3 attempts
[148:01] with insane amounts of battle res
[148:03] available
[148:04] in an incredibly impressive fashion that
[148:06] everybody takes notice and is like,
[148:08] "Wow, they are very good."
[148:10] So, that was boss five. Three bosses
[148:11] separate these teams from the finish
[148:13] line though, and we have One-Armed
[148:14] Bandit, Mug'thol, and Gallywix.
[148:17] One-Armed Bandit, it dies without issue.
[148:19] Liquid ends up killing it world first
[148:20] off the back of the re-clear. If
[148:21] anything, Echo actually kind of throws
[148:23] away all of their lead on One-Armed
[148:25] Bandit, but I think it's pretty neutral
[148:28] given what the reset does.
[148:30] Then the teams enter Mug'thol, and
[148:32] Mug'thol, it was insanely difficult.
[148:34] Mostly off the back of an insanely hard
[148:37] phase two that had a lot of stupid bugs.
[148:40] The mines would sometimes not blow up
[148:41] correctly. The ramping damage the boss
[148:43] did from the enrage mechanic wiped
[148:45] people time and time again. And for
[148:47] context, race world first guilds spent
[148:49] probably 75%
[148:52] of their progression time just in P2,
[148:54] and it felt like guilds were really just
[148:55] gambling attempts, praying that one
[148:57] person didn't die in P2 due to how tough
[148:59] the damage check was on top of the jank
[149:01] mechanics. So, now we're down to the
[149:02] wire. Liquid started Mug'thol first.
[149:05] Echo has gotten more gear from Sprocket
[149:07] Monger over the course of this race.
[149:09] Historically as well, Echo just kind of
[149:11] has this ability to be able to have
[149:12] unreal consistency when it feels
[149:14] impossible to kind of have consistency.
[149:16] And then, you know, Liquid are able to
[149:18] figure it out. Liquid downs Mug'thol
[149:19] first, and Echo ends up actually choking
[149:21] on this boss pretty hard. And so, what
[149:24] does choking mean in this context? Echo
[149:26] spends an additional eight hours over
[149:27] Liquid in progression time on Mug'thol.
[149:30] This compounded with the lost time on
[149:32] one-armed bandit puts Echo at nearly 17
[149:34] hours behind Liquid. So now it's
[149:37] possible to recover from this as we've
[149:38] seen. We've seen some crazy stuff,
[149:40] especially like Tindral Sageswift and
[149:41] Fyrakk.
[149:42] That was until the Gallywix incident.
[149:45] So Gallywix's encounter didn't have much
[149:48] stated in the dungeon journal about
[149:50] Mythic at all. In fact, pretty much all
[149:52] of it was absent. Players were wondering
[149:54] about a secret Mythic phase, but nothing
[149:56] was caught on data mining. So pretty
[149:58] much everybody knows if there was a
[150:00] secret phase or not due to what's
[150:01] unveiled during data mining. So it felt
[150:03] unlikely that that was going to be the
[150:04] case. Maybe it could be encrypted, but
[150:06] unlikely.
[150:07] And doing a boss without the dungeon
[150:09] journal, effectively blind, can be
[150:11] unbelievably difficult.
[150:13] Unfortunately, Gallywix ends up being
[150:16] far easier than anybody anticipates. And
[150:18] you know, I like to tend to hype up end
[150:20] boss kills. They take the longest, the
[150:22] most drama happens on them. The guilds
[150:23] are in slingshot mode where one guild is
[150:25] overtaking one another. They get a bit
[150:26] ahead and they wake up behind.
[150:29] This is typical for race world first
[150:30] kills.
[150:31] Now for Gallywix,
[150:33] um well, this is a boss of all time for
[150:35] sure. And to cut to the chase, Gallywix
[150:37] died in 24 hours for Liquid and 16 hours
[150:40] for Echo. This is probably the most
[150:42] anticlimactic finish to a race world
[150:43] first ever due to the final boss being
[150:45] fairly under-tuned. And more than
[150:47] anything, Gallywix just kind of lacked
[150:49] tension. There was no hard damage check,
[150:51] no phase was individually difficult. It
[150:53] all just felt kind of easy.
[150:55] And I'll let this clip of Preach take it
[150:57] away as how it was received from a race
[150:59] world first level. I embarrassing,
[151:02] uh complete [ __ ] calamity. Um
[151:07] Yeah, a lot of words like that were
[151:08] being thrown around. I was furious, I'm
[151:10] not going to lie. I'm literally furious
[151:12] with what they did during that raid. I
[151:14] don't think we'll ever get an answer as
[151:16] to what the hell happened there. There
[151:18] is a million crackpot theories running
[151:20] around about what happened. But um
[151:23] ultimately, embarrassing is the word I
[151:25] will go with. Absolutely embarrassing
[151:27] for Blizzard. I have never in my life,
[151:29] and I really racked my brain,
[151:32] did they forget a phase? I don't know. I
[151:35] don't know. Like, if I run the run the
[151:36] [ __ ] gauntlet of crackpot theories,
[151:38] one, they didn't turn on the triggers
[151:40] for whatever was supposed to happen.
[151:41] Two, they deliberately didn't turn on
[151:43] the triggers for what was supposed to
[151:44] happen so the race would end. Three,
[151:46] they legendary ring does and literally
[151:48] didn't come up with anything
[151:49] at all.
[151:51] Four, they somehow ran out of time to
[151:53] create whatever the mythic phase is
[151:55] going to be. All of those theories may
[151:58] or may not be true.
[152:00] I have no idea. I have actually no idea,
[152:03] but it's embarrassing.
[152:05] There's also an iconic moment where THD
[152:07] and Max at the exact same time were in
[152:09] utter bewilderment as the boss ended up
[152:11] dying for liquid. Uh
[152:13] THD was basically dead for two entire
[152:15] minutes on the world first kill. In the
[152:17] raid, it was really fun as a raider, but
[152:19] for race world first, it was definitely
[152:21] deflating seeing the end boss be that
[152:23] easy. And as it turns out, Echo ended up
[152:25] playing the best for probably six out of
[152:27] the eight bosses, but their utter
[152:29] collapse on Mug'thol and just wasting a
[152:31] ton of time on One-Armed Bandit ended up
[152:33] losing them the race.
[152:35] What?
[152:39] How bad does it feel whenever you have a
[152:42] tier like Undermine where there is a
[152:44] stark difference in difficulty between a
[152:46] penultimate fight like Mug'thol and an
[152:48] end boss like Gallywix? Is it like super
[152:50] demoralizing or like
[152:52] does it feel just because you guys put
[152:54] in so much prep and you kind of expect a
[152:55] linear difficulty, right? I mean, it is
[152:58] very
[152:59] it's very disappointing, I think.
[153:01] Because I think Undermine if Gallywix
[153:03] would have been a good boss, I think
[153:05] Undermine would have been my favorite
[153:06] raid of this expansion, for sure.
[153:08] Because I think the bosses were good.
[153:10] The bosses were tuned for race world
[153:11] first, clearly, many of them, maybe too
[153:13] much as well, right? Um they were great
[153:16] design. I think the vibe of the raid was
[153:17] cool, the theme, overall, like they had
[153:19] different kind of bosses, like Mug'thol
[153:21] was a very difficult healing and
[153:23] coordination check, right? And I mean
[153:25] also maybe we got up, but
[153:27] a lot of tech issues as well at that
[153:29] boss, but I think all of the bosses were
[153:31] offering a lot of stuff. With sticks was
[153:33] like more of a personal gameplay fight
[153:36] and one armed was like a
[153:39] together kind of problem-solving fight,
[153:41] which was a little bit under-tuned,
[153:43] sadly, I think. But overall was good. I
[153:45] mean, the main issue I think with that
[153:47] tier in general was all of if a pin
[153:49] ultimate bosses this much harder than
[153:51] the final boss is that the race is so
[153:54] bad in terms of how bosses were are laid
[153:57] out
[153:58] that most of the time you reach the pin
[153:59] ultimate boss before the the first
[154:02] weekly reset, right? That's how the race
[154:04] world first again.
[154:05] And then kind of this the current tier
[154:07] was a good example. We reach
[154:10] the boss and liquid reaches the boss and
[154:12] you can't kill it. Yeah, because it's
[154:14] it's too difficult. And I think that's
[154:15] always the tuning Blizzard is going for
[154:17] because they don't want the race to end
[154:18] in one week, probably. That's my
[154:19] assumption.
[154:21] So, they always tune it so the pin
[154:22] ultimate boss does not die or has like
[154:24] some crazy check or potentially one
[154:26] guild kills it or something, I don't
[154:27] know.
[154:28] Um and then if you kill that boss
[154:31] you you like if you kill the pin
[154:33] ultimate boss, you should be looking
[154:35] forward to like progress on the final
[154:37] boss for like
[154:38] I don't know, like four more days or
[154:40] three more days, right? In that sense.
[154:42] But if you kill the pin ultimate boss
[154:44] and then the other boss just dies like
[154:46] Gallywix, I mean, it's very boring as
[154:48] well, I think. Like even like I I I
[154:50] would say like many people always say oh
[154:53] they I people say Under Mine was so bad
[154:55] or whatever. I think Under Mine was
[154:56] great raid, apart from Gallywix, of
[154:58] course. And I think it could have been
[154:59] the best race
[155:00] or the best raid to look at or whatever
[155:03] in the whole tier
[155:06] if the boss would have lived a little
[155:07] bit longer, right? And I think a big
[155:09] issue with a boss that is shitty tuned
[155:11] as well
[155:12] is that it's so
[155:14] it's so weird, right? Because we went to
[155:16] bed
[155:17] and we were looking at Liquid and we're
[155:18] like "Hmm
[155:19] does the boss maybe die?" Because they
[155:21] made a lot of progress early on, right?
[155:23] Um and we're like, "Maybe we shouldn't
[155:25] go to bed, but that would have been very
[155:27] difficult, right?" There's always a
[155:28] should have
[155:30] if situation, I guess, right? But we're
[155:32] like, "Maybe we shouldn't go to bed.
[155:33] Maybe we should stay up and progress the
[155:35] boss and then whoever dies first, either
[155:37] we die
[155:39] of exhaustion or the boss dies in that
[155:41] sense."
[155:42] And for Liquid, they're two and 0 in the
[155:44] world with their Will this be the first
[155:46] ever expansion sweep in the history of
[155:48] World of Warcraft?
[155:50] That brings us to Man nor Omega, the
[155:52] last raid of the world within in the
[155:53] most recent race. Uh the first day of
[155:56] the race, the NA reset was pretty
[155:57] standard with Liquid players getting
[155:59] into the raid when servers came up and
[156:01] they're posted up in front of the first
[156:02] boss and Plexus Sentinel. Then, suddenly
[156:05] one of Liquid's mages
[156:07] gets banned. His name, Hopeful. He gets
[156:09] logged out and receives a message that
[156:11] he had been banned. He looks clearly
[156:12] confused at this point and Liquid get in
[156:14] touch with a Blizzard contact who said
[156:16] the ban was going to stand.
[156:18] So, basically, when he was in Echo, like
[156:21] four or five months ago, Instant
[156:22] Dollars, he used to be in Instant
[156:24] Dollars, right? And he was in Echo and
[156:27] Instant Dollars was progressing
[156:29] Mug'Tharon and one of their mages' PC
[156:31] blows up blew up. He lives This part
[156:33] isn't really relevant, but he said they
[156:34] lived an hour away. So, he was like
[156:36] going to come over to his house and just
[156:37] play on his setup and he just
[156:38] eventually, as he said, caved in and let
[156:42] He just played his account for
[156:43] Mug'Tharon, didn't kill it, and then
[156:44] played his account one other time and
[156:45] killed Gallywix. And then, according to
[156:47] Blizzard, they know exactly what
[156:48] happened. They like clearly were like,
[156:50] "He's not getting unbanned. We know what
[156:51] he did." [music] And uh clearly he's
[156:52] guilty. He did do it. But they said they
[156:54] were not They did not sit on this and
[156:56] time it for today. It just came to their
[156:58] attention recently, which is why what
[157:00] they're saying as far as it being a race
[157:01] ban. So, yeah. Initial thoughts on that?
[157:03] Insanely [ __ ] stupid that he did
[157:06] that. I mean, just at such an obvious
[157:08] level it is
[157:09] just so [ __ ] dumb
[157:12] to do that and not surprising that he
[157:13] got banned for it. So, before people
[157:15] start like trying to like point fingers
[157:17] and stuff of like who told Blizzard
[157:19] about it or whatever, I think the moral
[157:21] of the story is like he did something
[157:23] extremely [ __ ] stupid and was
[157:25] obviously going to get banned for it.
[157:26] So, the it's his fault.
[157:29] Let's just
[157:31] let's keep that a buck, right? It's his
[157:33] fault. It's very dumb and he knows that.
[157:35] I'm waiting
[157:36] And Blizzard does allow Hopeful to make
[157:38] a new account. So, after 12 hours of
[157:40] level boosting a handful of characters,
[157:41] Hopeful was back in the raid and ready
[157:43] for the splits. But, it was a lot of
[157:45] drama at the very beginning and some
[157:47] people were not happy about this.
[157:49] Man Forge, it's got a lot of splits.
[157:51] Liquid ends up entering Mythic on day
[157:53] four. Liquid's first kill on the first
[157:54] boss of the raid, Plexus Sentinel, was
[157:56] actually quite a highlight. I remember
[157:57] Yeps at this point was basically the
[157:59] only one alive, practically soloing the
[158:01] last minute of the fight, allowing
[158:03] Liquid to kill the boss in one pull.
[158:04] Probably the most hyped first boss kill
[158:06] of all time, but it doesn't really
[158:07] matter through the grand scheme of
[158:09] things. And the next couple of bosses,
[158:12] you know, they're not that hard either.
[158:14] And before you know it, Liquid's staring
[158:15] down Forge Weaver Xaranz.
[158:17] At this point, there was kind of
[158:19] some information out there on Forge
[158:21] Weaver where Instant Dollars at this
[158:23] time had actually thrown attempts at the
[158:25] boss.
[158:26] And it was widely known that it was not
[158:28] going to be something that you could
[158:29] just completely walk over. So, Echo
[158:31] matches Liquid's day one performance and
[158:34] basically then both of these guilds are
[158:35] going to end up spending pretty much all
[158:37] of the day on Forge Weaver or farming
[158:39] Mythic Plus where Liquid ends up racking
[158:41] up over 70 attempts on Forge Weaver.
[158:44] They end up doing a decent amount of
[158:45] Mythic Plus breaks and the boss, Forge
[158:49] Weaver Xaranz, ends up taking a nerf
[158:50] halfway through Liquid's day where the
[158:52] original strat on the boss was to use
[158:54] three tanks in order to deal with the
[158:57] permanent and very healthy arcane echo
[158:59] ads. Since the ads were basically not
[159:01] killable while also doing damage to the
[159:03] boss, Blizzard ends up nerfing the ads
[159:05] HP by 40% and Forgekeeper Roxxane self
[159:08] by 5%. This basically kick-starts
[159:11] progression for pretty much all guilds
[159:13] involved in this fight. For Liquid, this
[159:15] allows them to skyrocket their pulls.
[159:16] They change the strategy. They brought
[159:18] They bring in another DPS. They blob a
[159:20] tank. And the boss is still incredibly
[159:22] hard even after the nerfs with a lot of
[159:24] mechanics coming at you super quickly
[159:26] and needing
[159:27] pretty stupid CC rotation with things
[159:29] like Demon Hunter
[159:31] Evoker's Oppressing Roar, a lot of
[159:33] stuns, and just, you know, Binding Shot
[159:35] I remember being on this fight as well.
[159:37] Be able to deal with the entire fight.
[159:40] At the end of the day,
[159:41] you know, the boss is kind of close for
[159:43] Liquid at 1.5% for Echo. They're, you
[159:47] know, trying to do the slingshot thing
[159:49] where, you know, they go to bed behind
[159:51] and they wake up ahead. And so, it's
[159:52] kind of interesting for Echo to see if
[159:54] they're going to be able to capture a
[159:55] world first kill on Forgekeeper Roxxane.
[159:59] And by the time Liquid ends up waking
[160:00] up, Echo had improved on their previous
[160:02] best and they had sank 60 pulls into the
[160:04] boss with a 2% best pull. So, both of
[160:07] the teams are basically at the exact
[160:09] same point. And over the next hour or
[160:10] so, we would see both Liquid and Echo
[160:12] trying to kill the boss at the same
[160:13] time, getting consecutive low health
[160:15] pulls before Liquid ends up killing the
[160:17] boss an hour into their raid day.
[160:19] Echo did not take too much longer. They
[160:21] ended up killing the boss around 20
[160:22] minutes after Liquid. So, really, really
[160:24] good for Echo, all things considered.
[160:27] Now, it was time for Soul Hunters. Now,
[160:29] this was a boss that originally was
[160:31] flagged as optional. Um and everybody
[160:33] was trying to confuse us. So, what does
[160:35] an optional boss mean in the context of
[160:37] the Race to World First? The Race to
[160:39] World First guilds basically decided
[160:40] that
[160:41] we're going to kill all the bosses. Um
[160:42] it wasn't really optional. It also
[160:44] dropped some pretty powerful loot.
[160:46] Echo ended up spending a couple of pulls
[160:47] here before going to bed. Liquid,
[160:49] though, has almost their entire day to
[160:52] kill as many bosses as reasonably
[160:53] possible. And Soul Hunters would receive
[160:56] a nerf while Liquid was also pulling it,
[160:57] reducing the health of all three bosses
[160:59] by 7%. Probably not the largest
[161:02] difference-maker, though. Liquid ends up
[161:04] killing the boss in 26 attempts and
[161:06] they're heading onwards to Fractalus.
[161:08] And for Fractalus, it's kind of weird.
[161:10] The intended strat to kill the boss is
[161:11] with two tanks, but after seeing how
[161:13] insane the DPS check was on this fight,
[161:16] Liquid goes and is like, all right,
[161:17] we're going to we're going to one tank
[161:19] this fight. They start one tanking the
[161:20] boss very similar to what happened with
[161:21] Nexus Princess Ky'veza. In the
[161:23] beginning, the Liquid strat for one
[161:24] tanking this fight was having a holy
[161:25] paladin just taunt the boss and bubble
[161:27] taunt. And due to the bug with the boss,
[161:30] the tank mechanic wouldn't spawn the
[161:32] mythic wall, essentially skipping a
[161:34] mechanic, a huge deal. But at the same
[161:36] time, I mean, while the strategy is just
[161:37] absolutely insane, Liquid did not swap
[161:40] over to one tanking until it was pretty
[161:41] close to the end of the raid day. They
[161:43] ended up only getting 10 pulls with that
[161:44] strategy. They ended up going to bed
[161:46] with the best attempt of 14%. And at
[161:48] this point in time, Liquid wake up and
[161:50] they are turbo behind. It was slingshot
[161:53] season again for Echo and having seen
[161:56] Liquid swap over to a one tank strategy
[161:57] at the end of the night, Echo ends up
[161:58] adopting the strategy. They make some
[162:00] adjustments and they have a better
[162:02] strategy than what Liquid did. In
[162:04] Liquid's strat, they were breaking a lot
[162:06] of these scary walls that gave a
[162:07] stacking debuff, uh the mythic walls,
[162:10] and sometimes they ended up stacking the
[162:11] debuff up to two to three stacks,
[162:12] putting a lot of extra stress on the
[162:14] healers.
[162:15] Echo ended up breaking basically none of
[162:17] them, opting for a much safer strategy
[162:19] while still maintaining the one tank.
[162:21] Echo ends up killing the boss first with
[162:23] this strategy. They also have killed
[162:24] Soul Hunters at this point in time.
[162:25] Method on the other hand also finishes
[162:28] Fractalus world second 4 hours later,
[162:31] basically yoinking the strategy from
[162:33] Echo. And for Liquid, they wake up and,
[162:36] you know, they're behind. They're in
[162:37] third place. And so, you know, [ __ ] kind
[162:40] of hits the fan. Liquid just got
[162:41] completely out-stratted on what is
[162:44] essentially just an easy patchwork
[162:46] fight. At the same time, you know, we
[162:48] have we have two end bosses left, right?
[162:49] We have or we have two bosses left.
[162:51] Nexus King Salan'dar, the penultimate
[162:52] encounter, and Dementius, the final
[162:54] encounter. And it's hard to really know
[162:55] how difficult both of these encounters
[162:57] were. And Saladar, he actually ended up
[162:59] being fairly tricky.
[163:01] Um there's a lot of stuff that can
[163:02] actually go wrong in this encounter.
[163:03] Moving Bloodlust was something that was
[163:05] fairly common. I remember there were
[163:06] intermission platforms that if you
[163:07] didn't have all 20 players alive,
[163:09] you would fairly regularly just miss the
[163:11] damage check on the intermission
[163:12] platforms.
[163:13] Um we're pretty close to the reset as
[163:15] well. So there it is a high degree of
[163:17] likelihood that an extra reset worth of
[163:19] gear is going to be happening for both
[163:20] Echo and Liquid trying to see what's
[163:22] going on with that.
[163:25] And for Liquid, they ended up spending a
[163:26] decent amount of time progressing
[163:27] Saladar. They ended up ending their
[163:29] first reset with their best pull of 62%
[163:31] in phase three. Echo, they continue to
[163:33] kind of pull the boss on their reset
[163:36] one. And Echo goes to bed with Saladar
[163:38] at 30% into phase three. So Echo, you
[163:41] know, they're taking that advantage that
[163:42] they have from Practolus, and they're
[163:44] really starting to put their foot on the
[163:45] gas and trying to choke out Liquid from
[163:47] a world first Saladar kill even. So the
[163:49] reset hits, and Liquid's farm actually
[163:52] goes pretty well, all things considered.
[163:54] They end up not taking too much time.
[163:56] There are still some chores that are
[163:57] left to be done. There are some crests
[163:59] that are yet to be gained.
[164:01] Uh there's some, you know, crafting
[164:02] profession gear that needs to be spent
[164:04] occasionally. And for Liquid, after all
[164:06] of these re-clearing after this influx
[164:08] in gear, it's kind of crazy. They end up
[164:10] finishing off Nexus King Saladar in 20
[164:13] pulls, ending their pull count at 108 in
[164:15] total. They actually had a really clean
[164:17] strategy for how to deal with the Star
[164:19] Killer swings and where to place their
[164:21] orbiting planets around the room. This
[164:24] was one that Echo ended up copying.
[164:26] Initially, Echo was doing some really
[164:27] weird strategy with all of their orb
[164:28] placements, but the the Liquid strategy
[164:30] seemed like it was going to be a little
[164:31] bit superior. And so basically all the
[164:33] other guilds were going to be going on
[164:34] to copy that.
[164:36] So Saladar's dead for Liquid, and for
[164:37] the next few days, they're going to be
[164:38] banging down the door of Demensius to
[164:40] see if they can finish off this race and
[164:42] go where we've never seen them go before
[164:44] with an expansion sweep. And Echo, they
[164:45] would basically not be any less on their
[164:47] reset. Uh they start off their day with
[164:49] splits. They smash the re-clear, and
[164:51] they're back in front of Nexus King
[164:52] Saladar at 3:00 p.m. local time, 10
[164:54] hours after the start of their day. They
[164:56] get him killed off rather quickly and
[164:58] with Liquid and Echo both of starting to
[165:00] raid at the exact same time, they're on
[165:02] Demensius at the exact same time. Echo
[165:04] is able to down Nexus King Saladar world
[165:06] second rather quickly and we both guilds
[165:07] trying to figure out phase one of
[165:09] Demensius at the same time.
[165:12] Just talk about Demensius for a little
[165:13] bit. Even from day one of the raid
[165:14] releasing and seeing Demensius on many
[165:16] difficulties, you could actually tell
[165:17] that this is one of the most visually
[165:19] stunning bosses of all time. People
[165:20] compared it to a Final Fantasy boss. Uh
[165:22] you end up being allowed to fly through
[165:24] space and you dodge comets that are near
[165:26] that flying at you in phase two. You end
[165:28] up having a phase three where you have
[165:29] to coordinate soaks and drop debuffs as
[165:31] the room gets smaller and smaller.
[165:33] And this race, it was actually shaping
[165:35] up to be an all-timer if the tuning on
[165:36] Demensius was right. And for the first
[165:38] real day of Demensius, Echo had reached
[165:40] the start of the second phase after
[165:42] getting their gear from their re-clear.
[165:44] Liquid on the other hand, they ended up
[165:45] having a full day on Demensius himself.
[165:47] They ended up managed to reach the
[165:48] second part of P2, uh one of the
[165:51] intermission platforms.
[165:52] Next day, you know, it's more of the
[165:54] same. Echo gets a couple of good pulls
[165:56] in phase two. Then they push into phase
[165:58] three even on some of their attempts
[166:00] with not all the players alive.
[166:01] Obviously, it's not going to be a kill,
[166:03] but everybody's, you know, seeing
[166:05] through the fight at least. You're
[166:07] seeing through all of the phases. Um
[166:09] Echo ends up swapping some of their
[166:10] comps. They end up playing like feral
[166:12] druid at the beginning, but they end up
[166:13] swapping basically to the same
[166:14] composition that Liquid was running.
[166:16] Double DK and double Evoker were notably
[166:18] actually required for this encounter.
[166:19] Double Evoker for rescues on your
[166:21] healers to be able to meet the heal
[166:22] checks in phase one. Double Death Knight
[166:24] for the phase two add grips that were
[166:26] absolutely required. So both of these uh
[166:29] comps, it was basically just like, how
[166:30] are we fitting in Death Knights? How are
[166:32] we fitting in Evokers? Um then where are
[166:34] we getting our raid buffs from? So
[166:36] everybody's basically seeing through the
[166:38] entirety of the fight. Um not seeing to
[166:40] the enrage yet, but we're getting kind
[166:42] of close there. Up until this point,
[166:43] guilds fighting Demensius, they were
[166:44] basically using Bloodlust on pull.
[166:47] Um it was kind of used to push through
[166:49] phase one and see further into the
[166:50] fight. Phase one had an overlap at the
[166:53] very end of P1 that if you didn't beat,
[166:55] you were likely to have people die. Uh
[166:58] it was possible to beat it and it was
[167:00] possible to outplay it, yet at the same
[167:01] time the safe thing to do is to just
[167:03] lust phase one. Maybe the Bloodlust is
[167:06] going to have to be moved. And so then
[167:07] the guild starts to look at the tuning
[167:09] of phase three, the HP on the boss.
[167:12] And it's unfortunate, but the Bloodlust
[167:14] actually needed to get moved um to the
[167:16] start of phase three where the boss
[167:18] takes 100% increased damage. And this
[167:19] basically meant that every guild had to
[167:20] re-progress the early parts of the fight
[167:22] without the safety of the Bloodlust for
[167:24] those adds that we were talking about
[167:26] earlier. And this is where things start
[167:29] to hit the fan where basically guilds
[167:31] are just chain wiping in phase one where
[167:34] you're just praying that phase two is
[167:36] consistent. Phase one Phase two was
[167:37] never really that consistent, but you're
[167:39] just praying that you can get through
[167:40] phase two on the one in 10 attempts that
[167:42] you make it through phase one without
[167:43] the Bloodlust. And so yeah, Echo and
[167:45] Liquid have basically seen to the end of
[167:46] the fight. They needed the Bloodlust.
[167:48] The The help on the boss was going to be
[167:50] too much. And so basically we're in a
[167:52] situation where the first guild that can
[167:53] turn their one out of 10 attempts coming
[167:55] out of phase one into one out of five
[167:57] attempts coming out of phase one and
[167:58] continue to see to the end of the fight,
[168:00] they are likely to be your race world
[168:01] first champions for Manaforge Omega. And
[168:04] because of the intense difficulty in
[168:05] phase three, the guilds would also
[168:06] choose to use what is called a healer
[168:08] lust where basically people would stand
[168:10] on the platform, get themselves
[168:12] pre-sated, lust for themselves at the
[168:14] start of phase one to make sure that
[168:15] they can get Bloodlust back again for
[168:17] the end of the fight uh where the
[168:19] basically the healers didn't need the
[168:20] Bloodlust during the 100% damage amp.
[168:22] Instead, they wanted it later on
[168:23] Dimensius.
[168:25] This is something that takes a lot of
[168:26] time and is really really stupid, so
[168:27] guilds try to avoid doing this basically
[168:30] you until you're ready to kill the boss.
[168:32] That way you don't waste too much time.
[168:33] And so you're pulling out all the stops.
[168:35] Day 12 of the race comes. Echo is eager
[168:37] to retake their title as the best guild
[168:39] in the world. And for Liquid, they're
[168:40] trying to complete the trifecta and
[168:41] sweep all three raids in the war within
[168:43] expansion. Echo having seen the pulls
[168:45] that Liquid had on the enraged late into
[168:47] P3, they were charging forwards. And
[168:49] Echo, they were steadily getting lower
[168:51] and lower pulls going down percent by
[168:53] percent every single pull. And Echo,
[168:55] they were playing really well now. And
[168:57] if Liquid wanted to stand a chance, they
[168:59] had to wake up and be locked in from the
[169:00] start. Liquid had gone to bed the day
[169:03] before with a 17% best pull and 30
[169:05] minutes before they woke up, Echo had
[169:07] just wiped at 12%. But Echo, they mean
[169:09] business now. And with the raid going
[169:11] longer and longer and they're going
[169:13] later and later, we're in a familiar
[169:15] waters pulling late into the night. This
[169:18] is very Firelands-esque where basically
[169:20] both of the guilds were pulling at the
[169:21] exact same time where, you know, we were
[169:23] in single digit HP territory. And at the
[169:26] start of the raid,
[169:28] Liquid is unfortunately going to have
[169:29] issues pushing through to phase three,
[169:32] uh wipe wiping a bunch of times in phase
[169:33] one just proving how inconsistent it it
[169:35] can be.
[169:36] And meanwhile on the other monitor, you
[169:37] can actually see Echo getting lower and
[169:39] lower pulls. Echo has a 5% wipe. Then
[169:41] Echo has a 4% wipe a couple pulls later.
[169:44] Liquid kind of get their [ __ ] into gear.
[169:45] They end up having a 13% wipe.
[169:48] But Echo, 3%? Oh, oh, hold on. Then
[169:51] Liquid procs another late wipe getting
[169:52] the boss down to 3%. And then,
[169:55] Echo
[169:57] wipes at 0.3%.
[170:00] And then they wipe again
[170:01] at 0.5%.
[170:04] And so these pulls are so close that
[170:06] basically it could be anybody's game.
[170:09] Um
[170:10] no matter who wins and as a viewer
[170:11] experience, this was probably the
[170:13] greatest race world first yet. So then
[170:15] with Echo pulling the boss past 1:00
[170:17] a.m. local time and after consecutive
[170:19] grueling wipes where there were only
[170:21] margins away from killing the boss,
[170:25] we would see Liquid
[170:26] finish Dimensius on a really god-tier
[170:29] pull and complete their expansion sweep.
[170:33] Leave me, leave me, leave me. Leave
[170:33] Timber dead. Leave Timber dead.
[170:35] Let's [ __ ] go! We did
[170:36] >> Let's go! Come on!
[170:38] Come on!
[170:39] Look at my health!
[170:43] >> [screaming]
[170:53] [screaming]
[171:16] >> And even after losing Echo continued to
[171:17] raid for a couple of hours to try to
[171:19] secure world's second and they I think
[171:20] they stopped playing like 4:00 a.m. or
[171:21] something.
[171:23] And then after 4:00 a.m. they went to
[171:25] bed.
[171:26] They woke back up. They killed the boss
[171:28] pretty early in the morning for the
[171:29] world's second, but basically anything
[171:30] other than world's first is unacceptable
[171:32] for these race world's first kills. So,
[171:34] very, very saddening situation for the
[171:37] boys from Europe. But, congratulations
[171:38] to Liquid in that regard. I mean, it's
[171:40] huge it's a huge deal to be able to do
[171:41] the sweep an expansion.
[171:44] All right. Well, if you made it this
[171:45] far, you're legally required to like and
[171:48] subscribe.
[171:49] Thank you guys so much for watching the
[171:50] video. Basically, here's what's going
[171:52] on. If you enjoyed this kind of content,
[171:53] I got great news. On March 24th, the
[171:56] opening of Void Spire in the Dream Rift
[171:58] are is going to be happening on Mythic.
[172:00] On March 31st, the opening of the March
[172:03] of Kil'jaeden is going to be opening on
[172:04] Mythic. So, make sure to check out both
[172:06] twitch.tv/teamliquid
[172:08] and twitch.tv/echo_esports
[172:10] for more race world's first action and
[172:12] I'm going to see you guys there.
[172:14] Goodbye.