wow Nighthold Mythic Progress Race Coverage

[Starym 3,800]

 

The World First Race in the final raid of Tier 19

Two guilds on 9/10, will Gul'dan survive the reset? And how will his Mythic-only phase affect the encounter and the race overall?

07.02.2017 - Nothing too unexpected today, as Method finish up Nighthold on schedule and claim the 3rd spot in the race. Guild master Sco also had some things to say about the race from Method's POV.

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Overall I think Nighthold was a really good raid instance, with some interesting bosses and a good difficulty gauge.

This progress tier has been eye opening for Method and there will definitely be a lot of discussion with the officers over the next few days. In general I feel that we as Method have our key strengths in strategizing and understanding of an encounter quickly. Our ‘weakness’ in Nighthold was that it often took us more pulls then we would have liked to properly execute the strategies. Our biggest setback was Star Augur; we spent an extra 2 days on the fight compared to our competition (281 pulls versus 130 pulls… - full wipe counts listed here; http://www.method.gg/raidprogress) which ultimately led to us falling too far behind. The raid comp we had access to for the fight wasn’t ideal but at the same time we really just didn’t execute the fight well enough – lessons to be learnt!
....
On a different note I want to give a huge shout out to everyone who supported and took an interest in the progress race this tier. There is no ‘grand prize’ for the teams, it is a very much community driven event and I am glad to see there is still enough interest to keep it going. Who knows how things will develop with future progress races, or how the raiding landscape may change, but for now knowing that people are still interested motivates us all (even the trolls on the mmo champ raid progression thread! #scowastheproblem).

There's more things he covers in his facebook post, so be sure to check out the full thing as well.
Still no new Elisande kills, however, but we did get both Serenity0s WF and Method's World 3rd kill videos for the penultimate boss of Nighthold, as we still wait for two more Gul'dan kills for his video to pop up:

 

The previously No.1 Asia guild, A Stars, who were Asia first in both EN and Tov, also got back into the race, breaking through the Star Augur wall and catching up to Right and AFK R, who took the regional lead as A Stars took some time off to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Pieces also got to 8/10, making it 12 guilds just 1 shy of Gul'dan, that will be finding the above videos VERY useful indeed.

Presumably we'll see a lot more Elisande kills now that the videos are out and the third reset with even more loot approaches and perhaps even a Gul'dan kill by From Scratch.

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06.02.2017 - A much less hectic day than the one before, no drama or accusations or anything like that, just a solid race day! The biggest rivalry in the race was resolved as fanboys everywhere either roared in triumph or sighed in defeat, as Serenity took home the silver and downed Gul'dan World 2nd. It's still only Method and From Scratch on 9/10 and progressing on Gul'dan, as the 8/10 crowd grew even larger, including an Asia first and second kills on Star Augur from Korean guilds Right and AFK R, as well as Russian guild Prestige Gaming and FatBossTV guild Nova.

We also got word of when to expect Exorsus' World First kill video, and it might take a while as they decided to wait the traditional amount of time, aka until the top 5 finishes up. Considering there's still no 5th guild even ON Gul'dan, they might have to change their policy as weeks might pass until that 5th kill, and then people might start making up even more drama surrounding their win.

Serenity and Exorsus also shared their wipe counts for the raid, with the Russian guild only showing the actually difficult aka final three bosses:

Wipe count for The Nighthold
Skorp 0
Anomaly 0
Trilliax 0
Aluriel 16
Tichondrius 8
Krosus 5
Botanists 14
Augar 130
Elisande 229
Guldan 347 pic.twitter.com/yl0vqWXJ8n

— Kevin ViklunD (@ViklunDtv) February 5, 2017

Our wipecount for last bosses:

Star Augur Etraeus: 130
Elisande: 198
Gul'dan: 248

— Exorsus (@ExorsusWoW) February 5, 2017

99 less Gul'dan wipes for Exorsus over Serenity is very, very impressive and just shows how well they did in Nighthold. Method seems like the most likely to get the No.3 spot, but you can never rule From Scratch out, with either guild's kill being pretty imminent, while the rest of the top 10 will take quite a while to finish Nighthold.
As usual, if you want to follow the race live, check out Method.gg's coverage.

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05.02.2017 - Obviously today/yesterday's highlight was the amazing Gul'dan World First by Exorsus, who raced past Serenity and took the gold in the Nighthold Mythic race but, unfortunately, that wasn't the only big thing that happened. Some people just didn't get enough drama from this race it seems, even with the Serenity/Method lockout and the Fusion exploit and ban, a select few reeeally wanted more bad things to have happened in the final raid of Tier 19. The whole story involves a Darkmoon Faire trinket, a bug that may or may not be just aesthetic, and a series of coincidences that made this triumphant day way more annoying for Exorsus than it should have been. So what did or, in this case more relevantly, didn't happen? (Spoiler alert: they didn't exploit anything.)

Exorsus got the WF kill at 14:11 CET and had a nice afternoon, enjoying their success, and then this image was posted on the MMO Champion forums and reddit.

Aside from the amazing artistry on display of having a screenshot pasted into paint and then screenshotted again, the image shows two epic trinkets equipped, along with the buff from this trinket active in the buff bar: Darkmoon Deck: Promises. Later, a clip was also added (that turned out to be very conveniently edited) and both were "suggesting" that an exploit was used that made you retain the buff from the Darkmoon trinket while having two other, different trinkets equipped. Apparently this was a known exploit for a while now, but some people said it was only an aesthetic bug, that the buff showed but didn't work, while others said that it gave you the actual effect as well.

The discussion/accusations went on for quite a while, and Exorsus members kept insisting that this had nothing to do with the kill, but the reddit thread was mostly distrustful, probably because of Exorsus' previous Helya ban and possibly also related to the recent Fusion ban as well. Meanwhile, the main Warcraft twitter account even congratulated Exorsus on their win, but wasn't enough to convince people:

Congratulations to @ExorsusWoW on World First Mythic Gul'dan! https://t.co/a3zmQs4EuY

— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) February 4, 2017

Then community manager Lore went even further to placate this, now very popular, exploit theory but even that wasn't enough:

@clm911978 we have no reason to believe there was anything shady going on with their kill

— Josh Allen (@devolore) February 4, 2017

Finally, a very frustrated Alveona, GM of Exorsus, went on the MMO Champion forums and shared the Warcraftlogs page of the player in question, for the Gul'dan kill, clearly showing that he did, in fact, simply have the Darkmoon trinket equipped normally and was using it in the fight, no exploits or anything similar was even possible.

He also had this to say:

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Tired of reading this accusations. If 2 confirmations from Blizzard is not enough, linking here screenshot from warcraftlogs http: // i.imgur.com/fqdV8U5.png
P.S. Thanks a lot for cheering & congratulations.

So what actually happened in the end, why did this even get started, other than some really hungry drama hounds? As mentioned above, Exorsus' druid was using the trinket during progress and the kill, as the fight is quite long, so it's a good choice for mana regen. A while after the kill, he started streaming and still had the trinket on. As he went back to Nighthold to take a screenshot, the mobs outside the entrance aggroed him and the trinket was activated as he went into combat. The bug then appeared as he zoned in to Nighthold in combat, with the buff, and it did not get removed (as you can see here), and then stayed on for a long time. Whether it was just the icon or actual stats staying doesn't really matter, as this was all after the kill, but the point is he later changed out the trinket. Some intrepid watcher made a clip, only showing how the druid had the buff on as well as two non-darkmoon trinkets and there you go: instant drama.

It's quite unfortunate even Blizzard's word isn't quite good enough for some people, both because of a lack of trust, but also because that lack of trust isn't exactly unfounded: Blizzard have, in the past, let some exploits slip. But that wasn't the case this time and we certainly feel sorry for Exorsus having their big triumphant day somewhat diminished by this fabricated drama. In any case, huge congratulations to them once again on a well deserved victory!

So, did anything else happen today? Not that much. Quite a few guilds caught up to Limit and Entropy at 8/10, downing Star Augur and completing the top 10 on him: Openness, Danish Terrace, ScrubBusters and second-best guild name ever owners, FatSharkYes. The big stuff still left to see in the race is whether Serenity or Method make it past the finish line next, as well as how the top 10 on Gul'dan shapes up, even though only From Scratch is even on the boss other than those two.

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Exorsus is the first guild in the world to down Gul'dan on Mythic difficulty. Congratulations!
Nerdscreams:

We'll add a video of the kill here once they upload it.

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Back to the actual race though, we and, much more importantly, Gul'dan, have entered the second reset! The first Legion endboss to do so, he now has three EU guilds at his door and it remains to be seen how many days (or hours?) he has left to live. Method had caught up to Serenity and Exorsus on the previous day, but only got around two and a half hours to try him before the servers reset. It took them around an hour longer to get the kill than Serenity (in absolute time between Augur and Elisande, we don't know how much of that time each guilds actually spent raiding), with Exorsus having been even faster than Serenity by 40 minutes. 

Day 9, however, was all re-clears and heroic splits, as all the guilds continued the tradition of never ever extending a lockout, since the additional gear is so much more valuable than some more time on the final boss. It was actually Method that got back to Gul'dan first, getting some much needed extra time on him to make up for the fact they are a full day behind Serenity in Gul'dan attempts. They made it back to 9/10 around 8 PM CET, with Serenity getting there 30 minutes later, so not that big of an advantage. Exorsus spent a lot of time on heroic split raids, as they stopped at 7/10 for a long time, only getting back to downing Elisande after 10 PM. Outside the top 3, not much happened, with From Scratch also returning to where they left off last reset, on 8/10 and trying to down Elisande.

We also got a special treat, as Serenity released their Star Augur World First video, and Method's World third wasn't far behind either.

The Asia servers are also getting their reset very soon, so we are in rest No.2 by all definitions, and it seems very likely Gul'dan, and with him the race, will end this week. If Serenity do carry their pretty big current lead to the end and win this thing, we'll have had 3 different guilds winning 3 different raids in a row in Legion, with Exorsus having taken EN and Method ToV, which would make Tomb of Sargeras that much more exciting.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We still don't even know if any of them have reached Gul'dan's Mythic only phase yet, let alone if they have a handle on how to execute it, or if these two resets' worth of gear are enough to meet the (presumably) pretty steep DPS requirements. In any case, we'll definitely do a separate post once the World First gets here, but meanwhile you can follow the race live over at Method.gg.

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01.02.2017 21:30 - Just a quick update to say that Method and Serenity are back on Gul'dan after having re-cleared the instance and done some Heroic splits as well. From Scratch are also back to where they were before the reset, aka Elisande and are hoping to get to see Gul'dan as soon as possible, while Exorsus are taking it a bit easier, staying at 7/10 and doing a lot of Heroics. We'll do a full rundown of the day in the morning as well.

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The first week of Nighthold Mythic progress is over and we have only one boss left alive. Now, that doesn't mean that Gul'dan has made it through the first reset just yet, as the EU guilds still have today to down him and make everyone sad to see another 1-reset race.

Serenity have been at Gul'dan for over a day and were the only guild to see the Mythic fight for around 14 hours. It was Exorsus that joined them after getting that pesky Elisande down yesterday in the early afternoon, proving once again that they are very much in the very top of the top raiding community, after that misjudgement on Helya during the last race. Now, it may seem that Serenity has this race locked up, as they've gotten the last three World Firsts on the three toughest bosses in the raid so far, but Exorsus' kill of Elisande was actually faster than Serenity's - by only 40 or so minutes. Both guilds took just over 2 days to down the Grand Magistrix after having gotten Star Augur: 2 days, 4 hours, 10 minutes for Serenity and 2 days, 3 hours, 38 minutes for Exorsus. Now, obviously we don't know how exactly much each guild was actually raiding during that time, but it still shows that they're are very close, skill-wise.

The perhaps more unexpected news is that no other guild has reached 9/10, with only From Scratch moving away from the huge 7/10 group by downing Star Augur in the evening, getting that 8/10 and joining Method . But when you take a look at the exact kill timings, things get less unexpected, as Method only killed the Augur around a day and a half ago, so if they take the same amount of time as the top two guilds did, they should be downing Elisande in around 12 hours. And speaking of the 7/10ers, that group is now 28 guilds strong, as they enjoy the nice planet sky-boxes in Star Augur's planetarium.

Serenity after their first few attempts on Mythic Gul'dan (image courtesy of Sloot)

The big question now is Gul'dan. As with any raid, it's always the endboss that everyone's interested in, the rest are just obstacles in the way. As everyone's second least favorite Orc (screw you Garrosh, you're still at the top of my list!) wasn't tested at all on the PTR on this difficulty and actually has a secret Mythic phase, he is going to determine the fate of this race. The fact no one has seen the phase before and that it hasn't been tested by players at all could lead to it being extremely hard, or even impossible before nerfs/fixes, or significant amounts of extra gear, as it seems unlikely Blizzard wanted the race featuring 10 bosses to end in week 1. This would mean that other guilds would have a chance to catch up to Serenity, and at least have a shot at getting the World First. Serenity would always keep their advantage, as they have the most time on Gul'dan and are gathering invaluable information on every pull, but that advantage would shrink, allowing for a bit of a more interesting race. The current speculation on the Mythic only phase is that Illidan shows up in the fight, possibly possessed by Sargeras, and will add his considerable talents to the fire-engulfed Gul'dan. Possibly he'll also incessantly ask the raiders "I've sacrificed everything, what have you given?" until they give up.

In any case, today is going to be a particularly exciting day, as we wait with baited breath to see if Gul'dan dies and if Method catch up to the top two and get to see the final boss before the end of the reset. As always, you can follow the progress race live over at Method.gg.___________________________________________________________________

Boy, what a day. After the drama over Fusion we now have some good news as well! Serenity are almost done with the raid as they grab another World First (their third in a row) and down Grand Magistrix Elisande, leaving them only Gul'dan to go!

Here's the killshot:

Thanks again to Method.gg for the constant updates!

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Update: Fusion have released their video of the kill, including the part that got them banned. It wasn't hearthstone related it seems, but a Monk used an ability to accomplish the same thing, aka get rid of the P3 add. There was/is another bug, involving hearthstone to do that, but apparently that was being used (for a short time) by another guild (who didn't get the kill and stopped using it), hence the small confusion.

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Well, I guess we have to skip the usual summary and go for the headlines this time:

The drama is accumulating again, as we have another ban in the top-end raiding community, after the three from Trial Of Valor/Helya. Russian guild Fusion surprised everyone earlier today as they were the first to follow Serenity and Exorsus to Elisande, and got a World third kill on Star Augur Etraeus, just 15 minutes before Method.

As it turns out, that World third wasn't going to last long. Fusion was banned for exploiting some hearthstone shenaningans (better not to go into too much detail there, suffice it to say it made the encounter much easier), and while we don't know for how long exactly, some rumors say until February 8th, which means they're pretty much out of the race.

The other big news was, as we already mentioned, that Method have indeed joined Serenity and Exorsus on top, so we now have the three favorites battling it out for first access to Gul'dan. There are also 22 guilds just behind those three, on 7/10,  trying hard to down Star Augur, hopefully without resorting to dirty tricks like this.

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Day 5, for once, followed the usual trend of longer races and remained extremely uneventful, at least in the big picture. What did come as a surprise is that only Exorsus caught up to Serenity at 8/10, with Method, From Scratch and others being unable to down Star Augur, putting themselves a full day and a half behind Serenity, and now possibly a day behind Exorsus as well.

The rest of the day was just a LOT of guilds piling up on 7/10, clearing whichever of Botanist or Tichondrius they were missing and slamming into that Star Augur brick wall. A full 20 guilds now stand in the second group of the race, looking up at Serenity and Exorsus, and while it's still the guys that got to the Augur first that are expected to also down him first, it's becoming more and more of a fee-for-all as to who gets to join the top group and see the Grand Magistrix.

Openness, Fusion, FatSharkYes, NollTvåTre, Impact, Nova and Embody joined the seven bosses down crew, and there are four more applicants waiting on 6/10: Honestly, Alacrity, Sidestep and possibly the loudest guild in the race WHATEVER WERE AWESOME.

The final two bosses of a raid always defined them, with the very last boss obviously being the ultimate benchmark (with some notable recent exceptions, aka Xavius), so Elisande staying alive today was pretty good news and hopefully a good indicator of the final difficulty Nighthold will end up with. Blizzard have done a pretty good job at escalating difficulty so far, with Spellblade Aluriel being the first bump (to the point that Blizzard made her skippable), then the four after her being on a relatively same level, and then Star Augur really ramping it up as we neared the end. If Elisande manages to at least double Etraeus' lifespan that would be a very good ramp up and a very well executed balance curve for both the very top raiders, with Augur and beyond being for them; the middle tier raiders, with Aluriel onward; and for the casual (as casual as you can be while raiding Mythic, anyway) raiders, with the first three bosses assigned to them.

In the end it's only Gul'dan that matters, of course, but with his special and unknown Mythic-only phase, he might go either way, as hidden/Mythic phases in the past  have been very hit or miss, due to the lack of testing on PTR. Sunday and day 6 is upon us now, so let's hope for more 8/10s! The more competition the merrier the progress.

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Fridays are usually pretty action packed in the first week of a progress raid, but most of the day went by almost completely uneventfully. But it turns out Serenity were just waiting for prime-time to snag yet another World First.

But let's start at the beginning, again. AFK R continued their domination of the Asian scene as they have taken all Asia firsts so far, and they added Tichondrius and High Botanist Tel'arn to that list, ending the day in overall 8th place. Blizzard also finally confirmed that Aluriel WAS changed to be skippable at some point, but don't specify when, so I'll just assume it was on day 2 of the race, when guilds started doing it:

This was an intentional change - you can now fight Tichondrius, Botanist, and Krosus before defeating Aluriel. https://t.co/l2MMAZ9HmJ

— WarcraftDevs (@WarcraftDevs) January 27, 2017

A couple of High Botanist Tel'arn kill video releases followed, unfortunately none of them from WF holder Serenity. Limit's is the next highest kill on the boss so check out their video below, or you can take a look at Method's or From Scratches.

But you're here to hear about World Firsts, so back to Serenity it is. It seems yesterday's 2-ish hour setback and ensuing drama didn't dampen their spirits as they managed to conquer Star Augur Etraeus at 21:39 CET, jumping to 8/10 and what turned out to be a pretty big lead, as no guilds have yet followed them through past the astronomer. Serenity are now the only guild with access to Grand Magistrix Elisande (who, incidentally, should have been the final boss of the raid. I mean seriously, first Garrosh hijacks Pandaria's storyline as the final boss of the expansion, and now Gul'dan ninjas the Suramar-elf theme?).

Other guilds eventually started catching up with the now rapidly growing 7/10 group, as it balooned to being 14 strong, including (in order) Limit, Exorsus, Method, From Scratch, Pieces, Entropy, AFK R, Prestige Gaming, Danish Terrace, ScrubBusters, set sail for fail, Midwinter, SNF and Easy. While any of them have a chance to be the first to join Serenity on top and get a shot at Elisande, the most likely to seem to be Method, Exorsus, Limit, From Scratch and AFK R. So let's see who charges through to potentially give Serenity a run for their money today and don't forget to check out Method.gg's live coverage of the race, as today should be quite an exciting Saturday.

 

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Well, crap. Day 3 was supposed to be Asia day, relatively uneventful, as the Asia guilds started their first foray into the Mythic Nighthold and caught up to everyone else. But it wasn't to be. The big event of the day was a big piece of drama between old rivals/nemeses Serenity and Method. Now, there are many stories going around about what actually happened, so let's just start with the facts.

Around 1 P.M. CET Serenity found they were unable to enter their raid, getting kicked out after 1 minute as if it wasn't their ID. This lasted for 2-3 hours. What happened was someone had offered a Serenity raider free flasks to help out with their progress, and after being invited to a group with said raider, the culprit proceeded to enter the Nighthold and lock out the entire guild. But what does Method have to do with this?

Sad this is what things have resorted too, locked out of our instance for 2 hours because a salty person held the id hostage and hid inside

— Sloot (@Slootbag) January 26, 2017

Well. The central drama appeared some time later, as this screenshot of an internal discussion within Method was leaked (apparently by Treckie, a former Method raider who got the image from a third party):

As you can imagine, shit hit the fan pretty heavily after that, with many discussions over whether it was real, fake or what it actually meant. While some thought (and still think) that Method were actually behind the incident, as in organized it, it seemed pretty clear that, if anything, it was a single member's doing. Once the screenshot was released, Method kicked Jadelolz (who had previously been in Serenity, was kicked, and had some bad blood with GM Kuznam) out of the guild with Sco tweeting this:

If this was jadelolz that griefed another guild then he did so without our blessing. Removed from guild until we know more after progress.

— Sco (@Methodsco) January 26, 2017

 

Not sure why he would take it upon himself to do it, nor why he is like "got them boys!!" when no one in our raid team wanted this.

— Sco (@Methodsco) January 26, 2017

This is where the facts end and theories begin, as there is a lot of info floating about all of this out there, but none of it is confirmable. So let's go one by one.

Theory 1: The Lone Gunman
Jadelolz was behind it all, he sabotaged Serenity's lockout and bragged about it on Method's Slack (a team communication platform). Method leadership was confused and told him to stop, as this was very much not what they wanted.

Theory 2: The Mega Conspiracy
Same as 1, except it was a concerted effort by Method to lock Serenity out of their ID. This would include multiple coverups and constant lying on social media by many, many people. It's the most far-fetched and seems pretty much impossible due to the huge PR hit Method took, and the fact that 2-3 hours is simply not a significant enough advantage to risk it over.

Theory 3: The One-armed Man
Jadelolz wasn't the one that did the deed, but it was a friend/acquaintance of his. He just got sent the screenshot and shared it on the Method Slack and poorly chose his words while celebrating. There's an interview over at Raider's Tavern with someone claiming to be the culprit of it all and explaining his motives, but there's no proof offered that he is, in fact, said person. The story goes that this Isabellab, who was never a member of Serenity nor Method, decided to "even the playing field" after Method had some server lag issues by blocking Serenity from the ID for a "fair" amount of time. After 2-3 hours inside, a GM ported the character out of Nighthold and the account later got banned for 24 hours.

As you'd expect there was even more to it, with people taking images that were purposefully faked to show how easy faking an image of a chat is, as proof that Method were behind it and similar shenanigans, but that's about the whole story. If you want to find out even more (if that's even possible at this point) you can check out the reddit thread dedicated to the topic.
As for us, let's get back to the actual race, shall we?
 

The first day of Asia server progress wasn't that eventful, with Korean guild AFK R starting strongly and finishing it up at 5/10, taking all 5 Asia first kills. Chinese guilds Style War and Alpha followed closely behind, both ending the day at 4/10, with the former downing Aluriel, while the latter skipped her and went for Krosus. Also, as the Chinese New Year is today, we won't be seeing most of the Chinese guilds around for a few days.

Back in the West Method caught up to the top 3 on 7/10, as expected, followed by From Scratch. Pieces was the next to join the, now 6 strong top group with 7 boss kills, showing off some serious dedication and bringing their guild to the very top of the competition. OC guild Entropy also very recently joined the 7/10 club,grabbing the US/OC second on Botanist along the way. Midwinter follow the top group on 6/10, with 10 guilds on 5/10, 14 on 4/10, 167 on 3/10, only 37 on 2/10 and 84 with only Skorpyron down.

We also saw the release of the first two boss World First kill videos, which you can check out in the image above, and Limit's WF Tichondrius:

So, no new World First today, but plenty of drama, catching up and finding out that Spellblade Aluriel is actually skippable. We now have seven guilds at the very top, on Star Augur Etraeus, who has proven to be at least somewhat of a challenge for these insanely hardcore guilds, which bodes well for the rest of Nighthold, and Gul'dan in particular. As usual, the facts were taken from Method.gg's progress coverage and you should check them out if you want more details and live coverage. We'll see you in the next update!

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Day 2 has finished and brought the dead boss tally up to 7. The EU part of the race started today and played out quite similarly to the US counterpart, with Serenity starting slow and going for Heroic splits first, just as Limit did in the US, leaving the first few bosses to others, only to come back later, clean house and ultimately head into the lead on 7/10.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Exorsus, Pieces and From Scratch went into mythic Nighthold extremely early, downing Skorpyron within 20ish minutes of the instance reset and all three took down the first three bosses as the...well, top 3. Way too many threes there. Spellblade Aluriel, the first even remotely challenging test of the raid didn't hold up for long either, as Exorsus and From Scratch just kept on clearing, joined by Method in the No.3 slot.

After Aluriel, things got a little more complicated, as the field was open as to which boss could be next. Krosus emerged as the easiest target, and saw Serenity get back from their Heroic splits to get in-between Exorsus and From Scratch in the No.2 slot, all three closely followed by Method and Pieces. This is where it became obvious that Serenity had made the right choice to do the splits before heading to Mythic, as they immediately pulled away from the pack and cleaned Tichondrius' clock under 2 hours after downing Krosus. Exorsus caught up and got the World 3rd, EU 2nd on Tichondrius, but Serenity weren't stopping, as they went on to get the World First on High Botanist Tel'arn, but it did take them almost 4 hours to do so (which, incidentally, is the same amount of time it took them to down the first 4 bosses combined, with the first 3 taking 25 minutes).

Serenity were sitting pretty at 7/10 bosses down, the only ones to have done so for quite a while (4 hours, in fact) before anyone came a knockin, and the one who knocks was Limit, who were back after their break, getting the World 2nd and US 1st on the Botanist. It would soon be three guilds in that top 7/10 group, as Exorsus joined them a while later, but everyone else seemed to be stuck behind Tichondrius, as From Scratch, Method and Midwinter have stayed on 5/10, perhaps taking it a little more easily. The Asia servers also came up very recently, and Koren guild AFK R took the first three bosses ahead of the many Chinese guilds chasing them very closely.

There were also some lag issues on EU servers for almost all the top guilds, making the day  frustrating to progress on, so let's hope for a cleaner day 3 and that at least Elisande and Gul'dan make it to the next reset, with High Augur Etraeus being our next best hope of stemming this crazy top guild onslaught!

All the information was taken from Method's race coverage, and if you want to follow it live, check out their progress page, or for a quick overview just hover over the icons in the image below, as it updates automatically.

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Update Jan 25, 18:45 - Just a short addition here before the Day 2 recap later, EU guilds have caught up to the US, with Serenity taking the same route as Limit - doing Heroics first, which paid off, as they are the only EU guild currently at 6/10. And it only took them 4 hours to clear! Exorsus, From Scratch and Method are right behind on 5/10, having waited to clear 5 in Mythic before going Heroics.
It's on now!

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It's been quite a first day for the Mythic Nighthold progress race, as the US and OC guilds make the most of their head-start, downing 6 out of the 10 available bosses in the raid. Limit turned out to be the massive front-runner in the end, after a slow start of doing Heroic split-clears for some more gear.

The first three bosses, Skorpyron, Chronomatic Anomaly and Trilliax died within an hour of instances resetting, with some of them even taking only 1 wipe for a few guilds. SNF ended up grabbing the first kills on those three, but then stopped as they hit the wall that is Spellblade Aluriel. She held off two other guilds that caught up to SNF a little later as well, Easy and Midwinter, but when Limit came back from their Heroic adventures she let them in with a warm welcome.

After taking 2 hours to down Aluriel, Limit continued to run through Nighthold unchecked, downing Krosus an hour and a half later and then needing a little over 3 hours for Tichondrius. Midwinter joined the 4/10 Aluriel dead club very soon after Tichondrius died.

87 guilds downed Skorpyron on the first day, with 18 taking down Chronomatic Anomaly, 14 getting Trilliax and 2 Spellblade Aluriel, with only Limit getting the next two.

So that's the status before EU guilds start in a short while, with Limit being the top US (and World) guild. EU guilds are expected to clear to 6/10 pretty quickly (just as soon as they are done with their many, many Heroic split raids, that is) and then we'll see how tough the next four bosses are.

You can follow the race live over at Method.gg or just check back here for the short version, as the image below will be updated as kills come in. We'll also be doing new posts as the race progresses and adding the links to them at the top.

[csnv2810 1]

I hope Gul'Dan takes more than 1 day of progress, this is sad to see 6/10 MM in just a day ;(.

[Rudy199 8]

Very, very dissapointing =[

[Stan 5,240]

Nice to see Limit ahead, let's see what's Europe up to.

[MrEdren 114]

Is Limit actually playing by the rules this time?

[Feldsomethin 2]

Interesting that Method isn't anywhere on this list.  I would have thought that they would be pushing into the mix for world's first.

[Orthios 271]

5 minutes ago, Feldsomethin said:

Interesting that Method isn't anywhere on this list.  I would have thought that they would be pushing into the mix for world's first.

Method is an EU guild.  They didn't get the instance unlocked until today.

[Rudy199 8]

2 hours ago, Feldsomethin said:

Interesting that Method isn't anywhere on this list.  I would have thought that they would be pushing into the mix for world's first.

Wait a little, there will be probably a video on youtube after 1 day Method vs Gul'dan Mythic :D

[dreamshard 0]

Quote

does blizzard not realize by showing this as a race they are accepting and condoning that what they created is a joke and is easily beatable? I miss everyone goin months without beating raid this jus shows you how blizzard is digressing and getting lazy

 

[Themis 1]

2 hours ago, dreamshard said:

 

I really hope they dont tune the game based on a few guilds that have raiders that can afford to take off weeks from work or school to make this type of pushes. Don't think just because they can get this bosses down quick that it is easy and anyone can do it. They have weeks of preparation and coordination to set up split runs and get committed players to learn fights and strats before this Raid even opened.  I dont think that blizzard is lazy I just think that the game's top players have been doing this for a while now and they know how to crank it during Raid progression weeks. And dont forget this is only a few guild that have killed 4/10 the % is like .01 or something.  

Edited January 25, 2017 by Themis

[Starym 3,800]

1 hour ago, Themis said:

I really hope they dont tune the game based on a few guilds that have raiders that can afford to take off weeks from work or school to make this type of pushes. Don't think just because they can get this bosses down quick that it is easy and anyone can do it. They have weeks of preparation and coordination to set up split runs and get committed players to learn fights and strats before this Raid even opened.  I dont think that blizzard is lazy I just think that the game's top players have been doing this for a while now and they know how to crank it during Raid progression weeks. And dont forget this is only a few guild that have killed 4/10 the % is like .01 or something.  

There's a way to do that and make both happy. The early bosses (1-3) are clearly extremely easy, which will be moderately hard for normal guilds. But after that you can easily make the rest somewhat challenging for the top and then slowly nerf it week after week so other can have a shot at killing it too. I mean it took serenity 4 hours to get 6 bosses, that is not ok on any level regardless of how pro they are, your claim of them taking off work is meaningless when they could have done it in an afternoon with full time jobs too.
 

What I mean is there is a middle ground where both top players and normal ones are challenged and blizzard isn't really doing that. But if Elisande and Gul'dan are a significant challenge (aka live through 1 or 2 resets) that's a good enough balance imo.

[Themis 1]

42 minutes ago, Starym said:

There's a way to do that and make both happy. The early bosses (1-3) are clearly extremely easy, which will be moderately hard for normal guilds. But after that you can easily make the rest somewhat challenging for the top and then slowly nerf it week after week so other can have a shot at killing it too. I mean it took serenity 4 hours to get 6 bosses, that is not ok on any level regardless of how pro they are, your claim of them taking off work is meaningless when they could have done it in an afternoon with full time jobs too.
 

What I mean is there is a middle ground where both top players and normal ones are challenged and blizzard isn't really doing that. But if Elisande and Gul'dan are a significant challenge (aka live through 1 or 2 resets) that's a good enough balance imo.

I think my claim is true if you look how many hours they put in last week and how many more hours they will be putting in over this week. I think your idea is good but it wouldn't be fair for the "normal" guilds to have a difference experience just because they can't afford the time to put into it.  I just dont see as a good thing tunning fights for the top 10 guilds. Some servers will still take a few weeks to get those kills. 

[Starym 3,800]

1 hour ago, Themis said:

I think my claim is true if you look how many hours they put in last week and how many more hours they will be putting in over this week. I think your idea is good but it wouldn't be fair for the "normal" guilds to have a difference experience just because they can't afford the time to put into it.  I just dont see as a good thing tunning fights for the top 10 guilds. Some servers will still take a few weeks to get those kills. 

I mean the optimal solution is a separate tournament server like they do for PvP, so they can tune away there (and perhaps open the raid a week early there so they get mythic testing as well basically), but Blizz refuse to do that for some bizzare reason.

[Themis 1]

18 hours ago, Starym said:

I mean the optimal solution is a separate tournament server like they do for PvP, so they can tune away there (and perhaps open the raid a week early there so they get mythic testing as well basically), but Blizz refuse to do that for some bizzare reason.

Now that is a great idea, that would really be the best way to do it. Where do I sing up for that? With some awesome coverage could be really cool. 

[Starym 3,800]

25 minutes ago, Themis said:

Now that is a great idea, that would really be the best way to do it. Where do I sing up for that? With some awesome coverage could be really cool. 

The top guilds and guys covering the race (aka me) have been talking about it for years. Not sure what the problem is though, it doesn't seem like a hard or expensive thing to do - the only issue is WHEN to make it start because whatever time of day you choose one or more regions will be at a disadvantage.

[Themis 1]

6 hours ago, Starym said:

The top guilds and guys covering the race (aka me) have been talking about it for years. Not sure what the problem is though, it doesn't seem like a hard or expensive thing to do - the only issue is WHEN to make it start because whatever time of day you choose one or more regions will be at a disadvantage.

Maybe a fix could be to base the world first on the time to the kill instead of the time of the kill. So they would be awarded based on how long it took them to get the kills from the first pull. You could have a certain time that all guilds would have to start their raid by and once they do the first pull its on the clock starts ticking. In the end of the race whoever beat the timer gets the kill. It would be a lil different then we are used but i think it could work. 

Edited January 27, 2017 by Themis

[Niyol 0]

Now this is just sad. As a casual raider I am supposed to look up to the guilds participating in the race for World / Region Firsts as it's a huge accomplishment. But all this drama, whether it's locking a guild out of their ID or exploiting game mechanics on certain bosses, just ruins it for me. Not only does it make the involved guilds look bad, it makes the whole progress race look bad.

[Starym 3,800]

I forgot to update this when I posted the day 3 update earlier today :( Sorry.

[Starym 3,800]

10 minutes ago, Niyol said:

Now this is just sad. As a casual raider I am supposed to look up to the guilds participating in the race for World / Region Firsts as it's a huge accomplishment. But all this drama, whether it's locking a guild out of their ID or exploiting game mechanics on certain bosses, just ruins it for me. Not only does it make the involved guilds look bad, it makes the whole progress race look bad.

That's true, but in this specific case, it seems pretty likely it was just one person responsible (whether it was Jadelolz or the other guy), and you can't really control that, ever. Especially in online gaming where there's a higher concentration of....shall we say "less than mature" people. I agree with you on the exploit argument, though.