wow Battle of Dazar'alor M Race Day 1: Only 2 Bosses Left

[Starym 3,800]

 

Limit sit on 7/9 and only two bosses away from the end of the race, the second best guild are at 6/9 and we have the first three WF boss kill videos as well.

Update - Limit have gone 8/9 just now and have only Jaina left, while Method have caught up to 6/9.
And here's Limit's killshot:

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Well, the words "Emerald Nightmare" come to mind for some reason, as Limit have plowed through most of the bosses in the latest raid in under 11 hours. They sit on 7/9 bosses cleared, with only Stormwall Blockade and Jaina herself standing between them and the end of the race. But let's go back to the start and see how it all unfolded.

As usual the first few bosses went down extremely quickly, with the first, Champion of the Light, taking under 10 minutes to down and it was Big Dumb Guild that got the honor of the very first kill in the raid. All the guilds racing at this time were basically neck and neck, downing bosses within minutes of each other, and it was Wildcard Gaming, who you'll remember from the first Heroic Jaina kill video, that got the second boss down, as they climbed to 2/9 over Grong's corpse 25 minutes after the first boss went down.

The Jadefire Masters marked the last World First not to be grabbed by Limit's hands, as Big Dumb Guild came back one last time to claim their second WF of the race. The third boss took almost an hour to get past, so at least things were getting more difficult... or so it seemed.

Enter Limit, as they took the reins on boss 4, claiming their first WF on Opulence, the big (not so bad, apparently) treasure elemental, which took them almost 2 hours - and then proceeding to steamroll through the next three bosses in another 8.

The Conclave of the Chosen, King Rastakhan and High Tinker Mekkatorque were no match for the No.1 US guild, as they did take more and more time on each of them, but as even the second to last boss took them only 3 hours and 44 minutes, it was a little disappointing to see them not last long at all. For reference, Uldir ended day 1 of progress with only 4 bosses down out of 8 when the EU guilds got their shot at the bosses, and even day 2 ended with everyone on 4/8, with the EU guilds having caught up and the Asia guilds arriving at the same deficit as the EU had the day before.

Now, of course this isn't anything too serious, even if only the final boss ends up being tough enough, but at this rate Jaina will have to pull a next-level Kil'jaeden and last a couple of resets - which, if the rumors of her Dreadlordyness are true, might not be a problem for her at all.

Mythic High Tinker Mekkatorque World First killshot by Limit

Meanwhile, we had a lot of guilds compete for the top spots on the various bosses and they deserve mention as well, with some new faces popping up this high in the rankings. Wildcard Gaming are the current second place holders and are the only ones to have beaten King Rastakhan after Limit, with Big Dumb Guild trailing one boss and still progressing on the king, joined by Vision in the same position. We then have two very old-school guilds battling it out at 4/9, with Blood Legion and Midwinter going at it on the Conclave of the Chosen.

(Update - Big Dumb Guild have since taken down King Rastakhan and tied it up with Wildcard on 6/9. Midwinter also moved up to 5/9 and the overall 5th spot, just behind Vision.)

The entirety of the rest of the top 20 is sitting pretty at 3/9 bosses down, with Jadefire Masters (or Grong, for the Alliance) behind them. We have quite the pairs of guilds in order, starting with the funny guys - Intern Made This Boss and Instant Dollars, followed by serious single-word types Consequence and Emphasis, then followed by... well, just single-word-that-kinda-sounds-coool ones - Fused, Alacrity and Content, with the streak broken by a guild that always breaks any serious streak - WHATEVER WERE AWESOME. The rest of the top 20 doesn't really have any (even totally made up) similarities to their names so here they go: Storm, Limited Liability, vodkaz, Strawberry Puppy Kisses, Reload and Club Camel finish off the 20 highest ranking guilds at the moment, with the EU horde (that's horde without a capital letter) about to start up only a few hours from now.

It's a little bit of a shame the majority of the raid took so little time to clear, as today's streaming event tends to draw in many many viewers (not that the US guilds didn't stream, but Limit didn't and there wasn't a show to go along with it). But, as long as the final boss is in good shape and difficult enough without being either bugged or simply impossible (which is a really, REALLY hard feat with these incredibly skilled and dedicated raiders going at it full throttle, so maybe don't yell too much at the devs if they don't manage it), the raid will still be plenty interesting to watch.

And as always, thanks to the folks (and the me-s) over at Method.gg for the live race coverage!

[Frostbeard 9]

Might bee a noob question as I have not payed attention to the mythic race before, but am I missing something?

They dont unlock all the time zones at the same time? Is that why we are seeing all these US first, even though history has shown that EU guilds tend to dominate the end of the race?

 

[Skymarshal 5]

You are correct, NA releases one day before EU for instance. Meaning that NA has almost a 1 day head start.

It is the same with weekly resets.

[Frostbeard 9]

3 hours ago, Skymarshal said:

You are correct, NA releases one day before EU for instance. Meaning that NA has almost a 1 day head start.

It is the same with weekly resets.

But then its moot to track World Firsts Its not a real race if they dont start at the same time. In my opinion the metric should be how long time it takes from "content opening" to confirmed kill. This means that good players would benefit from reloacting to US servers. How can anyone think its a good idea to sponsor or put money into EU/Asian servers when its better to take the players and put them into a US server. Blizzard has a strange approach to esports..

On the other hand it puts the EU and not to mention Asian servers mythic world first as even more of an acomplishment since it is achieved with a handicap.

[Skymarshal 5]

1 hour ago, Frostbeard said:

But then its moot to track World Firsts Its not a real race if they dont start at the same time. In my opinion the metric should be how long time it takes from "content opening" to confirmed kill. This means that good players would benefit from reloacting to US servers. How can anyone think its a good idea to sponsor or put money into EU/Asian servers when its better to take the players and put them into a US server. Blizzard has a strange approach to esports..

On the other hand it puts the EU and not to mention Asian servers mythic world first as even more of an acomplishment since it is achieved with a handicap.

I totally agree, its really scuffed.

 

[Badadada 184]

2 hours ago, Frostbeard said:

But then its moot to track World Firsts Its not a real race if they dont start at the same time. In my opinion the metric should be how long time it takes from "content opening" to confirmed kill. This means that good players would benefit from reloacting to US servers. How can anyone think its a good idea to sponsor or put money into EU/Asian servers when its better to take the players and put them into a US server. Blizzard has a strange approach to esports..

On the other hand it puts the EU and not to mention Asian servers mythic world first as even more of an acomplishment since it is achieved with a handicap.

Blizzard organizes it's own WoW esport events on tournament realms. The world first race was never an official competition - albeit Blizzard supports it, GMs are always readily available to help raiding guilds, but it's only recognized by the community and fans as a prestigous race.

[Frostbeard 9]

5 hours ago, Badadada said:

Blizzard organizes it's own WoW esport events on tournament realms. The world first race was never an official competition - albeit Blizzard supports it, GMs are always readily available to help raiding guilds, but it's only recognized by the community and fans as a prestigous race.

Well. That explains it I guess.

[thurk 52]

9 hours ago, Frostbeard said:

But then its moot to track World Firsts Its not a real race if they dont start at the same time. In my opinion the metric should be how long time it takes from "content opening" to confirmed kill. This means that good players would benefit from reloacting to US servers. How can anyone think its a good idea to sponsor or put money into EU/Asian servers when its better to take the players and put them into a US server. Blizzard has a strange approach to esports..

On the other hand it puts the EU and not to mention Asian servers mythic world first as even more of an acomplishment since it is achieved with a handicap.

Often, the race takes weeks - over such a long time, the few hours' advantage the NA servers get becomes negligible.  If the kills happen so quickly that the advantage is meaningful, then the winner is less important, people don't really care as much. 

The fact that NA guilds got the first 6-7 bosses down before EU got in there means that the race, and the raid itself, is shitty.

Hopefully the last 2 will take a while.

[Starym 3,800]

26 minutes ago, thurk said:

Often, the race takes weeks - over such a long time, the few hours' advantage the NA servers get becomes negligible.  If the kills happen so quickly that the advantage is meaningful, then the winner is less important, people don't really care as much. 

The fact that NA guilds got the first 6-7 bosses down before EU got in there means that the race, and the raid itself, is shitty.

Hopefully the last 2 will take a while.

Guess you didn't see the update :d there's only Jaina left, unfortunately.