wow Eternal Palace Race Day 4: Za'qul (Almost) Going Down

[Starym 3,800]

 

Another big day in the race as a couple of guilds caught up to the very top, and plenty caught up on the earlier bosses, but the headline is Za'qul (very, very barely) lives! We've had some major progress on the penultimate boss of the raid, with Limit getting so close to the kill they could taste it.

The day started pretty standard for a Friday, with very slow going on progress for Za'qul and Method slowly learning the fight and what strats and comps to use, not really getting too far ahead of the previous day (36%) in regards to actual boss hp. Meanwhile we had a lot of guilds with a lot of catching up to do, with only Method and Limit having gotten past Orgozoa and Queen's Court.

This time Pieces did come through on their reputation and were the first non Method/Limit guild to break through that 5/8 barrier and downed Orgozoa World 3rd, EU 2nd. The next kill on the jellyfish was both expected and unexpected, as Aversion once again followed Pieces with only an hour and a half delay and grabbed the 4th kill, very impressively. That 5/8 very suddenly went from 0 to 3 guilds, as Ji Tian Hong grabbed that Asia 1st and World 5th, showing the power of the Asia server guilds once they caught up to their massive 2 day disadvantage.

We then had an interesting development in Limit's Za'qul progress, not necessarily in terms of how far along they got, as they were only 1.2% better than the previous day's best, but their GM and raid leader Max benched himself. Max continued raid leading from the bench, watching the new tank Darkee's PoV and calling all the shots, coach-style, basically becoming the 21st raider. Check out the video of this best try at the time with the very interesting dynamic of Max's raid leading:

Pieces were the next to make waves as they took 6 hours on Queen's Court to down her, finally joining Method and Limit on 6/8 and grabbing that World 3rd, EU 2nd on another boss. We then had a visit from best name ever contenders FatSharkYes as they moved to 5/8 and got the Orgozoa World 6th and EU 4th, followed by AFK R on 8/Asia 2nd and Club Camel on 9/US/OC 2nd!

Around 2:30 AM CEST it was looking like Limit had gotten both their strat and composition down and were comfortable with the execution part as well, as they moved the boss down a pretty big chunk from their previous best try, landing on 20%. The next 3.5 or so hours were filled with constant progression and lower boss hp, from 12% to 8, etc, with it all culminating in a 1.3% pull at 6AM:

This try was amazingly close and you can see the frustration on Max's face, but this made Limit determined to get the kill before they went to sleep, which they usually do around 8-9AM CEST. The next 2 hours went by with several sub-10% tries, with a 6% one being the closest, at least until the next HUGE disappointment. At 7:50AM Limit managed ti beat their previous best, which you'd think would mean they killed it, but no, they got the boss down to 0.9% before wiping.! They also reached around 170 pulls compared to Method's 106 and compared to Limit's Lady Ashvane at around 80. Unfortunately, all their post 0.9% effort was for naught as they didn't manage to get that kill by 9AM when they finally decided it wasn't worth pushing any further and went to sleep. Method will start raiding soon and pushing onward from the 27% best that they stopped at before bed. Whether Limit's new tries will give an advantage to Method in the form of using the same comp and strategy remains to be seen, as it all depends on which classes and specs are properly geared and whether a guild can even execute the other's strats properly depending on that. And just before we finish, let's take a look at the last few minutes of that heartbreaking 0.9%/2 Million HP try:

Limit are actually still going at it, so if you're interested definitely visit Max's stream and get into the crazyness live! In case they do get before they go sleep, we'll make a new post, as Za'qul deserves it (not to mention our first peek at Mythic Azshara)!

All in all, it was an incredibly exciting day (or, more specifically, night) as progress on Za'qul was truly great, with it going down very quickly at first, then a little slower towards the 30% mark, and finally being stuck in the 20-30% range as many, many strategies were tried out, only to finally become very killable once Limit found their winning strat. Whether Method can push forward while Limit sleep, as Limit did when Method slept remains to be seen, or more specifically, can they actually go that 1 very small step further and actually get the kill. The race is really heating up and the top two guilds are incredibly close to both each other and the kill, with Queen Azshara awaiting them beyond the 7/8 barrier.

• Method progress page
• Red Bull event stream
• Method stream event

[Starym 3,800]

It seems it was actually a 0.8% pull, not that it's hugely relevant.