wow Eternal Palace Race Day 6: Method Catches Up, Azshara on 52%, Za'qul Comps

[Starym 3,800]

 

While day 5 was a bit of a non-event, with Limit progressing on Queen Azshara and Method doing Heroic splits the entire day, 6 was significantly more exciting. We had Method catch up to the top late in the day, a whole bunch of guilds down the Queen's Council, as well as Limit push the final boss down 52%.

As Day 6 started, a lot of people expected Method to plow through Za'qul with their newly improved item levels from doing a whole day of Heroic splits, and the expectation almost turned out to be true, as we had a very low % try a few hours after raid start, with Za'qul surviving on 2.1%. Similarly to what happened to Limit however, it took another 8 hours and a number of sub-2% wipes to down the penultimate boss.

Timestamp for mobile: 1:25:06

Method took 167 pulls to down the penultimate boss and access the Queen, while Limit needed 185 - but don't forget pulls don't necessarily indicate the real time spent on the boss, however it was all pretty close anyway. Also, speaking of heartbreaking pulls, day 5 brought us the second-worst possible wipe you could imagine, as FatSharkYes were just about to down Orgozoa and failed an entire 0.2% before the end. Press F indeed.

We now have the two top guilds finally progressing on Queen Azshara, with Limit at a significant advantage, and almost half way through the fight (at least in terms of HP specifically, this isn't the half way mark for progress on the Queen at all), so things are very much heating up. Let's take a look a their individual raid compositions on the kill:

We can see the big difference being Shadow Priests, as Method went much heavier on those. Limit relied a little bit more on Mages, Warlocks and Warriors (especially with Fire Mages as they were one of the few guilds to gear them up early, in preparation for the raid, as the spec wasn't considered particularly strong for the Palace), while Method went with one additional Rogue.

At the end of Method's raid day (which was significantly extended) we wound up with them on 75% vs. Limit's 52%. It also seems that either Twitch is having some very specific issues with all of Limit and Red Bull's VoDs, or the guild has decided to remove them so Method can't check their strategies.

We also have 11 guilds on 6/8 and going at the Harbinger of Ny'alotha, with Pieces and JTH at 10%, Aversion trailing on 19%, FatSharkYes 20%, Exorsus 38% and Alpha at 60%. AFK R, Practice, Halcyon, ScrubBusters and Club Camel are also going at Za'qul, but we don't have the exact numbers for them.

Tune in to either Method or Red Bull's streams, or check in on Method's raid progress page to follow the race live.

[Ragingwolf 310]

Am I reading this correctly?  Both teams down this boss with just 1 Tank ea?  If so rather impressive.

[Migol 433]

One -Monk- tank.    I sense nerfs next patch

[Seksi 208]

Uhm..the "second-tank" requiring mechanic of the fight is not as harsh as usual, neither are the spawned adds:

 

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3.1.3. Mind Tether

 Mind Tether is an ability that concerns the tanks. At the start of the fight, as well as the start of Phases Two and Four, the boss will "link" his current target to the player closest to them, causing them to each reflect (copy) 50% of the damage they take to the other player as Shadow damage.

If the two tethered players are farther than 12 yards apart, the amount of reflected damage is increased.

If there is no player in the same realm as the tank when this is cast (so, if the ability cannot link the current tank to anyone else), then the tank is stunned by  Snapped for 10 seconds.

 

 

So, rather than the usual tank debuff that makes solo tanking impossible, you can easily solo tank as long as you have a high-survivability DPS nearby sharing this debuff. Not entirely sure on the specifics of how guilds are bypassing that yet but its probably not that huge of a big deal compared to just having your main tank get debuffed and blown up ?