wow Sanctum of Domination Mythic Race: A VERY Eventful Day 3

[Starym 3,800]

 

Day 3 is behind us, as things may look the same as usual looking at it at the end, with the two top guilds tied up and two more bosses having fallen, but oh boy was it an intense and VERY significant one.

Once again the whole day was about the Painsmith, but in two very different ways. Complexity-Limit finished up their previous day at around 20% of the boss and then it was time for the EU guilds to get their turn, and they really, really did. Echo, perhaps surprisingly, did not choose to do Heroic splits (but did do some Normals for socketed gear) and then went at the Painsmith, disregarding the entire previous day of Limit's attempts/struggles and just going their own way. This was a pretty good decision as it turned out, since they ended the day taking some pretty big, perhaps decisive advantages.

While it may have taken them almost their entire raid day, Echo did get the Painsmith down in the end, scoring their first World First of the raid, moving into the lead with 6/10 and gaining access to two more bosses!

Meanwhile, Complexity-Limit dived right into their Heroic splits when they started raiding for the day, and didn't finish until after Echo were completely done with their day. The now leaders had a bit more time on their hands and went for the Guardian of the First ones, who turned out to be more of a giant loot pinata than a boss, especially after the Painsmith nightmare. It took Echo 2 and a half hours and 24 pulls to take the Guaridan down, just in time for their sleep... time. However, they also sneakily decided to pull the next boss, Fatescribe Roh-Kalo, a few times off stream before hitting the sack. 7/10, two world firsts and 0 Heroic splits spent - a pretty successful day for Echo.

And the roster and stats:

But this was just the first half of day 3, as Complexity-Limit were just coming in fresh from their Heroic splits, with a 2.5-ish item level above Echo's, and it was time for the Painsmith to die a horrible and swift death. Well, that was the plan at least. In reality it took Limit an insane 6+ hours and about 40 more pulls to get the Painsmith down, taking basically half of their raid day (and most of their calm and composure) even after getting the improved gear from the splits. A whopping 163 pulls in total on the Wall of the Sanctum, this boss was definitely Limit's nemesis, and might end up costing them the whole race!

You can truly hear the almost uneasy nerdscreams at the start, but as the realization that it was finally over came over them, they turned into more of the old-fashioned, positive and joyful screams we've all come to know and love! After an experience like this, the Guardian of the First ones was EXACTLY what the doctor ordered, as a giant loot treat is the best way to treat some painful trauma. It took Limit about an hour and a half/17 pulls to take down the Pinata of the First Ones (it really is becoming clear why the Jailer is having such an easy time in the Shadowlands when THIS is the creators' guardian...). As a side note, I'd say the Guardian is a perfectly tuned boss. This may sound strange as it is so clearly undertuned and far too easy, but I would say that it is the perfect followup to something like Painsmith Raznal. While it may be logical to have an ever-increasing difficulty ramp, it's sometimes nice to have surprises along the way, followed immediately by an easy extra reward! I really hope that this was intentional and that the Guardian is so very easy on purpose, and I'm going to trust the Blizzard raid designers that it was, because so far they've done a great job with the Sanctum IMO.

We also didn't see any Fatescribe action from Limit (and don't even know if they pulled it... but they pulled it), so that was the end of the top guilds' day - 7/10 both, tied up on top, Echo with Heroic splits left.

But it's not just those two guilds in the race and we saw a lot of movement behind them as well. First off, it seems the Asia server guilds are having a LOT of trouble with the earlier bosses, Remnant of Ner'zhul in particular, as only JiTianHong (JTH) managed to down it after 105 pulls! Two other guilds spent 15 hours pushing the boss, but only managed to get it down to 3%, so it was a very rough day for the region. Back in the West, we saw many guilds climb to 5/10 and enter the zone where pain is being smithed at a regular and unrelenting pace(™), as BDGG, Instant Dollars, Pieces, Method, Aversion and FatSharkYes all stand on the precipice of madness. It's going to be very interesting to see if it was only Complexity-Limit that had a really hard time on the boss, or if Echo just executed it perfectly, as the other guilds give us a better idea of Raznal's real difficulty (and also hopefully without nerfs). One last thing I'll say about Painy McGee - if he does avoid the nerf hammer - he may once more be a big factor in the race, as the guilds come back to him next week during the re-clear. We've seen situations where a guild has had a hard time re-clearing an early boss (like Echo in Nathria) and it cost them a lot of time, so the Painmaster General could just have his last laugh yet.

This was a particularly long entry in the summaries series, hopefully not too long, but a lot really did happen. If you want to follow along with the race live, you can check out my/Raider.IO's text coverage over here, or one of the guild streaming events here.

Also, on an entirely separate and only mildly insane topic, wouldn't it be great if a third guild just came up and passed both Echo and Limit, and took the final three World Firsts so it could make the image below totally symmetrical and awesome? Wouldn't it? What's that, it IS insane? Ok then, but you'll see. You'll ALL SEE!!!1 (Did I mention I don't really sleep well during the race?)

[Mishmish 65]

Thanks for eventful summary, nice to see you having fun with it xd

[Starym 3,800]

3 hours ago, Mishmish said:

Thanks for eventful summary, nice to see you having fun with it xd

Thanks! Yea went a little lighter this time, hopefully it's more enjoyable that way.