wow Sepulcher of the First Ones Mythic RWF Summary, Day 17: A Nerf, 20% and a Mythic Phase Conundrum

[Starym 3,800]

 

It was once again all Jailer all the time, but this time it was actually permanent phase 3, after a little bit of nerf magic coming from Blizzard. We saw two different approaches to the boss from Echo and Liquid, both of whom held the lead at one point in the day!

Echo caught up quickly today, and then pushed it into high gear as they took over the lead in the early evening, coming in at 33%. The main issue on the Jailer remained Azeroth's health and how and when to link the azerite puddles back to the globe, but as the guilds got deeper and deeper into phase 3, a new adversary arrived. Defile had made its return from the Lich King fight, as it would spread across the whole room if it was touched and then on top of that we had yet another mechanic when you link the pools, as corruption flies out of Azeroth, bullet-hell style:

Despite all that the guilds were doing solid, if slow progress, but then came Blizzard and made one of the best adjustments I've ever seen on an endboss. Sure it was actually a decent nerf, but the way it improved both the fight and the race was huge.

Jailer Nerf (Source)

• Sepulcher of the First Ones
  • The Jailer
    • Reduced the number of missiles fired by Desolation in Mythic difficult from 20 to 17.
    • Fixed an issue that would occasionally cause Chains of Anguish to pull players who had already broken their chains.

We're talking about the first one in the hotfixes, as the soak that was required at the start of phase 3 used to demand ALL players be alive and Azeroth to be topped up, which basically meant perfect play in phase 1 and 2. What that translated to is most pulls not arriving at any useful point in phase 3, as the wipes would arrive at the soak at the start of the phase. With the change, the fight isn't that much easier, as the guilds will almost certainly have all 20 alive at that point when the kill comes, but what it did do is accelerate the learning process by giving the guilds MUCH faster and more frequent access to phase 3. This is exactly the kind of nerf that is needed on a fight like this, as it helps the viewers out immensely, as they get to see new stuff and better pulls more frequently, and it reduces player frustration as they don't have to be absolutely perfect every single pull (just nearly perfect on most of the pulls - easy!) I can't really say enough good things about this style of nerf so I'll just stop typing willingly instead.

Echo pushed hard after the nerf came and got the boss pretty low, ending their day with a 26.01% best:

Speaking of Echo's day, they called it quits a bit early, as they're readying up for today to be the very last day and will most likely be starting early (or have already started by the time you're reading this).

Meanwhile, Liquid had a different approach for much of the day, as they did not get lower and lower percentages, instead opting to skip DPS in order to have more consistent and faster access to phase 3. They did this by simply not destroying the pillars and allowing them to get to Azeroth, which then triggers phase 3. They lose a LOT of DPS opportunity this way, as they skip about a minute of phase 2 they could do damage in, but they get a lot more P3 action. They did this for a fair number of hours and got to see a lot, after which they went back to their original strategy and started doing regular pulls. They soon eclipsed Echo's best and kept on pushing, and at the end of the day we managed to find out that there was no Mythic only phase... at least not at 20%:

It's highly questionable if there even will be a Mythic only phase, despite some spells having been datamined that haven't shown up in the fight yet, as the encounter is already VERY hard and comes at the end of a VERY hard and long raid, which has now lasted for 17 days! The raiders are exhausted and are really hoping today is the final day, but if there is another phase... that's just not going to happen. It may all go down today, and if it's looking like it won't we may see another nerf come in, as Blizzard probably also don't want this dragged out too much. Personally I hope the fight remains as is, but if there indeed is another phase or new mechanic... it may have already been removed before anyone had a chance to see it. If that turns out to be the case it'll be a huge shame, as the fight in this form, WITH an extra phase would have been perfectly acceptable if this was last Friday instead. And so it is possible that a damn CRAB costs us a cool Mythic phase or extra mechanics on this already pretty solid boss.

What do we think - does The Jailer have a Mythic only phase?#rwf #warcraft

— Raider.IO ? (@RaiderIO_WoW) March 25, 2022

Also, Liquid's transportation is still Hummer-limo, despite apparently being their cheapest option to go from their venue to their hotel. It's good to be a World First raider!

This was only a good thing. Boss def dies tomorrow with this shit blasting riding in. @LiquidGuild pic.twitter.com/3o9yHEG5uE

— Veyloris (@Veyloris) March 25, 2022

The race for 3rd got a lot more heated today as well, and while the results may be somewhat expected, it was incredibly close there for a long time. All 3 guilds fighting it out were under 10% at the same time, with Method even getting to 3% on the boss just before SK Pieces did another ENOUGH! move and actually downed Rygelon World 3rd. Method caught up quickly after that and Skyline had to wait for this morning to catch up. We now have 5 guilds on the Jailer, and that bronze race is going to heat up even more on the final boss.

Whether or not today is the Jailer's death day, it's going to be a VERY exciting one, as both top guilds will be going all out, expecting a kill (which I very much hope to be awake for), so make sure to follow along live over at Raider.IO's progress coverage page!

[Migol 433]

Well, seeing as how it'll probably be a long (possibly VERY long) time before we see a new expansion and another race to first, it's good that this one is going the distance and as of yet mostly controversy free.