We started off yesterday by asking whether Ansurek was possible in her current form. As it turns out, Blizzard decided the answer was no. So, a big progression day on Queen Ansurek. Both top guilds showed what they were made of. We saw some catching up, nerfs, and we either got really close to a kill or basically saw that this won’t happen anytime soon, depending on who you ask.
Echo’s Turn
With a slightly slower start, Echo took about 3 hours to get that perfect start to phase 3 with everyone alive. Things didn’t quite play out too well, but it was the start of much more frequent visits to the queen’s final phase.
Also, in case you’ve ever done a whoopsie in a raid, caused a wipe and felt bad… it happens to even the very best players in the world:
After many more pulls Echo did catch up. They just barely missed taking the lead in the race, as Liquid got a 0.15% better pull shortly before them! The two guilds were as close as possible, even getting a new best basically side-by-side.
With 33.3% for Echo and 33.16% for Liquid, things were definitely heating up. Liquid did pull out ahead very quickly thereafter, getting a 30%er in. They even managed to kill 3 of the 5 adds in that last part of p3! Echo raided longer than previous days, but still remained relatively conservative, as they called the raid at 10:30 local time, about an hour later than usual.
A Very Liquid Night
Liquid remained alone in the crowd of phase 3-accessing guilds for a while. Method had yet to see the final phase, but they did by the end of the night. They ended their day with a 55% best. And so the NA guild pressed on alone, getting some really impressive pulls before the nerf. We really need to understand phase 3 well for the later pulls, so let’s take a look at this non-best boss % pull. In it, we see four of the five adds go down, so close to seeing what happens after that.
There were quite a few pulls like that later as well, and if you’re a stickler for actual best boss health, here’s this 25% pull. However, there were two adds alive, so let’s take a look at the main Liquid stream casters’ analysis of it:
The (Actually-Quite-Reasonable-but-Is-It-Enough) Nerf
The word “nerf” is usually a negative one for RWF followers, especially when it comes to endbosses. Despite them usually being very much need to make a boss non-impossible, it’s always viewed as Blizzard helping whichever guild that individual is rooting against. Nerf timing is always a hot topic, and is a very real concern. There isn’t any time that would be perfect to implement nerfs. Whichever guild is in the lead when nerfs come in gets the shorter end of the stick. Luckily, the stick-shortness was pretty ok this time around.
These nerfs were actually pretty fair. Let’s see what changed and then discuss (as datamined by Wowhead):
Both numbers are pretty low in terms of nerfs, so what’s changed? The DoT damage from the essences that drop from the acolyte spider mobs went from 920K to 800k per second. The Royal Condemnation went from 5.7 million to around 5.2. That’s not that huge of a difference, but it does help, especially when those last 5 essences drop. Wait, did I say last 5? Yes. As it turns out, the 5-add-wave is also the last. At least the last that can be feasibly reached, as the queen casts ANOTHER nova/ring after that. That means all (now 12) essences have to be picked up again. And ALL players have the 500% extra damage debuff on them already. YEP.
THE Pull
Let’s take a look at the absolute HUGE pull where Liquid found this fun little detail out. This is also our current best on the boss, coming in at a massively impressive 15.2%!
Even with the nerfs this is just a crazy pull. The fight took 10 minutes at that point and the nova cast after the 5 adds and 12 essences is pretty much functioning as the the hard enrage. Can it be done? Can 12 people survive the essence + debuff long enough to skip the nova and drop the essences on the ground? Almost certainly not.
Liquid have been taking very long strategy discussions ever since that pull. They’re desperately trying to dig up any boss damage wherever they can, even in phase 1. Shifting various cooldowns, whether from potions or specs around to get the boss lower before the first intermission, they did manage to get her under 62%. They even found a new damage opening after the intermission! There’s room for ONE salvo of attacks if you time the global cooldowns juust right. That’s an extra 0.5%! Their best in phase one/post-intermission came in around 61.3%. That leaves some 12ish% to gain in phase 3 alone compared to their best so far. OR somehow survive the nova blast/pick up and ferry 12 essences.
Here’s Liquid’s GM and raid leader Max talking about today’s attempts, the nerfs, the enrage and more:
And that’s where we left things off pretty much. The queen yet lives. Echo is about to have almost a full raid day on her before Liquid wakes up. And we’ll see if they can do better post-nerf. The race is truly on, as today might be its very last!
Also, if you were wondering, the Race to World First is pretty popular on Twitch:
As usual, to see what happens in real-time, you can always check the coverage streams (Liquid, Echo, Method), or head on over to Raider.IO for live text coverage, clips, analysis and more.
