Well, it was quite a day in the race! We have some sneaky Hero talent usage, some amazing progress on the Nexus-Princess, and more.
The EU Contingent
Starting in the EU morning we have Echo and Method doing their thing. In this instance, that means Ky’veza and Broodtwister progress. Unfortunately for Method, this included a heartbreaking wipe:
Luckily for them, 15 minutes later they got that final fraction of a percent down as well. They grabbed the World 3rd, EU 2nd on Broodtwister Ovi’nax in the end after all.
We saw two more guilds get past the first wall today. Huoguo Hero and Instant Dollars also made it to Ky’veza, quite a bit after Method. Meanwhile, Echo were pushing hard on princess, and we even got to see it this time! With a bunch of raid composition changes and strategies tested, they ended their day with a very respectable 20% best, just around the time Liquid were at an 11% best. The below is from an earlier pull, at 24%:
The Mini Drama
In the EU evening something else happened, as some of Echo’s players noticed something happening in Liquid’s raid, and pointed it out. Before we get into it, let’s just also say that the bug was fixed very quickly after it was pointed out, and wasn’t a factor in most of today’s pulls.
The short of it is that in the Mage Spellsinger Hero tree, when not targeting a boss directly, instead using a focus frame to do DPS, a stacking buff to damage continues stacking instead of being consumed. One of Liquid’s Mages was doing this, and that’s what Gingi is referring to. If you want to read all the details on it, head on over here. As mentioned above, Blizzard fixed it within the hour of Gingi sharing the issue and it’s questionable how much of an impact it had a that time. What would have happened if the bug continued is a different question, however.
Back to the Race
The rest of the day was spent with Liquid’s progress on Nexus-Princess Ky’veza, as they managed to get a total of over 250 pulls on her since raid start by the end of the day. The boss is quickly becoming THE hardest 6th boss ever in a raid, eclipsing Anduin already, who was in the same relative spot back in Sepulcher. Halondrus isn’t quite beat yet, and probably won’t be, sitting on his insane 358 pull count.
In case you want a better overview of the Ky’veza fight before we get into it, here’s a great look by our own Rogue guide writer, Seliathan.
The boss health was consistently going down throughout the evening, as Liquid continued with their strat and comp from the day before. They actually managed to get her down to 5.68% around 7 hours ago:
However, on a boss like this where there isn’t a hard enrage, but there kind of is considering the damage, 5% is quite a lot, especially on a near-perfect pull. And so Liquid had to rethink this and see if there’s anything else to be done.
How Many Tanks Now?!
Soon after the 5%er Liquid went for something quite extreme. The boss has a tank-buster attack (
Void Shredders) which only a tank can survive, and barely/not always. And so, naturally, two tanks were used for the inevitable death of one of them. So what’s the solution here? Well, remove a tank, of course! It makes perfect sense if you’re missing DPS! So how did they get around the tank-buster? Human sacrifice.
The solution was to sacrifice the one tank OVER AND OVER AND OVER. That’s right, Guardian Druid Scott dies many times in each pull, getting resurrected by the Shaman totem, then a Soulstone, and then if needed a regular battle rez. Hard-casting a resurrection in this fight is extremely hard, so instant rezzes are very important. So that’s the ONLY tank dying 2 or more times per pull. For HUNDREDS of pulls. The benefit of it all is swapping the Brewmaster with a Windwalker, Monk for Monk. Liquid also decided to use Vantus runes, after their effect was doubled in a hotfix (to 1.7-1.9K Versatility, depending on rank).
So, did the gamble work out? Well, take a look for yourself:
That was pull 226, and here’s the full attempt:
Sooo, 3.24%. There were a few deaths near the end there, so it is technically possible, but wow that’s hard. There were no new bests after that, and the guild went to be a little earlier. Liquid ended their day around 260 pulls, and you’d think that’s the most for this raid. But no, unfortunately for them, End Myth are STILL plugging away at Broodtwister, sitting on 290 pulls and a 9% best!
And as an extra bonus at the end, here’s an interview with Liquid GM Max on the day’s events and new strategy:
What’s Next?
Echo switched over to the 1-tank strategy and we’ll see whether they can pull off something even more impressive than Liquid on Ky’veza, with a very similar strat. If we don’t see a miracle out of Echo, we may see another nerf on the boss, but that would be veery risky for Blizzard. With percentages this low, ANY nerf is likely to put the boss in the “next pull wins” bracket, which makes the nerf timing even more problematic than it already has been.
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.
