Ny'alotha is only 20 days away, or the race for N'Zoth is, at least. After the Eternal Palace turned out to be one of the most exciting races in the history of World of Warcraft to date, both the expectations and the stakes are high for the final raid of Battle for Azeroth. With Limit coming very close to a win in the palace (not as close as in Uldir, but still), after having lead the pack for almost the entirety of the race, missing the top spot by around 9 hours, they'll be going at it even harder this time around and making it that much harder for Method to keep their crown once again.
January 28th is the first day of the race, when we'll get to see what kind of tuning Ny'alotha has to offer and how many bosses go down before the EU servers come up and we also get to see if any new challengers appear or it's Method against Limit, EU vs. US once more!
The race is about to start with just over 24 hours to go until the US/OC servers come up and we get started, so let's take a look at what the fuss will be about, with Imperative's World First Heroic N'Zoth kill:
We have the pre-race hotfixes ready and they've nerfed several Corruption item effects which could have been major issues for progression as their damage boosts were crucial, as well as implemented some raid changes. You can check out the full hotfixes over on Wowhead, and here are the major ones related to the race:
Dungeons and Raids
Items and Rewards
- Fixed a bug which prevented Ineffable Truth (Corruption Effect) from triggering on some melee and ranged abilities.
The streams are starting in 15 minutes and the US maintenance is scheduled to end in around 3 hours (7PM CET), so let's hope we don't have to wait that long. The Method crew are already memeing around as they wait for the live coverage to start and for the EU reset tomorrow!
If you ever wondered why @Methodgg players have so much more loot than anyone else before mythic comes out here is a video explaining exactly how you get the items you need! pic.twitter.com/Q2L9T2AH03
— Gingi (@MethodGingi) January 28, 2020
Method stream is now live - https://t.co/HqSaRpBWL2
— Scott McMillan (@Methodsco) January 28, 2020
Interviews, pre-show, and coverage of NA release! Here is a clip of the earlier setup. pic.twitter.com/8W0Ho6gFBH
Deepshades has been talking about Corrupted items and BoEs, and how Method has spent at least 3 million gold on them, even saying that a lot of the expansions has been almost pay to win with the amounts of gold (which can directly translate to real life money) required to stay well-geared to push the WF. With Limit's faction transfer for the warfront higher item level reward, all the BoE Corrupted items that both guilds have bought for this race and a lot more, it's definitely something to think about.
We're just about to get started, with around half an hour until the servers go up, so let's actually see what the raid layout is, as it's a non-linear one once more! Check out this image explaining it all courtesy of Wowhead:
The servers are up, the players have opened their weekly chests and are now trying to zone in!
Wrathion has already proven to be impressive, surviving almost 15+ minutes, which is damn impressive for a first boss! Ny'alotha may just be pretty damn hard after all.
The very first Ny'alotha World First is here! Midwinter and Limit have downed Wrathion, the Black Emperor veery close together so we'll have to wait a bit to see who came out on top.
It was indeed Midwinter to down the first boss WF, so congratulations!
We already have a split, as Big Dumb Guild, the World Third on Wrathion, have gone to Maut, as Midwinter and Complexity Limit are at Skitra!
And Vision take the 4th spot on Wrathion!
And here's Midwinter's World First Mythic Wration, the Black Emperor kill video:
The Prophet Skitra is down! Complexity Limit take their first World First of Ny'alotha and move on to 2/12!
Midwinter also get Skitra down and join Limit on 2/12! Also we have Imperative moving past Wrathion and taking the World 5th.
And here's Complexity Limit's World First Mythic Prophet Skitra:
Midwinter move on to 3/12 and down Maut World First!
We also have Blood Legion joining in the fun with their World 3rd Skitra kill, bringing them to 2/12!
We have two more Maut kills by Limit and Big Dumb Guild, around the same time, with both guilds moving to 3/12, with BDG getting the edge and claiming the World 2nd. We also have Imperative move to 2/12.
And here's Midwinter's World First Mythic Maut kill:
We have a 3/12 and 2/12 as Imperative move to the top group and Vision also move up.
Vision join the top as they down Skitra World 6th and are now at 3/12!
5 guilds now on 3/12, clearing the first wing of Ny'alotha and now having 4 choices for the next boss to go for, with 3 of those leading to their own unique boss. Here's a reminder on the raid's structure, with a note that all bosses have to be down before the final 2 can be accessed:
With the 4 choices available after 3/12, we have the majority going for Hivemind, with Midwinter, Imperative, and Vision there and Limit going for Shad'har the doggie on their own, with BDG on Dark Inquisitor.
Blood Legion have downed Maut and are now on 3/12. We also have two more 2/12s with Fused and Intern Made This Boss getting the kills.
Complexity Limit take the lead on 4/12 with their kill on Shad'har!
And here's Complexity Limit's World First Mythic Shad'har kill!
We have the first relatively longer lull in the race since the start, as Limit have now joined Midwinter, Imperative and Vision on the bug boss aka Hivemind, and MW did go do some Heroic splits a while ago. It seems the bugs are indeed the next easiest boss, as Big Dumb Guild is having a tough time on Azshara and the football boss, so let's see who gets what down first.
We almost have a top 10, as Unity come in with the 9th Wrathion kill!
And here's the top 10 with guild Brain Delay quite ironically getting a delayed update, as they're actually on 2/12 and in 9th place ahead of Unity!
Complexity Limit get another World First, as the Hivemind goes down and Limit go up to 5/12!
And here's Complexity Limit's World First Mythic Hivemind kill:
While we're not expanding past the top 10 so far, we do have movement inside it, as Fused go to 3/12 and unity are now on 2/12!
Limit are on to Ra-Den the Despoiled as the rest of the guilds mostly progress on Hivemind, with Midwinter still doing their Heroic clears and BDG pushing Dark Inquisitor.
It seems Ra-Den has successfully defeated Limit, as they've moved back a bit and are now trying out Drest'agath.
And we have a new World First as Big Dumb Guild's progress on Dark Unquisitor Xanesh has paid off! They move up to 4/12 and the second spot in the race. Limit have also recently started progressing on the boss so we might get a 6/12 soon as well.
Here's Big Dumb Guild's World First Mythic Dark Inquisitor Xanesh kill:
As big dumb guild claim their first Ny'alotha World First I have to put out a huge thanks to them, as they've given me something I haven't seen in a long, long time: a KILLSHOT!!!
Two more Maut kills have rolled in as Intern Made This Boss and Unity move up to 3/12 and join the main group in the race.
Blood Legion are the second guild to down the Hivemind after Limit, bringing them into the top 3 on 4/12 along with Limit and BDG!
A lot of World 2nds in the last few minutes, as Complexity Limit down Dark Inquisitor Xanesh and move further away from BDG and Blood Legion, heading to 6/12!
The kills just keep on rolling in as Hivemind dies once more, to Imperative who have been pushing it for a long time now, so congrats on the World 3rd and 4/12!
Hivemind is having a bad 20 minutes, as it's down for a 4th time, to Midwinter as they also move to the 2nd, now four strong group on 4/12.
Some more hotfixes today, as we get tuning for N'Zoth, as well as a big nerf to Echoing Void:
Dungeons and Raids
- Ny'alotha, the Waking City
- Shad’har the Insatiable
- Increased Shad'har the Insatiable's health by 30% on Heroic difficulty.
- Developers’ note: This change is meant to bring the encounter in line with the rest of the instance on Heroic difficulty.
- N’Zoth the Corruptor
- The Paranoia debuff can no longer be removed through immunity effects (e.g. Paladins’ Divine Shield) on all difficulties; damage and loss of sanity from Paranoia can still be temporarily avoided by using immunities.
- A few of Exposed Synapses in N'Zoth's Mind have been moved a small distance.Developers’ note: This quality-of-life change should help melee characters better reach Exposed Synapses during the encounter.
Items and Rewards
- Cloaks no longer drop in Mythic Keystone end-of-run chests.
- Corrupted Items
Flash of Insight(Corruption Effect) now correctly scales with the total Intellect value of the character.
Echoing Void damage reduced by 20%
- Developer's Note: Echoing Void's design makes its damage fairly reliable and high in most combat situations. As it's less situational than some other Corruption effects, we feel it is doing too much damage per Corruption by comparison.
Sk'shuul Vaz
- This weapon’s
Obsidian Destruction (Corruption Effect) now divides its damage among targets struck and deals additional damage for each target struck, up to maximum damage dealt at 6 targets.
- Damage against a single target has been increased to 700% of armor (was 175% of armor)
Four more guilds have pushed through Maut and are now sitting at 3/12, with WHATEVER WERE AWESOME, Club Camel, Vigil and Infinity moving on.
More World Firsts for Limit as they down Vexiona and move to 7/12!
And here's Complexity Limit's World First Mythic Vexiona kill:
The kills really do come close together, as Midwinter take down Shad'har the Insatiable and finally move on to 5/12!
We have another Hivemind kill, with Club Camel taking the 5th spot on the boss and rising to 4/12 and 6th place overall.
Big Dumb Guild are burning the midnight oil as they just downed Shad'har World 3rd and moved to 5/12!
The EU servers have now come online, and the second region have now joined the race!
Pieces have been the quickest guild at opening their weekly chests, and have managed to get all theirs things done and into the raid, claiming EU First Wrathion.
Imperative have gone and saved the Good Boi from the clutches of his corrupted master, slaying Shad'har the Insatiable World/US 4th!
Pieces claims all three of the first bosses EU First, and now have to make a decision on where to go.
Aversion and Exorsus currently sit at 2/12, both having downed Skitra, where as Practice and Method sit at 1/12, making it 5 guilds from EU this far who've joined the race.
Pieces are on a rampage in Ny'alotha, putting Shad'har to sleep, putting them at 4/12, and World 7th!
As always it didn't take long for Europe to catching up to the main pack of the US guilds, killing The Hivemind as World 5th, EU First at an absurdly fast pace!
Method are doing their best to catch up with Pieces, taking down the Doggo EU second.
Method are doing their best to catch up with Pieces, taking down the Doggo EU second.
Europe are the masters of Football, and Pieces have brought down Xanesh World Third, putting them up at 6/12, and the World #2 spot!
Animal control keeps handling the corrupted dog, with the Swedes in Practice, and the Germans of Aversion claiming EU 3rd and 4th, and now sit at World #9 and #10.
And the Europeans have caught up with the Americans, as Pieces claim World Second Vexiona, putting them tied with Limit at 7/12!
After struggling a lot more than they'd have expected, Method finally downs Xanosh, putting them up to World 3rd, and 6/12
While we unfortunately do not have Pieces streaming, they're skyrocketing upwards and we have their pretty damn impressive wipe count here,
Xanesh: 21
— Pieces (@PiecesGuild) January 29, 2020
Vexiona: 12
— Pieces (@PiecesGuild) January 29, 2020
And Method's wipe count, for comparison:
Wrathion: 1, Maut: 4, Skitra: 0, Shad'har: 10, The Hivemind: 7, Dark inquisitor Xanesh 38.
Now, obviously wipe counts are completely indicative of everything, there may be strategies being tested, or more importantly classes and specs, but it's still fun info!
The EU guilds keep on pushing as we have a World 11th, EU 6th on the Hivemind!
We haven't had any videos in a while, let's take a look at some EU kills for a change, with Method's multi-pov Hivemind kill :
Complexity limit just had their best try on Ra-den by a long shot, getting his down to 15% and seem pretty confident they'll get the kill soon!
Method just had a heartbreaking 0.8% wipe on Vexiona!
And here's that 15% Ra-den pull from Complexity Limit:
And Method push through Vexiona, as expected after their sub-1% wipe, and claim the World 3rd, EU 2nd, joining Complexity Limit and Pieces at the top with 7/12 cleared.
Here's Method's World 3rd Vexiona kill, so we can compare it to Limit's:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Method have opted to go for Ra-den next.
It's stealth hotfix time again, as Blizzard have removed the ability to immune out of 
Unstable Nightmare on Ra-den, significantly affecting Limit's (and presumably Pieces and to a lesser extend Method's) strategy for the boss.
We also had another Inquisitor kill, as Aversion move up to 6/12 and claim the World 5th, EU 3rd!
The Ra-den fix changes things, and Limit's best pull after it stands at 55%, with Method around 70%, and no info on Pieces.
Wowhead just posted an article explaining what happened with Ra-den in detail with the hotfix and Limit's previous strategy on it, so head on over and give it a read.
We have more Dark Inquisitor kills as Exorsus and Practice take the World 6th/7th, EU 4th/5th and move to 6/12!
Limit have recovered and adjusted to the hotfix, as they got close to a Ra-den kill, with their 6.1% pull!
Let's take a look at that 6% pull by Limit:
And let's also look at Method's Dark Inquisitor Xanesh World 5th, EU 3rd multi-pov video:
We also had some lower ranked kills, namely a World 10th on Shad'har by PMA and World 13th and 14th kills on Hivemind by Casual Raiders and Walkthrough.
Complexity Limit keep on pushing and move away from the competition once more, as they claim the Ra-den the Despoiled World First! They're at 8/12 and 1 boss ahead of Pieces.
And here's Complexity Limit's World First Mythic Ra-den the Despoiled kill:
The World 4th Vexiona is here! Aversion join Pieces and Method at 7/12 and are on to Ra-den.
Another World First by Complexity Limit as Drest'agath goes down! 9/12! It seems the tentacle spam of a boss wasn't that problematic after all!
And here's Complexity Limit's World First Mythic Drest'agath kill:
Method have called it a day, finishing their first at the same point as Limit did, at 7/12, not having downed Ra-den, with a 17% best try.
And so we only have Il'gynoth left before the big two, pretty much mirroring Eternal Palace in terms of difficulty curve. While the final two bosses are always next level in terms of difficulty, Il'gynoth might muck things up and stay alive a few days, otherwise the bigger number of bosses in Ny'alotha is pretty much meaningless for the race, as it'll just end up being the same as Palace and most other raids.
We have some more lower-tier kills, after Future's World 11th on Shad'har, Walthrough and Vision came through with the 12th and 13th, claiming the EU and US 7th as well.
Exorsus have stayed up late and managed to get the big purple dragon down and claimed the World 5th, EU 4th on Vexiona! They're now in the big group at 7/12 as well.
The Asia servers have finally come online and their Mythic progress has begun. We have two guilds, Chao Jie and KeaHoarl on 2/12 already, with JiTianHong, Alpha and Skyline on 1/12.
We have two more 6/12s, as Big Dumb Guild went back to Hivemind to clear that after also clearing Shad'har today, and Imperative just killed Dark Inquisitor World 8th, US/OC 3rd.
Midwinter also move up to 6/12 with their World 9th, US/OC 4th Dark Inquisitor kill.
It's time to check in on some stats and see how many guilds got how many bosses down! Obviously we have Complexity Limit in a big lead on 9/12, followed by 4 EU guilds on 7/12 with Vexiona down, another four guilds on 6/12, 6 guilds on 5/12, 8 on 4/12, and we then move on to the big numbers, as apparently all 4 bosses after Maut and Prophet are a big jump up in difficulty. We have 196 guilds with Wrathion, Maut and Prophet Skitra down, 158 with just Wrathion and either of the other two, and only 57 with just the first boss down.
Big Dumb Guild have finally done it! They got Vexiona down World 6th, US/OC 2nd and join the big group in Limit's shadow on 7/12.
With the Asian servers having come up, we've had the cream of the crop starting their grind to race for world first, with Alpha currently in the lead with 6/12 down, and already World #10!
Practice have joined the ever increasing pack of guilds sitting at 7/12, trying to catch up with Limit, and now are world rank #7.
Ra-den is now Ra-downed by Method, putting them up at 8/12, World Second!
We have a whole lot more Chinese guilds pushing and two more joining the 6/12 crowd, with JiTianHong getting Inquisitor down as their sixth and moving into 11th place, with Skyline taking the 12th spot.
Just a quick update on Method's Drest'agath progress, they've gotten the boss down to 44% in 16 pulls and are going strong, while Complexity Limit managed to get the third iteration of Il'gynoth to 43% with two organs down.
We have Alpha pushing even further and downing Vexiona World 8th, Asia 1st and moving to the big 7/12 group! This puts them on pace with Limit, Pieces and Method in terms of clear speed, as it's still their first day of raiding!
It's time for some Heroic splits for Complexity Limit, as they'll be targeting a few classes they feel are needed for Il'gynoth.
Speaking of Ra-den, we have a World 3rd, EU 2nd by Pieces, as they join Method on 8/12 and set their eyes on Limit and Drest'agath!
Method are slowly progressing on Drest'agath, with their current best at 34% with 31 pulls.
Method recently had a 6% pull on Drest'agath, but haven't been able to replicate it in a couple of pulls, but it is looking like the boss will go down today. Aversion is also progression on Drest'agath, skipping Ra-den, and their best try is at 28%.
And here's Method's Word 2nd Mythic Drest'agath kill:
Method are already pushing a bit longer than their usual raid time, drawn in by fresh boss tries! Meanwhile, Limit have made strides on the same boss, getting to 67% in the final Il'gynoth phase.
Let's take a look at the wipecount on the bosses so far for the top 3 guilds.
| Boss | Limit | Pieces | Method |
| Wrathion | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Maut | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Prophet Skitra | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Shad'har | 6 | 4 | 10 |
| The Hivemind | 5 | 4 | 7 |
| Dark Inquisitor | 23 | 20 | 38 |
| Vexiona | 12 | 11 | 12 |
| Ra-den | 76 | ? | 79 |
| Drest'agath | 15 | - | 49 |
As you can see, Ra-den turned out pretty much the same, but Drest' was a bit problematic for Method, as they spent around 5 more hours than Limit on the boss.
That's it for Method tonight, as they've seen enough of Il'gynoth to be able to sleep!
Some big progress from Limit on Il'gynoth, as they've gotten to 20% on the final phase!
Vexiona goes down once more as Midwinter claim the World 9th, US/OC 3rd and move to 7/12!
Vexiona falls once again and the 7/12 club rises to 8. Strawberry Puppy Kisses get the World 10th, US/OC 4th.
It's a bad day for purple dragons, as Impreative claim the World 11th, US/OC 5th on Vexiona and jump into the now 8 strong 7/12 group!
Limit are done for the day as well, with the 20% pull still being their best.
Limit have killed the corruption of Il'gynoth, meaning they are now the first guild in the world to reach the first part of the N'zoth encounters!
Here's Complexity Limit's World First Mythic Il'gynoth kill:
We have another Drest'agath kill, as Pieces take the World 3rd, EU 2nd and tie it up with Method on 9/12! Now it's on to the 4-lives, 2-wings, ex-tree that is Il'gynoth.
Some Asia server updates as we have 3 more guilds jump to 7/12, with JiTianHong, followed by Skyline and Chao Jie got Vexiona down as well, making it 13 guilds on 7/12, some progressing on Ra-den and some on Drest-agath.
And now let's take a look at the top 2 guilds and their progress on their respective bosses at the moment, with Complexity Limit taking the penultimate boss, Carpace of N'Zoth down to 60% and phase 3, while Method are getting close to an Il'gynoth kill with a 64% pull on the final, 4th phase/life of the ex-tree, which translates to around 6-10% overall.
Here comes Complexity Limit's official Il'gynoth Mythic World First video:
A whole lot of guilds downed Vexiona since we last checked in with the purple one yesterday, so let's take a look. We have 11 new kills including the already mentioned Asia ones since Imperative's yesterday, starting with Russian guild Banhammer (Банхаммер), followed by my new awesome name favorite Unwealthy Homeless Men (sorry FatSharkYes), Future, Memento, PMA, FatSharkYes, Impact and finally Halcyon.
Let's take a look at Complexity Limit's best Carapace pull so far, clocking in at 34% in phase 3:
Aversion claim the World 4th, EU 3rd on Drest'agath and move to 8/12. Now it's time for Ra-den as they continue to catch up to Method and Pieces.
For comparison, Method are on their 61st pull on Il'gynoth at the moment, with a best try at 29.1%, while Limit took 101 wipes to down the same boss.
Exorsus move up in the world and join Aversion on 8/12 with their World 5h, Eu 4th Drest'agath kill!
EDIT: It seems I was wrong on this one as I trusted the commentators, it seems it wasn't the final phase but only the third Il'gynoth appearance and there was still one organ and 100% Il'gynoth to go!
Some bad luck for Method as they just had an incredibly close 3% final phase pull, which is significantly under 1% of the entire fight! Here's the replay starting from the good part!
It's best pull o'clock it seems, as Limit just got their best on Carapace so far, with a 25.5% pull! Here it is:
Just a quick update, the lowest % for Method mentioned below was an error, it was actually not the final phase so the Method best is still 29%!
A 22.6% pull just came in for Limit.
Complexity Limit getting some serious progress done as they get another lowest attempt, this time at 16.4%!
Some bad news for Limit as they've discovered some pretty significant bugs with Mental Decay and Insanity Bomb that are making a Carapace kill impossible. Game director Ion Hazzikostas confirmed it's a bug and Blizzard are working on a fix and Limit will be practicing the boss while waiting for the fix:
Fix these now!
— max (@maximumwow) February 1, 2020
Insanity bomb bug : https://t.co/7ICaDwrScp
Mental decay insta MC bug :https://t.co/wc1BwafMyE
Yeah, we're here working on a fix. It's the worst kind of bug: very high impact but hard to consistently reproduce (out of hundreds of Sanity-modifying effects per pull, it happens sporadically). We're testing a likely fix right now.
— Ion Hazzikostas (@WatcherDev) February 1, 2020
It seems Carapace is going down today, as Limit have gotten a 1.6% wipe after the bug fixes!
Complexity Limit have done it! They've downed Carpace of N'Zoth and moved on to the final boss of Ny'alotha and Battle for Azeroth! World First and the lead grows - now it's time to find out what N'Zoth is really made of!
And here's Complexity Limit's World First Mythic Carapace of N'Zoth kill, taking 69 attempts to down:
In an interesting and probably tactical decision, Limit have decided to not pull N'Zoth today and go to sleep instead. Usually they would raid another 1-2 hours.
Drest'agath have been downed by some Big and Dumb group of raiders, I guess a Big Dumb Guild is a good way to put it, meaning they claim World 6th, US 2nd.
It's been an uneventful day for Method, as they realized yesterday that they weren't making the Il'gynoth enrage timer and needed more DPS, hence their Heroic splits for the past 4 hours. Limit haven't started yet but should be along soon, so we can get a look some N'Zoth madness!
Some more problems with the raid as N'Zoth is seemingly not spawning for Limit at all and they're going to be doing their Heroic splits instead:
So Nzoth just wont spawn this morning so we're going to splits, probably about time for that anyway. WE NEED YOUR HELP we could use traders =] https://t.co/bPy5MvrH1F
— max (@maximumwow) February 1, 2020
We have another Asia first as Alpha also went for Drest'agath before Ra-den and got the World 7th! Congrats!
We have some Method insight as this interview talks about why exactly they take so long between pulls and have so many breaks:
Still no pulls from either Limit or Method on their respective bosses, as it's a chill Saturday so far clearing many Heroics.
Just a bit of a warning for you long time followers of the race here and previously on Manaflask - I have dinner cooking right now and it'll be ready in around an hour. That means either Method or Limit is getting the kill within 1-3 minutes of me putting food in my mouth. That is all.
Method are back at Il'gynoth!
Method are finally done with the ex-tree and his 4 lives, as they take down Il'gynoth World 2nd after 75 pulls and within 3-4 of the first pulls of the day after their Heroic splits! Now it's time for Carapace of N'Zoth and we'll see if they can not only get the easier boss down fast, but faster than Limit as well.
And here's Method's World 2nd Mythic Il'gynoth kill, starting in the middle of the fight for a change since we've seen plenty of Il'gynoth already. The kill was very smooth and really showcases just how important those splits were. It took 77 pulls to down him:
We have a new 9/12 and Il'gynoth competitor as Aversion join Pieces on their ex-tree progress as they down Ra-den World 4th, EU 3rd!
Limit are now also back from their splits and it's time for some N'Zoth Mythic!
We have a surprise World 5th on out hands as FatSharkYes take down Ra-den and move to 8/12 and the 8th spot in the race! Congrats!
Method are going pretty fast on Carapace as they're down to 36% already.
Practice also get Ra-den Ra-down, with a pretty ridiculously late 5 AM EU kill! World 6th, EU 5th and 8/12.
It's time to take a look at some N'Zoth action as Complexity Limit have managed to get the final boss down to 71.1%! You'll notice it's a staggeringly long 8+ minute pull for "only" 30% on the bosses HP bar, but there are plenty of other things to take care of and DPS other than the boss, so all together it's probably lower than 71% of the total fight. Regardless of that though, N'Zoth is looking to be a looooong fight each and every pull.
Limit have called it a night afer 56 pulls and some 9ish hours on the boss, with the 71% pull still their best.
Method are almost done with Carapace as they've just had a 2.2% wipe! Let's check it out:
Little by little, Carapace is going down, with a 1.6% pull just now.
Method are back! They've tied it up with Limit once more and are now on to N'Zoth after their World 2nd Carapace of N'Zoth, with an incredibly tense kill! It took 38 "Method pulls" which tend to be a lot longer with those breaks inbetween, compared to Limit's 68, which are much shorter and also had some bugged ones.
And here's Method's World 2nd on Carapce, starting from phase 3:
With the Asian servers so hard to track, it's hard to know exactly when something is killed, or what exact ranking they have.
With this said, Jitianhong have downed Ra-den, World 7th, and now sit at 8/12, and World rank #10!
Ra-den has fallen once more, with Exorsus having downed The Despoiled, putting them up at 9/12, and World 5th!
FatSharkYes is next in line to reach 9/12, downing Drest'agath, meaning they now sit as World 6th.
Pieces are catching up, downing Il'gynoth World Third!
Complexity Limit have been to N'Zoth's secret phase for quite a while now so let's take a look at the first time we got to see the Mythic phase, so close to taking down that add it's painful, and it's also the closest they've gotten to getting that big thing down:
For more details on the recently revealed secret phase, check out Wowhead's article explaining the abilities and what exactly is going on here.
Meanwhile, Method's best is currently at 93%, as they're warming up to the fight and settling in for a long haul.
Limit have made it past the secret Mythic phase and returned to N'Zoth after the Chamber of Heart expedition after having killed the Annihilator inside. The fight seems to continue normally, without any new buffs or effects, which is really interesting as it points to some crazy long pulls as the fight continues.
Method have gone to do some Heroic splits at the end of their raid day, after a whole lot of pulls on N'Zoth,
Limit got a new best pull, coming in at 60.2%, as they keep trying to figure out what exactly to do in the encounter, currently trying to get the boss under 60% before heading into the portal.
Some massive weirdness on Limit's last pull, as they got the boss down to 25%, went to the secret phase, came back and N'Zoth just despawned.
Here's the weirdest pull of all time. It's unclear WHEN exactly the boss bugged out, as they've never been able to push him so low before going to the gate, so presumably he stopped working around when the gate triggers:
It also seems that when the boss despawned for Limit, it was also despawned for all US guilds, regardless of difficulty. This seems to indicate that Blizzard actually pushed a button to despawn him so that a bugged kill didn't happen after something going wrong after the gate spawn.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been the cause of a boss being despawned for an entire region
Some more pulls after the bugged one for Limit, with a 57% best as well. For now it's unclear what's up with the boss, what the bug meant and if something's simply not triggering when finishing the Chamber of heart Mythic phase, because as it is now, the boss seems solidly unkillable, unless they're missing something.
Here comes Limit's next idea, as they go through the gate, clear the Annihilator in there and then... well just kinda stay there while nothing happened and N'Zoth keeps casting all his abilities while they're safe in the chamber:
Complexity Limit are also going to head to Heroics now after the "passive pull", and that's going to be it for their Mythic pulls for today.
Midwinter have managed to get Drest'agath down US/OC 3rd and are on 8/12, putting them in 17th place overall.
Bug Dumb Guild also get a kill, downing Ra-den world 10th, Us 2nd, and move to 9/12 and Il'gynoth.
Alpha shows who the big man of Asia is, being the first from the region to down 9/12, meaning they now are Asia #1, World #7!
The 9/12 group keeps on growing, with Jitianhong being the latest one to reach it, Asia 2nd, World 9th.
Method had their best pull a short while ago, at 74% on pull 74 (yes, really), so let's take a look at how they take on the fight:
With the prevalence of Horde at the very top of raiding, it can be quite refreshing seeing an Alliance guild claiming a high ranking kill.
Ethical have downed Ra-den World 9th, US 3rd, Alliance First!
Some really good news as Alpha have downed Il'gynoth and join Pieces on 10/12 and Carapace progress, which means we will soon see 4 guilds progressing on N'Zoth himself!
Limit have finished up their splits and are now heading back to N'Zoth:
alright done with splits we BLAST. Big things may happen today
— max (@maximumwow) February 3, 2020
Method have also poked through to the Chamber of Heart secret Mythic phase:
Skyline and Chao Jie move up in the world as they claim the World 10 and 11th spots, as Practice get there a little later and move down to 12th, all of them on 9/12 and on to Il'gynoth progress.
We have the World 5th kill on Il'gynoth! Aversion push through and head to 10/12 and Carapace. Congrats!
We have another Il'gynoth death! FatSharkYes take down the winged fellow and take the World 6th, EU 4th and are now on 10/12! Congrats!
We finally have another best pull for Complexity Limit, after their reworked strategy to get some extra space after returning from the Chamber! We have the 54.9%, 12+ minute pull right here with the enrage being at 13 minutes), a 3% improvement, with still seemingly something needed to happen as the room is just constantly filling up. Possibly the 50% mark will show us the next stage of the fight:
Another best pull by Limit, this time at 53.5%.
It's time for more N'Zoth company! Pieces have taken the World 3rd on Carapace of N'Zoth and are now at 11/12, joining Limit and Method on the final boss of the raid and expansion!
Another best try by Limit! They got sub-50% and nothing new happened, so it will all be down to optimization. Here's the 49.5% pull:
We have more Il'gynoth kills as Exorsus take the World 7th, Eu 5th and join Alpha, Aversion and FatSharkYes on 10/12! Carapace time.
A new hotfix has come in to the N'Zoth fight, changing the way the Thought Harvesters (the big adds) work, aka they now can cast while moving, which made Limit decide to just finish up their splits instead of progressing on the boss, as it's become a lot harder for them now. Presumably this will also affect Method's strategy, and it's still unknown whether the change was intended or not, as it was meant to address a different problem in the fight, namely the adds spawning way off in the distance on top of objects like Warlock gateways, totems, corpses etc.
Il'gynoth have been slain twice more, and both kills come from the Asian region, with Jitianhong and Skyline getting their hands on Asia 2nd/3rd, and world 8th/9th respectively.
We have two more Il'gynoth killers as Skyline and JiTianHong move up to 10/12 and taking the World 8th and 9th, Asia 2nd and 3rd on the boss.
Method just got their best pull on N'Zoth, with a 66% post-secret phase!
It seems the Thought Harvester hotfixes have been reverted and they're back to not casting while moving, and presumably also not spawning on objects any more, making the fight doable.
Limit are back in Mythic and are re-clearing right now, after having done some weekly prep with Visions, chests etc.
Chao Jie join the 10/12 group moving past Big Dumb Guild and placing 4 Asian guilds in the top 10!
Limit is now deep in their reclear, and have reached Ra-den, and as Blizzard had warned, they have increased his respawn timer, in order to fix some questionable gimmicks. To compensate for this they have also nerfed the bosses HP.
The Race have now gotten a fourth contender, as Alpha have now downed Carapace World 4th, Asia 1st!
Limit once again sit at 11/12, and with a full new reset worth of gear!
Let's see how much help the extra loot will be.
A huge new best by Complexity Limit a few pulls after they got back to N'Zoth, with an exact 40.0%, with nothing new triggering and basically 0 space in the room. The presumption is that they have to get the boss down to 25% in the same-ish timespan.
Aversion has joined the very top as they down Carapace of N'Zoth World 5th and head on to the big guy!
Limit's re-clear took 4 hours and 20ish wipes, and their penultimate pull on N'Zoth before dinner was once again really low, at 41% but was actually much better than the 40% one, with a lot more space left in the room. That 25% target is looking a lot more likely after these pulls, especially considering the massive progress they've done since the reset and the extra gear.
Blizzard have just announced massive upcoming nerfs to Corruption effects, including Echoing Void, which accounts for a lot of the damage all of the guilds have been counting on for progress, and with the EU reclear coming tomorrow, this might be very problematic. It's still unclear when exactly the nerfs are coming or how big they'll be, but here is Blizzard's announcement:
We’d like to give everyone a heads up that we’re working on tuning adjustments to several Corruption Effects. While we don’t have exact amounts just yet, we have some certainty that in the next 24 hours, we will:
At this time, we’re also considering:
Again, we intend to complete these changes in the next 24 hours, and we’ll let you know as soon as we’re set on final tuning numbers.
Thank you!
Complexity Limit has almost made it to that 25% breakpoint, getting MCed just a few seconds before hitting it, at 25.5%!
After their one crazy low-almost final phase pull, Limit have been getting some consistent 30-something pulls.
That's it for today for Limit, as they were pretty consistently getting to around 30%, but not close enough to 25 to warrant staying up any longer. Now we have to see what happens with the Corrupted effect nerfs and just when they'll be coming in, as well as how much they'll disrupt the race. There's also a chance that the Corruption tuning will bring in some boss nerfs with it, to compensate for the DPS loss, making the mess even bigger considering Blizzard's hit or miss tuning. For now it's somewhat safe to say the tuning won't affect EU guild re-clears, but it might hit during N'Zoth progression.
Midwinter have also gotten past Ra-den after their re-clear and are now at 9/12 in 14th place.
With the Asian region still having a few hours until reset lands, we can officially say that 6 guilds have managed to reach N'zoth during the first week, with Jitianhong downing Carapace World 6th, Asia 2nd!
Method have finished their reclear, and are once again back at N'zoth. Let's see if they will get as big of a progress boost as Limit did with a fresh reset worth of extra gear!
We have both Limit and Method at N'Zoth now, with Method already getting a 62% best pull! Today might be the day we see the boss fall or at least see the sub-25% phase, all depending on those Corruption nerfs!
Method have gone below 50%!
Limit have gotten to 25.5% again, with the boss going immune, and it seems they have to go BACK to the SAME gate from the first Chamber phase, which in their current strat is in the middle of the huge Angusih pools.
And here's the best pull by Limit so far:
Limit managed another 25.5% pull and found it that they indeed have to get back to the gate, having suicided acroos all that Anguish to find out and, yes, the gate was clickable and someone made it inside the chamber for a second before dying.
It's time for pull number 200 for Limit, exactly after returning from their lunch break!
The Corruption effects have been announced!
I’ve updated the OP with:
Update – 11:30 a.m. PST February 5
Soon today, we’re going to make the following adjustments in a single hotfix:
- Echoing Void damage has been reduced by 50%.
- Echoing Void no longer deals reduced damage in PvP combat.
- Deadly Momentum’s buff duration has been increased to 30 seconds (was 15 seconds).
- Void Ritual’s stat bonus per stack has been approximately doubled at each rank.
- Surging Vitality’s Versatility value has been increased by 10%.
- Avoidant now subjects you to 20% less Corruption at each rank.
With the usual hotfix timing, it seems likely Method will extend their raid day by few hours to get the full benefit of the un-nerfed effects, to keep up with Limit who will be raiding normally during the window the nerf will be coming in.
FatSharkYes are on to N'Zoth as they down Carapace World 7th, EU 4th in 52 pulls! Congrats!
Limit have pushed even further, as they got to 24.4%, causing a lot more questions as the boss DIDN'T put up his shield at 25.5%. Seemingly it was yet another bug and the shield simply didn't trigger, but no one is sure about anything at this point.
The current theory on the 24.4% pull is that the boss simply didn't put up the shield because he was pushed to 25.5% in the middle of another spell cast, making him bug out and not be able to cast the shield.
We have more and more N'Zoth contenders and another Asian guild comes through to the final boss! Skyline take the World 8th, Asia 3rd, apparently only 30 seconds before their server reset! Congrats!
Weeeel....it seems Blizzard aren't done with messing with the fight. What it's looking like is that Blizzard have gone in and CHANGED the trigger for the re-entry into the chamber to 20%, as Limit have just gotten the boss down to under 21%! Or it's just the same bug twice.
And here's Limit Gm Max with comments on the fight:
no words for that shit literally chain wiping to the boss not phasing at 25% because he happens to be casting
— max (@maximumwow) February 5, 2020
Method have dipped into Heroics, but not the full array of splits, but only 1 or 2 raids.
Limit have received a mail from Blizzard explaining that there IS NO second gate/Chamber phase and they just have to kill the boss. They've pushed to 18% and there was no immune shield or Gate being available, so that's it for the fight, which quite obviously was not planned.
And here's more from Max:
So turns out the past few days when the boss put up a shield at 25.5% and opened a gateway again that was all a ruse and now its just you burn the boss to 0 LMAO
— max (@maximumwow) February 5, 2020
Another question is whether the goal HP is actually 1.4% like in Heroic, or an actual 0%.
Here's a clip of Limit's thoughts on the secret Mythic phase and what it turned out to be:
And more still, as he's pretty rightfully not that happy with the recent developments:
anyone change their entire movement strat making the gateway clickable a second time at 25% where it was spawning a second time just to find out it was a prank, live picture of me pic.twitter.com/B3AaqWHZuV
— max (@maximumwow) February 5, 2020
Also, apparently the 25.5% shield AND the fact that the gate was clickable was a bug, according to a Blizzard mail, and the fight is working as intended at the moment. Personally, I find that incredibly hard to believe, as that would mean the secret Mythic only phase is literally just going to the chamber once, killing 1 add and coming back without any further changes.
We're almost at 10 guilds on N'Zoth as Exorsus join the fun, downing Carapace World 9th, EU 5th!
Limit are somewhat preparing for the incoming Echoing Void nerf as they're moving some players away from the effect, so the won't get hit that hard by the nerf when it comes. They also seem pretty confident that they can get the boss down, at least before the nerfs arrive.
Method are done for the day!
We have another best pull from Limit, coming in at 16.3%!
Another crazy low pull by Limit, going down to 10%!
There's no Corruption effect tuning coming, as a blue post has clarified that they'll be coming up on resets next week! There will also going to be Mythic N'Zoth changes coming next week to tune him.
We have been reading your thoughts on the Corruption changes and have decided to hold them for regional restarts next week. We understand the impact they will make on your gear selection and agree that it makes more sense to do it at the start of a week.
Also during regional restarts, we plan to make some tuning changes to Mythic N’Zoth to better align the encounter with the changes that are being made to players’ Corrupted items.
Thank you all for your feedback on this.
While it's a good thing that Blizzard decided to postpone the hotfixes to not affect the race that much, unfortunately Method went to bed relatively early and did Heroics with the knowledge that the nerf was coming in mind.
Some more progression for Complexity Limit, a "bit" smaller than before though, as they moved the boss down another 0.3%, to 10.3!
That's going to be it for Limit, as they didn't manage to improve on their 10.3% best with various different strategies and raid compositions. The next day will prove to be a crucial day, as the boss seems to be killable, but will need a whole lot of pulls for that perfect RNG (or maybe some crazy new strat).
Limit it are back at it while Method have managed to get the boss down to 38.6%
Here comes another huge pull from Complexity Limit, as N'Zoth goes down to single digits! 7.3% on the 253rd pull is the new low and Limit are hyped and pushing even harder for the kill, and remember, the boss most likely dies at 1.4%!
And here's the 7.3% video:
Method have a new best pull, coming in at 33.1%! Let's take a look:
Another crazy low pull at 4.7%!
A 9% pull now by Limit, with 2 DPS down for the final phase.
2.18%! And we get some almost-nerdscreams, as the boss probably only had less than 1% health.
Here's Max on the almost-kill:
anyone else have to save an immunity for 2.5% so the boss actually dies due to spell queueing? =]
— max (@maximumwow) February 6, 2020
It's lunch time! Limit are taking a break after their pretty-much-almost kill, saving their 269th pull for after food!
Ok, just a quick heads up for you race following veterans: I'm about to eat. You have been warned.
Complexity Limit have done it! The World First on N'Zoth the Corruptor is theirs! Ny'alotha, the final Battle for Azeroth raid has been conquered and this is the first US endboss World First since Heart of Fear back in Mists of Pandaria! Huge congratulations to the guild, who have been leading since the third boss and never dropped their first place, earning 9 WFs throughout the raid.
The boss took 270+ pulls, 10 days and had plenty of issues along the way, but let's take a look at the final pull right here:
Fun fact: N'Zoth actually died on a higher percentage than the earlier 2.2% wipe!
We have two new guilds on N'Zoth, with Chao Jie and Big Dumb Guild taking down Carapace, World 10th, Asie 4th and US 2nd, World 11th, respectively, as Midwinter move on to Carapace with their U 3rd Il'gynoth kill!
We have a new best pull from Method with a significant 10+% improvement! 19.5%:
Unwealthy Homeless Men take down Il'gynoth EU 8th! And yes I just did the update because I wanted to mention the guild name.
We have another N'Zoth contender, as Practice take the World 12th, EU 6th on Carapace!
We don't have the exact details from Limit's kill, as they never got their achievement and this raider.io can't dig around their armories, but we do have a victory lineup!
Method are down to 15.8 showing some damn impressive progress today!
Method are speeding up considerably, with this 8.5% pull!
Method has done it! N'Zoth has been slain, meaning they claim World Second, EU First!
World Second N'zoth, from the PoV of Sco.
And here's the details on Method's kill:
We have an official (public)response to the theory that there was in fact more to the N'Zoth fight that was removed:
Not sure where that theory got started. The Chamber phase fires ~2.5min into p2, OR when the boss hits 25% health to make sure it can't be somehow skipped. The bug Limit ran into was making it attempt to fire at 25% even if it had already been completed.
— Ion Hazzikostas (@WatcherDev) February 8, 2020
The race for third place is heating up at JiTianHong have gone into overdrive and are now at 54% on the boss! We still don't have a good idea of where Pieces are however, so they might me considerably closer.
Here's Method's multi-pov N'Zoth kill video:
Here's Complexity Limit's World First Mythic N'Zoth the Corruptior multi-pov video!
We have a US third on Carapace as Midwinter take the boss down and we now have 18 guilds progressing on N'Zoth!
We have a World 3rd! Pieces get N'Zoth down before the reset and before the big nerf! Congratulations!
Game Director Ion Hazzikostas spoke to Warcraft Radio about the Ny'alotha Race to World first in this in-depth interview:
We have a 4th place in the race! FatSharkYes take down N'Zoth after the slight nerf and beat Alpha and Aversion to the punch! Congratulations!
WORLD 4!!!!!! NEW WORLD RECORD FOR US!!! pic.twitter.com/ysb3wgB4ig
— FatSharkYes (@Fatsharkyes) February 12, 2020
Since we're talking about raid progress here, we should also mention Blackwing Lair has also been cleared over in WoW Classic, with Calamity, Progress and Apes taking the top 3 on Nefarian, some 42 minutes after servers went up.
We have a top 5! JiTianHong have surpassed Alpha and claimed the Asia first, World 5th N'Zoth the Corruptor kill! Congratulations!
Another N'Zoth has fallen as Alpha finish up Ny'alotha and take the Asia 2nd, World 6th 12/12!
Exorsus is the latest guild to down the last boss of the Expansion, downing N'zoth World #7, EU #4.
A correction and two more kills, as it was actually Skyline that got N'Zoth down World 7th, Asia 3rd, with Exorsus moving to 8th and Aversion just having killed him for the World 9th, EU 5th!
The top 10 is complete! Chao Jie close out the best 10 guilds of Ny'alotha and claim the Asia 4th as well!
We have a bit mixup after Method's second place in Ny'alotha, as Naowh, Complexity Limit's tank will be coming back to the Method org, this time to the guild itself as a tank! This means either Sco or Justwait will be stepping back in Shadowlands to a "support" position outside the guild, which could mean the role Limit GM Max took as the 21st player/coach calling shots from outside the raid, or something else entirely.
GM Sco had this to say on the matter:
I am excited to announce that Naowh, a member of the championship-winning Method MDI EU roster, has decided to rejoin the Method guild as a tank.
The first question on most people's minds is now probably “Doesn’t that mean Method has 3 tanks for 2 raid spots?” Yes that is correct, come Shadowlands, either myself and/or Justwait is likely to take a step back and support the guild from outside the raid during the next RWF. We are still working through the details on that front.
With loss comes reflection and learning. Within days of the Ny'alotha RWF ending, the guild and officer team have had extensive meetings to learn from this tier, improve for next, and build up the guild for future success. There are several initiatives that are being worked on right now, some of these will be publicly visible, such as roster changes/additions like this one (Method is recruiting right now), and many more are being worked on behind the scenes.
Rest assured that Method is 100% committed to doing whatever it takes to reclaim the World First throne.
-Sco
And here's the top 10, in all their glory! Congratulations to everyone that made it!
We have three more across the finish line, as Chinese guild Hai Jia Ji finish up Ny'alotha just outside the top 10, Korean guild KR get 12th and Practice are in 13th!
Big Dumb Guild claim the US/OC 2nd on N'Zoth, as well as the World 14th!
A little late, but we now have Pieces' World 3rd N'Zoth video!
The top 20 is complete! We have PMA on 15th, followed by Unwealthy Homeless Mean, Memento, 坚决抵制黑手联盟, Alterac Deviants and Impact closing out the top guilds of N'yalotha!