"OH SHIT! TIME OUT!"
OldSeven's Ice Block yell macro was painful to watch.
Of course the biggest idiot in Fearless had something like that bound to the spell.
"OldSeven, quit padding and stay on the Destroyer," Gabryell snapped.
The reason OldSeven had ripped aggro and panic-Ice Blocked was simple.
He wanted better numbers.
After realizing he was missing too much against the level-63 Molten Destroyer, he had started sneaking a few casts into the Molten Giant instead.
Then he landed two crits in a row.
At exactly the same moment, Susie got hit by Knock Away, cutting her threat hard enough for the Giant to turn straight toward OldSeven.
"HEY, UGLY! PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!"
David, standing near the middle of the raid, finally got his chance to do something and Taunted the Giant off him.
Apparently, his Taunt had a yell macro too.
DeathScum immediately lost it.
"Jesus Christ. Did you two rehearse this shit?"
"Hahahaha!"
Raid chat exploded.
Gabryell didn't mind a little chatter during a pull.
Even top guilds joked around mid-fight.
Fearless could too.
They were players, not robots.
A little trash talk helped keep the tension down.
"David, drag the Giant out of the raid."
The loose Giant had gotten too close to the group and was splashing damage across everyone nearby.
At this point, there was no reason to make Susie take it back.
David already had control.
He pulled the Molten Giant away from the raid and finally got to show why giving the backup tanks Flask of the Titans hadn't been a waste.
"Healers, top the raid."
The level-62 Giant had already barreled through the group twice, dumping heavy AoE damage into the raid.
Several ranged players had failed to get clear and lost half their health.
Luckily, it was the Giant that had broken loose.
If the Destroyer had gone charging through the raid instead, people would already be dead.
"From now until the Destroyer dies, nobody touches the Giant."
"Every spell or ability I catch you using on the wrong target is minus one DKP."
Then he called OldSeven out directly.
"OldSeven just gave everyone the example. Don't pad the meter on the wrong target."
David pulled the Giant back toward its proper position, and the fight quickly settled down again.
The consumables were doing exactly what Gabryell had paid for.
They were covering a huge chunk of the raid's gear gap.
The tanks were taking far less pressure, and the healers weren't burning mana nearly as fast.
At the top of the damage meter, the first several spots belonged to Mages benefiting from the extra 150 spell damage.
"Good. Keep this pace and burn the Destroyer."
The Molten Destroyer had well over a hundred thousand health, but the flasked-up Mage group was chewing through it fast.
Melee had a much rougher time.
The Destroyer's AoE knockdown kept flattening anyone who stayed too close, and if the healers lost track of someone for even a moment, that player could disappear.
Sure enough, two melee had already gone down.
One had positioned badly and ended up in front of the mob.
The other missed a heal and died to the AoE.
There was a reason raid leaders would eventually start setting gear requirements for Blackwing Lair.
Dungeon BiS could give excellent spell damage or attack power, but it usually left you with much less health than raid epics.
Against a thousand-damage AoE, that could mean the difference between surviving several hits and dropping after two or three.
Dead players did no DPS.
And tiny health pools only made the healers' lives harder.
Right now, almost everyone was still wearing dungeon gear.
Across the raid, health pools were low enough that one missed heal during heavy AoE could kill someone.
"Open up."
"Finish the Destroyer."
The timing was right.
If everyone pushed now, they could finish it in one clean burn.
Once the Destroyer was dead, the remaining Giant wouldn't be much of a problem.
"Ranged, don't creep up on the Destroyer! You trying to get flattened?"
With the mob nearly dead, a few impatient players had started inching forward.
The moment Gabryell called them out, the Mages who had moved too close Blinked backward.
"It's almost dead! Push!"
Carlos was getting excited.
After spending the last few nights wiping without killing even one of the entrance mobs, he could finally see the end of the pull.
Now he understood why Gabryell had waited until today to organize the official progression raid.
Running with a proper progression roster was a completely different experience from dragging an undergeared pickup group through Molten Core.
And with flasks and elixirs stacked on top of that, Carlos could feel the difference immediately.
The Destroyer still hit hard.
But it no longer felt like every swing might fold him in half.
"Okay... now I get it," ServerHeals admitted.
He had spent the last several days organizing attempts on these two entrance mobs.
Gabryell was about to clear them on the first official pull.
That didn't mean ServerHeals had done a bad job.
Every group he had formed was all over the place in terms of gear and player quality.
They had no full flask setup.
No organized consumable plan.
Some players probably hadn't even wanted to burn a single Major Mana Potion.
Getting as far as they had was impressive on its own.
"Beautiful!"
The Destroyer went down under the raid's burst.
Once word spread that Fearless had cleared the entrance pair on its first official pull, flask and elixir prices were going to explode.
"Haha! Having real HP and armor feels amazing."
For once, Carlos felt like an actual raid tank instead of a Warrior wearing cardboard armor.
"Of course."
"You get what you pay for. Twelve hundred health and two thousand armor is way more than one or two pieces of current gear could ever give you."
Gabryell was more than satisfied.
They had killed the harder of the two entrance mobs on their very first official progression pull.
All that preparation had paid off.
And it wouldn't stop with Molten Core.
From now on, whenever Fearless progressed through a new raid, Flask of the Titans and Greater Stoneshield Potions would be mandatory for the main tanks.
"Everyone swap to the Giant."
"Susie, stay second on threat. Don't let anyone rip it off the tank."
The Giant's Knock Away could cut the tank's threat hard enough for a couple of Mage crits to rip aggro.
With Flask of Supreme Power active, that was exactly the kind of thing Gabryell expected to happen if they got careless.
"Man, Warlocks are useless on this pull."
The three Warlocks had barely gotten a chance to do anything interesting.
All they could do was watch the Mages dominate the meters.
"Relax," Gabryell said. "Your turn's coming. This place is full of shit we need Banished."
When Banish mattered, the Warlocks would be some of the most important players in the raid.
Against lava packs and Garr, it would be essential.
At their current gear level, trying to brute-force those pulls without it would be suicide.
A Frostbolt streaked across the room.
"WHO'S YOUR DADDY NOW?"
OldSeven had apparently made another yell macro.
Someone immediately fired back:
"Five minutes ago you were hiding in an ice cube yelling 'time out.' Now you're its daddy?"
OldSeven didn't miss a beat.
"That was then. This is now. Get owned."
The raid cracked up again.
With only one Molten Giant left, everyone had room to relax.
If they had enough attention left to make stupid jokes, the fight clearly wasn't putting much pressure on them anymore.
"Yep. Coal."
Someone looted the Destroyer.
Gabryell saw the result and wasn't surprised.
Nothing tilted Hunters harder when solo farming Molten Core giants than spending forever killing one only to loot Coal.
That was the kind of shit that made someone log off for the night.
"Holy shit, we got both!"
"First pull! Fuck yeah!"
The level-62 Molten Giant finally collapsed.
The raid erupted.
Those two entrance mobs had stopped plenty of weaker groups dead in their tracks.
Even major guilds like Madhouse and Freedom had spent days wiping before managing to get through them.
"Gear dropped!"
Someone shouted immediately.
"Purple!"
The item appeared in raid chat almost before the loot window finished opening.
Felheart Belt (Epic)
Binds when equipped
Waist
Cloth
57 Armor
+15 Intellect
+8 Spirit
+18 Stamina
+7 Fire Resistance
Durability 35 / 35
Classes: Warlock
Requires Level 60
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 20.
Warlock Tier 1.
Fearless's first Tier 1 piece from Molten Core.
And of course it had to be Felheart.
"The garbage set."
"Fuck me. What a start."
Gabryell stared at the drop in disappointment.
Out of everything that could have dropped, they got Felheart.
Once they were full-clearing Molten Core regularly, pieces like this would lose value fast.
At this rate, what came next?
Cenarion?
Then the real bad-luck streak could begin.
Felheart.
Cenarion.
Maybe some Lawbringer mixed in just to make it hurt more.
Vendorstrike.
OEB.
Seal of the Archmagus.
Why did RNG always seem to know exactly which drops would piss people off the most?
Then Gabryell paused.
"Wait."
Something clicked.
"I was the first one inside the instance this time."
He stared at the loot.
"No fucking way."
"Don't tell me whoever zones in first decides the loot table."
A horrible realization hit him.
This time, he was the one who had cursed the raid's drops!