"Is that the boss?"
Lucifron had a snake-like lower body and a humanoid face, giving him the same general silhouette as a Naga. Molten Core reused that look for several bosses; aside from their colors, a lot of them looked suspiciously alike. Blizzard's art team had clearly saved some time in here.
"What a cheater. Two bodyguards and a whole pack of dogs?"
Lucifron patrolled between two packs of Core Hounds, so everyone naturally assumed they were his pets.
Smooch checked the raid frames and saw that everyone had recovered. As Lucifron passed by, she put Hunter's Mark on him and got ready to pull.
Gabryell stopped her immediately. "Hold it. Don't pull the boss yet. Wait for him to patrol back, then grab the front pack of hounds."
If they pulled Lucifron directly, the whole pack would come with him. At that point, they might as well have a Paladin throw Divine Intervention on a healer and wait for the wipe.
Smooch realized she had almost screwed up and moved Hunter's Mark onto one of the Core Hounds in the nearest pack.
"Pulling."
She fired and brought the pack toward the raid.
"All four tanks, get in there together. Keep all five stacked."
Core Hounds came in packs of five, and they needed to die within roughly ten seconds of one another. Leave one alive too long and it would bring the dead ones back.
The rest of the raid did not know that yet. Left to themselves, they would have tunneled the marked hound, thrown the kill timing off, and ended up stuck in an endless cycle of resurrections.
"Mages, AoE. Melee, don't tunnel the marked one—spread your damage and keep their health even. These things need to die together or they'll rez each other."
With Lucifron right in front of them, Gabryell had no intention of wiping over something this stupid, so he gave them the mechanic outright.
"No way."
"These dogs actually do that?"
"Yep. Madhouse wiped four times on them this afternoon."
Gabryell casually used Madhouse as cover for how he knew.
Carlos gritted his teeth. "Knew it. Those assholes never tell us anything useful."
Gabryell continued. "Melee and Hunters, keep switching. If one hound has more health than the others, hit that one until they're even again. Mages, Blizzard. Warlocks, Rain of Fire. They don't have huge health pools. Nine Mages and three Warlocks will melt them."
With the physical DPS helping keep the health bars even, twelve casters dropping AoE on the pack would tear through them fast.
"Smooch, bring them in. Tanks, pick them up the second they reach us."
She pulled the pack back before Lucifron could patrol toward them again.
"A little farther. Don't tag the boss," Gabryell reminded her.
He held DPS for a few seconds to let the tanks establish threat, then called, "Everyone except the Hunters, step up and stack near the tanks. If you pull aggro, don't kite the damn thing around. Bring it straight to a tank."
There was no reason to spell it out for the Hunters. If they pulled aggro, Feign Death was basic class knowledge.
Between knowing the strategy and having Gabryell call the pull from start to finish, the Core Hounds that had kept Madhouse wiping for over an hour barely slowed Fearless down.
Gabryell was still using the Blade of Eternal Darkness on trash. Instead of standing back and casting Blizzard, he went in with Arcane Explosion again.
He was practically doing the work of two players. Between the imps and this pack of hounds, Gabryell shot to the top of the damage meter, roughly twenty percent ahead of the Mage in second place.
"That Blade is fucking insane. He's spamming Arcane Explosion nonstop and somehow spending less mana than we are on Blizzard."
"It's ridiculous for Mages. I'm jealous as hell."
"Back when I was a noob running Maraudon, I saw one drop and a Rogue won it. I even congratulated him on the purple. Looking back, I was a complete idiot."
As more Mages got their hands on the Blade of Eternal Darkness, players on the forums had started breaking down just how good it was for the class. One popular thread practically worshipped the thing and called it the ultimate Mage solo-farming weapon.
By now, most Mages knew how strong it was. Plenty had even started taking level-50 alts through Maraudon specifically to farm one.
High-end solo farming was still something only a small group of players could really pull off.
Gabryell had not seen anyone on the forums talking about soloing Princess Theradras yet. Even if somebody had already thought of it, they were probably still experimenting and wiping through different routes until they found something reliable.
Still, skilled Mages never lacked the patience to mess around with things like that. Sooner or later, somebody was going to figure it out.
Once all five Core Hounds hit zero health, the pack was effectively dead even though the corpses had not disappeared yet.
Gabryell did not bother stopping the AoE immediately. They would have to sit and drink after the pull anyway, so a few extra casts while the corpses finished despawning did not matter.
There was one thing they absolutely had to avoid.
If somebody pulled the next pack before those corpses disappeared, the incoming hounds could bring the dead ones back. Then they would suddenly be dealing with ten Core Hounds at once.
That would be a nightmare.
"Smooch, wait until everybody's recovered before you pull again."
He did not want her making that mistake.
"After every AoE pack, make sure the raid has health and mana before you start the next pull."
Gabryell looked toward Lucifron.
"Wait until the boss patrols as far away as possible, then pull the second pack."
To be safe, he stuck with the standard approach and cleared both Core Hound packs along Lucifron's patrol route.
Some raids skipped the second pack and simply dragged Lucifron away from it. The problem was that no matter how carefully the boss was positioned, there was always somebody talented enough to add extra mobs in a way nobody thought possible.
The second pack overlapped Lucifron's patrol much more heavily, so Smooch was visibly more nervous. One bad pull could bring the boss with the dogs.
"Let's go again."
The first time Lucifron reached the far end of his patrol, Smooch hesitated and let the window pass.
Gabryell did not rush her. "It's fine. Watch his patrol a couple more times."
Smooch quietly steadied herself.
When Lucifron finally moved far enough away from the pack again, she fired and pulled the hounds back toward the raid.
After the first pack, the second one was easy.
The only hiccup came when somebody pulled aggro. Fortunately, Gabryell had everyone stacked close together, so the hounds never got far enough away to turn it into a mess.
Once both packs were dead, they could finally fight Lucifron without worrying about accidental adds.
"How do we do this one?" Carlos asked.
Gabryell had mentioned Madhouse earlier, so Carlos naturally assumed he had gotten some information from them about the boss.
"Madhouse spent all day wiping on him," Gabryell said. "From what they figured out, Lucifron has two nasty raid debuffs: Impending Doom, which is magic, and Lucifron's Curse. His two Flamewaker Protectors can also use Dominate Mind."
He paused for a moment, then emphasized the part that mattered most.
"Dispels win this fight. Curses, magic debuffs, mind control—if it lands, get it off immediately. If our dispels are sloppy, we're dead."
"When we pull, Mages decurse first. If Lucifron's Curse is up, I don't want to see anyone standing there casting Frostbolt just to pad the meter. Priests handle the magic debuffs. While they're busy dispelling, Paladins and Druids keep Egides alive."
"If somebody gets mind controlled and we can't break it right away, I'll sheep them. Nobody kills the mind-controlled player."
That last part needed to be said. On early Lucifron attempts, mind-controlled players had an unfortunate habit of getting blown up by their own raid before anyone could dispel them.
Madhouse's biggest problem had been the dispels.
Their healers were not running Flask of Distilled Wisdom, so after enough dispels they ran low on mana and had nothing left for healing. Their main tank was not using Flask of the Titans or Greater Stoneshield Potions either. If the healers ever let his health dip too far, he could die almost instantly.
Their DPS consumables were another problem.
With the Mages tied up decursing, Madhouse did not have enough physical DPS to burn down the two Protectors quickly. The longer the fight dragged on, the more mana the healers burned.
Eventually they ran dry, and everything spiraled from there.
This was Fearless's first boss that could blanket the raid in debuffs, so Gabryell was not expecting a clean first pull.
"Warlocks, Soulstone a Priest or Paladin. We'll use the first pull to learn the fight."
Better safe than sorry. If they wiped, at least they would not have to make a corpse run.
For the first attempt, Gabryell was not planning to have the physical DPS burn damage potions.
Starting with the second pull, though, that would change.