"This corpse run feels deserted."
Since Gabryell's group was the only raid running Onyxia's Lair, the trip back to their bodies felt almost lonely. If they were in the Searing Gorge, they would probably have hundreds of other players running alongside them after every wipe.
"So, what did everyone notice?"
Even during the corpse run, Gabryell did not forget to ask everyone what they had learned from the pull.
"Guild Leader, can I swear?" DragonKnight asked.
"Go ahead."
"I got absolutely wrecked by a dragon. I spend all day talking about riding dragons, and today one rode me instead. That's humiliating."
DragonKnight had always joked about riding a dragon someday and finally living up to his name.
Instead, Onyxia had flattened him in under a minute.
Carlos said, "Onyxia has a knockback. I think we need to tank her against a wall. We can't pull her toward the room entrance. I got knocked back at least ten meters."
"I've got a complaint too. This boss fights dirty. She summons Onyxian Whelps."
"Are we sure she summons them? It looked more like UBRS—step on the eggs and they hatch."
"Yeah, that has to be it. There are dragon eggs all along both sides. Get knocked into them, take one bad step, and suddenly you've got a whole swarm on you."
One advantage of keeping Ventrilo open during progression was that everyone could compare what they had seen from different parts of the room.
If the raid leader monopolized the mic from pull one and had no idea what he was doing, the raid could stay stuck forever.
"Let me say something," Susie said.
"This boss is immune to Taunt. On the pull, everyone needs to hold DPS and let Carlos establish threat first. Wait until his threat is stable before attacking."
"Exactly," Carlos added. "The knockback also seems to drop my threat. If you go too hard, you'll rip aggro off me in seconds."
"That's disgusting. Won't that make the fight take forever?"
Old said, "If we have to hold DPS anyway, we might as well wand her."
The guy was usually an idiot, but his brain worked surprisingly well when it mattered.
Unfortunately, he spent so much of the rest of his time acting like a clown that nobody took his suggestions seriously.
"Give it a rest. If we just wand her, we'll be here until the end of time."
"Who knows what else she can do? Maybe she summons more adds. If we follow Old's idea and wand her down, the healers will be OOM before the boss loses any real health."
"So Hunters only get to Auto Shot?"
"What about Rogues? Are we supposed to just auto-attack?"
"Fine, I'll unequip my weapons and punch her."
The right answer got laughed out of the room anyway.
Old only had himself to blame.
After getting roasted, he went quiet and started second-guessing himself.
Maybe they were right.
Wanding Onyxia down really could take forever.
"Don't stand in front of the dragon," ServerHeals said. "I got killed by one breath just now."
He had used Fade earlier, but the Paladin beside him had been higher on threat, so Onyxia's breath had still caught him.
"The tail seems to do damage too," someone said uncertainly.
"Probably. I didn't really notice."
"Me neither. I was trying to stab the Princess in the ass, then I got blasted away by the boss's fart."
The rest of the comments came from the melee players who had tried to attack Onyxia from behind.
After getting launched, they had landed straight among the dragon eggs and been surrounded by Onyxian Whelps.
At that point, none of them had been paying attention to whether the Tail Sweep itself had actually done damage.
Gabryell decided they had discussed enough and took over the call.
"Next pull, Carlos, turn her away from the raid as soon as you pick her up and tank her against a wall. Melee, stay away from the tail and attack from the sides."
"DPS, ease in. Anyone who rips aggro has to say 'I'm a noob!' ten times on Ventrilo."
"Susie, don't stand up front with Carlos. Build threat gradually, but stay away from the main group. If Carlos loses threat and she turns to you, I don't want her breathing through the entire raid."
"Got it."
"Good."
Gabryell trusted Susie.
"We've only pulled her once. We still don't know what else she can do. Let's get a few more pulls in and find out."
Gabryell had brought them here specifically to get used to wipes and corpse runs before Molten Core progression began for real.
Anyone who couldn't handle dying over and over had no business chasing first kills.
That was progression.
You wiped until the raid learned the fight.
After returning to the instance, everyone recovered first, then rebuffed.
In Onyxia's Lair, the trash wouldn't respawn until after two boss wipes, forcing the raid to clear its way back in.
They had only wiped once on Onyxia so far, so the path was still clear.
Once everyone was fully buffed and recovered, they returned to the entrance of her chamber.
"I'm going in. Keep me healed."
This time, Carlos had some experience.
He wasn't going to tank her in place, drag her toward the entrance, and get launched halfway across the room again.
Carlos picked up Onyxia, rotated her away from the raid, then backed her into the wall so the DPS had access to her sides.
"Oh, come on."
Gabryell stared at the wall Carlos had chosen.
Right on the edge of the left whelp pit.
Technically, yes.
It was a wall.
It was also a terrible position.
The ledge wasn't high enough to guarantee safety, and one bad knockback could still send someone straight into the whelp cave.
"Can't expect too much."
Gabryell couldn't expect Carlos to discover the ideal front-center tanking position on his second-ever pull.
Players had only settled on that spot after countless wipes.
"We'll make this work for now."
Gabryell had thought he'd seen every possible way to tank Onyxia.
Apparently not.
Once Carlos had her positioned, the DPS started finding their spots.
This time, nobody stood directly behind her tail.
Unfortunately, they had only learned half the lesson.
Onyxia's tail was enormous, and so was the reach of her Tail Sweep.
Standing slightly off-center did not make you safe.
Several melee players settled near her rear flanks.
The first Tail Sweep sent every one of them flying.
A few poorly positioned ranged players got launched too. They had assumed that being a little farther away from the tail would keep them out of range.
The ranged players avoided the whelp cave.
Three melee players did not.
They landed among the eggs and unleashed a swarm of Onyxian Whelps.
"Holy crap, that's a lot of whelps! Help!"
The melee players who had been launched into the pit died to the swarm before they could even escape.
"David, Night, pick up the whelps! Mages, wait until the tanks stack them, then AoE everything down!"
Gabryell was loving the raw chaos of it.
This was real Vanilla progression.
Messy.
Frustrating.
And fun.
"I'M FLYING AGAIN!"
Carlos suddenly shouted.
His positioning was at least decent enough this time that the knockback didn't send him into the whelp pit.
The problem was the timing.
The knockback landed between heals, with Carlos already below full health.
The hit chunked him for half his health and left him below one-third.
Breath.
Onyxia breathed fire and finished off what was left of his health.
Carlos died.
The tank was down.
Onyxia immediately turned to the next player on the threat meter.
This was the price of poor threat control.
The next player wasn't Susie.
It was a Warlock.
She snapped toward him and breathed straight through the raid.
Half the group died.
With Onyxia loose, the raid collapsed into chaos.
More and more players went down.
Gabryell looked around.
At that point, the only players still technically alive were a handful of Mages sitting safely inside Ice Block.
"If we can reach Deep Breath tonight, I'll call that a win."
After two wipes in Phase 1, Gabryell's expectations for the night were no longer very high.
If they could at least make it to Phase 2, he would be satisfied.