The first pull was even messier than Gabryell had expected.
Carlos had no trouble picking up Garr. The boss was a huge target, after all.
The real problem was everyone else trying to pick up and Banish the Firesworn.
And that was a huge problem.
"Damn it, First, don't Banish the add I'm tanking!"
One of David's Firesworn had been Banished by FirstDate.
"David, grab them!" Susie shouted.
David scrambled to pick them up and ended up with three Firesworn on him at once.
Nightlord had it even worse. He missed his add and panicked, hitting Challenging Shout.
Four Firesworn snapped onto him at once.
"Warlocks, Banish them! Now!"
Banish wasn't guaranteed to land every time.
Desert got unlucky—his first cast was resisted.
"Holy shit, my Banish got resisted!"
Then everything got worse.
Night was deleted almost instantly. The four loose Firesworn scattered toward the nearest Warlocks, interrupting Shadowlord and Lantern before either could finish casting Banish.
With no tank on them, both Warlocks went down seconds later.
Desert hadn't been touched, so he immediately started casting Banish again.
Unfortunately, he could only control one add at a time.
"I can't hold these!"
Susie was under far too much pressure tanking three Firesworn at once. She had been about to use Shield Wall, but after seeing Nightlord and both Warlocks die, she gave up on the idea.
With nobody holding them, the Firesworn that hadn't been Banished went straight for the rest of the raid.
The entire fight fell apart.
Carlos had Garr, but before he could drag the boss off to the side, Garr cast Magma Shackles.
A fifty-percent slow reduced the entire raid to a crawl.
The players were slowed.
The Firesworn weren't.
Several loose adds charged straight into the raid and started flattening people one after another.
Taunt was practically melee range, so David had to chase down anything that got loose before he could pull it back.
With Firesworn running all over the room, he didn't even know which one to go after first.
They hit hard too.
Two swings were enough to kill most players. If a healer got caught, they were basically dead. A Mage could at least buy a few seconds with Ice Block.
The healers were too busy trying to stay alive to heal anyone else, and the tanks quickly started dropping.
"I'm dead."
Susie, who had been holding three Firesworn at once, went down.
Great.
Now three more were loose.
Six Firesworn were rampaging through the raid at once, mowing people down in seconds.
The pull hadn't even lasted a full minute, and half the raid was already dead.
With Shackles on everyone, they couldn't even run.
"Wipe."
Gabryell shook his head.
No raid markers was brutal. Without them, getting everyone to identify exactly which targets they were supposed to tank or Banish would take wipe after wipe.
"I'm getting raid markers done tomorrow."
At this point, he had almost no hope of killing Garr tonight.
If they wanted a real shot at the boss, the addon at least needed a marking system so everyone could immediately identify their assignments.
"Stop running. You're Shackled—where the hell are you going? Die too far away and you're just making the rez harder."
He stopped the players still trying to flee.
Every wipe had a few people who somehow convinced themselves they could make it all the way out of the instance, only to die somewhere annoying and make cleanup harder.
"Snowy, stay down. Wait for combat to drop."
Danielly had a Soulstone on her.
Desert had put it on her the moment he saw Garr standing there with eight Firesworn.
Garr and the adds cleaned up the rest of the raid quickly.
About a minute later, everyone was dead.
Once combat dropped, Snowy used the Soulstone and started rezzing people.
"If you died too close to Garr, run back yourself. We'll summon you once you're inside."
Gabryell had Blinked away at the last second before dying. Anyone who had gone down deeper in the room couldn't be rezzed safely and had no choice but to make the corpse run.
More than ten people released at once.
Once they got back inside and resurrected, the Warlocks could summon them over. The Firelord and Lava Annihilator near the entrance had probably respawned already.
"Hahaha! I didn't die."
"Neither did I."
Two Hunters had somehow survived.
Smooch and OneShotCrit had both successfully used Feign Death.
Pure dumb luck.
"Crit, hit me with the jumper cables."
Igor immediately tried to make a little backroom deal with him.
OneShotCrit refused.
"Sorry, I don't swing that way."
Then he walked over to OldSeven instead.
"Holy shit, what happened to being pure?" Igor said, speechless.
OldSeven laughed.
"Fine, I'll stop pretending. Truth is, I'm actually a girl."
Nobody believed him.
A moment later, Crit hit him with the jumper cables and actually got him back up.
OldSeven immediately said, "See? That's true love."
"This boss is disgusting. He stripped Kings almost immediately, then took Fortitude too," Carlos complained.
Both buffs were extremely important for a tank. Losing them that early caused his health pool to drop sharply.
"That's why Flask of the Titans and Greater Stoneshield Potions matter so much on Garr," Gabryell said. "More than on any boss we've fought so far."
Once Garr started stripping buffs, those consumables became their safety net.
Even with raid markers, a group that came in without flasks and proper consumables would still have a hard time surviving this fight.
"First, next pull, don't Banish the add I'm tanking," David said. "I'd barely picked it up before you Banished it. I just stood there wondering what the hell happened."
FirstDate sounded helpless.
"The opening was complete chaos. How was I supposed to know which ones you guys were tanking and which one was mine? I just Banished the closest one."
In the end, it all came back to the lack of raid markers.
With proper markers, none of this would have happened.
"Exactly," Shadowlord said. "If you guys haven't picked them up yet, we don't even know what's safe to Banish."
Lantern agreed.
Nightlord said, "And if you guys don't Banish them, all I can do is Challenging Shout everything and instantly fall over."
Listening to them argue only made Gabryell more determined to get raid markers implemented early.
Adding the feature to his addon wouldn't be difficult.
As long as he didn't add automated raid-warning features, it wouldn't violate his agreement with Blizzard.
"As soon as everyone's up, heal, rebuff, and get ready. We're trying again."
"First, Soulstone any healer this time."
"Warlocks, get a summon up and bring everyone from the entrance over."
They would give it a few more attempts.
If it still didn't work, they would call the raid for the night and come back for Garr after the raid-marker feature was finished.
They tried again.
They wiped again.
The second pull started slightly better than the first, but the tanks and Warlocks overlapped their assignments again.
Loose Firesworn charged into the raid and kept dropping players in one or two swings.
They lasted about thirty seconds longer than they had on the first attempt.
Then they wiped again.
With a Soulstone ready this time, nobody needed another corpse run.
They recovered quickly and went for a third pull.
Somehow, the third attempt was even messier than the second.
They were right back to the disaster of the first pull.
Actually, it might have been worse.
Carlos failed to pick up Garr, and Susie accidentally got the boss instead.
She ended up with Garr and two Firesworn on her.
She died instantly.
Once Susie went down, the attempt was over.
The raid collapsed so fast nobody even had time to get a Rebirth off.
"Everything's red."
OldSeven, who had died more than anyone else, stared at his gear.
"Zero durability. I'm completely useless now."
Gabryell opened his character window.
His gear was red too.
"Crit, drop a repair bot. Two more pulls. If we still can't get it, we're calling it for tonight and coming back tomorrow."
There was no point mindlessly slamming their heads into the boss.
Until they solved the real problem, every extra wipe would only make everyone more frustrated.
OneShotCrit dropped a repair bot.
"Everyone, repair."
Gabryell checked the remaining duration on his flask.
Wipes burned an incredible amount of time.
At most, they had room for two more pulls before the flask expired.
Once it did, they would have been raiding for exactly four hours.
That was a good place to end their first progression night.
Everyone could take some time to reset, clear their heads, and come back tomorrow evening ready to try again.
...
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