There were a few changes to the raid roster that night. Some members had real-life commitments and had asked for time off in advance, so a few substitutes stepped in.
Overall, the class composition hadn't changed much. They were down one Rogue and up one Mage, while still running three Fury Warriors and three Warlocks.
Three Warlocks were enough to handle the Banishes on the lava packs later, so Lantern rotated back into the lineup as a substitute.
"Ogabs, hurry up and hand over those Molten Core strats."
Dreamshade already knew that Fearless had killed the first four bosses in Molten Core, and the news had kept him awake all night.
He had gotten up early that morning and met with several officers to discuss putting together a permanent raid roster.
It wasn't until noon that Madhouse finally finished assembling its core team.
They immediately rushed into Molten Core to start progression.
The result was predictable.
Everyone there was one of the guild's better players, but most of them had never raided together before. Their coordination was actually worse than it had been the night before.
They stumbled their way to Lucifron, then wiped again just like yesterday.
"Did you gather the materials we agreed on?" Gabryell asked.
He was willing to share the strats, but there were conditions.
"Don't worry," Dreamshade replied. "Madhouse keeps its word."
Gabryell trusted him.
"I'll send you the recordings from our first two boss kills yesterday. Study them yourselves."
"What about the bosses after that?"
"We don't have any recordings."
They had recorded the first and second bosses.
How could they possibly not have recorded the third and fourth?
Not even an idiot would believe that.
Dreamshade certainly didn't.
Still, getting the strategies for the first two bosses was already more than he had expected.
Right now, Madhouse's biggest problem was morale.
They couldn't keep wiping endlessly like this.
If they didn't kill one or two bosses soon, the raid would start falling apart.
Gabryell sent Dreamshade the kill videos for the first two bosses.
Whether Madhouse could actually clear them was up to their own skill.
This was as far as he was willing to help.
"Guild Leader, Blackrock Mountain looks like it's been taken over by the Horde. They've got two or three raids there."
Sometimes the hardest part of running an instance was simply getting inside.
Blackrock Mountain had turned into a natural battleground.
Fights broke out there every day, and once evening came around, a small PvP skirmish could easily explode into a full-scale raid battle.
"Kill our way in."
Gabryell certainly wasn't going to tell everyone, "Come on, let's corpse-run our way into the instance."
Corpse-running was out of the question.
The Alliance had more players on Tichondrius anyway.
They waited at Thorium Point for a while, and before long, three or four Alliance raids had gathered.
Then everyone charged toward Blackrock Mountain together.
"Hahaha! That was awesome! Big fights really are the best."
Warrior duels were rough, but David had developed a real taste for large-scale battles.
He stayed right at the front, spinning through enemies with Whirlwind while the healers pumped heals into him from behind.
For a while, he looked almost unstoppable.
"The battlegrounds open tomorrow," Gabryell said. "I'll take you guys to Alterac Valley."
"Guild Leader, are battlegrounds fun?"
"Yeah. Are they actually exciting?"
Gabryell laughed.
"I've never played them. You're asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?"
Coldhands immediately called him out.
"Guild Leader, you supposedly have an uncle at Blizzard and people on the inside. You've got to know something the rest of us don't."
By now, everyone was convinced Gabryell had connections somewhere and somehow had a direct line to Blizzard.
"According to the official description, Alterac Valley is forty versus forty," Gabryell said. "One full raid against another. With that many people fighting at once, coordination and discipline are going to matter a lot. If you want to win, you'll need teamwork and actual tactics."
"Forty versus forty?"
David's eyes lit up.
"Now that sounds fun. Way better than this. You hit people two or three times and suddenly everyone's already dead."
He clearly hadn't gotten his fill.
"Tomorrow we're going to the battlegrounds and slaughtering those Horde pigs!"
"Take me too!" someone shouted. "I'm going to fight a hundred of them by myself!"
There was no need to guess.
That was definitely OldSeven.
Seeing how excited everyone was, Gabryell made the call.
"Tomorrow at one in the afternoon, I'll take everyone to Alterac Valley."
Running Alterac Valley as a guild event was actually a pretty good idea.
A few hours of PvP would let everyone blow off some steam after raid progression and go into the evening's run feeling refreshed.
"Why one in the afternoon?"
A few people who weren't free around then immediately complained.
"It's the first day battlegrounds are open," Gabryell explained. "The morning queues are going to be packed. Everyone and their grandmother will be trying them for the first time."
Most of the people in the guild had never spent enough time in competitive team games to truly understand the pain of getting stuck with terrible teammates.
Getting an entire forty-man raid into the same Alterac Valley wasn't reliable.
The usual trick was to count down and have everyone queue at the same time, hoping as many people as possible landed in the same match.
Even then, there were no guarantees.
And tomorrow morning, right when the battlegrounds opened, there would be an enormous crowd trying to get in.
With that many players queuing at once, their chances of landing together would be even worse.
If Gabryell ended up surrounded by random players who refused to listen, there was only so much he could do.
In his previous life, he had already suffered through a ten-game losing streak in ranked matches.
Now that he had been reborn, he had no intention of reliving that experience in Alterac Valley.
If the raid got split apart and he ended up with a bunch of strangers, they could easily lose no matter how hard he played.
After all, why would anyone listen to him?
Everyone who entered a battleground thought they were some kind of PvP god.
They all imagined themselves charging through the enemy team, dominating the battlefield, and carrying everyone else to victory.
People like that weren't exactly known for following orders.
"Anyone who wants to go together tomorrow, meet at Southshore at one."
For now, they still had to travel out toward the Alterac Valley entrance to queue.
Everyone immediately started signing up and promised they would be there on time.
With tomorrow's battleground plans settled, Gabryell turned his attention back to Molten Core.
They used the window shortcut to get inside.
Their raid ID was already locked, so it no longer mattered who entered first.
If the lockout turned out cursed, Gabryell would definitely get blamed.
If it turned out lucky, whoever actually looted the drops would take all the credit.
"Get the same buffs we assigned yesterday. Mana and health up, clear the entrance, then don't run ahead."
A full day had passed since their last raid.
Aside from the patrolling Ancient Core Hounds, which had stopped respawning after Magmadar died, the other trash mobs had already returned.
"Haha! They respawned. If we kill the same mobs again, do you think they'll drop the same gear?"
Shadowlord was thinking about the BoE belt that had dropped from the entrance trash yesterday.
"Don't get your hopes up," Gabryell said. "Every respawn is a fresh roll. The loot's still random."
Shadowlord looked disappointed.
He really wanted another Felheart Belt.
Once everyone finished buffing and recovered, Gabryell called out:
"Carlos, Susie. Go."
Before they had left that evening, Gabryell had already asked OliveDrab to put +55 Healing on every healer's weapon using Enchant Weapon - Healing Power.
The guild had covered all the materials.
At this point, Fearless had some of the best-geared healers in the game.
The entrance trash no longer posed much of a threat to their main raid, and the two mobs guarding the way were quickly cleared.
"Mana up, then we move."
Gabryell planned to take everyone down the right side and use the shortcut toward the third boss.
There was a Firelord ahead that someone could easily pull by mistake, so he decided to clear it first just to be safe.
"Loot!"
Sometimes that was just how the game worked.
You killed one extra mob you hadn't even planned on touching, and suddenly it dropped something good.
"What is it? Link it!"
The ranged players were the first to get impatient.
One of the melee players immediately posted the drop.
Arcanist Bindings (Epic)
Binds when equipped
Cloth Wrist
44 Armor
+15 Intellect
+8 Stamina
+6 Spirit
Durability 35 / 35
Class: Mage
Requires Level 60
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 12.
Equip: Restores 3 Mana every 5 seconds.
Now that was a good start.
Mage T1.
Arcanist Bindings.
Maybe their luck really would be good tonight.
"Mages who didn't get anything yesterday, bid DKP."
They were using the revised DKP system tonight.
DKP gains had been increased slightly, and the minimum bids for different pieces of gear had been adjusted as well.
"Leader, you don't want them?"
Coldhands had noticed that Gabryell still hadn't bid.
Since progression began, Gabryell hadn't spent DKP on a single item.
From everyone else's perspective, he was deliberately setting an example by letting the rest of the raid gear up first.
Gabryell smiled.
"It's fine. You guys take them. I'm not in a hurry."
What a guild leader.
Passing on gear instead of grabbing a full set for himself first.
Good luck finding another guild leader that generous.
Of course, that wasn't the real reason.
Gabryell simply didn't care much about Arcanist Bindings.
"Sublime Wristguards exist. Why would I waste DKP on these?"
Dire Maul opened tomorrow.
He planned to solo farm himself a pair of Sublime Wristguards.
In actual combat, the difference between them and the T1 bracers was negligible.
Rather than dump DKP into Tier gear he didn't really need, Gabryell would rather keep saving for genuine BiS drops.
Then, when something truly valuable appeared, he would have the highest DKP and could take it fair and square.
Nobody would have anything to complain about.
And no one would be able to accuse him of ninjaing the guild's best loot for himself.