Memoires (Part 4 - 40 Brave Souls Required)

It was around mid-May 2005 when the first proper raiding efforts began to take off in the World of Warcraft. On servers all across the world, more players were hitting the maximum level, and guilds and alliances were preparing themselves to face the next level of challenge that the game offered. On my server, these efforts were spearheaded by a guild called Kindred, a guild who had aggressively recruited most of the hardcore players available, tempting them with fame and fortune. However, despite this, they were still lacking numbers to attempt the end game challenges.

Back in those days, four raids existed (a raid in WoW parlance was an encounter designed for 40 players, although that number has since been revised downwards to 25). There was the mighty blue dragon Azuregos, who resided in the sorrowful landscapes of Azshara, the demon lord Kazzak, who took refuge in the Blasted Lands, and two more (Onyxia and the Molten Core), which I shall cover in more detail next time!

The Revenants as a guild did not particularly have close links with Kindred - in fact, I was hardly aware of their existence and activities, being myself not that involved with the wider community beyond my own guild. However, I did remember passing by Kindred players every now and then in the population hubs of the game, and remembered noticing their generally excellent quality equipment and the fact the majority of them appeared to be level 60.

So then, it was perhaps rather by luck that I ended up being part of the first ever raiding attempt on our server, directed at taking down Azuregos the blue dragon. How did this happen? About two weeks previous, whilst I was still level 55, a group to a level 60 dungeon was being formed and they lacked a healer - this was not an uncommon occurence as healing classes are perhaps the least widely played in all MMO's, and good healers are especially hard to come by. The group was comprised of a few Revenants members, and a mage by the name of Krogh. I offered my services in our guild chat channel, despite my being 5 levels too low.

The group was rather desperate, and after a little convincing, decided to give it a shot with me as the healer. The dungeon in question was called Blackrock Depths - home to the clan of the Dark Iron Dwarves, a clan that would play some significance in events yet to come. Anyway, I realised that this was a chance for me to prove my skill, and I was completely stoked by the challenge on offer. It was an adrenaline packed run from start to finish. We managed to pull it off, although due to my low level it was hairy at times. After the success of this run, Krogh and I kept in touch - it was to his benefit, as good healers were hard to come by after all, and me...well, I was just happy to have another level 60 pal.

So, fast forwarding two weeks - I was busy minding my own business, running some solo quest or such, when I suddenly received a message from Krogh asking whether I was free to come on a raid. I jumped out of my skin at the opportunity. A few moments later, a request arrived from the raid leader of Kindred, inviting me to join his group.

The raid gathers

I hurriedly made my way halfway across the world, and joined the growing band of players who were gathering on a small hillock opposite the dragon. I could hardly believe what we were going to attempt, and the excitement was dizzying - I felt like a little child at the candy store.

It took awhile to gather everyone - Kindred had only about 25 people from their own guild, and so the remaining numbers were made up of friends, friends of friends and any other suitable level 60's that were online at the time.

So, how does a band of adventurers take down Azuregos?

First, a warrior was assigned as the main tank. He or she had the job of keeping the attention of Azuregos at all times, to avoid "squishy" classes (i.e. anyone who wasn't a warrior or a paladin) from being sliced and diced. The main tank role is a prestigious one, and is always occupied by the best and sharpest warrior the raid has to offer. Then, several healers were assigned to only heal the main tank - a dragon can deal a huge amount of damage, and it only takes six or seven hits to down a warrior which meant that a steady stream of healing was required.

Then, the rest of the healers and damage dealers were equally distributed in groups, with the premise being each group stuck with their healer so they could be kept alive.

Next, our raid leader, who was a night elf rogue going by the name of Gigamo, launched into the actual tactics for the fight. First up was Dragonslaying 101:

1. Don't stand in front of the dragon. Dragon breath is not conducive to staying alive.
2. Don't stand behind the dragon. Dragon tail is not conducive to staying alive either.

Next, came Azuregos' special abilities. There was a periodically used teleport which placed all players within 30 yards underneath him, and which also reset everyone's threat levels. This essentially meant that after the teleport, everyone had to stop all spell casting or attacking until the main tank had established himself as the primary threat to Azuregos and brought the dragon under control. Also, there was a spell shield that Azuregos would periodically cast, which reflected all spells aimed at Azuregos back at the caster.

Armed with this knowledge, we readied ourselves, and finally, after an hour or so of preparation, launched our first attack on the mighty beast, and...very quickly we died. The damage output from the dragon was overwhelming, and when he teleported, some people stood out of range of the 30 yards, which meant that their threat was not wiped. This resulted in Azuregos chasing after them, leading the whole raid on a wild trip through the Azsharan hillsides. Also, some mages were apparently blind to when the spell shield was up, and killed themselves with their own fireballs, much to their embarassment.

Anyhow, we recovered our corpses, healed ourselves up, and tried again, and again, and again. Each time, we got his health a little lower. Each time, everything felt a little bit smoother and less frenetic; the teleports, which at first were completely disorientating and often lead people running right out in front of Azuregos' jaws (leading to their quick deaths), began to seem like second nature, the mages figured out that being hit by their own fireballs was no fun, and there was a sense of cohesiveness building despite the completely disparate group that had been drawn together from five or six guilds.

Before I knew it, three hours had passed, and although we had not managed to slay him, the group vowed to try again at the same time on the morrow (luckily it was a weekend). We returned on the Sunday refreshed and raring to go, and it was only a matter of time before he fell - the first raid boss to be killed on our server.

I was immensely happy that day; it was truly an awesome feeling. It was the scale of things that got me: 40 players is a large team - the size of a small company even, and to organise and direct such a disparate range of characters and personalities to fulfill highly specialised roles and to co-operate in unison for a fight that lasted well over 20 minutes seemed to me to be a huge accomplishment.

And, it just felt right - the army of brave heroes vanquishing the dragon? Absolutely epic. I wanted more.

I got in touch with the Kindred raid leaders, and let them know that I was eager to come on any other raids that they were planning to hold in the future, and thus I became part of the Kindred and co raiding group, along with several other members of the Revenants. The future as I saw it looked bright (but not orange).

It's a shame we killed Azuregos, he had quite the sense of humour. If I ever had to take a dragon to the pub, he would've been my choice.

Well...that's good to know...anyhow, 'til next time!