Memoires (Part 10 - Dousing the Firelord)

Well over 1000 man hours went into defeating Ragnaros. A lot of this of course was spent butting our heads against him in the actual dungeon (2 hours per day, 3 days a week), but just as much time was spent by dedicated members outside of the actual raids. They strip mined the world of Dark Iron Ore, a special ore needed by our blacksmiths to craft the pieces of armour which had the necessary fire resistance for the two main tanks. The herbalists emptied most of the world of flowers and herbs in order to supply the alchemists making fire protection potions for the raid and everyone else pitched in where they could by buying ingredients from other players and by collecting various items which had bonus fire resistance for use.

All this hard work yielded steady progress on the encounter. From the first attempts where we would wipe at 75% health, it steadily dropped and after some weeks of trying we felt the kill was just around the corner. Everyone was familiar with the tactics, the tanks had the necessary gear, everyone was supplied with fire protection potions and we knew all the possible tricks Ragnaros could throw at the raid and everyone knew what to do if things went wrong (i.e. if they got punted into the lava), it was just a case of putting it all together and executing everything flawlessly.

To make the following video more understandable, I will provide a brief explanation of the encounter.

Ragnaros spawns in a fixed location in the centre of the room and does not move. The tanks engage him first (if no one is in melee range in the fight he casts instant kill spells at the raid), after the tanks engage all the damage dealers let loose with everything they have.

Every 30 seconds, he casts an area of effect knockback on all the melee, this can be negated if the fire resistance is high enough, and is the primary reason why the tanks need so much fire resistance. All the melee damage dealers move back 5 seconds before this happens, and engage again afterwards.

During this time, he will be randomly casting fireballs at everyone not in melee range, which knock the target and any nearby characters about a short distance.

After 3 minutes of this, he will submerge into the lava and call forth 8 Sons of Flame, which are little fire elementals that swarm on the raid. They have an aura which strips away the mana of any nearby casters and so it is really important to get them controlled so they do not run amok. The raid is given 90 seconds to dispose of the Sons of Flame and then Ragnaros will emerge from the lava and the cycle repeats until either he is dead or the raid is dead.

Surviving two waves of Sons of Flame was very difficult and so to be successful a raid needed to kill Ragnaros before his second submerge, i.e. by 7 minutes and 30 seconds into the fight.

Right, now you know roughly how to kill Ragnaros.

Roll forward to the night when we did kill him - a Tuesday if I remember correctly. Our goal when we entered the core that night was nothing short of his death. We started off a bit poorly, as some unlucky lava splashes combined with knockbacks meant a lot of the damage dealers died, and we wiped at around 40%. After a few more tries, we got to 22%, and then, the next try, things suddenly clicked and we made it to a tantalisingly close 2%.

One of the officers; a rogue by the name of Thaleb, filmed our 2% wipe, which I present below in its excruciating entirety. Even when I watch this today I can still feel the tension and the desperation as we all realised we just needed to take 2% off his health and how we scrambled around to try and survive the second wave of the Sons of Flame, hoping beyond hope that even though half the raid was down we could somehow take off that last sliver of health before he pummelled the other half of the raid into oblivion.

For watching the video: DPS = damage per second, used in the context of "Melee DPS DPS DPS, it is analogous to "attack".

After this attempt, I was shaking from the adrenaline. We were so close. God we were so close. Everyone recovered and prepared for one more try. Collectively, we could smell blood.

In the end, it only took one more try. The first 3 minutes went smoothly without a hitch, and then the Sons of Flame were spawned, and they were handled in record time. We set back on Ragnaros, and then things began to go a little wrong - people started dying, but we were still taking his health down.

The timer informed the raid that there was 20 seconds to go until the second wave of Sons of Flame, and we re-doubled our efforts, watching as his health bar ticked away percent by agonising percent. At this point, over a quarter of the raid was dead. Finally, with less than five seconds to go before he submerged again, we killed him.

The roar over the voice chat was deafening, as near 40 people shouted and screamed their heads off. I believe in fact several people's speakers were blown out by it. Raid chat was spammed with cries of victory and joy and I had the world's largest smile plastered to my face. My hands shook so much that it was difficult to even begin selecting targets to resurrect them. We were on top of the world.

Very few things I've done in my life has really compared to the pure joy and elation and adrenaline mix that I felt from that moment. What made it so special was the fact that we had made it together as a team. We disparate players from all over the globe, from housewives in Holland to builders in Sweden, from company workers in the UK to students in Finland had come together, united for a single purpose and we had achieved what we set out to do together. Some people popped beers, and we chatted and laughed and revelled in our victory late into the night, receiving plaudits and congratulations from all that heard the news. It was a glorious day.