WoW’s raiding race to get the mythic world first kill of Queen Azshara is (maybe) nearing an end

The Mythic difficulty of Azshara’s Eternal Palace has only been open a week, but it’s been a very busy week. The world first race is in full swing, with thousands of guilds dipping their toes into the waters of the Eternal Palace and starting their mythic clears. The competition has been fierce so far.

World first mainstays Limit and Method flew through the first three bosses, and Method didn’t even get their first wipe until reaching Lady Ashvane. She’s the toughest boss of the first half of the raid, greatly amplifying the damage required to win, and the healing required to survive. By the end of the fight, the entire raid is soaked through with the Waterlogged debuff. While on Normal and Heroic difficulties this debuff will drop off after fifteen seconds, on Mythic it will last until the fight is over — even persisting through death! Which forces raids to spread it out — and stopping them from cheating by loading up one player and using a battle resurrection on them.

Despite starting a day later, Method got Ashvane down first, but the difficulty only increased from there. Orgozoa requires superhuman coordination for tanks to properly control the baby squids he summons. The Queen’s Court has ridiculous positioning requirements, which are only made harder by the Queen’s Decrees causing giant void zones to spawn in the room. And both of these bosses pale in comparison to Za’qul.

The Harbinger of Ny’alotha has been downed by five guilds so far. Limit and Method both took over 150 wipes to get their kills though, even going so far to use a single Brewmaster tank, who can use their Stagger to avoid most of the damage that would need to be shared by the Mind Tether. Demon Hunters have enough self-healing and survivability to take the place that would normally need to be a second tank. Limit figured this strategy out first and got the lead back. Azshara was waiting.

At the time of writing, Limit has used their head start to get the best attempt — getting Azshara down to 52%. Method has been trying some wild strategies to catch up. At one point they used just a pair of Discipline Priests to heal. Whether that would give them the healing necessary for the final burn phase remains to be seen, but I’ve got to admire the skill on display to even get that far with only two healers.

With the weekly reset, today Limit has a tough choice ahead. Do they reclear the instance and get more chances at gear but potentially get held up on Za’qul again? Or do they extend the lockout and keep attempting Azshara with the loot they already have. It’s unlikely they’ll choose to extend since Method hasn’t gotten as far in the Azshara fight as they have. But Method has proven with the races in Uldir and Dazar’alor how quickly that can change.

Loot hasn’t been the only thing to come out of the Raid so far either. Method has also been fundraising for the charity Save the Children. So far they’ve managed to raise over $40,000! I love seeing the World of Warcraft community come together like this for a good cause.

Who are you rooting for in the race? Do you think that we’ll see another down to the wire finale like we saw in Uldir? Or will there be a surprise come from behind victory by one of the other five guilds like Pieces had in Crucible of Storms?