wow Eternal Palace Race Day 3: The Court Disappoints, Za'qul Does Not

[Starym 3,801]

 

While only one more boss died today in the race, it was still a very exciting day, as we found both the easiest and hardest of the second batch of bosses in the raid. And while the Queen's Court disappointed with it's drop in difficulty from previous bosses, Za'qul has so far lived up to his penultimate boss status and has defended Queen Azshara successfully.

We left things off with Limit in the lead yesterday, having taken down Orgozoa World First while Method slept and had already taken the 6th boss, Queen's Court, down to 45% after only a small amount of tries. Limit pushed through quite a bit longer than usual yesterday, finishing up the day with the Court at 25%, around an hour before Method returned - indicating that maybe this wouldn't be that hard a boss.

We wouldn't find out exactly how hard the Court was for a while yet, as Method still had to push through the giant jellyfish to catch up to Limit, and after getting it down to 5% some 2 and a half hours after their raid start, it ended up taking them another two before it died and Method moved back to even with Limit on 5/8. With the second front-runner having moved on to the next boss, it was time to look back to Lady Ashvane, where we saw a very new and an old face, both from the OC side of things, as Ethical and Honestly claimed the World 4th and 5th, US/OC 3rd and 4th. At this point, only Method had gotten past the Lady gatekeeper of the EU guilds, and we didn't see an Asian 4/8 for a while either.

As all this Ashvane action was happening, Method were quickly and consistently chipping away at the 6th boss, and only 2 hours and 45 minutes after their Orgozoa kill, we had another World First on our hands! The Queen's Court turned out to be a massive disappointment and a big step down in terms of difficulty, as it was the shortest lived boss since the first three, taking only 16 wipes, compared to Ashvane's 37 and Orgozoa's 55 for Method. And while the boss progress was over far too quickly, it at least gave us a very exciting and hectic finish on the kill:

Despite the lowering of difficulty standards on the 6th boss, the Eternal Palace had been a very good race so far, with the top guilds switching off the top spot several times, making it very exciting for us following it and a welcome change of pace from the usual US domination on the early days followed by a strong EU finish.

Lets go @Methodgg!
The Queens Court has fallen - Another World First! 6/8 ✔️ Congrats! #RWF #MethodWay #letsrunthis pic.twitter.com/ydslafj4Bl

— Runtime Global (@Runtime_Global) July 18, 2019

As for Za'qul, the very first pull Method did on him didn't bode too well for his living long, as Method got him to 58% immediately. After only an hour of pulls the boss was already down to 40%, and on the surface it was looking to be another Queen's Court situation. However, the Harbinger of Ny'alotha not only proved resilient, but also had some very interesting mechanics to offer, as Method took the opportunity to use a creative strategy that helped them push a little further on the boss. In one of the phases the entire raid becomes hostile to each other, making it impossible for the healers to do their job, so self sustain became paramount - however, in a really smart move, Method simply decided to take a few more mages along and have them polymorph their now enemies, heal them up that way, and then break the poly so they wouldn't loose too much time! In the end, that very low 39.9% try from an hour after boss pulls started was also the best try of the entire day! (Small note: the below video starts lagging at the end.)

(Timestamp is at 00:18:12, in case it's not working for you.)

Limit quickly took down Queen's Court to catch back up to 6/8 when they woke up, and continued with Za'qul attempts for another 7-8 hours after Method went to sleep, but they didn't get that much further on him, with their best try ending up some 4% lower than Method, at 36%.

Meanwhile, back in non-penultimate boss territory, it was actually Exorsus that pushed through that 4/8 barrier and managed to get the Lady Ashvane EU 2nd, World 6th, as Pieces caught up under an hour after them. We ended the day with 15 guilds on 4/8 and progressing on Orgozoa, with Ji Tian Hong claiming the Asia first on the lady in 9th spot overall, and Aversion and Practice the EU 4th and 5th.

And so Za'qul has so far proven to be a worthy penultimate boss, as he's been holding steady around 35-40% for almost a full day of progress. But can Azshara's final gatekeeper hold on a bit longer or are we going to see just what the Queen is made of on day 4? Tune in to either Method or Red Bull's streams, or check in on Method's raid progress page during the day to find out.

[HugeMurloc 43]

Go on Method!!!!