Breakfast Topic: What's the closest you've cut a boss kill?
by Chris Clow 
Aug 4th 2011 at 8:00AM
We've all heard the horror stories of 1% wipes on tough raid encounters. It's one of the most painful occurrences in the game, to have come so close yet to fall by the slimmest of margins. I find that the most exhilarating moments in this game for me lie in the moments where the wheels are beginning to fall off, and everyone in the raid pulls out all the stops to try to bring the beast down before it can finish us off. Just as the 1% wipe is such a painful experience, the opposite -- snatching victory from the gaping maw of defeat -- is the most rewarding.
In my guild, we've made a habit of living on that razor's edge for many of our progression kills this tier, but none were as close as our first Nefarian kill. We handled the fight cleanly until 20%. The second-to-last Electrocute killed the healer assigned to me, the add tank. As I blew my last cooldowns to survive, the 10% Electrocute came up. I put my raid wall up to protect the raid, and the Electrocute took me down.
As the adds began to run rampant, the raid performed brilliantly and sold themselves dearly. Our mage landed a perfect Ring of Frost to buy time; our healers burned every tool at their disposal to keep the adds at bay: and our Nefarian tank timed his cooldowns flawlessly. With only two DPSers left alive, our hunter launched himself across the room on his rocket boots in a desperate attempt to give our enhance shaman another precious second to finish off the dragon. Nefarian died with two DPSers alive, both of whom were at less than 25% health. Nerdscreams ensued.
What's closest you've cut things on a boss to get that first kill? Which boss pushed you to your limit?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
Nina Katarina Aug 4th 2011 8:04AM
My mage was the last one alive on our first Halfus kill. I blinked away from him and hit ice block just before he got to me. The dots slowly ticked down his health, but it wasn't going to be quite enough. Then I noticed that mirror image was about to come off of cooldown, so I hit that just as the ice block faded, and got the kill.
Angus Aug 4th 2011 12:08PM
Curator, back when T5 ha just come out. We had a bad moment, he proceeds to work his way in his frenzy state through the raid. Holydin is last one, curator is about to hit him, he holy shocks as curator one shots him. We all watch BOTH go down.
Did we just win?
So... Who is running back?
trisulwarrior Aug 5th 2011 5:08PM
Crazy how a split-second is the difference between joy and despair.
Example: our first Shannox kill:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-BG03YL2MA#t=8m32s
Moosader Aug 4th 2011 9:51AM
There are definitly two fights that come to mind. First being Rage winterchill in Hyjal. Everyone died to DnD when the boss was at less than 1%. A dwarven sniper finished him off for us.
Second, was lord Rhyolith. After a few missed volcanoes it took us too long to lower him to 25% and he superheated. People started dropping like flies. In the end it was me, bear tank, vs. Rhyolith. I killed him, but his dot immediatley killed me.
Good times.
Knob Aug 4th 2011 8:15AM
Anub'arak 25 HC. We're at 48/50 attempts, so still in contention for A Tribute to Mad Skill achievement. The first phases all go as planned and we even get him to around 15% with no issues. Then it happens; some healer d/cs, some DPS do as well, and suddenly people are dying left and right to the frost damage debuff. The boss is close to 5% when more of the DPS start dying. A new wave of adds spawn, heading to the OT...the OT holds them for a while but there aren't enough stuns available for them and they shadow-strike some other raid members who die. The OT then dies and the adds are now loose. The boss is almost at 1% and everyone who is alive is busy nuking him hoping against hope. And just on the second that Anub'arak goes berserk, the last raid member dies and Anub'arak does as well. We get our achievement but every single raid member was dead at the time of the kill. Due to that the "door" doesn't open, Tirion doesn't come down and the chest doesn't spawn. We then had to petition a GM to get our chest loot. I'm sure those last few percentages resulted in some smaller fingernails on our raiders.
Shorty Aug 4th 2011 8:16AM
Last night – Shannox – 50k. Yep, you read it right, 50k.
/facepalm
Nina Katarina Aug 4th 2011 8:28AM
We had a 10k Cho'gall wipe once. We had gone beyond the end of our raid time and everyone was dragging, but it was still heartbreaking. The forums the next day were full of, "if I'd just popped my fire elemental earlier..." "I was reaching for Lay On Hands when he killed me..." "If I had taken my potion when I thought about it..."
Everyone in the raid had something they could have done for that last bit of damage. We went in the next day and one-shot him easily.
Close misses are really great for getting people to think of little ways to improve their performance, which often results in permanent skill gains from the players involved. I saw marked improvement in a number of people's performances after that night.
Interficio Aug 4th 2011 8:53AM
O my gosh i think i was in the group that one shotted him the day after. I was the tank and i was with a guild that said the exact same thing, you wouldnt happen to be on misha?
Nina Katarina Aug 4th 2011 8:58AM
Nope, not on Misha. We're probably not the only ones who've had this experience.
cyanea85 Aug 4th 2011 10:02AM
We had a Cho'gall close call too. One person alive at 10k health when he dropped.
Schadenfreude Aug 4th 2011 11:38AM
@Nina, we had the EXACT same experience on Cho'gall; I was going "NOOO I SHOULD HAVE POPPED FIRE ELE EARLIER", the paladins were like I could have done [x], etc. So heartbreaking.
We also had a very close call on Shannox on sunday as well, but one of our healers had to go to bed as per FAA regulations. Hope we'll get him tonight.
Acaust Aug 5th 2011 2:00AM
That would be Blood Queen Lana'thel hc.
She was going down to her last percentages but so was her enrage timer. Her enrage burst wiped the entire raid but me, bubbled pally tank and 2 dk dps with anti magic shield up. These few seconds earned us the kill.
valhorth Aug 16th 2011 4:42PM
I can do you one closer :/
Last week we had 4053 left on Baleroc
Ang Aug 4th 2011 8:16AM
The Guild I used to be in went into Hyjal back in the BC days and one the 4th or 5th attempt of the night on Rage Winterchill, we got him down to thousands of HP when the last person wiped... Jana then took it upon herself to kill the boss, and even though 1/2 the raid had not released, since noone was alive, the "kill" counted, but we could not loot the body.
So close... yet so far....
Sonalita Aug 4th 2011 8:27AM
That Jana is a feisty lady...
Lissanna Aug 4th 2011 8:16AM
Over the years, I've had a handful of first boss kills where either one person or no people were alive. When most of my raid is dead when the boss finally drops, we get a lot more excitement & cheering out of the guild...
Mitawa Aug 4th 2011 11:18AM
I believe we had a no-player alive Moroes kill (when Moroes was hard...
Sorcha Aug 4th 2011 2:07PM
We once had a wipe on Reliquary of Souls that became a kill when our resto shaman ankhed just as the last player died and Frost Shocked him, killing him.
Priestess Aug 4th 2011 6:59PM
Funny, those first boss kills. My guild's first downing of Malygos we were all killed in the last phase, but the DoTs were still ticking. Our two priests were the last ones down. The last priest's Guardian Spirit was still up. We got credit and a great kill story. Raid boss dead with no one alive for almost 10 seconds. We've had quite a few crazy close shaves, including a lone tank on the last 5% of Prince back in the day, but that one was the only one with absolutely nobody alive.
Zebreck Aug 4th 2011 8:18AM
I'm the off tank in my guild, usually less geared than our main tank who can make more raids than me. However, I have the luck of the angels when it comes to clutch avoidance streaks. Both our ascendant council and chimaeron first kills came at the end of very long wipe nights and consisted of me, all alone, putting out my pathetic prot warrior dps and burning off the last 1.5mil or so. Both times I jumped out of my chair and yelled so loud my wife came to ask if I was alright.