Chapter 1116: Wiped Until They Question Their Existence (Third Update)
“What luck. Usually I have to leave my lair to find food!”
The moment Proud of the Whole Zone set foot in Onyxia’s Lair, the massive black dragon awoke. A low growl rumbled from her throat, making everyone feel their eardrums buzzing.
“Thud!” “Thud!” “Thud!”
Her enormous claws struck the ground, and the group could feel the earth tremble slightly. In the cracks of the floor, small streams of magma were even squeezed out by her steps.
“I’m going in. Keep my health up!”
Proud of the Whole Zone charged ahead, taking the lead as the main tank, needing to establish aggro on the boss immediately. The crowd behind surged forward, following close behind him. Frostbolts, Shadow Bolts, and Fireballs flew toward Onyxia’s face.
But Proud of the Whole Zone had only landed two hits on the boss when she whipped her head around and, with heavy “thud, thud, thud” steps, charged straight toward the crowd behind her.
“Holy crap!” Before Proud of the Whole Zone could pull Onyxia back, he saw a swath of players drop dead in the crowd.
Five minutes later, the group stood before Onyxia again.
“Alright, I won’t hold it against the few DPS who attacked early last time—that’s on me for not explaining beforehand. This time, remember: wait until I’ve built up aggro for a full minute before you start attacking. Everyone buffed up? Okay, I’m going in!”
Proud of the Whole Zone charged ahead once more, rushing toward the boss.
This time, everyone had learned their lesson. They stood still, waiting for the main tank to hold aggro for a while before making a move.
Onyxia’s normal attacks weren’t too damaging, and her attack speed wasn’t that fast, so letting the main tank take a few extra hits wasn’t a big deal. With so many healers watching his health bar, getting one-shot by a normal attack was unlikely.
But just as everyone stood there dumbly, they saw Onyxia tilt her head back slightly.
“Whoosh!!”
A blazing cone of flame erupted from her mouth, sweeping through the crowd in an instant.
Screams rang out from the group. The ranged players had no mental preparation whatsoever. They saw a torrent of fire rushing toward them, bathing their entire front side in a 180-degree inferno, like taking a hot bath. Many of them hadn’t even figured out what was happening before they were already lying on the ground…
“Holy crap, what just happened??”
“This dragon breathes fire!”
“Isn’t it pretty normal for a dragon to breathe fire…”
Five minutes later, the group was back again.
Proud of the Whole Zone munched on some bread while thinking. “Alright, this time, all ranged DPS, don’t stand nearby. Stand… hmm, how about standing at these two cave entrances on either side?”
“Perfect. I’ll hold the dragon’s head from the front, and you guys attack from the sides, right near these two small cave openings. Easy to spot. Alright, everyone, let’s go!”
…
Qian Kun was watching the guild raid’s progress, and he could barely stand to look.
In the VR version of *World of Warcraft*, Chen Mo had specifically added a new feature to the guild module: spectating. Of course, not all members had permission to spectate—the level of access was determined by the guild leader, which could somewhat prevent spies from rival guilds using low-level alts to snoop.
This spectating feature was simple: when a guild’s raid team was doing a progression run, authorized members could watch from a god’s-eye view, seeing the raid’s progress and hearing the raid leader’s real-time voice commands.
The main purpose of this feature was to let most players experience the mechanics of raid bosses.
In the vanilla era, raid bosses were brutally unforgiving. Besides the backup players, many others couldn’t even qualify as substitutes because their levels were too low or their gear was too weak. For these players, they might go months without ever entering a high-level raid. They couldn’t even catch a glimpse of those awe-inspiring bosses, let alone challenge them.
In fact, in the vanilla era, only a tiny fraction of hardcore players could experience raid content. The vast majority never got to see it.
That’s why, in Chen Mo’s previous life, Blizzard later reduced 40-player raids to 10- and 25-player versions, and introduced Normal and Heroic difficulties, to let more players enjoy the raid experience.
After all, for *World of Warcraft*, raid dungeons were the true essence of the game. They were also the part that took the most time and effort for the designers. If only a small minority could experience them, it would be a huge waste.
So now, it wasn’t just the raid members facing Onyxia’s fiery baptism. Many guild members were also watching this progression run.
“Geez… getting smacked by that tail stuns you instantly. Looks painful…”
“That fire breath wipes out a whole group in one go! At least this dragon doesn’t seem too smart, or we’d be totally screwed…”
“Standing at these two cave entrances? The raid leader’s a damn genius. Getting knocked back by Onyxia, stepping on the eggs, spawning a bunch of whelps, and then wiping… Ouch.”
“I don’t see any hope at all. How many hours is this going to take?”
Everyone watched helplessly as the progression group got tortured by Onyxia. Forget killing her—they couldn’t even get past Phase One…
Because no one had a boss guide at this point. They were truly starting from scratch. Even basic positioning—like the main tank pulling the boss against a wall, or splitting DPS into left and right groups—had to be figured out through trial and error. One careless breath from Onyxia meant a wipe.
As for “Onyxia takes a deep breath…” they couldn’t even reach Phase Two to see it.
And the most awkward part? There was no sign of victory. At first, no one managed their mana well. By the time the boss’s health was at 70 or 80 percent, some healers had already run out of mana, standing there awkwardly throwing wands, turning the game into an FPS.
Strictly speaking, Onyxia’s Phase One wasn’t that hard. The real issue was that these players’ gear was terrible. Healers couldn’t keep up, and DPS was too low. Everyone thought they were losing because they didn’t know the skills. Once they learned them, they’d realize… yeah, they still couldn’t win.
But everyone was still fired up. Even though they were running back to their corpses every few minutes, burning through supplies like crazy, no one complained. Instead, every time they chipped off another 5% of the boss’s health, they got excited.
Qian Kun awkwardly exited the spectating mode, thinking, *Should I tell them to go farm Molten Core first…*
…
Over on the Horde side, players were already preparing to start Molten Core.
The most hardcore players had been grinding Stratholme, Scholomance, and Blackrock Spire for days, trying to collect their Tier 0 sets. Most major guilds were at a similar stage, all gearing up to tackle the raid dungeons.
To be fair, the players in this parallel world had been through countless games, so their game sense was sharp. They picked things up quickly.
But after wiping for seven or eight hours on the lava giants at the entrance of Molten Core, many guilds began to seriously doubt themselves.
Especially the tanks. They thought they were tough enough, but when those giants stomped down, their plate armor felt like paper…
What the hell… Is this game even playable??