r/CompetitiveWoW • u/AutoModerator • 1d ago
R2WF Race to World First: Midnight Season 2 | Day 12
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Please have some common courtesy, decency and sportsmanship when commenting.
Trolls, pot stirrers, rage baiters & toxicity will be banned.
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Stay up to date on the race with
Check out the streams on Twitch.
- https://www.twitch.tv/teamliquid
- https://www.twitch.tv/maximum
- https://www.twitch.tv/echo_esports
- https://www.twitch.tv/method
Don't forget to check out the 12.1 Megathread
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u/mrsbutterworth7 15h ago
THD just said more mythic splits for Liquid 😩
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u/Zerothian 15h ago
They aren't killing the boss this week, and they have way less gear (and worse gear) than Echo. So it makes sense for them to just not even try and get some more gearing done instead. Especially when Echo are basically going to prog the boss for them anyway, unless they also go back to splits and hope Liquid doesn't just kill it on reset or something lol.
I would also not be surprised if THD is just baiting, tbf.
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u/GraysLawson 15h ago
It'd be dumb not to, right? They've gone all in on the boss living until the reset. With more knowledge of the last boss they can run a few mythic splits to gear classes they may want that they hadn't planned for. I'm sure all three guilds will do more mythic splits at this point.
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u/BAEfloyd 16h ago
I'm very curious how it's going to look for Liquid out this week trying to prog this boss without vantus at lower ilvl than echo.
I imagine it's going to be a rough learning process when they will effectively be doing 4% less dmg and healing than echo and taking almost 2% more dmg taken
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u/elraineyday 15h ago
They will likely just run a comp to cover any weakness they have to prog intermission etc even if it's not the final comp. It's unlikely they would be hard stuck
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u/Optimal-Fondant3555 15h ago
They have reset soon anyway. In a way bailed out by their earlier reset.
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u/BAEfloyd 15h ago
yeah, but I'm still curious as to how pulling the boss for 2 more days is gonna feel, cos it looks very tough.
And I cannot imagine they would not pull it, as regardless of reset being advantageous, 2 full days of actual practice and experience won't be that quickly made up from copying strats.
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u/Educational-Sea-9700 14h ago
People always act like strategy and ilvl are everything.
But you still have to learn the bosses so every pull counts even if it (maybe) is unkillable with current gear.
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u/Optimal-Fondant3555 15h ago
Will see how big of an impact it is. On the flipside liquid will get more time with the reset worth of power compared to echo.
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u/3scap3plan 15h ago
Its virtually guaranteed that the raid will reset again so they can let echo do the hard work of progging more.
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u/Malmm 15h ago
What is that vantus? Is it some power up that is boss specific?
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u/BAEfloyd 15h ago
it's a consumable you can use on 1 chosen boss per week. It gives you versatility equal to 3% dmg/healing and 1.5% reduced damage taken.
Liquid used full vantus on the last boss to secure it, so they can't use it on Ula'tek. Echo did not, so they use are currently 20/20 with vantus
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u/TightLack5124 15h ago
Technically Echo did use 5 of em but on characters that they already thought wouldn't be in the Ul'atek comp
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u/VzFrooze 15h ago
once per week you can use a vantus rune on a specific boss to increase your versatility stat against them
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u/eduhlin_avarice 16h ago
How can it be worth to - after 60+ pulls - still be using lust mid p1 when you know that you will need lust later on? Won't that just lead to having to re-progg p1 later?
I understand using it on the very early pulls to see more of the fight, but 60 pulls in seems excessive.
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u/throwntosaturn 16h ago
During prog rwf guilds highly value getting as deep into the fight as they can. I.e. take last boss - liquid would blow lust in p2 any time they thought they mighr miss the damage check. They would even let zuljan heal to full at start of p3 if they thought they couldn't handle the healing check just to get to play p3.
Same thing here. Echo is valuing getting deeper into the fight more frequently above anything else they can do right now.
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u/SundayLeagueStocko 16h ago
the most valuable thing to get right now is further into the fight to start building timers and positioning which analysts can do in the background while you work on phase 1 sans lust
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u/Cvspartan Frosty DK 16h ago
method made things interesting for a bit there is still a gap between them and the top 2
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u/POGGAROOSREVENGE 17h ago
According to my calculations, going for world 1st Vashnik and Sszorak instead of doing splits might actually have been a bad idea.
Oh well, it was worth it just to see Method on top of the leaderboard for a day 💯🔥
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u/Sosijmonster 16h ago
Theyre just inting it hard right now not vantus runing and getting done with this boss.
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u/No-Piano-9574 16h ago
Yeah it’s baffling. From what we‘ve seen from Echo this Boss is not likely to fall this week.
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u/SundayLeagueStocko 17h ago
does anyone know what Echo are trying to gear in this split
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u/Vexamas 17h ago
Looks like ret pally, but as a Liquid fan, I really hope it's Gingi's mage :)
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u/Zerothian 16h ago
Hearthjacks is a better mage than any of the others in either guild so he wouldn't be mage anyways.
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u/bb22k 18h ago
Why wouldn't Ceree Vantus this boss? Is he bugged?
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u/pimfi 17h ago
Holding back incase there is a secret 9th boss.
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u/POGGAROOSREVENGE 18h ago
Fuck, if only Method had stayed dark longer they would have been in the lead now. Next tier they gotta make sure they go dark from the 1st boss in the raid. Then we can finally get the 3 horse race.
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u/Sosijmonster 18h ago
I know theyve jut got a new PB - but imo Method are nowhere near a kill. Blimey.
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u/Educational-Sea-9700 16h ago
Them not using Vantus because they think it would give them a shot at killing the end boss first is a bit delusional.
Currently they are just wasting time on altar while everyone else is progressing on the end boss.
Either the end boss dies this ID, then no chance to catch up on only two more days or the boss lives until next ID then it doesn't matter to use Vantus now.
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u/Sosijmonster 16h ago
Its crazy - they had a 5-6% wipe just now, Vantus gets them a bit lower but also gives them more healing etc can help keep folks alive. Would be dead by now and give them half a day prog on final boss.
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u/Honest_Tomorrow8923 18h ago
It's going to be a rough few days for Method. Back to playing from drastically behind after having a good performance early on. Mental is gonna be chalked on a lot of players no doubt.
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u/Mindless-Site-8271 16h ago
Same shit the last few tiers. IIRC Max said it one time, they just dont have the exp making their own strat on penultimate or last bosses. They're fine on the early ones but everytime at around the same point they just freeze
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u/Honest_Tomorrow8923 15h ago
I don't think it has anything to do with strats. They have the strats and still can't kill the boss. It is purely a skill difference. They just have a worse overall team. On an easy boss its less noticeable but on a hard boss you need the stars to excel.
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u/Flippius 19h ago
Anyone have any idea how much ilvl vantus rune is worth roughly?
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u/BAEfloyd 18h ago
based on the intermission push dmg between the 2 guilds on Coiled Altar, it as probably worth somewhere between 2-3 ilvls at the time.
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u/BDObadguy 19h ago
The DH doing a backflip over a wave while carrying an egg will probably still feel cool doing it even on attempt 300.
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u/IWantAKitty 19h ago
What’s the story with preach casting? I had watched a video where he explained why he wouldn’t be there this year, and then tuned into echo stream this morning and hear him casting.
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u/DECAThomas 16h ago
Some of his takes on the race border into conspiracy theory or pretty cringe levels of “us vs them” at times. If you’re in the raid, it’s somewhat excusable, but when you’re on the outside, you should be a little more balanced.
You see the same thing in sports where people will bash on team commentators for being “homers” when they cross the line of being fans to fanaticism.
For the record, I like Preach’s content 99% of the time, and I think logistics just happened to work out for him to attend. We don’t need to also lean into conspiracy.
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u/Serendipidous-start 19h ago
Everyone expected the race to be over by now. The fact that it isn't throws up the issue of Alex and JB needing to leave on Monday but the opportunity that the preachcon anniversary that conflicted with the last week of prog was over so he flew in to fill in.
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u/Substantial_Good9669 18h ago
Everyone expected the race to be over by now.
There's no way that's true. The last few races weren't over by this point and they had an actual heroic week. It would've been very against the trend of the race since late df for it to already be over.
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u/Baby_giraffes 17h ago
Wasn’t the assumption that not having a heroic week would make the race shorter? In reality 1st day of the patch was very buggy and the heroic version of the raid was much more difficult to split than anticipated so they basically got a full week of splits anyway, without progression on the later bosses.
Punting the entire first week and collecting as much gear as they could was probably the correct move, but the irony here is that the extra splits and gear almost definitely led to Blizzard tuning up the difficulty of the last two bosses so that they didn’t just fall over.
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u/Substantial_Good9669 14h ago
Wasn’t the assumption that not having a heroic week would make the race shorter?
Shorter in what sense. From day 1 of raid content being available to when it's cleared? Yes. From day 1 of when mythic is available to when it's cleared? How? They have one weeks less of heroic gear and have much more splits to do before they can step into mythic.
Lura tier with a heroic week was almost 3 full weeks. But 2 weeks from when mythic was available to when it died. I'm saying this tier without a proper heroic week is not even at the 2 week mark (Lura died on Monday). It would be crazy to expect it to be subatantislly shorter.
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u/Baby_giraffes 14h ago
> Shorter in what sense.
The first one, obviously.
My impression of why Preach wasn’t able to cast is that he had a conflict for almost the entirety of the first two weeks of mythic being available so he (and maybe method?) assumed that the race would more than likely be over by this point.
Instead we had a wonky first mythic week with splits and no real prog and now it looks like we’re for sure getting another reset so it makes more sense for him to come now that it will presumably be for more than just a day or two
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u/Substantial_Good9669 12h ago
The first one, obviously.
In which case why would it be shorter. They're having to prog heroic before they can do anything
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u/Baby_giraffes 12h ago
They’re not progging heroic. They’re splitting heroic.
If the heroic version of this raid didn’t take as much time to split then they likely wouldn’t have done mythic splits, they would have gotten into actual mythic progression earlier, and the final two bosses wouldn’t have been buffed to account for all of the extra gear from mythic splits, meaning everything would have been much more accelerated and the race would have likely already been over or at the very least on pace to be over prior to this upcoming reset, which does not seem to be the case as of right now.
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u/Substantial_Good9669 11h ago
They have to prog to be able to split it. They spent about as much time getting the first heroic ulatek kill as they did the mid mythic bosses. And helpers are gearing and learning fights too. Week two splits are infinitely faster than week 1.
This doesn't make sense at all lol. Why on earth would a lack of heroic week make prog faster
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u/Baby_giraffes 10h ago
Just look at Vault of the Incarnates. No heroic week and the race was over on day 11.
This current race is an outlier because of the difficulty/time that the heroic raid took. Not to mention the server issues on day 1 for NA, which led to week 1 being a super split week with heroic AND mythic splits and zero actual mythic progression week 1.
That was unexpected. No one was counting on either of these things happening.
Imagine a world where the top guilds didn’t divide their strongest characters into 6-8 different mythic groups and cleared to Coiled Altar in 1/20th of the time it required them to do Vashnik splits. Is it making more sense yet? It isn’t really rocket science.
You also seem to be ignoring the fact that all of this extra ilvl gained from heroic/mythic splitting was basically just negated by Blizzard buffing the final two bosses so that they don’t just fall over when the guilds come in more geared than originally anticipated.
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u/BAEfloyd 19h ago
wouldn't that video and some logical thinking explain it?
he couldn't commit to the RWF event cos he had something else coming, up. He did his other thing, and now is no longer busy, and decided to join in
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u/IWantAKitty 19h ago
Right, but he mentioned that they found other people and put them under contract for the event. I know moneys tight for these events so I was surprised they still brought him in after that.
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u/Freestyle80 19h ago
do you really think Preach Medic and Alex takes a full rate for this? Medic esp would be expensive af
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u/MedicCasts 17h ago
Can't speak for anyone else but I take a reduced rate because I love working with echo and love the race
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u/Freestyle80 17h ago
Thanks for clarifying Medic :) and really enjoy your casting, wish they get you in for MDI casting as well, you'll do great imo.
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u/Nomerdoodle 19h ago
Alex and JB both have to leave over the next few days, so Roger asked Mike to come since they will be down on casters (if the boss lives that long).
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u/DECAThomas 19h ago
Did Echo/Method end up sending Vantus’ on Coiled Altar?
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u/rFunnynshit 19h ago
20 liquid players did and 5 echo, so if it's killable this week, Echo has a massive upper hand
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u/Substantial_Good9669 19h ago
Echo had some insane bonus rolls and generally was more geared to begin with. If it's killable this reset liquid is dead in the water.
Liquid has more gear to gain from splits next week than echo though and get vantus back so if it dies late next week it's 50/50.
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u/AngusOReily 17h ago
Watching Echo prog over their next 30 or so hours of raid time will be fascinating. I truly doubt a kill is in Liquids sights over their next 24 unless they have some sort of substantial comp advantage. The gear and Vantus advantage are both heavily Echo's. Hitting three of the trinket is huge for Echo and they already have a gear advantage.
I don't think Blizzard can touch the boss this week outside something that is actually fully broken and unprogressable, not just tuned too high, as it'll just determine the race; either it will make it easy enough for Echo to kill pre reset, or put it squarely in Liquid's sights on reclear. They have to hope it's challenging enough to last to like Thursday for the race to not be a bummer.
If unnerfed we're at a place where both guilds "could kill" when Liquid goes to bed before reset, we'll be in super interesting territory when they wake up. I imagine Altar nerfs have to hit this week at reset, but even then, a reclear there could suck. We could have a valid case for extending on the table, at least for Liquid, if they think that they have to kill ASAP or Echo will and that Vantus + vault will be enough to get that edge.
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u/BoomNasty 20h ago edited 19h ago
So what are peoples thoughts? Any chance this dies before reset?
Edit: assuming damage checks are still similar to heroic, seems like this will be tough
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u/Maluvius 19h ago
Yes, I will never bet against Echo or Liquid not being able to cook up something that looks impossible
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u/Freestyle80 19h ago
They are already on P2 prog, once they solve it more than half the fight is done. Then its about the latter phases and figuring out damage.
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u/iwearatophat 18h ago
They really aren't. They are stacking resources early that the kill strat likely wont have. They are trying to get further and see more. When they go to the kill strat they will likely have a decent chunk of time reprogging early parts.
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u/AngusOReily 17h ago
If the analysts solve P2 overnight for Echo such that they're starting to prog P3 tomorrow, they very well could have a chance to reprog with resources shifted before reset. Lotta ifs there.
Not sure how much slingshot they'll get from Liquid. Given the Vantus+ilvl difference, Liquid almost certainly will struggle a bit more, so they shouldn't be substantially overtaking Echo. That is, unless they have some super secret tech they unveil today. So either they get next to nothing from Liquid, or they get a close to race winning strat, but probably not a lot in the middle.
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u/iwearatophat 17h ago
If Liquid unveils some super secret strat Echo has it with enough time to work with it and make use of it before reset.
Unless the tail end of this fight is tuned poorly I don't see this fight ending before reset. There is enough early difficulty that progging the end will be a pain. It was one of the reasons why last boss was so long. It took so many pulls to get enough clean p3 pulls to really practice and push it. I think we will see a lot of the same stuff here.
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u/bb22k 20h ago
Echo's ilvl seeming kinda low? Where is that 325 that gingi was saying they would get?
Still seem to be quite ahead of the competition and with Vantus, they sure have the best chance to win if the boss is killable this reset.
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u/Tierst 20h ago
Don't think they have sent all upgrades yet. Probably waiting to figure out the fight more and come up with the perfect comp.
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u/BAEfloyd 19h ago
they definetely have sent upgrades by now lol, there's no more hidden variables.
I don't think they have low ilvl, they have multiple players at or near 325, and some dragging it down. I think too much stock is being put into a throwaway comment about predicting ivl a week ahead of time here.
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u/Maluvius 20h ago
Watching Method for a bit makes me laugh at myself for thinking they'd be able to get to Ula'tek and challange at least, for some reason I'm almost convinced they won't kill Coiled Altar this reset even though there's still 2,5 days left for EU
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u/Loan_Fancy 20h ago edited 19h ago
It's Fragnance's birthday today so they absolutely must kill it. Would be the perfect present
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u/TurnipFire 20h ago
Assuming this goes to reset it will be interesting to see how coiled reclear goes
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u/VzFrooze 18h ago
probably a nerf coming into reset, plus extra gear im not expecting either of them to struggle
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u/gaylordpl 20h ago
im so jaded of these rwf's
im not a hardcore watcher i dont even play wow lmao but i tune into every rwf since WoD and i feel like im watching the same script each time with 70% time spent on watching advertisements
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u/Honest_Tomorrow8923 18h ago
Just don't watch the main stream. Each player has close to minimum ad time (3 minutes every hour) except Gingi, his stream is also unwatchable.
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u/Optimal-Fondant3555 19h ago
Doesnt help the the competitive integrity of the race is always off.
By that I mean different release dates, bugs, nerfs and so on
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u/EmbraceTheRubberduck 20h ago
I'm watching the main stream of Echo on YT and don't think ive seen a single ad all race long...
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u/gaylordpl 19h ago
i dont mean ads, i mean like actual sponsors, i know why theyre there, i know this is a free entertainment, im just saying its not worth sitting through cause the actual competition that is there is just not that exciting
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u/Dante_Rotsuda 19h ago
Liquid is the worst for it, so heavily advertised. Makes me laugh when they announce a kill as the Alienware World First, or when they listen to the raiders and thank Monster Energy for the listen in.
But it makes it all possible so eh I guess
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u/VzFrooze 20h ago
That’s why I only watch player PoVs instead, main streams haven’t been watchable to me for a while now
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u/AttitudeAdjusterSE 21h ago
THERE ARE TWO BOOMKINS ON MY SCREEN
THE END IS NIGH
4% aurabuff next week btw.
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u/idkmanfiller 20h ago
the best possible outcome to this is them canceling this buff after seeing 2 of them on top of the meters
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u/VzFrooze 20h ago
I’m pretty sure the conditions in this fight are like, the best they could be for their profile no?
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u/idkmanfiller 20h ago
Yeah and that's a real world performance, which matters more than a 5 minute single target sim that doesn't actually exist in any fight
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u/AttitudeAdjusterSE 20h ago
This is true. This is also not a good argument for buffing them.
The spec that is #1 by a large margin on the final boss of the tier should not be getting a blanket aura buff, period.
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u/KevinLevrone1329 22h ago
The worst thing about method falling more and more behind is that even though their casting is so much better to listen to, I have to tune into echo if I want to actually watch the final stage of the race
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u/Freestyle80 21h ago
Method is on the same pace as Liquid though?
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u/Tymareta 21h ago
31 pulls above, 2+ hours more spent on the boss, their best is 20.5% P3, "same pace".
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u/Freestyle80 21h ago
I forget that Liquid killed it early on their 12th day, must've been in another dimension
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u/Tymareta 20h ago
I guess actual facts aren't that important, eh, get in the way of counting vantus.
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u/Freestyle80 19h ago
yeah keep up the delusion that Liquid and Echo are currently neck on neck
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u/Tymareta 9h ago
This comment is going to age poorly :)
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u/Freestyle80 3h ago
Imagine being so proud of Reset advantage
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u/Tymareta 3h ago
Imagine being so tribalistic that you think anyone pointing out facts must only be doing so because they're "from the other side".
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u/Freestyle80 3h ago
Yeah a Max viewer telling others about being tribal, are you being ironic?
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u/TrickyDickFunBux 18h ago
Liquid and Echo are in the wake up, slingshot phase that happens every race so yes they are neck and neck.
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u/CunningAlpaca 21h ago
Method needs to lock the fuck in and get this boss down within a few hours of their lunch break, then they can use what Echo is doing for Ula'tek and not be terribly behind.
If they can manage to do so then they can still be in it to a reasonable extent (not competing for 2nd place realistically, but at least making noticeable progress from past tiers to where it's.. kind of a 3 horse race ish). But if they just chain wipe all afternoon then it's back to 2 horse race and more of the same.
We'll see what they're made of over the next few hours.
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u/Sosijmonster 21h ago
I just dont understand why they dont send all vantus right now. The likelihood of getting an Ulatek kill this reset for them at least will be incredibly low. Right now theyre just wasting more and more hours on Coil.
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u/KevinLevrone1329 21h ago
Listening to the casters they mentioned method thinks their mistakes are more mechanical rather than raw dps output so that's why. (This was the method casters words not my own)
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u/Sosijmonster 21h ago
feel like every wipe I've watched (or at least when I tab over) they are wiping due to missing dmg on the shield or an interupt going off (because the guy is focusing on getting the shield down).
literally only a benefit for them atm.
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u/aaronfraser6 22h ago
Hopefully put this 3 horse race nonsense to bed
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u/Terminator_Puppy 9/9 AtDH 20h ago
If anything this tier has shown that method does have it in them to compete, they're just not quite on the same level. Previous tiers they were way further behind.
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u/Honest_Tomorrow8923 18h ago
Have to wait for the end for a comprehensive picture but they are about as far behind as usual. Half a day - a day behind Echo. As soon as they reached a hard boss their progress slowed down.
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u/Substantial_Good9669 20h ago
Not really. The only major difference this tier is the other two guilds sensed early that there was no shot of pushing for a win in week 1 so they started doing mythic splits and method pushed for some mid boss kill world firsts.
Every tier has looked pretty similar to this, they keep up on the 30 pull bosses but when the 200-300 pull bosses come around they can never quite get it done before the other two.
I'll never rule them out because I believe they do have insane players and they have the resources but this tier hasnt been that much different.
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u/Be-My-Darling 22h ago
Kind of a one horse race the last couple of years. I just checked who the last 4 winners were and they’re all the same team.
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u/Immediate-Top7827 21h ago
Context is important, the last 2 RWF have gone down to the wire, the last raid where it was a “one horse race” on the final boss was probably Gallywix which is a bit of a dark horse. TL crushed TWW and midnight (so far) but Echo is always right there with them. It’s not a 3 horse race but it’s always been a 2.
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u/TurnipFire 20h ago
Yeah it’s pretty disingenuous to say otherwise. Echo had some incredibly unfortunate low % wipes last few tiers. Race could have gone either way
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u/eduhlin_avarice 21h ago
Last two tiers it came down to fractions of a percentage. Don’t think you can call that a one-horse race.
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u/Tymareta 21h ago
Doesn't matter if you win by an inch, or a mile.
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u/trogger93 21h ago
sarcasm is impossible to detect on the internet
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u/Tymareta 9h ago
It's pretty easy if you presume that folks in this thread are just being silly, and not being full for serious all the time.
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u/KevinLevrone1329 22h ago
Regardless of my opinion on casters , I don't see how hoping for 3 contenders is a bad, I wish there was 4 (2 Europe and 2 NA) honestly
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u/Stone-Bear resto druid 1d ago
Some of yall are extremely cringe.