The race to be the first World of Warcraft guild to complete the final raid of the game’s Shadowlands expansion on the hardest difficulty is finally over, and it’s been a blast.
Most WoW Mythic World First races require about a week of near-constant attempts by the world’s top WoW guilds. That was the case with the previous two raids in Shadowlands. The race to become the jailer and complete Tomb of the First on Mythic difficulty took a grueling 18 days, with victory eventually going to European guild Echo with a raid composition of two tanks, five healers, and 13 DPS. Echo also claimed World First in the previous raid Sanctum of Domination.
It’s important to remember that this is not a walk in the park. Top guilds competing for the World First title will push themselves to the limit and play almost consistently to earn the title. Players from these guilds have been playing 16 hours a day since March 8th. The fact that the race has lasted over two and a half weeks means that all the players involved are likely exhausted. Current runner-up for Tomb of the First, Liquid, took a break over the weekend after Echo’s win, citing mental exhaustion. You will try to defeat the jailer this week.
An additional issue that mythical raiders had to contend with this time around was the fact that the mechanics of the raid’s final three bosses were largely a mystery. Players can usually test upcoming raids and mechanics on the game’s public test realm, but Blizzard intentionally excluded the Lords of Dread, Rygelon, and Jailer boss encounters from the PTR prior to launch. This meant guilds had to rely on datamined and incomplete information to formulate their plans.
Even bosses included on the PTR, like Halondrus, gave raiders a fight for their cash, with Liquid taking 357 attempts before the boss was finally defeated. The Jailer itself had a secret phase that was only revealed when the boss was reduced to 10% HP, giving the guilds another challenge to overcome as the race came to an end. It took Echo 277 attempts with the jailer to finally earn the World First title.
Although the race was longer than usual, there were longer World First races. In 2017, it took a guild 19 days to defeat Kil’jaeden on Mythic difficulty. Tomb of the First is Shadowlands’ final raid, and while the game is getting a Season 4 that reuses previous raids, it will likely be a while before a new World First race takes place. Blizzard will unveil the next expansion of WoW on April 19th.
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