A group of hardcore players in WoW Classic achieves the seemingly unimaginable. Characters with only one life dare to enter raids and succeed.
World of Warcraft is very old in its classic version – very old. With almost 20 years, all interested parties have had enough time to learn every corner of the MMORPG by heart. However, some crave new challenges, and that’s exactly what the “hardcore” community has set out to do.
And as if the hardcore challenge alone wasn’t difficult enough, they have now taken it a step further. They mastered the raid “Blackwing Lair” – without a single player dying.
What does “hardcore” mean in WoW Classic? While the rules may vary slightly by group in their definition, there is a foundational principle that all hardcore characters agree on:
“Death = Delete” – If the character dies once, it will be deleted. Exceptions only occur if it can be unequivocally proven that the death was due to a Blizzard error (such as a server crash). Otherwise, the character will be deleted immediately.
Additionally, there are usually further rules: The auction house may not be used, group play is only allowed for dungeons and raids, and it is not permitted to be “boosted” by higher-level characters or to trade with others.
The guild “HC Elite” managed to conquer the raid “Blackwing Lair” just a few days ago – and did so with a pure group of hardcore characters in the “Classic Era”.
The entire raid took just under 2 hours, and boss fights were extremely quick. Vaelastrasz fell after just 32 seconds, while the final boss Nefarian held out for 2:22 minutes. A look at the Warcraftlogs of the raid is interesting.
Here are the final seconds of the raid from the streamer “GordanRamseyStreaming”‘s perspective:
A trick was used to circumvent death mechanics: Some veteran players may now scratch their heads in confusion and ask, “But didn’t Blackwing Lair guarantee deaths?” Yes, it did. The fight against Vaelastrasz is notorious for player deaths.
After all, the dragon “blesses” people with the “Burning Adrenaline” debuff every few seconds. This massively increases the damage dealt and turns all spells into instant-cast spells, but it burns 5% of the character’s health every second and guarantees death at the end of the effect.
However, this can be circumvented with a trick: the hearthstone. Because even the hearthstone becomes an instant-cast spell with the debuff, allowing players to leave the raid immediately. When leaving the raid, the debuff is removed, ensuring that the respective players land safely in an inn and can continue their hardcore careers.
What is so special about it? The impressive thing about this achievement is not only that Blackwing Lair was completed without a single death. Many groups have achieved that in the past. No – the impressive part is a combination of two circumstances:
- All characters have never died up to the raid, not even during the days and weeks of preparation.
- The group trusts each other so much that they take on a potentially deadly raid like Blackwing Lair with their hardcore characters.
After all, one cannot forget: One mistake could lead to a domino effect, causing multiple characters to lose their lives and thereby be deleted. The fact that no one was present who wanted to “troll at the last moment” is also quite impressive in today’s time.
One can think what one wants about the (low) difficulty of WoW Classic. However, the achievement that “HC Elite” accomplished here can hardly be disputed. If anyone dares to do so, you will surely read it in the comments.
Blizzard is apparently currently working on a hardcore mode for WoW.
