Aloha! We bring you the full translated interview that the Exorsus guild gave to Method talking about his conquest of First of the world in the Nighthold.
World's First in the Nighthold: Interview with Exorsus
First of all, congratulations, you are the undisputed champions of T19, with victories in the Nighthold and the Emerald Nightmare! As you are now, we are forced to ask you this question: how do you see the tier: was the last band the determining factor in the race, is it an average of everything or something else?
Alveone: I wouldn't say that any of those cases are irrelevant. Each brotherhood really prepared for Emerald Nightmare, so it was very curious when some brotherhood said "Emerald Nightmare was nothing, night bastion is the race." Of course all the hardcore brotherhoods were surprised when in 1 month of the preparations they had 1 day of progression, but on the other hand they did show how the races are done. I'm pretty sure that each guild has its strengths and weaknesses in each boss. Also, if the content is very fast, it allows other guilds that can only take 1-2 days off to compete, which is great too. Speaking of Trial of Valor a lot of guilds said "we're not going to go hardcore", however, in the end, each guild (competing to be the world's first) reached 35 traits, took time off, and so on. We had some issues on our roster, surely other guilds as well, but that's not something that should bother anyone. After all Method was the winner and it is an indisputable victory.
Nurses: It is an average because all the guilds in this competition were under the same conditions for each new Legion raid. But on the other hand it would be foolish to deny the fact that the difficulty of the bands was growing, and therefore it is not a simple simple average.
There have been debates about ending the hardcore raids. What do you think about that after your victory in Nightstand, did something change?
Alveone: Our discussions are mostly based on the fact that starting with Legion you need to spend a lot of time dedicating yourself to your character between progress races to be ready in the next raid. Right now 7.2 introduces many new traits and levels of artifact knowledge, which means this routine is making a comeback. Wasting a month or so getting ready and getting next to nothing in return is too much. Almost every new game (not just from Blizzard) is having these types of events, such as tournaments or demos. There is even an example of a new Korean mmorpg where they are paying for the top of the realm of the best guilds. Still, Blizzard is giving 0 attention to these PvE events, even as progression streams are more popular than HoTS tournaments and other games without the help of official media.
Nurses: After each content patch our raiders say "omg, I give up." But it is only because they are exhausted after the race. So we give them a week or two off and they are ready again to crush more demons.
You mentioned that in Emerald Nightmare the 4 weeks of preparation were part of the race, how different were the preparations for Nighthold?
Alveone: We have been discussing everything we needed long before the content: raid composition, addons and weakauras, strategies for each boss, alters, schedules, having achieved all 54 traits, etc. In general, it took us more or less 2,5 months to prepare. Our brotherhood did a great job.
Allenxx: We saw it easier than Emerald Nightmare. We had more time and all of our characters already had decent gear. The only issue was the legendary system. But most of our players were lucky. Addons and weakauras also played a part in our success. All thanks go to Afiya.
We don't really talk about Helya and the ban's situation in Trial of Valor, so let's talk about it. How did you feel when the ban occurred and after you were wrongly accused in Gul'dan?
Alveone: I still have the same opinion as I described earlier in our statement after finishing Test of Value. So there are no plans to apologize for it or anything like that. Speaking of Gul'Dan, I have seen a lot of accusations, however I have made some clarifications, if they weren't enough for some of the crowd, just wait for the video. And about the 'lol russian' spammers if you're still trying to get us to react on the forums / discord / whatever about toxic posts you have a serious problem yourselves, that's why I'm not wasting my time on such things.
After all the bad things (bans, "Emerald Nightmare was too short") that came before, and all the time and effort invested in not only progress, but preparing for it as well, how do you feel after getting to be? the first in the world to shoot Gul'dan?
Alveone: It's really cool when everything you've been planning (well, almost everything) works well, every raider did their best to make this possible (aside from those who went mid-progression). I guess it was the moment we've all been playing to reach it. Of course getting to be the first in the world in one of the best bands to date is something we are all happy about.
Allenxx: It was a deserved victory for us. Without detracting from the work of other sororities (Serenity, Method), who also did great. Everyone on our roster was on point during Gul'dan's progression. The only time I was scared, when it killed 2% of us and we almost made it, but after a 15 hour session people started getting tired and we decided to take a break. That same afternoon, Gul'dan finally managed to bite the dust. All of us were happy, satisfied and motivated for future "tricks."
Nurses: Well, going back to the Emerald Nightmare theme, as I said, it was the first for us and the excitement was new. We weren't actually planning to do Nightmare for 17pm, it just happened, so it surprised us more than the viewers of our stream. In Nighthold, everything was going according to plan (except for one or two bosses who had some of their mechanics changed from the beta / PTR). After defeating Gul'dan, the feeling was different, it took us a while to realize about everything that we went through: our long journey of preparations, routines and other things was over. And that race was great. Probably the best.
Were there any roster issues or setup issues this time around? Did you feel fully prepared for the Nighthold?
Alveone: We lost a lot of teammates before and after Trial of Valor (mostly due to real life stuff), so we had some roster issues, however we resolved them before we started Nighthold. Our roster was very small in the Nighthold (25 people) + 1 of our partner left mid-progression, which was a serious setback, however we were able to resolve it.
You and Method started clearing out the easier bosses from Mythic before heading off to Heroic, while Serenity split up first and got quite a few forgings. Do you think that choice had an impact on you getting off to a relatively slow start?
Alveone: Both approaches had their own pros and cons, however this time I would say it was a bad decision to start with the mythical bosses (not counting the first 3 bosses, their difficulty is too easy). In general, it was my initiative and I regret it.
Allenxx: As Alveona said, it would be better to divide ourselves before starting mythical. But we did them after the seventh boss anyway, if I remember correctly. Basically we could have missed a few runs here and there due to the low ilvl. Anyway, we were gagged on the loot during the progression.
Regarding your wipe counter, Tichondrius was your biggest problem (71 wipes compared to 8 and 6 for Serenity and Method). What happened?
Alveone: We had an interesting strategy for this boss planned, however it was completely ruined by some changes in the encounter. After that we made a new one, but it was too complicated. We were trying to execute him properly until we saw other guilds kill him very quickly, so we changed our strategy and killed him quite quickly. That was the moment we lost a lot of time, comparing it to the previous bosses.
Were there any bosses that you thought could have been better than Gul'dan if he was programmed to be more difficult?
Alveone: I doubt it. In general, I would say that this band had a near ideal difficulty curve with great encounters and perfect duration for progression. One of my favorites without a doubt.
Allenxx: Everything was scheduled as planned. First 3 bosses, no wipes. Krosus, Tichondrius, Spellblade Aluriel, and Grand Botanist Tel'arn - medium difficulty. And the last 3 bosses were when things got serious.
Nurses: The most impressive thing about the Nighthold's balance is that even in the 30-man bands everything was fine (don't remind me of Blackhand, it was hell). So this band maintains the same fit between bosses on all difficulties with any size of raid. Nice work from Blizzard.
Did you know exactly what order you would be killing non-linear bosses before entering or did it adapt?
Alveone: Thanks to our American friends, they were doing most of the work for us! Talking about Grand Botanist Tel'arn vs Star Augur Etraeus, we started with Star Augur Etraeus, however when we saw that Serenity killed Grand Botanist Tel'arn pretty quickly we just went there to defeat him and get back to Star Augur Etraeus. In general, I don't think we lost much with that "change."
What do you think of Nighthold's progression difficulty, with Spellblade Aluriel being the first big bump and then Star Augur Etraeus next (especially considering your own issues with Tichondrius)?
Alveone: It is one of the biggest bands in terms of difficulty progression. The first 3 bosses are like a "gift" for guilds who want to start on Mythic difficulty, the next 4 bosses to ensure that each semi-hardcore guild can have some meaningful progression, and the last 3 bosses for higher-level guilds.
Where would you put Xavius (or maybe Cenarius) and Helya in the 10 bosses of the Nighthold in terms of difficulty?
Alveone: Xavius and Helya's mechanics are pretty easy. However, for Xavius we were very little enthusiastic and Helya, on the other hand, very rare. I'm not a big fan of fights like Helya, when the only thing stopping you from killing him is just a lot of DPS. So if we're talking about sheer difficulty, Xavius could be like the fourth boss and Helya eighth.
Allenxx: Xavius almost as tough as Skorpyron. And Helya - probably per level Grand Magistrix Elisande, excluding the requirement of 4 Shadow Priests before the drop in Surrender to Madness.
What did you think after your first encounters with Gul'dan, since you've never seen him in mythic before?
Alveone: Thank God the horrible first phase of heroics was not there. It was the first thing I thought.
Allenxx: I was really exhausted after Elisande's run, so I finally felt peace and quiet with Gul'dan.
Nurses: I am melee. All bosses are the same to me. I'm just kidding (or not). After "arcade" Elisande was quite boring in the first phase (yes, 1st phase of mythic is almost the same as 2nd phase of heroic). After reaching the 2nd phase it becomes more interesting to face the different combinations of their abilities and some of them become a real challenge.
How long did it take you to have a good strategy and what band composition should you use?
Alveone: We had a strategy from the RPPs. We checked that everything was as is and began to polish some details. The only thing that really worried us was the last (secret) phase, because if for some reason our strategy turned out to be too ineffective there could be a disaster.
You reached the secret stage of Mythic only 3 days before defeating him. The real problem was the rest of the fight? How difficult was the mythic phase? Do I force you to change the composition of your band to achieve it?
Alveone: The first day we arrived we saw him 1 or 2 times with everyone alive, because reaching stage 3 was very difficult for us. On our second day we had a lot of good attempts, however the mythic phase had some serious errors, which prevented us from progressing. On the third day some of these bugs were fixed so we were finally able to refine our strategy to execute it.
Allenxx: The boss is really well programmed and requires good DPS and healers. Like I said, we were really blown away by the team. After the reset, when we tried again, all our problems were solved. We were constantly reaching the 3rd phase.
The Murder Rogue's 4% buff was launched the day before its defeat and you have 3 on your roster. Do you think the defeat would have happened without it?
Alveone: I'm sure that didn't have a big impact on our victory. It probably would have taken 1-2 more attempts, but no more.
Allenxx: Nerf or buff doesn't matter. Our rogues are always doing very good DPS in any type of situation.
Nurses: Well, it was kind of a rebalancing of Assassination Rogues' abilities with the Dying Poison talent, considering our artifact trait's previous fix. But since we never used this talent in this fight, yes - it was buff, not improvement (even including the fact that we have 3 Assassination Rogues), so it's just some kind of bonus but it wasn't what brought us victory.
You had 2 Fury Warriors, 3 Assassination Rogues, and 3 Shadow Priests in victory (with their DPS stats leaking right after the victory). What do you think of the class setting for Nighthold in general and Gul'dan specifically?
Alveone: To be honest, it's one of the most balanced patches I've seen. Almost all classes and specs are playable and do a very decent amount of DPS. Of course, some classes performed slightly better than others (Shadow Priest, Assassination Rogues, Fury Warriors, Devastation Demon Hunters), but not even close to the previous Shadow Priest status with Surrender to Madness.
You were one of the first to see Gul'dan's Mythic Hidden Phase. Was it well programmed and bug-free or was it a bit messy?
Alveone: He seemed pretty well timed (his life has been shortened a bit since our first match in 3rd phase), we encountered a lot of bugs in 3rd phase, however most of them were fixed relatively quickly.
Allenxx: Quite annoying and well programmed at the same time. A few interesting mechanics at the end and special attention to the DPS.
Where would you put Gul'dan in WoW's pantheon of final bosses?
Alveone: Gul'dan is very solid, so there would be Archimonde, Lei-Shen and Ragnaros. In general I think the "secret" phases are what make these bosses really cool and special (other than Lei-Shen, he's just great!).
How would the meeting compare with Xavius and Helya? Obviously, the video has not come out yet, so we can't go into details, but in general, was it more a mechanic or an execution or a strategic one, etc?
Alveone: I have already shared my opinion on Xavius and Helya. The 1st phase of Gul'dan is more about optimization, to make sure you are not wasting too many resources on it, 2nd is execution and strategy + good DPS and the last phase is mostly mechanics and strategy with better DPS. In general it is a very good match, although a bit too long (16 minutes of combat is really exhausting).
Going back to the legendaries and ilvl issue, do you think it was resolved the moment Nighthold entered or were there still issues with the legendary system in terms of your teammates not having optimal gear prior to Nighthold?
Alveone: This issue persists and still makes us unable to play all of our specs / classes. In general, this system brings more problems and regrets than joys. Classes with multiple DPS specs just can't use all of their specs because of this system, it's terrible. I have described all these problems in my Previous Article, in case someone is really interested.
Allenxx: I pray to the gods of Blizzard to get rid of the Forged and Legendary systems. It hurt many of my friends and sorority members. I hate it more than the artifact power system implemented in this expansion.
Are you looking forward to the Tomb of Sargeras, considering how the quality of raiding has increased throughout Legion?
Alveone: It really depends on the opening calendar and the free time that our colleagues have to progress. As of now it looks like 7.2 will bring even more things to do than before, due to new levels of artifact research being added at the same time you need to farm artifact power, terrible.
How many bottles of vodka did you drink during the band?
Alveone: Almost no one on our roster really likes vodka.
Allenxx: Nurseos certainly drink vodka during meetings.
Nurses: You would have seen such a lie and provocation! 4 bottles of beer.
Any mention you want to make?
Alveone: To all my teammates for their enormous effort, to the fans for their support, to the guildmates who help equip us, to my tankmate on Discord for loving me so much, to Blizzard for making such an amazing band!
Source: Method.