Uldir stream

We have a  top 20! Two more Asian guilds hop on the 8/8 train and form the Asia top 5, as Chao Jie grab the World 17th, getting it before Honestly, and Skyline actually got their G'kill before Big Dumb Guild, in at World 15th! And so it's Skyline, BDG, Chao Jie and Honestly in spots 15-18, with P G getting the 19th and PMA the 20th! Wiping As Intended also finished up Uldir in 21st spot.

We have a US/OC third! Big Dumb Guild, who got three World Firsts at the start of Uldir, have now finished up and are on 8/8, having downed G'huun World 16th!

The Mythic Uldir Top 10 is here!

Asia have itself a champion, and their name is Jitianhong! They've gotten G'huun down World #7, Asia #1!

The top5 have been finished! Pieces claim the last spot, killing G'huun as World #5, EU #4 and are now done with this Uldir!

And here comes Method's World First video:

Limit released their World 2nd G'huun video! Remember, this is without the extra loot from the weekly reset of Mythic Uldir!

Memento get the World 4th, EU 3rd on G'huun, clear Uldir mythic and take their place in the top 5!

And now they are three. Exorsus have killed G'huun as World #3!

Wowhead put together an article showcasing the statistics of the World First Race and its impact streaming:

"Method secured the World First kill for Mythic G’huun in unprecedented style, streaming the kill to over 260,000 Twitch viewers with Sco as the #1 most-watched individual streamer on Twitch this past week. In this article, we'll highlight the streaming stats of the World First race and how it compares to other popular streamers this past week."

Click here for Full Article at Wowhead

And here are the only two killshots from G'huun so far:

And here come Limit's World 2nd kill nerdscreams!

While we wait for our Mythic G'huun video, please enjoy our nerd screams! #Warcraft pic.twitter.com/o7SUzcaP4E

— Limit (@limitguild) September 20, 2018

Limit got the World 2nd kill, as expected! They really showed us they're a force to be reckoned with, and were in the lead for a long time. If they hadn't extended their lockout as they did, the race might have turned out differently. In any case, the next raid is going to be VERY exciting as not only have Limit really upped their game, they are also planning on going full-time for the next raid!

And, of course, congratulations on the kill!

Nerdscreams!

And here's the wipe count for all of Uldir, including the 285 on G'huun!

Wipe Count for Uldir
Taloc = 0
Mother = 8
Zek'voz, Herald of N'zoth = 8
Vectis = 22
Fetid Devourer = 133
Zul, Reborn = 27
Mythrax the Unraveler = 184
G'huun = 285

— Deepshades (@Methodshades) September 19, 2018

The Method G'huun kill was the first to ever be entered into the new Hall of Fame on the official WoW site!

And here's the full kill try from the stream:

Here's the kill clip

Method have done it! G'huun has fallen and it's yet another World First for WoW's premiere raiding guild. An amazing achievement, taking only a couple of hours after the re-clear!

8/8 is complete and the first raid of Battle for Azeroth made it to Blackwing Descent status, with G'huun surviving to week 2. However, Nefarian 2.0 still remains the last longest living boss of the first raid of an expansion, having survived for 27 days!

This marks Method's 10th endboss World First, if you don't count the "legit" Vashj kill, which is a huge number, unmatched even by Nihilum, who are (and will forever be) at 8, with Paragon next in line with 7! Huge congratulations to the guild on their achievement, getting it done while streaming and showing off their tactics to everyone, proving that Method really are the best.

The race is incredibly tense right now, as Method have gotten the boss to sub 2%, and Limit should also be back and progressing, after their multiple sub 1% tries. It's still anyone's race and G'huun is proving to be one tough customer!

Whilst all eyes are on Limit and Method to see who gets the WF in the new reset, the Asian servers are still going strong before the weekly reset tomorrow. Alpha have gone ahead and joined the top dogs, killing Mythrax as Asia #2, World #9!

Reset two has officially started, with guilds from both sides of the pond, with Method almost done with their reclear, and Limit doing some real strong progression on G'huun. Here we have Limits best pull, and a picture to show just how consistantly close they are to a WF kill, thanks to
https://twitter.com/maximumwow/status/1042360465555435521 for sharing it.

Here's Limit's World First Mythic Mythrax kill video:

Another record pull for Method, as they hit 4.1%! The plan is to go sleep in around 30 minutes, at midnight CET, but if they get a few more tries like this they might extend their stay til later, just like they did yesterday.

We're sub 5% with Method's pre-reset attempts as Limit are reclearing/perhaps have recleared already, with a clip to boot!

It seems almost inevitable we get a kill today and with Limit's current advantage of a full reclear's worth of loot, they may just get the first US endboss World First since Blood Legion in heart of Fear!

The weekly reset has landed in the US, meaning people on the US/OC servers can now open up their M+ and PvP caches, and start their reclears to get back to progress. Thus far, the only guild who's started their reclear that I'm aware of is Limit, but we'll have to wait and see how long it takes for the guilds to get back to their previous progress!

And we have another Mythrax kill, this time by Jitianhong, grabbing them the Asia first, World 6th!

It seems G'huun may not live to see another reset (or even day), as Method's best attempt just happened at they got him down to 14%!

Pieces joining and becoming the 5th guild to grab the 7/8! So we now have four EU guilds progressing on G'huun, with the only non-EU guild actually in the lead (at least in terms of time spent on the final boss). Method's best tries so far have been in the 60% range and we don't really know Limit or Exorsus statuses, so presumably there's still a long way to go.

Memento are doing all they can to show the strength of the Finnish raiding community, getting past Mythrax and now sit at 7/8 as World #4, EU #3!

Exorsus are back! The third guild to down Mythrax and EU second, they join Limit and Method at the top on 7/8 and on to G'huun! If G'huun proves to be a real challenge, and even lives to a second reset, the lead the first two guilds have may not be as relevant, so there's still a good chance we see the Russian guild get to the top and pull an upset!

And here's the stream cut of Method's Mythic Mythrax the Unraveler World 2nd kill:

Method have done what they are good at, and have slain Mythrax World Second, EU First, and now sit at 7/8. Let's see how hard G'huun turns out to be!

And we have the Killshot from Limits World First of Mythrax the Unraveler!

Typically, all the important kills happen while I'm away. In any case, Limit's World First is huge and sets the stage for a potential upset, depending on how long it takes Method to catch up and, much more importantly, just how difficult G'huun is. For reference, Method's best try so far was getting Mythrax to 28%,

This race has actually played out pretty much as expected if you take out the whole Fetid Devourer factor, with the bosses not being that much of a challenge overall. Now G'huun, on the other hand, is a bit of a mystery, as we can't compare him to last expansion's first raid endboss, Xavius, since he was awfully undertuned. So what could this mean for Uldir's head honcho? Will Blizzard overtune him to make up for Emerald Nightmare? The rest of the bosses, Devourer aside, have pretty consistently followed the first raid in the expansion difficulty curve, taking 2ish days to down with the US guilds taking the lead. Now, it's entirely possible Limit simply has a better strategy and execution and Method or anyone else for that matter won't be able to catch up in time, but if it's a normal progress scenario, we'll be seeing more guilds on 7/8 today, meaning G'huun's difficulty being the determining factor.

If he's as "easy" as the rest of the bosses minus Mr. Fetid, Limit's lead could prove crucial and we could be seeing the first US World First since MIsts of Pandaria and its first tier, where Blood Legion got the WF on Empress Shek'zeer in Heart of Fear!

In any case it's going to be a very exciting few days now, as Method and the rest of the guilds rush to catch up to Limit!

Limit with a World First, downing Mythrax the Unraveler. They are now the only guild sitting at 7/8!

AFK R keeps doing what they can to prove the worth of the Korean wow community, getting World 9th, Asia 2nd 6/8, having gotten past Zul, Reborn!

Exorsus are doing their best to catch up, getting Zul, Reborn down EU 2nd, World 4th, and join the pack sitting at 6/8!

AFK R keep up the good pace, getting Asia #1 World #9 on Fetid Devourer, and they now sit at 5/8. 

Zul, Reborn will have to live up to his name, as he's been slain once again, this time by Wildcard Gaming, putting them at 6/8 World 3rd!

Game Director Ion Hazzikostas has just addressed the problems with tuning Fetid Devourer, even admitting the fight was "mathematically impossible" before the first nerf:

Yeah, the first few hours on Fetid were pretty rough. We do a final tuning pass right before Mythic opens, based on the latest data we're seeing from players in the live environment during the first week of Heroic. That last-minute change simply had some bad math to it, and the result was a boss that was legitimately "mathematically impossible" - sometimes memes CAN come true. The second nerf was a bit different - the boss was killable before that last 10% change, with a bit more gear and with Vantus Runes, but for a boss 5 of 8, a DPS check that required the very best guilds in the world to play perfectly and also get their ilvl to 370+ was just going to be too much, so we made another adjustment and feel pretty good about where it stands now.

We have an internal test team (including a number of folks who used to raid at a world-top-10 level) that helps us immensely with tuning and functionality passes on these bosses, and we complement their experience with data from PTR testing, from Heroic on live, and from past experience and general rules of thumb regarding how much better the best guilds are compared to our internal team. Sometimes we go wrong there - for example, we'd gotten some new additions to our test team right before Kil'jaeden and didn't realize how much better that group had gotten, so when we applied our usual X% buff to account for Method being way better than our internal team, that overshot the mark.

I'm not entirely clear on the second half of the question, but WoW certainly has a core of systems: Level-up questing, max-level repeatable quests, PvP (BG, Arena, World PvP), dungeons, raids, etc. And we've added new pieces to that mosaic over time (M+, some sort of real-time/offline mission system, etc.). We're not looking to change those up just for the sake of change, but obviously where we feel like we can do way better in a specific area (e.g. War Mode to spice up world PvP), we will.

Limit are back with the Zul, Reborn World 2nd! 6/8 and back to even with Method. Obviously it's a US/OC first and it took them 16 hours from the Devourer kill, but that's including a sleep break. As Method's best try on Mythrax is around 60%, Limit can still catch up, but are at a 3 and a half hour deficit on Mythrax attempts.

And here's the Mythic Zul, Reborn World First kill video by Method (or rather a segment from the stream containing the kill, but you get the idea):

And here's Limit's World First Fetid Devourer killshot, as we wait for the video!

Well, I suppose sleeping is just a bad idea during progress as I one again missed the big World First. It seems Zul was either undertuned or correctly tuned for the spot he's in, depending on how you look at it, considering it's the first raid and he isn't even the penultimate boss. In any case it's slightly disappointing to me as it took Method a little under 5 hours to down him after the 2+ days they spent on Fetid Devourer.

It's also very clear that the second nerf was indeed what made Fetid Devourer killable, and it seems he's now relatively normal in difficulty (although still harder than his peers, including Zul it seems). The problem here is that hotfix timing. There's basically no time that the hotfix could have arrived that wouldn't impact the race negatively, as US/OC guilds had way more time than EU after the hotfix, which is visible from Method's quick Zul kill. This isn't a problem for now and for Fetid, but imagine if this had been G'huun. Something similar happened already, back in Vanilla, and it was another Old God to boot. C'thun was completely unkillable in Ahn'qiraj and a hotfix landed right in the middle of EU progress, granting Nihilum the World First by default.

So, I suppose we should just hope there is no more need for hotfixes on endbosses, although we don't have to think back too far for when it last happened, with Kil'jaeden getting a ridiculous number of (mostly secret) fixes back in Tomb of Sargeras.

Method downs Zul, Reborn World First, now sitting at 6/8 giving them a fairly big lead over the rest of the competition!

Fetid Devourer is having a really hard time right now, going down once again. Memento now sits at 5/8, World 5th, EU 2nd!

Honestly have taken a step up, taking down Fetid Devourer as World 4th, US/OC 3rd! 

Method goes ahead and gets EU First and World Third on Fetid Devourer, and now sit at 5/8!

Wildcard Gaming have gone ahead and dispatched of Fetid Devourer, putting them at 5/8, World and US #2!

And so it took two nerfs for Fetid Devourer to get into killing range, as the latest nerf to add HP happened some 8ish hours ago. Luckily this second nerf wasn't too extreme as it still took quite some effort and time to get the boss down and he didn't just immediately turn into a push-over. Hopefully the rest of the bosses won't require that much intervention on Blizzard's behalf, as any hotfixes needed will inevitably throw the race off-balance, depending on when they occur.

And it's Limit! A huge achievement as they break through the 4/8 barrier and claim the World First! Fetid Devourer down! There's only three bosses left in Uldir and it's quite possible they won't be as hard as Fetid Devourer was. In any case, Limit are the first guild to get to 5/8 and move on to Zul, Reborn!

The Chinese have truly joined the race, with Alpha getting Vectis Asia #1, World #10!

Asia servers have come up and the Chinese and Korean guilds are at it, with our old pals at AFK R seemingly in the lead on 3/8, with Zek'voz down, while Alpha, KeaHoarl, Jitianhong and 鼎鑫 have passed Mother and are on 2/8!

And here comes Method's most recent and World 3rd kill, featuring Vectis!

Memento are here to show you what Finland can bring, getting 4/8 World 5th, EU 3rd!

With Method live-streaming their progress, the release of kill-videos has been speed up, so let us present the first 3 bosses in Mythic Uldir!

Taloc: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/309104473
MOTHER: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/309105360
Zek'voz: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/309174159

Exorsus have caught up with the leading pack, getting 4/8 killing Vectis World Fourth, EU Second!

Method is at it again, making Vectis take an early retirement, putting them at 4/8 EU First, World Third!

Pieces have done as Method before them and gotten up to 3/8, killing Zek'voz World #9, EU 2nd!

Method have gone ahead and slain Zek'voz, Herald of N'zoth as EU First, World #8, meaning they are almost caught up with the leaders in the US!

Pieces is doing their best to not be left behind, assassinating their MOTHER as EU second putting them at 2/8!

Method have gone ahead and gotten rid of their MOTHER, putting them up at 2/8 and EU First!

Taloc have starter to fall. Hard to tell this early who got the EU first, but at least Method, Pieces and Exorsus have all killed him. Let's wait and see who got the official EU first.

The raid is now up in the EU, let's see how quickly the EU guilds can catch up, and best of luck to everyone!

And Limit are back among the top as they down Vectis World 2nd and join Big Dumb Guild on 4/8!

It seems Fetid Devourer has been deemed too difficult by Blizzard and he's gotten the nerf treatment already!

A few minutes ago, we applied the following hotfix. This will appear in our next full hotfixes update, and is now live:
Uldir
Fetid Devourer's health, and the health of Corruption Corpuscle and Mutated Mass have been lowered significantly in Mythic difficulty.

— WarcraftDevs (@WarcraftDevs) September 12, 2018

And here comes the video for Big Dumb Guild's World First Vectis kill:

Big Dumb Guild finally take Zek'voz down and take the lead at 4/8, still being the only guild to have downed Vectis. After a couple of 1% wipes they come through to the No.1 spot, passing Limit and leaving everyone else being on 3/8. Let's see if they can hold the lead and capitalize on their 1 boss advantage or if Limit will bounce back.

More 3/8s as Alacrity head down the regular path and down Zek'voz World 3rd and join the top group in 4th place.

Big Dumb Guild claim another World First, their third, as they down Vectis and head to 3/8 with Limit and Wildcard Gaming. We now have a bit of a divergence, as technically four bosses have died in Uldir, but no guild is on 4/8 just yet.

Wildcard catch up! 3/9 and Zek'voz down! Limit still have a big advantage but at least now we have two guilds progressing on new bosses!

And here come the two World First kill videos from big Dumb Guild, via Method's PvP player Snutzy and BDG's own CherryVodka!

Taloc

Mother

Limit pull ahead! They down Zek'voz, Herald of N'zoth, skipping the Fetid Devourer and get the World First! 3/8 and the top US guilds stays on top!

Mother falls once again as Midwinter claim the World third moving in front of Wildcard Gaming.

Big Dumb Guild down Mother! 2/8! Another World First and as expected the first two bosses went down quickly. There was also a fifth kill on Taloc by Blood Legion, so we now have 5 guilds in competition for the Uldir World Firsts.

There's four kills on the first boss already and it's Big Dumb Guild that got there first it seems! They're closely followed by Limit, Wildcard Gaming and Midwinter!

Today's the day and the US and OC server maintenance has ended and the guilds are able to enter Mythic Uldir! Just how many go in that quickly remains to be seen, however.

Of the potential contenders for the US/OC aka World Firsts on day 1 we have Wildcard Gaming, formerly Easy, who got the Heroic WF on G'huun, and we can be sure Limit will take a fair amount as well, with SNF or Big Dumb Guild possibly showing up for a first or two as well. There's also a massive hurricane on the US East coast at the moment which might leave some guilds a few members short, as they choose their own safety over fighting the Old Gods.

While we wait for that first kill, you can head over and vote on how many days G'hunn will survive!

The huge announcement that will change the way we follow the race has arrived and Method is going to livestream their progress through Uldir Mythic! We're sure this will massively impact the way the race goes, from many more guilds getting the tough kills faster, without having to wait for kill videos, to the potential danger of Method losing a lot of advantage as guilds see their strats and tactics live. It's always hard to tell just how much of a guild's strength comes from the raw talent and skill of their players, how much from preparation and how much is advanced tactics and strategies - as we all know how kills of an endboss increase and come faster when the top guild publishes a kill video. As US guilds sill have that 2 day advantage, will handing them Method's strategies on a plate shift the balance of power in the race?

Now, this is all presuming Method will still be the one to beat in Uldir, and also presuming Uldir will even be challenging at all, which all remains to be seen. And however Uldir turns out, will the livestreaming become standard practice for all raids also remains to be seen. The race starts on Tuesday, September 11th, when the US guilds will go at it and hopefully not do a full clear before the EU and Asia servers get their shot.

In any case, you can read more about the decision to stream the race and just who will be streaming it over in the official announcement.

What do you guys think of this development? We've been talking about guilds streaming progress for a long time in the progress thread now, and with Method opening the floodgates, we might see a lot more guilds do it.

Battle for Azeroth is well underway and the race is looming ahead in the distance. We have three weeks to go until the gates of Mythic Uldir open and the very first progress race of the new expansion starts and the guilds begin rushing those bosses down. But just what kind of raid will Uldir be? Will we see a repeat of the embarrassingly short Emerald Nightmare, more of a very easy warm-up to the expansion, or will it be on the other extreme end of the scale like Tempest Keep in BC and not cleared until the next big patch? Place your bets in the comments below!

In any case, we have the schedule for the opening of Uldir's various modes, but the big date to look for is September 11th, when the gates will open on the US side of things and bosses will start dying.

The following is our current planned release schedule for Uldir raid content:

• September 4 - Normal and Heroic open
• September 11 - Mythic, Raid Finder Wing 1: Halls of Containment (Taloc, MOTHER, Zek’voz, Herald of N’zoth)
• September 25 - Raid Finder Wing 2: Crimson Descent (Fetid Devourer, Vectis, Zul, Reborn)
• October 9 - Raid Finder Wing 3: Heart of Corruption (Mythrax the Unraveler, G’huun)