"Carlos, you're main tank. Susie, you're off-tank. David, you're backup. If anything gets loose and runs into the group, Taunt it."
They had fifteen people and three tanks. Since David was the weakest of the three, Gabryell assigned him to backup tank duty.
Backup tank was one of the easiest jobs in World of Warcraft. Most of the time, you stood around doing nothing. When something broke away and charged the healers, you Taunted it back.
Ambitious players hated the role. It had low gear priority, low visibility, and almost no glory.
Casual players loved it. They could coast through the run, avoid getting yelled at, and still receive raid subsidies.
Fifteen people made for a luxurious setup: three tanks, three healers, and nine DPS.
Their healing team had a Restoration Druid, a Priest, and a Holy Paladin, covering all three major healing types. The DPS lineup had three Mages, three Hunters, one Warlock, one Rogue, and one Retribution Paladin tagging along for moral support.
"Buff up," Gabryell said. "We're starting."
He went to open the door.
UBRS was not like LBRS. The mobs were higher level, hit harder, and punished mistakes more severely. Among the major level-60 dungeons, it was the hardest, which was why people usually ran it as a raid.
UBRS could roughly be divided into two sections: before Rend, and after Rend.
Before Rend, the difficulty was close to Stratholme and Scholomance. A well-geared group of five or six players could push through it.
After Rend, the difficulty jumped higher. With everyone's current gear, they would need at least ten level-60 players to clear it reliably.
In Gabryell's raid, only he and Milo were level 60. Everyone else was still level 59, so bringing all fifteen people was the right call.
Since starting the Onyxia attunement chain, everyone had gained a level, and the group's overall strength had improved quite a bit. Otherwise, even fifteen people might not have been enough to clear UBRS smoothly.
"Pull the dragonkin out," Gabryell said. "Kill them at the door."
To avoid accidental adds, he had Hugo pull the patrolling dragonkin out of the room.
A level 59 dragonkin was already close to an LBRS boss in strength. That alone showed why UBRS required the Seal of Ascension.
The name made sense. The mobs in LBRS were a step below the ones in UBRS. Only those who passed the trial were qualified to ascend into the upper spire.
After the two patrolling dragonkin were dead, Gabryell said, "Clear the rooms one by one. Mages, stand by the doors and be ready to Frost Nova. Don't let runners drag in more packs."
To open the path to the first boss, they had to clear the seven rooms in the entrance hall.
The rooms were packed close together. If a low-health mob ran into the next room, it could easily pull more enemies and throw the whole raid into chaos.
Each room had the same basic setup: four orcs, with casters mixed among melee mobs.
"Carlos, pick up the casters. Susie, grab the melee."
Gabryell continued assigning roles.
"David, watch the backline. If anything gets into the group, keep it off the healers."
He did not immediately tell them that the Summoner had to die first, or that Summoners could call in melee Veterans.
He wanted them to notice it themselves.
That way, once they started progressing Molten Core, everyone would already be in the habit of watching mob abilities instead of blindly hitting whatever was closest.
In later WoW Classic, Gabryell had seen far too many players raid every day without understanding trash or boss mechanics. When a mob wiped threat or could not be Taunted, they still attacked like idiots. The moment they pulled aggro and died, they blamed the tank without ever asking whether the mob's mechanics were the real problem.
Usually, dying a few more times fixed that attitude.
Most of those players were just passengers. They followed the raid, copied what everyone else did, and somehow cleared content by drifting along with the group.
That worked in later Classic because dungeon difficulty had already been worn down by years of knowledge and nerfs.
In 2004 World of Warcraft, with the original dungeon difficulty and everyone still learning, coasting did not work.
"Wait, why are there more mobs?"
Without Gabryell warning them in advance, the raid did not know what the Summoner could do. They ignored it, and the Summoner called in a Veteran.
The advantage of having three tanks showed immediately.
David, who had been standing in the group doing almost nothing, instantly picked up the Veteran and kept it away from the healers.
"Looks like the Summoner called it," Carlos said.
"Good," Gabryell said. "Everyone saw that, right? Focus the Summoner and burn it down."
His goal had been achieved.
Everyone finally understood the problem and switched targets. The Summoner died before it could call in anything else.
When dealing with a trash pack and nobody knew the mechanics, there was one simple rule: kill summoners first. If there were no summoners, kill casters. Melee mobs could usually wait.
"Keep clearing the rooms like this."
They cleaned out all seven rooms without skipping any, moving step by step until they reached the stairs leading to the first boss. There was still another orc pack there, so they handled it the same way.
Fifteen people in UBRS really did make the early section much easier than a ten-man run. Nine DPS focusing fire was no joke. Once everyone swapped to the same target, trash mobs melted quickly.
They entered the first boss room.
Pyroguard Emberseer stood on the central platform, still sealed and unable to be attacked.
"Why isn't the boss moving?" David asked.
"Look," DeathScum said, walking over to the mechanism that released the seal. "There's a toilet here."
"Scum, have some class," OneShotCrit said. "That's obviously a spittoon."
OldSeven moved closer and inspected it. "You're both wrong. This is clearly a bucket for something much worse."
DesertWanderer sighed. "There are girls in the raid. Try to pretend you were raised indoors."
DeathScum clicked the mechanism.
Green light flared around him.
Igor immediately laughed. "Scum, you look cursed."
Smooch said, "Want a turn, Igor? Green would match your personality."
Igor answered without shame. "I don't even have a girlfriend. I'm immune to relationship damage."
"This should be the mechanism," Gabryell said, deliberately keeping his tone casual. "Everyone nearby, try clicking it."
OneShotCrit and OldSeven, who were also standing beside the mechanism, clicked it too.
The mechanism required three players.
Once it activated, orc trash mobs appeared from both sides and charged toward the three who had released the seal.
"Pick them up," Gabryell called. "Group them and AoE."
He had already been ready.
With three Mages in the raid, these mobs were perfect AoE targets. They were gathered up and burned down quickly.
Once the trash was dead, Pyroguard Emberseer finally reacted on the platform.
He stretched his arms as though waking from a long sleep.
"Well, that was refreshing," Gabryell said in a fake boss voice. "I slept forever, and the first thing I see is a bunch of idiots volunteering to die."
David snorted. "We break his seal, and he immediately starts swinging? Ungrateful bastard."
Carlos moved in to pick up the boss.
"Then we kill him. Fifteen against one. I like those odds."
Numbers were an advantage.
Carlos and Susie both went up to build threat. The raid only had two real melee DPS, DeathScum and Igor, so the three healers had more than enough room to keep the tanks and melee alive.
Pyroguard Emberseer was only the gatekeeper boss of UBRS. His strength was roughly on the level of an ordinary LBRS boss.
Under the pressure of fifteen players, he went down quickly.
"Luna loots," Hugo said immediately.
He was clearly worried someone with cursed loot luck would run up and touch the corpse first.
No one argued.
Everyone knew Luna had the best loot luck in the raid, so she naturally got the job.
Truestrike Shoulders
Rare
Binds when picked up
Shoulder
Leather
129 Armor
Durability 60 / 60
Requires Level 56
Equip: Improves your chance to hit by 2%.
Equip: +24 Attack Power.
"Holy crap," David said. "Those shoulders are insane."
He was a tank, but every Warrior had a Fury Warrior living somewhere in his heart.
Hugo was even more excited.
"Truestrike Shoulders. Now that's real DPS gear."
"No Fire Resistance cloak," Gabryell said.
Truestrike Shoulders were technically Pyroguard Emberseer's best physical DPS drop, but Gabryell had been hoping for the Fire Resistance cloak.
No luck this time.
That meant they would have to come back and farm him again. Wildfire Cape had +20 Fire Resistance, and for an FR tank progressing Molten Core, it was basically mandatory.