"Smash the eggs!"
"Every last one. No baby dragons today."
After killing Pyroguard Emberseer, they entered a room packed with dragon eggs.
The eggs were basically traps. If anyone stepped on one by accident, a Rookery Whelp would hatch.
"Break every egg in the room," Gabryell said. "Clear the whole place."
With three tanks, they had plenty of room to play sloppy. Holding half a room of whelps was not a problem.
A lot of UBRS groups found the egg room too annoying and simply skipped it. Because of that, many players never realized this room actually had its own dragonkin boss: Solakar Flamewreath.
"Black dragons really know how to lay eggs," Igor said.
"Smash them all," Hugo said. "No reinforcements for the Black Dragonflight."
With three Mages and one Warlock going full AoE, they quickly cleared every egg in the room. Once the whelps were dead, the red crystal on the left side came into view.
Gabryell walked up to the crystal but did not click it immediately.
"Eat and drink first. Get your mana back."
Then he sat down too.
The AoE spam had burned through a lot of his mana.
As raid leader, Gabryell kept track of more than just his own screen. He watched everyone's health, mana, buffs, and debuffs, making sure the whole raid stayed under control.
Only after everyone had recovered did he click the crystal.
Father Flame
Uncommon
Binds when picked up
Unique
Off-hand
+10 Fire Resistance
The crystal gave him Father Flame.
"Fire Resistance off-hand," Gabryell said after checking it. "Niche at best."
It had no real use for him, so he ignored it.
Then movement started on the other side of the room.
"Wait, mobs are spawning again."
"I've got them," David said immediately.
Susie cut him off. "You're backup. I'll take them."
Pairs of elite dragonkin began running in from the other side of the room.
If the eggs had still been there, those dragonkin would have trampled through them and hatched more whelps, turning the whole event into chaos.
Since the room was already clean, each wave only had two elite dragonkin. They were easy to handle.
After several waves, the Rookery boss finally appeared.
Solakar Flamewreath.
"Carlos, grab the boss," Gabryell said. "Susie, build second threat. Everyone except Desert, go hard."
Solakar only had Knockback and Cleave. As long as two tanks built threat properly, the fight usually would not have major aggro problems.
Threat mechanics in the level-60 era were rough, and Warlocks naturally generated a lot of it. Once they reached max level, they basically never got to unload freely in serious dungeon or raid content.
For the raid's sake, DesertWanderer was running a utility build. His main jobs were keeping his Imp near the main tank, applying Curse of the Elements for casters or Curse of Recklessness for melee, and using Banish when needed.
He was not playing the high-damage Sacrifice Destruction build.
Solakar Flamewreath himself was not especially strong. The real reason many groups ignored him was that clearing the egg room took too much time.
"Only one Priest in the raid," Gabryell said when the loot appeared. "Snowy, no competition for you."
Solakar dropped Devout Mantle, a Priest T0 piece.
Gabryell did not know whether other guilds would fight over T0 pieces. In Fearless, at least, everyone already knew which Dungeon Set 1 belonged to which class, so there would be no loot drama over class sets.
And loot drama was poison.
In pickup groups, one bad roll could turn into an argument, then a forum post, then half the capital city spamming trade chat about who ninja-looted what.
Besides Devout Mantle, Solakar also dropped an Engineering schematic.
Schematic: Hyper-Radiant Flame Reflector
Uncommon
Requires Engineering 290
Use: Teaches you how to make a Hyper-Radiant Flame Reflector.
Hyper-Radiant Flame Reflector
Rare
Binds when equipped
Trinket
+18 Fire Resistance
Requires Level 53
Use: Reflects Fire spells back at the caster for 5 seconds.
5 min cooldown
Requires: 4 Dark Iron Bars, 3 Truesilver Transformers, 6 Essences of Water, 4 Star Rubies, 2 Azerothian Diamonds.
The crafting cost mostly depended on the price of Essence of Water. Overall, it was not too expensive, and the value was excellent.
For tanks with Engineering, it was one of the best Fire Resistance trinkets available right now.
Tanks without Engineering had to settle for Blazing Emblem, which had slightly less pure Fire Resistance.
"Everyone with Engineering can roll," Gabryell said. "Whoever wins it, the guild covers the materials. Make a few Flame Reflectors for our Engineering tanks so we're ready for Molten Core."
Several people in the raid had Engineering, but DesertWanderer won the roll in the end.
"I'll buy the mats and craft them when we get back," Desert said.
"The guild pays," Gabryell said.
The guild was not raiding yet and did not have real funds, so the money would come out of his own pocket for now.
That was fine.
As long as they could clear Molten Core, spending some gold ahead of time was nothing.
With Hyper-Radiant Flame Reflector, Carlos and Susie's Fire Resistance trinkets were mostly handled. Once they stacked Fire Resistance in other slots too, Gabryell believed they could become proper FR tanks.
After taking care of Solakar, Gabryell led everyone up to the second floor.
They killed the two elite dragonkin there first.
"Don't go through the first door," Gabryell said. "Follow me to the second one."
He was worried someone would walk into the first doorway in the corridor. That door was bug-prone and could ruin the run. Even much later in Classic, Blizzard still never properly fixed it, which was ridiculous.
When they reached the second door, Gabryell checked inside with a target macro.
"Nice. Jed is here."
The macro had found the rare elite inside.
Jed Runewatcher.
Jed was the UBRS rare elite casters loved most. Countless casters joined UBRS groups purely to farm him, and a run without Jed was much harder to fill.
He was also the reason many casters developed a terrible reputation.
After Jed died, some would suddenly remember they had "something urgent" to do and leave the group. The worst ones would even deliberately pull mobs from Rend's arena stands, wipe the raid, and use the bugged instance as an excuse to bail.
That screwed over every melee player who had come for Rend's drops.
Rend's arena had its own bug too. If the raid wiped at the wrong time, Rend could disappear, the door would stay locked, and the run could no longer continue. The only option was to leave and reset.
Melee players would watch the casters leave, stare at the broken run, and start losing their minds in party chat.
Briarwood Reed was also one of the earliest major sources of caster-versus-healer loot drama.
Casters wanted it.
Healers wanted it.
Everyone had an argument for why they deserved it more.
So Jed was a rare elite people both loved and hated.
Casters loved him.
Physical DPS hated what he did to groups.
"Pull the trash out wave by wave," Gabryell said.
There were too many mobs inside the room. Charging in would only pull half the place and wipe the raid. They had to pull carefully from the doorway.
"Holy crap, I'm flying!"
OldSeven, who had no experience with the room, stood too far out and got knocked back. He fell straight down into the egg room below.
Luckily, they had already cleared every egg.
Otherwise, he would have cracked open a pile of whelps and died on the spot.
"Hug the wall," Gabryell said.
He had deliberately let them learn this one the hard way. Now they would remember that the mobs here had knockbacks, and next time they would instinctively stick to the wall.
They cleared the mobs wave by wave until one side of the room was finally safe enough to pull Jed.
"See the rare elite patrolling inside?" Gabryell said. "Pull him out and kill him."
With this many casters and healers in the raid, he hoped Jed would be generous.
Jed Runewatcher was not a real boss, just a rare elite. His stats were not much different from an ordinary level 59 elite, so killing him was easy.
The moment Jed fell, Gabryell immediately called out.
"Don't loot yet. Let him cool."
Nobody moved.
Jed had three blue items on his loot table, and only one dropped each kill. Each had roughly a one-in-three chance.
With odds like that, superstition was mandatory.
After about ten seconds, Gabryell finally nodded.
"Luna, loot."
Lunatori stepped forward.
Gabryell took a deep breath and waited for her lucky hands to do their job.
Briarwood Reed
Rare
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 55
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 29.
For a second, Gabryell just stared at the loot window.
Then he started laughing.
Luna had done it again.
The superstition worked.
Jed had actually dropped the best caster trinket currently available: Briarwood Reed.