This was Carlos's first time turning Onyxia a full 180 degrees, and he wasn't used to it yet, so he moved her rather slowly. If anyone had rushed forward at that moment, they probably would've eaten a breath attack.
Gabryell held the raid back until Carlos had successfully turned Onyxia around, then led everyone forward behind him.
By later standards, the pull looked painfully clumsy.
But this was 2004, not 2020. Later raids would make the opening look effortless—tank goes in, turns Onyxia, raid splits to both sides, nobody crosses her head—but none of that was muscle memory yet.
For a first real attempt, they were doing fine.
That polished later-era execution had been built on countless wipes.
"Carlos, keep backing up until you hit the wall. Keep her head pointed straight into it. If she turns even slightly, she'll breathe across the raid."
Gabryell paced the raid carefully behind Carlos to keep anyone from passing Onyxia's head.
"Got it."
Carlos kept building threat as he backed up.
He was steady.
Just a little slow.
And the slower they moved, the more likely someone at the back was to wander into Tail Sweep range.
Gabryell saw a Mage get launched through the air.
Fortunately, the unlucky player was a Mage.
Halfway through the knockback, he Blinked back toward the group and avoided landing in the whelp pit.
"Keep up, everyone. Stay out of her rear half."
There were always a few people who moved slower than the rest.
Whether they were slow to react or simply zoning out during the raid was anyone's guess.
"She's in position. Knockback's coming—keep me topped."
Slow or not, Carlos had gotten her there.
Onyxia was backed into the ideal position, and her head was still pointed straight into the wall.
"Danielly, shield Carlos!"
Danielly took raiding seriously and hadn't lost focus for a second.
Power Word: Shield appeared on Carlos immediately.
Under normal circumstances, shielding a Warrior could starve him of Rage.
This time was different.
Danielly timed the shield to land just before Knock Away.
Onyxia slammed Carlos backward.
The shield absorbed the knockback damage.
A moment later, Onyxia followed with a breath attack that shattered what remained of it.
Carlos got the extra buffer without losing any meaningful Rage generation, and with the other healers keeping him topped, his health stayed safely above the danger zone.
"Damn, that was perfect," ServerHeals said.
He was genuinely impressed.
The timing had been exactly right.
With Carlos's current gear, that extra buffer mattered. One missed heal after Knock Away could still kill him in seconds.
Once they had progressed through Molten Core and picked up better gear, Carlos would have a much easier time tanking Onyxia.
By then, he wouldn't need Power Word: Shield just to survive the sequence.
Gabryell glanced at the threat meter.
Carlos had built a comfortable lead again.
"Warlocks and Mages, stay on your wands. Rogues and Fury Warriors, auto-attack. Hunters, stick to Auto Shot."
"Susie, build threat carefully. Try not to go above half of Carlos's."
"David, Night, you're melee DPS for now. Just auto-attack."
For the moment, everyone still needed to get used to grinding through Phase 1 slowly and safely.
As Gabryell fired his wand, he kept an eye on the entire room.
The melee were now standing in front of the ranged players and healers, safely away from Onyxia's tail.
Then he spotted one Hunter badly out of position.
"Gabiru, move forward. Get away from the whelp pit entrance."
Gabiru, a Night Elf Hunter, immediately moved up and joined the other Hunters.
Phase 1 was mostly a controlled burn.
As long as the main tank stayed alive and nobody pulled aggro, they could grind their way through it.
What baffled Gabryell was how anyone still managed to end up in the whelp pit during Phase 1.
It took a special kind of player.
"Warlocks, keep wanding. Mages, you can throw a few Frostbolts, then go back to your wands."
After Carlos survived two Knock Aways and rebuilt his threat lead each time, Gabryell decided they could push a little harder.
"Rogues, use one or two Sinister Strikes or Backstabs to build combo points and keep Slice and Dice up. Once it's rolling, stop pressing abilities and let your auto-attacks work."
"Fury Warriors, keep auto-attacking."
"Hunters, you can attack normally. Just watch your Feign Death cooldown. If any Hunter here doesn't know what Feign Death does, type '1' now so I know who to replace next week."
Hunters had a short Feign Death cooldown.
Rogues could only envy them.
Feint didn't reduce nearly as much threat, while Vanish had a long cooldown.
When it came to dumping threat, Hunters were the real professionals.
"Wait... what's Slice and Dice?"
A Rogue named RunForrest had typed the question.
Gabryell nearly choked.
Then he remembered the world-first Ragnaros footage from 2005 that he had watched in his previous life. Even one of the Rogues in that raid had barely used Slice and Dice and appeared to have taken it off his action bar.
Maybe this really was just the era.
It wasn't that Fearless's Rogues were uniquely bad.
Rogues everywhere were still figuring things out.
"Slice and Dice is a finishing move. At max rank, it increases your melee attack speed by 30%," Gabryell explained, taking a breath to calm himself.
"Oh, that one," RunForrest said. "I never used it while leveling. It always felt useless."
"Why?"
"When I was leveling, Sinister Strike felt like it did the most damage, then Eviscerate. So those were basically the only two abilities I used."
"Slice and Dice just makes your auto-attacks faster. It felt like a waste of Energy and combo points. Why not just use another Sinister Strike?"
"You didn't run many dungeons while leveling, did you? Mostly quests?"
Gabryell understood immediately.
Players who mostly leveled through quests rarely paid close attention to damage meters, so it was easy to assume Sinister Strike was doing most of a Rogue's damage.
Against short-lived quest mobs, that impression made sense.
In long fights against high-HP elites, though, auto-attacks kept swinging for the entire encounter and quickly became a much larger share of total damage.
That was why Slice and Dice mattered.
Spending Energy and combo points to increase attack speed paid off over a long fight far more than dumping everything into another Sinister Strike or Eviscerate.
Auto-attacks never stopped.
Sinister Strike cost Energy.
Eviscerate required combo points.
"Yeah," RunForrest admitted.
Before Gabryell could continue, the fight demanded his attention.
"Shield Carlos. Hunters, Feign Death. Rogues, Feint. Mages, back to wands. Hunters, stick to Auto Shot and let your mana recover. Are you seriously trying to go OOM in Phase 1 and spend the rest of the fight watching?"
Once the raid was stable again, he returned to RunForrest.
"Forrest, when you get a chance, learn from some of the stronger Rogues in the guild. DeathScum and TwinBleeds both play Sword Rogue."
Gabryell couldn't personally teach every player how to play their class.
"Got it," RunForrest said.
"Ask me," DeathScum cut in. "I know the class better than TwinBleeds."
"Get outta here," TwinBleeds shot back. "I'm the best Sword Rogue in the guild."
Listening to them argue over who was better gave Gabryell an idea.
It was time to appoint class leads.
That way, guild members would have a go-to player whenever they needed help with their class.
And he had no intention of handing those roles to his friends by default.
Whoever was best suited for the job would get it.
Carlos stayed alive, nobody pulled aggro, and they slowly ground Onyxia down to 65%.
Then she stopped paying attention to Carlos and turned toward the entrance.
"What the hell? The boss is running away!"
Carlos tried to hold her, but it made no difference.
Onyxia ignored him completely.
At this point, the DPS could have gone all out.
Gabryell didn't tell them.
He also kept the Phase 2 strategy to himself.
He wanted everyone to experience the full blind Vanilla progression experience for themselves.
"They're not going to wipe to the whelps on both sides, are they?"
Gabryell watched with anticipation as Onyxia broke away from the tank and headed toward the center of the chamber.
"THE BOSS IS FLYING!"
Onyxia rose into the air.
The nightmare-inducing Phase 2 had arrived.
Back in 2004, Phase 2 was the wall that kept early Onyxia progression groups stuck the longest.