Players could improvise. The game couldn't.
Without raid markers, Gabryell fell back on the simplest workaround he could think of to keep the three backup tanks and four Warlocks from overlapping their targets.
"Lock onto your targets now. Nobody switches once we pull."
"Smooch, Crit, each of you put Hunter's Mark on one Firesworn."
The two Hunters immediately marked one each.
The marks were too far apart.
"Smooch, move yours to the Firesworn next to Crit's."
She switched targets and reapplied Hunter's Mark, leaving two marked adds standing beside each other.
"Good. Susie, those two are yours. Pull them away from the others and give everyone some room. No problem?"
There was no need to explain how to tank two mobs at once. Gabryell trusted her to handle that much herself.
Susie looked at the two marked Firesworn and immediately felt better.
"No problem. I'll pull them out."
"Snowy, use Mind Vision on an unmarked Firesworn. Start beside those two and work clockwise."
Danielly immediately locked onto one.
"David, you're on Snowy's target. Lock it now and don't switch once we pull."
"Got it."
"Heals, take the next one clockwise with Mind Vision."
ServerHeals did the same, giving them another clear target.
"Night, that one's yours."
That covered the four Firesworn the tanks would be handling.
Since they had plenty of Priests, three more used Mind Vision on separate targets, giving three of the Warlocks clear adds to Banish.
That left only one.
"Desert, last one's yours."
"Got it."
Giving DesertWanderer the leftover target was a sign of trust. Out of all their Warlocks, he had the best mechanics and situational awareness.
Now that everyone had a specific target locked, Gabryell was confident the opening wouldn't collapse into the same mess as before.
"I'm pulling with Ice Block. Tanks, once you've got your adds, spread them out. Firesworn explode when they die. Don't let one blast send another tank flying."
It wasn't a disaster if an ordinary DPS got launched.
A tank getting knocked away from position was another story.
"If you get blown away, don't make the healers waste mana on you. Bandage yourself where you land. No 300 First Aid? Pop a Major Healing Potion instead."
He added, "And get First Aid to 300 by tomorrow. From now on, anyone below 300 goes to the bench."
For a progression raid, 300 First Aid was practically mandatory.
If thirty-nine people could bandage themselves and one person couldn't, that one player was simply burning healer mana for no reason.
"Melee, Garr. Give Carlos a few seconds before you start. Don't rip aggro."
"Carlos, take him to the left wall. Don't let him knock you out of position."
Then came the ranged.
"Ranged, hit exactly what I call. If I say one target, you hit that target and nothing else. No meter padding. Pull aggro trying to pad damage and it's minus five DKP."
Their earlier wipes had been so fast they had barely gotten a taste of the fight.
This time, he wanted them to kill at least a few Firesworn and actually get a feel for the encounter.
"I'm going in. Don't heal me. Shield only."
Gabryell Blinked forward and entered Garr's aggro range.
The boss and all eight Firesworn came charging toward him.
He immediately cast Ice Block.
"Go!"
The raid moved.
With every target assigned in advance, there shouldn't be any overlap as long as nobody switched.
Sure enough, the opening went much more smoothly.
Carlos picked up Garr and started dragging him toward the left wall.
Susie peeled the two marked Firesworn away from the pack.
David and Nightlord secured their own targets as well. This time, neither of them had an add disappear into Banish the second they picked it up.
"Mine resisted!"
All four Warlocks had found the correct targets.
The only problem was FirstDate's Banish getting resisted.
"Don't panic, First. Cast it again."
One loose Firesworn wasn't enough to send the whole raid into chaos.
They just needed the next Banish to land.
The add was almost on top of the raid when FirstDate finally caught it.
OldSeven stared at the Firesworn that had come within inches of him and let out a relieved breath.
"Must've seen how handsome I am and wanted a closer look."
There was no beating a man with no shame.
Seven had maxed that stat a long time ago.
"Ranged, Night's add first. Burn them one at a time. Melee, stay on Garr. Easy on threat."
They had more than enough ranged DPS.
As long as everyone stayed organized, the Firesworn would go down without the melee ever needing to leave the boss.
"Shackles. Priests, Carlos only. Ignore everyone else."
"Immolate. Tanks first. Get it off immediately."
Firesworn Immolate hit hard enough that leaving it on a tank for too long could easily get them killed.
In the GDKP runs Gabryell remembered, Garr dispel rankings usually ignored Shackles entirely and only counted meaningful Immolate dispels.
"Healers, Major Mana Potions on cooldown. Don't save gold."
Garr had already stripped away a round of buffs.
Some of the healers had lost Arcane Intellect, taking a noticeable chunk out of their maximum mana.
"This is disgusting," SevenDays complained. "He stripped Mark and Intellect off me. Without flasks and consumables, how the hell are we supposed to do this?"
Without a Flask of Distilled Wisdom, his current mana pool wouldn't have been enough to keep up with the healing pressure for long.
The extra 2,000 mana from Flask of Distilled Wisdom and 1,200 health from Flask of the Titans were huge on Garr.
With their current gear, trying to beat him without flasks would have been miserable.
"Ranged, back off Night's add. It's about to blow."
Nightlord's Firesworn was almost dead.
Gabryell called the warning whether anyone was still inside the blast radius or not.
The first Firesworn went down.
Nightlord got launched backward by the explosion, but nobody else was caught in it.
"Good. That's what I want."
The previous wipes hadn't been for nothing.
"Night, bandage where you landed. Then watch one of the Banished adds. If Banish gets resisted, pick it up. Otherwise, leave it alone."
"Got it."
Nightlord bandaged himself on the spot instead of making the healers waste mana on him.
"Warlocks, keep Banish up. I don't care about your damage. Babysit your targets and make sure they stay Banished."
From Garr onward through several of the later MC fights, Warlocks were basically Banish bots.
Keeping their assigned targets under control was already one of the biggest contributions they could make.
"Finish David's add, then switch to Susie's. David, once yours blows and knocks you back, go help Susie and peel one of hers away."
If they had extra tanks, they might as well use them.
The raid was finally running like a proper progression group.
Fearless's first raid team was already operating at the top level on Tichondrius, and they were the first stable elite roster on the server built around a formal DKP system.
One Firesworn after another went down.
Eventually, all four active adds were dead.
Only the four Banished ones remained.
Gabryell checked the raid.
The Priests were in the worst shape mana-wise after constantly healing and dispelling.
"Resto Druids, same Innervate assignments as before. Give them to the Priests."
The three Druids immediately followed the assignments from the previous boss fights.
In this encounter, Priest mana mattered far more than Druid mana.
By now, almost the entire raid had been stripped of its useful buffs.
Everyone's stats had dropped hard, and their damage had slowed with them.
Even with the healers drinking Major Mana Potions every time they came off cooldown, there probably wasn't enough mana left to kill many more Firesworn.
"David, Susie, each of you watch one of the Banished adds too. Don't touch it unless Banish gets resisted."
With Nightlord already watching another, all three backup tanks were now ready to catch anything that broke loose.
That was enough insurance.
It was time to kill Garr.
"All DPS, Garr. Burn him. Once Garr dies, we win."
Even if the four remaining Firesworn wiped them afterward, the boss would already be dead.
They could rez, come back, and loot the corpse.
Of course, surviving would still be better.
Wiping the entire raid after the kill wasn't going to magically make a Binding drop.
If sacrificing forty players somehow guaranteed one, every raid leader in Azeroth would already be ordering their groups to kill Garr and then throw themselves into the fire.
And nobody would complain.
They'd probably volunteer.
"Come on. Give us the right half."
Now that Garr was actually within reach, Gabryell couldn't help dreaming about absurd beginner's luck.
What if Garr dropped the Right Half of the Bindings of the Windseeker?
And then Baron Geddon dropped the Left Half?
Both halves in the same lockout.
If that happened, he might actually strip naked and sprint through the dorm.