I'll throw this here, since our accomplishment doesn't precisely merit a post on our front page or the official Blizzard forums. Not quite yet, anyway.

For the past couple of weeks, a few of us, looking for a challenge, and a way to sharpen our skills in anticipation of Blackwing Lair, have been looking to complete all of UBRS in a 5-man group. To my knowledge, Drakkisath has never been killed by a 5-man group. There were rumors that Nurfed had done it during Beta, but Nurfed came out and confirmed that those were exaggerations. It had been done with 7 people, but never 5.

Our first two attempts ended in server crashes, one of them while we were staring Drak in the face. Highly demoralizing, to say the least.

But we went back last night.

Cast of Characters
Gurgthock, Shaman
Hi, Hunter
Moz, Warrior
Raylen, Priest
Zibro, Warlock

---

Rend? 5-manned with no deaths.
The Beast? 5-manned with no deaths.
The horrible pull in the corner after the Beast? 5-manned with no deaths.
The seven captain pulls in Drak's room itself? 5-manned with no deaths.

Last night we had some fun luck with the captain spawns -- three of the first four pulls were Captain/Assassin/Assassin/Fire Tongue/______. Not fun at all.

So, that brought us to Drak once more. We had some clever strategies planned out in advance, but we decided to give it a trial run first to see how well they worked. They worked better than expected. So well, in fact, that the trial run turned into an all-out attempt on the fly.

We had one guard left, being chain-feared by Zibro, Drak at 20%, and everyone alive, albeit hurting.

At 10%, I died to Drak after he conflagged Moz. (I'd burned my ankh already.)
At 7%, a guard resisted a fear, and it pulped Zibro.
Raylen got off a clutch Psychic Scream that sent the guard running again.
Drak at 5%.
4%.
3%. Guard unfears, kills Raylen.
2%. Drak conflags Moz, who drops very quickly with no healing.
1%. Hi runs and fires.
Dead. Hi feigns, and the remaining guard resets, but Drakkisath is dead.

While Hi is capable of many amazing feats, ressurection is not one of them. So Drak was dead, but so were four of us, and we had no way of reaching the corpse for loot or a victory shot. Sort of a victory, right? But not quite.

I have screenshots and various 30-second FRAPS clips of different pulls and fights, taken with my shitty unregistered version of FRAPS that I downloaded just for the occasion. Not necessarily thrilling viewing, but it proves that we did legitimately 5-man all of UBRS.

We'll go back before long, and kill him more cleanly. And I'll have a flashy FRAPS of the whole thing to boot. But in the meantime, it's still pretty cool to know that it's even possible. Who would have imagined it back in January?

I'd encourage people to give this a try. It's a really great test of your skills, and one of the most fun things the game has to offer. It's a hell of a change from spamming flash heal/LHW/frost bolt/whatever for hours on end in Molten Core. I really hope Karazahn, or whatever 5-man instances are introduced down the line, rise to this level of difficulty. I do think that some MC gear is required, especially on the tank, but there's actually more margin for error than you'd think.

groovy.

Heres a question...do you think any other group composition for this is possible? Is a rogue, mage or even a druid replacable for any of those 5 classes that we brought? What about alliance, can a paladin replace the shaman? I know we don't know for sure since we're (you!!!!) the only ones to do it so far, but it'd be interesting to know what you think of it.

That is actually extremely impressive.

How long did t take to kill Drak from the start of the instance?

I think this is the ideal group composition. There's some room for variation, but I think it would only serve to make things harder.

The group represents, I think, a perfect balance between damage and control. If you add a rogue instead of a hunter, you gain damage but lose precious control (freeze-trapping). If you add a druid instead of a shaman, you get more healing and some control via hibernate, but the group would be seriously hurting in terms of DPS. And so forth.

With even better gear, a couple of months from now, I suspect it will be doable with a wide variety of group compositions.

2.5 hours maybe? Our pace up through the Beast was about as fast as many 10-man raids I've been on. After that, it drops off drastically as we need to be a lot more methodical about setting up and executing all the captain pulls.

Lies.

Well, assuming frost shocking counts as tanking. That was one of the new things we did last night to deal with a couple of the shittier pulls containing 2 assassins + a Fire Tongue. Seducing assassins is bad news because they'll stun you when Seduce breaks and then things go to hell, so I "tanked" one while we took care of the Fire Tongue.

Did you use a lot of consumables?

I tried cables right after you died but it failed =(

Nothing terribly special (no flasks or anything), but mongoose pots, healing pots, arcane elixirs and so forth. Preparation was there, but honestly we didn't put a great deal of work into it.

Just to add there was some great teamwork in that run, you pretty much have to maximize your gear and utility in some of those fights and these guys did that and more by adapting to various situations. Good times.

THORM, let's attempt this again

This is exciting news, personally after 5 manning scarlet strat/baron, scholo and Urrok, much cleaner than 10 man raids, I had always thought that this would be possible. I hope to someday have a group that is ambitious enough too do this just for the fun.

Those were meant to be 5-manned, though.

Grats guys, I look forward to seeing the game wide first post once you do it cleanly.

I am aware of this. My point, which was none too clear, is that I prefer very much a small well balanced team useing strategy and control; to a messy jugernaught raid. I have alway thought that the General was doable with a "Well equiped" 5 man. After doing rend/beast with 7, and getting the general with 9 moderately equiped, I began to think of a team that could accomplish this.

I am glad to see someone put it together. Bravo.


Point of the post: I want in on this action, just hope I can find a group that is too.

Edit: Really Point - 5 pieces of gold are greater than 10 pieces of shit unless you are trying to grow tomatos.

You guys are animals.

thats freakin extreme

While zuchini can be good I tend to grow only things that cost a great deal or can
not be purchased at your average super market. Where I live in the summer I can get Heirloom tomatoes for $4-6 per pound. You cant really aford to make things like pasta sauce or a totato based soup, you would go broke. However you can grow 3-4 plants that will yield 75-100 lbs of tomatos. That is enough for a big pot of soup or pasta sauce one a week all year. Also if you blanch tomatos and peal them they freeze very well.

Never grow bell pepers they are a waste of space.


ON topic:

Did you do fatherflame? ( snickers )

What was more difficult the 5 pull of captain//assasin//assasin/flametongue/??
or the general. What kind of set up did you use for general.

moz + raylen on general

Hi + gurgthoc on add1: kite shock slow trap DPS

Zibro on add2 fears and dots on general?

Did you guys freeze trap one add ( followed by a fd + freezing trap - for when its over, then onto chain fear ) , while you burned down the other ?
Or was it a straight up dps + fear get-up on the adds while the warrior tanked the general with the priest on warrior :o
Either way - very impressive :D

Figure it out yourself ;)

Soon as I find 4 other people who think that that would be fun I will :)

I know how they did it. :V It's no where near that elaborate really.

Edit - Hahahaha actually I just remembered fully what they did. It's not really elaborate but it's fucking risky. ;)