The Misfits climbed again to top of the black spiral tower. On a circular platform loomed a massive reptilian body. Above it was a nametag – Cermillion the Destroyer: Level 100. The red dragon’s hateful maw and burning eyes danced as it stood on their remains, daring them to try again. This was their 47th attempt at Cermillion that night. Guild chat was subdued after that last attempt. They had pushed the dragon from the long phase two, into phase three, and had survived another thirty seconds before the fire elementals had overwhelmed them. Sean flicked the switch on his VR headset, activating the mic. “That was a solid attempt folks. Let’s stay focused like that on the next try.”

Sean reviewed their logs by swiping his hand to the left and bringing up a screen containing all of their metrics for the fight. Specifically, he was interested in the log of players who had been assigned a damage-per-second (DPS) role, which mobs they attacked, and how much DPS they did.

“We need all DPS to switch immediately at the beginning of phase three to the elemental on Thag. I will blow my Last Stand, pop my artifact, hold Cermillion and the other elemental while everyone burns down the one on her,” Sean said to the raid.

Sean’s character, Smash, short for Smashit, was a knight that had the ability to absorb an ungodly amount of damage using his cooldowns. He’d also received a very powerful artifact called The Resistor in the last raid, which increased the power of his Last Stand by 300 percent. Despite this fact, he was concerned they didn’t have an ideal tank composition.

He swiped his hand again, moving into officer chat.

***You’ve Entered Officer Chat***

Smashit: Deathberry, can you check the tank log for the last fight, while I prep the group? I think I may be taking too much damage, and we may have to switch out for my alt.

Deathberry: Yeah, I think most other guilds have been using a paladin tank to hold Cermillion.

Paladin tanks had an ability to self-heal using a heal over time (HOT) and careful kiting, which made them favorable for this boss.

Smashit: Ok, let me know what you think. If we have no chance with this setup, just say the word and I’ll switch over.

Deathberry: Will do.

Being a progressive raider meant checking your ego at the door, and he trusted Deathberry to tell him what needed to be done. He was the guild’s primary strategist and reviewed all the fights with Sean. He’d earned that position in the guild through his detailed approach to evaluating every battle.

***You’ve Entered Raid Chat***

Deathberry: Ranged DPS can switch onto the elemental immediately since I’ll be tagging it with an aggro dump to Thag.

Deathberry’s real-life name was Tim. Working with him had pushed Sean to be an even better raid leader since he had someone to share strategy ideas with. Reviewing logs after the fights was the best way to improve their raid’s performance, and it had become a side-game for the two of them after raiding hours.

Over the next ten attempts, they never got back to phase three; however, after that they were able to get into a groove. The DPS switch that Deathberry had called for allowed them to burn down the first elemental. After it was destroyed, Thag quickly picked up the additional elemental on Smash so he was just holding the raid boss.

Now that one of its elementals had been destroyed, Cermillion began a new enraged attack. Smash’s health bar leapt around as the new ability hit him repeatedly.

Seeing that he wouldn’t be able to take much more, he called out in a voice flat and steady, “Switch.”

Thag used one of her Demon Knight abilities to quickly leap across the room and pull aggro on Cermillion. When she got to the dragon she slowly turned the boss so the raid faced its side. The front and side of a dragon was especially dangerous to the raid. All around the edge of the platform was grey and cloudy. Rain drizzled down on them becoming smoke wherever the dragon breathed flame. Lightening flashed sporadically, offsetting their fight in sharp contrast to an otherwise dreary sky. The tanks continued their macabre dance with Cermillion, switching smoothly as needed. They attempted to time them so that they would each always have one cooldown available.

Sean’s microphone crackled. “Come on stay up,” Linca said. The sound of rapid keys being pressed came through his headset. “Don’t die, come on.”

“Linca, your mic’s open again. Let’s keep raid chat clear,” Sean said quietly.

***You’ve Entered Raid Chat***

Linca: Sorry!

After that her microphone was silent. Other than the occasional open microphone, Linca was a coolheaded player.

Finally, the ranged DPS managed to burn down the final elemental. The melee DPS continued to stab Cermillion during the enraged phase, instead of switching to the elemental. Any player who got too close to the elementals took extra damage and that wasn’t something the raid could afford to do right then. With the final elemental down, the rage ability caused an unstoppable amount of damage. Smash’s health bar pushed dangerously close to empty, but there was nothing he could do. Eventually, both tanks perished and it was declared a wipe.

"That was a really solid attempt. We were just a couple of percent from phase four," Smash told the team. He had a couple of ideas of how they might be able to deal with the heavy damage from the end of phase three, but he waited to review the logs with Deathberry before saying anything.

After another dozen attempts, they could reliably transition from the end of phase three into phase four. After the raid chopped off Cermillion’s tail at the end of phase three, the dragon summoned giant lakes of fire, engulfing most of the raised platform they stood on. Additionally, it summoned four more elementals. These had to be picked up quickly by the tanks or they would kill the raid. And, of course, Cermillion’s enrage was at its worst. After dying once again, Smash called for the raid to take a quick break while he and Deathberry reviewed the logs.

During the break, they discussed the merits of various strategies to help control the damage in phase four.

“Thag you missed the last elemental and I got stomped babe,” Kevin said, half accusing, half joking. His character was Krok, their mystic assassin.

Emmy and he were an item. Her character was Thag, their off-tank. “Maybe you be a pro and handle it, babe,” she spat the words back at him. There was no playfulness in her voice. She’d had to fight for respect in her previous raiding guild which had been full of machismo. While the Misfits weren’t like that, she still carried a chip on her shoulder.

“Cool it kids. We’re fighting the dragon, remember?” Sean intervened. Sometimes his job as raid leader felt like being the coach who had to keep everyone in line.

Fortunately, Deathberry chimed in, ever the voice of reason. “By the time phase four rolls around everyone needs to be on their toes,” he said calmly. He stressed the word everyone like he was talking directly to Krok. “The main tank’s artifact will be off cooldown and so will DPS trinkets. Melee DPS need to wait until we’re all in position since the ranged have to dance a bit. I also expect you to pull high numbers. Cheez will coordinate the melee in their chat.”

As Deathberry pointed out, the real challenge of this phase was the need for flexibility and mobility. Ranged DPS would have a hard time being effective, since they would had to constantly be on the move to stay alive. That meant extra pressure to pile on the melee DPS numbers. However, it had to be timed carefully.

“Just remember to only do vanilla attacks until I tell you otherwise,” Cheezustabs commanded. Known to the raid as Cheezus, he was their lead melee fighter. In real life, Miles was an avid distance runner. The discipline he channeled as a professional athlete made him an ideal second in command for the Misfits.

When the raid returned from break, Sean explained what they were up against. “When we enter phase four, Thag is going to pick up two of the adds and I’ll pick up one. I’m going to need to have a DPS with high movement kiting the fourth add.”

Cheezus spoke up, “I can handle the fourth add using my hoverboard.” The hoverboard was a rare crafted item, which required a lot of materials to grind. Additionally, you had to be maxed out in the skill Create Unique Object.

Krok asked, “Will that be enough time?”

Cheezus jumped on his hoverboard with a backflip and then proceeded to hover at an extremely steep angle while dancing. He might be a good leader someday, Sean mused, but he was a bit of a showoff.

“Ok hotshot,” Krok’s tone showed he wasn’t impressed. “When the hoverboard is on cooldown, I’ll blink kite the elemental.” Krok’s class had an interesting blend of melee and ranged DPS, which was balanced out by the fact that their overall DPS numbers tended to be lower than many other pure DPS classes. However, sometimes the most important element in a fight wasn’t killing the enemy as fast as possible, but being able to effectively outmaneuver the opponent.

“The only problem is that we may get called out for using this,” Cheezus said.

Smash was aware that the game’s GMs were probably watching this raid right now, so it would be interesting to see if they intervened once they saw their strategy with the hoverboard. Some things weren’t intended in game, especially on boss fights. Nonetheless, he didn’t have any better ideas – if the GMs were going to give them a temporary ban, they would do so after a few attempts. It was a risk, but he knew they didn’t have a chance on this phase without considering unorthodox strategies.

“Let’s give it a shot,” Sean said. The Misfits really came together when the pressure was on. They had a reputation for out-grinding other guilds and laying down crazy strategies to overcome seemingly impossible odds. This was the reason they were one of the top-ranked guilds.

There came a point in every raiding day when you had to call a final attempt. He could sense they were at that point after ten hours of continually fighting this same boss. The Misfits were starting to make some stupid, avoidable mistakes. Their previous attempt had only gotten them to the middle of phase three, which was quite disappointing considering how far they’d progressed earlier.

“Ok, final attempt for the night. Let’s put everything into this one and see how close we can get.”

Phases one and two went by like a blur. There were no early stumbles and it seemed like the phases that had stymied them earlier in the day were now on autopilot. Phase three also went incredibly smoothly. Raid chat was completely silent except for the occasional communication by Smash to call out the needed mechanics. He could tell these were perfunctory, as the raid blazed through phase three with ease.

Phase four was becoming a lot less scary, and as they entered it, he couldn’t help but marvel at the way that Cheezus and Krok worked together. Despite their earlier bickering, they flawlessly kited the elemental adds all over the room, while carefully avoiding the raid. The pools of fire that had destroyed them in their first attempt barely gave anyone pause, despite the fact that they shifted every twenty seconds or so and covered nearly the entire platform. The key with those pools was to be watching for the shift and move from the safe area to a danger zone as soon as you saw one. Inevitably, the previously safe areas would become filled with fire, so it was important to move as soon as you saw the shift.

Smash’s entire vision was filled with Cermillion’s massive draconic body. He couldn’t even see the creature’s hateful maw and burning eyes since he was so close to the creature. Instead, he kept his eyes glued to his raid monitor bars and the floor.

Everything had been going perfectly up to that point. However, Smash went down in less than a second. Cermillion stood tall, enraged. Sean looked from the creature’s long curled claws to his slime-covered teeth. Both had the ability to do tremendous burst damage. Smash lunged left trying to drag the fiery elemental with him, too slow. The dragon’s terrible claws scooped him up right as a red lava pool formed, and dropped him into it.

The logs showed the last several hits that killed him:

Slow burn -250

Enrage claw -322

Enrage bite -425

Enrage claw -134

Lava pool -400

Smash’s health pool, while fully raid buffed, was close to 5,000. But his health bar stayed precariously below the halfway mark during this phase, and those last five hits had taken thirty percent of his health in less than a second. Fumbling with his virtual controls, he had missed hitting his Last Stand cooldown when it was available. Without a proper cooldown rotation, there was no way the healers would be able keep him alive and his split-second mistake had been fatal.

“Battle rez incoming,” Linca intoned calmly. This was their one and only way to recover a fallen player during the fight. There was no room for mistakes now. Fortunately, during the interim, the players had been able to DPS down one of the two adds on Thag, and she had picked up Cermillion and his add during the interim. The healers were dropping their largest healing spells on her since the heighted enrage made it nearly impossible to hold the elementals and Cermillion simultaneously, like they had in earlier phases. He smashed his shield into Cermillion’s foot as soon as he was up and at full health. Then he plunging his sword into the elemental’s side, roaring his defiance at both his foes, daring them to fight anyone but him. Two pairs of burning eyes stared back at him with malevolence, he’d gained their full attention.

Deathberry called out, “Burn down the add on Cheezus ASAP, then let’s get all DPS on Smash’s add.” With all the DPS now focusing on a single add, it died a lot faster than the first one. A few minutes later, the elemental on him died as well. Smash breathed again now that he could move a lot more easily. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be any further mishaps.

The final mechanic of phase four was when there were no more elementals with Cermillion. At that point, fireballs launched out of pools of fire that emerged randomly on the platform. These fireballs sped towards several players at a time. If you got unlucky and both fireballs came towards you, it meant near certain death.

Sean called out, “Burn phase.”

Krok dropped his raid-wide DPS buff and artifacts were popped. It didn’t take long for the raid to destroy the remaining elementals. With the elementals dead, ranged DPS switched to Cermillion and downed enhancement potions, pushing raid DPS through the roof. Casters like Deathberry sent massive unholy bolts towards their draconic foe, while Cheezus’ daggers flew in all directions. Smash popped one of his shield cooldowns to allow the healers a temporary respite.

Fireballs hurled towards players, who dodged as best they could in the bosses’ final moments. Soon players started falling to the sustained damage. Krok sacrificed himself first since he was the lowest DPS. Zeffu, one of the healers, took the next two fireballs. Thag and Smash began rotating cooldowns and tank switching. Because Thag had self-healing abilities, Smash sacrificed himself next. The boss was down to one percent health. He closed his eyes and prayed. They just needed a few seconds longer. Cheezus took the next couple of fireballs and kited them for as long as he could using his hoverboard. It bought the raid several precious seconds. As he died, Cermillion’s massive body melted into the lava below. Roars of triumph erupted through Sean’s headset seconds later.

CONGRATULATIONS! – WORLD FIRST CERMILLION’S KEEP

The Misfits had done the impossible in only three lock-outs. They were the world’s first players to defeat Cermillion’s Keep. This was one of the hardest raids in a game known for its difficulty, Champions a VRMMO.