Double Demon Hunter
Out of many decisions Limit had for this RWF, one that really worked out for them was to run double Havoc Demon Hunter in every boss. Havoc Demon Hunter is especially strong in this tier, being top 3 boss damage for every boss in Sanctum of Domination. Other advantages include the sturdiness of the spec, the ability to have an immunity if necessary, and the extra raid cooldown with
Darkness.
With consistent single-target damage, moderate burst AoE, and high mobility, Havoc is a strong pick for Sanctum of Domination. Across all of Limit's attempts for Sylvanas, top 1 and 2 damage dealt to her in Phase 3 were both Havoc Demon Hunters.
The only issue with Havoc right now is that to unlock its full potential, they need to play
Exergy, which can be deadly to players not used to playing it, as it adds a lot of required movement to the spec, which can lead to mistakes when dealing with mechanics or poor movement management.
Night Fae x Venthyr Boomkin
People misunderstand what it means to build a raid comp to compete in the RWF and that is apparent in the discussion of Venthyr x Night Fae Boomkin. When building a comp you don't just stack the best of everything, that would leave holes in your coverage, so you need to have a composition that is consistent and that has strong game-changing cooldowns for different circumstances.
A similar debate comes with Venthyr x Kyrian Holy Paladin. While
Divine Toll is a good ability that provides control every 1 minute
Ashen Hallow is super strong and can be a game-changer. The problem is that usually
Ashen Hallow will require you to have more planning and strategy, while
Divine Toll has more freedom around when you can use it.
For Venthyr Boomkin it is a similar situation, even more of the Boomkin's damage is centered around
Ravenous Frenzy, making that virtually the only window when the player does real damage, doing very little outside of it. Limit used 4 Venthyr Boomkins, but probably it wasn't necessary.
Not enough research was done on Max's part on what changed for Venthyr boomkin, which changes boomkin from a spec that is usually very chill to play to something that you need to be paying the utmost attention for a full minute to squeeze as much damage out. Which was very stressful on raiders because they didn't have time to adapt to it in Heroic, as Venthyr only became viable on Mythic week when
Sinful Indulgence became available. Tuesday of Mythic week they got their Renown, crafted their legendary, and zoned in to Mythic raid. That lead to some underperformance on the boomkins' play as far as defensive play, since they had to adapt to a completely new playstyle on the fly.
Biggest Regret/What Would You Do Differently?
Hard to talk about hindsight, but one thing that Max wishes they didn't do was their Kel'Thuzad and Sylvanas splits before
Soulrender Dormazain, since they were facing a much harder version of the boss, which was nerfed by the time they were done with the splits, making the fight much easier. In hindsight, they shouldn't have done that, but they believed it was the right decision at the moment since they didn't know about the subsequent nerfs.
Their biggest regret for Sanctum of Domination was not doing enough splits. Echo ended up having a 2 ilvl advantage over Limit by the end of the Mythic week, that's because Echo spent 15 to 16 hours doing splits while Limit spent only 7 hours. Echo did double armor type splits, while Limit did single, because they expected the race to end during the second reset, not the first one. Once you get to the second Mythic reset, the first-week Heroic splits become less efficient, while when everything dies in the first week, it becomes extremely important to do as many splits as you can.
Every boss in the last five years, besides
Xavius and
Lady Jaina Proudmoore, died during the second reset, and Emerald Nightmare was an anomaly, so realistically, only Jaina. Sylvanas died during the first week because
Fatescribe Roh-Kalo and
Kel'Thuzad were way easier than expected, especially Kel'thuzad, which ended up being disappointingly easy.
Why didn't Limit bring an Unholy DK to Sylvanas?
No Unholy DK from the guild managed to activate their Unholy Shards bonus (
Chaos Bane). Unholy DK is exceptionally strong in many aspects of the Sylvanas encounter. You have
Unholy Blight,
Dark Transformation and
Apocalypse for every single platform and boss burns which is incredibly efficient. To top that out, they do good boss damage on phase 3. However... Limit's Unholy DK got unlucky with gear and no
Chaos Bane, which meant bench.
Did Blizzard Fulfill Their Promise of Improving Ranged x Melee Balance in Sanctum of Domination?
Overall, yes. Limit brought 7 Melee and 7 Ranged DPS for all fights, up until Domination Chain intermission on Sylvanas. You could run more Ranged than Melee but when looking at fights like Kel'Thuzad and Phase 3 Sylvanas during testing, they heavily favor a comp with more
Rallying Cry and
Darkness.
Would've Limit Extended if Echo hadn't killed Sylvanas before the reset?
Limit would've definitely extended the lockout if they had woken up Tuesday with World First still available to them. The only thing they would've done would be a normal run to get more Unholy Shards (
Chaos Bane) bonuses.
Did You Consider Running Protection Warrior instead of Blood DK?
Initially Limit had plans to run Protection Warrior instead of Blood DK. The reason they've ultimately decided against it was raid single target damage. With Blood DK, that allows the tank to run
Vampiric Aura which allowed the Blood DK to increase their group HP every one minute, giving Demonology Warlocks running
Demonic Consumption a massive DPS boost, as increased HP translates into increased pet HP, which translates into extra
Summon Demonic Tyrant damage with that talent, about 400 extra DPS per Warlock.
How close were you to bringing a Rogue?
Limit wanted to bring a Rogue, especially for their single-target damage on Sylvanas, but their Rogues didn't unlock their
Chaos Bane, so they brought their best single target that had.
Do you expect any Roster changes with Limit losing World First?
Either winning or losing any World First races, Limit takes it with a mentality that they lost it, otherwise, they could become complacent. Complacency wasn't the reason Limit lost to Echo, Echo won because Echo was better in every aspect when compared to Limit for this race, as Limit was better than them in the last two races, according to Max.
Which boss was worst designed, Kel'Thuzad or Stone Legion Generals?
Kel'Thuzad. Blizzard designed Kel'Thuzad in such a way that the fight is not really that difficult and as you get more and more gear, you will need to just sit there and wait.
Will we see more Enhancement Shamans in raids in Sanctum and beyond?
Very likely yes.
Windfury Totem is a massive benefit for Warriors, Demon Hunters, Paladins, and Rogues, especially Rogues. As long as the raid doesn't punish the group for bringing more melee, for instance, having mechanics that melee need to spread around the boss, Enhancement Shamans will be valuable. Besides
Windfury Totem they also bring
Reincarnation,
Wind Rush Totem,
Cleanse Spirit. Right now Enhancement is very valuable, as Restoration Shaman likely won't see much play until Blizzard touches Healer DPS damage, which is dominated by Holy Paladins (
Ashen Hallow) and Disc Priests (
Power Infusion).
So is Mistweaver dead?
Don't sleep on Mistweaver.
How good is Sylvanas?
Sylvanas has the best Phase 1 for a last raid boss in multiple years, best than every BFA end boss. Best Phase 3 in a few years as well, very well done. However, the fight being 15 minutes long, the cutscene, the 10
Rive instead of 4 that you just AFK the whole time, is bad.
Most Valuable Specs/Classes for Sanctum of Domination?
Overall there are many specs and classes that are in a really good position right now. Many specs are good in many different scenarios, giving the scene a lot of diversity.
- Fury Warriors are really strong but unable to shine due to fight design.
- Arms Warriors have a strong single target and good cleave, so they enable single target specs to shine
- Rogues super strong, but super one-dimensional single target
- Shadow Priests super strong single target, but not so one-dimensional as Rogues
- Boomkins are so polarizing, but their damage is tuned around certain cooldown windows, so you need to build your comp around them.
- Demo Locks are the best single-target in the game, even better if you simp them with health buffs like Vampiric Aura. But the fights themselves don't lend themselves to them as there are no fights that you can afford just single targeting.
- Unholy DKs are super strong, sadly Limit's got unlucky with gear.
- Havoc DHs are the jack of all trades. Crazy good single target, crazy good cleave, crazy good AoE burst, raid cooldown with Darkness, a lot of movement
