Last week, World of Warcraft's latest raid looked like it was going to be a joke. Antorus, the Burning Throne's Mythic-difficulty version opened on December 5, kicking off global race among the MMO's top guilds to be the first to beat it. In just two days, most of them had felled the raid's first ten bosses leaving just Argus the Unmaker, the living embodiment of the dranei homeworld. It's been almost five days now and none have succeeded in killing him.
As I predicted, Argus wouldn't be a walk in the park like the other bosses in Antorus, The Burning Throne. Unlike Normal and Heroic difficulties, Argus' Mythic version has secret phases that aren't detailed in the in-game Dungeon Journal or spoiled on the test server. When famous guilds like Method stepped into his arena for the first time, they were doing so completely blind. At that time, Method was the first guild to fight Argus but eleven others have since caught up. While Method is still expected to kill him first thanks to their rigorous raiding schedule, it's anybody's game at this point.
The good news is that, with so many lower-tier guilds finally at Argus, the veil has been lifted on how his encounter actually plays out. Normally, competitive Mythic raiders won't stream their attempts for fear of having their strategies poached by rival guilds. It makes sense but it also means WoW's raid races happen entirely off camera—and that's not that fun for us casuals along for the ride.
Thankfully, two Chinese guilds have started sharing their attempts to down Argus, giving us an insight into why no one has succeeded. This video below shows the transition into Argus' first secret phase. During this transition, he kills the entire raid but they are revived thanks to Eonar, a friendly titan, who raiders save in an earlier encounter. Once the raid is back up, Argus' abilities completely change from what his Normal and Heroic versions were.
If you want to see some other attempts by Chinese guilds, JTHMrZhou has you covered. His guild has only managed to get Argus down to 56 percent HP, so they have a long way to go.
Rumors are circulating that there's still another secret phase to battle through, but only the top-tier guilds like Limit, Method, and Exorcus are likely to know about it—and their lips are sealed.
Yesterday, Method's guild leader Sco took to Twitter to talk about the difficulty spike that comes with fighting Argus. It's hilarious.
Progress update 🌝 pic.twitter.com/wiGNnzrw5cDecember 10, 2017
The bad news is that it doesn't look like anyone will beat Argus before tomorrow, when the raid resets and guilds have to start over from the first boss. The good news is that by running old bosses a second time, guilds will get even more loot which should help them overcome any hurdles stemming from being even slightly undergeared for the encounter. It's been a long time since a raid boss survived a weekly reset, but I'm kind of hoping Argus ends up torturing these guilds for a little longer, if only to make the inevitable victory more dramatic.
