6 Hour Team · Meet the team

They still tell the one about the demon hunter who leapt blindfolded into a pack without checking what was in it, cleared the lot, and landed facing entirely the wrong way. They tell it because he did it again the following week, and the week after that, and is fully expected to do it again this Sunday. The healers no longer flinch. They have simply built the evening around him. He has never seen it coming, and has never yet been wrong.

BEAST MASTERY HUNTER (Orc). Range: everywhere, for years, without interruption. Habitat: the same spot on every fight, very slightly to the left. Diet: whatever the pet does not want. Distinguishing feature: quietly outranks most of the people who assume he is just some bloke with a bow. Behaviour when threatened: sends the pet. Behaviour when the guild is threatened: also sends the pet, then fixes whatever went wrong without mentioning it. Migration: none recorded, and none expected.

Mousaios once held the raid together through an entire phase with a mace, a lantern and what he later described as 'a strong feeling'. Four tiers on, the troll still opens every night the same way: he checks everyone's health, decides it is fine, and then quietly moves three feet to the left where he can see them all.

FROST DEATH KNIGHT (Blood elf). Habitat: melee, four tiers, thirty-four recorded nights. Plumage: two runeblades, permanently frosted. Behaviour: appears without warning at the boss's feet; will occasionally vanish and be replaced by a near-identical specimen answering to Nancometa, which the colony treats as the same animal. Call: silence, then a very cold noise.

Holy Priest — seven tiers, one hundred and seventy-eight nights, four guild rosters, no gaps. Duties: healing; also remembering what happened in Aberrus, which nobody else can. Key achievement: outlasted every raid leader she has ever had. Reason for leaving previous tier: it ended.

One nightborne warlock. Steep in fel until the colour is wrong. Add a demon, unsupervised. Leave to reduce over six raid nights, stirring only to reapply. Do not open the lid to check on it — she will have moved the pot and it will be fine. Serves the whole raid, unless you were standing near her, in which case it does not.

WANTED, A BOSS: large, ideally stationary. Highmountain warrior, thirty-one nights, one axe, no questions. Will hit it until the situation resolves. Does not require the fight explained, though he will sit through the explanation out of politeness. Antlers included at no extra cost. Cannot be reasoned with once committed.

The dwarf has fallen, shield first, exactly as he would have wanted. Twenty-eight nights across three tiers, every one of them spent between the raid and something considerably larger. Mourners are asked not to loot him, as he is only briefly dead and will want his hammer back.

Take one dark iron monk, aged eight tiers. Add mist, generously and continuously. Do not stir; he will circulate on his own. Season with a hundred and sixty-one nights of knowing exactly when the damage lands. Rest briefly between pulls. The dish improves the longer it has been in the guild, which is the whole trick of it.

Reports of the frost mage's death were filed early again. He stands further back than anybody has ever thought necessary, on the entirely reasonable grounds that nothing can reach him there, and is therefore killed roughly once a tier by the one thing that can. He is survived by an ice block he did not press in time, by several people who told him so at some length, and by himself, on the very next pull, standing further back.

INCIDENT: Sunday, pull six. 1. Subject arrived four minutes after the invite went out. 2. Subject apologised, at length, unprompted, twice. 3. Subject was then the last one standing for eleven seconds of a fight nobody had expected to survive at all, surrounded by his own ghouls, doing his level best. FINDING: the lateness and the eleven seconds appear to be unrelated. RECOMMENDATION: keep inviting him. Send the invite earlier.

AVAILABLE: one haranir druid. Will bring starlight to your raid and a lantern to your problem, whatever the problem is, without being asked twice. Happy on either team, happy on any boss, visibly happier when somebody else gets the loot. Does not roll on things, which the loot has noticed and taken personally. Enquiries after nine in the evening server time; before that she is asleep and will not be moved.

Scattered appearances across seven tiers, tending towards brief but heavy. Twenty-eight nights recorded. When present, expect sustained storm activity and a shield in the wrong hand. Absence should not be read as a front moving out; she has a habit of arriving precisely when the forecast is worst.

Word is the nightborne turned up two tiers ago already knowing every fight, and has never once admitted it. Word is his bow is genuinely, on the tooltip, in writing, called P.O.W. x3, and that he has declined to explain this to officers, to friends, or to anyone who has ever worked up the nerve to ask. The prevailing theory in the channel is that he is a great deal better than he lets on and finds the whole thing funnier this way.

New this tier. On his first night the paladin popped every cooldown he had on the opening pull, ran out of everything by thirty percent, and asked, in complete sincerity, whether that was 'about right'. Five nights later he is doing it again, and the boss is dying faster, so nobody has had the heart to answer.

Take one dark iron warlock. Apply curses liberally and walk away; they keep working without supervision, which is rather the point of him. Add green smoke until the tank can no longer be seen. Should the mixture separate he will reappear as a pandaren monk called Viamisosalty and punch things instead, and the guild has agreed not to ask which of the two is the real recipe. Serve either. Both work.

Interviewer: There is a paladin on the roster with your name on it. — Pawnstaar: There is. — Interviewer: People say that is where all your good gear went. — Pawnstaar: People are being generous. He is wearing what I found in a bin two expansions ago and he has never been invited to anything. — Interviewer: So the mage is the main. — Pawnstaar: The mage is the one who owns trousers.

HOLY PALADIN SEEKS PLACEMENT. Eight tiers, eighty-nine nights, one beacon, permanently on the wrong person for the first four seconds and the right one thereafter. Comes with a second character called Mickevoker, sold as seen. Will heal your raid. Will not heal the warrior who keeps doing that.

On one of her first nights with us Billadin bubbled at eight percent, ran the sword back in and finished the boss on her own while the entire rest of the raid watched from the floor. There was a respectful silence. Then somebody asked how long she had been playing paladin. She said she wasn't completely sure, and that she had mostly been reading the tooltips as she went along.

In the age of the world-tree there stood a tauren who drank deeply before every pull, and the elders said this was unwise, and the tauren said it was a brewmaster thing. Three tiers he has held the line this way. The elders have stopped commenting. The keg is now considered part of the strategy.

Exists to make a number go up, and to make sure everybody hears about the number.

Has, on record, a 52 parse on The Lost Explorers (The Venomous Abyss, Mythic). The rest is just consistency.

New enough to still be enthusiastic, 16 raid nights in.

Has 2 Mythic bosses in The Venomous Abyss to their name, and the receipts to prove it.

Averages 26 and measures success in survival rather than percentiles. Frankly, fair.

45 logged kills across 10 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

Present for 13 raids, absent for exactly the ones with the loot they wanted.

Fully committed to the damage meter, and only loosely committed to the mechanics around it.

New enough to still be enthusiastic, 12 raid nights in.

Averages 52, and has never once let a good parse get in the way of doing a mechanic.

Mythic+ score of 3145, topping out at a +16 Kings' Rest that is still discussed.

Career highlight: 56 percentile on Nek'zali the Soulcoiler, brought up at every opportunity.

Personal raid record for this tier reads 2/8 M, which they will happily talk you through.

Attends 60% of the time: regular enough to be a fixture, rare enough to keep an air of mystery.

Would do more damage if they didn't keep having to move, as they will explain at length.

126 parses deep on 19 bosses, which is either dedication or a lack of alternatives.

Sitting at 2/8 M this tier and counting, loudly.

Averages 9 and measures success in survival rather than percentiles. Frankly, fair.

4 raids on the armory, the pick of them 2/8 Mythic in The Venomous Abyss.

Peaked at 15 on Nek'zali the Soulcoiler, a screenshot that still exists somewhere.

Career best is still Soulbinder Naazindhri at 60 percentile (Manaforge Omega, Mythic). Every tier since has been a rebuilding year.

ELEMENTAL SHAMAN (Orc). Range: six tiers, a hundred and thirty-six nights, always the same three feet of floor. Feeding: lightning, mostly. Notable behaviour: does not chase keys, does not chase parses, does not chase anything — the boss comes to him, or it does not, and either way he is signed up for Wednesday.

Fully committed to the damage meter, and only loosely committed to the mechanics around it.

Has an ongoing disagreement with The Lost Explorers, who is winning.

Career highlight: 75 percentile on Nek'zali the Soulcoiler, brought up at every opportunity.

Carries a 2/8 M on the armory, and has opinions about every one of those bosses.

Attends 55% of the time: regular enough to be a fixture, rare enough to keep an air of mystery.

2844 Mythic+ score and a +12 Murder Row best, achieved with only mild shouting.

The logs hold 27 of their kills on 9 bosses. There is nowhere to hide.

The young paladin, new to the herd, five nights old. Watch how he waits for the more experienced healers to commit before he moves — this is not timidity, it is learning. In a few tiers he will be the one they wait for. For now he holds the flank, quietly, and nothing on his side of the room has died yet.

The tauren tanked five tiers under one name, then quietly rerolled, and half the guild spent a month asking who the new bloke was. He never corrected anyone. He just kept holding the boss where it needed holding, until somebody eventually noticed that the pulls had been going fine the whole time.

Two nights, and the Discord is already convinced. They say the dark iron mage set fire to the tank on purpose. They say he has been playing since the beginning and only just decided to bother us. Neither has been confirmed. What is confirmed is that both nights went well and he said almost nothing on either.

Subtlety Rogue. Duties: appearing behind the boss. Appearing behind the raid leader. Appearing in Discord ten seconds after the pull has already gone out to ask whether there is an invite going. Notable achievement: nobody in this guild has ever seen him walk anywhere, arrive at anything on foot, or still be standing where he was a moment ago. References available, though none of them are entirely sure where he went.

Bronze light over the whole raid, rising steadily. Six nights recorded, all of them measurably better for everyone else than they would otherwise have been. The dracthyr himself reports no change in personal conditions and cannot say why anyone is thanking him. Outlook: everyone's numbers go up and nobody knows whose fault it is.

Would do more damage if they didn't keep having to move, as they will explain at length.

109 logged kills across 18 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

Owns exactly one 10 parse, on The Lost Explorers, and has built a personality around it.

Runs keys properly: 3000 score, best a +13 in Altar of Fangs.

Has been turning up since Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible: 6 tiers and 169 raid nights of accumulated grievance.

A 25% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

Career best is still Plexus Sentinel at 54 percentile (Manaforge Omega, Mythic). Every tier since has been a rebuilding year.

SHAMAN, AVAILABLE. Five nights in and already on the sign-up sheet for the sixth. No armory, no Raider.IO page, no profile of any kind — the guild is fairly sure he exists because he keeps turning up and things keep dying. Enquiries in game only. He will not be answering the whisper; he will simply appear at the summon stone.

Contributes damage, opinions about damage, and a running commentary on everyone else's damage.

23 parses deep on 10 bosses, which is either dedication or a lack of alternatives.

A 20% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

All-time peak: 17 on Nek'zali the Soulcoiler back in The Venomous Abyss, Mythic. They have not stopped chasing it since.

Their best night is The Lost Explorers at 15, and they can tell you exactly what they pressed.

Averages 15 and measures success in survival rather than percentiles. Frankly, fair.

New enough to still be enthusiastic, 5 raid nights in.

Exists to make a number go up, and to make sure everybody hears about the number.

21 logged kills across 15 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

Has, on record, a 49 parse on Soulbinder Naazindhri (Manaforge Omega, Mythic). The rest is just consistency.

11 raid nights across 5 tiers, dating back to Nerub-ar Palace. Nobody has told them they can leave.

Turns up for 2 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

Has no parses on record, which they insist is a deliberate lifestyle choice.

Spends the fight facing away from the raid, which is both a tanking requirement and a coping strategy.

New enough to still be enthusiastic, 4 raid nights in.

Armory history runs to 3 raids, topping out at 8/8 Heroic in The Venomous Abyss.

3363 Mythic+ score and a +17 Ruby Life Pools best, achieved with only mild shouting.

A 10% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

Has, on record, a 72 parse on The Lost Explorers (The Venomous Abyss, Heroic). The rest is just consistency.

The logs hold 21 of their kills on 10 bosses. There is nowhere to hide.

Contributes damage, opinions about damage, and a running commentary on everyone else's damage.

A 10% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

New enough to still be enthusiastic, 6 raid nights in.

Runs keys properly: 3302 score, best a +16 in Ruby Life Pools.

16 logged kills across 8 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

Armory history runs to 3 raids, topping out at 8/8 Heroic in The Venomous Abyss.

All-time peak: 80 on Vashnik the Malignant back in The Venomous Abyss, Heroic. They have not stopped chasing it since.

S tier, and the best player in this guild by a distance that is frankly rude, four tiers running. When a pull has completely fallen apart and one person is still upright with the boss at four percent, everybody knows who it is before they look. Phonchick does not get to the end of the word innervate before it lands on her. Ask Findruid about any of this and she will start talking about your cooldowns, which she has also noticed.

Job description: be hit by the largest thing in the room, on purpose, repeatedly, without comment.

Career best is still Vashnik the Malignant at 88 percentile (The Venomous Abyss, Heroic). Every tier since has been a rebuilding year.

Has no parses on record, which they insist is a deliberate lifestyle choice.

A 10% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

New enough to still be enthusiastic, 7 raid nights in.

The logs hold 42 of their kills on 10 bosses. There is nowhere to hide.

Keeps the raid alive in spite of its life choices, then gets told the healing was low.

121 logged kills across 18 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

All-time peak: 86 on Soulbinder Naazindhri back in Manaforge Omega, Mythic. They have not stopped chasing it since.

2655 Mythic+ score and a +11 Voidscar Arena best, achieved with only mild shouting.

Has no parses on record, which they insist is a deliberate lifestyle choice.

Has been turning up since Nerub-ar Palace: 4 tiers and 81 raid nights of accumulated grievance.

8/8 H on the armory, every boss of it earned on a Wednesday night.

Presses buttons, produces numbers, blames the healers. The circle of raiding.

Armory history runs to 3 raids, topping out at 8/8 Heroic in The Venomous Abyss.

26 logged kills across 13 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

Has no parses on record, which they insist is a deliberate lifestyle choice.

+14 Voidscar Arena and a 2664 Mythic+ score, in case the raid logs were not enough.

Has, on record, a 36 parse on Nek'zali the Soulcoiler (The Venomous Abyss, Heroic). The rest is just consistency.

Turns up for 2 raids a tier, all of them somehow the important ones.

Exists to make a number go up, and to make sure everybody hears about the number.

A 10% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

Has no parses on record, which they insist is a deliberate lifestyle choice.

49 logged kills across 18 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

Has, on record, a 92 parse on Entombed Sentinels (The Venomous Abyss, Heroic). The rest is just consistency.

10 raid nights across 3 tiers, dating back to Nerub-ar Palace. Nobody has told them they can leave.

Twenty people, eight tiers, one voice holding the whole thing together through the worst connection in Europe. A child gets out of bed two rooms away, he walks them back, and picks the sentence up exactly where he dropped it. When the channel talks over him he says 'right, that's it, you're muted', and twenty grown adults go quiet like it's assembly. Then he dies to the mechanic he was explaining, and every one of them follows him in anyway.

Turns up, hits the boss, dies to something avoidable, links the meter anyway.

The logs hold 26 of their kills on 9 bosses. There is nowhere to hide.

Runs keys properly: 2714 score, best a +12 in The Blinding Vale.

Career best is still Entombed Sentinels at 20 percentile (The Venomous Abyss, Heroic). Every tier since has been a rebuilding year.

21 raid nights across 4 tiers, dating back to Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible. Nobody has told them they can leave.

Sitting at 8/8 H this tier and counting, loudly.

A 10% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

She has watched the same warrior stand in the same acid for four tiers, said nothing about it, and quietly undone it every single time. That is the entire job and she is superb at it. The one thing she ever asks for is an innervate, and Findruid has it on her before she has finished typing the word. Put her in balance and she does lovely damage right up until something looks directly at her.

Exists to make a number go up, and to make sure everybody hears about the number.

Armory history runs to 2 raids, topping out at 8/8 Heroic in The Venomous Abyss.

Personal raid record for this tier reads 8/8 H, which they will happily talk you through.

3138 Mythic+ score and a +16 Altar of Fangs best, achieved with only mild shouting.

Career best is still Nek'zali the Soulcoiler at 80 percentile (The Venomous Abyss, Heroic). Every tier since has been a rebuilding year.

15 logged kills across 8 different bosses, every one of them a matter of public record.

New enough to still be enthusiastic, 9 raid nights in.

Green numbers, grey hair. The two are related.

2530 Mythic+ score and a +13 Murder Row best, achieved with only mild shouting.

Has no parses on record, which they insist is a deliberate lifestyle choice.

Their high-water mark is a 37 on The Soul Hunters (Manaforge Omega, Mythic), and it comes up whenever the meter does.

The armory says 8/8 H. They would like to add context to that.

A 10% attendance rare spawn. Sightings are usually on progression night, never on farm.

Armory history runs to 3 raids, topping out at 8/8 Heroic in The Venomous Abyss.

He came here to blast. They made him an officer, so now he takes the raid whenever nobody else will, and he is good at it, and he has forgiven nobody. Shadow priest. An eighty on Nek'zali one week and single figures on the Explorers the next, and four tiers later nobody can account for the gap. He also does not like the robot writing this, and has made that abundantly clear.