Early in 2018, we kicked off the year with our Opening Moves series, where we took a closer look at the early game of competitive World of Warcraft. We followed that up in July with Midgame Moves. This week, to celebrate the end of the year, we’re bringing you our Endgame Moves series: Lessons from Arena in 2018, Going Fast in Mythic Plus Dungeons, Getting to "Go", and Comps and Combos in Arena. To close things out, Healingstat offers a personal story—with a very valuable endgame lesson.

Tol Dagor is a treacherous place to spend one's lunchtime and, for me and my friends, this would be a trip we would never forget. We entered the dungeon on Mythic 10 difficulty and decided to run a composition of three damage dealers and two healers centered around one particularly brave Moonkin tank—already a recipe for success.

The journey was going as expected, with only 15 deaths as we approached the second boss, Jes Howlis. We engaged the Salty Dog and the fight was going well, with our mages utilizing their Spellsteal to snatch the Motivating Cries to hopefully land us an easy kill. However, when we thought things couldn’t be going better, Jes’ brother Bobby showed up.

At the sight of Jes’ impending demise, Bobby howled, sending us all fleeing in terror. Noticing this opportunity, Jes unleashed a barrage of daggers which hit us all where it hurt.

"It's a shame Twitch doesn't support 4K streaming right now,” said Moonkin tank Caroline “Naguura” Forer. “Because if they did, I think you could see my soul leaving my body after that wipe." As you can plainly see from Caroline’s reaction, this wipe was both hilarious and upsetting—a mix of emotions that perfectly conveys, “Wow, I can’t believe that just happened.” Naguura—who has formerly competed in and also commentated the Mythic Dungeon Invitational (MDI), a display of the finest dungeon-runners worldwide—could only say, “I blame our healer. Both of them.”

In hindsight, a great many things went wrong that day. We decided to queue into Tol Dagor without a tank, we drafted a composition without any means of combat-resurrecting our improvised tank, and we didn’t use our Time Warp until the fight was almost over. Ultimately, though, it was our inability to interrupt or line-of-sight Bobby Howlis’ Howling Fear that led to our demise.

Lesson learned: if you encounter Jes Howlis, make sure to keep an eye out for Bobby’s fears. Tol Dagor can be an intimidating dungeon, but after the hour or more we spent wiping inside, at the end of the day, we will look back upon this memory and smile. We hope our defeat can lead you to victory.

“As you can see, you can play any composition in Mythic Plus and have fun,” said Naguura, before adding jokingly, “A Moonkin tank and two healers are probably the way to go next MDI!”

For the full VOD of this fabled run, click here. And remember: “success” can mean many things. Just like you can find success in completing a Mythic Plus dungeon in good time, or getting those Arena wins, you can also find it in creating moments that make you and your friends laugh—moments that you can look back on that remind you why you love playing World of Warcraft in the first place.