Forever’s 10-, 20- and 40-player raids: what a guild needs to plan before 9 December

Forever’s first three raids unlock on 9 December for level-60 characters, and each is built for a different headcount. Blizzard’s raid overview, published on 20 October, sets them out:

• The Barrow Deeps, for 10 players, with eight bosses. It lies within Mount Hyjal, and its entrances connect through Mount Hyjal, Winterspring and Blackmaw Hold.
• Hyjal Summit, for 20 players, with 13 bosses, near the World Tree Nordrassil. It opens with a battle against an ancient guardian, and the raid then chooses between several paths across the mountain.
• Onyxia’s Lair, for 40 players, in Dustwallow Marsh. It is a three-phase fight with heavy fire damage, and Blizzard tells raids to build fire resistance before going in.

According to the overview, all three raids are currently planned to reset each week. That is a stated plan rather than a confirmed launch setting, but it is the one to build a raid calendar around.

The amulet is a per-player job

Onyxia’s Lair has an attunement: every member of the raid has to carry the Drakefire Amulet to enter. It only needs to be in your inventory; the overview says it does not need to be equipped.

Each player earns the amulet through a faction-specific questline. The Alliance chain begins with Helendis Riverhorn in the Burning Steppes and runs through Blackrock Depths and Stormwind. The Horde chain begins with Warlord Goretooth in Kargath, in the Badlands, and runs through Lower Blackrock Spire, Orgrimmar, Desolace, the Western Plaguelands and Dustwallow Marsh. Both chains send you to take the Blood of the Black Dragon Champion from General Drakkisath in Upper Blackrock Spire, but they end differently. On the Alliance side, the quest that sends you there also awards the amulet. Horde players take the blood back to Rexxar to receive it. Blizzard’s advice is to start early, bring friends for the elite quests and leave time for several high-level dungeon runs.

Questions for a guild

These questions are ours, not Blizzard’s, and the answers depend on your guild.

• What is your core size? Ten regulars can aim for the Barrow Deeps. Hyjal Summit needs twenty. Onyxia needs forty, and every one of them needs an amulet.
• Who organizes the attunement? For a 40-player night, attunement is a shared project: forty separate questlines, each with elite quests and dungeon trips. The overview presents the weeks between launch and 9 December as time to reach 60 and prepare, so that is when this work has to happen.
• Who is collecting fire resistance? Onyxia’s fire damage makes resistance gear part of the preparation, not something to sort out on the night.
• Which entrance do you use? The Barrow Deeps has three connected ways in. Agree on a meeting point before the first night.
• One weekly night or several? With weekly resets planned, decide which nights each group raids before people commit to other teams.

What comes after

Blizzard’s 12 September roadmap lists more raids after 9 December, along with a revamped iconic raid. The posts reviewed for this article give no sizes or dates for them, so plan around the three raids that are announced.

Our Onyxia attunement guide and raid guides are drafts and will be checked against the launch client.