As reported by the folks over at PC Gamer, the naked act of lizard matricide took place earlier this month on the European Zandalar Tribe server. Players allegedly came from a smattering of guilds, to strip off and work out just how to take down one of Warcraft’s most notorious bosses.
It’s not that Onyxia isn’t numerically less intimidating than before, mind. From a stats perspective, she should be just as tough a fight as she was 16 years ago. Instead, fan repository Wowhead revealed that a good deal of theorycrafting went into the fight. For a start, the raid consisted of a hell of a lotta frost mages. Casters aren’t nearly as affected by losing their weapons as melee fighters, the thinking goes - and it helps for a later phase that seems Onyxia take flight. A few melee fighters (mostly Paladins) jump in to provide buffs, with one poor naked sod tasked with tanking the Dragon’s aggression without their usual suit of plate. There’s a staggering precision to the way buffs are distributed, potions consumed, and spells paced out to ensure that nobody unintentionally nicks aggro off the main tank - though there’s an awfully close call early on in the fight. It’s been a long time since Onyxia was a threatening presence in WoW proper. Hell, I’ve even popped in to bop her with a fireball on my grossly overlevelled main once or twice. But if WoW Classic gave the impression that she might once more bring fear to adventurer’s hearts, it’s been heartily crushed by a nudist murder brigade. What’s next, then? Will our naked heroes now brave Blackwing Lair to punch Nefarian in nude? Or will Blizzard finally give WoW Classic players a whole new world to brave in the buff? For the time being… put yer trousers back on, folks, you’ll catch a cold.
