Back in Vanilla WoW's level-60 era, good wands were hard to come by, and good healing wands were even rarer.
Priest healers generally fell into two camps. Some preferred stacking as much bonus healing as possible, while others favored mana regeneration gear—especially items that restored mana every five seconds.
Alliance Priests had Blessing of Wisdom, which restored 30 mana every five seconds, so they didn't need to obsess quite as much over mana-regeneration gear. That was more of a headache for Horde Priests.
Then again, Horde Priests managed just fine without Paladins or Blessing of Wisdom.
The Lunar Wand of Healing gave +20 bonus healing, making it the second-best wand of the entire level-60 era if you cared purely about healing power.
Only the Wand of the Whispering Dead beat it, with +22 bonus healing.
Very few other caster wands could compete with the Lunar Wand on pure healing value.
Its only real flaw was simple:
it was green.
And for players who insisted on wearing purple gear in every slot, green might as well have been a sin.
"Holy crap, this wand is amazing. Twenty bonus healing? That's a Priest wand if I've ever seen one," DontPanicHealz said.
He was still using Stormrager, so naturally he wanted it.
"Priests roll."
Gabryell wasn't going to handle raid loot the same way he handled five-player dungeon drops.
They didn't have DKP running yet, but raid upgrades still came first.
"I'll pass," ServerHeals said. "I already have something close enough. Two more healing isn't worth taking it from someone else."
He linked his equipped wand.
Dragon Finger of Healing.
Another green wand, and only slightly worse than the Lunar Wand, with +18 bonus healing.
Classic whale behavior.
He had almost certainly bought it straight from the Auction House, and something that good wouldn't have been cheap.
Going from +18 to +20 healing was only a two-point upgrade.
For a normal player, that was barely worth thinking about.
For a BiS fanatic, though?
Two points could somehow justify paying ten times the price.
With ServerHeals passing, the remaining three Priests rolled.
"Yes! Thanks, guys!"
BigHealsShortLegs won.
He was one of Fearless's veterans, having joined early on, and had consistently stayed near the top among the guild's Priests.
"Grats," Danielly said.
DontPanicHealz was clearly disappointed, but he still joined her in congratulating BigHealsShortLegs on the ridiculous wand.
With all four Onyxian Warders dead, only Onyxia herself remained.
And she was still asleep.
"This dragon seriously doesn't give a damn about us. We killed all her guards, walked right up to her bedroom, and she's still sleeping."
"Dragons are arrogant. We're probably ants to her. You wake up every time an ant walks past your bed?"
"I love dragons. Just look at my name."
"No kidding, DragonKnight."
DragonKnight was a Dwarf Hunter and a shameless dragon fanatic.
If a movie had dragons in it—Dragonheart, Reign of Fire, whatever—he was watching it. Anything involving dragon riders was even better.
Once everyone had been resurrected, the raid sat outside Onyxia's chamber to eat and drink.
For the first time that night, they had a chance to properly admire the Black Dragon Princess.
"How the hell do we fight something that big?" Carlos asked.
It was his first time tanking a boss on that scale, and his confidence was starting to waver.
"Simple," Gabryell said. "Tank holds her, healers keep the tank alive, DPS kills the boss."
He deliberately left out the actual strategy.
He wanted them to discover Onyxia's mechanics through pulls, wipes, and discussion.
"That's it?" Carlos asked skeptically.
"None of us has fought her before. What else are we supposed to do? We pull a few times, see what she does, then work out the strategy together."
Carlos thought about it and nodded.
That made sense.
None of them had ever fought Onyxia.
As far as they knew, Gabryell couldn't magically know the mechanics of a boss none of them had seen before either.
"Carlos is main tank. Susie, you're off-tank. David, Night, stay behind Susie on threat."
He still needed to give them the basics.
"When Carlos pulls, healers move with him immediately. Don't let him get deleted before we even learn anything."
"DPS waits. Give Carlos time to establish threat before you start attacking."
That was enough for a blind first pull.
Tank holds aggro.
Healers keep the tank alive.
DPS waits for threat.
"So... I go?" Carlos asked.
Gabryell checked the raid.
Everyone was at full health and mana.
He started a ready check.
Every box turned ready.
"Go."
Time for the true Vanilla progression experience.
Carlos stared at Onyxia and decided not to Charge straight into a dragon the size of a building.
Instead, he ran toward the center of the chamber.
Onyxia's aggro range was enormous.
The moment he crossed into the room, she woke up.
"Lowly insects. You dare intrude upon the lair of the great Onyxia?"
She rose, delivered a long string of arrogant nonsense, then moved toward Carlos at the front of the raid.
"I've got her. Heal me!"
Carlos stepped in and picked her up.
Standing in front of the enormous dragon, his Human Warrior looked almost comically small.
"This pull is going to end fast."
The moment Gabryell saw that Carlos had left Onyxia facing the raid, he already knew how this would end.
Several players rushed toward her.
They hadn't even made it around to her sides before a breath attack blasted through them.
Several people died instantly.
"What the hell?! I got one-shot!"
"I took like three steps! How am I already dead?"
"Holy crap, that breath just deleted half the group!"
The corpses on the floor were stunned.
The fight had barely started.
How were people already dead?
Onyxia slammed Carlos hard enough to make his health plunge.
"Heals! Heals!"
Several healers immediately started dumping heals into him.
Their threat shot upward.
A few were already getting dangerously close to pulling aggro off Carlos.
"Carlos, she has a breath attack! Pull her back a little!" Susie called out.
"Got it!"
Carlos started dragging Onyxia toward the entrance, trying to give everyone more room to reposition.
Gabryell watched with growing amusement.
"Now this is the real Vanilla experience."
This was exactly what blind progression looked like.
Carlos had positioned Onyxia completely wrong.
He was about to learn why.
"Everyone get behind her! Go stab her in the ass!"
Rogues needed no further encouragement.
Standing behind a mob and stabbing it repeatedly was practically their natural habitat.
Unfortunately, none of them had learned to be afraid of a dragon's tail yet.
Following years of perfectly reasonable melee instincts, they ran directly behind Onyxia and unloaded.
Gabryell almost couldn't watch.
Apparently, they felt the raid wasn't dying fast enough.
The three Fury Warriors followed the Rogues straight behind the tail.
The ranged players were no better.
They spread wherever they felt like standing, some on the left, some on the right.
A few even wandered right up to the entrances of the whelp caves, practically dancing on top of the dragon eggs.
"HOLY CRAP, I'M FLYING!"
Someone suddenly screamed.
Carlos and the melee behind Onyxia were launched through the air.
There was no wall behind Carlos.
Only the entrance.
He went sailing across the chamber like a human cannonball.
The melee behind the tail flew in the opposite direction.
Straight toward the dragon eggs.
With Carlos airborne and out of position, the raid's threat situation immediately fell apart.
Susie rushed in and hit Taunt.
Nothing happened.
She tried again.
Still nothing.
"This boss is immune to Taunt!"
Susie's voice jumped an octave.
She hadn't built enough threat yet, and the top of the threat meter was already filling up with healers.
The healers had pulled aggro.
Onyxia turned toward whoever was highest on the meter.
Pulling aggro on a Taunt-immune Onyxia was a nightmare.
Once she decided a healer was her new target, Carlos had to somehow claw his way back above them on threat before she chewed through the raid one player at a time.
"Fade! Use Fade!"
BigHealsShortLegs was currently highest on threat, so ServerHeals yelled the warning.
Several Priests hit Fade at once.
Great.
Now the highest-threat player was a Paladin.
Breath!
It didn't matter who technically had aggro.
Onyxia's head was pointed straight at the main group.
She took full advantage.
One blast of fire tore through the raid and dropped another pile of players.
Tail Sweep!
The players behind her weren't doing any better.
Onyxia's tail smashed through them and sent more bodies flying.
"ADDS! ADDS!"
The melee players who had been launched toward the eggs suddenly came sprinting back.
They weren't alone.
A swarm of Onyxian Whelps came pouring out behind them.
That was it.
There was no saving the pull.
Gabryell took his hands off the keyboard and waited for the corpse run.
"This is the true Vanilla experience."
He watched with genuine appreciation as Onyxia sprayed fire across the chamber and the air filled with angry whelps.
This was the kind of Vanilla experience veterans would later remember with bizarre affection.