La segunda entrada no podía ir dedicada a otra cosa que no fuera comentar que Moroes, segundo boss de Karazhan, no tuvo más remedio que caer en el segundo try a manos de Ars Bellum. Nadie se lo esperaba, pero así sucedió. Para allí nos fuimos ayer, en una raid que se adelantó a las 15:30 y en la que por suerte pudimos utilizar TS2. Al principio costó un poco, incluso el primer boss, Attument que también cayó al segundo try. Para ser la primera vez que íbamos y así, de una manera un poco improvisada, estuvimos todos muy bien. La lista con los nombres de los que fuimos a Karazhan es la siguiente:

• Nymuelovan (TANK)
• Aukai (TANK)
• Caqueitor (DPS-TANK)
• Wooper (DPS)
• Yakox (DPS)
• Öz (DPS)
• Zhrak (DPS)
• Lextor (DPS)
• Athylä (HEALER)
• Thorgaz (HEALER)

A excepción de Öz, el resto de la raid éramos todos de Ars Bellum. Cuando Moroes se fue al suelo, tuvimos que hacer unos cuantos screens, jeje. Este es el que hice yo:

Haciendo click en la imagen se amplia.

Hasta aquí la entrada de hoy, sólo espero volver a Karazhan pronto y si cabe, poder llegar al siguiente boss. Gracias a todos los que estuvisteis para verlo y a los que no estuvisteis, estaréis en la siguiente.

Aukai

Jepp, wieder mal ein WoW-Artikel, dieses Mal aber nur ein Erfahrungsbericht.

Ja, ich war in Karazhan, der ersten großen Raidinstanz in der World of Warcraft. Ich war mit meinen lieben Phönixwächtern da, also der Gilde, der ich mich zugehörig fühle (irgendwer interessiert an einer Gilde, die in mehreren Spielen zu Hause ist? www.phoenixwaechter.de). Aber wie das so ist, wir hatten einen Schadensausteiler zu wenig und die Druidin, die zugesagt hatte und in Bärenform „tanken” sollte, war einfach nicht erschienen … also mussten zwei Bekannte mit, ein Tank, der die Bedrohung leider nur dann wirklich hielt, wenn wir Jäger auf Wattebäuschchen-Modus umstellten, und eben ein weiterer Jäger, der schon oft mit unserer Raidleiterin unterwegs war. Der Tank regte mich nicht weiter auf, mit solchen Problemen muss man umgehen – unser Raid ist auch nicht super equipped, ein paar Leute kennen sich wie ich überhaupt nicht aus, es dauert also pro Boss ein bisschen, aber das ist ja nicht schlimm, wir wollen uns ja verbessern. Über den weiteren Jäger werde ich noch ein bisschen meckern – hinter dem erfahrenen Spieler steckte leider ein sehr unreifer Teenie, der ganz schnell minestens der halben Raidgruppe ordentlich auf den Senkel ging …

Das erste was auffällt, meine Herren, ich hatte mit großen Gruppen gerechnet, nein, wir kämpfen gegen zwei Gegner, einer davon wird ruhig gestellt und der andere bekommt von sechs „DamageDealern” alles verpasst, was man so hat – und trotzdem dauert es ein Weilchen, bis man die Geisterpferde, die die ersten Gegner sind, dann auch wirklich platt hat. Sicherlich haben wir mit drei Hexern und drei Jägern eine kuriose Aufstellung, aber der Schadenoutput ist eigentlich gut … nun ja, ist halt etwas anders, als die klassische Ini …

Die Stimmung ist in dieser Instanz übrigens wirklich sehr schön düster gemacht, die Musik passt, die Orte sind wunderschön designed, und praktischerweise auch noch so, dass man schnell hereinlaufen kann, wenn man gerade verstorben ist … was dann auch noch vor dem ersten Boss das erste Mal passiert – unsere Leiterin und Heilerin hatte sich kurz an die falsche Stelle gestellt, und die Gegnergruppe die so unverhofft über uns hereinbricht, trifft einen Hühnerhaufen an, die Hexer sterben wie die Fliegen – die halten halt nichts aus – die Tanks stehen sinnlos herum und kriegen keine Bedrohung aufgebaut, Jäger und Heiler geraten in die Schussbahn, und auch wenn wir Jäger ein bisschen was aushalten, mehr als drei oder vier Schläge brauchen die Phantompferde und ihre Pfleger nicht für uns …

Dann kommt der erste Bossgegner, Atumen der Jäger, und ich Jäger seh mir den Kampf zum größten Teil aus liegender Perspektive an – wie war das mit dem Tank, der keine Bedrohung aufgebaut bekommt … Mist, keine Wattebäuschchen zur Hand gehabt … Aber mein inzwischen fast sprichwörtliches Glück bei der Beute, die die Bosse fallen lassen, trifft auch dieses Mal: Ich bekomme gleich eine neue Armbrust, die zwar weniger Schaden bei normalen Kämpfen macht, aber gegen Bosse einfach von Vorteil ist – sie trifft mit höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit – und sie sieht verdammt schick aus …

Auf dem Weg zu dem zweiten Boss Moroes gilt es dann, viele kleine Gegner aus einem Ballsaal zu holen, gerne auch in großen Gruppen – jetzt wäre ein Paladintank mit Weihe toll, unsere Krieger lassen immer die halbe Gruppe laufen, wenn man zu viel Schaden hereinsemmelt. Die Hexer halten sich zurück, damit die Heiler nicht die Hälfte der Zeit wiedererwecken müssen – und unser junger Freund, der nervige Jäger, mosert herum und will den Hexern vorschreiben, was sie zu tun haben, herrlich!

Moroes ist ein echtes Problem, denn hier gibt es eine Bossgruppe, also eine ganze Gruppe starker Gegner, die sich um den Boss herum gruppieren. Und hier kommen die ersten Überforderungen. Die erste Taktik besagt, dass die Jäger ihren Tierchen die ganze Zeit an Moroes lassen, während man eigentlich andere Ziele bekämpft. Moroes verschwindet aber alle Nase lang und ich finde ihn nicht wieder, wenn er zurückkommt, oder vergesse schlicht, dass mein Tierchen ja dorthin zu steuern wäre – ich bin ja auch ansonsten noch mit meiner Eisfalle und dem Morden des momentanen Targets beschäftigt … zu viel …

Unser jugendlicher Vollprofi verschuldet hier dann auch gleich zwei „Wipes” – gibt es ein deutsches Wort dafür, dass eine Riadgruppe gemeinsam stirbt? – zumindest mit, indem er einfach für Chaos sorgt und selbstständig Ziele ändert, ohne dass ernsthaft anzusagen … ein Wipe geht an mich, weil ich in Panik gerate, als mein Gegner einfach durch meine Eisfalle läuft – er widersteht dem Zauber – und ich ganz schnell eine neue legen muss. Danach kann ich keine vorerst keine mehr legen, hoffe darauf, dass mir jemand aushilft, weiß nicht mehr wo ich bin, soll mein Tier auch noch losschicken und habe mindestens drei Bretter vor dem Kopf. Kurzschluss ….

Dann wird die Taktik geändert – die Zuordnung ist jetzt anders, ich brauch mich nicht mehr um das Schicken meines Tieres auf einen anderen Gegner kümmern, und kann nun souverän meinen Gegner in der Eisfalle verschimmeln lassen – trotzdem brauchen wir noch einen Anlauf, weil dieser Boss einfach manchmal Amok läuft, mal kurz nen Heiler killt oder die Riege der Schadensausteiler dezimiert, wir haben ihn fast, als der Tank stirbt – und dann ganz schnell der Rest.

Beim letzten Mal schaffen wir es dann locker, ohne jedes Problem – und alles fragt sich, was wir so lange vor diesem Boss gemacht haben.

Es geht weiter, schließlich muss noch eine übergroße Jungfrau umgehauen werden – und mehr werden wir an diesem Abend auch nicht schaffen, wir sind halt relative Anfänger. Weiter also durch Mobgruppen, ein Hexer stirbt gleich zweimal hintereinander, vor allem, weil unser junger und irgendwie auch ein bisschen dämlicher Freund die nächsten Gruppen zieht, bevor der gnomische Minihexer wieder unter den Lebenden ist – wenn man erweckt wird, hat man wenig Leben und Mana, und wenn dann die nächsten Gegner kommen, ist man halt sofort wieder tot.

Dann stehen wir vor der Riesin, die Raidleiterin gibt genaue Anweisungen – wir müssen unsere Katzen und fliegenden Schlangen bei uns halten – stellen uns narrensicher auf, und wipen wieder … Unser Übercleverle, der ja alles kann und alles weiß – nein, der Junge geht mir gar nicht auf den Geist – hat es halt nicht nötig auf die Raidleiterin zu hören, schickt sein Vieh los – jetzt mal ehrlich, ein Zwerg mit einer geflügelten Schlange, der hat noch nicht mal Geschmack! – provoziert einen Kettenblitz, auf den die Heiler nicht vorbereitet sind … außerdem kann der zweite Tank wieder das Wasser nicht halten – der Rest ist Geschichte.

Beim zweiten Versuch klappt es dann – locker ist das nicht, aber es klappt – und unsere Tanks werden auch noch kräftig beschenkt – ich möchte mir auch nicht vorstellen, was die beiden an Reparaturkosten bezahlen mussten.

So geht der erste Raidabend unserer Gilde zu Ende … und wenn man von einem Störfaktor absieht, hat es auch richtig Spaß gemacht … und laut unseren Statuten geht es in unserer Gilde ja um Spaß und nicht in erster Linie um Erfolg. Wenn am Samstag die Aufstellung stimmt, wir ein bisschen ausgeglichener sind und kein nerviger, kleiner, arroganter Halbwüchsiger die Atmosphäre stört, dann werden wir auch noch ein paar Bosse mehr schaffen. Ich freu mich drauf.

My first trip to Kara was last Saturday. My guild is TEH AWESOME! They are so helpful and funny and willing to help The Big Cowy Noob. They even let me roll for some loot which is why I came away with my very first piece of Tier 4 gear: Gloves of the Fallen Champion!!! The next day I traded in the glove drop for Cyclone Handguards. Someday, my friends, hopefully Slig will look like this, only less Orcish and more, uh, Taurish?

I don’t have a long story and I forgot to take pics of every boss, but we downed Attumen the Huntsman & Midnight, Moroes, Maiden of Virtue, Big Bad Wolf (yes, I got turned into Little Red Riding Hood and promptly gotten eaten — my what big teeth he has!), and The Curator. We tried to make it through Shade of Aran so we could do the Chess Event, but by this time we’d been online for 5 hours and we were exhausted. The Shade wiped us twice and forced us to surrender to sleep. It was a WAY lot of fun. Here are some snapshots.

The posts on NRT seem to be getting further apart but longer perhaps as karmic payback for them getting smaller and more regular over on Mark’s Impotence blog – So I apologize if this sometimes degrades into nothing but a wall of Zzzz worthy text.

Last night I ventured back into Karazhan for the first time in a fair few months – First time since before Christmas at least since thats when NI moved their raid schedule to days I couldn’t do and forced me to raid Mags and Gruuls instead – and I’m glad to report it went really very well. We followed a somewhat less than typical path of [Attum -> Moroes -> Maiden -> Opera (Oz) -> Nightbane -> Curator] before calling it a night.

Oh yes, I said Nightbane! The whole experience was much smoother than I was expecting with no wipes and most people well within the gear margins for such a run. Kudos have to go to our two tanks who – even though the Paladin was somewhat under-geared Spell Damage wise – did a top notch job of keeping me alive. That is not to say I didn’t nearly die once or twice, with no-one HoT’ing me for Maiden until about 50% and me tanking the Shadow Priest and then the Ret Paladin on Moroes it could have gone far worse.

My only two rewards for the night were my T4 gloves (that now makes 3/5 needing the head and Shoulders so I’m going to both Gruuls and Kara again soon as much as my current helm is actually better) and a fist full of badges which I turned in for an Epic relic which I felt was probably the best upgrade for me since there is only one other relic in the game worth considering but impossible to get. Although bizarrely my new Relic is proc based granting 100~ Attack Power on chance of casting a shock (Approximately 30-50%) … But the proc animation is the Blessing of Wisdom.

On other news I just finished watching a fascinating lecture approximately an hour and a half long on YouTube that I recommend checking out, you can find the first episode here (or watch below) and you’ll have to get the rest for yourself! It’s an interesting discussion about how the Bible as the inspired word of God has been altered many thousands of times, a quote from the videos approximates to: “There are more inconsistencies in the New Testament translations, than there are words.” Of course Theists are quick to say that he’s wrong and everything he says is either misleading or irrelevant, in fact I watched a Theist response to his book that in the course of a few minutes both said the book intentionally misleaded people and stated that it was O.k. for the church to make additions to the Bible.

It’s not misleading to CHANGE THE WORD OF GOD, but it is to talk about how scribes make mistakes and intentional changes over the course of thousands of years?

Sheer brilliance.

I have also spent some time on the Official Wrath forums in a few threads which illustrate perfectly how they don’t understand the implications of the changes they suggest. One of the things I truly despise is the idea that the Bard would be a viable new class. Yes, it would and could work but these people are ignoring the big picture! As soon as you put in a class who’s primary role is buffing (and they have described buffs for everything from Haste to Regen) Blizzard will then start making instances more difficult to scale with these buffs and ultimately all you end up with is a Raid that effectively requires a Bard and possibly several.

How is this a Good thing? There is no space in WoW for a pure buffing class … When told that he says that they will also have some DPS so the statement is effectively changed to There is no room in WoW for a required Buffing class let alone another DPS-Buff Hybrid.

Just to illustrate to you the general intelligence level of a WoW Forum poster there is also a thread asking if we will finally discover “Quel’thalas” in Wrath of the Lich King.

I have also recently watched two new movies, Planet Terror and The Happening. Planet Terror is a great Grindhouse flick which may not appeal to everyone but is still pretty funny. The key is to not take it seriously and you probably shouldn’t eat meat whilst watching

The Happening is shit. Do not watch it. I’ll give you five reasons:

1. Mark Wahlberg is one of the worst actors in the world
2. Zooey Deschanel (you might remember her as that annoying bitch who couldn’t act in Frasier) is absolutely terrible.
3. This movie might actually have the worst script ever made.
4. It’s not scary. It’s not even remotely entertaining.
5. It was the trees that dunnit.

I will sum up the movie with my favourite sequence:

————–
Women on Phone: Honey, are you near the Window with the tree? What can you see?

Wahlberg has shocked expression

Wahlberg: Tell her to get away from the window with the tree!
Women on Phone: Honey, get away from the Window with the tree!

Women puts Girl on Speaker phone
Girl is speaking jibberish

Women on Phone: Are you ok? What’s the matter?

Sound of Girl smashing through window
Women previously on phone hands Wahlberg the phone and runs away crying

Wahlberg puts the phone his ear
Wahlberg: Don’t go outside
————–

Don’t … Go outside? You have to see his face and the whole scene to really feel how stupid that is but my God people laughed at parts of that movie they shouldn’t have. Two people left at about the hour mark.

That is about all I can be bothered to write, nobody has submitted their 5 Tracks for my last post challenge so I will give you another chance.

Regards,
JamesR.

The Happening annoys me, because it’s a perfectly solid premise that M. Night managed to completely ruin.

We were so DAMN CLOSE!

First or second try, can’t remember which, we got Moroes down to 2% before we wiped. That really sucked, cause I think we woulda beaten Maiden tonight too if we had downed Moroes. However, I’m happy; I won the three-way ranged DPS roll for [Handwraps of Flowing Thought] from Attumen, as well as getting the Violet Signet from rep, and should be able to get the Scryers trinket tomorrow from my dailies gold. I think our raid learned what we need to do to down this SOB, and we should be able to manage it Friday assuming we can get enough tanks & heals.

I’m doing surprisingly well at working towards my hit cap, and also getting geared. I’m planning on getting the cloak from heroic badges–I have a +spell hit cloak right now, which is nice for bosses, but it’s not exceptional. Grabbing the epic badge cloak should help, and I’ll have that for next week most likely.

I use a site called “Be Imba!” (be.imba.hu) to check my Kara readiness periodically; I’m getting closer gear wise. My main problem right now is my chestpiece–it’s very bad for raiding, so I need to get a new one.

I was 3rd on the DPS charts, too, behind Raiseplz and Nathanielle (no surprises for who’s on top!), and 3rd on the DPS charts is nothing to sneeze at! (Unless the DPS charts are covered in pollen, of course.)

It did kinda hurt today not downing Moroes, especially after we got him to 2%. But I’m sure that we can down him soon, and the raiding experience that our group got is invaluable. Well done all.

So we went back into Kara tonight. Planning to go again tomorrow–I personally hope to run heroics all day tomorrow for gear before hitting Kara. Our second try at Moroes tonight got him down to 20% ish–and we lost a healer to adds (frost trap resist ftl) before we started taking him down. If respawns hadn’t happened and we had had a little more time we probably coulda downed him. He drops some nice stuff too–stuff that would be serious upgrades for Vel.

The third attempt, he glitched when we tried to reset, the addons disappeared, and he went down the stairs. Yecch.

Anyway, although we weren’t able to take him down, I’ve got faith that we can either tomorrow or next week. I personally should be ready to go soon with new heroic gear.

This is #2 in a series of posts covering a full Karazhan clear – mostly from a Main Tank’s Point of View. This entry covers Moroes, and his trash.

So, Attumen and Midnight are down. Head back out to the entrance, and to the flight of stairs. You will want to park most of your group on the landing, halfway up the stairs, with one person heading up the stairs to mark the pulls.

Up in the ballroom you will see several large groups of mobs, along with several PATs. There are four mobs moving through the ballroom – give each of these a mark, so that you don’t loose track of them while pulling. There is a Valet on the left that will be pulled, so feel free to mark him, and a waiter that will occastionally roam out past him should be marked too, if you see him (long patrol time though).

With all of the single pulls of interest marked, it is time to look at the groups. For now, just two of the groups need be dealt with. At the top of the stairs, just ahead on the left and right are pulls or 7 or 8 mobs. You will pull these, and then run down the stairs to your group – hide behind a column to get them all grouped up, and simply AoE them down. If there is a Pally tank available, you are golden. If you have 3 healers, and one is a Pally with some tanking gear, use them here. Otherwise, think happy thoughts for your cloth-wearing dps. This is a dangerous pull for anyone pouring out the AoE damage.

With the two AoE pulls done, start pulling the other marked mobs. The four mobs roaming in the ballroom are 70/71 elites, and don’t hit very hard. The Valet on the left is a 72, and does require slightly more attention. If the tank is mostly is blues, he will need a lot of healing.

With that taken care of, the group can move to the top of the stairs. Here, we implement a no carpet rule. There is a carpet covering most of the ballroom. No one should be on it. Ever.

The tank can carefully walk into the next room on the left. If you walk up through the two columns in the doorway, there is room to get in there and start marking. There are four waiters roaming around (or perhaps back in the kitchen) – get them marked. Be careful, since two of them PAT close to the door. There are double Steward pulls on the right and left walls. Additionally there are four AoE pulls of diners – Each side of the main table, and the two smaller tables.

To start, you will pull the main table, and the waiters that PAT around each side of it. The AoE groups can be pulled out of the room, just around the corner, letting your AoE team burn them down. The waiters should be pulled out of the room as well. They have a nasty debuff that will occasionally turn the player into a Skeleton, loosing all armor. If the tank gets this, you may as well take a 2 minute break. It can be spell-reflected, and the waiters are vulnerable to stuns – so I simply ask everyone to keep the mob stunned as much as possible, reducing the risk of getting hit with it.

After the main table is cleared, I pull the two stewards on the right side. Have an off-tank pick up one, since these can hit hard. They have a nasty skull crack, which will seriously increase the incoming damage, so watch for that and call it out. It shows up in chat as the normal “getting drunk” messages, and lasts just a couple of seconds. However, if your healers are slow on picking it up, you can easily loose a tank. No taunts here either.

With them down, the rest of the room is simple. Finish up the AoE pulls, and the waiters, then move into the room and take out the other double Steward pull – leaving only Moroes, and his guests. The Moroes fight involved not just Moroes himself, but four adds. They are chosen at random from a pool of six, and can be changed by a soft-reset.

**Neat Trick** Before starting the run, form up a raid and have a Priest run in and use Mind Vision to check out the adds. If you don’t like what you have, then simply leave and reform the raid with a different leader. So long as you haven’t killed any bosses yet, you can get a new grouping each time. If you are already saved to the instance, then having everyone leave for 30 minutes will reset them as well (along with the trash). No priest? No problem – get an engineer to make you a steam tonk. They can drive right in and check it out.

So, who are the adds?

• Crispin – A protection warrior. Doesn’t hit hard. I don’t do a run without him.
• Millstipe – Shadow Priest, has an obnoxious mana burn
• Catriona – Holy Priest
• Berrybuck – Holy Pally, can dispel CC
• Drueger – Ret Pally, has a nasty stun and serious damage
• Daris – MS Warrior. Has a nasty Whirlwind, and can take down healers in a few short seconds

So, which adds do you want? Crispin is a must in my opinion. Otherwise, I prefer not having both Drueger and Daris, as they tend to bother the healers, and I prefer to leave just one mob chain-shackled.

This fight is mainly about control.

Drueger and Daris are incredibly dangerous to healers, and take a long time to kill. Either chain trap, or better yet, chain Shackle them. Shackles break early and often, so remind your non-shadow priests that every 3rd or 4th cast should be a shackle. Once they are freed up, hunters can lay traps near priests to buy them time, and mages should be ready to frost nova a free mob.

Millstipe, Cariona and Berrybuck can all be tanked by a dps warrior or hunter pets. If you have enough CC, then keep them locked down till you are ready to kill them – starting with Millstipe, then Catriona, and finally Berrybuck.

Crispin is picked up by the Moroes tanks (yes, tanks) – one of them will grab him on the pull and hold him during the fight. Druids and Warriors can use him to generate rage as the off-tank. Having him there actually helps the off-tank, so I never do this fight without him. Simply taunt-swap him a few times to make sure both have plenty of threat on him for when Moroes causes trouble.

Two tanks of Moroes? Yes. While the raid is working on killing at least 1 or 2 of the adds, the tanks are working on Moroes (and Crispin.) Moroes will use both Blind and Gouge on the tanks, so if they are not the top two on threat, Moroes will go running around. Pallies can dispell the Blind, and should be careful to do so quickly – if one tank gets Gouged while the other is Blinded… well, it isn’t pretty.

Moroes’ other trick is that he will ocasionlly vanish and Garrote a random person. This puts a ticking DoT on them that lasts, basically, the entire fight. Ticking for several hundred damage, as they add up your healers will feel the strain. Mages can Iceblock out of this, and Pallies can Divine Shield themselves, or BoP another member. Dwarves have a free-out as well. Don’t bother removing it from tanks, as they are getting heals anyway. Try to save BoPs for healers or other low health members. When Moroes vanishes, you will have 2 to 10 seconds to work on Crispin – in all likelihood he will be down before Moroes.

If your off-tank is a Pally, consider having them main tank Moroes, unless they have a lot of +spell damage. Building threat from the #2 spot is very hard for Tankadins, and Crispin doesn’t help them. Otherwise, misdirects are a must.

Once Moroes is down, you can either clean up any mobs that have been CC’d, or simply drag them out of the room. With Moroes down, they will simply despawn at the point. Also, dragging an of the mobs out of the room will reset the fight, so it is an easy escape if this go bad.

Moroes was the first stumbling block in Karazhan for my guild. It took us several weeks to get him the first time, mainly due to the fight last so too long, allowing garrotes to stack up too high. Or healers getting taken out by broken CC. If you get stuck, try mixing things up. Different combinations of CC can be very effective. Having a voidwalker tormet an add will buy your CC a few extra moments. Pallies can fear the adds. A frost mage can kite one around. The tanks can even pick the whole group up, though this probably requires over-gearing the instance by a wide margin.

With low dps, this fight can take nearly ten minutes (9′51″ was the longest we ever took). With higher dps we can shorten the fight down to just over 3 minutes (3′12″ is our recent record)

This is the, long time coming, second installment of my, hopefully one day, “Complete Guide to Karazhan”. To see the first installment you can click here. This second Boss in Kara is usually the group breaker. Groups should be built around this fight because the wrong mix here will make for a wasted trip.

After completing the Attumen the Huntsman and Midnight fight the raid should clear the last trash mobs in the stables to allow for quick in instance repairs, in case of wipes later on. Turning around and heading back towards the Main Entrance the raid turns and goes left up the staircase into towards The Grand Ballroom.

The Grand Ballroom:

This space is really more of an in between point than a destination, to the left is the next boss Moroes, and across the room to the right is the doorway to the rest of the instance. Trash:

Phantom Guest- Undead <non-elite> These mobs come in packs of up to 9 and have a variety of abilities, including physical damage, curse damage, fire damage and healing. These packs are easily AOEed down have your tanks generate as much aggro as possible, because of the healing abilities of some of these mobs it is important to keep them clumped together and burn them down as quick as possible.

Spectral Servant- Undead- Spectral Servants have a Curse of Past Burdens ability and little else. They patrol the ballroom around the packs of Phantom Guests if pulled individually they pose little to no threat to the group and are an easy tank and spank.

Skeletal Waiter- Undead- Waiters have a nasty debuff called Brittle Bones which periodically removes all armor from the target. This debuff is non dispel-able so if your tank gets it you should wait to have him take a beating until it wears off. The Skeletal Waiters pat around the Banquet Hall whoever is doing the pulling needs to be sure not to pick them up as adds to the packs of Phantom Guests. In order to prevent your tank from getting the debuff it is advisable to keep these mobs stun locked which is why it is particularly important to try and pull them individually.

Ghostly Steward- Undead- Stewards always come in pairs and are immune to Crowd Control and Taunt. They have a debuff called Drunken Head Crack, which dramatically increases melee damage taken. Because of this debuff these mobs should be tanks individually and your healers should all be awake and ready for some work before the pull. Once the Head Crack is applied expect the Tank to be tanking 4k damage per whack so over-healing is an acceptable strategy here. These mobs enrage at 20% health so focusing your DPS on one at a time will make your healers job a little easier.

Phantom Valet- Undead- DPS Warrior style mobs with a Demoralizing shout ability and a very high melee damage output. Immune to Taunt so a Mage not watching the threat meters will mean dead squishy…

Phantom Attendant- Undead- Crowd Control-able- Attendants and Spectral Retainers come in packs of three or four. They have a Shadow Rejuvenation (healing spell) and Curse of Agony ability. It is easy to skip these packs in the ballroom and you should. If you pull accidentally be sure to get your CC up quickly to limit the healing done to the rest of the pack.

Spectral Attendant- Undead- Immune to CC- The Attendants have a nasty set of abilities including Shadow Rejuvenation (healing), Mass Dispel, (can be very expensive if a flask is dispelled from you) and Mind Control (non dispel-able). As these mobs are CC immune they need to die first, if you accidentally pull them try to quickly move the raid into a clear area as they will cause havoc in your raid group. Better still you can skip them so be smart and do that…

The Banquet Hall

Through the door from the Ballroom is the Banquet Hall where a feast is laid out for Moroes, his close friends, and some assorted nasties. The nasties come in the form of AOE Packs of non-elites and hard hitting single pull elites (much like the Ballroom). The first few pulls should drag the mobs around the corner out of the room and down the stairs. Once the area around the door is clear you can move inside and finish the adds, then you are ready for:

Moroes and Friends:
Moroes always has four of the following six elite adds with him on the pedestal in the Banquet Hall. Each is susceptible to Crowd Control so as many as possible should be kept locked down while the Raid lays waste to the remaining guests then Moroes.

Guests in Kill Order (the last ones should be CCed first)

Lady Catriona Von’linda- Holy Priest, very squishy. Have all your DPS focus on her first because she will heal her friends if you try to take someone else out first.

Lady Keira Berrybuck- Holy Paladin. Keira has very low damage output so you can get away with no tanking her as long as you have good and focused DPS. She casts a Pally Buff (might) unto the other guests which should be dispelled, and as paladins are want to do she will heal the guests and Moroes. If you get both Catriona and Keira consider short CCing Keira so she doesn’t get a heal off on the holy priest.

Baroness Dorothea Milstipe- Shadow Priest, very squishy. High damage mob with a strong mana burn. Dorothea should be CCed or Kicked, Shocked, Counter Spelled until you get to her in your kill order. Her Mana Burn could effectively put a lesser geared healer out of the game so be careful.

Baron Rafe Drueger- Retribution Paladin. It is important to CC Baron because he will Hammer of Justice whoever is top of his aggro list and wander off to kill a healer. When assigned your CC for Baron it is best to have your more capable priest here because if the CC breaks he will stun them preventing a reapplication. His Damage output is high so you may want to have an OT hold his aggro when it comes time to drop him.

Lord Robin Daris- Mortal Strike Warrior, One Shot killing Machine. Robin is probably the biggest risk to your raid. His Mortal strike can one shot probably everyone but your tanks. So CC is key. When it comes time to down him watch out for his Whirlwind. He is stationary for it (thankfully) so just have your melee DPS drop back and avoid the unnecessary damage.

Lord Crispin Ference- Prot Warrior, low damage high survivability. Because of his low damage output you can kite him around the room until one of your CCs is available. Because he takes so long to kill it is common to wait until after you’ve downed Moroes to break the CC and kill him.

Moroes
Rogue Boss, with Typical Roguish abilities.

Blind- Periodically Moroes casts blind on the second player on his aggro list. This player will wander around incapacitated for a while, this poison needs to be cleansed quickly.

Gouge- Brief Stun on the player at the top of the aggro list. This is why you put two tanks on Moroes so that he goes from the Main Tank to the OT instead of running around the room slaughtering your healers.

Vanish- Uber-Roguish Moroes vanishes for a few seconds then reappears to Garrote a random player.

Garrote- High Damage long lasting debuff. Garrote does over 1000 damage every three seconds for 5 minutes. On most of your party members you will have no choice but to heal through it. If you have a paladin he can use Blessing of Protection to remove the debuff. If at all possible try to use the cleanse on a healer as you will need them through the whole fight. Garrote is the real challenge of this fight as the fight stretches on more and more players will have the Debuff straining your healers until they can’t keep up. Bring enough DPS so that you can down Moroes quickly this is not a fight you wanna take into overtime.

Enrage- When Moroes gets down to 30% health he will enrage increasing his attack speed and damage significantly. As long as you have most of your raid up and your healers aren’t fighting against the strain of too many Garrotes you probably won’t even notice the change.

Strategy:

The key to this fight is the preparation. Your raid leader needs to assess the guests and set-up CC and kill order assignments and make sure to communicate what the strategy is to everyone in the raid. Breaking CC in this fight can be disastrous. If everyone is clear on their role you should be able to quickly get your CCs in place get your DPS Rolling and keep it rolling. If everything is done right the chatter should be minimal.

To start the pull have your tank and your off tank rush in and drag Moroes down the stairs. Your CC needs to happen quickly to prevent a huge damage as all the guests will be on your tanks in the first few seconds. Your DPS also needs to be quick on the draw to help get all the guests clear of the tanks so they can start building aggro.

When Moroes Blinds the Off-Tank he needs to be cleansed ASAP if Moroes gouges the Main Tank while the OT is Blinded he will go running amok on the raid.

If you are short on CC and decide to tank an addition guest through out the fight I recommend using your second best take on the guests and your third best can be the OT for Moroes.

Remember to have your Paladin use his Blessing of Protection to remove one Garrote and his divine shield on himself. If you have a Mage they can Ice Block out of the Debuff.

Once Moroes is at 30% and Enraged the battle becomes an all out Zerg. Your Healer will already be straining to keep up and in danger of going Out Of Mana the longer the fight lasts.

Resto Druid Tips:

During the pull all of your groups preists will be focused on getting their targets shackled, if you have Holy Paladin(s) it is likely that they will be Fearing Undead as well. So for the first few seconds you are it. In a lot of fights it is okay to set a single Lifebloom on the tank timed to expired just as he pulls to give him a little boost of threat, this is NOT one of those fights. As the pull is commencing start casting Healing Touch so that your tank does not get wiped out when all five targets hit him. After the CC is established your healing can go back to normal until the first Garrote.

Because of the nature of Druid healing you should be your groups primary Garrote healer. Get a stack of Lifebloom and a Rejuvenation on players with a Garrote Debuff and keep it up and they will be fine. If you end up with more than four Garroted players you can spam single Lifeblooms and Rejuvenations on multiple targets and hopefully keep most people in the game.

Related Links

Loot Table

Am I a Bad Healer? As if to illustrate my point about group composition Yashima writes about a kara run with less than optimal personnel.

A clearing of Tempest Keep (except for the old head-honcho himself, Kael’thas) tonight and more badgers to round up in Karazhan.

I want to improve (gear & skill) for each Tempest Keep run so I keep the stats and compare with previous fights.
Al’ar

Starting off, we downed Al’ar the Phoenix in Tempest Keep with a #10 ranking in overall damage output.

Miss rate (white damage): 18.9% much better than the 22.7% miss rate from last time.

Crit rate (white damage): 32%

Windfury proc rate: 29%

Void Reaver

Loot Reaver still kills a lot of raiders, even on a 1-shot. My damage done getting to #4 overall output to Void Reaver. In fact, I was #4 ranked in damage done back in Dec. 11, 2007.

Miss rate (white damage): 17.8% is actually worse than 15.7% back in Dec. 11, 2007. Hmmm.

Dps now: 784 vs. dps then 689.

Crit rate (white damage): 22%

Windfury proc rate: 27%

Strange that my crit rate and miss rate are worse now compared to Dec. 11, 2007, but my overall dps is higher.

High Astromancer Solarian

I continue to look forward to this fight because the mage has low armor and I can do more dps than any other boss in Tempest Keep. I did get 1626 dps vs. Solarian at one point. That’s the best I’ve done on any Tier 5 (SSC/TK) boss. Overall dps this time was #8 and 1053 dps. Even though I was ranked #6 back in Jan. 14th, my overall dps was 936.

Miss rate (white damage): 12.7% is mucho better than 18.1% on Jan. 14th, 2008.

Crit rate (white damage): 26%

Windfury proc rate: 30%

Karazhan

Still looking forward to the 2.4 badge rewards? I know I am. I just hope Blizzard doesn’t pull a frosty one on us and make the Badge rewards 2.4 Badges only or something.

Moroes

#3 ranked damage output on Moroes at 730 dps. Miss rate was 17.3% (not too bad) but that ole rogue can still dodge a fair bit (7% dodge rate). Ayep. The only difference from last week’s Karazhan is that I was in survival mode for most of this fight because the Moroes adds were running around mostly free. Last week dps: 946. Last week’s miss rate: 18.8%. Last week’s Windfury crit rate: 50%. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

Crit rate (white damage): 20%

Windfury proc rate: 30%

Maiden of Virtue

Maiden was full of melee this go round. Again like last week, I ranked at #3 in overall damage done. My dps was slightly better at 780 dps vs. 754 dps last week. Only a 22.3% miss rate this time vs. last week’s parry-extravaganza 35.6% miss rate. 15% parries are serious, so I stayed behind the big lass as best I could this time.

Crit rate (white damage): 22%

Windfury proc rate: 34%

Opera – Big Bad Wolf

The Big Bad Wolf event from Opera was fun (and I don’t remember getting the Little Girl debuff) so I was one of three people who didn’t get killed and survived to rezz up the fallen raiders. Is he really that hard? Or people just not knowing the encounter, bad luck, etc.?

Miss rate (white damage): 12.9% (nice!)

Crit rate (white damage): 27%

Windfury proc rate: 18% (that’s all?! geez. unlucky)

Nightbane

Nightbane last week was horrible. This week was a little better because I only got one Charred Earth near me, so I could dps a fair bit this time. I was the main assist for the Rain of Bones. Managed up a 660 dps and #2 overall damage done to the scary skeletal dragon.

Miss rate (white damage): 15.1%

Crit rate (white damage): 33%

Windfury proc rate: 27%

More next week. Enjoy your WoW.

The Moroes fight is a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. You can find general strategies and discussions about group makeup, tanking, CC, and the roles of other classes here here and here.

This is the fight that rogues look forward to when they go into Karazhan. Moroes drops the Emerald Ripper which is a great main hand dagger. He also drops the Edgewalker Longboots which are among the best pre-BT feet items. In addition, he drops the recipe for the Mongoose enchant.

In the start of the fight, the tanks will handle Moroes himself. The rogue will be helping to burn down adds. Burst damage and interrupts are the words of the day here. The faster the adds go down, the earlier you can focus dps on Moroes himself and stop the Garrotes.

Moroes will have four allies standing near him. Most groups will choose to burn down two or three of them before focusing on Moroes. The four allies are random from six possibilities – a shadow priest (Milstipe), a holy priest (Von’Linda), a holy paladin (Berrybuck), a retribution paladin (Drueger), a protection warrior (Ference) and a mortal strike warrior (Daris). The four that you get will determine the kill order, but in general you take out the squishies first and try to keep the warriors CC’ed until the end of the fight.

Early in the fight your group’s CC will be stretched to the max, with hunters, priests, and paladins all taking part. If you are short of CC, a rogue can easily evasion tank either of the priests, with maybe a single HoT from a healer to help keep you up.

Besides evasion tanking, if necessary, and mega-dps, your Kick and stuns are priceless here. The shadow priest has a massive mana burn. The rogue should interrupt that at all costs.

When my guild does this encounter, we usually let a hunter pet tank the shadow priest. We take her down fast, with rogues dpsing and interrupting. Then we move to the holy priest (if she is there) or holy paladin. Repeat. A rogue’s task is simple – do lots of damage, evasion tank if needed, and interrupt to stop shadow burns, heals, and cleanses.

After two of the adds are down, we turn to Moroes. Some guild wait until three adds are down. In either case, by this time, the tank has a huge head start in threat, so don’t hold anything back. You are now in a race of garrote damage vs healer’s mana. Every 30 seconds Moroes will garrote a party member with a 1000 damage per tick DoT. The longer the fight goes on, the more players have the DoT, and the harder it is for the healers to keep up. When Moroes dies the DoTs go away, so go all-out from the get-go. As most mobs in Karazhan, Moroes is immune to bleed effects, so use SnD as your main finisher.  Edit: Since patch 2.4 undead mobs are susceptible to bleed effects.

Watch the threat meter – when you are catching up to the tank’s threat you should Vanish and re-engage. With focused damage Moroes goes down pretty quick.

After he dies, you can either take out the remaining adds for rep, or you can run out of the room and they will reset. Enjoy your loot!

Now that 2.4 patch information is coming out of the woodwork, sprouting flowers and green possibilities everywhere, the mindless farming of badges continues. Karazhan madness, exit stage left. From Moroes to Prince in two hours & with three shaman, it was as easy as training a pigeon.

Moroes

Ayep. Moroes was first up on the hit list. Pulled a respectable 946 dps and 2nd only to our always-raid-leading-hunter & hunter class leader, Wolfus.

Personal details vs. Moroes below. A few parried by Moroes, but not too bad 18.8% miss rate. I love that 50% Windfury crit rate. That rocks.

Attumen the Huntsman

Attumen next up and I pulled a lame 717 dps. #4 on the damage done chart. Must have been tired or something. A raw 20% base miss rate didn’t help either.

My personal details here & a lot of misses by yours truly. That’s crazy to have a melee 26.8% miss rate? I must be doing something wrong, but maybe just bad luck, but I probably need more armor reduction.

Maiden of Virtue

Maiden up next and another lackluster showing by yours truly. Only 754 dps and #3 ranking but it just seemed like I was stunned the whole fight. This and my %miss rate was *gulp* 35%! A 15% parry rate and 8% dodge rate leaves me with only 12% misses. Geez shaman, get behind her for pete’s sake.

Misses were bad enough, but 35.6% miss rate and it didn’t help that our tank can’t seem to stay in one place so I was forced to frontal attacks on Maiden. 15% parried = Yikes! 15% Windfury crit rate? Geez. It IS interesting to see how much Windfury can be parried. 20% parry rate vs. my Windfury plus the 5% dodges sure does limit my damage output.

Nightbane

Nightbane now and yep, I got Charred Earth near me every time except for 1 time Nightbane decided to throw one to the ranged people. I dislike this fight so much. How many ‘Blizzard-Don’t-Like-You-Melee-BURN!’ encounters do we face? Heaps of them, I tell you! Heaps.

Wound up running out of Charred Earth the whole time and guess who’s job it was to slam the skeletons? Yup, Mr. Enhancement Shaman. Why not just get a rogue to do it? Sheeesh. 21.5% miss rate.

Curator

Now! Finally for the fun melee fight. Downing Curator on his first Evocation is such a joy. I remember wiping to this guy a year ago, now he’s just easy-peasy. Yep, you saw it right. 1814 dps and #1 damage done overall.

36% white damage crit rate. A marginally low 19% miss rate. And see that 6506 max hit on a Windfury attack? Niiice.

Shade of Aran

I must have gotten a 2nd wind on that Curator fight, so I blasted up on Shade of Aran too. 1101 dps and #2 on the damage done.

2% parried, 13% miss rate are fantastic. 40% crit rates for white damage & Windfury are super as well.

Prince Malchezaar

Prince was last on our hit list. I was enfeebled a lot so I basically just sat back and watched the ranged dps him down. Pretty boring for melee if you ask me.

We’ve cleared Tempest Keep to Kael’thas. Bring on the wipe fest!

Any tips for an enhancement shaman during Kael’thas encounter? Send em my way via comment or email Asirae AT hotmaIL dot c0m.

Oooohhhh – noch vor nicht all zu langer Zeit hätte ich folgender Karazhan Aufstellung gesagt “Wie weit solls gehen? Ballsaal?”:

• 1x Off Krieger
• 1x Def Krieger
• 1x Feral
• 2x Shadowpriest
• 2x Holy/Diszipriest
• 1x Schurke
• 1x Eleschammi
• 1x Paladin

Aber weit gefehlt – eigentlich – naja, nicht eigentlich sondern alles Mainchars, die auch alle wußten, was sie taten. Keine Bosserklärungen – kurze Ansagen á la “Ich nehm die beiden, nimm du die anderen” oder “Shackled mal irgendwas alles”. Alles hat prima gepasst! 5 Todesfälle über den ganzen Abend – immer der gleiche Shadow verreckt und einmal der Eleschammi. Kurzum -> in 3:02 Stunden war Karazhan dann leer. Ohne AoE-Bomber, Hexerzeugs – kein MD-Shot, trotzdem hat alles geklappt. Es zeigt hier nur wieder, das trotz des nicht zu vernachlässigbaren Equipmentvorteils, dann doch wohl nach wie vor gilt: Skill>>All. Immerhin fehlten ja einige der immer wieder beschrieenen Kernklassen für einige Bosse – oder der gern’ mehrfach benutzte AoE bei den grösseren Packs.

Aber Killtimings von:
-Kurator in der ersten Evocation auf 8% gebashed
-Siechhuf in unter 3 Minuten
-Aran starb mit 58% Mana
-Netherspite nur einmal verbannt
-Prinz in gut 3.5 Minuten
…das was unten herinnen steht wurde einfach im vorbeigehen umgewemmst. Mittnacht groß antanken? Wozu? Einfach mal den Klepper pullen und dann FullDPS-Go… Moroes wurde gar nicht zu seiner Meinung befragt – lediglich Tante Shattenpriesterin wurde vor ihm in die Ewigkeit geschickt (bis hierhin fehlte sogar noch einer, sprich wir waren lediglich 9 Mann). Die Maid? Kaum der Rede wert – 2x Buße, das wars. Im Theater den Zauberer von Oz, oha – kein Feuermage=unspiebar, weit gefehlt… Und bis dahin hatten wir mit 9.5 Leuten nicht mal eine Stunde verbraten.

Am Ende war es ein sehr entspannter Run. 22 Marken FTW. Schade, das man für Speed keinen Extrabonus bekommt…

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