Changing times/Seasons

I’ve noticed a certain lethargy when it comes to WoW lately. At first I thought it was just me, but then I started noticing that there are others who appear to exhibit the same attitude I have.

I read on WowInsider today about the pre-expansion blues, raid guilds stop raiding, teams fall apart, ppl leave on extended breaks etc – all because in a couple of months a new version of this game will be avail and all your purples will be toast.

Eh, so what.

Maybe it's just the new moon, but I’m not bored with the content. I’m bored with the people I know. Sorry you guys but it’s true – even married couples sometimes need a little space, ya know?

But more importantly, I’m not the same player I was 3 months ago. Six months ago I was a noob raider, then I got into a ton of raid ops and I think I got pretty good at it. I’m not great – or even better than most. But I think I’m a decent raider. Face facts folks, if you can show up on time, listen, follow basic instructions and treat your team mates with respect – you’ll make an okay raider.

Within 3 months of beginning I’d had my first guild meltdown, first raid meltdown and the first time I melted down on ANYONE. I went off - the one and only time I did so face to face with my fellow raiders. Since then I stepped back – dropped some aspects of Wow and picked up a few others. Right now I’m sorta learning healing as a tree (hey, I had a near complete offspec set) for an alt raid and I’ve left my huntard parked out on the isle.

But to tell you the truth – I like taking a break from WoW even more than I like playing anything right now. Maybe it’s just me after all. My fav thing to do in-game these days is the legacy raids – molten core in 2 hours rocks when you’re a 62 mage. But other than that it’s spring and I smell the rich loamy wet earth outside my window. The all-day rain soakers and the bright crisp sunshiny mornings have awakened this old bear from his winter’s slumber under the piles of Wowdom. No worries, though – soon I’ll be back to my old bearish self and we’ll go kick some butts. In the meantime I might work on leveling my profs and getting another alt to 70.

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Kara wrap - finally!

I’ve been promising this for months but every time I turn around I have yet another RL demand. So here – in it’s short and sweet format – is the breakdown on the rest of Kara.

Since it’s something of a moot point right now I’m not going into a great deal of detail – there are numerous sources on this and if you’re in the market for one – check WowWiki.

We need to wrap up 3 bosses, Nightbane, Netherspite and Prince.

Nightbane begins on a terrace near the side entrance to Kara. In fact, you need to clear some of the bosses (Opera I think) in order to gain access thru the side door. There’s some trash in here – follow my notes from Kara Part 5 for the clear to Curator for this. In a nutshell you have to fight a dead dragon. Yep, dead. As in skeletalbutstillabletoflyandbreathingfirewithteensylittlepalsthatwillkickyourbehindifyoucomeunprepared.

That’s Nightbane. You can only “summon” him if you’ve completed the quests for this – and it only takes one person to call the bugger out. The basic fight is a tank n spank with 2 unique characteristics. One is Charred Earth – a stationary flame ground aoe affect – don’t stand in it. Easily avoidable – however keep your raid casters/ranged DPS grouped or it may spawn all over – no idea if this is theory or fact – but it seems to work.

Also he flies at 75% 50% and 25% health – during this phase the group halts DPS and huddles – you get a shared AOE attack and some skeletons spawn – burn em QUICK – mark em if you need to but do it – NB only is in the air for 30 secs or so. The one other annoying thing NB does is fear. Ranged DPS and healers can EASILY Avoid this by standing at max range – but when coupled with the aoe ground affects it makes for a fluid fight – flask up – Salv everyone needing it and bring out your heaviest hitters.

Netherspite is a huge pain – at first. All you have to do is learn the Beams – there’s tons of great guides on this and you should read them for the fights cause there are multiple ways of doing this fight.

And finally is Prince. Which prior to 2.4 was easy – if you’re healers could last and if your DPS could dodge and IF your hunters had mana pots. Because Prince packs a wallop and he calls down staionary flaming elementals that do a massive aoe ground fire attack for about 3 mins. No you cant stand in it and he has a thing he likes to call Enfeeble that drops you to 1 hp for a set period of time – no if’s and’s or but’s – which coupled with AOEs sorta bites.

But in 2.3 you could stand in a certain spot and avoid the fire dmg – you had to know where to be.

In 2.4 ….. in the newest patch I think the fire actively looks for you. Blizz removed the safe spots and now whenever my ZA geared raid goes in there we wipe cause the fire dudes ALWAYS drop in a circle around Prince. I’m not saying they do it on purpose – but I think we’re pretty much done with prince. I cant see our wasting more time on him – it’s too random of a fight. But if you’re really interested in trying it out hit up WoWWiki for pointers.

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