Work and life caught up with me about 10 days ago - I'll get back to updating when I figure out what that big yellow thing in the sky is doing there and why I only see it for a few minutes in the morning.
Type rest of the post here
Feb 28, 2008
hard to post now
Feb 12, 2008
Kara - Chess Event
Last time I blogged a bit about Kara bosses I touched on the Chess Event and I mentioned I’d cover the that and perhaps Prince Malchezzar. Well here ya go.
Chess is easy peasy. After you leave the Shade’s room you go down the ramp then up to the left. Your locks need to pop Detect Invis on everyone (locks, get in the habit of doing so without being asked – you’ll find it’s a huge time saver) and your tank will mark up the first of two, 4-mob pulls. These are ghosts, without DI you’ll risk losing LOS on them in the middle of combat unless they are hitting you.
Clear these mobs, then the ones that follow them – pick up the books lying around and move on up the next ramp at the far end of the room. More ghosts here, and once cleared you’re gonna see a new mob – they look like the dudes up in Netherstorm and they are linked to Netherspite, who is actually very close to you now.
These guys can be taken one at a time – there aren’t too many here and they have an agil debuff, but they go down easy enough.
Moving through this room and down the right side ramp (up the left side one leads to Nether) and you’ll have one final room to clear before heading down into a room with a repair guy. You need friendly rep with the Violet Eye to use him, and he also sells reagents – so get em while you can!
After topping off you go through the double doors and down a small ramp into the Gamesman’s Hall – where you see a large chess board and two sets of chess pieces – horde and alliance.
Your side is whatever faction you are aligned with – makes sense eh? Since I’m an alliance player I head to the right side and pick a piece to stand behind. You get the option here of Elemental (rook), Horse (knight) Healer (bishop), Mage (queen), King Lane (King) or one of the pawns. The pieces move as one would expect with some slight cheating as compared to real chess. Once someone talks to the King all players can then talk to their piece and you ‘enter’ them as a player. This means you are now controlling a chess piece on the board and you have a ‘pet bar’ your action bar icons should now reflect a few new choices (check the lower left side of the screen where your attack button and your hot bar items 1-4 are located).
Knights can move I think 3 spaces, everything else is limited to 1 at a time. You’ll want someone to move the pawn in front of the king so he can get out on the board – everyone else should be able to make their own way.The way to win is to kill the king on the opposing team, some folks try to take down the casters or healers first – I’ve done both and have never lost at chess. Seriously, if you lose at chess then you need to rework your strategy because it’s simply the easiest epics you’ll ever get.
Once you win DO NOT, under any circumstances, talk to anyone in the room – not Medivh or the chess pieces. If you do you’ll place a silence debuff on the raid that lasts a very long time. You can let your raid leader or loot master open the chest at the end of the hall, let them dish the goods then everyone takes a turn opening it for their badges – Free Lootz.
Once done gather on the center of the chess board. I’ll take you up to Prince then we’ll halt for the day – but in reality – you’d want to drive on to Prince and clear that fight, if you can.
At the far end of the hall is a double stair similar to the one you entered through, there are a total of 5 mobs in there, have your MT pull the single pat back to the board – you all DPS him down – MT and OT get the next two, same drill, then you all move on up and into the room they were in to pull the last two from what should be the right side, as you entered the room.
Once cleared there’s a spiral stairs leading up – your choice here – the raid goes all the way up, hugging the inside of the stairs to avoid the hidden mob that’s near the door on one of the landings OR
To be completely safe you can have your tank run up the stairs a bit and get that mob and bring him all the way down into the main room so you can work with some space.
If you elected to pull the odd add, you can stand at the top of the stairs and let your tank take the guy at the very top while you do stand-off attacks, or you can have the tank take him in the top central room and the raid can bum-rush him. Your call, if you didn’t kill the extra add then you have to bring the entire raid into the top room or you’ll pull the loner from below.
Once they are down/bypassed go out the next hall and stop by the door. Your opponent is now Prince Malchezzar – and he’s tied with Nightbane as the hardest boss in Kara.
Cogitations on Cat Gear/Stats for Kara
One of the readers of this blog posited a question for me regarding my interpretation of the table I posted on Karazhan minimum requirements. He asked why I didn’t post a set of stats for feral kitty and since I’ve seen this question a few times I thought I’d write up a formal post in lieu of replying directly in the comments.
There are a number of good items you can get for feral cats and I think when I see this question posed, most people tend to answer it in terms of what gear to get, not what stats you should have. To that end I’ll post a couple of links I ran across from the forums, but later on I’m going to digress deeply into my thoughts on cat gear.
Here are a couple of links I’ve found that can perhaps help out Link 1 & Link 2 .
I’ve read 2.2k AP with 30% Crit is a good target starting place for cats. The basic gear choices for kitty are (one bear’s opinion here) – epic crafted chest from LW, hourglass trinket from BM, Abacus trinket from Arc, The clefthoof hide leggings, the elekk leggings or the x-52 pilot leggings from a quest in Netherstorm, the staff from Bot regular OR the Staff of Beasts from Nagrand, which is easier to get. Some folks like the hammer from PVP better than the staff Illhoof drops – but I hate PVP. I only did it to get my bear shoulders. The rogue gloves from Shattered Halls, Helm of the Claw was my DPS hat for a while (with the +12 agil meta), any decent DPS leather bracers – any of the nice DPS capes – there are several in the dungeon sets. I think I had cloak of the inciter but that wasn’t highly recommended for cats.
Mmm, If you don’t want to waste a lot of time getting gear – get the assassination set – rogue dungeon set 3a. That’s not a bad set to start with you could prob get one in a week or two. Other people will wax philosophically on the virtues of various gearing choices as a start, but I was always more focused on the tanking aspects. I gambled on picking up kitty gear as I went along, and I did.
My Digression
The KZ table I published was based on one I found on TenTonHammer, I freely admit I absconded with their table and I even noted why, because I was annoyed that I couldn’t deep link you directly to it, which in my opinion made their version all but useless – since it was hard to tell people how to find it, Go to this site, search for these words, click the third link, sacrifice a small mammal at the dark of the moon … BAH!
In all fairness I’ve even updated their chart, added color to make it easier to read and a few tweaks of my own and have since altered it based on suggestions from readers, friends and knowledgeable guild mates.
The KZ minimums table is lacking in two notable areas, Survival Hunters and Feral Kitties. I think there’s a reason for the lack of each. I know the survival hunter is a neat spec, you get exposed weakness which is a really nice boss debuff, and you get a solid trap option for CC, but in my experience, the overall consistent DPS output for BM hunters is more desirable than better traps. I know very little of MM, other than it is still a viable spec for KZ.
For feral cats, most of the time I’m in Kara, even when in cat form, I tend to stay in my tanking gear. The reason for this is that I can easily pick up a mob if the tank gets in trouble or if someone decides to pew pew the wrong target by accident. This sort of thing happens a lot to new groups – hell it happens a lot to me and both the KZ groups I run with are experienced raids.
I think the reason it's not on this chart is that you're not going to get into Kara as a kitty - you're going to go as a bear, who happens to have a cat set. A limited point of view to be sure, but perhaps the original was written by someone who wasn't into cats. However, we can correct this through a few modifications to our chart. (ohhhh, my first use of the Royal 'We')
A feral’s strength is “versatility” – it's hard to replace a rogue or lock that knows the job and does it well, but you are perhaps the most versatile class in the game. So yes, I think it's a vaild point to raise and I should make some changes.
But let’s get back to the issue of stats – as I‘ve said, I’ve read 2.2k AP with 30% Crit is the target to start. I don’t know about health pools but I’m guessing if you get the other two, the health pool your left with will be on the order of a geared pre-kara rogue. If anyone has solid info lemme know and I'll tweak it.
From what I’ve seen you’re looking to make your cat set similar to a rogues set – which only makes sense now doesn’t it? I mean, you’re a melee DPSer wearing leather … so sure, rogue sets are among your friends.
Mine wasn’t even close to that when I started, but my tank set was the best a raider could start with – and I had all the right gems and enchants. Both sets improved drastically since I was picking up both cat and bear gear as I went through the first month. I had to wait (and you may have to as well) on some of the kitty gear because our rogue got dibs on DPS leathers. Perhaps this explains the shortcomings on the chart - I was able to run kara in bear gear - almost all the time, perhaps the authors did as well, but that's still no excuse for not doing better.
We’ve all seen a lot of people with narrow minds in this game. So it will be no surprise if someone comes along and trashes my opinion, but I’d like to point out that this is simply that – my opinion. And in “My Opinion” there is no “set in stone” answer to the choice of gear/stats, only a set of guidelines and some general knowledge you can use to improve yourself.
Raiding is more about knowing your class and spec well than it is about what your gear will allow you to do. Any good raider will tell you that good raiders can make up for shortcomings in gear through skill and spec choices – at least until the gear they need drops.
I hope that helps.
Feb 11, 2008
Weekend Raider – Kara, the Shade
Well, it turns out I ended up doing a Kara raid this weekend on my bear, though not with my regular group since I was busy with my son during our regular raid. I managed to pick up a couple of items – new cat shoes, belt from badges etc, which was nice because it means no more green items. (yes you can raid KZ with one or two green items depending on what they are – bears get Manimal’s Belt as a quest reward that should last them until they get enough badges of justice to replace it or run heroic Ramparts for the belt off the last guy.)
But, the real winner this weekend was my hunter. We hit Kara last night and I was practically falling asleep. My little boy spent the weekend running around my house getting into absolutely everything so I was somewhat drained by the time I got back from dropping him off at his mom’s.
But I pressed on, by this time our fights are easy because our gear lets us plow through boss after boss. We soon found ourselves outside Netherspite’s hall. Nether is the only boss in the place that hadn’t fallen to us yet. It took several tries to get everyone in their groove, but we managed to get him down after several attempts. And low and behold what should drop but hunter pants – literally 2/3 of the bosses dropped something I could use or needed, including my T4 helm. That’s going to really make a huge difference when it comes to next week’s run. Now I need to spend some time making money so I can afford to gem those out nicely. If only work would cooperate.
Last time we talked I owed you a run down on the Shade of Aran. You can find a good explanation of the fight over at Wowwiki, which should give you the basics of Shade. I’ve mentioned this in the past but it’s worth repeating. Your Raid leader or assist needs Deadly Boss Mods and/or Bigwigs. Shade has a few different phases and both of those mods can help.
The other noteworthy item to know about the Shade is he likes taking down your weakest player – so your healers need to try to keep everyone topped off. Since it’s not an aggro fight it’s a sort of loosely controlled chaos the MT/OT are mostly DPS/Stunning through the fight. As mentioned, there are a number of phases Shade likes to pull, he alternates fire and frost bolts – which you need to constantly interrupt, as well as arcane missiles (which you don’t interrupt) and an arcance explosion which will one-shot you if you’re within it’s detonation radius. There’s a blizzard affect that roams the room, some elementals that come out at one point and the most significant of all – Flame Wreath. FW is a big pain because due to a number of factors, your graphics card, latency etc – you may not even see it. But if anyone in the raid moves, even so much as turns in place (even if you don’t think it’s affecting you) the entire raid will wipe. When it hits you’re stuck in place. You can auto attack, i.e. shoot, wands, bows, guns, melle can auto attack, casters auto cast, but you cannot change your position in any way or the raid will literally get burned. Melee – if you’re out on the edges, then you need to hold in position until it passes.
Other than that the only thing to clearly watch for is that his mana pool stays above his HP – if it goes under his HP at about 10% or so he’ll polymorph the raid (even those immune to it) and when you come out he’ll blast you. The only way to survive is to have everyone topped off and to use healthstones, pots, bandages etc. as soon as you come out of sheep form.
My last word on Shade is that it’s not that hard of a fight, but it is yet another gear check – your DPS really needs to shine here and your raid leader needs complete command and control throughout the fight. It’s not uncommon for well geared raids to wipe a few times on him, it’s definitely one of those encounters that you need to practice a few times before mastering it.
Next time: we’ll move on to the easiest fight of all – Chess and perhaps discuss the Prince event and the last bosses, Terestrian, Nether and the skeletal dragon, Nightbane.
Feb 7, 2008
Sic transit gloria mundi
It is a Latin phrase that means "Thus passes the glory of the world". It has been interpreted as "Fame is fleeting." One of the more famous versions exists at the end of the film "Patton" and was attributed to the famous WWII general.
"For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting."- Gen. George C. Patton
Teacher says she’s just tired of tryin….
That’s one of my favorite Ralph Wiggum quotes. For today, rather than go into a boring diatribe on the Shade of Aran, I’d like to talk about my experiences with casual players and how I think they could fit in a raid structure.
Let’s start with my RP guild. I call it that for lack of a better term but they really aren’t into role playing, they are simply casual players who log in when they have time to kill – like every night. Most of the guild have 70 mains and at least one 70 alt – several of them are working toward their third and fourth 70. There are a variety of players among them, teenagers, college students, mothers, fathers from all walks of life, cops, professionals, students, retirees etc.
It’s an interesting mix and a fun one, but after a while I got bored with just leveling my alts. So I started raiding a bit, found I liked it, then found it was very time consuming and very expensive. So I got an idea, casual raiding? I've heard it can work if you're not into progression, if you like gear and seeing new sights but aren't worried about full clears. So I gave it some cogitation.
But taking the casual player and getting them to understand the needs of a raid isn’t so easy. I have a warrior friend who thought playing his warrior was the coolest thing – though he always said he found it really hard to level up.
I was amazed. I have a 51 fury warrior and I buzz through mobs my own level constantly. About the only breaks I ever take are to wrap a band-aid around my owies and drive on. Then I looked over his spec. UGH. He had points in all three talent trees, and nothing heavily invested in any of them. So I pulled a good DPS spec off the web and sent it to him, along with a list of gearing options for DPS warriors. A week later I checked him again and found he was protection – with all the wrong talents chosen. I mean, if a guy could pick every talent incorrectly – he did it. Instinctively I think. He said he wanted to try tanking and had read up on uncritability, but he was still getting mauled in 5-mans – non heroics. Gosh, I wonder why.
HE’s playing a mage now and says it’s so much easier to level, but he can’t do 5-mans, because he runs out of mana in the boss fights ….
I asked what his mp5 was, (mana regen per 5 secs) he hadn’t heard of it. I asked what his bonus spell dmg was at lvl 70 – it was 289, ‘why, isn’t that good?’
/sigh
Now to be fair, he’s tried. But he just doesn’t “get it.” He’s read some things, he’s tried gearing a little, but he has some blues and some just silly choices for gear, stats and spec and he can’t figure out why he’s not doing better. I’ve done what I can to help him, but I’m done trying
But I’ve gone from the idea of casual players in raid settings to harping on one gearing and talent choice. There are many like this guy, they aren’t theorycrafters and don’t get the game – but it’s really not that hard and you don’t have to get into the details of theorycrafting in order to start something like kara. You just need someone who knows raids, and the bosses to be the leader, someone who can help out to be the assist and someone who can follow the basics of loot rules to parcel out the good stuff. The leader simply needs to be someone who understands what each class does, and how to use the talents available.
I used to think leading a raid would be hard. And admittedly it can be difficult, but it doesn’t HAVE to be. It’s like so many other choices in life, it is what you make of it. Be a hard case and you’ll have to deal with resentment issues, be too lax and you’ll have a rowdy unruly bunch who wipe a bit more. Be of even keel and keep your mind in the middle and you might just get by.
I think if my self imposed breaks extend for any real length of time I’ll look forward to pulling together my own KZ raid, just to see if I can get a group of casual players to work out or not. I’ve tried this with the legacy raids, it’s not the same. There’s no incentive for them, no real reward. Maybe KZ is the place to test this out. I’ll let you know.
Burned out by the real world
Man, have I been lazy this week. I’ve been busy with the real world so I haven’t been giving this as much attention lately. I owe you a run down of the bosses following Curator but to tell you the truth, I’m a little burned out this week. :-)
My son and I started early childhood development classes on Wednesday of last week (organized playtime with other dad’s and their kids) and I’m also shifting my weekends around so I’m able to spend more time with him than with WoW and my raid buddies.
Given how irritating and chatty our Friday night raid has gotten lately I’m not all that sorry to be taking a break. If they find themselves in dire need of a Dire Bear I can join them next week, but we’ve had an abundance of people willing to come so I think they’ll be fine.
I talked it over with my raid leader last week and mentioned that as my son grows up I’ll be shifting my schedule to meet his needs. And let’s be honest – a boy needs his dad more than this dad needs World of Warcraft.
But make no mistake, this is a break, a well deserved one I think for all the nonsense I’ve managed with this group over the course of the last two months. I also intend to resume my work here – even if no one reads it I can’t leave a project unfinished.
Feb 4, 2008
Weekend Recap
I got a bit lazy this weekend. I don’t know if it was lack of sleep (dang neighbors) or the sloth of a Sunday induced football game but I didn’t get a lot done. I hardly bothered watching the ‘big game’ either. Maybe it’s the weather that causes this apathy.
I did manage to get my Tier 4 gear for my bear on Friday, but the run was tough. I hate chatty vent servers – it’s annoying. Of course we have a lot of chatty people and after 4 hours it’s beyond annoying. I usually turn the volume down completely.
But we did manage to clear KZ in 4 hours – so that’s something.
I got an in-game note from my hunter’s raid that Sunday’s KZ run was being moved to today, apparently the raid leader is a Pats fan. I thought it was a lame excuse for moving a raid, but eh – I liked the break.
So this weekend, instead of running up to 58 on my pally, which I should have done, I instead got on my lock. He was 51 on Sat and is sitting nicely at 54 this morning. Three toons headed to the outlands at the same time? Huh, I guess I could do it easily enough.
I really need to work on better gear though. My paladin in particular needs better armor and spell dmg. I had forgotten how much fun a lock can be … DoTs ftw. I was busting down tons of mobs a lot higher than I was too. The fights tend to be a bit mana intensive, but for all that it’s not so hard. Life tap works well when you have a tank, but my healer buddy kept trying to heal me, even after I announced I was life tapping /sigh.
As for the rest, I spent a lot of time going through mailboxes and bags, putting stuff up for AH and trying to clear some space. After a couple of months my bags get so disorganized and I have to spend a day cleaning house. I still have a ton of items to DE and sell. Need to get back to work on that.
I’ll put the next Kara boss up soon, but it may not be today. I wrote everything up but I need to spend some tweak time on it yet.
Feb 1, 2008
Kara Part 5
The Curator
When we last parted ways I left you working your way toward the first boss that drops a Tier 4 token, the Curator. Every Kara raider will let you know that the big machine is a gear check, meaning that if your group can bring him down, you stand a reasonable chance at downing the rest of the bosses in Karazhan. The exceptions are Prince Malchezzar and Nightbane. The rest should be doable.
Should be doable … well, you will most likely wipe a few times while you figure out the fights but lets see if I can help when we get that far.
For now what you need to do is what I mentioned last time, either clear the mobs on the far side of the Opera Hall or run back out the front door and cross the river to the side entrance.
Going to the side entrance presents you with an additional opportunity, since Nightbane is summoned on the master’s terrace and if you go in the side door you’re about 50 yds from the place. But it also presents a small challenge. There are ghost mobs sitting on the other side of the door. They aren’t too close, but if you run in and move to either side of the door you can pull one or both. Since your raid is likely setting up at this time it’s usually a wipe – at minimum it’s a few deaths. So the trick here is to open the inner door and run straight ahead to the far wall – all raiders stack on top of each other. You shouldn’t pull anything that way. Alternatively you can assemble between the entrance and the door before opening it.
Once you get set up – crack the door if you chose that option and run to the left, tanks out in front. Take out the ghost mob (only one) and make sure your mage decurses the affected party members. This first mob is purple. Later ones are green. The green ones cannot be taunted so keep that in mind when pulling.
Now you begin a long climb up to the back entrance to the Menagerie. There’s a bunch of ghosts along the way and when you reach the top there’s 2 arcane protectors inside the first room. They should be taken at the same time – MT/OT with attention paid to the debuff one of them tosses out. It affects one party member and while it’s active – that person discharges an arcane blast for 1-2k every couple of seconds – so make the person who has it run away from the raid.
After these are down move up the stairs into the small ante-chamber and gather. Through the only other door is the Menagerie and Curator, and about 7 groups of mobs. These smaller groups have to be taken out first – MT pulls one into the antechamber while curator is on the far side of his patrol. The raid focuses on the giant arcane anomaly first. It will look as if you’re doing no dmg to him but he has a mana shield and your shots deplete his mana – once it’s gone he goes down like a .,. well you get the idea.
Drop his mana worm palls, rinse and repeat for the other mobs. Pull them all into the antechamber. I know raids that do the last 1-2 in Curator’s room but that is a huge risk for a new raid as Curator has a massive aggro range. Use your hunters and mages to pull the mobs, MD, blink etc.
The boss fight can be done two ways. Both ways require the raid to assemble in the boss’ room on the far right wall, line abreast and don’t get off the wall while he’s nearby. Once he moves away you can set up.
The tank will take the boss (boss’ back to raid) at the third diamond shaped pattern on the carpet. In the first method all raiders will spread out in a U shape, with the base of the U on the wall right of the door you came through. Ranged DPS can deal with his add (astral flares) and have to get them down fast. In the second method your melee can help the ranged by following them around.
The first method is less damage intensive as the flares can cast chain lightning for arcane dmg. But if your healers are good you can do it the other way. See the strategy notes on fighting Curator. If your gear is good and your team is well prepped, he can go down in about 4-5 mins.
Outlands Bound … this time on a paladin
Last night I was helping one of my guild leaders level his paladin. He had a series of quests in Maraudon and was having trouble finding a team. Sheesh I wonder why – it’s only a freakin nightmare of an instance. I have only done parts of Mara a few times in the past, I’d forgotten how screwy that place is. An entire clear would take a level appropriate team a long time.
So, Chirax and I hit Mara for some ‘fun.’ I guess it wasn’t all that long – maybe 90 mins or so, but even on my 70 hunter it was a pain. Those stupid knockdown effects from the Thrashers got on my nerves.
While underground one of our feral buddies got on and said he was bored and could he please run us through something.
Never one to turn down such an offer Chirax and I both said we’d be happy with a BRD run.
So I jumped on my tankadin, dumped my bags and headed for Burning Steppes. PL runs are fun once in a while, so long as you don’t beg for them or get constantly asked to run someone. An open invitation is too good to pass up. The funny thing is, I never really enjoyed playing a paladin. I was a horrible healer and I could not figure out the ret combos. Everything seemed to take forever when comparing it to my mage or druid. So I had left this toon parked for a long time. But not so long ago I started taking an interest in him again and recently spent some time leveling him up a bit more.
In this case I was sitting at 55 on my pally and I’ve been trying to hurry up to 58 so I can use him as a teammate with Cam – my shadow priest friend from TSS. That mana regen is awesome for tankadins. I really should have thought ahead when I chose my mage instead of my pally.
The end result of our little excursion was a full level and a half of xp – I’m sitting nicely on the positive side of 57 and have the first set of quests done for BRD. I need to hit Burning Steppes quick to start my Ony attunement chain, but I’m not too worried and besides, I love killing dragons. Our main tank from Kara even showed up on her mage for a bit, though she DC’d after the bar and never came back. Sad, she missed a ton of good cloth gear.
I totally hosed up a quest for the shadow key, I forgot you have to talk to the dead guy twice. Oh well, I can always do it the hard way. The good news is I’m attuned for MC this weekend. Can you say epic pally gear?
The only downside from last night was that I ran out of rested XP. Since my mage has only been parked for a week he hasn’t save up enough of his own yet, so I’m left with a choice.
Chirax and Mageblast (MT’s mage) are both at 47-49. Mageblast has 251 spell damage, un-freakin-real. She farmed up two epic rings in Winterspring on her own and you can’t believe the DPS that girl puts out. But since they are sitting under 50 I suppose I could grab my own shadow priest and bust him up from 44 to meet them. That would give Chirax a nice mana pool to tank with while us clothies pound the mobs. Alternatively I could pull out my warlock. I love playing him in groups but I pull so dang much aggro I was getting frustrated playing him.
Decisions, decisions.
Wouldn’t that be a trip, three characters sitting in Honor Hold awaiting my free time? I’d be beside myself. I think I’d have to give up sleeping for a while.
Tonight is Kara, so no PLing for me. Our tank is coming back (if she doesn’t DC) and we’ll get yet another chance to see the same T4 tokens drop. Maybe my boots will drop tonight.
Jan 31, 2008
KZ Minimums (by talent tree)
I had a difficult time getting this information when I first I went looking for it. What I needed was a general set of guidelines as to what constituted "entry level" requirements for the end-game level 70 raids. Well, I still haven't found one for the 25-mans but I mentioned previously that TTH had a nice little table for Karazhan.
Kara Part 4
When last we left our series on the opening moves of Karazhan we had cleared the Maiden and the trash along the way to the Opera Event. Now that my posts aren’t taking the entire freaking page (unless you clicky the little Read More button) I think we can pick up where we left off and describe one of the more interesting fights in this instance.
As we parted ways the other day I left you standing on the ramp leading up from the orchestra pit aka Opera pit, below the stage. You may not have realized that was where you were, because there isn’t an orchestra there, but that’s where you were moving through.
Once on the ramp you’ll want your ranged casters and healers standing about a third of the way up on the stairs, and your melee closer to the top. The tanks can move out into the open area head. This is the backstage part of the Opera Hall and there’s a few mobs to clear. The first is a 2-pull pat(rol) that can be easily face pulled (letting them get close enough to you that you aggro simply by letting them see you). Many groups will inadvertently face pull these and if not done properly, you can pull one of the stationary mobs nearby as well. These guys hit hard and have debuffs that will mess you up. So please, let your tanks be the only ones out in the open and the rest of you stay on the ramp.
Each tank takes a target and once engaged the raid should focus fire on the kill order. At some point each of the bad guys will pop a column of white light, it’s very important to move the mobs out of the light or Very Bad Things result. So for you folks in the ranged department, be aware that the tanks will be deliberately moving the mobs around a few feet when the light shows up, and you’ll need to adjust accordingly.
The mobs in this area aren’t too hard to defeat. Once you clear your way to the immediate backstage area you’ll see an NPC named Barnes, the Stage Manager ahead. Don’t go to him yet. There’s a wooden stairs off to your left, send a tank up and pull the mobs back down (sometimes they like to pat back down and can nail your raid while your prepping for the boss fight. There’s a couple on either side at the top of the stairs. NOTE: it’s not a necessity, just a safety precaution.
Once cleared take a short break to call for full raid buffs. Include food buffs, lock cookies but you shouldn’t need flasks for this next part.
The Opera Event is a unique fight in which one of three “plays” is selected for you randomly. Your choices are Hood, Oz and Romulo & Julianne. Each is handled very differently. A lot of raids will send in one person stripped of gear who will begin the event by speaking to Barnes and then run through the side door out onto the stage in front of the curtain. The rest of the raid waits, either in the pit below or simply in the room you cleared before you got to Barnes.
I’ve been in several raids that just position themselves out on the stage and take whatever comes without doing this. New raids should use the first method as it increases your opportunity to explain what will happen next and minimizes confusion and deaths.
Hood is basically Little Red Riding Hood and the boss is the Big Bad Wolf, linked above. He turns a random raid member into Little Read Riding Hood and chases her around the room til he kills her. He also has a fear and stun capability and cannot be aggro’d off Red during this phase, but DPS and tanks can and NEED to keep building threat on him or when Red goes down or fades he’ll turn on whoever is highest on the threat table. It’s best to tank him left rear stage away from the raid when possible. The Red Riding Hood debuff turns you into a little girl with zero armor. To stay alive you need to run the perimeter of the stage in a SQUARE, not an oval or a circle. BBW chases a spot just in front of the runner and if you don’t run in straight lines he can catch you.
Oz is the Wizard of Oz – there’s Dorethy, Tito, Roar, Tinhead and Strawman – see the wowwiki notes on strategy – easy fight – bring a lock and a mage for it. Kill order Dorethy, Tito, Roar/Strawman, Tinhead. Keep the straw guy feared and fire DoT’d and he’ll go down fast.
R&J – strangely enough I rarely see this fight. I know Blizz has said the events are random, but I don’t think I believe that. I think they are more likely to happen on certain days of the week, but then that’s just my subjective opinion. The unique thing on R&J is that you kill one, then the other then you fight both and they have to die within 10 secs of each other or they rez again. She’s a caster and he’s a DPS warrior. Good Luck!
Once you clear whatever Opera Event you get you now have an interesting option. You can either head through the door leading to the area ahead, which is the noble’s balcony. In there you can clear the mobs for some phat gold. I’ve been told each raider can get as much as 20g in there. You have to clear the area all the way up to the door that leads to the back of Kara, out on the Master’s Terrace.
If you don’t feel like risking it you can head back down and out the front door go to your left diagonally, crossing the foundation of the ruined house, across the river, up the bank and to the stairs leading up to the side entrance. It’s a long climb and you end up on a narrow bridge in front of the side door. I think you have to clear Opera to use it but I’m not sure. Here endeth Kara Part 4. Your next fight is another gear check and your first chance at a Tier 4 token.
Woot! Figured it out!
Many furry thanks to the Big Bear Butted one John P. for the tip on making my blog more readable. I've debated going back and changing older posts so everythign lines up nice and neat, call it the OCD part of me. But I've decided to let the previous ones stand since the comments would be lost. However going forward I'll be using a new method that links to the main pages of each post and should make this mess a little easier to read.
Kara - part 3
The Maiden of Virtue
Okay, you’ve handed Attumen his head, crashed the party in the banquet hall and silenced about half the people doing the Hokey Pokey in the dance hall (no lie, they really do the HP).
You’re back on the stairs and ready to drive on. Depending on whether or not you pulled the AOE non-elite pack on the right side of the top of the stairs, you need to clear it – so if you didn’t yet do so now – same drill as last time. Pull to stairs, AOE em down, focus heal the cloth cannons. One of your tanks will hug the right wall heading down to the far right corner of the dance hall to whack the mob standing there. Once engaged the raid should follow. There’s another non-elite AOE pack in the center-right of the dance hall – they die too. Watch for the elite mobs sitting along the walls – sometimes they come along with the larger pulls – just mark them for death first and hold the mob.
Clear the singles on either side of the door on the opposite side of the room, watch for any patrols that might pop through and send in your stealth to verify the area is clear.
Head into the next area – its an open space with many of the same mobs as the dance hall – AOE packs, both elite and non-elite. As well as single elite mobs. Use basic tanking procedures here – Line of Sight on the bigger mobs as they are needed. Leave the elite AOE pack over there alone – you can move without aggroing them, but take down all pats and the big non-elite pack in the middle of the room – tank hint: tank runs up to them and kites them away from the elite pack, then back to the raid while hugging the wall farthest from the elites and lets them stack on him, use a corner to hide in so they bunch up before DPS sets in.
Ahead on the far side of the room is another doorway with pillars, on the right wall is a single small doorway – head for the small one. Stealthies can peek to see where the pats are in there, if clear the raid can go in.
The raid moves in and to the left – there’s a long narrow hallway here and the raid should stack in there for the next pulls. There’s a few guards close by in the main hall, and some wandering hookers patrolling the halls. The respawn time is 1 hour in the hall – do not go into the side rooms. Those spawn on a 20 min timer. We’ll come back to that in a moment. Clear the halls 1 set of mobs at a time. There’s a 5 pull off to the right – leave them until both the pat and left side guards are down – but if the pat is a ways off you can pull the guards on the left, just do so that they run along the left wall.
On the pat – our raid calls it the whore (whoor) pack, I forget if there's one or two - think it's only one set. It’s a demon and an undead. Banish the demon if you can, or shackle the undead. Take only one at a time. One of them will try to charm the melee, the other will use a banshee howl – burn em down.
Note: everything here until you get the 5-pull gets pulled into the hall and burned there. The guards summon dogs so melee, watch your casters. Now, the 5-pull. You need MT and OT for this, shackle banish, etc. Clear those and there’s 2 guards at the end of the hall – shackle or OT one and burn them down.
Stop
Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200.
Ahead of you is the Maiden of Virtue, your next boss encounter. I asked you not to go into the side rooms, which probably sounds reasonable unless you need to for one of the quests for Kara. Well, it’s still reasonable even if you need to ‘cause you can simply wait 5 hours for the packs to despawn once the boss is dead. That's right Snoopy, once a boss dies, all mobs associated with that boss despawn in 5 hours - since the raid resets only once a week - you can come back another day and freely wander the areas you've cleared. How? Form a group with another player and convert it to a raid, then walk in – by this time the dance hall and stables and the whoor’s quarters are all empty IF you killed the bosses.) Besides – no need to make the raid wait for you. There’s killin ta be dun.
Maiden isn’t hard, but she sure seems so at first. The link to Wowwiki describes the fight and the abilities she has. But the most important thing to know is that positioning is key. One SUPER important thing to know is her aggro radius is quite large. So hug that outside wall!
So here’s how it all goes. She’s in a circular room (she’s a mini-Titan btw) and there’s pillars surrounding her – she’s in the center on a slightly raised platform. Your raid leader will mark out or walk you to your spot. You’ll be hugging the outside wall AT ALL TIMES – hunters put your pets on passive and MAKE SURE THEY STAY WITH YOU. I’ve seen pets pull Maiden = insta wipe.
The raid leader will generally split the raid up so the healers are evenly spaced with DPS. Melee and tanks will stay put at the entrance and well outside aggro range.
Maiden does a few unique abilities, holy fire, repentance (stuns the raid for 12 secs – dmg breaks this). The key element here is to get your melee into a max-range triangle or square around her as soon as the tank picks her up – no OT needed here – go full out DPS.
As soon as the fight starts you can do one of two things, everyone can stand in the center of the space between the pillars AND on the edge of the dias (raised part), or can stand in front of the pillar they are on. However you all need to pick the same stance or she’ll holy chain fire you down because you'll be too close together to avoid it. She drops holy ground (holy dmg in the 300s every 3 secs – its not too bad) and she Holy Fires random people – that has a DoT that needs to be dispelled – make sure your clothies are removing it quickly. Keep melee alive and kicking and the rest of the fight is gravy.
Just make sure when you go back to the hallway you hug the side away from the whoor’s rooms. Make your way back out into the larger open room and to the door (now on your right) with the pillars, don’t get too close now – there’s baddies there.
There’re two skeletal guards here, both the MT and OT need to take on the same target – CC the other. ALL DPS holds for a moment because the guard will Ice Tomb the person highest on the threat table (Get OMEN, Seriously) and will go for the second person on the threat table. Now that had better damn well be a tank or your health monkey is gonna be eating floor. Once the Ice Tomb hits and your tank is safely encased – DPS opens the floodgates and down he goes.
Same deal for the CC’d mob and the next 3 guys – including the one pat – wait for him and burn him the same, then there’s 2 up ahead – you can skip if you want, but we always burn em to be safe. Now you’ll see that you’re in the theater area (stage not screen). Go up to your right – hug the wall and head backstage and down into the pit, across and then up the ramp – stop before you get to the top. I’ll leave it here cause the next part leads into opera – however you wouldn’t stop a raid here normally. But this is getting long.
Jan 30, 2008
Still figuring out blogs
I have to apologize for the length of my posts. I'm not smart enough yet to figure out how to do what BBB and the other bloggers do regarding linking these to pages all on their own. I'll keep at it and when I do manage to wrap my paws around the method I'll go back and clean everything up nice n neat.
Thoughts and musings on Kara – part 2
Moroes the Steward
Moroes is a pain for beginning raiders because the fight is a real test of your ability to manage multiple targets under a tight deadline. Once you get the knack of it though, he’s not so tough. As a bit of lore, he was the personal servant to Medivh while the master mage ran the tower. Medivh was the son of one of the guardians who fought Saragas in ancient times and was born possessed by the villain – long story. Toward the later stages of his life Medivh cum Saragas killed off Moroes and the castle cook, named … Cook. They are buried outside near where you rez. NOTE: you have to kill Moroes or you cannot proceed to the Opera Event – he’s a required boss. Attumen isn’t, nor is the next boss the Maiden of Virtue.
First of all your raid should gather on the stairs near the door leading out of Kara. We usually group near the base of the second flight of stairs. Up ahead of you – which you can’t see – is a large dance hall with a mess of non-elite AOE packs and a few single elites as well as some smaller elite AOE packs. Off to the left is the banquet hall, to the right is a door leading to the prostitute’s quarters.
Get a rogue or cat to stealth up and start marking targets. The single elites will be patrolling around – mark them up first. Toss a mark on each of the nearest AOE packs as well – one mark for each pack.
Once everything is marked – specifically watch those patrolling elites, you can pull one of the nearest AOE non-elite packs to you. Pull them down the stairs and let your casters go to town. Focus heals on the cloth cannons so you don’t lose too many – we usually end up with at least one dead.
Now that you’ve cleared the annoying non-elites, start pulling the single pats as they come by – take your time – the respawn on this area is a lot longer than on the stable trash. Kill each, pull the next, rinse and repeat. Now you should have a clear field within about 30 yds of the top of the stairs. It’s not necessary to clear the room – just anything that might wander into your raid or that is near enough to aggro on them.
You have the option here of doing the next pulls 2 ways. What needs to happen is this. There’s a banquet hall off to the left of the top of the stairs and in it are several tables, each with a non-elite AOE pack. There’s also some wandering single mob, elite Stewards (waiters). Your choice is to have the raid remain on the stairs and have your tank pull them to you OR have the raid hug the left wall, bunch up in the corner at the immediate top left of the stairs and have your tank pull the mobs there.
I’ve done both and each has its plusses. I like the stairs best ‘cause it lets me see more, but you also get a scatter effect as well. At any rate – the mobs at the table and the patrolling elites all need to be cleared (one group at a time!) Once you clear the near portion of the banquet hall you can move the raid inside -- MAKE DAMN SURE NO ONE PULLS THE AOE ELITE PACK standing nearby in the dance hall. It’s all too easy to do and can cause a wipe.
As you enter the banquet area, there’s two elite mobs standing on the right wall – their counterparts are on the far left wall – leave them alone for now. Also – there’s a raised stage at the back wall (the boss is there with his buddies) and there’s a table on either side of the raised area – more non-elite AOE packs. And finally there’s a couple more elite single mobs patrolling the area between the long table and the two smaller ones. There is also something called a Brittle Bones debuff the patrolling mobs give out when attacked – make sure if your tank has it that he isn’t the one pulling the next mob – let the OT handle.
To clear the room you want to mark up the patrolling elites and the non-elite AOE packs at the small tables. Pull each individually and burn em down. Next pick on one set of the paired up elite mobs standing on the wall on either side of the room. Each tank takes 1 each – focus fire on one til it’s down then shit to the OT’s target. Healers watch VERY CLOSELY to the drunken debuff the tanks can get – it’ll screw them up bad if you don’t dispel it fast. I’ve seen a lot of raids wipe on these.
Now we come to the boss fight.
Moroes is a rogue – not that he isn’t likable but he has Vanish, Gouge, Blind and Garrote capabilities and wields two daggers. His friends are worse.
From Wowwiki: The Moroes encounter tests your raid's ability to control several targets while also maintaining high DPS. Success requires a solid control strategy for his four dinner guests. If allowed to go free, they will quickly put an end to the squishies. Control must be established immediately on the pull and maintained throughout the fight.
Once control is established, the encounter becomes a race between the raid's damage output and the building damage caused by Garrote. Each time a Garrote is applied, the strain on the healers increases. Moroes must die before the healing needed becomes too much to handle. (interpretation – healers need big mana pools)
In fact – so this doesn’t get too long just go read the strategy page at WoWwiki that I linked at the top. About the only thing I’ve done on this fight that is different is changing up tank roles. New raids will want to have both tanks on the boss at all times – since either can be stunned or blinded and will lose aggro for a second or two – dispel the affects when you can and it should go smooth. We usually have the MT pull the boss and both MT and OT gank him while keeping him on the right wall of the room. You’ll want one of your melee nearby because both tanks can be stunned/blinded – doesn’t happen a lot but it does happen. Keep a melee near so Moroes doesn’t go for a healer.
The casters need to go down fast – esp the Spriest if she’s there – her mana burn can wipe your raid. A good rule here is to shackle/trap/sheep all but one of the adds, leave a priority cloth target out and have your melee and ranged DPS burn the add down. Recast your shackles and other CC every 10 secs (or chain trap/kite) or so to keep them locked up. Then take the next that doesn’t need a tank. Keep anything CC’d that might require a tank to kill. You should be able to burn 2 mobs, leave the others CC’d and turn ALL DPS on Moroes, healers are gonna get a work out if you dilly dally around due to the garrote ability – they basically have to heal through it. Shammy healers can mitigate this threat nicely with chain heal, but any good healer can make it happen. Pallys can BoP someone out of it – Divine Shield themselves if needed.
Once the boss is down get the raid out of the room and back on the stairs ASAP (without pulling the dance hall mobs) and let the tanks break CC and kite the adds to the door – no need to kill them, they will reset if pulled to the door. Once they do go get your loot. And get your fannies back on the stairs outside.
The alternate way I’ve done this fight was to have a single tank on Moroes and let the other tank the un-CC’d adds one at a time. This is an okay way of doing it – the non-boss tank needs a few shots on the boss to register on the threat meter – but it’s more risky if your tanks are less than ideally geared. I do like the method though because you can use a tank to bash the cloth around and that helps protect the raid. Just remember – the longer the boss is up, the more dmg your healers have to deal with due to Garrote.
Thoughts and musings on Kara – part 1b
Ok – as important as some of that long-assed post on starting out is, lets move to the first real boss in KZ. Attumen the Huntsman. I’m skipping the animal bosses but you don’t have to. The only reason I skip these is that I’ve never done them. The raids I’ve joined skip these and I’ve been told the animal bosses give little in the way of rep or rewards. However I do know they are meant as a gearing, coordination tool for beginner raiders.
As you get in and gather in the courtyard, get your buffs up – mage table up. lock cookies have been handed out, stam food, raid buffs stack and your MT and OT get into position while the raid leader starts marking targets and announces the kill orders and CC icons. The horses aren’t that hard, but you should focus fire on them (all DPS on targets in a pre-determined kill order) until they are down. Let your priest shackle one as CC to help with that. You can also have your hunter toss out a trap to hold one for a few secs. If anything breaks off CC it again or one of the tanks will need to pick it up. Horses will often charge the ranged casters/DPS so it’s important that two things happen on the first few horse pulls.
First is your tanks need to bring the pulls into the main room, away from the hall (cause there’s a pat that comes by). The other thing is that you can mitigate the charges by grouping closer together – don’t let your hunter stand off by the door and lob shots in – or he’ll pull the horse across the room, wasting valuable tank rage and threat.
The trash leading up to the boss will respawn faster than most of the trash in KZ, you have a very short amount of time, I think 20 mins. So no afk breaks until after the first boss.
Yeah, 20 mins sounds like a long time but it isn’t. I’ve seen new raids miss this and have to go back and re-clear EVERYTHING – if you start the boss fight without doing so, anything alive in the hall will come up behind you and give you a big ole sloppy kiss. Once you start the boss fight the trash will not spawn while you’re engaged. Wipe and it’s a different story.
When you get the pull order down (basically take groups one at a time and use your CC when you can, try not to pull pats with other groups and when you get to the bigger room, pull the nearside first (right side)). Then pull the two left side mobs, then the 5-pull mob standing just outside Midnight’s stall. Once you clear this trash you see Midnight standing in the stable. She’s yellow until attacked.
As the first and easiest boss in Karazhan, Attumen is considered a gear check for those who wish to move further in. He’s optional; it is not necessary to kill him in order to progress to the later bosses.
As a bear OT my job is to tank Midnight. (I know Paly tanks that can tank both simultaneously as well, you just need to make sure the raid watches threat) You really want a warrior to tank Attumen if you can – simply for the disarm ability. At 95% dmg on the horse,. Attumen comes out to kick your raid’s butt for messing with his pony. Your MT picks him up, a hunter can toss a misdirect up on the MT as well. This is Phase 2. When the horse OR Att get to 25% health Att jumps up on his horse and Phase 3 starts. All DPS needs to stop here and the MT takes over both targets – which are now just the one.
Let your tank get Attumen’s attention and to also turn him so his back is to the raid. Now we hit a KEY POINT. The entire raid has to scooch up and sit at minimum range on the horse’s rear end. Why? Because Attumen gets the Beserker Charge ability in Phase 3 and if you have people spread out he’ll leave the tank and charge across the room. Keeping your raid bunched tight on his horse’s rear mitigates his charge, and won’t leave the tank to twiddle his thumbs.
Attumen actually goes down pretty easily and drops a few nice items. Once Attumen is down, clear the mobs near Koren the Blacksmith. He is required for quests, and your raiders who have at least Honored reputation with the Violet Eye can use him to repair and purchase Blacksmithing recipes. You don’t need to fully clear the trash at the end of the room Koren is in – just don’t let anyone wander over there.
Grtz! You’ve downed your first KZ boss and the trash around him. Now quit lollygaggin and git yer butts back into the entry hall and UP ON THOSE STAIRS!
Thoughts and musings on Kara – part 1a
I posted the other day that if anyone wanted to hear my thoughts on instances or bosses from a bear’s point of view (or a hunter’s) that I’d happily share them. Well readers, Mosshoof graciously accepted my poor offer and asked if I would do so since his raid is just getting underway in Kara. Feel free to correct me or add to the general discussion at will.
Now, not that Moss or his raid need this, but by way of introduction to raiding in general I’ll begin with a short intro to raids, pugs, specs, gear and then move later into the first couple of bosses in KZ.
First of all I’d like to touch on Pick up Groups aka pugs. When I hit 70 on my hunter and spent some time getting attuned to KZ I thought I was the cat's ass. “Oh yeah,” I thought. “All I have to do now is find a team.”
Not so, super trooper. There were a lot of aspects [pun intended] I hadn’t considered and the most important ones were ability and gear. KZ is not hard … IF you know what you’re doing and IF you have the goods to wear.
For any class there’s a threshold you need to reach to really be considered a beginner in KZ. You can find this in a nifty format over at TenTonHammer – Karazhan Minimum Requirements. I don't agree with everything on that list, but it's a nice general guide.
You can use this in conjunction with www.wow-loot.com to gear up your character. There are also lots of gear/gem/enchant guides for particular classes as well. In researching my bear gear I found several pre-raid gear guides. Not all were helpful but it put me on the right track.
As a hunter I chose BeastMastery, which wasn’t a great spec until 2.3 hit – you see a lot more BM hunters now. I picked up the Beastlord armor set (dungeon set 3a). and worked on getting rid of my greens. (with some exceptions greens really shouldn’t be worn in KZ – work on getting a good blue item or matching set for every item you own)
As a bear I loved being on the front lines taking a beating or sneaking up blasting mobs with my pounce ability. So that lead me to the Heavy Clefthoof crafted set and a mess of little items that boosted my stamina and threat generation.
Since I was slotted as the Off Tank - OT - I also made sure I had at least a decent set of cat gear, since not every pull was going to require me to tank.
Communications
Some other things to consider as a new raider: get Ventrilo or Teamspeak – both are vast improvements over the in-game version of voice chat. You’ll also find most raids will require Vent or TS. However, due to your hardware or cost, you may not have the option. If you don’t then very tight control of voice chat is required. If using in-game, I’d mute the non-key slots (not the tank or MH) until you get into a groove.
The ability to listen in is more important that getting a mic, but if you’re playing an integral part talking is essential. As a beginning hunter I just listened at first, but I got a mic soon after and it’s only helped my performance.
Lastly, make sure you have a viable raid spec. There lots of specs to chose from, but ask around among your friends, check out a few web sites and search the forums a bit. You should find enough to point you in the right direction. If you get it wrong, don’t be afraid to listen to someone’s comments on it.
When I first started raiding on my hunter I wasn't the cat's ass, I was a complete dumbass – thing is, I didn’t know how much I didn’t know (if you follow my meaning). I actually thought I was well situated and geared. My raid leader approached me quietly and said, “Hey, not to tell you what to do, but have you considered changing your spec?” It was a really nice way for him to let me know that I could be doing better on the DPS charts and he even shared a couple of examples.
My advice to you is, “Don’t scorn advice,” even if it’s sometimes put to you poorly.
So, why the big lead in? Why all the stuff about what to start as, gear, spec, et. al. ad nauseum?
Because the very first thing I’m gonna do when you list yourself in LFG for Kara (or PST me) is to use Armory to see if you know what you're doing. I'll be checking what you are wearing and what your stats are and I may ask questions. I’m not sure if all raids do this but in my experience if they don’t know you they probably will look you up.
I’ve also learned that when listing myself in LFG (even for 5-mans) to use the comment bar – that saves time and gets you noticed faster. Example: Feral tank, half Kara gear, 16k HP, 24k AC, 35% dodge unbuffed. These are your bona fides - your proof that you have been to see the elephant and returned to tell the tale.
Add-ons
If you don’t run with add-ons, you should probably get at least a couple. As a raid assist I run BigWigs and Deadly Boss in case my raid leader DC’s in a fight. Both can be found over at Curse These have built in timers for boss fights and give a shout out to the raid as to what’s coming next. You might want to simply download WowAce2 and use that to auto update all your addons.
Omen is a great one for anyone really. It’s a threat meter and it pops a small window on your screen that shows who has threat and at what rate they gain or lose it on a given target. That’s practically a must when raiding. It lets your raid know when they need to bump up or back off aggro.
Class play
You ought to know your class well. As a BM hunter this meant learning which pet to tame, chain trapping as a means of CC (admittedly a weaker one), shot rotations and mana conservation for long fights. As a bear it meant learning how to generate the most threat I could so my raid wasn’t pulling aggro on me, and my targets weren’t skipping off to grind our healers into tiny bear snacks.
Finally
One last word for you. If you are going to use this guide and look for a PuG spot, make sure you approach prospective raids with your hat in hand. Even well geared and experienced raiders will often PuG a group for various reasons, but the best ones realize they aren’t in charge. Well, you aren’t either. Don’t be telling the raid leader how to do certain pulls and under NO circumstances tell them Agro told you it was okay – cause it AIN’T! Raid leaders have a lot going on – don’t add to their stress or you will likely get /kicked. At the very least you won’t get invited back.
Good rules to follow:
Shut yer pie hole – No one needs to hear you joking, if you PuG you don’t know these people, so just watch and learn and do your job. Even if you aren't, inane chatter is annoying.
Don’t be a loot hog – if the raid says it’s open rolls – then take your shot if you NEED something, but don’t roll on something that will benefit you 1% when it would benefit someone else 30%. Learn to share.
No Whining – as BBB himself put it, there's no crying in Kara. You don't like it? Don't run with them again. (the corollary to this is that a good raid won't abuse you either - watch your ass, do your job, alter your play to suit the raid's needs and you should be fine.)
Come prepared – bring mana/health pots/ flasks/food/pet food/ bandages/bullets etc don’t beg for stuff. And be prepared to shell out gold for repairs too.
A raid is a team - be a team player, put the TEAM before yourself - especially if it's YOUR team.
Jan 29, 2008
Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in!
Get this friends n readers. Our main tank is apparently coming back.
When our guild leader told me this last night I was floored … stunned … flabbergasted.
But yea, apparently she heard through the grapevine that we booted the raid leader who caused the drama and that since we’ve been doing really well. I haven’t talked with her yet so I guess I am only going on third party scuttlebutt here, but … interesting at any rate.
I think that while last night’s performance showed the entire raid that even a good tank can be replaced and we won’t suffer horribly, I won’t be sad to see her return. It means our progression can return to normal and with the tank who’s been subbing in I think we might be able to pull off a second Kara team sooner than we’d anticipated. So instead of looking down the road at Gruul’s in a month or two, we might be looking at it a bit sooner – if we can coordinate things appropriately.
But I have to say, I still have that little thought in the back of my mind and at the moment – it’s growing, not fading. She went to a guild I recommended her to, I gave her my endorsement and then she apparently traded accounts with a friend. Very quietly I had a chat with the guild leader over there. He had put her in charge of one of their Kara runs and when the “switch” happened I talked it over with him to let him know the person I recommended wasn’t the person he got. Now she’s coming back and ditching them?
I have mixed feelings on this. I’m concerned our drama factor will increase, I’m thrilled she’s coming back, I’m wondering what she’ll tell her other raid. Will my guild leader buddy hold this against me? Ugh, so many questions.
In a number of ways it might be best if she stuck it out there. I think she’d be happier. We closed the books on drama finally and the prospect of it returning doesn't excite me. Yes, I’m very happy we have our tank back, but after last night we know we can live without her too.
No offense to her, I really do like her and any good tank is worth their weight in gold, but I have to ask myself, is there a potential for the emo to return?
Time will tell. But the upside is - I get my friend back - so I guess I win one way in the end.
Veni, vidi, vici
(a famous Latin sentence spoken by Julius Caesar in 47 BC)
The quote is an old favorite and is well suited as a description for the events of last night’s Kara Clean Up Run. We rocked! I main tanked all the hard stuff, Prince, Nether, Night etc. It was my first time and I didn't let anyone down! I'm psyched.
I even ended up pulling in some decent cat gear for a change. About all I need now are my boots and my T4 hat and I can easily pug Gruuls or Mags. Honestly, I had my doubts about last night. I even voiced them in officer chat early just to let people know I didn’t want to put the raid at risk.
But my worries were groundless. As main tank I felt I gave an excellent performance. Not flawless, but still exceptional for one who’s never been MT on a raid. And yea, I’m done tooting my own horn now. I have some things to work on as well. One of the issues I have is getting the pulls confused between my raids. My hunter’s raid leader does things a bit differently and I’ve run more with them, so every once in a while I’ll do something other than what my group expects - last night I caused a wipe doing so – ouch. (Sorry all).
But learning is learning and the wipe was on trash, not a boss. So thanks for putting up with my learning curve guys n gals.
[Edit: Actually I was reminded that I caused 2 wipes and one was on Nightbane. I ended up moving and calling the raid to me during the rain of bones (something my hunter's raid does to mitigate damage to the clothies) it was messy and I apologized, but we picked it up next run through]
I know a lot of people who keep blogs tend to describe certain fights or different tactics. I tend not to do this simply because I’m not anything special in this game. My perspective is that if I can’t add to the common knowledge, why write about it?
So many of you have done Kara and are far beyond it now that my blogging about my tactics doesn’t seem particularly helpful (since there is a lot of material about the experiences from more seasoned players than myself). However, should anyone wish it, I have in my head the basic outline of a series of blogs on how to take on certain instances or bosses – from the perspective of both a tank, and ranged DPS hunter.
Respond in the comments section if there’s anyone who’d find value in this – otherwise I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.
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