Attumen down with ease

Yesterday was the first time the non core raid (or the B-team) visited Karazhan. The raid was decided and announced on Monday. We had immense problems with getting people to join, mostly I think because the A-team goes Kara on Friday and they have started to have sign-up spots for the dps. Tanks and healers are pre selected as usual...

Finally we went in. But with only four guild members. Among the other six there where one from LFG and five from a friendly guild.

The problem was that we only had two real healers. I was one tank and my druid friend was the other so tank spots was good ;D
We did have one paladin, the LFG member, but he was retribution. Well we took him for the blessings.

In we went after over one hours delay. Some due to getting the last members there, the other was the fact that two Horde guild had decided to camp on the stirs and to kill everyone from alliance that wanted to enter. I don’t mind PvP - but 20+ arena geared Horde ganking everyone in sight is booooring.

Well. Back to Karazhan. We cleared the stables good. No problem what so ever. Came to Attumen. I was to tank him since he is disarmable. Easy as pie. Picked him up with a Thunderclap and kept him firmly on me. A very easy fight. Unfortunately no plate drops but the Spectral Band of Innervation and the Steelhawk Crossbow dropped.

Then we went up to Moroes. Clearing the trash up to him was a breeze. I died from OT'ing the stewards since I must have spilled the wine =D. They do a debuff called Drunken Head Crack that makes target unable to parry/dodge/block and all hits to do ~4k in damage.

On to Moroes. We wiped, wiped and wiped. The real problem was when he gouged me (I MT'ed him) and then a healer was second on aggro list => Oneshot. I have read that the OT shall try to go second on aggro list. But - who tanks the adds that needs to be killed?

Next time I think we need the OT to pick up a add, all dps goes to Moroes, move him to Moroes position. Build aggro on Moroes and add for a cpl of seconds and then dps goes all out again. They do have 80k hp so to let dps kill the by them selves aren’t that good I think.

Any suggestions?

Kara here I come, part 2

Ok, now it is decided. We are going Kara on Wednesday with a second raid group. Got decided yesterday, Monday, and we got 5 sign-ups already.

The decision here is that we should be a sign-up raid only. The only demands is to fill the roles we need: 2 tanks, 5 dps, 3 healers.

Have been gearing up a bit. Got Helmet of the Stalwart defender, Fireguard and Bracers of the Green Fortress.

It should suffice. Next post on Thursday - will we abandon before entering or will we clear up to prince?

I want to do my own progress

I am in a casual guild. Casual in that sense that we don’t have any leadership at all to talk about...

What the guild does is to run Karazhan each Friday with a follow up on Sunday usually. But that is only for the invited few, the core group, the progress group.

The idea is that when they are geared up they should spilt to form two Karazhan teams with half of them new Kara raiders. This sucks...

First of all it sucks since the core group isn't chosen on merit only, but the choosing process is biased due to friendship. This makes it impossible to get a spot if not one of them.

Secondly they don't do that much progress either. Up till now they have only cleared Opera. And this is the 6th week. This pace and I'll wait till after Wrath of the Lich King before I am going.

Thirdly - and mainly - I DON'T WANNA BE WALKED THROUGH KARAZHAN by anyone else. If I will complete it because someone else will babysit me through - what is the merit of that achievement? None!

A rebellion is brewing. Another Kara raid is forming in the shadows...

Stay tuned.

Hitting the spot with the A-team

I read this new blog with this very very insightful post: "The A-team"

It's about why having an A-team is a bad idea for the guild and everyone outside that team. I have had that exact same feeling in previous guilds and in my current one also.

Very insightful Tarok, I am taking my Felsteel helmet of for you.

Going Karahzan anyway?

I got a query from my druid friend. He is also a bit tired of the ruling of the guild - especially the raids. He has joined Kara on several occasions but now all of a sudden he is cut out of the loop without any explanation.

Well, we are trying to form a group of IRL friends that might make an attempt. I am probably the least experienced in that group. Several of the guys (mostly his work buddies) have been full time raiders pre-BC and are still doing some heavy stuff.

I really hope we can get it together for next week. I'd love see that ghost castle finally...

Fireguard walk with me

After a long long time I have finally made 350 in Blacksmithing. Logged out on the gryphon on route to Shattrah to buy the recipe for the Fireguard. Finally - my first epic.

I do need another 10 primal shadows and 10 primal mana. So it will be a farm weekend. But then - Fireguard walk with me!!!

The only downside with it is that it looks weak. I am dual wielding two Latro's shifting sword at the moment which look über cool. Fireguard is a small puny sword in comparison. Looks like a golden dagger next to a Latro.

Threat Overload

If you have read my previous blog entries you have seen that I have specced Fury to farm a sh-t load of motes.

Farming is boring. I say it again: Boooooring. It was fun at the start when I realized that I killed mobs quicker then my cool down for charge. That’s a mob / 10s. Real nice. At first. It's all just a click routine. I could even horse-gather mobs. That is mount up, ride around to aggro 4-5 mobs and then kill them all. This was good for Primal Life farming since the mobs are 61-63 and hardly give me damage nor rage.

Well, on to the overload bit.

When I was out there in the ruins hacking up ghosts into small small chunks of ectoplasm a friend wondered if I could help his alt priest to do Auchenai Crypts. We gathered a guild run of a 70 warrior tank, 70 hunter, 68 shadow priest and 67 holy priest. The priests wanted the xp, hunter wanted the experience (an alt) , tank wanted Felsteel gloves and I wanted to try to dps in an instance.
You can see where this is going, huh?

Well all was dandy. Massive spawns was no problem. I could dps to my hearts content flinging around Whirlwinds and going on a rampage all the time.

Then we came to Shirrak the Dead Watcher. Oh my oh my...

Tank went in. Got of 3 sunders. I charged and popped my talents. Charge/Rampage/Death Wish/Blood Thirst/Heroic strike/Blood thirst.

That was about when i got aggro. I stopped all attacks - but the tank had already burned his taunt so I stood there chewing on Carnivorous bites one after another. And I died.
Took about 10 sec for me to over aggro and kill myself. Nice lesson though.

One problem was also that the holy priest only had one instant heal, and since Shirrak dampens magic by prolonging casting time, that was a bad combo.

Well on next time I only drew aggro after the tank got killed which killed me ofc, but on the third attempt we got him good.

It is nice to do good dps - I now know how to read the threat table. But I prefer tanking any day.

Well, back to making ghosts even more intangible...