Rockstar and Karazhan Part 2
Friday night marked Rockstar’s return to Karazhan. Once again we were having some troubles filling the raid at the assigned time; hopefully that problem is alleviated as time goes by. Rockstar doesn’t like being kept waiting. On this night Predictys would be swapping in and out as needed with Radiantys…tonight’s card starts with Maiden of Virtue and then the Curator.
As we lined up the start the trash pulls, someone was walking around and got aggro from the patrol in the Maiden’s hallway. Very careless. If you’re new (or even veteran), why would you go farther than the tank? If you’re stealthed and marking or assigned to check something, then you can go past the tank. If you’re not stealthed, there is no reason to go past the tank. I immediately jumped in and took aggro from both members of the patrol, and hoped the healers would notice and jump into action. Luckily for me, they did, and we survived with no deaths. We waited for the rest of the group to arrive.
We quickly cleared through the hallway leading to the Maiden, and had a quick briefing on what would ensue. With a holy Paladin in the group, Blessing of Sacrifice was now on the table. Radiantys did a great job of keep that on me during the fight, and the heals were good through Repentance. At the very end of the fight, Radiantys was killed, but Seraphyne kept up the heals for the last bit of time.
On this night, Maiden of Virtue got one-shotted in 2 minutes, 22 seconds. She dropped the Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden (needed by Rockstar) and the Bracers of Maliciousness (needed by Calithis).
Because Opera Event was already cleared, we moved through the empty chambers to begin clearing to the Curator. The pulls involving the Arcane Anomaly and Syphoners were educational for a lot of people. We had spotty deaths, this person on this pull, or that person on that pull…I focused on tanking the Arcane Anomaly while the others burned down the other mobs. And then it was time for the big event…Curator.
I was a little surprised to see that Trivia called for the DPS to be more spread out. There were a couple of rogues and a cat Druid in the group…with that much melee DPS I figured they would use a cluster strategy. But no matter…I can watch and learn. I pulled the Curator and spun him right at the requested spot (the tip of the third diamond in the floor). Seraphyne was on my left wing providing my with heals.
Tanking the Curator is really a simple task. I’m left alone with him, spamming my best threat-generating moves and trying to do as much “damage” as possible. I have no idea what DPS tanks or high-end tanks are supposed to be capable of, but it seems like I’m very consistently in the 200-230 DPS range…with not a lot of room to improve on that. I was able to call out the Evocation state, but ideally I’d like to be able to call out how many Astral Flares have spawned, so that people have a better idea where we’re at in the phase.
We one-shotted the Curator in 5 minutes, 5 seconds. I died right at the 5 minute mark, literally just before the Curator was killed. The Curator dropped the Gloves of the Fallen Hero (won by Lofkalar) and the Wrynn Dynasty Greaves (needed by Rockstar).
We had a short break and continued. The clearing was moving flawlessly. When we got to the bookcase leading to Terestian Illhoof and killed the demon trash, the group decided to take a shot on Illhoof. I was dubious, because we had no Warlock in the group. I was even more dubious about this attempt when the strategy was unfolded…the two mages in the group were going to be trading off AoE duties on the imps. I’ve heard this strategy works, but I’m skeptical. The key is DPS to the Demon Chains in this fight, and losing two mages doesn’t help that out. Mage AoE against infinite spawns of imps seems counter-productive due to the extensive mana drain that ensues.
We had another one of those moments where someone carelessly aggros the mobs because they’re not paying attention and just walks too close to them. As a tank, I have to sigh and immediately jump into the mobs…I burned my Challenging Shout picking up those imps standing right at Illhoof’s doorway because of someone’s mistake. Then we jumped into the Illhoof fight, and had a wipe after several minutes. This let people have a chance to use their macros to target the Demon Chains and see how things work. Just like our withdrawal from the Maiden on our previous night, we withdrew from Illhoof after one “experimental” attempt. Onwards to the Shade.
Time was winding down, but we wanted to have one experimental attempt on the Shade of Aran as well. The fight required a long explanation…survivability is of course stressed in the fight, as well as the DPS race, but of course that isn’t clear until you actually jump into the fight and see how it works.
We did okay…the attempt lasted over 2 minutes…Radiantys learned that when the Shade uses Arcane Explosion, you MUST immediately get to the edge of the room. No time for an extra heal. I think Lofkalar learned a similar lesson with moving out of the Blizzard effect. For me as a tank, it’s a bit depressing because the Shade seems to have a random aggro table. I ended up being unable to tank and able to do a meek 215 DPS.
The group did pretty well for the second night in Karazhan…two more one-shotted bosses (including our first look at Curator). We had a couple of looks at the Illhoof and Shade fights. Overall, I’m happy with the group’s ability to destroy trash, improvise in emergency scenarios, and analyze boss fights. Big things to work on are refraining from careless aggro (on both trash AND bosses) and focusing on the clearing speed of the raid.
On this night I would have to spend 300g on stamina gems and enchants for my new gloves and leggings, but I am extremely pleased to do it.
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