"Curator down, what now?!"

[rgirty]

From what I understand we move on to the chess event.

What boss do we face after that? We may extend our session tonight as it is the last before the reset.

Tips/tricks on the chess event?

Thanks all with the help so far.

[moopy]

Easiest event in Kara. Have a pet class (hunter is ideal) control the king, as they're used to futzing with pet bars. The tooltips for the abilities show what they do. Remember that there are more chessmen than raid members, so some will need to move prawns and then jump out and move other things.

I think that if you lose, it just resets without harm. However, I am not sure, as I have never actually seen a raid lose at chess. It's essentially a fun diversion, and free loot. When you've done the event, you can control both sides, and generally cause havoc in a little game of your own.

[DraedynLei]

The chess event is designed as a reward. You don't get penalized for losing it. You can just do it again. The important pieces are the king, the two clerics and the conjurer. Basically we have the king and the conjurer attack the enemy king while the two clerics heal the king. If the enemy king is lined up, the clerics can also holy lance him. It's pretty straight forward and shouldn't take you too long to master.

[rgirty]

Shade after chess event?

[DraedynLei]

That's what we do, but you could do illhoof before shade. Or even prince if you feel like it. Actually we do shade then chess then prince, but it doesn't really matter. Shade is the more fun fight imo.

[Astross]

doing shade after curator is a good idea...because the annoying trash after curator is connected to shade. once you down shade, the post-curator trash will not respawn anymore.

[rgirty]

In order of difficulty:

Illhoof looks very tough, as does the shade.

I have heard the prince is easier than either.

This being the last night before reset which boss would you guys recommend going after?

[Spennce]

I would do chess then shade, simple for the easy ports for the next raids, plus the clearing sucks.

IMO Shade is the first "hard" encounter you'll see. He is easy to kill once every knows exactly what to do and when. It deffinitly takes everyones A game to beat him.

This being the last night before reset which boss would you guys recommend going after?

if you are looking for your best shot at loot before the reset I would do chess then prince.

[rgirty]

Prince looks easier than the shade, simply due to the shades 900k HP.

Prince seems like a tank and move fight, stay away from infernal AOE while keeping dps/casters/healers at range to avoid dying due to the shadow blast when enfeebled.

We only have 1 or maybe 2 melee dps at best.

I do think we'll have to attempt the shade, I don't believe we'd get the prince on the first or second try and we won't have time for a long clearing session twice.

[earindur]

rgirty,

Shade of aran is a must. once you kill him you can teleport to his room.
Illhoof is a cake walk once you know what to do (i await your illhoof post)
only go for chess before killing aran IF you are about to reset, best to get the free epix from chess but only if you are against a brick wall.

Aran got nerfed hugely.
chess got buffed but is still easy.
I wouldnt attempt ilhoof or prince without downing aran. he teaches good listening and awareness.

[Twoflower]

rgirty,

Shade of aran is a must. once you kill him you can teleport to his room.

only go for chess before killing aran IF you are about to reset, best to get the free epix from chess but only if you are against a brick wall.

I wouldnt attempt ilhoof or prince without downing aran. he teaches good listening and awareness.

EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID !

go for aran. He controls almost all the respawn that is left in the instance after the curator. It is at least a 1 hour fight trough all that trash. the faster you down aran, the better. I also understand the chess event as a reward for downing aran.

However, for equipping the raid and whit only limited time, i would never ever skip the chess event. But do some tries on aran first, and when people want to stop, clear the rest of the way to the chess event ( 15 minutes ) and get the free loot.

ps.: gz on the curator :)

[DraedynLei]

Honestly, shade is not that difficult for our raid. It takes some getting use to like how fast the blizzard rotates, running out before arcane explosion, interrupting his spells, CCing the elementals etc... It's a skill fight, which is what I prefer. Prince however depends a lot on luck of the infernals dropping. Otherwise he's a straight up fight. Those infernals really can mess you up though. You'll understand once you've been boxed in and one lands right on you. Or one lands on your tank. Oh, fun times.

Also for prince, melee dps is a liability not a plus.

[rgirty]

We had a lock with only 500+dmg on the curator as our normal lock wasn't on (he has over 1k unbuffed) hopefully we'll get our regular lock back as he's our #2 dps and we can work on the shade.

That is what we'll do, chess then shade. I doubt we get him, but we are going to try.. we have 1 good rogue as our only melee dps and he should be in the raid tonight (he missed curator).

Thanks for the grats.

[earindur]

if you only have 1 interupt you will have issues.

at 50% stop dps and let him polly you before you take on the elementals.

[ellcrys]

if you only have 1 interupt you will have issues.

at 50% stop dps and let him polly you before you take on the elementals.

One interupt FTL!

Being all over the interrupts makes the Aran fight MUCH easier. It is not hard to get ahead of his mana by 30% if you focus on interupting all the Fire and Frost spells (leave the arcane missles alone). If you get that far ahead you can:

Stop dpsing Aran and go to town on the elementals if you don't have the CC for them
CC the elementals and really go to town and never worry about getting polyed and pyroblasted.


We make interrupts a priority over dps. As a rogue I have to make sure I always have enough energy to kick when the frostbolt comes up, so spamming BS or SS will not work. Anyway, everyone has their own way of dealing with Aran, but using this method we have only been sheeped one time. He was below 10% at that time and somehow I resisted it and just kept hammering away at him.

Interupts FTW!

[kodeeak]

most everything has already been said, but as stated.. shade is a good check for your raid's ability to listen and follow directions, something needed for the prince fight.

We put a symbol over our shadow priest's head and everyone runs to him when the blizzard comes out so nobody gets caught in a flame wreath with blizzard coming around. We assign interrupts to specific players.. ie: warrior #1 interrupts all frostbolts, warrior #2 fireballs, rogue spams it whenever he can.. etc.. mages chime in with silence when they can.

There is a bug where if you're standing close to the doors at the entrance when you get sheeped.. sometimes you can be out of range of the pyroblast depending on where aran is standing. I know it's not convenient to get there, but we tend to have our healers stay in that area when they can so that on the chance they do get sheeped, the pyro will sometimes fail.

strafe out of the middle when everyone gets pulled in, it tends to be faster than walking out with the slow debuff on you.

[rgirty]

counterspell?

[ttocsop]

When we last downed Shade on Thursday (2nd attempt, 3rd kill for us thus far), our group comp was thus:

- Prot Warrior (me)
- Arms/Fury Warrior
- Rogue
- Feral Druid (in tanking gear for the extra health)
- 3 Healers (2 paladins, 1 resto shaman)
- Warlock
- Mage

Communication with the interrupts (and the rest of the group) is key. Interrupt ONLY the frostbolts/fireballs. If he casts arcane missles, leave it - he already spent the mana. Also, interrupt towards the end of his cast, not in the beginning. When the first guy kicks, he tells the #2 guy to kick/pummel by then he should be on the arcane missles (or something else) and you wont need the 3rd guy.

When he casts flame wreath, DO NOT MOVE. Use the casting time to get close if need be, but if youre melee and out of range, just stand there and throw/shoot.

Casters can stand behind the tables to prevent getting pulled in for the arcane explosion.

At 40%, have the warlock banish an elemental, put CoT on the others, and fearlock them. We also had our druid tank one, since they were messing us up pretty good.

If your DPS is lacking, stop interrupts at about 50%, let him run out of mana, poly you, and keep going. Those adds will take you out of poly and hurt when combined with his AoE pyroblast.

I (the prot warrior) went in DPS gear and did Dual Wield devastate. This keeps sunders up for the melee DPS, and I was dishing out some decent DPS of my own. At <20% I popped recklessness and spammed execute for a lot of damage.

(FWIW, I normally go arms/2Her with a Thunder for PvP/DPS - but I was told that DW Devastate was better for full prot warriors DPSing, and it's true - Using a Grom'tor's charge OH and a Millenium blade (my tanking weapon) MH, I was pumping out about 360DPS doing the DW devastate route, where I wasnt even hitting 250DPS doing 2H + Slam/WW spam. Plus, you're helping increase the melee DPS damage with the reduced armor).

.:Ttocs

[rgirty]

No priests I see :/

I have to think PoM pwns this fight.

[Valshenna]

As others have said, you really should get Aran down before spending too much time on any of the other upper levels bosses. The trash going up takes about an hour or so when you're just getting started on it, plus you'll have another 30 minutes or so from Aran's door up to Prince. Given the 2-hour respawn timer of the trash, that's not a whole lot of time to work on any of the bosses--all of which will probably take some time to learn.

Definitely hit up the chess event though--free epics! But other than that, after Curator I would definitely focus your efforts on getting the Shade down. Once you do you'll have very little trash to clear, you can teleport up to his room rather than running all the way up the tower, and you'll have easy access to all three of the remaining top-story bosses.

Good luck!

[kodeeak]

counterspell?
yeah, cs, had my spells mixed up.. :P

[rgirty]

Two mages + 2 warriors and a rogue should limit his dmg output yes?

[kodeeak]

No priests I see :/

I have to think PoM pwns this fight.
from a healer point of view.. keep up with the rest of the caster group as they circle. Healers tend to be a little less mobile than others.. don't let that happen because you've gotta keep moving with everyone else.

When he casts flame wreath, nobody move.. nobody rotate.. you can cast any spell that doesn't auto-rotate you (like when drain life auto-rotates a lock). People dying on flame wreath is such a downer because it's so easy to avoid.

If you don't have enoug interrupt, your casters will be taking a lot of damage.. keep them up. Dispell the slow debuff on your raid if you can.

[kodeeak]

Two mages + 2 warriors and a rogue should limit his dmg output yes?
limit.. yeah, but the mages have a cool down on cs so it's not as effective.

and if this is your first time trying, most of them will be too worried about keeping up with the coordinated movement than watching raid warnings :)


Stay away from the middle when he aoe pulls everyone in.. the arcane explosion one shots anyone.

Keep still during flame wreath.

Keep your party behind the rotating blizzard so that nobody gets caught in a flame wreath AND blizzard at the same time.

CC the elementals and outlast them OR kill them while dealing with aran.

Have a healthstone or healing pot ready for sheep/pyro


It's a fun fight, enjoy it!

[Regrets]

Stay away from the middle when he aoe pulls everyone in.. the arcane explosion one shots anyone.



Well the arcane explosion wont one shot anyone but usually the clothies(except locks) will die, But still yeah U gotta avoid it no matter what. I will recommend u keep trying on Aran until u down him, dont head to chess straightaway. Probably wait till 30mins before u gonna call off the raid then go chess for free epics, else stay put & whack Aran . It's a very gd [built-up-your-raid-coordination] fight that will assist u in harder boss like Netherspite & Nightbane later on, or rather Prince too becuz u need to coordinate your raid movements . However if u're lucky enough, Prince is easy pie when their infernals drop @ location that wont interrupt ur raid.

[bloodyjudas]

Lot of good tactics there for Aran, so i won't try and add to that.

But def do Aran first, then chess, then Prince. I would really recommend holding off on Illhoof till these three are down - especially since you said the guys still need a lot more gear.

Illhoof can be a right pain in the backside. If your dps still needs a bit more gear and if you're clothies are light on stamina, its likely they won't survive being chained.

Once you've got Aran and Prince down i would repeat Attumen through to Prince for a few weeks, get all your raid guys buffed up a bit before moving on.

[Leonavice]

One stupidly lucky incident happened in our Shade fight. He was at 20% but the elementals were running rampant with about 10 seconds left for the despawning. Healers were running low on mana, everyone was low on health as well.

Then the miracle happened. Shade poly everyone and sat down to drink. But somehow, somewhere a single rogue was left unpoly. Maybe he resisted, maybe he COS, but he was the one who saved the day. When Shade was casting pyro, the rogue kicked him. All of us then broke from sheep, everyone back to full health without healers using mana. At the same moment, the elementals all despawned. It was like being given a 2nd life. We focused dps on him and got him down.

It was a miracle I tell you.

[earindur]

when a rogue kicks he should have pyro'd anyway, very lucky!

[rgirty]

We did chess first, which was probably an error. But it was the last night before reset and I was unsure of how much success we would have against the shade. I also thought that any gear we might get would assist us in the fight.

I hate to admit this, but we have a couple raid members who do things like...aggro mobs, fall off bridges etc etc. They are good at what they do once the battle starts, they just have those types of issues.

So when we were going in for the first attempt, those two people didn't come through the door and got locked out. Needless to say, it wasn't an attempt.

On the first REAL attempt we all gathered inside the door, then went to work.

I'm going to admit something else, I was the reason we didn't down him. I was killed when he was at 75%. My max HP was way too low for this fight.

With the two remaining healers having less than +1000 heal unbuffed there was only so much they could do.

I was proud of my guildmates as they avoided every single AE by running as soon as they had a chance and not a single person moved when the flame wreath was on.

With me being dead they got him down to 35%. If I had been alive for the duration I have no doubt we would have downed him. We didn't give it another attempt as it was late, and we would have had to clear once again.

It looked to me that our raid was executing their movements correctly and the fight was going smoothly. All the dmg simply outran healer mana and the raid went down at 35%.

When the raid was over, I went to the bank.

Using outfitter, gems, my hallowed set/rep items/enchants I put together an alternate set of gear for the shade battle.

Self Buffed with my survival kit I am at 8kHP/9kmana/+1400heal/+100mp5.

I went into last nights shade battle with 6.5khp/9kmana/+1800heal/240mp5.

I took some splash dmg then he targeted me for about 5k and i went down hard, I underestimated his burst dmg and overestimated my ability to shield/desperate prayer/flash heal myself. I was out of the fight, I truly felt like I let the raid down.

I'll pick up at least 69mp5 with raid buffs that is my only concern, however with pots and fiend I should be fine on the mana front.

We start again tonight, with attumen and moroes, possibly maiden if the time allows.

I look forward to facing the shade once again.....he has a journal that I need.

[DraedynLei]

One time he sheeped us, evocated, sheep broke before he finished evocating. So we also managed to interrupt him. It was the strangest thing.

Oh and to rgirty, don't sweat it. We've all been there before. But it sounds like your raid had an awesome week. You had progression and got people some major upgrades. Now just come back and do it again today :)

[rgirty]

I've read that it is a buggy encounter.

[lofta]

Not really bugged - in fact he was nerfed.

Everyone needs at least 8K buffed. Healers must keep everyone topped up cause he will continue trying to nuke someone who has low HP. Healthstones help a lot here.

Also helps if you have target's/focus' target on your HUD so you can see who he's going to arcane missile.

+7 resistance enchant (from NPC outside Kara) on shoulders with high stamina are nice to have in this fight.

Blizzard - put a moon above a healer. Call out where it starts. Healer guy calls all ranged people to him, stay behind the blizzard for about 1/3 its rotation around the room.

People can bandage on arcane explosion at the outer wall.

Keep interrupts up.

[swaldman]

Self Buffed with my survival kit I am at 8kHP/9kmana/+1400heal/+100mp5.

I went into last nights shade battle with 6.5khp/9kmana/+1800heal/240mp5.

I took some splash dmg then he targeted me for about 5k and i went down hard, I underestimated his burst dmg and overestimated my ability to shield/desperate prayer/flash heal myself. I was out of the fight, I truly felt like I let the raid down.

*shrug* We all have to learn :-) And you've obviously made the choice to stack +heal and +mp5 instead (I don't know many priests with that much in kara), and you've probably saved your raid a few wipes thanks to that.

For what it's worth, I would say that 8k is still cutting it a little fine for Aran; it gives you a buffer against 5k Arcane Missiles hits (which is probably what hit you), but IIRC his pyro after the sheep hits for around 7.5k. (at least, that's my memory, having not been there for at least a month. Somebody will probably correct me)

[rgirty]

*shrug* We all have to learn :-) And you've obviously made the choice to stack +heal and +mp5 instead (I don't know many priests with that much in kara), and you've probably saved your raid a few wipes thanks to that.

For what it's worth, I would say that 8k is still cutting it a little fine for Aran; it gives you a buffer against 5k Arcane Missiles hits (which is probably what hit you), but IIRC his pyro after the sheep hits for around 7.5k. (at least, that's my memory, having not been there for at least a month. Somebody will probably correct me)

I'll have about 9k when buffs are done. I can gimp my +heal more and get up to 10 if I need to do that.

I stacked +heal and mp5 because the other two healers in the raid both have less than 1k+heal. They are getting gear now, but it will be a while before they catch up with me.

[Clavina]

We go curator > shade > chess > prince > illhoof. Proud to say that we have downed all but 2 bosses in week 2 of raiding together as a guild.

We had the most trouble with Prince, but not through anything we were really doing wrong. The luck of the infernals and his thrash attack really pwned us a lot.

Aran is just about following instructions and moving, if you can do these 2 things you will hammer him.

[rgirty]

I expect that we will do the same in our second week, we came within 35% of downing the shade in our first week of raiding. I don't believe we'll have that much trouble with him on the second attempt.

I'm now working on which dps to have on which boss, as a lot of our raiders don't need drops from certain bosses. That way we can get 16-17 people geared with one raid group.

Either that, or try and start a second group including a bunch of pugs.

[earindur]

or try and start a second group including a bunch of pugs.

i really cant stress how painful that would be m8.

[Aerath]

At least your group didn't have people moving in the Flame Wreath... twice... despite yelling on Vent, a Big Blue Warning in the middle of the screen and a Raid Warning...

-_-

[Valshenna]

Interrupting the pyroblast . . . interesting! The next time I do that fight and we get sheeped (doesn't always happen these days) maybe I'll quickly shift out of it, go bearform, and feral charge to try to stop the spell :idea:

[swaldman]

Interrupting the pyroblast . . . interesting! The next time I do that fight and we get sheeped (doesn't always happen these days) maybe I'll quickly shift out of it, go bearform, and feral charge to try to stop the spell :idea:

I'm pretty sure he casts PoM before Pyro - so isn't it an instant cast?

[rgirty]

i really cant stress how painful that would be m8.

I pugged 6 people the first time i went into kara, we downed attumen in 19 minutes.

Moroes, no such luck but I think with some experience we could have had him.

We did the animal boss instead.

[CorinthianSC]

Attumen is barely a boss compared to the rest of the zone. I can easily see Attumen pugged. Moroes, not so much.

Regarding Aran: It's not an easy fight. Probably the hardest in the zone, and will continue to be even after you have it down. It's is just so dependant on execution that your group just has to go full out every time. I burn more elixirs/potions on Aran than any other fight in Kara. It's just that necessary.

Make sure everyone is using consumables. Flasks if you're cheap, elixirs if you're rich. Have food buffs all around. Make sure people have plenty of health/mana potions and aren't afraid to use them.

If you need to motivate people to kick ass on Shade, use Chess as your carrot. ;)

[DraedynLei]

Regarding Aran: It's not an easy fight. Probably the hardest in the zone, and will continue to be even after you have it down. It's is just so dependant on execution that your group just has to go full out every time. I burn more elixirs/potions on Aran than any other fight in Kara. It's just that necessary.

I don't think it's the hardest fight by a long shot. The first time we got there, we one-shotted him even though by the end only 3 of us were up. It's definitely a skill fight though. After you see his abilities a few times, and your interrupters get good at rotating interrupts, he's pretty much a push over. Though of course it also depends on your group comp. like all things.

[rgirty]

We seemed to be doing well on it, we just outran healer mana. I died very early on which i believe was the reason we lost.

I'll stay alive next time and we'll win.

[Shellar]

As a healer, I've found that turning the camera directly vertical (so that you look on Aran's room from the bird's eye view) can really help during this encounter.

[Pongle]

Shade.

Not because he's hard, or teaches anything useful, but because once he's dead the F--KING TRASH stops respawning.

Edit: Unless you have a pally, Moroes seems to be harder than new Aran, that could just be my feelings as a healer though.

[rgirty]

This week we had about the same progress, less trouble with the opera as we got the romeo and juliet (i know they have an off name but can't recall it) We downed them on the second try, three attemps at the maiden. One shot on moroes and two shots at the curator.

We did the chess event last night after curator and are going to give the shade an attempt tonight.

[Telmar]

I don't think it's the hardest fight by a long shot. The first time we got there, we one-shotted him even though by the end only 3 of us were up. It's definitely a skill fight though. After you see his abilities a few times, and your interrupters get good at rotating interrupts, he's pretty much a push over. Though of course it also depends on your group comp. like all things.

We actually found that if you completely ignore interupts, and just nuke him down he dies pretty damn fast.

Im slightly jealous of the fact you found it so easy tho... The first time WE got there, there were no strats out yet, so we died over and over while trying to figure out wtf he did. :P