Guild Mates and Kara

[Gilbster]

My guild are just starting to mention Kara to me, and dont seem happy when I am saying we need not just 10 level 70s but a group which has 2-3 healers and 2-3 tanks. I know my numbers may be a bit out, but my guild make up of 70s so far is 4 Hunters, 1 Lock and 1 Resto Shaman. I cant see how we are going to be ready for Kara for ages and yet a few in guild chat dont seem to understand this.

First up is Kara doable in just quest rewards as someone was suggesting to me? I have a feeling none in the guild has done any raid before.

I dont want to know speficic classes and specs, but just how many healers and tanks do you need in a Kara group?

And finally how many keyed people in the guild do you think I'd need to be able to get a Kara group together regularly?

We are a more casual guild but with more members in Outlands now I am going to need to start coming up with some answers. I have around 100 members although a fair amount of them are alts (and a couple of twinks).

[rgirty]

The best success with my guild has come with 2 tank types and 3 healers.

You will need at least one prot spec tank someone who can off tank and two main healers, the third person CAN be a hybrid or off spec that has some sort of healing spell.

However, especially since you are just getting started I recommend this 10 person setup.

Tank
Tank
Priest (you will need the shackles)
Paladin
Resto shaman
Lock
Mage
Rogue
Hunter
Shaman

The last 5 can be substituted you should require at least the following
tank
tank
priest
healer
healer

The priest can be a shadowpriest but you will need the shackle, also this person can throw on some emergency heals if needed.

You can't take 6 hunters 2 rogues 1 tank and one healer into kara and have success.

If you do attumen first you will need 2 people who can tank

If you do moroes first you will need a shackle, and some way to control 1 more add as well as control two others until you can down them.

[Twoflower]

you can surely start getting kara experienc in quest blues/5man blues.

You will want 3 healers ( REAL healers, not some enhancement shamans whit a bit of int gear on ). You want one def tank and one offtank ( feral druid or fury warrior whit def gear ).

you will need 15-20 keyed people, but this realy realy depends on the people in your guild and how often they are online. ( 10 people whit a key would be enugh if they are online every day, but whit people who are only online once a week you will need 30 :) )

edit : do NOT take 2 fully def specced warriors. one real tank and one occcasional tank are enugh !

[Toolio]

You're going to want to get about 15 people keyed for Kara. You will NEED two tanks, at least 2 healers and the rest comprised of everyone else. Some guilds opt to swap out players for different boss fights, which is where the extra 5 keyed players come in. Also, it's nice to have stand-ins.

Based on your current composition, sounds like you're far off from Karazhan. 4 hunters is overkill and won't work. 1 Hunter is plenty for Kara, though 2 can be used.

Our Kara composition is:

2 Prot Warriors
1 Holy Priest
1 Shadow Priest
1 Holy Pali
1 Rogue
1 Mage
1 Warlock
1 Hunter
1 Shammy

Sometimes we'll ditch the 2nd tank and bring in another warlock, or swap out our Holy priest with a resto druid. It's all situational.

[Twoflower]

You will NEED two tanks

NO. you dont ! bringing a second def tank is a waste of one DPS slot. Get a good equiped fury warrior. Or even better, a feral druid whit a tank and a cat item set.

[deamian]

We usually have 12 to 13 people in raid and switch out here and there depending on what is needed. When we first started Khara if I didn't get in I was annoyed, not because I didn't get in, I want everyone to get in :P but only 10..the problem was when I didn't get in, (prot spec warrior) I didn't know what to do. Im not big on alts, but i've found things to keep me busy now :)

Also as you run things like chess event (free loot) more and more people will already have that and there is no excuse not to switch for someone that might need 1 of the drops.

[Gilbster]

As I suspected I can sit back and relax for the moment knowing we arent anywhere near ready for Kara. My highest priest in the guild is at 42 and the main other priests are in the mid 30s. Most of the other classes we have levelling at a reasonable pace. Although we seem to also lack druids, and our warriors are a bit behind some of our other classes.

Looks as though I can continue levelling my hunter alt and not worry about attunement yet on either of my toons.

[rgirty]

Early on two real tanks really help. You pretty much have to have a tank on midnight and a tank on attumen. This taxes the healers, when just entering kara they are the ones likely to have the worst gear because as soon as the third healer gets keyed the guild will jump into kara. Having two prot warriors will make attumen and moroes easier for healers, and the first two fights are basically healer driven. Once you get past moroes a few times and get gear you can have one of the tanks change spec.

You really only need one tank spec for maiden, curator, shade but it does help to have two tanks.

My guild recently cleared all the way to the shade, and would have downed him if time permitted and we used two prot warriors. Granted, one of them was in dps gear but was prot spec. It made things easier on healers, to spread healing out to dps clothies who are much more fragile than the tank.

Regrowth+renew on each tank would keep them up fairly well, surely well enough to heal the rest of the dps.

If you have 1 prot and 1 fury warrior on attumen with a guild JUST entering kara in blues/greens the fury warrior who is tanking midnight WILL soak up a ton of healer mana and cause problems.

I tried this with my guild at first. We tried attumen with two healers (myself and a druid with +800 heal) I ran out of mana due to the dps warrior. I changed to two prot warriors (due to the fact we didn't have a third healer) and the fight was smooth.

If you have three good healers, in good gear then I agree 1 real tank and 1 dps spec off tank is fine.

If you don't have great healers I'd recommend two tank types.

If you have supreme dps then you might get away with it as well.

We had a lock/mage/mage/rogue pumping out some very good dps, each caster had over 1k+dmg when buffed.

EDIT:

Gilbster, I would gear up your priest if I were you. You can push your guild a long way with your holy priest. I entered kara with +1600 heal and 150mp5 unbuffed. I still don't have any loot, I was able to pass the healer loot off to the other healers and due to my +heal and mp5 I was able to bridge the gaps and extend some fights that would have been wipes for groups that didn't have a powerful healer.

My advice would be to attune your holy priest, go to some pug kara's and start getting some experience. The ring you get at honored rep with violet eye is pretty good and only gets better as you rep up.

You'll get a feel for the place, you will get good at shackling and get the addons you need to optimize raid healing.

You might even get some loot to help your guild push through the content. You'll learn the battles and abilities of the bosses.

I wouldn't advise working on a hunter alt, I would advise getting your holy priest attuned and get in there. If you can't get in kara I would advise doing some heroics or pvp for stamina pieces. You will need a stam kit for some fights like the shade and possibly even the curator.

I thought I was good to go with 7khp heading into the shade battle, I was obliterated and learned that i need about 9-10k unbuffed. PvP/heroic gear can help here and with this fight.

There is a lot of balancing that you must do as a healer, with your gear getting into kara and learning will help you a lot. You will be better able to help your guild for sure.

[Gilbster]

Rgirty, I think you may have marginally misunderstood me. The guilld (my guild, I'm guild leader) has a lv 42 priest and that is the highest we have. I have the level 70 resto shaman, that I more or less stopped playing when I hit 70 due to realising that soloing was no longer fun, getting sick of PUGs and most of teh guild being a lot further behind than where I am now.

Unfortuatenly I am having far more fun on my hunter alt, and since a coupe of our 70 hunters are new recruits (not by me), I dont know how long they will be willing to wait before I feel we are ready to raid as a guild.

Guilld armory link incase anyone is interested - http://armory.wow-europe.com/guild-info.xml?n=Shadow+Legion&r=Bronze+Dragonflight&p=1&sf=level&sd=a

[rgirty]

I am having far more fun on my hunter

This is why nearly every guild is trying to recruit tanks/healers and is overloaded with hunters/rogues.

People want to dps, not very often do I run into someone like myself who likes to heal.

[Twoflower]

rgity, it is not the fault of the off tank when you go oom whit only 2 healers ^^ doing kara whit only 2 healers is possible, but difficult. Even more difficult when you just started kara. i would realy recomend 3.

( when you are too good geared for kara, sure you can do it. we did kurator whit only 2 healers, but 7 dps classes ^^ he went under 20 % in the first evocation phase ^^ but that is not the case when you just start kara. )

Gilbster : looking at the armory link of your guild, erm, well, what can i say. it looks realy casual. it looks like you did not think about what classes you should invite. it looks as if you dont have a single healer or tank at lvl 70 ( not counting your shaman ). It looks like you will have to wait for a realy realy long time before you will be raiding ANYthing... whit the people i see in the armory, you will not even be able to do a heroic dungeon. Wait, not even a normal lvl 70 instance like shadow labyrinth.

sorry, but there is little hope ^^

[Gilbster]

When I have the energy to sit and wait for a pug with my shammie, I do enjoy healing, but I dont like sitting around for hours struggling to get a group - server seems to have a severe tank shortage - while feeling like I can scarcely do anything solo, compared with before when I was enhancement.

If I am going to wait around for people in a group, I may as well use a hunter and be able to solo and get some more instant fun from the game.

Once I have my hunter at 70 too, if I can hold off the thought of levelling another toon I may try and get into the end game properly, perhaps on both toons.


twoflower - I took over the guild the old leader when he left and personally Im happy enough with it being casual most of the time. We did have a lv 70 druid tank at one point but he left to join a raiding guild. We have also had trouble in the past holding onto higher level players. Its just a few discussions have come up about kara in the past few days, so I'm having to start thinking about it properly, so I can at the very least give some answers to people.

I agree that having had a proper look at my guild makeup we are severly lacking in tanks and healers. Ive had more guild runs on my hunter than my shaman (probably because I outlevelled everyone too fast on it).

[swaldman]

NO. you dont ! bringing a second def tank is a waste of one DPS slot. Get a good equiped fury warrior. Or even better, a feral druid whit a tank and a cat item set.

Can't say I've tried this, but I suspect that a tankadin who switches out to be the third healer (or swaps with a shadow priest for healing, so there are always 3) might be nifty.

[DraedynLei]

We normally run with a feral druid and a prot warrior but we've run it with two prot warriors before. We've also run it with just two healers. It really depends on your group. Before we had about 17 people ready for kara so we could only run one group. That group was heavily stacked in pretty much everything. Heavy dps, healing, and tanking. There's ideal and then there's doable. Like ideally you'd want shackles for moroes but it's definitely doable without. So if you're guild is small and doesn't have a large pool of people to draw from, you'll most likely be going with doable.

[xDarkDrifterx]

This is why nearly every guild is trying to recruit tanks/healers and is overloaded with hunters/rogues.

People want to dps, not very often do I run into someone like myself who likes to heal.

My guilds problem as well we have waay to many DPSers and may end up merging with anothe guld of casters / healers to begin Kara (I jsut need BM . .well Durnhold then BM to finish attunement) . . . though I have recently found joy in priests :shocked:

What's that?

Oh yes!!! They are so very fun and Pvping with them is fast paced and exciting . . . you get QQ'd alot (well I do) because . . blah blah priest I healed more than you and I'm a rogue . . . "Dude, I'm level 19 do you really think I'm going to speck into healing yet?" lol

I'm so into it atm that I just realized the diff class priests get diff spells, and rerolled a draeni for the extra bit of mana I can dish out to the party.

But being shadow spec'd and doing damage plus healing / bubbling all around you is wayyy fun and again, very fast paced IMO when done right in BG's (dunno if I'm doing it right yet, though we won all the matches I was the only healer in :grin:!!)

Melting faces while saving asses may be my calling! :grin:

although instancing may be a diff story . . . lol

[Altaris]

The guild I'm an officer of is going through this same issue OP. We have lots of paladins, so tanks and off healers are aplenty. However, we have few (literally 3 out 400 members) priests above level 50. We have a lot of alts and a lot new members. But we've been losing high level players to raiding guilds because we can't yet do Kara.

We recently allied with another guild in Kara and our 70's are going now. I think we only a couple of weeks from being able to field our own full guild kara team. So it is very exciting for us right now. :)

[Twoflower]

people that "outgrow" theyr casual guild and leave it for a raiding guild are a very very common problem. The only way to counter it is to have VERY DETAILED AND CLEAR ideas of what direction your guild will go to and only invite/keep people in it that fit into the idea of the guild. No people in a casual guild who play 24/7, no people in a raiding guild who prefer pvp, no people in a serious raiding guild who only play once a week.

Everything else will tear the guild apart sooner or later.

[ascendedavatar]

My guild are just starting to mention Kara to me, and dont seem happy when I am saying we need not just 10 level 70s but a group which has 2-3 healers and 2-3 tanks. I know my numbers may be a bit out, but my guild make up of 70s so far is 4 Hunters, 1 Lock and 1 Resto Shaman. I cant see how we are going to be ready for Kara for ages and yet a few in guild chat dont seem to understand this.

First up is Kara doable in just quest rewards as someone was suggesting to me? I have a feeling none in the guild has done any raid before.

I dont want to know speficic classes and specs, but just how many healers and tanks do you need in a Kara group?

And finally how many keyed people in the guild do you think I'd need to be able to get a Kara group together regularly?

We are a more casual guild but with more members in Outlands now I am going to need to start coming up with some answers. I have around 100 members although a fair amount of them are alts (and a couple of twinks).

Hunters are great, but 4 of them will still get slaughtered without a tank and off tank, and at least 2-3 good healers...and you need some AOE DPS as well (mages/warlocks). The game really IS set up for a balance -
you need the wide range of everything:
Pulls/Single target DPS: Hunters, Rogues
Tanks/off-tanks: Warriors, Paladins
Healers: Priests, Druids, Paladins
DPS/AOE DPS: Warlocks, Mages
Miscellaneous "cover any lack we have in raid": Shamans

just imo & my xp

Oh, and about no one in your guild having done a raid before,
seek out some other guilds who are experienced in raiding,
and ask to join them --- the raid leader will usually lay down the rules/procedures before the raid begins - AND IT IS CRUCIAL THAT EVERYONE OBEY THESE RULES, or a wipe is inevitable.
If the team is not nearly perfectly coordinated, you're all dead.
Raids are insane, to say the least (we do raids every Fri/Sat/Sun night) and usually have 2-3 other guilds with us.

[ascendedavatar]

Can't say I've tried this, but I suspect that a tankadin who switches out to be the third healer (or swaps with a shadow priest for healing, so there are always 3) might be nifty.

Bringing a second def. tank is a waste of time?
What planet are you on and what's the weather like there?
While it may not be crucial,
when the inevitable extra add comes, or you take on a boss
and need someone to back up tank the extra mobs, what do you do?
Have a clothie throw spells at it with no off-tank? lol

[swaldman]

Bringing a second def. tank is a waste of time?
What planet are you on and what's the weather like there?
While it may not be crucial,
when the inevitable extra add comes,

....then the second tank picks it up. That second tank doesn't need to be a prot warrior.

or you take on a boss
and need someone to back up tank the extra mobs, what do you do?

Which extra mobs? The ones you planned for your second tank to hold on to?

Have a clothie throw spells at it with no off-tank? lol

Also an option, sometimes ;-)

Alternatively, when you're consistently wiping on a single-target boss because you don't have enough dps, what are you going to be thinking about the extra prot warrior that you have there "just in case"?


EDIT: No, I'm not saying that kara is impossible with two prot warriors. Far from it. But this guy seems to be saying it's impossible *without* two of them...

[Twoflower]

Bringing a second def. tank is a waste of time?
What planet are you on and what's the weather like there?
While it may not be crucial,
when the inevitable extra add comes, or you take on a boss
and need someone to back up tank the extra mobs, what do you do?
Have a clothie throw spells at it with no off-tank? lol

befor you try to use sarcasm, please get your facts straight. It is widely known that you do NOT need 2 def tanks. If you post like this it just makes you look silly.

ps. inevitable extra add ? are your pullers blind or what ?

[Pallas]

It is widely known that you do NOT need 2 def tanks.

Totally agree. If you can, I really suggest getting a feral druid for your OT. Ours picks up adds when we are pulling more than one target that cannot be CC'd. He puts on healing gear for fights like Maiden where the less melee the better and he goes cat on Aran where you don't need to tank, but DPS is key.

Since we came to our senses and stopped taking 2 prot warriors, we have seen our dps go through the roof. The added bonus of only having only the one prot tank is the faster you take things down, the less healing you need as well.

[Naedea]

I also notice he didn't put feral druid on the tank/offtank list.
His ideas could really use some revision.

[rgirty]

If you have 5-6 in your guild that can raid I suggest pugging the other 4-5. Just get started raiding. You will recruit players like this.

Just last night a few of our normal players weren't online, but since it was already the second day after reset I wanted to get started. I know my regular players are going to be on for heavy weekend sessions (i think anyway) so I wanted to make some progress.

I knew most of them didn't need attumen drops, so I thought at least we could do that.

I pugged a MT invited a new OT to the guild, minutes before the raid and I pugged one of our dps.

Basically we took a core 7 (only 2 healers) and 3 pug people.

After a couple of attempts on attumen the tanks got the hang of grabbing attumen when he spawns, disarm..etc. The normal stuff people learn.

But in summary, instead of appearing like we couldn't raid to our guild we filled up and did attumen. The MT/OT will be back for at least tonight and hopefully I can recruit him and he can help our second group.

Pug if you have 5-6 people and just get in there. Thats when you'll start getting new recruits. But do your 5 man and heroic work first. Make sure you have the gear to at least put serious attempts forward on the first two bosses.

Also try to have the correct classes, 3 healers is highly recommended but you can get by with 2.

[Twoflower]

rgirty, nice plan, but having 3 hunters and PuG'ing all the tanks and healers, well it will be difficult :P Also most decent tanks have a guild and therefore a Kara ID.

but give it a try :)

[Valshenna]

Best bet is to find another (or even multiple) casual guild(s) to join up with as either a single guild or a raiding alliance. But you've got to have a pool of players larger than 10 to be sure that you'll have enough of the right classes to be successful in Karazhan.

As for the tanking debate, the best set-up really is to have a protection warrior maintank (for bosses and to hold onto 2 trash mobs when needed) and a feral druid off-tank/main-assist (tanks first mob to be killed on multi-mob pulls, then goes catform to dps on the rest). The reason you don't want two protection warriors is because there are a LOT of pulls/bossfights where you need high dps and a second tank is useless. And I hate to say it, but even in dps gear a protection warrior is lacking--especially compared to a feral druid in dps gear.

You could also use a protection paladin, but they generally double better as a back-up healer than as a dps'er. Thus, overall you also probably wouldn't want to have a protection paladin and a protection warrior as your two tanks for the reasons already stated--lack of dps when the other tank isn't tanking. Hence two-flower's comment that you don't want two protection specced tanks :wink:

[rgirty]

I pugged a tank last night with 510 defense and 14.5k hp unbuffed who had cleared through the shade multiple times.

A couple of healers and tanks in his guild were on summer vacation so he was looking for someone to run with for a week or two.

There are always exceptions, and if you start looking on tuesday/wednesday there are always people out there that want to go. Just don't set your sights too high if you are pugging a lot of people.

An alliance w/other guilds would be good as well.