A fresh perspective on Kara

[Big Guns]

I got to run Kara from scratch with my new guild for the first time last night after we did the King in Gruuls Lair (saving Gruul himself for Sunday). We downed Moroes, Maiden, Opera (R&J) and Curator.

I know that there will be many reading this and thinking "big deal" but to me it actually is. Here I am at Revered and I had never before seen Opera (of any flavour) or Curator with my previous guild. I had never seen Maiden go down and only saw Moroes go down once (on the fourth attempt).

The run last night had a newbie holy priest too: he had not seen anything before.

So to my way of thinking it just goes to show how much my previous guild sucked.

My advice to people who find their guild struggling to down the early bosses in kara week-in-week-out is to think about moving guilds. Of course, that is not going to help you if in fact you are the weak link...

Up until last night I thought that Moroes and Maiden were fairly unforgiving encounters. One mistake by one person and it was game-over. However, I observed a number of mistakes during the run last night (made a few of them myself) and yet we still managed to get the job done.

Changing guilds can give you a whole new perspective. It is also nice to leave the drama behind. I am actually enjoying raiding again!

[Justinledwards]

I ran to moroes last night, with a PuG healadin and a 12 year old playing his dad's priest (he'd SEEN his dad do it heaps). I'd only planned on attumen as I thought we would only have 9, but what the heck...

We 2-shotted him, I was impressed. Both fights we lost our rogue before moroes (healing experience). 2nd time we were down to 7 by the time we got to moroes and some were saying call it - but we pressed on and we got him down!

The best part for the PuG was pally healing plate dropped from attumen and moroes so he had two major upgrades from pugging kara! I did a /ginvite straight after tho :)

Getting to Curator IS a big deal - well done. Those fights are all about working well together, so grats! Just wait till you see the Chess event - that is great fun (which is probably next on the list for yr clear this week)

[Twoflower]

i had a similar experience when i went from my little casual guild to the ( back then ) best raiding guild on my server.

whit my casual guild it took us two nights to get Zul'Gurub clear, whit 20 men armed to the teeth, alot of tactics, pots, everything. Whit the highend raiding guild we cleared it in 2 hours, everyone just pulling whatever they wanted, and more and more people leaving. we killed Hakkar whit 12 people ^^

it was a breathtaking experience, to say the least. I was whispering whit some friends of my old guild saying " you cannot do this to these poor mobs, wtf is happening here... "

Anyway, all the bragging aside, every guild starts whit wiping. The difference whit the good raiding guilds is how much every single member of the raid is willing to invest into figuring out ways to make the encounter work for the group. More interest from everyone in the group = faster learning.

[clevins]

A LOT of this is also dependent on whether people are gearing up outside of Kara or basically sitting around after getting to 70 and getting keyed. There's a TON of stuff you can get from quests in SMV and level 70 instances. And crafting things can help also.

Aside from that people need to read about the encounters so they know a bit what to expect. Post some links about the fights on your guild forums and remind people with the GMOTD or just in chat that they're there. Sure you could just wipe on new fights while yo ufigure them out, but why when you can learn from others?

[Pongle]

Moroes and Maiden are relatively unforgiving unless you out gear them, for entry level fights they're quit difficult.

We 2-shotted him, I was impressed. Both fights we lost our rogue before moroes (healing experience). 2nd time we were down to 7 by the time we got to moroes and some were saying call it - but we pressed on and we got him down!

Why, short of Garotte, would a rogue even be taking damage on Moroes?

[Justinledwards]

I said 'before' Moroes, not 'on' Moroes :) With only 2 tanks, a common strategy is for the rogue to evasion tank on the first 2 adds before moroes.

We used that last night, unfortunately our lack of experienced healing caused him to drop halfway through the second add each time.

Now I've gone elemental I am even less capable of doing the tanking - I am wearing bits of cloth and leather and have less than 4k armor. My spelldmg weapon is a 2h staff, nothing else until I do some runs on the weekend unfortunately.

[swaldman]

As others have said, gear is important. Maiden is pretty unforgiving if you're at a stage where a missed holy fire will kill somebody in one tick, and then you're struggling for mana/dps with one person down.

If your new guild is killing HKM fast and, by the sound of it, confident about Gruul, then they are probably quite well-geared for the first half of kara.

I've noticed that "better" guilds tended to run through ZG quickly without tactics. I'm not sure that this is necessarily something to admire - it's just that once they overpower the encounters sufficiently, they don't need the tactics to survive, and so they get sloppy. Nothing wrong with this, they might as well have some fun, but it's hardly showing that they're better players.

[SadaraK]

Tis all about gear and the experiance of the fight. After a certain amount of trips even the most dense guild member learns all the encounters backwards. Add this to all the gear thats been gotten in previous runs and that means you have a fastly superior force for taking on kara then when u started. The extra knowledge gives breathing room for mistakes, and the ability to react to them.

Your old giuld may not have sucked if they were only just starting out on kara, its not like guilds just 2 night clear the place in the first few weeks of trying. If it was indeed early straights for the guild you left, tbh i feel sprry for them they had a member that would quit so easily. If however they had been in kara for ages, something was obviously a bit wrong.

We clearned kara in 4 hours 30 mins the other night, but like i said, its as much about gear and learning as anything else. Though i will agree with a previous point, pay close attention to peoples rare gear for pre-kara, it matters alot if your mt is sticking with the odd rare he picked up from early 60 instances and greens. When compared to the best rare gear he could get anyway, and same for other classes.

P.S I really really HATE any guild (including my own when they try it) that take the 'zerg' approach to any instance. As in simply charge in, dps pull what ever the heck they like, and target whatever the heck they like. I hate it because it shouldnt be called 'zerg' it should be called: 'dps do whatever the hell they like and expect the tanks and healers to run around like headless chickens and deal with it'. Its immensly irritating for a tank to have 12 dps people refusing to use the ma 'because its fun'.

[dwarfenhelm]

im so glad you have made your leap of faith and left your guild. im in a guild that is trying to get through kara and having problems but we keep going back and get better every time we go, then we have people like you who join us get us to help you get keyed and give you experience then you dump on your mates and go to another guild so your old guild never gets any better.
ps we can clear places like ZG in 2hrs with a 13 man team going in and only 2 healers but really whats the point

[swaldman]

P.S I really really HATE any guild (including my own when they try it) that take the 'zerg' approach to any instance. As in simply charge in, dps pull what ever the heck they like, and target whatever the heck they like. I hate it because it shouldnt be called 'zerg' it should be called: 'dps do whatever the hell they like and expect the tanks and healers to run around like headless chickens and deal with it'. Its immensly irritating for a tank to have 12 dps people refusing to use the ma 'because its fun'.

Heh... I have to say, AoEing Razorgore's room with 40 lvl 70s was kinda fun. On that run we nearly pulled the two drakes (Ebonroc and... the other one next to him) at once to see what happened, but chickened out :-)

Of course, if the raid wiped and the dps then complained at tanks or healers, that would be another matter entirely.

[dilfred]

im so glad you have made your leap of faith and left your guild. im in a guild that is trying to get through kara and having problems but we keep going back and get better every time we go, then we have people like you who join us get us to help you get keyed and give you experience then you dump on your mates and go to another guild so your old guild never gets any better.
ps we can clear places like ZG in 2hrs with a 13 man team going in and only 2 healers but really whats the point
Second'd. I am also struggling to lead my guild into Karazhan and we only just have enough of particular classes to make 1 group, but excesses of other classes. So not only do we have the problem of people standing by and watching some weeks which leads to impatience, but we also have people whom don't want to learn about an instance when they are in there, just walk in and do it and don't want to wipe every pull, also impatience to some extent, though does lead to frustration.

/LFG Boost me springs to mind.

But I suppose it depends what you want out of the game. I know I could move guild and just walk into Gruul and stand at the back and heal and see the guy die. But I get more satisfaction from being part of a group of 10 all suffering together and all learning together for the greater good. I know which gives me more satisfaction. (with more frustration also hee hee)

[Justinledwards]

Sure, dwarfenhelm and diflred this happens, happens to all guilds.

But what about guilds which say they want to do stuff, but somehow never really get there, say to people they need gear to do so and so, but will not pull together to get it? Many of the guilds that don't really progress are a bunch of individuals in a guild for convenience.

Until you've been in a progressive guild, and I don't mean hardcore - I raid 3 or 4 nights a week - it's hard to understand the difference in spirit, leadership and commitment.

I had this experience, put up with it for 2 months after all my friends left and then followed my friends to my current guild - where I am RL and my group has now cleared 6 bosses in Kara in our 4th week. I knew the capability was there and I found a group of players of the same thinking.

[clevins]

But what about guilds which say they want to do stuff, but somehow never really get there, say to people they need gear to do so and so, but will not pull together to get it?

Or what about the people who need the gear, but don't go get it? While the guild should help when they can, people need to take responsibility for getting upgrades. This is a two sides of the same coin thing... the people in a guild who are ahead on gear can't just abandon those who hit 70 later and are behind in gearing up... but the latter folk also need to really know what they need and be available at reasonable times so there are people around.

One of the things about Kara that's a bit off, frankly, is the atttunment. People feel like they're ready to hit Kara when they've got the key, but in fact they may not be geared enough. Some of that is because more geared folks usually help them get the fragments, so it's not really a check of the person getting the key done.

WE've started to set guidelines for class/spec combos and then we can 1) tell whether people are ready gear-wise and 2) see where they are lacking and provide focused help. Also, new 70s can use the guidelines to check themselves.

[Justinledwards]

Yeah - was just reading a post on the official forums by a guy who was finding it hard to get the 2 full instances and 2 part instances done for Kara attunement, when he was in a raiding guild, wondering why people weren't helping him, when his play time is 2 random hours per day.

I think Attumen being the first boss is funny - a nice play on words - He is the real attunement, not the attunement quests themselves.

Yes - the guild I am in now pulls together quite a bit, but also most of the members are goal oriented and will do things like pug their way to exalted shat'ar rep for the shield, or Pug heroic mech for the sun-eater.

We've taken many folks who have just hit 70, got them attuned and also helped them with instance gear.

[Pongle]

The attunement quests were harder than attuemen until they nerfed Arcatraz.

[swaldman]

The attunement quests were harder than attuemen until they nerfed Arcatraz.

Nah. In terms of tactics, yes, but attumen does demand reasonably good healer / tank gear (compared to non-heroic 5-mans).

In any case, if you're a lazy person who doesn't actually enjoy instances, you don't have to do any bosses in arc for the key.

[dwarfenhelm]

as long as you have 2 healers with around +1200 bonus healing and 2 tanks with 490 def skill and 12000hp unbuffed then attumen is going to go down it might be a long fight but he will still go down. the problems you get are later on with larger pulls and harder fights and you find that players who have done the minimum to get keyed for kara are not dressed in good enough gear to put down high dps or keep it up over any period of time. and i still get asked by guild members can you boost me to get key frag from SV or arc. they dont want to take on a boss and die so its key frag and run

[moopy]

Or what about the people who need the gear, but don't go get it? While the guild should help when they can, people need to take responsibility for getting upgrades. This is a two sides of the same coin thing... the people in a guild who are ahead on gear can't just abandon those who hit 70 later and are behind in gearing up... but the latter folk also need to really know what they need and be available at reasonable times so there are people around.

One of the things about Kara that's a bit off, frankly, is the atttunment. People feel like they're ready to hit Kara when they've got the key, but in fact they may not be geared enough. Some of that is because more geared folks usually help them get the fragments, so it's not really a check of the person getting the key done.

Well, that's just it. We generally operate a really fair rotation system and are very flexible on class makeup, but the result is that you get a very mixed-ability and gear raid. At one end, you have the people who have run heroics to upgrade their gear, filled in spaces with viable PvP items, farmed for things they need- and so at least have enchanted lv 115 blues. At the other end, are the ultra-casuals with lv 56 BoE epixxxxx that they bought cheaply from the AH, with as much stamina as a sick kitten, and the attention span to match.

This week, we declared a "progress week"- so we could clear up some of the bosses that normally prove a problem with a Super Happy Fun raid. This meant that some attention was paid to class mix, player skill and gear. The contrast was enormous. Stupid stuff like the fact that we normally don't manage to kill Aran because some nimrod always moves in the flame wreath and kills half the raid, or because the healers aren't good enough to keep the tank topped up over 12k in phase two on the Prince. This week, Aran hit the ground with the whole raid still standing- as it should be.

This doesn't mean that the whole raid was dripping in raid epixxxx, far from it. But it did mean that people who we brought along were good players, who try hard to maximise their effectiveness- and as a side-effect of that, farmed for mats to get crafted items made to fill slots, or were wearing lv 115 blues with appropriate enchants in them. This showed that they'd made some effort beyond the minimal amount needed just to attune, to get themselves ready. Just as they were players who cared enough to get their gear ready- they also cared enough to bring consumables, and pay attention to the fights. No more pointless wipes from the person running across the room during the flame wreath and then denying it afterwards, very few problems with people randomly going AFK after it has been announced "respawns in six minutes, so move fast please". People were actually doing what they were supposed to, when they were supposed to, without needing to be told after 5 wipes first.The difference in quality was amazing. It went from ROFLstomping the easy bosses and sharding everything, to blowing through the harder ones and upgrading people- and having a really good time doing so.

So, the problem is- to get onto the 25 man content, we need to bring the less focussed people up to the same standard in terms of quality of play, as well as gearing them up so they don't let the side down. It's not clear how to do that. In a casual guild with a wide ability spectrum where the best people are very good, and the worst are awful, it's all to easy to split into an elite clique and "the rest". Policy is to avoid that, as I understand it.

However, if the lower-end parts of "the rest" want to go to the same encounters, get the same ZOMFGEPIXX etc., but are actually holding everyone back by their inability to concentrate and remember simple instructions, what do you do? I can see how some of the "middling" people could go either way depending on various factors, but what do you do about the leftmost 30% of the ability curve? These are the ones who are less geared because groups they are in (even non-heroic ones) tend to be less successful. Do you try to run endless farming runs where you carefully only include one of these players so the group can carry them- and use it to gear and educate them? If so, how do you stop the more able players who are nursing them from going insane with boredom and frustration? Assuming that leaving them out of raids isn't an option, both their gear and their ability to discharge their class/spec role needs to improve.

If you decide it's their responsibility, they just never do it, and spend all their time duelling, messing about and then jumping into your raids. If you decide it is everyone's responsibility to improve them, just how much do you spoonfeed them before giving up? How do you tell someone who is a really nice guy and a pleasure to have around that rocking up to the prince in lv 65 greens isn't helpful to everyone else- without hurting their feelings?

Answers on a postcard, I can't figure this one out.

[clevins]

Ah! I see your issue. I think I have a partial solution:

Don't be so nice.

Figure out some min stats for the various classes and spec that you have - and if people don't hit those, they don't go.

If they screw off and ninja afk and in general aren't trying - they don't go.

Be honest (NOT in guild chat, one to one) about why they aren't getting invites. Be nice, but don't pull punches - your gear sucks and we keep seeing you spend all of your time hanging in the AH or dueling, the ninja afk during Aran wiped us and in general you seem to want to do your own thing, etc.

A few things might happen:

1) Once they're confronted with their issues, they get serious
2) they leave the guild
3) They decide Kara isn't for them
4) high drama

1 is best of course, 3 is fine too, 2 and 4 are not the best thing... but you need to set standards. Period. You might have to recruit new people, but having leeches on a lot of raids will eventually do the exact thing you don't want - drive away the people who are skilled, geared and paying attention.

Stop carrying the wannabes and let them swim on their own. It will be for the best, really.

[clevins]

Darn... past the edit window on the above post... but one more thought.

If you don't have 25 solid players, see if the good ones know folks in another good guild and try to build some alliances. We've done this and ended up in Gruul's and Mags a couple of times even though we're not clearing Kara as a guild yet.

Sorry for the double post....