The Lords of Nordrassil have appointed three new guild officers in readiness for the release of Wrath of the Lich King - Congratulations to Tarn, Jermar and Krakenoah!

The officer corps now comprises of Arvariena, Bestiarius, Durathor, Etharil, Jermar, Krakenoah, Revver, Tarn, Winterfold.  Our Guild Master is Railor / Trailor.

Guild members should familiarise with the conduct page of the website, for guidance on acceptable behaviour.   The officers can assist if more details are required.

Shade of Aran was recently killed by The Lords of Nordrassil - another ‘first time’ for the guild!. I say recently, it was actually Easter weekend - real life has been hectic since, so it’s taken me an age to post it. We then followed up with the Chess event and a sightseeing trip to the Prince.

Here’s a screenshot for posterity: click the image for a link to larger version.

Curator was downed last Sunday - another first for the guild!. Sorry it’s taken so long to report, real-life can be a drag. Great result though and we had a first look around the upper tower on Monday before the reset.

Congratualations to Ragnesis who got his Tier 4 gloves: [Gauntlets of Malorne]. Also grats to Jermy who earlier in the weekend was lucky enough to get [Fiery Warhorse's Reins].

Here are a couple of pictures of our happy faces both immediately post fights and also once we were organised enough to line up. Click the images for link to larger versions.

Another guild first was reached in Karazhan with Big Bad Wolf killed in the Opera event, opening up the chance to have a look at Curator now. This was preceded by good kills of Maiden and Moroes.

Special congratualations to Rudi, Panoramixs and Tarn who got drops of [Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch], [Red Riding Hood's Cloak] and [Nethershard Girdle] from the bosses.

Two guild firsts were achieved with kills of both Maiden and Moroes on Saturday. This was preceded by a warm-up on Maiden on Friday, Attumen down on Thursday and an encouraging first look at Opera on Sunday. All in all a great team effort from all the guildees who were able to come along over the entire weekend’s raiding.

Special congratualations to Arvariena, Ragnesis and Bestiarius who got drops of [Shard of the Virtuous], [Barbed Choker of Discipline] and [Emerald Ripper] respectively

And for posterity, here are a couple of pictures of our happy faces post-boss fights - click the image for link to larger versions.

Last week’s Karazhan run sounded like great fun, a positive first step into Karazhan and Arvariena got some nice purple loot ([Gloves of Saintly Blessings]) to boot. I’ve got a message from The Boss (Railor), on how it all went:

Our first Karazhan run the other night was a success thanks to the dedication and enthusiasm of the Lords and also from Lamagra’s advice and guidance. Lamagra is a paladin that we discovered on the LFG channel and subsequently recruited(!). He volunteered to join actually, which is a great bonus as he has a wealth of Karazhan experience. When I say success I mean in terms of what we learnt about ourselves.

We killed Attumen but suffered at the hands of the Maiden. It’s clear that our gear will need to be that little bit better. We aren’t tooled up enough for want of a better expression. To that end I personally will be attending as many heroics as I can, to pursue the better purples. Speaking for myself, I have the firepower, I just lack stamina and mana.

However Kara isnt a learning instance, so those folk that want to go on the runs really ought to be as good as they can be at their various characters. I think heroic runs beforehand will help to give everyone that knowledge. But Karazhan is fun, hard work and I think everyone that goes will really enjoy it.

Another pair of runs are provisionally scheduled for Friday / Saturday night. Check out the signup thread on the forum, and / or sign-up on GEM in-game. I’m regularly updating the minimum stats for Karazhan post with extra details on gearing up, so please keep checking back. If you find any great resources on the same lines for your class, please let me know so that I can add it.

A trial Karazhan run is on the cards for this weekend, intended as a ‘fun run’.. The plan is to get in the door, take a look around, likely die a few times, but to have fun and keep things informal and relaxed if we can.

We’re thinking of this Friday or Saturday at 8pm (maybe 7) UK time (9pm and 8pm server time respectively). To sign-up, please post on the sign-up thread, contact Railor in-game or signup to the GEM event once created. Also please make clear if there’s only one of the two nights that you will be available.

Please note that GEM should be updated to version 2.27 or higher, as there have been problems with earlier versions after Blizzard made changes.

Also it’s worth checking out the previous posts on Karazhan planning (including raiding addons) and Minimum stats for Karazhan along with any other class specific resources you can find. Also please try to bring consumables - food, water, bandages, health pots, mana pots etc as appropriate to help things run that little bit more smoothly.

Minimum stat requirements for Karazhan were briefly mentioned in last week’s post on Kara Planning, along with an exhortion to check on google for useful information. The idea is that these can then be used as targets when gearing up.

World of Matticus has already put together some starting figures in the Minimum Class Stat Requirements For Karazhan post. This saves much googling for the Lords, so I’ve taken the liberty of re-summarising most of it below for convenience, but please check out Matticus’s blog too; it’s very good Also you may notice I’ve learnt how to spell Karazhan since the previous posts, so Kara is no more

The figures are as Matticus says absolute minimums, so if you can go above, then all the better. Also if people have any updates to these or any more ‘gearing up’ guides, let me know in the comments and I’ll update it.

For lists of suggested pre-Karazhan gear that can be used to help meet these minimum stats, please see the Gearing your level 70 for Karazhan post

• Warrior
  • Tank: 12000 Armor, 12000 hp, 490 defence, 15-30% Dodge/Parry
  • DPS: 1700 AP, 70 hit, 33% crit
• Druid
  • Tank: 415 defence with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest, 12000 hp, 30% Dodge, 20k armor
  • DPS: 600 dmg, 15% crit (caster form), 75 mp/5, 75 hit
  • Healer: +1000 heals, 100 mp/5
• Rogue
  • 1300 - 1400 AP, 90 hit, 20% crit
• Priest
  • Healer: 6000+ health, 7500 mana, +1000 healing, 100 mp5
  • DPS: 6000 mana, +650 dmg, + 3-5% hit
• Hunter
  • Beast Mastery: 8000 hp, 6000 mana, 1450 AP, 17.5% crit, 75 hit
  • Marksman: 8000 hp, 6000 mana, 1750 AP, 17.5% crit, 75 hit
• Shaman
  • Resto: 950 - 1000 heals, 110 mp/5, 10% crit
  • Elemental: +500 dmg, 20% crit
  • Enhancement: 1000 - 1200 AP, 20% crit, 8% hit
• Mage
  • +600 dmg, 90 hit, 25% crit, 6000 hp and 7000 mana
• Paladin
  • Tank: 102.5% Total avoidance (dodge/parry/block), 490 defence, 10500 hp, +100-150 dmg
  • Healer: 1000-1200 heals, 80-100 mp/5, 8000-9000 mana, 15-20% holy crit
  • DPS: 1300 AP, 25% spell crit, 7000-8000 HP, >6% hit (in addition to Precision)
• Warlock
  • Affliction: 7000 hp, 6000 mana, +600 dmg, 90 hit
  • Destro/Demon: 7000 hp, 6000 mana, +600 dmg, 90 hit, 20% crit

The Lords of Nordrassil ran riot around Outlands last night. Firstly Terrok was taken down for Ragnesis and several others, followed by a Fel Reaver for Jemma and Konstorion.

Finally after a bit of PVP inaction in Hellfire (the horde were hiding), several Lords headed back to Azeroth to take an initial sightseeing tour of Karazhan. It was a good exercise despite not being a full group and fun for all involved. More people are keen to get attuned though, so I thought I’d include the full steps (reposted from WoW-Wiki) for this attunement to help people (including me ) with completing this.

• Arcane Disturbances: Deadwind Pass; standard soloable exploration quest
• Restless Activity: Deadwind Pass; standard soloable kill quest, can be done at the same time as above
• Contact from Dalaran: Dalaran; talk to NPC
• Khadgar: Talk with Khadgar in Shattrath City
• Entry Into Karazhan: Dungeon; first key part to be found in the Shadow Labyrinth, Auchindoun
• The Second and Third Fragments: Two dungeons; the second key part is found in The Steamvault and the third key part is found in Arcatraz
• Escape from Durnholde Keep: Dungeon; Pre-requisite for Black Morass:
• The Master’s Touch: Dungeon; Talk with Medivh in the Opening the Dark Portal (Black Morass) instance in Caverns of Time. He’ll give you his own key.
• Return to Khadgar: Soloable; just return to Khadgar

A Kara ’sight-seeing’ trip is planned for Wednesday (8pm server time, 7pm UK), as more Lords are completing the attunement. Over the coming weeks more of these visits will be planned on GEM so that we can hopefully take our first tentative steps into Kara.

If you’re keen to visit Kara, here are some things you can do to help make it happen:

• Download GEM and signup for Kara events
• Register your interest on the forum in the Kara attunement thread
• Read up on Kara at WoWWiki
• Get attuned if you aren’t already (that one’s for me… )
• Help other guild members get attuned
• Improve your gear: there are recommendations of min / ideal stats for various classes on the web, they can be tracked down with a bit of googling and used as a target when gearing up.
• Investigate the following types of addons (more details in Addons for Raiding by Of Teeth and Claws):
  1. Threat-meter: either Omen (Download Omen) or KTM
  2. Raid frames addon (particularly for healers): CTRA, X-Perl and Grid are all worth a look
  3. Encounter advisers: e.g. DeadlyBossMods, Big Wigs
  4. Teeth & Claws mentions stats gathering tools too, but that’s maybe getting a bit ahead of ourselves

I’ll be sticking some posts up about addons in the next few days, so that should hopefully help with any problems, but feel free to mail me in game or on the forum too.

This is a first step for now, to gauge interest, numbers attuned, class balance etc. but if people are keen, then more will happen in this area.