The Lords of Nordrassil

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.

Probably the most popular post on this site to date is the Minimum Stats for Karazhan post, re-posted from World of Matticus, which aims to suggest minimum stats that people should be aiming for before entering Karazhan. I started expanding the post to also include links to suggested gear that can be accumulated (without raiding) to help achieve these stats.

The entire post has started to become a little cluttered, especially for classes like druids with multiple specs, so I’ve decided to divide it into two separate posts. The minimum stats will remain in the previous post, whilst this new post will link to suggested gear-lists that you can aim for to help achieve those stats. As always if you have any suggestions to add to the list, please let me know in the comments and I will add to the list. At the moment where I have gaps I’ve included links to Kaliban’s Class Loot Lists

The links below should all refer to gear that can be obtained before entering Karazhan. To get an idea of equipment you can be hoping to obtain in Karazhan, along with a view on which class has ‘first dibs’ on particular drops, check out Kaliban’s Karazhan Loot List

• Warrior
  • Tank: Gearing your Warrior from The Care and Feeding of Warriors @ WoW Insider
  • Tank: Polar’s Easy Pre-Karazhan Tank Gear List from TankSpot
  • Tank: Pre-Karazhan Warrior Gear Checklist from WiredAfterMidnight.com
• Druid
  • Bear-Tank: BigBearButt’s guide on Druid Tank Starter Gear
  • Bear-Tank: Adventure’s in Azeroth’s guides for Bear Gear
  • Cat-DPS: Adventure’s in Azeroth’s guides for Cat Gear
  • Feral (Bear / Cat): Full gear selection lists for gearing feral druids @ gurgleblaster.net
• Rogue
  • Rogue Pre-Karazhan Gear @ Parry, Dodge, Spin
  • Wow Forum thread on Gearing your rogue at 70
• Priest
  • Healer: Gearing your holy priest
  • Healer: Galadria’s Holy Priest Raiding Guide – scroll down to section E for the Gear guide
  • Healer: A Dwarf Priest – Best Casual PvE Healing Gear – ranked gear list including pre-raid, heroic, crafted, kara, gruul, mag, zul drops – very helpful
  • Shadow: Shadow Priest Gear – from ShadowPriest.com
• Hunter
  • World of Matticus’ Gearing your hunter
  • BigRedKitty’s Gear up for Karazhan
• Shaman
  • Healer: World of Matticus’ Gearing your resto Shaman
  • sample shaman gear at Kaliban’s Class Loot Lists
• Mage
  • sample mage gear at Kaliban’s Class Loot Lists
  • Mage Level 70 Pre-raid Gear from WoW EU Mage Forum
• Paladin
  • sample paladin gear at Kaliban’s Class Loot Lists
  • Healer: Paladin Healing Gear at Mystic Chicanery
  • DPS: WoW Insider gearing your Retadin Guide
• Warlock
  • sample warlock gear at Kaliban’s Class Loot Lists
  • Affliction Warlock Gear at Mystic Chicanery

[If anyone else wants to post class guides on here from things they're picking up in Karazhan and would like to share with the guild, drop me a message on the forum and we can sort it out ]

Well we visited Karazhan last night and it was my first time. It quickly became clear that I have to work for a living now; no more just standing at the back and healing. I have crowd control duties now, as the place is crawling with undead. I’ve never really used the shackle undead spell before, so had to get learning very quickly. I’d already setup a macro (which I’ll come back to later), which was a big help once I got going.

What I learnt as we went along is that I can’t wait for the shackle to break and then reshackle, as then chaos ensues! So every 10 seconds or so, once the tanks were topped up and with renews ticking I’d quickly reshackle my mob to prevent it from breaking. Seemed to work ok for the most part doing it that way – the macro helped a lot with that as well. I picked up the following macro, which cleverly means that once I have shackled something, I can keep the tank targetted, and repressing the shackle macro button will reshackle, without taking my target away from the tank. Very handy.

/clearfocus [modifier:alt][target=focus,dead][target=focus,help][target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/cast [target=focus]Shackle Undead

Egotistical Priest has a great post all about shackle undead which is well worth a read, for priests and non-priests alike. The Ego version of the macro is slightly different but I think does pretty much the same thing, I may have to try it out later:

/clearfocus [modifier:shift]
/clearfocus [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/cast [target=focus] Shackle Undead

Ego’s note to other classes is also worth a mention:

If we have been assigned a mob to shackle, please do not break the shackle. Do not hit, stun, AOE near, or even spit on its foot (assuming it has a foot). We?ve got this one covered. If we miscalculate and shackle breaks early, remember that we have no way of knowing WHEN it will break. It could break one second into being shackled. One thing we can promise is that if shackle breaks early and we’re not in the middle of a heal, we’ll be reshackling that mob as quickly as we can. Don’t touch it, and for the love of all that is holy, do not DoT it. If you cast a DoT on my shackled mob, I will be quite wroth with you.

Also I mostly forgot to take screenshots, but here’s one below that I managed to grab of our intrepid adventurers (click for larger version).

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