Raiding strats (again)

[Kuracynn]

In the couple of weeks I have been back, I have been to Karazhan a few times and have seen how a few of the early bosses work really well.

So I figured I may as well post some of that knowledge and put it to good use.

Attumen the Huntsman:

Not a hard fight, just a long one.

Phase 1: Just Midnight
Phase 2: Starts at about 95% health on the horse, Fighting both Attumen and Midnight
Phase 3: Fighting a mounted Attumen.

Has a frontal cleave, single target curse and a random charge (phase 3 only)

Most groups will rush to phase 3, its easier on the healers to heal only a single target for the fight. So just blast the snot out of the horse.

When phase 3 starts DONT DO ANYTHING TILL THE TANK HAS AGGRO!!

Exceptions to this rule are hunters who can misdirect onto the tank and healers if the tank is in desperate need of a heal.

The reason for this is that the aggro table gets reset at the beginning of phase 3, and if your not in plate you could easily take a rather large hit that will likely one shot you. (Hits for about 3k on plate with 13000 armor)

If you don't have a good threat meter (like Omen), a good rule of thumb is to wait for the tank to lower the bosses health to 98 or 99%, this ensures that the tank has gotten off a good number of shield slams, revenges and devastates in before you open up.

During phase 3, the boss will randomly charge raid members. Luckily, this can be dealt with rather easily. The charge mechanic has a minimum and maximum range. If you are inside this range, you can not be charged. Often times there is a designated charge dummy (typically a hunter due to the dead zone mechanic) anyone else should be standing behind the boss at close range.

The rule here is "If you get cleaved, you need to move back. If you get charged, you need to move forward."

There will also be a nasty curse for phase 2 and 3, during phase 2 it will only be on the tank. However, it will be cast on random targets for phase 3. Be ready to cleanse it.

If mana looks good and there are no deaths, finishing the fight at this point is pretty much in the bag.

[Kuracynn]

Moroes:

A rather odd fight, but very doable.

In addition to the main boss, he has a few adds. There are six possible add, but only four will be present for any one fight. They all have names, but are usually referred to by their class and "spec"

Shadow Priest
Holy Priest
Retribution Paladin
Holy Paladin
Arms (or MS) Warrior
Protection Warrior

The way to tell them all apart is to look at their weapons. The Warriors are easy to pick out: They have no mana. One has a large Axe, hes the MS warrior. The other is wearing a Sword and shield.

The Paladins both have two handed hammers equipped. The male model is the Ret paladin, the Female is the holy.

The priests have either Benediction or Anathema, if you played WoW pre-BC, you should know what is holy and what is shadow.

All of the adds can be CCed in any way a typical undead mob can be CCed. Shackel undead, Turn Undead and ice trap all work. One can also stun-lock one if need be.

The following is a general kill order for adds. The higher on the list they are, the more dangerous they are to the group.

1) Shadow Priest - Has a nasty Mana burn
2) Holy Priest - Can dispell Shackles
3) Holy Paladin - Can dispell shackles, buffs moroes
4) Retribution Paladin - Can dispell Shackles, buff moroes and like to use hamer of justice
5) MS Warrior - Mortal Strike...nuff said
6) Prot Warrior - Pretty much a joke. Has a lot of health.

Ideally, two or three adds will be taken out prior to Moroes.

Moroes himself is his own bag of fun. if you had to guess what class he is, most would call him a rogue. Dual Gutgore rippers, Blind, gouge, garrote and vanish makes him rather nasty to deal with.

It is possibly for a single tank to take care of him, but is not recommended for long. Solo tanking Moroes involves keeping your back turned to him. This removes all but one threat generating ability and leaves the tank open to huge crushing blows. Due to this, its advisable to have two tanks on Moroes ASAP.

Periodically, the tank with the highest threat will get gouged and aggro will switch to the offtank. Under rare circumstances the off tank will be blinded during the switch and Moroes will run around like crazy.

Every 30 seconds after that Moroes will vanish causing a brief pause in the encounter. About 10 seconds later someone in the party will get Garroted. There is little one can do to stop this and there are few options to remove the bleed effect.

1) If your a dwarf you can activate stoneform and remove it.
2) paladins can Devine Shield ther way out
3) Blessing of Protection can remove the bleed effect. With only one avalible per attempt, these are saved for healers
4) Frost mages can iceblock there way out of it

If you do not fall into one of these areas, you are going to rely on the healers to keep you alive.

Keep on fighting, once hes dead, run out of the room and let the remaining adds chase you out. They will reset after they leave the room, then despawn once they have reset.

[Kuracynn]

The Maiden of Virtue:

Fairly easy, but in a very strange room. Also takes a while to set up.

The maiden has a few strange abilities and in theory is a Priest/Paladin hybrid.

Consecration: Just like the paladins except for the one second silence when it ticks.
Holy Fire: An attack that leaves a deadly DoT on a single player. Must be dispelled ASAP or they will die in seconds.
Repentance: All players are caught in repentance and take 2k Damage and be incapacitated for a few seconds. Several ways to deal with this. Paladins casting Blessing of Sacrifice (rank 1) helps get a healer up right away. The tank can also drag her around the room and wake a few people up with the consecrate. A warrior tank can also do a standard Berserker Rage dance to avoid the 2K hit
Holy Wrath: A chain attack that gains strength with each jump. Much like the Venoxis attack.

The room with the Maiden in it is circular with eight pillars surrounding the boss. This makes the fight very close quarters. With a tank and one person in melee range, each person has a pillar to stand in front of. This is ideal to avoid the holy wrath and still be in range for a dispell.

It is very important that each healer and ranged DPS find a their own pillar to stand in front of. Set this up before the fight, but be very careful of her large aggro radius. It is a good idea to hug the walls here.

After the tank runs in, all others run into position. Start burning the boss down as soon as possible. She does not have much in the way of HP, but the longer she is alive the more likely she will kill you all.

Dispell holy fire as needed, Cast dampen magic on any Melee DPS to tone down the consecrate, have the tank run arround to wake up the sleepers during repentance and keep the hurt on her. She will fall over soon enough.

[Kuracynn]

There are multiple encounters for the opera event, all are quite different. Doing one boss per reply.

Little Red Riding Hood:

By far the easiest of the three events.

It starts when the tank speaks to the grandmother on stage, she appears as a friendly NPC.

In case you are curious as to what is said....

You: My what big eyes you have
Grandmother: The better to see you with
You: My What big ears you have
Grandmother: The better to hear you with
You: My what phat lewts you have
*Transforms*
Big Bad Wolf (yells): THE BETTER TO OWN YOU WITH!!

Onto the fight, the tank starts this up usually as the boss will usually aggro on the closest thing. From there the tank starts building threat and moves the boss to one of the corners at the front of the stage. All other non-melee need to be on the other side of the stage.

If you have a fear ward, USE IT! If you have tremor totem, USE IT! The boss like to fear and deaggro the tank, so its important that as many fears as possible be avoided.

From time to time you will see the boss yell "Run away little girl, run away!" This is the signal that one of the most creative elements in Karazhan has been activated. When you see this, a random person in the raid will gain a non-dispellable debuff called "Little Red Riding Hood"

When you get this debuff you are transformed into a female gnome with a red hood and cape on. You gain a run speed boost of 50%, but you loose all of your armor. The bass will also instantly aggro onto you. If you get caught, you are probably dead. So you need to do as it says and "run away little girl, run away"

There are some things to note about this to avoid problems as well as some tricks to aid in the fight.

1) You want to be near the walls, but not touching them while running. If any part of your avatar touches the walls, you will slow down and get owned.

2) Resto Druids should not use tree of life form for this fight. That form has a speed debuff with it, so your run speed will be slower than that of a non tree even with the debuff.

3) WoW Wiki notes that the boss is not chasing you, but more of a spot about 10 yards ahead of you. This is only important when you come to a corner, the boss can be out ran without issues as long as you DO NOT CUT CORNERS!! make your run path as sharp as possible and run in straight lines for as long as you can.

4) All heals need to be on little red riding hood, its also best to stop DPS on the boss as it is not tankable in this state, so building threat is difficult at best.

5) Warriors can intervene little red riding hood and take one hit for them. I do this whenever possible on the fight (never more than once per "chase" in my experience) and it does help. Never know when the person is going to get caught on a stage prop and slow down.

Other than what I have noted, the boss is pretty much tank and spank.

[Kuracynn]

Romeo and Juliette:

This is a tough one. A bit like fighting Thekal in ZG.

The fight starts with Juliette (Julianne in game) and should be tanked by whomever will be tanking her. Usually its an offtank. Tank her in a corner near the front of the stage. She is a caster type and has a few nasty abilities.

(copied from WoW wiki because im too damn lazy to type it out)

* Eternal Affection: Calls upon Holy magic to heal an ally. Heal 46250-53750. Cast Time 2 seconds.
* Powerful Attraction: Stun 6 seconds. Range 45 yards. Cast Time 1.5 seconds.
* Blinding Passion: 6000 Holy damage inflicted over 4 sec (1500 initially, then 4 ticks of 750 each). Range 45 yards. Cast Time 2 seconds.
* Devotion: Holy. Spell casting speed is increased by 50% for 10 sec. The spell haste effect of this buff can be useful for mages, and can be stolen using spellsteal.

Interrupts are important on her as she will try to heal herself for a huge amount from time to time. Other spells can be interupted as well, but the heal is top priority.

Burn her down, then we meent Romeo (Romulo in game, really creative Blizz...really)

Romeo is his own pile of nastyness. If you are melee...it sucks to be you fighting him. Tank him in the corner on the other side of the stage.

(Copied from WoW Wiki once again)

* Backward Lunge: Strikes at an enemy behind the caster, inflicting weapon damage plus 300 (Knock Back 35 yard).
* Deadly Swathe: Strikes at nearby enemies in front of the caster, inflicting weapon damage plus 300 (Affects up to 3 targets).
* Poisoned Thrust: All statistics reduced by 10% (stacks up to 8 times); the debuff can be depoisoned.
* Daring: Increases the Physical damage dealt by the caster by 35% and the caster's attack speed by 35% for 8 sec

If your a non-tank....Your cleaved if you stand in front of him and thrown really far away if your behind him...take your pick. One trick is to tank him so that the bosses back is pointing at a wall, so when they get thrown back they just bounce off the wall.

Its important to take the poison off the tank ASAP.

It is also critical to remove his daring buff. Its like a super blessing of might. Not a good thing to have used against your tank.

You can also disarm him, a good idea to do if he gains daring.

Burn him down and phase 3 will start.

At this point, both bosses will respawn at full health and you will need to fight both and kill them within 10 seconds of each other. If not they will resurrect one another at full health. Get detect magic on both bosses right away and assign cleansers to each.

Its best to have a warrior tank on Julianne if possible as the shield bash interrupt is the best way to stop a heal. A counter spelling mage is also a good option. Other non-tank melee interrupters will likely be stunned when the time comes.

Start on Romulo, but be sure to have an interrupt ready on Julianne as a single heal from her will undo much of your handwork. As soon as Romeo gets to about 15%, swap over to Julianne, be sure to stop DoTs on Romulo at about 20% or so. Keep them in separate corners till Julianne is sitting at about 10% health. Then drag them together and start burning them both down. Full DoTs etc. Just be sure that their health percentages stay about the same.

If ones at 10 and the other is at 6, you need to bring the 10 down more before continuing. once one is dead is is essential that the other is dead within ten seconds. If not you have just wasted an attempt and will likely wipe on the encounter.

Takes a little practice, but is doable.