Captain of the Phailboat, part deux

After last night’s embarrassing fiasco, I felt compelled to armory every single 70 in our guild to make sure they meet the “recommended minimum requirements to enter Karazhan”, as per the following:

Tank: 490 Defense, 12k health/armor, ~40% D/P/B
Healers: +900 bonus healing, >100 mp5
Casters: +700 bonus spell damage, >100 mp5
Melee DPS: 1400 AP, ~75 Hit Rating
Ranged DPS: 1400 RAP, ~75 Hit Rating

Edit: Here's the current guild list, if anyone cares. (I think Armory's a little screwy at the moment, since I know there's not actually 619 members in guild, but whatever. Close enough.)

Unite & Conquer Guild Roster


Most of the following players met these requirements. Wherever I saw a narrow shortcoming (one of the mages had +641 spelldmg, for example), I made sure someone else has statistical adequacy to compensate for the slack. It was a grueling process, but it familiarized me with a few of the lesser-known players in the guild.

So, when it came time to begin invites for the raid, I had to turn several people down simply because they came up short on their stats. (I hate being “that guy”, for the record.)

Here’s what we ended up with:

1 Prot Warrior (Me)
1 Prot Paladin (OT)
1 Ret Paladin
3 Holy Paladin
1 Fury Warrior
1 BM Hunter
1 Fire Mage
1 Arcane Mage

It wasn’t until we were inside, saved, and ready to pull that I realized my grievous error – we had no Priests, and there were FIVE Paladins in the party! Holy crap!

OK, I’ve watched the video of the “10-Paladin Karazhan Run” on WCM.com, so in my mind I reasoned it would be, if nothing else, another lesson to learn. At best, we’d down Maiden without issue.


ATTUMEN THE HUNTSMAN

Well, since we were the uber-paly-party tonight, why not take advantage of one of their greatest assets: fighting the undead. Paly Fear has, thus far, proven unreliable and chaotic, but it DOES get rid of a mob for a short time so the raid can recover from minor mistakes.

…however, it can’t possibly cover the blemishes we left last night.

Before this week, I have never had trouble clearing Attumen trash. Now I find that it is truly an obstacle for the majority of this party. We make the first single pull, no problem. Make the second pull, marking the 2nd add for Ice Trap. Big Mistake. BM Hunters suck for CC apparently, cause the Ice Trap only held for about 4 seconds before it broke on its own. And as I’d feared, the pats came around just in time to pull just like before. Had we been a lesser-gear’d group, we would have wiped, but the OT picked the Stablehand up, and the two Steeds were Turned, leaving me with a lone Steed to tank. It wasn’t the best tactical situation, but it would do for the moment. One steed drops, then the stablehand, then the other two steed drop. Only two deaths – a mage and a healer.

“Can we get a rez?”, one of them asks.

“No. Run back in. We’re AT the ENTRANCE, guys. Don’t waste time.”, I replied.

“But we’re out of combat. Just rez us. I’ll be AFK for a second.”, I hear over vent.

My mind collapses in on itself for the briefest of moments, and I mute my microphone and vent my frustrations to the walls of my apartment for 3 solid minutes. I’m sure the neighbors heard me, but I don’t care. These newbs had NO concept of what Karazhan was all about, and seemingly didn’t have the slightest concern about the time constraints placed on a raid the moment they walk in.

When I recollect my composure, the party is alive and ready for the next pull. I push it all aside and start pulling the rest. With 17 minutes remaining, we had no room for further error or delay.

The next few pulls went comparably well as people began to figure out each other’s tactics. The only issue we had was the final 5-pull where two people died, but they immediately ran back in and rejoined the fight before it was too late.

First Attempt: We finally reach Midnight’s stable with 3 minutes left on the respawn timers, and with the briefest of explanations to the newbies, we pull. No lag tonight, thank Gromm, and Midnight commenced beating the stuffing out of the OT. Thankfully, the healers were adequately-geared for this encounter, so they kept him up, but the OT’s threat generation is still a little lax. Attumen pops out, I pick him up and drag him away from the group, and we begin pummeling each other.

After a moment, I see Midnight streak across the room to the Hunter. It seems someone forgot to put BoSalv on him, and his health plummets, but he doesn’t die. After 10-15 seconds, the OT finally picks Midnight back up and the party DPS’s him down until Attumen mounts him. All DPS stops, I grab him, and drag him back to my spot.

“Stack on his ass, melee range everyone!”, I instruct the raid. Almost everyone heard me. The arcane mage was too far back, and Attumen kept charging him, resulting in a dead gnome mage.

“I warned you”

Well, after 7 minutes or so, he finally drops his lewt. [item]Harbinger Bands[/item] and [item]Gloves of Saintly Blessings[/item] Yay… caster/healer gear… what we didn’t really need. Fan-friggin-tastic.

It could have gone worse. I’m just glad the OT was at least on his game enough to reestablish aggro with Midnight. I would have given up if we’d fumbled at that juncture.

While walking back towards the stairs leading to Moroes/Maiden, I saw a mob I’d forgotten to loot, and I think to myself “watch this be an epic”.

Sure enough, it’s [item]Inferno Waist Cord[/item]. Score! Too bad the Fire mage had something better already. What a waste. Everyone rolls on it, and the Fury warrior takes it home.


MAIDEN OF VIRTUE

I knew we wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hellfire Peninsula of taking down Moroes; Paly fear is just too unreliable, and can easily reset a perfect-executed encounter. I wasn’t willing to risk it, and with 5 palys in the party, it only made sense to attempt Maiden.

Clearing proved to be much simpler here, strangely. The AoE groups were easy, thanks to the OT’s consecrate, and the single elites were even easier. However, the OT has a horrible habit of standing right behind me when I pull, and I always back up considerably when I make my ranged pulls to avoid aggroing neighboring mobs. Well, I guess OT is prep’s to autoattack and when the mob passes by him, he hits it, grabs aggro (cause I haven’t hit it with Devastate/SS yet) and he keeps trying to hold it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love that he’s trying to tank. But he can’t tank VALETS yet, and that’s exactly what he tried to do. Thankfully, I have an unusually high crit% (in my DPS gear), so I crit’d a Slam, grabbed it back, and saved him from taking a fall.

We make it to the hallway leading to Maiden, and the pulls are going much smoother now. Everyone seems to be getting settled into their niche in the raid. The Guards (the ones that summon the hounds) give us little trouble, and the Concubines go down without argument. However, we did wipe once due to a emergency paly fear that went streaking down towards Maiden’s chambers, pulling 2 more guards (who immediately summoned two hounds, coincidentally) and just overwhelmed us suddenly. No biggie. With 30 minutes remaining on the timer, we had plenty ogf leeway to make at least 3 good attempts on Maiden.

Or so I’d thought.

First Attempt: A few “that’s a huge bitch!” jokes always worm their way into this scenario with new players in the raid. Always funny, too. After a thorough explanation of the fight, we buff and make the pull. I’m still not entirely sure what went wrong, but my health plummeted so fast it wasn’t even remotely funny. I guess I’ve become accustomed to having Prayer of Mending available.

Then I realize that I have Blessing of SALVATION on me as well. Then the Hunter pulls aggro and wipes the raid. Beautiful.

“Wrong blessing, guys. I need SACRIFICE, not SALVATION.”

Second Attempt: After micromanaging the blessings available (it’s strange having ALL paly buffs in a raid, ya know?), we pull again… except this time the OT is once again right on my ass and throws Avenger Shield – which connects right before I land my first Slam, and then Maiden goes streaking after the Hunter again.

“GUYS. Wait until I have her in the middle of the room and have 2 Sunders on her before starting DPS. And [OT], if you do that again, you’re out.”

On the run back, I hear over vent “I’ve got 30 seconds left on my D.I.”. “What the hell?”, I think as I run back into Maiden’s chamber… to find one of the holy Paladins standing just inside a pillar shrouded in a veil of light.

Oh god. Why are you doing this to me?

After a moment, the bubble breaks and Maiden chases everyone out of KZ. Only one person made it… the OT (who bubbled like a chicken instead of taking the fall like a man, lol). Damn our unfathomably abysmal luck.

Third Attempt: I remind the Hunter that Misdirection is a great option for threat-based fights like this, and if he didn’t use it I’d strangle him with his mouse cord.

After repeating my instructions once again, making sure everyone completely understands their role in this fight, we make the pull with 7 minutes left on respawns.

Everything happened the way it was meant to, but it just wasn’t enough. I dropped 10 seconds into the fight, and Maiden creamed everyone else within seconds. It was just horrible. I can’t honestly recall what went wrong, but it just did. Maiden pwnd us all.


I’m thinking about just calling Karazhan off until we have better-gear’d dedicated players, because the wipe-fests I’ve seen over the past 2 weeks have been a complete disgrace… and honestly, I’m tired of writing about failures. Not 3 weeks ago, we managed to manhandle Prince. Now… well…. you already know.