Zenborg's First Week: Conclusion

Don't let the picture fool you. This is a tale of heartbreak.

On Wednesday morning, with Kara freshly reset, Zenborg pugged into a "full clear" Kara group. Ever weary of trade spam, but optimistic that toons going into Kara this early in the week would want to do it right.

As things got underway, I was relieved to be juggling shackling duties and topping the damage before Attumen was pulled. I was further relieved when I was pwned by the mage in the group for the boss fight - our overall dps was looking ... reasonable.

Moroes went down (I can no longer understand why a shackle would EVER get loose (healers excepted)). Maiden followed shortly after. Topping the damage on Romulo and Julianne (Opera) did wonders for my confidence.

Nightbane was a new challenge. It was a joy to actually see the great beast, after being stuck between the dragon's claws or almost devoured whole as a Tank. Nightbane was particularly challenging because it took us 11m20s to get him down - to date my longest fight on Zenborg. Potioning early (and often), symbol of hope and my freakishly awesome shadowfiend meant I could put in a solid dps effort loosing out only to the mage and lock in the group.

Curator and Illhoof were both very entertaining fights. On Illhoof the mage and lock did half the damage between them, making the fight a breeze.

I've noticed that hunters tend to come into their own on Shade, which is a good thing for me as I died relatively early to Elementals, but still got my first piece of Kara loot: [Pendant of the Violet Eye] - which has earned a spot for those fights where mana regen is an issue.

Wow! This is going great! Just wait...

... Netherspite.

What is it about this guy that is so terrifying? THE fight in Karazhan where you are rewarded far more for teamwork and co-ordination than any other. The fight spriests and locks LIVE for. The BLUE beam! Give it too me! I want it ALL... mwa ha ha ha...

Not to be. With the OT disconnected - we made our way back down to Chess. The conjurer on Chess was great fun, but I really wanted to get back to NS.

Prince. Another challenge for a new spriest. Getting in and out of range for Mind Flay was a challenge met well enough to come in second in damage, being completely spanked by the mage.

20 badges! The Demonic Presence Destroyed! [Violet Signet] [Violet Badge] Woo Hoo!

... WAIT ... THE ... D R E A M ...

The tank wants [Mantle of Abrahmis] (boy, do I know that feeling). He's been a good tank, let's get it for him! Why are you hearthing? Stop... wait...

LF9M - Kara - Netherspite Only - help an spriest live the dream.

Executing the Dream

Here's the plan:

1) Ding 70
2) Kara geared within minutes
3) Kara attuned in the first day
4) Kara clear the first full Kara week

Here's stages 1 - 3:

Ding 70

I convinced Jondy to have an all nighter, in order to get the first three stages accomplished. We headed into The Steamvault just after midnight on 27th July for our second frag, and dinged on about the 3rd mob [yes, a lot of execution comes down to pre-planning].

I managed to get myself killed on the next pull, while trying on all my new spanking gear ....

1) Ding 70 - 0011 27/07

Kara Geared within Minutes

Due to my aforementioned death ... it took me almost a minute to whack my gear on.

Thanks to the [Spellstrike Infusion], [Shadow's Embrace], the [Belt of Blasting], [The Bringer of Death] and some diligent questing, I hit well above the Kara minimum stats with:

Health: 6.3k
Mana: 7.6k
Shadow Damage: 800
Crit: 14.53% [29.53% with MB and SW:D]
Spell Hit: CAPPED


2) Kara Geared - 0012 27/07

Kara Attuned in the first day

Attunement was also planned well in advance. We had done Durnehold Keep serveral times from level 66 - 68 to free us up for Black Morass later [Keepers of Time reputaion leads to +12 spell damage to rings]. As soon as we hit 68 we tore through the pre-quests, and had our first frag in the Shadow Labyrinth not long after.

Experience from questing caught up with us, so we planned to ding in The Steamvault on the way to our 2nd Frag. The Steamvault wound up at a little after 1am.

2nd Frag - 0032

By 0136 we were down in SMV shopping for our flying mounts. We wanted to do this right, so with 900g in hand, we bought our transport to conquer Tempest Keep instances.

Unfortunately, we didn't have room on our XP bars to quest for the Key to Arcatraz, so we took some time to run through that, and by 0348 we were flying up to The Mechanar. So by 0530 it was time for bed...

But wait? Didn't you mention an all nighter? Yes, but a slight planning glitch was that we had cleared the final bosses of Kara the previous evening on Borg and Jondy - so weren't able to sustain more than 24 hours straight world of warcraft - we had to sleep sometime. PUGs tend to get a little hard to put together in the wee hours of the morning.

So after a luxurious 6 1/2 hours sleep, I bounced out of bed, announcing, "you make the coffee, and I'll start putting together a group for Botanica". With Bot soon out of the way, retaining the services of both healer and tank from that run, we obtained the Key to Arcatraz, and behold - our 3rd Frag.

3rd Frag - 1540

All that was left to do, was go back in time and ask Medivh nicely to put the Master's Key back together. We had a little hiccup with our add melter in BM, when they started the event early, but on the second attempt (and with a new add melter) breezed through Black Morass - rewarding Jossamine with [Mantle of Three Terrors].

3) Kara attuned in the first day - 1839

Going through an accelerated attunement process has cemented my view that Blizzard did the wrong thing by removing the attunement process for Kara. Going through this process meant that shortly after level 70, the only normal instances we hadn't done were Shattered Halls [done soon after] and Magister's Terrace [since completed several times]. Is it that much of a burden to see each instance only once? Do you really want someone in Kara that isn't able to complete half the 5 man content?

Jossamine is a particular case in point. With absolutely ZERO craftables; quest rewards and drops from the instances in the attunement chain were all she needed to gear for minimum Kara specs, and perform admirably in Kara on the day of hitting level 70.

Kara Clear in the first full Kara week

It was Sunday night, we were attuned and our 2nd Kara team was about to do battle. However, they were a little short on numbers, and so Joss and I had a chance to get a taste of Kara before the full week even started. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the multiplicity of face melting, but starting Kara on the first day of level 70, both attuned and geared was a little surreal.

Stepping into Kara - 2020

Much to my delight and surprise... I pwned. Although I was nervous, shackling went very well, and didn't take too much of a bite out of my DPS. I managed to top the damage on both Attumen and Curator [narrowly beating out Joss with her huge curse of doom for Curator]. We missed out on the loot, but 7 badges later [I missed out on the 2 from Opera due to a server restart] and Curator down - it was time for another sleep!

The most ambitious part of this plan will be concluded ... next time. Stay tuned.

What's next?

So, you're clearing Karazhan. You've been promoted to guild master. You're getting a great second Kara team developing [thanks to guildies taking on some more responsibility, a couple of ex-guild masters and some new recruits]. Thanks to great badge tanking gear, you outgear all the content you do. However, you don't have the toons to start 25 mans within your guild. What do you do?

Well, we've made a start on ZA.

We've started on Gruuls with the help of another guild.

What else?

You might have guessed it... PLAY HORDE!

You've got to be kidding me! A quick snapshot of us in covert operations for the Scryers!

Meet:

Borg's Draenei Shadow Priest, Zenborg;
Jondy's Human Warlock, Jossamine; and
Obe's Human Mage, Konbawa.

Yes, I have a facemelter alt, and he has a plan. Stay tuned, and see it's execution.

Netherwing Drake

Woo Hoo! I finally earned my [Reins of the Onyx Netherwing Drake]!

Nalorak Down: Welcome to ZA

Tonight was our 2nd guild attempt at ZA. We had the trash almost down pat, with a bazillion hunters in the line up, the sound of freezing traps was a pleasant background staccato in the background.

With Jackson joining me on tanking, we gave Nalorak a good pummeling. He coughed up [Robes of Heavenly Purpose] for Moonspirit, which put a sharp dagger into the set bonus for her Primal Mooncloth set!

The photo is from the naked gauntlet attempt, which actually worked on the 2nd attempt. Woo hoo for locks and soulstone. Thanks to Lemmar for suggesting the first gauntlet "workaround" that I've seen work.

The 2nd boss gave us some more trouble, and something to aim at for next time.