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.

Karazhan: Full Clear

Congratulations The Ancients on our first full clear of Karazhan this week.

Night #1

The week got of to a blistering start on Thursday night. After starting at about 1915, we had Attumen down quick and Moroes before 1945. 

We one shotted Maiden and Beanie was rewarded for his dispelling with [Shard of the Virtous] for his healing set. After weeks and weeks of shardless Kara, it just keeps dropping. Probably should have gotten Kal to roll on it, but who figures the shadow priest is going to respec holy for night #2? 

Opera was R&J, and finally Obe got his [Romulo's Poison Vial] and another Ancient makes it to full epic. I think killing Romulo twice might have helped.

Full speed ahead, we downed Curator in our record time: 4m18s, and T4 joy for me after bowing out to Dos last week: [Warbringer Handguards]. 2100. Our quickest trip through Curator by almost an hour! 

We pressed on to Shade, and got him down on our second attempt. Lag and arcane explosions don't mix. Chess was the most fun ever, mostly due to it being on the first night,  and before 10pm.

After some indecision, and discussions on vent not being translated into raid chat... we decided to go Illhoof, with Mortslock [guess which class] and Kalus off healing [two healing to this point] we figured he'd go down. Illhoof proved the hardest yakka, but went down before 2300, giving up Jondy's belt: [Cord of Nature's Sustenance].

A huge night for us all, and set up our full clear for Saturday with only Prince, Netherspite and Nightbane remaining.

Night #2

Porting up to Shade's room is a great way to start the second Kara night. Running into Netherspite's trash is not so good. Who knew an optional boss had that much trash in the way of mandatory bosses?

The line up changed a little for the second night. Obe was unavailable and Kal had respecced holy... Moppet, our regular spriest stepped into Kal's shadowy shoes with [Scryer's Blade of Focus] in hand, complete with soulfrost. Mmmm... soulfrost.

Prince was a one shot, which is inevitable at this point assuming we get flawless infernal placement. Barrath's rolling woes seem to have ended, picking up [Demon Stalker Greathelm]. Jondy was delighted by Kal's gracious gift of [Jade Ring of the Everliving], which cemented full epic!

Netherspite was lots of fun. Seeing this boss for the first time, and working a fantastic strategy to conclusion was very rewarding despite the awful drops. Our last unseen boss downed, and onto full clear we went.

Nightbane was heading for a one shot, until Jondy and I did our simultaneous disconnect of death... Even vent went down, and I logged back into both to deafening silence. The team quickly regrouped and put the bag of bones to bed. Barrath finally replaced the [Felstalker Breastplate] with [Scaled Breastplate of Carnage], and while gemming is nice to tune your itemisation, the epic piece crushes the BOE crafted rare [even if it was made by your wife [we can't all have ebon netherscale armor]]. Seriously. Wear it with pride.

Big thanks to Jondayla, Moonspirit, Dos, Kalus, Obento, Mortslock, Barrath, Elfangor, Beanieone and Moppet for a great effort and our first full clear.

Obe and Borg's Gruuls Adventure

Obe and I got invited into Gruuls for the first time. We got Vent happening and were ready to roll. Although start time was 2pm, the group took about 1/2 an hour to put together and get the 5 groups of 5 [25 man] sorted.

Then there was buffing .... oh the buffing. 

So many ready checks. So many times "only hit ready ... if you are ready" was explained. Then a buff wasn't quite right. "I need Salv" was called. It would start again.

Gruuls is fun because you kill three whole mobs, and you're at the first boss fight. Vent meant that the fights could be explained in detail quickly, and reexplained... and so on. We had to swap out mage tanks, but that was OK... because we got the High King down! Obe and I both got to roll on T4 shoulders but it wasn't to be.

We even got a couple of shots in on Gruul himself, but after a long run the group quickly disintegrated. On paper the investment wasn't quite worth it for 2 badges and a huge repair bill... but we now know all there is to know about Gruuls!