"You'll just die tired"

Grizell chimes in with a tale of AV domination

Grizell had an awesome game of Alterac Valley last night. She was doing the daily BG quest finishing "The call to Arms" achievement after five days straight of dailies. She decided to try a different set of tactics this time… Instead of her usual "tie the Void Walker to the flag and lie down pretending to be asleep so that our teams rogues could counter-attack after I died" - Everyone of course knows that old trick in Arathi Basin. She thought that this tactic might be less useful in Arathi Valley so she decided to travel with the the main battlegroup all the way to the Allied Fort. She normally takes her minion Grad'ok the faithful Void Walker but she realised that this tends to single her out as a noob and a cloth armored Warlock. Having a big blue nether creature near you is like having a sign on your back saying "Come Slay Me!". Her Void Walker is a great tank in PVE but somehow these alliance chaps seem to ignore his "torment" talent and come straight at poor Grizell.

This time she just focused on supporting the Warriors and Paladins and made sure she did not run ahead of the main group. She picked her targets by simply tabbing her way through the enemy. Without the VW to worry about she simple dotted everything that moved with a rotation of Haunt, Unstable Affliction, Manatap, Siphon life and Curse of Agony. When it looked like her comrades were being punished she would fear, incinerate and shadow bolt alternatively hoping to catch up with a druid or use Mana Tap again to replenish her mana. She also decided to not use Rain of Fire which is a great AOE spell but heavy on the mana use. Besides, throwing your hands up in the air in battle and calling down a firestorm is a definite way to get noticed by the wrong crowd.

One of the other great things about this particular battle was the team work. The Horde moved along the valley like a rolling wave sweeping the enemy away… The battle raged continuously but there were moments where the Allies would regroup and someone would type HOLD and the group will slow for a moment. This is when Grizell was most valuable. There is no point running backwards or even moving so all she did was continuously cast. Eventually the Horde graveyard would empty out and the Horde warriors would flood back into smash the Allied frontlines. Then the warcry to charge could be heard and the Horde would surge forward again. There were some amazing spell storm moments where for ten seconds the screen was a wash of bright colours as so many spell were being cast at once that occasionally there was a white-out all around. Over and over again Grizell achieved the highest rank levels simply by standing still in the middle of the battle and cycling down her spells and shifting to the next target. Ranked #2 in the Honorable Kills list for the first time ever… Grizell's lessons learnt from the battlegrounds: "There's no point running from the enemy. You'll just die tired"

Grizell Ranked #2

***Update***
The very next night, Grizell went one better:

Grizell Ranked #1!

MC: Back!

Epic Fugg #2

Not satisfied with an Epic mount (see below), Fugg has set out on an insane but brilliant quest. Shattered by being torn apart by the evil Somnus, vengeance called, and now Fugg is taking down Every. Single. Elite. Dragonkin. All of them.

Read the full story in Fugg's fantastic journal, There Be Dragons.

And Fugg, know that all of Midnight's Children are behind you on this quest, you have but to ask and we will be there...

Epic Fugg #1

A little while ago, Fugg became the first MC member to get an Epic Flying Mount - epic is exactly the right description!

/cast Sunder Guild

This weekend saw a momentous change in the Guild, when in consultation with Paxmortis, the power & progression raiders decided to leave Midnight's Children and create Disposable Heroes. As many would have seen from the email discussions, the diverging interests of the progression & casual players meant that a single guild was always going to struggle to contain both. The impending release of WotLK has bought this to the fore, hence the great guild sundering.

Paxmortis and DH Guild Leader Blackheathen have forged a strong bond, and the relations between the two guilds will always remain. I'm sure that DH will welcome with open arms any MC members ready to make the move to more hardcore playing if and when the time comes. All of MC wish DH great success in Northrend, I'm sure they will do their MC heritage proud.

So where does this leave Midnight's Children?

No doubt everyone has a different answer to this question, but the main emphasis seems to be that MC is a casual, easy going group. We will each want to investigate Northrend at our own pace, with no pressure on anyone to 'keep up'. If you want to spend your time herb gathering, fishing, rep grinding or power levelling, it's all xool.

We will try and continue the Thursday night instances as a regular thing, though for the time being we will struggle due to the lack of a Main Tank. The Rahjin Philosophy sounds like a good plan - we will try and schedule some five mans as people move through Northrend, and if you're at the right level then you can jump in and play.

A MT is going to be a priority, and my thinking is that a Death Knight is going to be the easiest way to get there. Having said that, we have Fugg (currently specced Arms) and Ironbear (specced Resto), both of who could theoretically move into the MT role if they were interested. But again, there is no pressure to do so if that is not the way you want to roll. Personally, I'm interested in creating a DK and playing it MT, but it will be another few months before s/he would be ready to rock.

Given no tank, in the meantime we can do whatever people are interested in. The Brood will continue on it's merry way, and maybe Thursdays can be dedicated to non-combat pet pickups (Worgs ftw!), achieving achievements, minstancing, etc etc. Something like what these guys are aiming for sounds pretty good. Proposals for Thursday night activities are more than welcome!

As it stands, the guild Elder are now made up of Paxmortis, Fugg, Rahjin, Stroeb, and Neitzsche (welcome back!). Then there are multiple members of the Swarm coming up rapidly, the main three being Ironbear a 63 Tauren Druid, Grizell a 51 Blood Elf Warlock, and 60 Orc Shaman Exemplar. And of course the Brood, hanging around in the 30's and loving every minute.

So big changes, and the guild chat is a lot quieter now, but MC will continue and hopefully thrive. Bring on WotLK and all those new fish!

Stroeb

Worg Pups!

A spontaneous raid formed last night to delve deep into Blackrock Spire and tame the best non-combat pet in the game for Neitzsche, Chivdoc, Fugg & Ironbear. Led by fearless (and already pupped) Spencacon & Stroeb, it was literally a blast. Chiv & Spenc destroyed everything in their path with glee, Spenc relishing the MT role, whilst Fugg & Stroeb were merely passengers wiping up the mess.

Spiders!

And the end result is priceless:


New guild requirement?!

There's a great pictorial guide to getting your own Worg - and the not so charming Smolderweb.

If you're quick, you can study the combat stats - Spenc putting out 50% of the DPS and taking 50% of the hurt! And Ironbear outhealing Neit - mainly as at 62 he had to heal himself all the way through just to stay alive!

One more boss

Sunday night we ventured into Kara to clean up the trash - Illhoof, Chess, Prince, and Spite. And clean we did, one shotting the lot other than Spite who took a couple of attempts.

Time...

...to die

Which left us with Nightbane. Aaarrggh. This is certainly the nastiest fight we've come up against, and whilst we got through to the third phase once, that was as good as we got. A waaay underpowered PuG healer didn't help matters, but even so this is one tough hombre.

Dread

The guild is going to have to really step up for this one - though it feels far less frustrating that Maiden once did (remember those days?!). We might have to design a team specifically to take this guy down, as opposed to seeing who's around on the night. But his time will come, have no doubt, and it will be a great triumph.

Kara Timing

ET and Irat worked out a beautiful and ambitious schedule for our Kara run Thursday - it was timed down to the last minute, and theoretically had us clearing Kara by 1230AM.

The amazing thing was, that we managed to actually meet and even beat the schedule - at least until we hit Illhoof. Adjusting the times for a 15min late start, the run went like clockwork:

8:55pm – Attumen one shot
9:15pm – Moroes one shot
9:35pm – Maiden one shot
9:55pm – Opera one shot (Wolf)
10:20pm – Curator one shot

Amazing stuff. We actually got Curator down 10mins ahead of schedule, and were rolling brilliantly. We also managed to nail Wolf with both Healers down and the big bad guy still on 50% health.

Alas we hit pretty big speed bumps with Illhoof (11:00pm wipe) and Shade (11:50pm wipe). Even though we got them both close, without our trusty Chiv-lock on board, the lack of cc proved too much of an ask.

At midnight Chiv subbed in for Stroeb, and Aran was taken down quick smart to clear the way for what should be a historic Kara-clearing run Sunday: Illhoof, Netherspite, Chess, Prince and the final challenge, Nightbane.

Kaos!

Midnight's Children welcomes Kaoskid to the fold - another Rogue to partner Stroeb, which should ensure that all the T4 and above loot is ninja'd by one or the other.

Welcome, and May the Dark Lady Watch Over You.

We killed the prince and then killed his dragon

(Blackheathen reports, with snaps from ET)

Right at this moment, the once great and terrible tower of Karazhan is a very very quiet place. Walking around inside you could get the impression that the place is entirely empty but for a nagging feeling that something nasty might still be lurking about in the skies above.

That's right, another nice run last night where we one shotted Ilhoof, Chess and Prince who this time dropped a nice new head piece for Chivdoc (poor Spencacon) and a neck piece for Olrotty.


We then headed off to face Netherspite. It took us a couple of goes to get the tactics and beam rotations down but in the end it was a pretty easy kill and one I think we will not have much trouble with on subsequent clears.


Next up was the infamous Nightbane. This time at least we could summon him thanks to a quick last minute blast through Sethek Halls to get the final quest item so Irational and myself could ge the urn. I must admit I was not at the peak of my game last night on Nightbane. Prince is a walk in the park as far as tanking goes, Nightbane is a whole new level. I can say I did learn quite alot as did we all I think and the tactics we had down by the last attempt showed we can do it so long as the 2nd healer stays online. That's right, we had him in the bag until poor Darkdruidcow DC'd right at the worst possible time and once again we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

If we have enough personel online tonight I say we go back and give it another go. It shouldn't take long, even if we wipe a couple of times. Would be awesome to finally clear Kara. Bring on ZA.

Are we up for it? Can we manage to bandage our wounds from last night and together once again make our way up to that lonely terrace and face our fears?

What say you?!!

Prince..done!

(Irational reports in)

An awesome Sunday night Kara run. 2 Shots Shade, 1 Shot Illhoof, 1 Shot Chess, 1 Shot Prince and 2 quick attempts at Spite but no success.

We have now as a guild seen every fight in Kara and conquered most of them. The only two fights left Spite and Bane are both pattern fights and once we get that pattern right they will be a cake walk. Fights which were once the bane of Midnight's Children are now becoming easy, Maiden is now a one shot affair.

Great work on Shade last night everyone. Once we got those elements controlled we were back to a state were we can handle the fight the way we want, and although we had a few deaths we took him out pretty easy.

So that brings us to a new week and a new Thursday night run. We did well last week getting Curator down and having a few shots at Nightbane, this week I say we push forward. If we can keep the run going smooth I reckon we can get to Prince in one night. We have done Shade in one night before, if we can keep on track I don't think Prince is much more of a stretch.

If we can all aim to be Good to Go at 8:30 again, pots, elixirs etc, and try and make your own way there, I reckon we will have a good chance of almost finishing Kara in one night.

Then we can start working on getting everyone Bear Mounts.

Well Oiled

MC is turning into a well-oiled Kara machine, with another hugely successful run through last Thursday, despite only having the one tank.

We ran smoothly all the way to Curator, downing everyone in one shot except Wolf where a Blackheathen Riding Hood - Blackheathen Stun - Blackheathen Riding Hood sequence meant we went down in a heap.

And just to prove the first time wasn't a fluke, we pulled the audience again! And this time we got a hurried screenshot for posterity:

Opera Audience!

Some heavy statistical analysis initially pointed the finger at Irational's Multi-shot, but further work revealed the likely culprit to be Rev & his pulling heals of wonder.

Revhammer

The night saw some amazing ninja looting by Olrotty, who picked up about 15 Purples on his journey from worst to best spec'd in one night. 'grats! Not to be outdone, Stroeb got her 4th pair of T4 gloves, which cheered everyone enormously.

Four attempts at Nightbane followed, and whilst we didn't get him down, we did make significant progress each time: Damage done 430k -> 740k -> 860k -> 990k. By the last attempt we had him through to Phase 3 - his time on this Earth is limited.

Before

During

After

Welcome

A wipe-filled Midnight's Children welcome to Olrotty, newly joined Undead Shadow Priest (and another member of MC's Tailoring Specialty Service). As you would have read below, Olrotty's initiation into the Guild was Sunday's Prince wipe-fest. Anyone who can make it through that is gtg!

Welcome, and May the Dark Lady watch over you.

Prince and his fu#$ing Infernals

Blackheathen reports

7%.

That was the best we did on Prince last night I think. After a great run on Thursday we finally had time for some genuine attempts at the last Kara bosses.

It was awesome to see a full guild turnout (a big welcome to Olrotty who made up the final place) on Sunday for the very first time. We made pretty good time through trash and Chess (where we got some more useless drops although Irat did pick up some boots that at least were main spec even if a sidegrade) to reach the very top of the mighty tower of Karazhan and eye off the infamous Prince.

Many many attempts later and we call it, beaten, broken and battered. Raiding is a learning experience, you try, you wipe, you look at what went wrong and try to do better next time. Hopefully we can take some of the lessons learnt last night and smash him next time around. Maybe even out mighty (directionally challenged) guildmaster Paxmortis could remember the path up to him by then lol.

Prince is by far the hardest hitting boss I have tanked and I freely admit that moving him around was a pain especially when I had such a poor persepctive of the whats going on around me. I think I got the hang of it eventually, I just need lots of help as I can't see a fu#4ing thing up against that wall. Very dissapointing that I got myself in that little crook out of LOS of heals on our last go when we were doing so well.

With Rev stepping down from Sunday night raiding we will need to move fast this thursday (or risk having to pug a certain Kiwi LOL).

If we could all try our best to be online and GTG!!!!!!! at 8:30 it would be much appreciated. Get your consumables ready the previous night, come fully repaired etc, make your own way to the stone instead of waiting for a summon etc. It will all make a huge difference to the amount of content we can get through.

Yes we failed last night but do not dispair, the days are numbered for the Prince and his filthly dragon mates (Netherspite and Nightbane). The Midnights Children do not give up easily, we will return to the dilapidated tower of Karazhan and wreak havoc on those that reside in it's cavernous halls, death will come to all that oppose us. The blood of the fallen will mark our footsteps, chaos will reign.

Shaded

An epic run last Thursday, downing a Guild record seven bosses in the one night. which finally saw the accursed Shade downed thanks to a strategic swap in of Spinafex for Interseptre, which gave us four crowd controls of his Water Elementals. Even though there were plenty of wipes, it was almost all on trash, and we one shotted Attumen, Moroes, Wolf & even Illhoof for our last boss of the night. Maiden and Curator went down in two, and Aran three once we go Spini on the job.

It was also a record for Revelation, who managed a staggering 18 deaths for the run!

Which leaves just three bosses to go: Netherspite, Nightbane, and Prince...

Ready

Resting

Aran shaded

Illhoof down

Ding, mon!

Rahjin, a guild charter signee, reached the (current) magic number Wednesday night. Much reggae was played as our first Troll, and first Shammy, arrived in the Elder. The melee DPS are already slavering at the thought of that lovely Windfury totem, whilst the clothies will be loving the mana batteries. Many congratulations, let the gear-up commence!

Beauty

Irational picked up possible the most beautiful thing in WoW in MrT the other night. We all need one!

Zero Kara

The Elder ventured a little further into Kara Sunday night, with three PuGs - including a US Marine in Japan playing a Rogue, an Orc OT, and the very helpful Shammy Kaneo who came armed with the awesome Windfury totem (hurry up Rahj!).

Our first stop was the accursed Shade of Aran, who is MC's latest nemesis. A very interesting PvP style fight - no agro table - where everyone needs to be right on top of what is going on, particularly with what Aran is casting. He casts various AoE spells that require specific responses - either charging out of the room to avoid his Arcane Explosion, or staying deadly still whilst being engulfed in flames from his Flame Wreath.

He also constantly casts Frostbolt, Fireball, and Arcane Missiles, so the interrupts have to keep coming. Even once you're on top of all that, at 40% health he summons some helpers, who aren't all that powerful but have a fatal attraction to clothies. And, to finish it off, at 20% mana he polymorphs the entire raid before Pyroblasting everyone for 7000 damage. Nice.

Shade try #17

We had about 5 tries at it, backing up from a similar number the last few Sunday nights. He just won't go down. We were really close, once in particular when we seemed to have the adds under control before Aran sneaked a totally unfair non centred Arcane Explosion out that wiped four of us instantly ftl.

Eventually, with much gnashing of teeth, we decided to press on and at least pick up some loot from Chess. Which we did - though the boots went to one of the PuGs, and the legs were pally plate! Aargh. DE.

Our knowledgeable chup-frying NZ-based Shammy knew Prince, so we decided to step up and try him. It was getting late, but it was pretty great to start poking ahead into new areas.

Up to Prince

On top of Kara

Without too much trouble we were soon faced with the big guy himself.

Watching The Prince

Very xool. Our first go we did pretty well, given we had no real idea what to expect. Unfortunately a particularly badly placed Infernal meant our melee DPS was out of action for most of the fight, leading to the may-as-well-be-a-wipe. The second try went pretty well too, but again it wasn't to be.

So a grand total of zero bosses down! But strangely it still felt like quite a satisfying run, as progress was being made, and these bosses should be hard. Aran really has to go though. Make it so.

Kara2

Attumen - two shot.
Moroes - two shot.
Maiden - two shot.
Opera R&J - two shot.
Curator - two shot.

Detecting a trend...?

A Pull of Legend

A highly entertaining run through Kara last night, including our 2nd ever one shot of Maaairrrgghhhhden - we may finally have her measure!?

One shot! One shot! One shot!

Before Her, MC sat down to enjoy what was left of Moroes's feast after taking care of business.

Dinner with Moroes - note there's only 9 of us - we sent Rev out for more Boar so he kicked over his chair and left in a huff

Next up was Opera, and the event was Big Bad Wolf - great stuff as we'd not had the pleasure before now.

Grandmother & her fan club

Alas before we could get cracking on it, Blackheathen...died.

Mourning for a mighty tank

This left us in a bit of a jam. Not being on stage, Blacky kept attracting the Wolf's attention and resetting the event. This did work to our advantage to an extent, as we were able to practice our Riding Hood Olympic sprint routines for a while...

Little Red Riding Stroeb

But the highlight of the night, and maybe of all the Kara runs so far, was one memorable attempt where Irational managed to do what was previously thought to only be a myth told to scare noobs - she pulled the audience. One minute it was us and the Wolf, the next about 50 angry patrons upset that we had interrupted their show. As ET put it, "A sea of rampaging undead storming onto the stage and killing all of Midnight's Children were angered by a stray arrow from the Hunters bow". Unfortunately there is no screenshot, but Blacky summed it up nicely - "I thought that was just the stuff of legend. How dare I underestimate the Midnights Children's ability to pull off such great wipe."

Some post match analysis has revealed the theory that Irational actually did this on purpose, in order to finally dispatch Blackheathen, which in turn allowed us to complete the event. Whilst this sounds like a very dubious theory, there's no disputing the result:

Big Bad Wolf

Heroic MGT & SP

(ET & Blacky report)
ET:
Two good guild runs through Heroics last Tuesday night.

First up was H MGT with Blacky, ET, Irat, Spenc and Chiv. A few messy wipes but all in all a good run, you goto love getting a 4 badges of Justice and 5 epic drops. I got the Healer Sunwell trinket, Chiv got cool shoulders, Blacky got a new sword to add to his collection, and Irat got the hunter chest which makes 4 now.

Selin study

Nightmare pull

Then Blacky stepped down and Derb stepped in for a lightning charge through SP, finished in 50min with no wipes.

Blacky:
I think we only had 2 trash mob wipes when we accidentally pulled a group behind us near the start and when I did another of my spectacular "pull the whole room mana worm" efforts (I will forget to mention when I pulled the 3rd boss and friends whilst trying to get to a sheep lol). Apart from that it was first boss, easily one shotted. 2nd boss, 2 shots, as with last time we just squeaked through with Blacky the last man standing after the overload at 10% health. Amazingly enough we 1 shotted the 3rd boss with no deaths. Then we dispatched the nasty pull before Kael with a little difficulty as Et went down and I went down with one mob left, fu#$ bandage on cooldown.Not to worry, the DPS smashed that little Magister in no time.

Delrissa

Kael'thas

Then on to Kael, a little hiccup on our first attempt and we wiped. Last time we did it quite easy 2nd go but this time things got a little hairy. Thanks to some rather clever (if I do say so myself lol) use of panic buttons Blacky was able to survive the 45K (yes 45K not 4.5k, 45k) pyroblast and we are in to phase 2 and victory is only a matter of time. In the end Blacky and Irat were the only ones left and not much health remaining on either of us. Not to worry, we got him down and for once the jumper calbes worked and we were able to Rez and get our phat lootz. As Et pointed out, Irational got to pick up another hunter chest to hang in his wardrobe, his 4th in 4 kills lol. Blacky is very happy with his new sword, loads more threat but not near the survivability of the Sun Eater.

So 3 out of 5 epics were upgrades for the guild and the other 2 were things we already had but for the first time in a long time NO PALLY DROPS WTF???????????

Incoming

A huge Midnight's Children welcome Interseptre and Spencacon, recent recruits to the Guild

Interseptre is half-MC member Spinafex's Undead Warrior alt, and is heartily welcomed to the Tanking ranks - MC must be just about the only guild out there with more Tanks'n'Healers than anything else - ftw!

Spencacon, Undead Mage, is well know already to many of us from some brilliant dps-topping PuGs, so it's great to have him formally in the ranks. Will be entertaining to watch Pax and Spenc cancel each other out with their Frost & Fire specs respectively.

Well met, good to see more Undead signing up, and May the Dark Lady Watch Over You.

Kara Update

Apologies for the lack of posts in recent weeks - the Elder have been running Kara Thursday & Sunday nights, including our first full guild runs (wOoOt!). There's not much to report on those - other than that each run is getting smoother and we're easily getting all the way to Curator now on Thursday night. In Blackheathen's words, "Such a big improvement. Just goes to show that all we need to do is come up with a solid strategy." We've got as far as Illhoof, which is fantastic.

Last Thursday in particular was top notch - as Irat put it "One shot Attumen, One shot Moroes, 3 Shots Maiden but a solid strategy now Awesome heals and great dispels. 3 Shots Romulo but again a solid strategy now, we will one shot it next time. 2 shots Curator. He is just too easy these days."

The big recent wraps go to Fugg, who has started off tanking with finesse. Blackheathen again: "Poor Fugg was thrown into the deep end again but did a fantastic job tanking Julianne. I think Fugg deserves a fair amount of praise for his tanking/offtanking efforts in Kara. Fugg is not a tank but has been putting some gear together for a while now and with minimal experience he has been able to do the job. 10 man raids are a very hard place to learn how to tank so props to Fugg for giving it a red hot go.". Even our Dread Leader dished out the praise - "A hats off to Fugg as well, from homicidal axe-wielder to off-tank in one fell swoop. Nice job."

And the final word, and best evidence of the improvements being made, goes again to Blackie: "Another bonus was that we did not have one wipe on trash, unheard of on a MC guild run." Unheard of indeed!

Vidazhan

If a picture speaks 1000 words, how many does a video...?
(To watch high quality versions, click the name below each movie, and use the "watch in high quality" link on the YouTube page)

Moroes

Maiden

Opera

Curator

Librarians

The Brood, all freshly mounted on chickens, kodo and skeletons, and levelled to 30, plunged into the Scarlet Monastery Library Wednesday night. Haxrot once again Pally swapped for Xantir, along with the regular gang of Dawnsinger, Denmonther, Judelder and Haelo.

The extra level or two made all the difference in the first corridor, as we managed to allow Den to maintain agro whilst laying on the DPS thick and fast. Jud still had some work to do to keep the sheeps baa-ing, but a smooth drive took us out into the first courtyard without respawns getting us from behind again. Haxrot also started working as offtank, which went nicely thanks to Dawn's healing prowess. And Haelo was able to unleash volleys of arcane shots and stings without fear of Scarlet retribution.

The first Boss we encountered was Houndmaster Loksey, who posed a challenge due to his pack of dogs & our relative lack of CC. Den tanked a couple, Hax another, a sheep and we were gtg. On our first attempt we got pretty dang close, before Dawn ran OOM and Hax's desparate off healing couldn't quite get us through. Hax actually ended up as last man standing, but couldn't quite finish off the boss before the last hound desheeped and wiped us.

Back in we ventured, and we did have to reclear this time due to respawns. But the second time around was a piece of cake, as we focussed on the dogs first, before turning all DPS to the boss. Down he went, and Dawn picked up the funky Dog Whistle.

Houndmaster Loksey

We drove on, making mincemeat of our foe, and arrived Arcanist Doanbefore too long. He was on his own, and despite being a 35 Elite, it was a One Shot.

Doan's Library liberated

Another lovely run for the Brood - despite being underpowered, some excellent leadership from Den and good team cohesion made for another successful night out. Armory & Cathederal next...

Late Night Kara

An epic Kara escapade last Thursday, with the Elder clocking off at 02:30AM after smashing our way all the way to and through the Chess Event.

Chess won

Incredible stuff, as reported by various sleepy members the next morning:

Fugg:
Well a great night, if expensive MC Night, was had by all last night in Kara.

I think the big winner of the night was Stroeb, scoring 4 BIG epic upgrades. (What was that you were saying Stroeb about Blues FTW?) And Blackie finally managed to get rid of those L64 Boots -> Epics. Pity we didn't get the Dragon Down so it could drop Boots for me ;(

Blackheathen:
Yep, awesome effort last night. It ended up being a bit of a late late show but we downed 6 bosses and scored 14 epic drops (including 2 from trash) and a very handy 11 badges. If you include a couple of tries at Nightbane as well is was a very very good night for the guild.

Nightbane

As Fugg pointed out, Stroeb has well and truly cemented her place as the "Drop King". Funny thing was, she did not have to roll on any of them lol. And they weren't all just everyday epics either, our little Rogue also managed to pick up the T4 gloves!! off Curator, once again with no one that could roll against her lol.

Curator down

Definitely happy to finally replace my Mana Tombs quest reward boots from the Chess event loot lol.

Loot

The other big winner was Fugg, sure not main spec but Fugg's collection of epic tanking gear is growing pretty fast these days with a nice belt off Moroes and a great helmet from the Opera which once again was the hugely fun Wizard of Oz, which we one shotted with no deaths.

Lucky Fugg

So, Attumen, 2nd shot, Moroes 1st shot, Maiden 1st Shot, Opera 1st shot, Curator 2nd Shot, Chess 2nd shot (shame lol).

Our mage friend who ran with us last sunday came along and even joined us in vent for a very enjoyable night of raiding. Hopefully we will see a little more of Spencacon in the future.

Eternalize aka Hellblaze:
A devastating blow was dealt to the residents of Kara last night, Midnight's Children have proven themselves to be a formidable force. There is no stopping us now.

Kara architecture

Spoke to Spini this morning and apparently Ilhoof and Aran are easy compared to the curator and will only take us an hour to bring both those bosses down, then we can tackle Prince and Netherspite. There is very little trash left in the instance (I hope) now so it's all boss fights from here, with a bit of luck we could clear Kara, LOL.

Congratulations to everyone last night, we achieved what a lot of other guilds only dream of doing. What will the future hold for us, Zul'jin better look out.

(Postscript: Alas Sunday night we didn't fare quite as well, being a few short of a full run, so the residents from Curator on live on to fight another day - but we'll be back!)

Tips for young Kara-ites

(Irational's genius brain dump on the lessons we've learnt from Kara so far - with comments from Blackheathen)

Nothing too in depth but hopefully just somewhere we can keep a record of how to achieve victory.

So here goes nothing:

Attumen
Actually a pretty easy fight, a little bit more then tank and spank but not far off.

1. OT on Midnight.
   
2. MT needs to pickup Attumen as soon as he appears (can wipe a raid quick if this is too slow)
   
3. Tank and Spank in Phase 3 (when horse and rider become one)
   
4. Save MD for when Attumen mounts

Blackheathen's comments: Don't worry, if I ever see Attumen lurking around Blackheath shops you can be sure I will have shield slam ready and waiting to pick him up, he will have 5 sunders on him before he gets a chance to spill his decaffe skim latte.

Obviously Attumen is cake at this point but not if we fu#4 up.

Moroes
Here is where it starts to get interesting.

1. Kill order is very important
   
2. CC > heals
   
3. CC > DPS
   
4. CC > Everything
   
5. Much easier if we designate a tank to lead the kill order
   
6. Much easier if we take out all 4 adds before boss

Blackheathen's comments: I think having 3 tanks in fight certainly made things a little easier. Me and Fugg stay on Moroes whilst everyone else follows Derb killing the adds worked a treat last time.

Maiden
To quote Stroeb "I'm starting to hate the sight of her"

1. Don't MD onto the Healer! (Huntards)
   
2. Need to drag healer out of Redemption (either by them stepping into 'Ring of Fire' before or by MT moving Maiden) (This is key to the fight)
   
3. Need to Dispel Holy Fire ASAP (3.5k DMG a second.) We did well to have someone dedicated to this task.

Blackheathen's comments: After watching Derb successfully tank her last night I reckon I know what to do now if he will let me have another crack at her. Waking up the healers/dispellers is definitely the key.

Opera
Oz in this case. Actually an easy fight once we got the strategy down.

1. Need to pickup Tito ASAP after he spawns, he loves the taste of healer flesh
   
2. Tank on Tinman, OT get agro on Roar then switch to Tito
   
3. Lock should keep Roar feared until it's his turn to die
   
4. 1 or 2 fire based DPSers should be on Strawman the whole time
   
5. Kill order: Dorothy, Tito, Strawman, Roar, Tinman
   
6. Once Tinman rusts he should be kited
   
7. Crone is easy but avoid Cyclones

Blackheathen's comments: As to the Opera, now that we have the Wizard of Oz strategy down you can bet we won't see it again for months lol. It didn't take long for Tinman to rust enough to start kiting, and I noticed that I had built up enough threat at the start so that by the time it came to kill him, no one pulled aggro (not that it really matters, just whoever he targets must be prepared to to keep him moving). Thus I could just keep kiting around giving the healers time to mana up. No need to rush Tinman, he should never get the chance to hit anyone after about 30 secs into the fight. The Crone was a total squishy.

Curator
I think we can do this easy if we can stay focused.

1. Flares, Flares, Flares (Easily the most important part of the fight)
   
2. Need to get straight back onto the Flares as soon as Evoc Phase is over. (When we didn't do this we would end up with 2 Flares and that was a wipe every time)
   
3. Keep the MT on Curator the whole time
   
4. Blow all trinkets and cool downs at first Evoc stage
   
5. Melee DPS should run back to Curator on 9th flare so they can be there at start of Evoc stage
   
6. Generally will take 3 Evoc stages to reach phase 3
   
7. Healer Mana is a missive problem in this fight (Priests should use Shadow Fiend in 2nd Evoc stage)

Blackheathen's comments: Yeah mate, flares are definitely coming back in. We just need DPS to stay concentrated enough so melee doesn't run around all the time but far enough apart so hopefully only the melee DPS are taking damage from them.

That's as far as we have got so far. Comments?

Kara Continued

A motley bunch of Elder ventured further into Kara this week, having earlier one shotted Attumen, three shotted Moroes & Co., and seven-fail-shotted Maiden.

Let's rock

Moroes down

So we were due to start with the Lady, and BH, Irat, ET, Hellblaze, Chiv, and Stroeb plunged in with four PuGs - a Pally, Druid, Mage, and (briefly) a very well geared Rogue. Not sure how ET & Hellblaze managed to be on together - Spini must have soul-drained one and wore their skin for the night.

Maideneers

As per tradition, we wiped almost immediately on the second trash mob, due to Stroeb being a bit overenthusiastic on the "get behind" positioning. Recovering the situation, we made quick work of the rest, and advanced to Maiden again. And again, she pwned us for the first four tries.

The first was a particular highlight, as we couldn't understand why she made a beeline for our Druid as soon as Blacky engaged. Blackheathen was totally freaking out - "Surely my threat isn't so bad that I lose aggro to a Druid healer right at the start". Irat then sheepishly admitted he'd accidentally put the misdirect on the healz instead of BH - classic stuff, especially after an equally impressive 72 mob pull the night before in Heroic SP.

Our Rogue friend, who had an annoying habit of looking alternately like a pirate or a skeleton, offered the sage advice of "come on, it's not even hard" before vanishing for good. At which point, handily, Derb came online.

After another epic fail, Derb took over Main Tank duties and proceeded to show us all what time it was. Maiden went down with barely a whimper, no doubt due to Blackheathen's awesome DPS output - made all the difference.

Maiden down

Having finally got her down, we wooted our way to the next encounter - the Opera Event. Huge anticipation on the run in, as we entered the Opera Hall for the first time.

Opera organ

A fabled Kara moment for the noobs, who took to the stage in awe. The performance was announced as The Wizard of Oz, and before we knew it we were being challenged by Dorothy and Co. in front of an very demanding audience.

The audience

Barnes announces

Oz

The first wipe was to be expected, given we didn't know what was...expected. And the second was unlucky. But by the third we knew what to do, and took down everyone, and the Crone, without a single death. Great stuff, particularly Blackheathen doing his first bit of kiting. As Irat pointed out, having three tanks helped with the agro control, and the healers were right on top of their game throughout.

The Crone

Crone down

And Irat was very happy to pick up a staggering axe.

Time now for the backdoor - and The Curator. We climbed the tower, clearing the easy mobs on the way, and got to the big guy with time for a bit of sightseeing on the way.

It's a long, lonely way to the top

Curator antechamber

Curator is a DPS ready test - he throws out 10 vicious flares of hate, which have to be burned down before they kill a clothy or two. He then has a 20 second Evocation debuff that means all our damage does 200% for the duration.

Bring it

On our first attempt, we got him to 24%, which was a brilliant effort. We started with a few miscalculations, with the DPS running around like headless chickens, but we slowly improved our output with each subsequent attempt. However by about the 5th, just as Derb was laying down a new tactic, the respawns had started behind us and we had to call it. No T4 token this night...

Curator incoming

So - Curator is the half way point of Kara, and we nearly had him twice. Next time we'll aim to get to him on the first night, and continue on our merry way. Midnight's Children for the win!