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!

MC Flurry

A flurry of recruiting recently has seen several new members step up to embrace the MC "Wipe" methodology of Instancing.

Huge welcome first to Revelatiön, good friend of half-member Spinafex. Rev is an Undead Priest with Kara and Heroic xp, who brings either 1.1k Shadow damage or over 2k heals to the table.

And a massive welcome to Derb, nicely geared Tauren Druid with experience in Kara and beyond, and friends with Spini and ET. Derb's already been invaluable with his tips in Kara.

We are now nearing the numbers for a full guild Kara run, on the right nights. May the Dark Lady watch over y'all!