Karazhan Info

Hey there,

Thought I'd write a thread about Karazhan in general. Just some info about the place, bosses and other stuff of interest. Enjoy!

Lore

Karazhan is the tower of Medivh. Medivh is/was a wizard of great power, who was possessed by the Dark Titan Saregeras and opened the portal from the Orc homeworld of Draenor to Azeroth. Long story short, the whole Horde vs Alliance thing is his fault.

Medivh was eventually killed in his tower by the Alliance hero Anduin Lothar and the half-orc assassin Garona Halforcen. He was ressurected sometime after his death, and came unto the disparate leaders of the various races to encourage them all to Kalimdor. Eventually, he got Jaina Proudmoore (the human leader in Kalimdor), Malfurion Stormrage (Arch Druid of the Night Elves), Tyrande Whisperwind (High Priestess of Elune) and Thrall (Warchief of the Horde) together at Mount Hyjal, to face Archimonde and bring about the greatest battle in Warcraft history. The victory there left the world as it is today.
Shortly after the battle Medivh disappeared, to take his place amongst legends of the past.

Information

Karazhan is located in Deadwind Pass, between the Swamp of Sorrows and Duskwood. Nearest horde FP is Stonard, and the nearest Alliance one is Darkshire.

Since the 2.4 patch you no longer need a key to enter Karazhan, though I suspect that without the key you won't earn the reputation necessary to recieve the free rings associated with Karazhan. I only suspect this though, so don't take that as definite.

The VAST majority of the monsters in Karazhan are undead. This means shackle is a very important skill, and as such priests are very sought after in the instance.

Bosses

There are 13 bosses in Karazhan, most of which are optional. Some bosses require a certain raid set up to kill, especially when raiding is in early progress and people are not stunningly geared. Each boss drops 2-3 epics and 2 Badges of Justice. Along with a short description of each Boss, I have included a very basic strategy and a link to the WoWWiki webpage for that boss. Please check it out as it is a great source of information and lore.

1. Attumen the Huntsman
http://www.wowwiki.com/Attumen

Attumen is Medivh's huntsman. He would patrol the nearby woods for prey for Medivhs table. He is a 3 stage boss fight.
Stage 1: Only Attumens horse Midnight is around. Its a simple tank and spank down to 95% of her health, when Attumen appears and Stage 2 begins.
Stage 2: Midnight is still tanked, but Attumen shows up on her position. This is possibly the toughest part of the fight. If a healer heals and gets aggro, theres a good 90% chance they're dead, and you can't afford to lose a healer early in the fight. The MT picks up Attumen using whatever AoE threat generation he has (Thunder Clap, Demo Shout, etc), whilst the OT continues to tank Midnight. DPS continues on Midnight til she hits 25% health when Stage 3 begins. Attumen has 2 abilities to speak of. Shadow Cleave is a frontal AoE cleave, meaning he should always be faced away from the raid at all times. Intangible Presence is a curse that reduces hit chance by 35% (iirc). This can (and should) be spell reflected back onto Attumen. Attumen can also be disarmed which should be done as much as possible.
Stage 3: When either Attumen or Midnight reaches 25% health, Attumen will mount Midnight and they become one mob. Threat is cleared at this point, so DPS has to stop as do heals until the MT has Attumens aggro. He can still be disarmed and spell reflected in this stage. At this point, he learns a new skill, Beserk Charge. He will use this on anyone outside of an 8 yd range, every 30 secs or so. Best thing is to get everyone directly behind him and within 8 yards. That way, he won;t charge anyone and its just a case of removing the curse and DPSing him down.


2. Moroes
http://www.wowwiki.com/Moroes

Moroes was Medivh's man servant/butler/chamberlain. He arranged Medivhs dinner parties, organised his schedule, tended to him and performed all his other duties a butler should. He also spent most of his life in Karazhan wearing blinkers due to the fact that the innate magic of the tower caused him to see visions of the past and future.

Moroes is a 1 Stage fight, made drastically more complicated by the fact he comes with 4 adds. The skills and type of add vary from one week to the next, so the tactics for them will vary from week to week. Short version, 2 of the adds are shackled for the entire fight, and 2 of them are killed at the start. Sometimes chain freeze trapping is used on the 2nd add to keep it busy, whilst the first is killed.

Moroes on the other hand has a few skills to speak of. He has gouge (a 4 second disorient on whoever he has aggro on, which can be broken by damage), Blind (which is essentially the same thing, but longer duration and hits the closest non-tank), Vanish and Garrote. Vanish and Garrote are the main issue of the fight. Every 35 seconds or so, Moroes will Vanish for 10 secs. After this time he will pop up behind a raid member and Garrote them, before running back to the tank. Garrote does 1000 damage every 3 seconds for 5 mins (100,000 damage total). This can be removed in several ways. Mages Ice Block will remove it, as will the Paladins Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection. Items that remove bleed effects also work, though the Luffa from the Searing Gorge quest, no longer does.

The key to this fight is control. Moroes must be tanked by 2 people so that when he gouges his main tank, he immediately turns to the off tank who is 2nd on the aggro list. If the OT needs rage then its perfectly possible for him to have one of the adds attacking him to provide rage. This is also an excellent way of keeping the 2nd add busy while the 1st one is being killed. As soon as the MT gets garroted (which usually happens) gouge is no longer a problem. Blind is only an issue if the OT is hit with it, so 1 person will be assigned to stand on top of Moroes to eat the blinds. These can be removed with poison cleansing. After that its just a case of getting Moroes killed before he beserks at 5 mins. At 30% Moroes enrages and does more damage, so its worth saving good cooldowns til then and really letting rip.


3. Maiden of Virtue
http://www.wowwiki.com/Maiden

The Maiden of Virtue is in fact a statue commissioned by Medivh. Possibly. In fact as best as I can tell she has no lore about her whatsoever. She's just some huge bitch who happens to be a boss in Karazhan.

Another 1 stage fight. She will do the same things from the point she's enagaged to the point she dies. She has several abilities though. First off, she is in a state of permanent Consecration. The ground around her for 12yds will constantly be causing 200-300 holy dmg per tick to everyone stood in it. It also silences for 1 sec per tick, thats 1 sec in every 3. This is just one of those things, and you get used to it pretty quickly. Holy protection pots and the melee DPS running out and bandaging tend to solve these issues. She also does a Holy Fire move that hits hard and then ticks a very nasty DoT. The DoT is dispellable and is the most important part of the fight. It is absolutely imperative that the DoT is removed as fast as possible. Ice Block, Divine Shield, Cloak of Shadows and so on will also remove it, but for people who can't remove it themselves its vital that someone dispels it. She also does a Chain Lightning style Holy attack called Holy Wrath, but this can be beaten by positioning which is easier explained when there.

The crux of the maiden fight is a move called Repentance. This will stun everyone in the raid for 12 seconds. Any damage will break the stun, but generally all the healers will be not taking damage. There are several ways to get round this, here are a few options. Feral Druids who are taking the consecration will have the stun broken and can run out and lay a few heals on the tank. Tanks can use Last Stand, Nightmare Seeds, etc to stay alive a bit longer. Paladins can break repentance with Divine Shield, or better yet, if they cast Blessing of Sacrifice on the tank they automatically take small amounts of damage all the time, allowing them to break the stun and continue healing. Tanks can also lead Maiden towards a healer where the consecration will break the stun and allow them back into the fight. A combination of these approachs is usually a good idea. After that its just a case of rinse and repeat til she drops.

Ok, thats it for now. Been typing for a while and will get type the rest out some other time. Hope this helps a bit

Blade/Runes

Karazhan: Part 2

Decided to make this into a series kind of thing instead of repeatedly editting my previous post.

4. The Opera Event
http://www.wowwiki.com/Opera

The Opera Event is one of the 3 different bosses, the Big Bad Wolf (easiest), the Wizard of Oz (slightly harder) and Romulo and Jullianne (pretty hard).

A. Big Bad Wolf
The Big Bad Wolf is a fairly simple tank and spank fight. He fears every 30 secs or so, and he also does his main move on a similar time scale. His main move (no idea whats its called) turns a random member of the raid into a gnome and increases their run speed. It also decreases their armor to 0. At this point the wolf will concentrate solely on this raid member and will chase them around. Most classes will be 1 shotted by the wolf if he catches up, so its important to run away as fast as possible. The running itself requires no real skill, though its prudent to stop briefly in each corner of the room as you go, otherwise the wolf will cut corners and catch you up. After a while it wears off and the wolf will go back to the tank. DPS is very sensitive in this fight, due to the fact that the wolf will be running around trying to eat people for most of the fight and the tank will be having a bit of a time keeping aggro. Certain classes have moves that will get the wolf off them (Feign Death definitely used to work, not sure if they changed that), but all should learn to run just in case. Apart from that, as long as the fear is well handled its a fairly simple fight.

B. Wizard of Oz

Oz is a 2 stage fight. Stage 1 is fighting 5 mobs at once. Dorothee is untankable and will randomly shoot waterbolts at people, she should die first. Her dog toto, should be picked up by a tank (when the dog spawns, its not straight away) and be killed shortly after. Meanwhile, Tinhead, should be kited by a hunter/lock or tanked. As the fight goes on, he will rust and slow down significantly, making him very easy. Strawman should be tanked by a fire mage or lock. Fire spells cause him to become disorientated so spamming scorch or searing pain will keep him busy til the raid gets to him. Last but not least, Roar the Lion is very susceptible to fear, so he should be chain feared by a lock or hunter (he's a beast, and fear beast works on him). If the right classes are lacking, then any of these can be tanked without much issue.

After these 4 are dead, the crone spawns. She has to be tanked, and her only real move is to summon cyclones that roam around the room, punting people up in the air. They don't do any damage, but the fall damage is between 1500-3000 depending on class. It's vital that the main tank not get cycloned or she'll go after other raid members. She is significantly easier than the first stage.

C. Romulo and Julianne

Romulo and Julianne are a pain in the ass. Its a 3 stage fight, and they all have something annoying about them. Stage 1 is just Julianne. She is a caster and will cast a few spells. One is a shadow based 6 second stun, and another is a holy DoT spell. Neither of these are a huge deal. She also casts a spell called Devotion, that needs to be removed with Dispel, Purge or Spellsteal. Its an excellent spell to spellsteal, as it increases the casters casting speed by 50%. Her last spell is Eternal Affection, a large heal that must be interrupted as much as possible.

Stage 2 begins when Julianne dies (commits suicide) at which point Romulo will spawn. He's a melee type of chap, and has a varitey of moves. He has a cleave, which hits pretty hard, as well as a move called Backward Lunge that will hit someone behind him and launch them 35 yds backwards. His main problem is he inflicts a stacking poison on the tank that reduces his stats by 80%, though this can and should be cleansed as quick as possible. His last move is called Daring and needs to be removed ASAP as it increases his atk speed by 50% and makes him hit 50% harder.

Stage 3 begins with Romulo's death, at which point they'll both get up and start attacking. A tank needs to be on each of them, and they need to be DPSed down. The problem comes from their deaths. They have to die within 10 seconds of each other, or the dead boss will ressurect with full health. If you've done Molten Core or ZG, this is like the Core Hound Packs, or Stage 1 of the Thekal fight respectively. Best thing to do, is bring Romulo down to 15%, then move DPS onto Julianne. When she reaches 10% everyone blows their cooldowns and AoEs them down as quick as possible. Single target DPS can choose who they go after, just as long as they die within 10 seconds of each other.

Ok, thats enough for now. 1 event = 3 boss write ups Stupid Opera

Blade/Runes